The Tampa Bay Tech “Emerging Tech Leader of the Year” finalists are in – and they’re both women.

Two up-and-coming professionals who focus on cybersecurity and health technology are the finalists for Tampa Bay Tech’s “Emerging Technology Leader of the Year.”

Competing for the top honors this year are two notable female leaders, both thriving in male dominated fields. Ashlee Lane is managing director at Accenture, and Karla Mastracchio is cybersecurity strategy and security culture instructor at SecureSet.

The emerging tech leader of the year must be no older than 40 on or before Dec. 31, 2018 and is someone who strives for excellence and thrives on making a difference within their organization and the industry, according to Tampa Bay Tech, Florida’s largest technology council.

Ashlee Lane, managing director, Accenture

Lane has been at professional services firm Accenture for more than 17 years, currently working in the health and public service consulting practice and serving as a client account executive for a portfolio of clients in Tampa Bay and around Florida.

Mastracchio joined SecureSet, a cybersecurity education company headquartered in Denver, in March 2017. She’s an instructor and a liaison between the business community and students, helping identify key talent in the region.

Karla Mastracchio, cybersecurity strategy and security culture instructor at SecureSet

St. Pete Catalyst asked both Lane and Mastracchio about the projects they’ve worked on.

Lane: I can think of a few recent examples that demonstrate how I am helping my clients transform through innovation and technology. I lead projects and programs that range from using artificial intelligence to increase efficiency and accuracy in reviewing medical records to understand patient diagnosis and utilization patterns, to building custom claims editing platforms on the cloud, adopting automation to drive efficiencies in testing, to building new strategic offerings and experiences for both providers and members in the healthcare eco-system through data and analytics.

Mastracchio: There are a lot of projects that I am proud of, but probably designing the security culture curricula is the thing I enjoyed doing the most. I led a small team to develop coursework that helps professionalize SecureSet students. Together, we designed a wonderful and comprehensive course that helped students get jobs in Florida and added to our growing cybersecurity talent pool.

St. Pete Catalyst: What events in your life made your fall in love with technology and decide to make it your career?

Lane: I got into technology accidentally.  I have always loved mathematics, which was a strength of mine growing up.  I come from a large family of doctors and spent most of my childhood in a hospital or working in my dad’s dental office. I always thought that I would go to medical school, which led me pursue a degree in biomedical engineering – the perfect mix of challenge, math and science. Towards the end of my college career, I had a friend who went into technology consulting, which really intrigued me due to the variety of different projects and opportunities that you can be involved with all over the world. This changed my mind about what I wanted to do after graduation. Through consulting and being involved in several different innovative, large-scale technology transformation projects in my career, I love seeing how technology can influence and change the way people live and work, and I love understanding the business applications technology can support by solving challenging problems.

Mastracchio:  I have a background in government and academia, where I teach courses in communication, media and influence. Technology and cybersecurity are integral to all those things. Emerging opportunities and threats in cybersecurity affect how we communicate, how we do business, and how we interact with friends and family. I think it’s pretty cool to be able to study that as a professor and be part of the community that makes change happen and influences what happens in the technical sphere as well.

Tampa Bay Tech will announce the emerging tech leader, along with winners in about a dozen other categories, at a Nov. 9 ceremony.