Ashley Beck

Background

About Ashley Beck

From a young age, I always had passion to make a difference and ‘do great things’ and was never satisfied with achieving the bare minimum to succeed, I always choose to work on tasks that will directly or indirectly, make a meaningful difference to peoples lives. I successfully completed an IT honors degree and a graduate apprenticeship with a global IT company and it was this point in my life, I knew I could use my skills to support criminal investigations therefore, I began my career within Law Enforcement at Police Scotland, which provided me with the opportunity to work across a range of positions, locally and nationally. Due to my degree and skills gained, it was a natural to step for me to focus on Intelligence, Cybercrime, Risk Management, Training and Data Governance. My passion to support others manifested in the creation of an initiative in my own personal time: the Police Scotland Young Networking Volunteers (PSYNV) group, where I mentored and developed young people from the ages 15-22 years old and provided them support as they map out their career path and options, including 20 female students. This work was incredibly rewarding. As an active member of Scotland’s Women Development Forum, I support police officers and staff across Police Scotland, ensuring fairness, equality and equity to under-represented groups. I am also a trustee of Scotland Women in Technology, where I support a number of charitable activities aimed towards championing, celebrating and investing in women in this industry, to close the recognised gender gap. Within my current role at SAS Software Ltd, I sit on the Equality, Inclusion and Diversity leadership board to guide, promote and support women globally to remain and succeed in the company. My passion, drive and relentless motivation has transpired as a result of my experiences as a police officer and seeing first-hand how vulnerable people need our help. Investigations into Child Sexual Exploitation Online had a profound effect on my work ethics, when I became acutely aware of the level of threat posed to children online, subsequently prompting me to move to a company that has the technology, the skills and the reach, to build software that could tangibly make a difference to investigations and an officers ability to find, interpret and collate data, into a format that is actionable and informed. This approach can transpose to all investigations and I am committed to making a difference on a global scale, assisting officers with useful technology, to save lives and save children from sexual abuse.