Written by:
Kris Vece
Vice President of Enterprise Accounts, Protos Security
Kris Vece has over twenty years of experience in delivering outstanding client experiences through strategic leadership and collaboration. Kris actively contributes to advancing professional development and diversity in the security industry as a member of the Loss Prevention Foundation’s Board of Directors.
Women in Security Aren’t Breaking Barriers. They’re Leading the System.
Key Highlights
Modern security leadership is rooted in operational fluency, from store-level risk to enterprise-wide governance and accountability.
The most consequential security decisions now happen in boardrooms, contract negotiations and cross-functional ecosystems, not just in the field.
Women in security are not merely advancing through the ranks. They are already shaping enterprise risk strategy, integrating governance with operations and running complex, system-level programs.
Debbie Gaxiola-Maples started her security career above a ceiling tile.
In the 1980s, long before analytics dashboards and AI tools, she climbed overhead a retail sales floor to monitor a cash register. Retailers didn’t have sophisticated surveillance systems. No digital playback. No layered analytics.
“It was your eyes,” she recalls. “There wasn’t a camera recording everything.”
That kind of immersive, ground-level experience builds fluency no executive training program can replicate. Maples has worked across nearly every department related to security and loss prevention during her career.
Today, she’s the Vice President of Global Safety & Security at Salesforce, managing investigations, protective services and global safety operations for a multinational technology company.
Her career path illustrates that operational fluency is the basis for enterprise security leadership.
