Fay­ola K J Fras­er

In a world that of­ten de­mands spe­cial­i­sa­tion, some of us carve a dif­fer­ent path—one that de­fies the box­es and em­braces mul­ti­plic­i­ty.

At 34 years old, Kris­ter­bel­la Sookdeo is a mul­ti­tal­ent­ed trail­blaz­er, work­ing in cor­po­rate spaces, se­cur­ing the re­gion through tech while flex­ing her cre­ative tal­ents in dance and the cre­ation of cul­tur­al prod­ucts.

Her jour­ney has been any­thing but lin­ear, be­gin­ning her ca­reer in ICT at Fu­jit­su near­ly two decades ago. That ini­tial ex­po­sure sparked what would be­come a 15-year-long ca­reer in tech, blos­som­ing across the Latin Amer­i­ca and Caribbean re­gion.

From Fu­jit­su to Cis­co Sys­tems, and now do­ing sales con­sult­ing on be­half of Fortinet for the South­ern Caribbean re­gion, her path has been dri­ven by cu­rios­i­ty, am­bi­tion, and a com­mit­ment to growth.

Cur­rent­ly, Sookdeo man­ages ac­counts across ten coun­tries, serv­ing as a re­gion­al lead in cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tives. The tech world has al­ways been fast-paced, but cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty is a beast of its own—con­stant­ly evolv­ing and in­creas­ing­ly vi­tal.

Sookdeo notes that with gen­er­al elec­tion ap­proach­ing and the threat of deep­fakes and AI-pow­ered mis­in­for­ma­tion loom­ing large, she has tak­en on the project of in­creas­ing cy­ber aware­ness in the re­gion with re­newed ur­gency.

She is dri­ven by a mis­sion to “re­al­ly dri­ve youth ed­u­ca­tion in­to the tech­nol­o­gy in­dus­try and pro­vide a bet­ter roadmap.”

She was part of launch­ing the Fortinet acad­e­my with COSTAATT to al­low our next gen­er­a­tion of tech lead­ers to have ear­ly ac­cess to glob­al cer­ti­fi­ca­tions and help them start their tech ca­reers with the right skills.

She al­so hopes to lead the charge to equip busi­ness­es and in­di­vid­u­als with the tools to be more cy­ber-aware and proac­tive, not just re­ac­tive.

Sookdeo sees the path to tech ad­vance­ment through ed­u­ca­tion and is cur­rent­ly work­ing close­ly with uni­ver­si­ties through­out the Caribbean, spear­head­ing ini­tia­tives that cre­ate these bridges.

“There’s a dis­con­nect that I see time and time again,” she says. “Stu­dents fin­ish their de­grees and are then hit with the re­al­i­sa­tion that they lack the spe­cial­i­sa­tions need­ed for re­al-world roles. Through strate­gic part­ner­ships and youth-fo­cused tech ed­u­ca­tion, I’m striv­ing to close that gap.” In­ter­est­ing­ly, this pas­sion for teach­ing isn’t new. For over a decade, she was known for teach­ing some­thing en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent: Zum­ba. She built her own well­ness brand, Be­Fit, as a sought-af­ter in­struc­tor, work­ing with pop­u­lar brands and even host­ing events and cor­po­rate well­ness pro­grammes.

“That phase of life taught me en­tre­pre­neur­ship, brand­ing, and how to in­spire peo­ple. And al­though my fo­cus has shift­ed, the lessons from that era still serve me.”

Out­side the board­room, she al­so wears a dif­fer­ent kind of head­set—as a lo­cal ra­dio an­nounc­er. For the past two years she has co-host­ed a pro­gramme pro­mot­ing cul­ture.

Dance re­mains a qui­et but con­stant thread in Sookdeo’s life. A Latin dancer for over 15 years, she still hosts the oc­ca­sion­al work­shop in sal­sa and bacha­ta.

“Though it’s no longer my pri­ma­ry fo­cus, it grounds me,” she says. “Peo­ple of­ten tell me to choose—ei­ther cor­po­rate or cre­ative—but I con­sid­er my­self a cor­po­rate cre­ative.”

This means she thrives and shows up as her high­est self when she can tru­ly ho­n­our all facets of who she is. When she does on­ly one, as many peo­ple ex­pect her to do, she feels like she is do­ing her­self a dis­ser­vice and in­deed, leav­ing a part of her­self be­hind.

The ques­tion of­ten asked about busy women is how they man­age to bal­ance their per­son­al lives and work lives. But Sookdeo re­jects this con­cept of bal­ance. She de­scribes this con­cep­tu­al­ly as the “bal­ance check­box” and said that “we tend to chase bal­ance as if it’s an­oth­er KPI. But some­times I don’t have bal­ance, and it’s okay.”

In re­defin­ing what bal­ance means to her, she said that was not about tick­ing box­es but do­ing what­ev­er needs to be done at that mo­ment.

“Bal­ance now means giv­ing my­self what I need at the mo­ment, whether that’s clear­ing emails at mid­night or skip­ping a meet­ing to get to the gym.” It’s not about chas­ing but re­align­ing her­self.

Her ad­vice to young women is to “be gen­tle with your­self. What we want­ed in our 20s may not serve us in our 30s. Walk­ing away from the busi­ness I built in my twen­ties felt like an iden­ti­ty cri­sis. Hav­ing to leave fit­ness and fo­cus on my ca­reer, it felt wrong to walk away from it.”

She en­cour­aged women to treat them­selves with grace, soft­ness and ten­der­ness and em­brace the evo­lu­tion that hap­pens dur­ing the sea­sons of their lives.

She has coined her own term, a “soft pow­er era”, which is fo­cused on “un­learn­ing the lie that we must grind to be wor­thy, hard­en to be re­spect­ed or shrink to be loved.”

Sookdeo has stepped in­to a sea­son of ra­di­ance and be­ing un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly soft with­out guilt, yet still em­brac­ing her in­trin­sic pow­er.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, every­thing that Kris­ter­bel­la Sookdeo touch­es turns to gold—from cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty to cul­ture, ra­dio to dance—and they’re all about forg­ing hu­man con­nec­tions and giv­ing back. Whether it’s help­ing in­di­vid­u­als and busi­ness­es pro­tect their dig­i­tal fu­tures or help­ing peo­ple re­con­nect with their cul­tur­al roots, it’s all part of her same mis­sion: to live ful­ly, serve mean­ing­ful­ly, and lead au­then­ti­cal­ly.