CYNTHIA


RENAUD PRINCIPAL,


THE MIKULA–GRAND GROUP


Cynthia Renaud on women’s leadership: Believe in yourself and walk through the doors of opportunity


Cynthia Renaud has risen to the very top of her profession through grit, determination, talent and self-belief. She has embraced the opportunities that arose and juggled police work in the 44th most populous city in America with single motherhood. Yet she never had a five-year plan or charted out a rigid career path.


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Sheer blind luck,” she says with a smile. Yet meeting her, it becomes clear that she had the ability to seize opportunities and step through the right doors, even when she doubted herself. Now


she is a futurist in the field of safety and security, with huge experience in international work, United States public sector experience, multiple global projects, and leadership roles in international corporate security. “You should always open doors of opportunity,” an


early mentor once told her. “It’s up to you whether or not you choose to walk through them.” That, she says, has been the defining approach of her


career. Not meticulous planning, but making the most of what you are given, and knowing when to hold back. “The danger is, you can have too many doors open,” she says. “You need to self-regulate.” It is a message that resonates with women navigating leadership roles in traditionally male-dominated spaces.


Cynthia, a former police chief and now an academic, has worked internationally, climbed ranks in law enforcement, and pursued multiple degrees – including two master’s and a PhD-in-progress. “Women need to be darn near perfect at their jobs, don’t they?” she says. “Not just perfect, but above and beyond.” She now leads the Emergence Program at the Center


for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) at Naval Postgraduate School Principal Consultant at


in Monterey, California and is the


Mikula-Grand Group, a


security consultancy firm. Her international experience includes corporate leadership, working as director of Policing


Capability, Development and Delivery for


the NEOM project in Saudi Arabia. She has also been President of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and has served as Chief Of Police for both the City of Santa Monica and the City of Folsom. Yet when she began her career as a humble police


officer in Long Beach, California, she had taken the role out of necessity. Her father died when she was just 16, and her mother passed away a few years later, and so as a young woman she was left without guardians or financial support and could not afford to stay on into higher education. “Law Enforcement did not come recruiting to my all-


girls Catholic High School,” she explains. “I had never thought of doing this for a profession, but at 20 years old, someone suggested the career to me. I went for a ride along, and it was really fun. We got into a vehicle pursuit, made a couple of arrests, and it was an adrenaline rush. What I viewed then as just a fun job that allowed me to support myself and return to university part-time became a full career. It is only in reflection that I realise what truly resonated with me about the law enforcement profession.


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