There are beauty influencers. There are cybersecurity experts. And then there is Xornam a woman who is both and who spent the last two decades quietly becoming one of the most credentialed and well-travelled Ghanaian women you have never heard of until now.
Born to a Wala mother, Humu Yakubu, and a Volta Region father, Stephen Ababioo Dzidzornu, from Asadame, Xornam grew up in the busy streets of Abossey Okai and Ablekuma in Accra, the first of four siblings in a home where her father had to walk through the door before dinner was served.
She will be the first to tell you that things were not easy. She will also be the first to tell you that it made her everything she is today.
From Mawuli School in Ho to Ho Polytechnic, where she studied Accounting and hosted a radio show on Volta Premier FM for two years, to the University of Maryland Global Campus, where she earned a B.S. in Cybersecurity with a 3.83 GPA — Xornam’s trajectory has never followed a straight line. And that is exactly what makes her fascinating.
Today, Xornam holds some of the most respected certifications in the global cybersecurity industry — CISSP, CISA, CGRC, CEH, ISO IEC 27001 Senior Lead Auditor, PMP, and CMMC CCP, among them.
She is the founder of Forever Solutions Group, a cybersecurity firm based in the United States, and has been living and working in America for the past 20 years.
She has mentored over 50 people into careers in cybersecurity — with a deliberate focus on women who want to build something for themselves.
Now, Xornam is launching her most ambitious project yet – a campaign called “Glow Safe,” where she takes her twin expertise in beauty and cybersecurity and turns it into education that any woman can understand. Think: your primer is your password. Your skincare routine is your digital hygiene. Your love of genuine products should extend to the links you click. Simple. Relatable. Genuinely needed.
Off camera, Xornam is a mother of three — 16, 14, and 4 years old — a fitness, vintage cars enthusiast who walks five miles a day in summer and jumps rope through winter, a passionate home decorator, a self-described Shatta Wale fan, country music lover and someone who has visited over 100 cities around the world. She speaks English, Ga, Twi, and Ewe. She hosts parties at her home and explores new food everywhere she goes. She is, by any measure, someone who knows how to live.
Ghana has seen beauty influencers. The world has plenty of cybersecurity professionals. But a Ghanaian woman from a humble background in the Volta Region who has built a 15-year career in one of the world’s most demanding industries, raised three children, travelled the world, and is now coming home to teach women how to glow — and how to stay safe while doing it? That is a different kind of story. That is Xornam.
