"Ever since I joined Security magazine and began speaking to industry professionals, I have grown more and more intrigued by those with unconventional backgrounds. The ones that reach great professional achievements often credit their career success to their unique education and experiences. For example, last year I had the opportunity to interview Holly Drake, one of our Women in Security winners for 2025"
"According to Walton, his non-traditional background provided him with an unexpected asset: ignorance to conventional cybersecurity thought processes. "As someone that switched careers, it allowed me to come at problems within cybersecurity with a different set of expectations," says Walton. "And over the years, I've found that there are several problems where the security company has accepted the problem as normal and chose not to do anything about it. However, as an outsider, switching careers, it allowed me to come with a new perspective."
Professionals with unconventional educational and career backgrounds bring distinctive skills and perspectives to cybersecurity, including language, social work, and anthropology. Those backgrounds foster an ability to question accepted norms and approach problems from novel angles, enabling identification of issues that mainstream practitioners may overlook. Examples include leaders who credit Russian language and social work for enhancing analytical and people skills, and an anthropologist who leveraged career-switch 'ignorance' to rethink accepted problems. Security teams benefit from such diversity through improved problem-solving, creativity, and the propensity to ask different questions. Hiring leaders who embrace unconventional candidates can strengthen security strategy and innovation.
Read at Securitymagazine
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