For the past 7 years of my 20-year career in Technology I’ve been responsible for improving the cybersecurity of organizations I’ve worked for, always in a leadership and mentor capacity. I’ve been fortunate to work in most major IT disciplines in my career like DevOps Engineering, System Administration, Network Engineering, and Datacenter Technician.I do not adopt the legacy security engineer mindset of sitting away from the business making unaligned demands based on a compliance framework I hardly understand. In each of the organizations that I’ve worked for I look to create clear security strategies derived from business priorities. I ensure that security policies drive our security practice so that technology teams understand why they’re responsible for taking certain actions instead of being told what to do by security folks that don’t understand business needs. This is the foundation of any modern security practice.There are three key pillars that I look to build on the foundation of a security program. First is establishing a shift-left mentality. I look to engage my peers and the business to identify security needs and requirements as early as possible when it is the easiest and most cost-efficient to effect. Second is to constantly improve visibility into the environment. Without knowing what’s out there it’s incredibly difficult to prioritize scarce resources into improving the security structure of an organization. Third is to automate as much as possible for a multitude of reasons.I look for organizations aligned to investing in their security and partners in helping the business.