For example, last year I had the opportunity to interview Holly Drake, one of our Women in Security winners for 2025 — who was then CISO for the State of Ohio, and is currently the CISO at the University of Central Florida — about how her background in Russian Language and Literature as well as social work benefited her cybersecurity career. 

She is not the only successful security leader I’ve spoken to who started their career in an unexpected way. The more unique career paths I’ve seen, the more I’ve wanted to explore how security leaders can benefit from these cyber professionals being on the team. 

Then, I got the opportunity to speak to Walton, who began his career with a degree in Cultural and Linguistic Anthropology. 

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. I didn’t approach the problems from the same angle as my peers, and that even helped me make a career for myself. It’s helped me to be more prone to asking questions when I don’t understand something, and to explore ideas from those new angles.” 

When it comes to hiring in the security industry, organizations often look for candidates with extensive backgrounds in cybersecurity. While traditional experience is valuable, sometimes it pays to look outside of the box. 

“Those responsible for hiring often look for individuals with existing skills that line up with the position. I think that’s okay if you want to hire someone that can do exactly what they’ve done elsewhere,” Walton states. “However, by looking at people who are changing careers, you really consider people who have had to learn new domains of knowledge, and these people tend tend to have a great skill at learning new things because they’ve had to do it once or even more times. This helps them more quickly take on new challenges, and this is important in cybersecurity.” 

Should you diversify your security team by hiring from unconventional backgrounds? Listen to my conversation with Walton and decide for yourself: 

Why Your Security Team Needs to Hire Non-Traditional Professionals

Aaron Walton talks about the value non-traditional professionals bring to the cybersecurity space, and why security leaders should consider workers with unconventional backgrounds when hiring.

Or check it out on our Apple Podcasts. Don’t forget to like, follow, and rate and review our podcasts!