You may be closer than you think

I’ve spoken to experienced professionals who describe themselves as having “no cybersecurity experience.” Then I ask what they actually do. One manages suppliers worth millions.

Another audits complex business processes. Someone else manages operational risk. Another presents financial risk to senior leadership.

They’ve negotiated contracts.

Challenged evidence.

Managed incidents.

Written policies.

Interpreted regulation.

Managed budgets.

Influenced executives.

Led teams.

And yet, the moment they consider cybersecurity, they assume none of it counts.

I think we’re looking at career transition the wrong way.

Moving into cybersecurity shouldn’t automatically mean abandoning your previous career and starting again.

It should begin with three questions:

• What do you already know? 
• Where does cybersecurity need it?
• What capability do you still need to build?

For professionals coming from finance, audit, procurement or operations, the answers can reveal more overlap with cybersecurity than they expected.

From Finance to Cybersecurity

Finance professionals spend their careers thinking about risk, controls, governance, evidence and business impact.

Those concepts are fundamental to cybersecurity too.

Consider the questions finance professionals already ask:

What could go wrong?

What would the financial impact be?

Are appropriate controls operating?

• Who owns the risk?
• What evidence supports this decision?
• Does the organisation meet its obligations?

Cybersecurity asks many of the same questions through a different lens.

That can make areas such as Cyber GRC, technology risk, cyber risk management, compliance and security governance worth exploring.

But transferable skills alone aren’t enough.

You’ll still need to understand cybersecurity threats, controls, frameworks and technology sufficiently to operate credibly.

The advantage is that you’re not learning professional risk management from scratch.

You’re adding cybersecurity context to an existing foundation.

From Audit to Cybersecurity

Audit is another background I believe translates particularly well into certain areas of cybersecurity.

Auditors understand something cybersecurity relies heavily upon:

Don’t just tell me the control exists. Show me the evidence.

You’ve probably already worked with:

• Control design.
• Control effectiveness.
• Testing.
• Evidence.
• Findings.
• Remediation.
• Risk.
• Governance.

Stakeholders who don’t always agree with your conclusions.

Now consider cybersecurity assurance.

Is access appropriately controlled?

Are security policies being followed?

Are controls operating effectively?

Does the evidence support management’s assertion?

Where are the gaps?

What remediation is required?

The subject matter changes.

The discipline of asking difficult questions doesn’t.

Potential pathways could include Cyber GRC, security assurance, technology audit, information security compliance and control assessment.

Your development challenge is learning the cybersecurity context deeply enough to apply your existing audit capability appropriately.

From Procurement to Cybersecurity

This is one of the career transitions people often overlook.

Modern organisations rely heavily on third parties.

Cloud providers.

Software companies.

Consultancies.

Payment providers.

Data processors.

Managed services.

And those relationships create cybersecurity risk.

A procurement professional may already understand:

• Supplier selection.
• Due diligence.
• Contracts.
• Negotiation.
• Commercial risk.
• Supplier performance.
• Escalation.
• Stakeholder management.

Now add cybersecurity.

What security controls does the supplier have?

Where will our data be stored?

Who can access it?

What happens if they suffer an incident?

What security obligations belong in the contract?

What evidence should we request?

How should identified risks be treated?

Suddenly your supplier-management experience becomes extremely relevant.

Potential pathways include third-party cyber risk, supplier security assurance, Cyber GRC and technology risk.

You don’t discard your procurement career.

You expand it.

From Operations to Cybersecurity

Operations professionals understand something cybersecurity sometimes struggles to teach:

How businesses actually work.

You know that a recommendation that looks simple on paper can become complicated when it reaches a live environment.

You understand:

• Processes.
• People.
• Dependencies.
• Customers.
• Service delivery.
• Business impact.
• Escalation.
• Resilience.

And competing priorities.

That can become valuable in areas such as cyber resilience, business continuity, security operations governance, incident management, risk and security programme delivery.

Imagine a cyber incident affecting a critical business service.

The technical team may understand the attack.

But somebody also needs to understand:

Which service is most critical?

How long can it be unavailable?

What processes depend on it?

Who needs informing?

What happens to customers?

What should be recovered first?

That’s where operational understanding becomes cybersecurity value.

Don’t make the mistake of pretending everything transfers

This is important.

Transferable experience doesn’t mean:

“I’ve worked in finance for 10 years, therefore I’m qualified for a senior cybersecurity position.”

That’s not the argument.

Some things transfer.

Others don’t.

Cybersecurity still requires cybersecurity capability.

The stronger transition strategy is:

• Keep what transfers.
• Identify what doesn’t.
• Develop what’s missing.
• Build evidence that you can apply it.

That’s far more credible than either extreme:

“I have no relevant experience.”

or

“Everything I’ve done is basically cybersecurity.”

Neither is usually true.

Build a bridge, not a restart

Once you’ve identified where your background fits, the next step isn’t automatically another certification.

Ask what evidence your target role requires.

If you’re moving towards Cyber GRC, perhaps you need to demonstrate a risk assessment, control review or policy exercise.

For third-party risk, work through a realistic supplier assessment.

For resilience, build a business impact or continuity scenario.

For assurance, review controls and document findings.

Then get your thinking challenged.

Why did you make that recommendation?

What evidence would you request?

What if the business disagreed?

What would you escalate?

What would you tell senior leadership?

This is where mentoring becomes powerful.

Because a mentor shouldn’t simply tell you what to do.

They should help you develop the professional judgement to understand why you’re doing it.

The opportunity for employers

There’s a wider talent opportunity here too.

Employers struggling to recruit cybersecurity professionals may be looking externally for capability that partially exists inside their own organisations.

Could someone from internal audit transition into security assurance?

Could procurement talent develop into third-party cyber risk?

Could an operations professional move towards cyber resilience?

Could finance professionals develop into technology risk?

Internal cybersecurity mobility deserves far more attention.

Employers already know these people.

They understand the organisation.

They understand the sector.

They understand its customers and culture.

With targeted cybersecurity development and mentoring, some could become valuable additions to security teams.

That’s why career-transition programmes shouldn’t only be viewed as candidate initiatives.

They can also become workforce-development strategies.

Don’t throw away the career you’ve already built

If you’ve spent 5, 10 or 15 years building professional experience, don’t assume you need to erase it because you’re interested in cybersecurity.

Start differently.

Ask:

• What am I already good at?
• Which cybersecurity problems need those capabilities?
• What knowledge am I missing?
• What practical evidence do I need?

Then build the bridge.

Because the strongest cybersecurity career transition isn’t necessarily:

Old career → Start again → Cybersecurity.

It can be:

Existing experience + cybersecurity capability + practical evidence = a new professional direction.

You’re allowed to be new to cybersecurity without pretending you’re new to everything.

Find where your experience fits

I’m Victoria Coker, Founder of Lateral Connect. We help professionals identify where their existing experience fits within cybersecurity and build the knowledge, practical capability, evidence and professional positioning needed to make a credible transition.

For professionals: If you’re in finance, audit, procurement, operations, compliance, risk, project management or another established career and wondering whether cybersecurity could be your next move, don’t choose another qualification blindly.

Our 5-Week Accelerator provides focused support for professionals who need clarity, positioning and a transition strategy. Our 5-Month Lateral Connect Programme provides deeper development through practical cybersecurity learning, mentoring and real-world application.

Apply to join our next cohort or book a Career Fit Call to understand where your experience could take you.

For employers, universities and workforce partners: we’re looking for partners interested in developing alternative cybersecurity talent pathways through internal career mobility, sponsored programme places, practical projects, mentoring, employability initiatives and talent-development programmes.

You may not need to search further for cybersecurity potential.

Some of it may already be sitting in Finance, Audit, Procurement or Operations.

Let’s identify it, develop it and give it somewhere to go.