Starting a cybersecurity program from scratch sounds exciting… until it’s you sitting in the chair deciding where to begin.
I’ve been there. More than once. Whether in a growing startup, a maturing enterprise, or a regulated industry, building out a cybersecurity capability is both an art and a science. Over the years, I’ve picked up lessons — often through trial, error, and late-night whiteboard sessions — about what roles matter first, when to outsource, and how to partner across the business.
Here’s what I’ve learned.
What Your First Cybersecurity Hire Should Look Like
Spoiler alert: You won’t get to hire every role you want right away.
In almost every program I’ve helped build, hiring began with prioritization — and compromise. The key was always balancing two vital capabilities:
✅ Strategic Thinker (The SME) — Someone who understands the broader landscape. They help define roadmaps, architect security frameworks, and communicate risk to leadership.
✅ The Doer (The Operator) — Someone who gets things done. They implement controls, configure systems, and respond when something breaks at 3 AM.
Sometimes you’re lucky and find both in the same person — a unicorn who can switch between vision and execution. But if you only hire one type, you’ll run into trouble:
- Just the strategist? You’ll get analysis paralysis. Great plans, but no progress.
- Just the doer? You risk band-aid fixes and technical debt from poorly thought-out solutions.
You also want to think about generalist vs specialist here. Early on, a generalist (with a few deep skills) is usually more valuable. They can wear multiple hats as the program takes shape. As the organization matures, you can layer in specialists for areas like cloud security, identity, or detection engineering.
The most important bit of all, they must have an interest and drive to learn, keep up with the latest in industry, and stay tuned with the business / tech teams.
Bottom line: Early security hires need to be adaptable, curious, and comfortable balancing vision with execution.
Key Roles Over Time: From GRC to IR and Beyond
Once you have your first hire(s) in place and your program starts maturing, it’s time to evolve your team. Where to focus next depends on the signals from your business and environment:
- Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC)
If your organization is heading toward regulated markets or undergoing audits, a GRC role should be next. They’ll help baseline your security posture and ensure controls align with frameworks and legal requirements. - Security Operations Center (SOC) & Incident Response (IR)
For fast-moving or immature environments, SOC/IR roles are crucial. You need people and tooling that can detect, triage, and respond when — not if — things go sideways. - Security Engineering
Have a bespoke tech stack or product? You’ll need security engineers to embed security into design and operations. Commercial off-the-shelf solutions often don’t fit every niche need. - Risk Management
Once security is embedded across the business, risk-focused roles help quantify and prioritize where to invest next. They make sure your limited resources are aligned to the highest risks.
Pro tip: Your roadmap should adapt to your company’s tech maturity, industry demands, and evolving threat landscape.
When to Hire Internally vs. Outsource to MSSPs
This is a question that comes up a lot — and it should.
I typically use a few key criteria to decide if something stays in-house or goes out:
- Process Maturity: Is the process well defined and repeatable? If yes, it may be a candidate for outsourcing.
- Liability and Risk: What happens if the vendor fails? Some functions are simply too sensitive or critical to hand off.
- Business Criticality: If something is core to your business — think fraud detection for a payments company — it likely belongs internally.
- Sensitivity: Certain data or processes (think customer PII or insider threat monitoring) may be too sensitive to trust to an external party.
One of the best pieces of advice I got early in my career was simple:
“Focus your resources on your business. Let specialists handle the non-core capabilities.”
Sometimes that means leveraging an MSSP for endpoint monitoring or threat intel so your team can focus on protecting what matters most to the company.
Leveraging vCISO Services for Early-Stage Support
In an ideal world, you’d figure it all out on your own.
But let’s face it — early mistakes in cybersecurity are expensive. A poorly architected program can create security gaps and rack up technical debt you’ll be chasing for years.
This is where vCISO (Virtual CISO) services come in handy. Engaging a vCISO early can:
- Accelerate security strategy development
- Conduct a gap analysis and identify priorities
- Advise on tool selection and program architecture
- Mentor and upskill internal staff
If you can afford it (and if your executive team will support it), this investment can save time, money, and headaches later.
How to engage a vCISO:
- Define the scope clearly. What decisions do you need help with? What does success look like?
- Ensure collaboration. A good vCISO works with your team, not in a vacuum.
- Plan the exit. Eventually, you’ll want to bring this knowledge and capability fully in-house.
Building Relationships with IT, Legal, HR, and Risk Teams
Finally — and this is often overlooked — cybersecurity isn’t just about security teams. Success depends on relationships across the business.
As I wrote in Establish Executive Sponsorship Early (and How to Keep Them Engaged), you need a seat at the table. That requires trust and ongoing collaboration with:
- IT: The architects and operators of your technical ecosystem. Partner early and often.
- Legal: Interpreters of risk, regulation, and contracts. They’ll help you translate security controls into enforceable policies and practices.
- HR: Key for insider threat, user onboarding/offboarding, how to recruit talent (maybe even how to score more headcount), and awareness training.
- Risk and Compliance: Often your strongest allies in pushing for security funding and accountability.
Principles to remember:
- Communicate clearly and in the language of the business.
- Focus on solving shared problems, not owning security turf.
- Be proactive — bring them into conversations early, especially during incident response planning and risk assessments.
Final Thoughts
Starting a security program is daunting, but you don’t have to have it all figured out on Day 1. Focus on hiring for balance, aligning your roadmap with business needs, and leveraging partnerships internally and externally.
Most importantly — keep learning, iterating, and connecting across the organization. That’s how security becomes a business enabler, not a blocker.
