Most people choose a lane. I never did.
For more than two decades I have held two roles simultaneously: senior cybersecurity executive in the private sector, and commissioned officer in the United States Air Force Reserve — now supporting U.S. Space Force. Most people I work with in consulting know about one or the other, but rarely understand how deeply the two inform each other.
Why the Military Made Me a Better Consultant
The military does not give you time to deliberate. You operate under ambiguity, with incomplete information, against adversaries who are actively trying to defeat you. Sound familiar? It should — that is exactly what a mature threat actor looks like inside an enterprise network.
When I worked with USCYBERCOM and JFHQ-DODIN, I was not doing academic threat modeling. I was fusing intelligence on real adversaries conducting real operations against real U.S. systems. That changes how you think about risk. You stop treating threat actors as abstract categories and start thinking about them the way a military commander thinks about an opposing force: their TTPs, their objectives, their constraints, their likely next move.
That instinct — threat-informed, operationally grounded — is something I bring into every client engagement at Deloitte.
Why Consulting Made Me a Better Officer
The private sector moves faster. Stakeholder management is harder. The tools change quarterly. You have to communicate complex technical risk to boards, to GCs, to CFOs who are simultaneously being pitched by three other vendors.
That pressure sharpened skills I have taken back into uniform: how to brief a senior leader concisely, how to translate technical findings into decisions, how to build trust quickly with people who did not choose to work with you.
The Leadership Constant
What both environments demand — above everything else — is the same: people who show up, tell the truth, and follow through. Rank and title get you in the room. Character determines whether you get invited back.
I have been fortunate to serve in both worlds long enough to know that the best leaders I have met — whether they wore stars or sat in boardrooms — shared those qualities. Everything else is context.