# Steve Hunt

Steve Hunt coaches CISOs and security leaders on building executive credibility, winning budget, and framing cybersecurity in business terms. Hunt also advises security vendors on selling security products through measurable business value.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/steve-hunt/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevehuntleadership
- LinkedIn followers: 7,061
- Topics: leadership, sales, cybersecurity
- Based on 15 dated posts, latest 2026-10-06

## Summary

Steve Hunt is most useful for coaching security leaders on executive credibility and advising vendors on measurable business value.

- Best for: A cybersecurity leadership coaching company co-branded series on CISOs building executive credibility and winning budget.
- Not for: A privacy management software vendor series built around Forrester Wave rankings.
- Check first: Confirm terms, deliverables, editorial control, and audience data before committing.

### Takeaways

- Security leaders can have authority inside security but still need credibility outside.
- Understanding the business is a trap; understanding the people matters more.
- Vendors should explain measurable business value rather than lead with product features.

## Main ideas

- **Security leaders already have authority inside security; the work is earning it outside**: Across several posts, Steve Hunt argues that a CISO’s problem is not competence. The same person who runs a security organization can become a minor item on someone else’s agenda because the ask is framed in security logic. The fix is to translate security into the language of business outcomes: stop asking for budget and start shaping decisions, so the organization no longer treats security as a cost center.
- **“Understand the business” is a trap; understand the people**: Steve Hunt argues that the standard advice to CISOs — read the annual report, study the filings, build a bigger business vocabulary — does not unlock budget. In this account, CISOs who consistently win budget and a seat at the table do not understand the business better than everyone else; they understand the people. They speak to a CIO as a peer, build relationships with those who influence the decision, and design strategy around the purchasing committee instead of asking it for approval. Hunt’s method is to map the stakeholders who control the yes, learn each one’s operating style, and build a value case around what that person actually cares about.
- **A security pitch should name four kinds of value — most pitches name two**: Steve Hunt writes that most security vendor pitches cover the same ground — threat landscape, product, better/faster/cheaper, logo slide — and get a polite nod. The argument: every security investment creates value in four ways: objective (it helps meet a mandatory goal), risk (it reduces measurable exposure), infrastructure (it consolidates and simplifies what is already there), and agility (it lets the business do more, faster). Most pitches touch only objective and risk. Agility is where the money is, because it connects to revenue, speed to market and competitive position — and it is the value a CISO and a CFO can both get behind.
- **Sell the buyer’s better life first, then the measurable gain**: Steve Hunt tells security vendors not to lead with how many bad things the product prevents or how much better, faster or cheaper it is. Instead, show how the CISO’s life will be better with the product than without it, and name the measurable value the business gets that it could not get otherwise. The same rule applies in reverse: a CISO trying to win over a CFO or CIO should explain how the investment makes that executive’s life better.

## Work to read

- [Don't fool yourself like I did: the business-language trap](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stevehuntleadership_cisos-leadership-security-activity-7470104789331140608-npA5)
- [Inside security, you're a hero; outside, you're 'that security guy'](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stevehuntleadership_ciso-cybersecurity-activity-7473046782231629824-H-wz)
- [The gap is not technical skill; it is credibility outside security](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stevehuntleadership_ciso-security-leadership-activity-7467880326724366337-W4Mi)
- [Stop pitching features; say what the business can do after buying](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stevehuntleadership_cybersecuritysales-securityvendors-valueselling-activity-7431149213343866880-G13f)
- [Sell to a CISO by showing a better life with the product](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stevehuntleadership_want-to-sell-your-security-product-to-a-ciso-activity-7360682911194398721-NEvK)
- [A Forrester Wave reaction on privacy management](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stevehuntleadership_forrester-wave-privacy-management-software-activity-7419511404853956609-_M2g)

## Brand relationships

- **Orbit** (owned_business)

## Partnerships

Steve Hunt's posts do not disclose a sponsorship, co-branded series, other partnership format, or official inquiry route. On LinkedIn, they promote the coaching-and-software product Orbit and advise security vendors on how to pitch CISOs. Their commercially oriented posts point to an Orbit sign-up page, not a sponsorship or collaboration contact. A brand considering a co-branded series on how CISOs build executive credibility and win budget should ask directly about terms, deliverables, editorial control, and lead times.

## Alternatives

- Sandra Roberts: Sandra Roberts is a better choice if the coaching company wants the series to start with board-level risk governance and long-term strategy, rather than the personal credibility gap. In the two posts available, Roberts writes that CISOs must show how security investments support broader business goals, and that boards and executive leadership need to partner with CISOs on multi-year roadmaps for threats like quantum computing, because the average CISO tenure is often less than three years. A series built on that frame would give CISO viewers language for the boardroom and a five-point agenda — business value, AI adoption, data privacy, security culture, regulatory compliance — for a credential-building curriculum. The coaching company could position the series as board-ready security leadership rather than negotiation coaching; Roberts' material provides a ready list of topics for each episode.
- Val Tsanev: Val Tsanev is a better choice if the coaching company wants the series aimed at cybersecurity founders and vendors who sell to CISOs, rather than CISOs themselves. The two posts available focus on the buying side of the same budget problem: Tsanev interviews a founder about why the enterprise champion closes the deal, not the vendor, and describes the 5–20 meetings and nine-month cycles it takes to get a CISO to buy. Another post breaks down why CISOs are cutting legacy vulnerability management and standalone SOAR in 2026: the products still work, but the definition of value has changed, and CISOs now ask whether they can get 80% of the value from a platform they already own. For a coaching company that also serves vendor clients, or wants to teach CISOs how vendors see them, this material offers a view from the other side of the table that Hunt's posts don't.
- Anand Thangaraju: Anand Thangaraju is a better choice if the coaching company wants to build the series around the mechanics of buying decisions and the system-design view of security culture, rather than the CISO's personal credibility. One post draws a sharp line between the practitioner who loves a product and the economic buyer who has to approve it, and argues that deals stall when founders treat the user as the buyer; the fix is to give the champion the business-case language to sell internally. That's close to Hunt's value-selling argument, but told from the vendor's side, and maps cleanly onto a session about how CISOs can equip their own champions — their teams, their peers — to win budget. Another post challenges the 'humans are the weakest link' myth and reframes security as a system-design problem, giving the coaching company a distinct angle on security culture and leadership.

---
AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/