C2 Corner: Why I Mentor

Foreword

By Chris Camacho

One thing I have always admired about Jim Routh is that no matter where you are in your career—or what he has going on—he shows up.

Always available. Always present. Always with a smile, a quick hello, and a genuine willingness to stop, listen, and help. Jim doesn’t posture. He doesn’t gatekeep. He takes the time to meet people where they are, to mentor, to educate, and to support this industry in a way that very few do consistently and without expectation.

That approach left a lasting impression on me.

It’s something I’ve tried to carry into my own day-to-day life and leadership style—being accessible, making time, and paying forward what others invested in me. At Abstract Security, that mindset shows up in how we engage with practitioners, customers, and the broader community. We believe progress in cybersecurity comes from sharing knowledge, building people, and being present when it matters, not just building products.

This piece reflects Jim’s philosophy in his own words. It’s not theory. It’s lived experience. And it’s helped shape more CISO careers than most people realize.

Thank you, Jim, for your service as a mentor, for your generosity with your time, and for setting a standard for what leadership—and community—in cybersecurity should look like.

Why I Mentor

By Jim Routh

Over two decades ago, I was fortunate to have been forced to reach out to a lifeline.

I was in my first Chief Information Security Officer role and my first cyber role at the same time. A colleague gave me Steve Katz’s contact information and told me to call him when I got in over my head. Steve was the very first Chief Information Security Officer in any industry.

On my first official day, I was going through my calendar for day two and realized there was a meeting with the OCC scheduled with the title:

“American Express Information Security Strategy & Plan.”

It then occurred to me why my boss (the CIO) wanted the CISO role filled so urgently.

I immediately called Steve, who offered to come to my office within the hour and help me prepare for the OCC meeting. Steve showed up with two other CISOs — one from a major insurance company and one from a global bank — who dropped everything on their calendars to help me prepare.

They explained to me what an MOU was, how to avoid additive regulatory enforcement, and prepared all of the presentation material with me. They then let me practice delivering the presentation and gave me direct feedback. They shredded many of my statements.

The next day, I delivered the presentation to the OCC and survived with a solid endorsement of the plan that Steve and my new colleagues helped me prepare.

That experience permanently shaped how I think about this profession.

Afterward, I set up a followup meeting with Steve for oneonone mentoring. He shared two principles that have stayed with me throughout my career:

• The mentee does all of the heavy lifting in the relationship

• Mentors make themselves available to meet the changing needs of the mentee

Steve agreed to mentor me for as long or as short as I preferred — and that this commitment would carry forward into the afterlife. He was serious.

At that moment, mentoring stopped being an abstract idea and became a responsibility.

Paying It Forward

I made a lot of mistakes in my career.

Most of what I learned as a CISO has never been written down anywhere in a form that is actually useful when you’re in the job. The hardest parts of being a CISO are rarely technical. They involve people, conflict, ambiguity, and decisions where there is no clearly right answer.

As security leaders, we talk frequently about the talent shortage in cybersecurity. We speak on panels about it. We publish reports about it.

I chose a different approach.

Instead of talking about the problem, I decided to spend my time trying to solve it.

Today, I mentor cybersecurity practitioners, sales professionals, and product leaders — both earlycareer and highly experienced. I currently mentor about 120 people, including roughly 40 active CISOs.

I never take compensation for mentoring. Ever. I simply offer people the opportunity to schedule time with me. I control my availability so I can balance mentoring with the rest of my life, but I say yes to every request for help.

Mentoring is fulfilling for me because it allows others to benefit from the mistakes I made, without having to make all of them themselves.

What Mentoring Really Is

Mentoring is not about telling people what to do. It’s about helping them think.

I rarely give direct instructions. Instead, I offer context, questions, and thought points that allow people to draw their own conclusions. Simple phrases like “help me understand” often matter more than any technical advice.

Instead of creating copies of myself, my goal is to help people become more confident versions of who they already are—capable of navigating conflict, ambiguity, and change.

That confidence is often the difference between surviving in a leadership role and thriving in it.

Why I Continue

I continue to mentor because I don’t know any other way! It’s what my mentor did for me and Steve continues to mentor me which is exactly what he told me he would do before he passed away.

Every successful professional uses a mentor at some point in their career. Many use mentors consistently throughout their careers. I benefited from mentors who dropped everything to help me when I needed it most. Mentoring is how I honor that debt.  

Helping others succeed does not feel like work to me. It feels like the most meaningful use of my time.