SecurityScorecard’s Jeremy Turner on Building Persistence into Your Culture

The Story This Time

Most leaders avoid failure, but Jeremy Turner, VP of Threat Intelligence & Research at SecurityScorecard, has built his leadership philosophy around deliberately seeking challenges where failure is probable. His counterintuitive approach stems from a simple insight: advanced persistent threats succeed through persistence, not technical sophistication, so security teams must embody the same mindset to stay ahead. 

Jeremy shares how his failure-driven approach transforms team performance, from screening for initiative and persistence over technical credentials to creating remote work environments that mirror the immersive knowledge transfer of on-site security operations centers. His decision-making framework favors seeking independent input first, welcoming contributions from junior and non-expert analysts before the group discussions.

Stories We’re Telling Today

• How early career failures led to a framework for understanding organizational culture and objectives before making technical recommendations
• The transition from technical contributor to management role and letting go of hands-on research while maintaining technical credibility 
• Why storytelling separates effective threat intel leaders from analysts who are technically competent but can’t influence executive decision-making
• Remote team management strategies that create immersive knowledge transfer environments without physical NOC proximity
• Screening methodologies that prioritize initiative and persistence when building high-performance threat intelligence teams
• Historical pattern analysis for threat prediction using adversary reward models and technology complexity assessments
• Socratic mentoring approaches that identify which team members deserve leadership investment through challenge-based evaluation
• Decision-making frameworks that prevent groupthink by gathering independent perspectives before collaborative discussions
• How accepting operational chaos without rigid structure enables adaptive leadership in rapidly changing threat landscapes
• Applying hacker mentality principles to leadership development and creative problem-solving in security operations

Too busy; didn’t listen:

• Persistence and initiative matter more than technical credentials when building elite threat intelligence teams, as advanced persistent threats succeed through monitoring infrastructure.
• Security leadership requires balancing technical expertise with cultural sensitivity and storytelling ability, as technical accuracy becomes worthless without proper communication.
• Remote threat intelligence team management demands specific strategies to replicate immersive knowledge transfer environments.
• Conduct independent conversations before group meetings to prevent groupthink, and deliberately include perspectives from junior analysts without domain expertise.
• Failure-driven leadership deliberately seeks challenges where setbacks are likely, understanding that controlled chaos and adaptive thinking drive breakthrough operations more than rigid planning

Skip to the Highlight of the Episode

10:28 - 10:57 “The combination of persistence and initiative is really the greatest criteria for success. And one, when I’m looking at new team members, those are the two qualities that I’m really most interested in because anybody with those qualities can be successful in this field, especially with good advice, mentoring, and also the trust and faith to give them the challenges that will help them get there and the confidence to deal with failure.”