ALUMNI FEATURE
Career Shift
How a former social studies teacher becomes a Silicon Valley cybersecurity leader
STORY BY ALEX PRIEBE
PHOTOS BY CORY MORSE
Josh Yavor ’06 knows a thing or two about career change. He spent five years teaching social studies in Kalamazoo before making the leap into cybersecurity. He has served in senior leadership positions at top tech companies in Silicon Valley like Facebook and Cisco.
How did it happen? Yavor says his Grand Valley education played a key role in preparing him for his nontraditional career path.
Yavor, who graduated with a degree in education and a minor in computer science, grew up near Detroit where his family owned an automotive repair shop. “I grew up tinkering with cars. I was always fascinated with how things work and with technology,” he said.
Yavor also had a passion for teaching. As he considered colleges, flexibility was top of mind. “I was 60-70% sure I wanted to be a teacher. I was looking for flexibility and options,” Yavor said. At the time, he said he planned to teach for 10-15 years and then switch into the tech industry.
After graduating in 2006, Yavor moved to Kalamazoo where his wife was a high school teacher. Over the next five years, Yavor taught middle school social studies and earned a master's degree in cybersecurity from DePaul University. In 2011, he felt his time in the classroom was winding down and began to look for a role in cybersecurity.
“It was a motivating experience that made it easier to make the career change. I had to throw myself out of education and into technology and cybersecurity.”
Josh Yavor ’06
‘THEY TOOK A BET ON ME’
With a fresh master’s degree, Yavor submitted over 200 applications and landed a job at iSEC Partners, a small, boutique security consultancy on the West Coast. iSEC served a list of clients with a wide variety of needs and was looking for someone who could quickly learn technical skills, while also communicating effectively with people who had varying IT knowledge and leadership roles. Yavor’s resume rose to the top. “I got supremely lucky,” he said.
While luck may have been a factor, Yavor credited two of his computer science professors with bolstering his confidence to take on new challenges. Martin Levin and Mostafa El-Said oversaw the GVSU Data Communications Lab in Mackinac Hall when Yavor was a student. They gave Yavor a job to set up the lab for classes and manage the hardware, although he had no relevant experience at the time.
“They took a bet on me,” Yavor recalled. “It was a motivating experience that made it easier to make the career change. I had to throw myself out of education and into technology and cybersecurity, knowing all the things I didn't know, but having the confidence to dive into that head first and learn as I went along.”
LEVELING UP IN CYBERSECURITY
In his role at iSEC, Yavor conducted “penetration tests,” in which he hacked into clients’ websites, networks and mobile apps to help identify security gaps. In 2013, Yavor was featured in media for his research on Smart TVs. Yavor helped uncover a security vulnerability that hackers could exploit to control the TV’s camera to spy on the owner.
His time at iSEC was a period of rapid growth, both in learning new technical skills and understanding how different businesses work. “It gave me the grounding I needed to catch up to where I would have been if I started down a cybersecurity path right out of college," he said. "I was able to leap frog ahead because it was such an accelerated experience.”
The security industry is a small world and, through his work, Yavor got to know the team at Facebook. In 2014, Facebook tapped Yavor to lead security for Oculus’ VR products shortly after acquiring the company. Yavor went on to lead enterprise security for all of Facebook, before taking on a lead role in corporate cybersecurity at Duo Security. At the time, Duo was a small startup based in Ann Arbor.
In 2018, Duo was acquired by Cisco, and a few years later, Yavor stepped into the role of chief information security officer for Cisco Secure.
To succeed as a leader, Yavor drew on communication skills he developed at Grand Valley and pointed to classes with Carolyn Shapiro-Shapin, assistant chair and professor of history. “She really challenged me in my writing. The feedback, iterative progress and growth I experienced in her classes were things I’ve not forgotten," he said. "Those are things that make me better at everything I do today.”
Learn more about Yavor’s new company at credible-security.com.
SHAPING MICHIGAN'S TECH FUTURE
Last fall, Yavor returned to Grand Valley to speak with students in the College of Computing. He was excited to share the interdisciplinary skills that were instrumental in his career. “Sure, you need to know about tech, but no one in cybersecurity will be effective if they can’t pair it to business risks and needs and communicate effectively with audiences who know nothing about the tech,” Yavor said. “Being that translator between the technical realities and the business is a learned and developed skillset.”
Today, Yavor is launching his own cybersecurity firm, Credible Security, based in Ann Arbor, and stepping into the role of founding partner. This Michigan-based cybersecurity advisory firm is focused on democratizing access to advanced security outcomes for organizations. Reflecting on his career path, Yavor said, “It’s been a wild ride.”
Learn more about Yavor’s newcompany at credible-security.com.
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