You can be the greatest penetration tester in the world, but if you can’t explain why a vulnerability matters to a Chief Financial Officer (CFO), you may hit a career ceiling.

The most high-value skill in 2026 isn’t Python or Reverse Engineering. It’s Translation.

The Translation Gap:

• What You See: “Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the payment gateway.”
• What The Exec Hears: “Tech jargon, tech jargon, something broken.”
• The Translation: “We have a flaw in our checkout page that could allow a criminal to steal customer credit cards. This puts $5M in quarterly revenue at risk and could result in regulatory fines.”

How to Practice: Next time you find a technical issue, force yourself to explain it in terms of Money, Time, or Reputation. If you can’t link your finding to one of those three things, you haven’t finished the job.

Discussion

• Have you ever had a “lightbulb moment” when explaining a risk to a manager? How did you frame it?
• What non-technical book helped your career the most?

Sources

• Forbes: Why Soft Skills Are The New Hard Skills
• CISO Series: Translating Cyber Risk to Business Risk