Before Hotman Group, we were the people responsible for making cybersecurity, Cyber GRC, technology, audits and business reality work together.
Cheri has lived through as many as 42 audits and regulatory examinations in a single year. Too much work. Too few resources. Constant change. The same questions asked again and again.
We built Hotman Group (HG) from that perspective.
That combination is rare. It is also how the real problem usually shows up.
Most people come at cybersecurity from one direction. We work across the whole system: how the controls operate, how requirements and evidence fit together, how technology should support the program, and what the business can actually sustain.
We know how to pass the audit. We know how the security works. We know how GRC technology should support both. And because we have owned this work ourselves, we understand the person sitting in the middle trying to keep all of it moving.
Compliance matters. Audits matter. Neither is a substitute for security.
Do the right thing even when nobody is looking. Be honest about risk, limitations, tradeoffs and what still needs work. Never hide, minimize or misrepresent reality.
There is no perfect security program. Sometimes the right answer is the ideal state. Sometimes reality requires a practical concession. Either way, we make the tradeoff consciously, do the work well, and keep improving.
There is never unlimited time, money or capacity. The hard part is using judgment and creativity to solve the right problem well.
Technology, policies and budgets do not protect organizations by themselves. People do. Relationships, trust, culture and shared ownership matter.
The problems are serious. That does not mean the people solving them have to be joyless. We value curiosity, personality, creativity and having fun together.
We like figuring out why something is not working, connecting things other people see as separate, learning what changed yesterday, and finding a better answer when the obvious one will not work.
That curiosity matters in a field changing this quickly. It is part of why Cheri created The Art of Cybersecurity: the hardest problems are not solved by memorizing another framework. They take judgment, creativity, leadership and the willingness to keep learning.
And underneath all of it is something more serious. Cybersecurity affects real people. Making it better helps protect organizations, communities and the systems all of us increasingly depend on. That is worth caring about.
We do not think alike, and that is a feature.
Cheri and Trent started Hotman Group with different strengths and different ways of seeing problems. That same idea carries through the whole team: bring different perspectives, challenge assumptions, and make the answer better together.
What everyone shares is the standard: integrity, quality, relationships and doing work we can stand behind.
CPA, MBA, CCISO, CISSP and CMMC CCP. Cheri's perspective comes from having owned the work, not just advised on it. Her brain naturally connects security, Cyber GRC, audit, business, technology and people, and she is relentlessly curious about why things do not work and how they could work better.
Trent is the steady counterweight to Cheri's constant curiosity and motion. He supported the leap from corporate life into building Hotman Group and has helped shape the firm ever since. Cheri describes him simply as someone who makes her bigger and better than she would be alone.
The people who make up Hotman Group are curious, fun, critical thinkers and problem solvers. They challenge one another, keep one another sharp, care deeply about our clients and about each other, and make doing hard work fun.
They also share the belief that good work is never about pretending everything is perfect. It is about telling the truth, helping one another get better, sharing what we know, and consistently moving the work forward together.
Hotman Group became a certified Woman-Owned Small Business because a client wanted an easier path to work with us in support of its government customers.
But being woman-owned came to represent more than a contracting designation. Cheri's perspective was shaped by balancing a thousand things at once, learning plenty the hard way, and seeing problems from angles that are sometimes different from the ones already in the room.
That difference has value. Not because a woman's mind is better than a man's, but because different minds notice different things. We believe better answers come from bringing those perspectives together.
That belief in judgment, creativity, continuous learning and the human side of the work is why Cheri created The Art of Cybersecurity. The conversation extends beyond client work because the problems do, too.
Conversations about the judgment, creativity, leadership and human side of solving hard cybersecurity problems.
Spotify → WATCHPractical perspectives from the people doing the work, without pretending cybersecurity is simpler than it is.
YouTube →Rebuilding Cybersecurity: How to Restore Trust, Leadership, and Real Protection in a Broken System
Rebuilding Cybersecurity is Cheri's forthcoming book because the problems HG sees every day are bigger than any one client: enormous investment, overloaded people, fragmented accountability, compliance theater, and too much distance between the programs organizations can prove they have and the protection those programs actually provide.
The book asks what has to change if cybersecurity is going to earn back trust and deliver the protection society increasingly depends on.
Explore Rebuilding CybersecurityWe know we will not fix cybersecurity by ourselves. But every program made clearer, every unnecessary burden removed, every honest decision made, and every organization better protected moves the world a little closer to where it should be.
That's what keeps us going.
