Thrive Spotlight: Scott Benson – Manager, Infosec GRC

Welcome back to another installment of our “Thrive Spotlight” blog series.

Our featured employee is Scott Benson, Manager, Infosec Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC). Scott’s team manages the security awareness training service for over 800 clients, managed IT auditing, and dark web monitoring. While their client base has grown over 200% over the years, the team has remained the same size by standardizing client configurations, optimizing workflows, and automating repetitive tasks.

Based in Houston, Texas, Scott enjoys spending time with his family, including two boys they were fostering and then adopted in 2025. He loves listening to music and playing the guitar. When asked about his favorite songs to play, he struggled to pick just one genre, but improv solos over electronic music sound fun to us! A true technology aficionado, he makes sure to stay up to date with the cybersecurity world, as it’s constantly changing.

Hi Scott!  Can you tell us about your background and how you came to Thrive?

My interest in cybersecurity started back in middle school when I would hack in video games. I thought that would be what I did when I grew up but then I took American Sign Language as my 2nd language in high school, fell in love with it, and pursued that path. After getting out in the field though, it didn’t fit my personality, so I went back to school for automotive engineering.

After working as a mechanic for four years, the brutal Texas summers got to me and I needed a change. So, while I was working 55 hours a week as a mechanic, I spent 15-20 hours a week outside of work learning about IT and cybersecurity. I even brought a Raspberry Pi to work and plugged it into the alignment machine so when I wasn’t working on cars, I could skill up.

After getting my A+ and Security+ certifications, someone from Thrive reached out to me via LinkedIn about the Associate Engineer role thinking I would be a good fit. I applied, got the job, and officially started my IT career. About six months in, my manager reached out about a new role that needed to be filled that would be primarily on the internal IT team with a foot in the SOC Team. I jumped at the opportunity and that’s where I got my start in cybersecurity.

After about a year, a position opened for a SOC Analyst. I applied, thinking I was a shoe in. I didn’t get the role; however, in the interview I was told about a future role that I’d be a great fit for. Three months later, I moved over to the Infosec Operations team as a Security Engineer. At the time, it was a new team of five within the Security Operations department. My job responsibilities evolved, and I worked on reviewing vulnerability reports, ran and reviewed results of autonomous penetration tests, and managed clients’ security awareness training programs. Eventually, we split the Infosec Operations team in two: The Offensive Security Team, and the Infosec GRC Team. I was the team lead for the Infosec GRC team for about a year before being promoted to manager in February 2026.

Where did you go to school or get training?

I have degrees in sign language interpreting and automotive engineering, but I am fully self-taught when it comes to cybersecurity and IT skills.

What do you most enjoy about working for Thrive?

The culture. The Rising Tide initiative, focusing on training up and promoting from within, is what drew me to Thrive as a company in the first place. After working here for four years and earning five promotions, I know it’s not just words, we actually live it. On top of that, if I’m ever unsure about something, I can always ask someone for help and get the answers I need. I have never been ridiculed or felt less than for asking a question and everyone is happy to help.

Are there any recent exciting projects at Thrive you can tell us about?

We are currently working on automating data collection for the configuration of our Security Awareness Training clients. This is currently a manual audit done quarterly that takes 80+ hours. Once completed, we will be able to get real time data on the setup of all 800+ clients at the push of a button.

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