Executive Interviews from RSAC! – ESW #361

As Chief Security Officer at Zscaler, Deepen Desai is responsible for running the global security research operations as well as working with the product group to ensure that the Zscaler platform and services are secure. Deepen has been actively involved in the field of cybersecurity for the past 19 years. Prior to joining Zscaler, he held security leadership roles at Dell SonicWALL.

Renuka Nadkarni is a security veteran with 20 years of experience in launching startups and businesses within large publicly traded companies. She formerly held a CTO Security position at F5 Inc., where she was instrumental in driving their entry into the security market. Renuka holds an MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Houston and a BS from the University of Mumbai.

As Vice President of Marketing for Open Systems, Tim is responsible for global marketing strategy, branding, messaging, communications, corporate website, and industry analyst relations. Tim brings over 25 years of go-to-market strategy, marketing, and partner expertise in cybersecurity, software, cloud, and SaaS, including 15 years of executive and leadership positions at iboss, Fidelis Cybersecurity, McAfee and Secure Computing. Tim earned an MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA and BS and MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley

Randy Watkins is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Critical Start and an emerging thought-leader in the security industry. As CTO, Randy is responsible for designing and executing the company’s strategic technology initiatives, which includes defining the strategy and direction of Critical Start’s Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services delivered by the Zero-Trust Analytics Platform (ZTAP).

Previously, Randy served as Critical Start’s Director of Security Architecture, where he set the strategy for emerging vendor technologies, created the Defendable Network reference architecture, and set product direction for the company’s internally-developed Security Orchestration Automation and Response platform. Watkins was employee number five when he joined Critical Start in 2012.

Randy is a respected author and speaker on security trends and is well-versed in applying security technologies, in practical and meaningful ways, to improve risk management and security infrastructure for enterprise customers. He holds numerous security certifications in data analysis, data science, computer science, and leadership. Randy earned a bachelor’s degree in Information Systems Security and an associate degree in Computer Networking Systems, both from ITT Technical Institute.

In his free time, Randy continues to contribute to the security community through his consultancy to security product manufacturers to help them drive value to the customer through their solutions.

Paul Reid is Global Head of Threat Intelligence at OpenText Cybersecurity. A veteran of the complex, fast-paced world of cybersecurity, Paul has served as a technology strategist for more than two decades at innovative technology companies. Leveraging his deep expertise in cybersecurity, biometrics, network security, cryptography, and more, Paul helps guide customers, partners, industry analysts, and journalists through the intricate cybersecurity landscape. Most recently he led a team of cyber threat hunters leveraging behavioral analytics to find emerging threats in customer environments.

Paul is a frequent keynote speaker and has shared his perspectives at several prominent industry conferences including the NATO Information Assurance Symposium, SANS@Night, and Microsoft TechED. He is a published author in the Prentice Hall Series in Computer Networking and Distributed Systems. Paul also holds several patents in cybersecurity.

Zaira Pirzada is the VP of Product Marketing at Hive Pro. Prior to joining Hive Pro, she was a Security Analyst with Gartner, Inc., covering the DLP, File Analysis, and Data Masking markets. Zaira was also featured on CBS as a main actress in the prime-time television show “Hunted”, Wired for her technical acumen, and is currently a popular-selling poet and performer.

Jason Keirstead is VP of Collective Threat Defense at Cyware, where he is working to advance the state-of-the-art in collaborative intelligence, detection and response. He has over 20 years experience in the industry, and is a subject-matter expert in topics such as threat intelligence, SIEM, SOAR, EDR, and XDR. Jason also sits on the board of directors of the OASIS Open standards organization, the governing board of the Open Cybersecurity Alliance, and participates in many other organizations in the open security space.

Jay Mar-Tang is AVP, Field CISO at Automated Security Validation leader Pentera. Jay has been in the IT industry over 15 years, with over 10 years of cyber security experience. He earned his CISSP in 2014. During his career he has worked in 3 different geographies which include Mid Atlantic, New York City and the West coast of the United States. He has spent years engineering different solutions for clients of all verticals, such as MFA, DLP, SIEM, network forensics, EDR and Privilege Account management. Most recently after spending numerous years with blue team defensive technologies, Jay has joined Pentera, now advising and engineering red teaming strategies for clients in the west coast, and managing the team of engineers in North America.

Anthony is a seasoned Senior Executive with more than two decades of experience spanning technology Sales, Business Development, Strategic Alliances, Services, and Operations. He showcases a proven aptitude for building robust teams, ensuring exceptional client satisfaction, and surpassing performance objectives. His passion is to help companies think differently about their Security and IT investments, harnessing software and service solutions to enhance business oversight, increase employee satisfaction, and elevate product and service quality.