Sekhar Nagasundaram
Global Head of Cyber Defense and Threat Management and SVP Technology - Cybersecurity
Elevance Health
Sekhar Nagasundaram is a technology, cybersecurity, and cyber risk veteran who has been engaging in his passion for over 25 years – leading transformative cybersecurity change, mitigating risk, advancing cutting edge solutions and services, creating efficiencies, driving down costs, and collaborating to solve enterprise and industry-wide challenges across multiple critical infrastructure verticals in the public and private sectors.
Sekhar is a foodie at heart and loves to tinker in the kitchen with a nice glass of red in his hand.
Learn more about the San Francisco CISO community here.
Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
My career in cybersecurity started by accident in the federal government, followed by a stint in a couple of iconic companies in the Silicon Valley (Sun Microsystems and Visa). I have experience across multiple domains of cybersecurity and cyber risk management (identity, network, application, data, risk, and cyber defense) and multiple functions (strategy, architecture, engineering, and operations).
What is one of your guiding leadership principles?
My guiding leadership principle is leading by example.
What is the greatest challenge your particular C-level role is facing today, and how are you addressing it?
CISOs are currently in the cross hairs of regulators and being held personally liable. To balance that, one has to engage with the executive team and the Board of Directors to ensure appropriate levels of risk management and treatment strategies are in place at the highest levels, inclusive of potential D&O insurance considerations.
What is the key to success for someone just starting out in your C-level role?
The keys to success are building relationships, communicating technology and risk in simple terms to the business, getting and keeping a seat at the table, and building out effective cyber risk management.
How do you measure success as a leader?
By continually building adaptive controls; building an empowered organization; maximizing operational resilience; by being anchored with the business, being anticipatory with detecting, responding to, and containing threats, and last by not least, by continually innovating in a responsible fashion.
What is the value of being a member of the Evanta community?
Working with, sharing best practices, and learning from peers and leaders.
Evanta Governing Body members share their insights and leadership perspectives to shape the agendas and topics that address the top priorities impacting business leaders today.
by CISOs, for CISOs
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