KB On The Go: Zenith Live 2024 (Part 1)

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In this bonus episode, we sit down with Kavitha Mariappan, Executive Vice President, Customer Experience & Transformation and Dhawal Sharma, Senior Vice President & General Manager as they share the latest in zero trust networking and AI security to protect and enable organizations. Kavitha provides insights into the rising use of AI in cybersecurity, both defensively and offensively, and the challenges organizations face transitioning to zero trust environments. Dhawal delves into the concept of adaptive access and its role in real-time anomaly detection and zero trust security models, emphasizing the need for geo-location aware policies and the integration of step-up authentication. They also explore the impacts of recent cyber incidents in the ANZ region, the significance of network segmentation, and the collaborative efforts with industry giants like Google and NVIDIA to enhance security capabilities through AI technologies.

Kavitha Mariappan, Executive Vice President, Customer Experience & Transformation, Zscaler

Kavitha Mariappan is a seasoned go-to-market executive with a penchant for rapidly translating technology into customer-centric value, mobilizing global teams and operations, and transforming them into high-growth businesses. Over her 20+ year tenure spanning enterprise software and service providers, she has held various high-impact roles spanning marketing, product management, and engineering at industry-leading companies including Databricks, Riverbed, Cisco, and Philips Electronics.

Prior to joining Zscaler, she served as CMO at Split Software, a venture-backed startup where she built the company’s go-to-market engine from the ground up and was instrumental in defining a new category for product decisions. Kavitha is responsible for driving global transformation and innovation across all facets of Zscaler’s business, customers, strategy, products, and operations, with a strong focus on customer value creation. Kavitha holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Communication Engineering from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia, and a Master of Science in Cybersecurity Risk and Strategy from New York University School of Law and Tandon School of Engineering.

Dhawal Sharma, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Product Management, Zscaler

Dhawal Sharma is Senior Vice President & General Manager of Product Management at Zscaler. He led all core product management from 2012 to 2018 and currently leads all emerging product and core platform responsibilities. His specialties are in cloud security, networking, data path, IoT, NFV, NPM, DLP, and compliance.

Prior to joining Zscaler, he has worked in product management, product marketing and head of sales roles in the space of security, networking, compliance and network management at large companies such as Cisco as well as in tech startups.

Dhawal has a technical MBA degree from Symbiosis Center for IT where he achieved the best academic performance with a specialization in Networking and IT Infrastructure and he also holds a Bachelors in Engineering degree specializing in Computer Science. Dhawal also holds multiple patents in the security space along with many technical certifications in the past.