Leadership & Executive Communication , Training & Security Leadership , Video
Profiles in Leadership: Keyur Desai
How Essar Group's Veteran CIO and Infosec Head Balances Technology and Security Decisions
The roles of chief information officer and chief information security officer complement each other: While one leader plans the company's technology initiatives, the other ensures that security is built into every part of these initiatives.
See Also: Post-Transformation: Building a Culture of Security
But sometimes organizations face a tug of war over which executive's solution is in the best interest of the company. How can you balance sound cybersecurity with a good user experience - and which leader gets the final word?
Keyur Desai wears both those hats, as vice president of IT at Essar Ports and Shipping and head of infosecurity at Essar.
"There are instances where businesses want to access certain data but the policies are restricting," Desai says. Heading both teams has made his professional life easy, as he has access to and influence over both teams, he says.
In this video interview with Information Security Media Group, as part of the CyberEdBoard's ongoing Profiles in Leadership series, Desai discusses:
- Highlights of his two-decade career at Essar;
- How to upskill for multiple roles in technology and cybersecurity;
- Why people skills are as vital as business and technical skills in a leadership role.
Desai has more than two decades of experience managing information technology for global manufacturing conglomerate Essar, which focuses in the core sectors of energy, infrastructure and logistics, metals and mining, and technology and retail across eight countries. He is responsible for aligning the company's digitization journey with its business strategic road map, with information security at its core.
CyberEdBoard is ISMG's premier members-only community of senior-most executives and thought leaders in the fields of security, risk, privacy and IT. CyberEdBoard provides executives with a powerful, peer-driven collaborative ecosystem, private meetings and a library of resources to address complex challenges shared by thousands of CISOs and senior security leaders located in 65 different countries worldwide.
Join the Community - CyberEdBoard.io.
