Arun K. Singh, CEO of Ilantus Technologies, has been invited to speak and participate on panels at numerous leading security conferences. He is an innovative and transformative industry leader with experience driving cyber security businesses by developing end-to-end solutions – from strategy to technology implementation and managed services – that embed security into the fabric of digital business at speed and scale.
Below are the highlights of the interview conducted between World’s Leaders and Arun K Singh:
Brief our audience about your journey as a business leader. Tell us about your background and what you did before you started/joined Ilantus Technologies.
I started my career as a cryptographer and security research professional and later moved onto building and driving cybersecurity businesses for many world-renowned global organisations such as Infosys, Wipro, Accenture, EY, and now Ilantus.
After completing my M.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, I joined Infosys Technologies in their research group and published many research papers on eCommerce security and compliance. After Infosys, I moved to Wipro Technologies as Practice Leader for the Enterprise Security Services business. I worked for about 10 years at Wipro to build and grow security practises and drive global sales. My success at Wipro, got attention from Accenture, and I got the opportunity to join them to develop a new line of business focusing on Managed Security Services (MSS) from scratch. As the Managing Director and Global Lead for the MSS business at Accenture, I took the P&L responsibilities, built a solid foundation for growth, and established a track record of consistently achieving sales, revenue, and profitability targets in a short span of time.
After Accenture, I got the opportunity to join Ernst & Young LLP as Americas Risk Advisory leader and Partner to build a new business on “Cybersecurity-as-a-Service”. I worked with EY’s global team to build a business case, obtained funding from the Advisory Investment Committee, and led the team to create innovative SaaS solutions covering Digital Identity, Data Protection, Threat Detection & Response, and Threat Exposure Management. These innovative solutions were developed using Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotic Process Automation, Threat Intelligence, and Security Analytics tools.
In 2020, I decided to take the next level of challenge in my career and joined Ilantus Technologies as the Global CEO and Board Member. I am currently driving accelerated growth for this company based on innovations in solution offerings.
How do you diversify your company’s cutting-edge services and solutions for people, entrepreneurs, and business leaders?
Ilantus Technologies is a leader in cybersecurity and provides next-generation solutions in the Identity and Access Management domain. We are backed by over two decades of extensive experience and deep knowledge gained from thousands of IAM implementations for some of the biggest brands in the world, including Fortune 500 companies. Ilantus’ Compact Identity product is uniquely positioned to present a cloud native, risk-aware, all-in-one converged IAM solution that is built on a zero-trust framework to provide an identity-centric, holistic cybersecurity solution to clients. By continuing our focus on products and services, we have diversified our GTM strategy.
As the CEO, what are your major roles and responsibilities?
As the CEO of Ilantus, my key responsibilities are to set the right direction for innovation and growth. My regular day at work goes through leading a global team to drive sales, marketing, service delivery, operations, research and development, innovation, analyst and investor relations management. My recent focus has been to reshape Ilantus’ global business by creating a winning culture with teams that believe in a growth vision, thrive together, beat competition, delight customers, and deliver profitable growth. I am fostering change in the company culture to be more open, transparent, and accountable.
What are the three things you would like to improve in the organization?
Ilantus started as a services company in 2000 and quickly made a name for itself as a vendor of superior IAM implementation and managed services. Encouraged by the vast experience of implementing third party IAM products, Ilantus in 2016 ventured into the development of IAM products and by 2019 came up with its award-winning “Compact Identity” product – the industry’s only true converged IAM solution platform. Recently, we announced a restructuring of the company and moving our product business to a new company, “Ilantus Products”. With these changes, the improvement areas for me will be to bring exclusive management focus, create teams with widely differing DNA for services and products to accelerate the overall growth.
Have you been exposed to competition in the industry? If yes, tell us what makes the company different from its competitors?
Yes, we compete with other IAM vendors on a regular basis. We differentiate based on our deep domain knowledge of serving IAM clients since past two decades. Our product, Compact Identity, is one of its kind in the market today that converges the full capabilities of Access Management, Identity Governance and Administration (IGA), Identity Analytics, and Privileged Access Management into a single platform and is backed by an intelligent risk engine and robust identity analytics. We received many awards for our products and services, such as the Global InfoSec Award for “Most Innovative product in Converged IAM” by Cyber Defence Magazine during the RSA Conference 2021, “Best Cybersecurity Solution of the Year 2021” and “Innovation in Cybersecurity” by National Feathers Award team in collaboration with The Economic Times.
We are uniquely positioned as a niche vendor in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Access Management and a leader in Gartner’s IGA market guide. Leading industry analyst KuppingerCole has positioned us as a leader in the “Product” and “Innovation” category. Our continuous focus on innovation to simplify and accelerate deployment has positioned us as a market leader in the class of “Converged IAM” space, and our comprehensive IAM services are set to support the IAM market globally.
Tell us about your vision for the company. How do you ensure a culture of integrity and innovation in the company?
My vision for Ilantus is to focus more on innovation to deliver the complex IAM capabilities through a simplified solution platform for clients globally. We are taking an identity-centric approach that supports blockchain-based decentralised identities and self-sovereign identities. The future roadmap of Ilantus is to further enhance its products and services by leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning.
We are reshaping Ilantus’ global business by creating a winning culture with teams that believe in a growth vision, thrive together, beat competition, delight customers, and deliver profitable growth. We are fostering a change in company culture to be more open, transparent, and accountable. For this, we have created a strong operational playbook that, paired with Ilantus’ differentiated solutions and commitment to innovation, is driving tremendous growth.
What’s the greatest risk you’ve taken as a professional?
For most of my career, I focused primarily on security services business. By joining Ilantus, I took the risk of moving from services mindset to product mindset which requires a very different skill set. It had been an enriching experience to quickly learn the new dynamics and drive innovation to differentiate Ilantus products in the market, develop global partner ecosystem, establish an efficient lead generation engine and build global brand through digital marketing and analyst relations.
How do you balance work and life responsibilities?
My formula for work-life balance is based on maintaining a strict discipline between ‘office time’ and ‘personal time’. I try to practice an efficient context switching between these two times and give 100% of my focus in each mode. Another important element is to align the office work with your passion, which reduces unnecessary stress and enables excellence in performance.
What advice would you give to emerging entrepreneurs and enthusiasts considering a career in an industry?
I would like them to know the importance of their emotional quotient (EQ) and their ability to understand, empathize, and connect with the people around them. A high EQ is essential to becoming a great leader and an effective team player.
