The professional journey of Arun K. Singh aptly exemplifies visionary leadership.
Arun started his career as a cryptographer and security research professional. Later, he moved onto building and driving cybersecurity businesses for multiple global organizations. He started his professional journey in India and worked for HCL & Infosys Technologies. He created a focused group to drive innovative solutions for HIPAA compliance at Infosys and published many research papers. After Infosys, he worked for about 10years at Wipro Technologies and developed many cybersecurity services under the theme of Applied Innovation. Wipro won multiple awards, including “Global Product Excellence” from Info Security Product Guide, for innovative services and established a strong global brand in cybersecurity. His success at Wipro got attention from Accenture, and he joined them as Managing Director and Global Lead for Managed Security Services (MSS). At Accenture, he started the MSS business from scratch and collaborated with Accenture Technology Labs to develop cutting edge MSS solutions such as data-driven cyber defense, active authentication, deception networks, and integrated cyber risk platform. Working with Accenture labs was an enriching experience where he was able to combine the power of East and West to deliver innovative solutions to clients globally.
Arun joined EY LLP in 2016 as Americas Risk Advisory leader and partner to build a new line of business on “Cybersecurity-as-a-Service” (CaaS). His work also involved building business case for this new business and obtaining funding from Advisory Investment Committee. He worked with EY’s global teams to select and implement right technologies to create innovative services. CaaS solutions covered Digital Identity, Data Protection, Threat Detection & Response and Threat exposure management. These innovative solutions leveraged Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotic Process Automation, Threat Intelligence, and Security Analytics tools to cover IT, OT & cloud environments.
Last year, Arun decided to take the next level of challenge in his career and joined Ilantus Technologies as CEO and Board Member. He is currently accelerating growth for this company based on innovations in solution offerings.
Source of Inspiration
Arun says that he was fortunate to learn from many world-class inspiring leaders. At Wipro, he drew a lot of inspiration from Mr. Girsh Paranjape (CEO) on his leadership style. He was fortunate to have Mr. Andrew Wilson, CIO as his mentor at Accenture who inspired him a lot in managing diverse teams. At EY, he was thoroughly impressed by Mr. John Latham, Global Client Service Partner for his client centricity for innovation and growth. His current Chairman, Mr. Binod, inspires him through his passion and dedication.
Making IAM an Exhilarating Experience
Ilantus Technologies is a leader in the Identity & Access Management domain, backed by over two decades of extensive experience and deep insight 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 the Zero-trust framework to provide Identity centric holistic cybersecurity solution to clients. Ilantus’ Compact Identity is known for innovation and simplicity. It is well recognized by leading industry analysts like Gartner and KuppingerCole.
Maintaining a Better Work-life Balance
Arun’s formula for work-life balance is based on maintaining a strict work discipline, setting boundaries for himself, and prioritizing critical tasks. He believes that work time and personal time should not be mixed together for better results. He has always focused on aligning his work with his passion which reduces unnecessary stress and enables a better balance.
It’s all about Having Strong Leadership
When asked about Arun’s take on entrepreneurship, he mentions entrepreneurial skills are essential for all leaders to define their vision, to take the right amount of risk, and to drive innovation that enables them to stay ahead of the competition. Business success cannot be achieved without having strong leadership coaching and development skills.
Besides, Arun is also of the opinion that mentoring is not focused on a specific skill, but it is more about overall development–where mentor and mentee share their personal experiences to seek advice or test new ideas.
Arun advises emerging leaders to understand the power of networking and to practice it in their work lives. He also emphasizes on the importance of emotional quotient (EQ), the ability to understand, empathize, and connect with the people around them. According to him, a high EQ is not only essential to become a great leader but also an effective team player to drive innovation.
Aiming to be a Purpose-Driven, Transformative Leader
In order to stay ahead of the curve, Arun always keeps himself updated with capricious technological trends. He learns a lot from client discussions and real-life problems in their environment. He keeps up with current and future technology trends through his membership in the Forbes Technology Council and Gartner’s TechCEO program. Apart from this, analysts’ conversations, CEO roundtables, panel discussions, and security conferences are other sources for him to gain technical insights.
Arun mentions that his future endeavour is to become a purpose-driven, transformative leader. In near future, he would like to be part of the Board of Directors for multiple technology companies and work with Investment firms to support cybersecurity start-ups.