Indian Navy veteran and C-suite technology leader with 24+ years directing enterprise cybersecurity, AI-driven digital transformation, and board-level risk governance across a $60B+ conglomerate spanning BFSI, power, telecom, critical infrastructure, and defense.
The ledger does the talking. As Group CTO and Head of Cybersecurity for a $60B+ multinational conglomerate spanning BFSI, power, infrastructure, defense, telecom, and healthcare, I spent the better part of a decade turning a defensive function into a profit centre: $800M+ in revenue growth born of digital transformation programs I designed and ran, $2B+ in technology infrastructure under my custody, $80M+ in annual budget that was mine to deploy. Reports went straight to the Chairman.
Risk, mitigated like a Naval drill. Twenty-four years without a single defining breach. A 70% reduction in attack surface through multilayer defense. A 60% faster incident response from a proprietary AI threat-detection stack I built in-house. A 50% reduction in hostile mentions, courtesy of a cyber-led reputation program that paid for itself in trust. The Chairman's communications ran on military-grade encryption and TSCM-swept channels - not because the threat was theoretical, but because for a fifteen-year Naval officer, defense is a posture, not a project.
Edge-cutting where it matters. I stood up the group's datacenter operations from a blank floor plan - power, HVAC, racks, network fabric, SOC, NOC, redundancy, sovereignty - every layer specified, every layer audited. I pioneered AI/ML across business units for a 35% efficiency gain, and I'm still active in research into quantum-resistant cryptography and post-quantum readiness, because the breach you defend in 2030 begins with the architecture you choose today. In the in-between hours, I write at Bytes & Beyond, because the field moves faster than any quarterly review, and thinking out loud is how I stay sharp.
Same discipline, different ocean. The bridge taught what no MBA can: silence is a control surface, and the loudest outcomes are the ones nobody hears about. Loyalty in the blood. Military precision by training. Boardroom fluency, earned the long way.
Fifteen years in uniform and twenty in security leave a mark. These are the habits that show up in every program I build.
Fifteen years in the Navy taught me that the mission doesn't wait for the org chart to sort itself out. I still run security programs the same way: protect the operation first, then work out who reports to whom.
In signals intelligence, a missed signal isn't a bug ticket, it's an incident. That standard followed me into the boardroom. A 70% cut in attack surface didn't happen by accident.
When a multi-vector ransomware campaign hit the group, the team had full operations back online in 24 hours with no ransom paid. The plan worked because we tested it long before anyone needed it.
I brief the Chairman on cyber risk the way I'd brief a commanding officer: plainly, with the bad news first. Softening a vulnerability to keep a meeting comfortable isn't leadership, it's a liability.
Good security shouldn't depend on one person staying late. I'd rather spend a year building a SOC and a team that can run it without me than be the one who gets the 2am call forever.
Magic.AI exists because I didn't want sensitive legal and finance data leaving the building just to use a good AI model. If the easy option means losing control of your own data, it isn't actually easy.
Two decades of building and running security programs for some of the most regulated, highest-stakes environments in India.
From naval signals intelligence to running cybersecurity for one of India's largest conglomerates.
Principal technology authority for a $60B+ conglomerate spanning BFSI, power, telecom, critical infrastructure, defense, healthcare, and entertainment. Direct advisor to the Chairman and promoters, with full P&L accountability for a $50M+ security budget and $2B+ technology asset portfolio across 30+ group companies. Built a group-wide Zero Trust framework mapped to MITRE ATT&CK that cut attack exposure by 70%, and stood up a 24x7 Global SOC across 15+ business verticals.
Led enterprise cybersecurity across 30+ group companies and multi-jurisdictional operations. Cut OPEX by 40% through IT-security consolidation and vendor rationalization, built governance frameworks aligned to RBI, SEBI, DPDP, ISO 27001, and NIST CSF, and reached 100% audit readiness across every business unit assessed.
Led cybersecurity modernization across energy, BFSI, telecom, and retail, and pioneered the group's OT/ICS and smart city security programs. Secured SCADA networks for Reliance Power and BSES Rajdhani, protecting infrastructure for 8+ million customers, and caught a zero-day in the energy billing system that was costing roughly INR 1 crore a day before launching a bug bounty program.
Advised Indian government agencies and critical infrastructure operators on cyber defense. Cut threat surface by 65% across assigned government networks through VAPT exercises and hardened security architectures, drawing on 15 years of naval experience in mission-critical environments.
15-year career protecting India's most critical national security networks, commanding 100+ personnel. Helped found the Indian Navy's Computer Incident Response Team, wrote the incident response playbooks later adopted across Indian Defence establishments, and designed India's first VoIP-secure communication framework for naval operations.
Some of the programs and decisions that moved the needle most.
Every commercial LLM asks you to trust someone else's servers with your data. I built my own instead: an open-source foundation model, fine-tuned entirely on the group's own contracts, filings, and workflows, then sealed inside the company's own walls. Legal, finance, and tax teams run it daily, and nothing leaves the building to do it. The Chairman liked it enough to name it himself.
Architected a Zero Trust framework mapped to MITRE ATT&CK, with XDR and SOAR-driven automation and a 24x7 Global SOC, cutting cyberattack exposure by 70% across 30+ group companies.
When a multi-vector ransomware campaign hit, pre-tested business continuity protocols brought full enterprise operations back online within 24 hours, with no ransom paid.
Commissioned the group's first quantum-resistant encrypted communication platform, protecting Chairman-level communications against nation-state interception threats.
I write occasionally at Bytes & Beyond, mostly about cybersecurity, AI, and what two decades of running security programs (plus 15 years in the Navy before that) actually teaches you.
Most posts start from something that happened that week, like a board discussion that went sideways or a 2am SOC alert. Every so often it's an old Navy habit that, for some reason, still works in a boardroom.
Recognitions and academic background that sit alongside the day-to-day work.
Open to board advisory roles, speaking engagements, and conversations about cybersecurity, AI transformation, and critical infrastructure, across India and globally.