KBKAST

In this episode, we sit down with Rajesh Ganesan, CEO of ManageEngine, as he explores the complexities of AI anxiety within organisations and the global challenges of balancing cybersecurity, privacy, and rapid technological change. Rajesh discusses the uneven pace of AI adoption among businesses of different sizes, the critical role of regulation and capital investment by region, and the growing necessity for upskilling in an evolving digital environment. He highlights the persistent anxiety surrounding job displacement, the shift in workforce requirements, and emphasises the importance of resilience and adaptability. Rajesh concludes by stressing the need for businesses to keep customer needs at the centre and to use technology as an enabler to solve real problems in an age defined by both opportunity and uncertainty.

Rajesh Ganesan is the CEO of ManageEngine, a division of Zoho Corp. and a leading provider of enterprise IT management solutions. With over two decades of experience at the company, he plays a pivotal role in shaping ManageEngine’s strategy, direction, and product management while also serving as a key evangelist for the brand. Beyond strategy, his day-to-day work involves being a mentor and coach to teams across various business functions. With deep institutional knowledge and market insight, he helps them navigate decisions with clarity and perspective, ensuring they are equipped to handle the challenges of today’s IT market.

In this episode, we sit down with Amberley Brady, founder at Realfoodprice, as she explores the urgent issue of food security as a national security crisis in Australia. Amberley discusses the four pillars of food security—availability, access, utilization, and stability—emphasising how fragile supply chains, economic shocks, climate events, and cyber incidents threaten the nation’s access to safe and affordable food. She recounts the disruptions experienced during COVID-19 and highlights the risks of over-reliance on large supermarket conglomerates and lack of support for local farmers. The conversation covers the need for greater policy coordination, strategic food reserves, improved data transparency, and the integration of technology to strengthen domestic resilience. Amberley urges for accountability, innovation, and collaboration between government, industry, and the tech community to ensure that access to nutritious food remains a right, not a privilege, for all Australians.

Amberley, an astute industry professional with extensive experience in public policy, founded Realfoodprice in 2024 in response to identified structural inefficiencies within Australia’s food supply chain. Recognizing the critical need for market transparency, she established this data-driven platform to address the competitive imbalance affecting both producers and consumers.

Through rigorous market analysis and comparative price assessment, Amberley developed a methodology to clearly communicate authentic food value throughout the supply chain. Her strategic initiative to “un-supermarket” represents a paradigm shift in how agricultural commodities are valued and traded within the Australian market.

Realfoodprice exemplifies Amberley’s innovative approach to economic challenges, leveraging data analytics to foster equitable commercial relationships between farming communities and end consumers. The platform serves as both an advocacy tool and a practical market mechanism designed to ensure the long-term sustainability of Australia’s agricultural sector and strengthen national economic resilience.

Under Amberley’s leadership, Realfoodprice continues to advance data transparency as an essential component in creating a more competitive and balanced food system for all stakeholders.

In this bonus episode, KB sits down with Jenny Tsai-Smith, SVP, Overall Database Product Management at Oracle, Rand Waldron, VP at Oracle, and Arman Ashouriha, Head of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Modernisation Programme at Vodafone. Together they discuss Oracle’s move towards supporting modern workloads and their AI play, Oracle’s position in the public and private sector, and Vodafone’s journey to modernisation on Oracle Cloud.

Jenny Tsai-Smith, SVP, Overall Database Product Management, Oracle

Since joining Oracle in 1993, Jenny Tsai-Smith has held leadership roles spanning technical support, content development, education delivery, plus Oracle Cloud acceleration of startups and scientific research. As the leader for database product management, Jenny works with release and development management to take products and services from design through development to production. Her team runs the customer advisory board, drives technology adoption partners, performs field enablement, assists with migrations to Oracle Database, and works directly with a wide range of customers. She meets regularly with customers, partners, press, and analysts to better understand existing and emerging data management requirements, and to discuss how database innovations can be applied to solve real-world challenges.

Rand Waldron, VP at Oracle

Rand Waldron is vice president of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure product development, responsible for the Global Government Sector team and leading the strategy, development and deployment of Oracle’s National Security Region product line. Prior to joining Oracle in 2018, he was Deputy Assistant Director at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, responsible for the FBI’s enterprise software and data—including investigative and intelligence analytics, records and evidence management, large scale custom software development and business operations systems. Prior to the FBI, Waldron served at the U.S. Department of Justice.

Arman Ashouriha, Head of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Modernisation Programme at Vodafone

As the Head of the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Modernisation Programme at Vodafone, Arman Ashouriha leads the strategic effort to modernize and migrate thousands of key systems to a dedicated region within the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Arman is continually driving towards platform support, system modernization, and scaling crucial operations across complex, high-stakes infrastructure environments.

In this episode, we sit down with David Bloxham, CEO of GCS Recruitment Specialist, as he unpacks the impact of AI on the changing face of work and the tech talent landscape. David shares his perspective on how AI-driven disruption differs from previous waves like cloud and mobile transformations, highlighting the rapid decline in traditional software engineering and process-driven roles as automation takes hold. He explores the challenges and opportunities for jobseekers at all levels, emphasizing the need to specialize within industry verticals, build adaptable skill sets, and nurture strong professional networks. David also provides valuable insights into the evolving nature of technical and functional roles, the linkage between AI and cybersecurity investment, and the importance of human connection in recruitment practices as organisations and candidates adapt to a more automated future.

David Bloxham is the CEO of GCS Recruitment Specialists, where he has been a key player since 1996, with a brief hiatus from 2004 to 2008. Starting as a fresh graduate, he quickly rose through the ranks, becoming a manager in 1999, a director in 2004, and the MD in 2008. In 2017, he led a management buyout with nGAGE. David is passionate about recruitment, strategic leadership, and making a positive impact. He is also the host of the GCS Leaders Series Podcast, where he engages with industry thought leaders to share insights and drive conversations around innovation and excellence.

In this episode, we sit down with Steven Grossman, CISO / CIO at Standard & Preferred Insurance, as he talks about the challenges small and medium-sized businesses face in securing their environment, especially in view of growing regulatory requirements, and how he brings his enterprise consulting experience to bear in driving change. Steven discusses the unique challenges faced by SMBs—such as limited budgets, smaller IT teams, and a general lack of prioritization around cyber risk—while emphasizing the importance of leadership, education, and investing in the right resources like MSPs and fractional CISOs. The conversation covers the regulatory pressures driving security improvements, the pitfalls of treating cybersecurity as a box-ticking exercise, and strategies for building a resilient risk management culture. Steven also shares his perspective on balancing regulatory burden and genuine security, the dangers of under-resourcing IT, and the reasons why proactive approaches to cyber risk are essential for business continuity and consumer trust.

Steven is a cross-functional cybersecurity and information technology leader with experience working in startup to large enterprise environments. After 2 decades of management consulting with international firms like PwC, smaller boutiques and independently on his own, Steven jumped into the cyber and tech startup ecosystem, bringing to bear his knowledge and experience in cybersecurity, risk management, regulatory regimes, data analytics and business process management. Throughout his career, Steven has also held numerous industry executive positions, including his current role as CISO/CIO of Standard & Preferred and the Graph Group, a Workers Comp insurance carrier based in the NY/NJ tri state area.

In this bonus episode, KB sits down with Danielle Sheer, Chief Trust Officer at Commvault, and Avi Boru, Senior Director, Cloud Engineering, Network & Telecom at Lennar. Together they discuss building trust by design and how AI, transparency, and authentic relationships are shaping the future of business continuity and cyber recovery.

Danielle Sheer, Chief Trust Officer, Commvault

Modern compliance, legal and security teams need to be predictive, proactive, and data-driven to meet the speed, agility, and growth of global business in a world of constant cyberattacks. Danielle Sheer, Chief Trust Officer, enables Commvault to do just that.

Prior to joining Commvault, Danielle served as General Counsel at financial technology services company Bottomline (NASDAQ:EPAY) and at cloud-backup SaaS solutions provider Carbonite (NASDAQ:CARB).

As Senior Director of Cloud Engineering at Lennar, Avi leads Lennar’s enterprise cloud vision and strategy to drive the company’s digital transformation. With expertise spanning Strategic Planning, & Integration, Digital Transformation, Cloud Computing, and more, Avi is continually driving towards excellence, scalability, and reliability, especially in fast- paced settings.

In this episode, we sit down with Rajesh Khazanchi, CEO and co-founder of ColorTokens, as he explores what it truly means to be “breach ready” in today’s cybersecurity landscape. Rajesh emphasises the shift from perimeter-based defences to a proactive containment strategy, highlighting the importance of assuming breaches are inevitable and minimising damage through micro segmentation and Zero Trust principles. He discusses how evolving business pressures and sophisticated AI-driven attacks are raising expectations for swift decision-making and rapid recovery from disruptions. The conversation covers practical approaches for bridging knowledge gaps, the role of continuous compliance and visibility, and how organisations can leverage existing EDR technologies to achieve stronger resilience without increasing tool sprawl. Rajesh also shares insights on building customer trust through quicker recovery times, the impact of business continuity on competitive advantage, and the importance of design thinking for both organisational and personal cyber safety.

Rajesh Khazanchi is the CEO and Co-Founder of ColorTokens, a company that provides a zero-trust segmentation SaaS platform that spans across IT, OT, Industrial Control Systems (ICS), Devices and Users. Under Rajesh’s leadership company has accelerated to grown over 300% annual in last 3 years deployed over 100+ large enterprise customers in Insurance, Healthcare, Retail, Manufacturing, Oil & Gas and Pharma. Rajesh leads a team of 400+ people worldwide and drives the vision, strategy, and execution of the company’s products and services. As an accomplished technology leader, Rajesh has led product teams at VMware, BMC, HP, and Oracle, and has been on the front lines of the battle against cyberattacks for more than two decades. He has been awarded six patents for his innovations in cloud automation and cybersecurity, and is a member of YPO and TiE, two global networks of entrepreneurs and executives. Rajesh is passionate about solving complex problems, creating value for customers, and building a culture of excellence and innovation at ColorTokens.

In this episode, we sit down with Daniel Churches, Director in Sydney at ColorTokens, as he explores the sweeping impact of new Australian legislation imposing personal liability on company directors for cybersecurity breaches. Daniel breaks down the shifting landscape for CISOs and senior security leaders, the end of self-regulation, and how shared risk at the board and executive levels is altering market behaviour. He discusses the challenges around resource constraints in security teams, the crucial role of business continuity planning, and the importance of articulating measurable value to organisational leadership. We also examine how the legislation is driving changes in funding priorities, motivating cross-functional engagement, and preparing organisations to better withstand breaches in an evolving threat environment. Daniel shares his optimism about the future, emphasising both the increased pressure and potential for positive, industry-wide change.

Dan is an Australian and Asia Pacific Sales Leader with over 25 years’ IT experience in Hardware and Software Solutions and Services, Business Development, GTM planning and implementation, Large Complex Negotiations and Executive Relationships. He has worked for IBM, NTT Global and Verizon Enterprise Solutions driving business and building teams in Hardware, Software, Professional Services, Managed Services, Hybrid Cloud, PaaS, SaaS, Data Analytics, Security and Digital Transformation solution sales.

As a Sales Director with ColorTokens, Dan is driving market penetration, brand development, partner engagement and client services and support. He is responsible for industry and buyer alignment and understanding of the ColorTokens “Breach Ready” messaging focusing on halting the spread of ransomware and malware attacks across IT/OT, IoT and Legacy environments providing customers a viable Cyber Resilience ‘Uptime’ compliance capability they can report to market.

Anshuman Sharma is the Director of Verizon Threat Research Advisory Centre (VTRAC), Cybersecurity Consulting Services at Verizon Business. Anshuman has more than 17 years’ experience as a well-rounded and seasoned Cyber Security Professional.

VTRAC is a specialized division within Verizon’s Cyber Security Consulting organisation, helping customers regain control and mitigate cyber threats from their networks, applications and devices. VTRAC team members are located across the globe, bringing together professionals with military, law enforcement and IT expertise who are well-versed in criminal and civil investigative requirements.  The organisation is a globally-approved PCI Forensic Investigator (PFI).

As a regional leader for the investigative response team and a global capability lead for VTRAC, Anshuman is responsible for business portfolio management for professional services, especially focused on digital forensics, incident response, and threat intelligence in the APJ region while working for several top global enterprises and government organisations.