Why I joined Okta as their Chief Product Officer

After 15 years of experience leading product development for some of the largest companies in the world, I’m excited to share that I’ve recently joined Okta as their Chief Product Officer. Identity continues to play an increasingly important role in our modern digital lives, and I’m thrilled to lead Okta’s product innovation as we work to enable a more secure future.

I became interested in technology when I was 12 years old after watching my father fix an air conditioner. From there, I decided to study electrical engineering and eventually transitioned into computer science. Since my time in school, I’ve been especially passionate and interested in identity—I even wrote a business plan on digital identity in graduate school. This is why, even though I wasn’t planning to leave Google when Okta reached out to me, I knew I had to meet with the team to hear about the opportunity. After meeting with Okta’s leadership, I recognized that joining Okta was the best next step for my career, providing me with the opportunity to combine my passions with my experience to lead a talented team at a fast-growing company.

For the last 15 years I’ve had the pleasure of leading the product development and adoption of both consumer and enterprise products at companies including Google, Microsoft, and Motorola. I find enterprise product development to be especially gratifying, as you can iterate quickly to ensure you’re creating a solution that provides the most value to your customers. In the identity space, Okta is the clear leader, taking the right approach to providing an identity platform that enables companies across industries to securely connect the right people to the right technologies. There is still a lot of opportunity for the company, making it an exciting time to join. Advancing the power of identity will enable people to do things they never could before, and today’s most cutting edge technologies will only be successful if they get identity security and controls right. I truly believe we cannot reach the next level of the internet until we crack identity, and I’m excited to be part of the team that's doing it.

As Okta becomes the privacy and security standard for companies around the world, I’m looking forward to leading our product strategy and innovation as we expand our footprint across industries and around the world. With a few weeks under my belt, I could not be more sure of my decision to join the impressive and passionate team building the products that will secure our future.