Announcing the 2025 Identity 25: Highlighting a community of digital Identity trailblazers

Okta’s annual Identity 25 report — Celebrating innovation in Identity

Okta Ventures is proud to announce the release of the Identity 25 report for 2025, our annual tradition spotlighting the visionaries who are redefining what’s possible in digital Identity. Identity lies at the core of every online interaction, making secure and scalable Identity solutions crucial​. That’s why Okta introduced the Identity 25 initiative in 2024 — to celebrate the pioneers who are reshaping the landscape of digital Identity​.

Each year, the Identity 25 report serves as a tribute to these innovators’ achievements, highlighting a new set of Identity heroes building simpler, more secure Identity-centric technologies that pave the way toward a safer, more inclusive digital world​.

Building on last year’s inaugural list — which honored pioneers in Identity standards, software, hardware, credentials, regulation, and implementation,​ the 2025 edition expands our horizons with a new roster of Identity leaders tackling today’s emerging challenges. From the rise of generative AI to evolving cybersecurity threats, the digital Identity landscape is changing rapidly — and this year’s honorees have risen to the occasion. The Identity 25 (2025) recognizes these top movers and shakers in the Identity world​, whose work is driving innovation across industries and around the globe. We’re delighted to share their stories and contributions in this report, an annual milestone that reflects Okta’s commitment to security, privacy, and user empowerment in the Identity community.

Fostering a community of Identity leaders

Beyond individual accolades, the Identity 25 initiative is about building a community of identity leaders who inspire and learn from one another. Each year’s honorees join a growing network of experts across academia, public service, private enterprise, and nonprofit sectors​. This diversity is by design — from professors and engineers to policymakers and entrepreneurs, each brings unique expertise that is shaping the future of digital Identity. By connecting these trailblazers, we aim to foster collaboration and a shared sense of mission in the Identity ecosystem.

Collectively, the 2025 honorees represent a concerted force driving the Identity industry forward. They are addressing critical challenges from every angle — creating laws to thwart Identity crime, advocating for user privacy rights, combating fraud and cyberthreats, developing cutting-edge authentication technologies, and educating the next generation on Identity best practices. As one honoree observed, “The folks on this list have made a resounding impact in people’s daily experience of privacy, safety, and Identity.”​

Their work resonates far beyond their own organizations, shaping the very fabric of our digital society and making the online world safer and more accessible for all.

This growing community of Identity 25 leaders is bound together by a common goal: securing our digital world while enabling seamless, trusted experiences. Individually and in collaboration, they’re advancing open standards, influencing policy, and pioneering technologies to solve problems that no single team or sector could tackle alone​.

Okta Ventures is honored to facilitate this community through the Identity 25 program, which we view as a long-term investment in the people who are securing the future of Identity. Together, the honorees form a powerful alliance of expertise and passion in the Identity domain.

Celebrating diverse achievements in digital Identity (The 2025 Honorees)

The Identity 25 (2025) list showcases a remarkable breadth of achievements across the digital Identity field. Below we highlight just a few examples of the honorees and their contributions, demonstrating the diversity of innovation represented in this year’s cohort:

• Enhancing government services: Hanna Kim, Director, Login.gov​
  Hanna leads the U.S. government’s central login platform, simplifying secure access to public services for millions of citizens. By prioritizing user experience and security, she’s helped make government digital services more accessible and trustworthy. (Many users have even remarked on the surprisingly seamless experience of using Login.gov, a small victory that motivates her daily.)
   
• Advancing industry standards: Eric Scouten, Identity Standards Architect, Adobe​
  Eric is a champion of open, interoperable identity standards in the private sector. At Adobe, he works to ensure that identity protocols and best practices are adopted broadly, so that users can be securely authenticated across platforms without anyone being left behind in the digital revolution​. His leadership in standards bodies and internal architecture helps drive consensus on technologies that make the internet safer and more user-centric.
   
• Pioneering academic research: Dan Boneh, Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Stanford University​
  A leading cryptographer and head of Stanford’s applied cryptography group, Dan has spearheaded breakthrough research that underpins modern Identity Security. He has collaborated on a long string of novel solutions in areas like web security, cryptanalysis, and blockchain cryptography — innovations that help governments and organizations balance security and privacy in the digital realm. By freely sharing his research and working closely with industry, Dan ensures these advanced cryptographic techniques (from privacy-preserving credentials to robust digital signatures) are translated into real-world identity systems that protect billions of users.
   
• Entrepreneurial Leadership in Fighting Fraud: Lincoln Ando, Founder & CEO, idwall (Brazil)​
  Lincoln founded idwall to combat rampant Identity fraud in one of the world’s most challenging environments for cybercrime: Brazil, where nearly 12% of users fall victim to digital fraud each year. Under his leadership, idwall developed automated Identity verification tools that help hundreds of companies prevent fraud, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in fraud losses averted annually. Lincoln’s success illustrates how innovation and perseverance can thrive even in high-risk markets, ultimately making digital transactions safer for businesses and consumers.
   
• Setting Global Identity Standards: Gail Hodges, Executive Director, OpenID Foundation​
  As the head of a global nonprofit standards organization, Gail is driving the development of open identity standards that enable interoperability and trust on a worldwide scale. She advocates for unified protocols to verify Identity and combat fraud across borders, recognizing that the economy is increasingly digital and threat actors are ever more sophisticated​. Under her guidance, the OpenID Foundation brings industry, government, and academia together to forge the secure frameworks that countless digital services rely on for authentication and authorization every day.

These snapshots barely scratch the surface of the 25 honorees in this year’s report. Collectively, the Identity 25 (2025) includes innovators from North America, South America, Asia, Europe, and beyond – academics and engineers, policy makers and product leaders, all united by a dedication to improving how we prove and protect identity online. Their stories range from cutting-edge cryptographic research to on-the-ground policy implementation, but all share a common thread of using identity as a force for good in an increasingly complex digital era.

An industry milestone and a call to engage

The release of the 2025 Identity 25 report is more than a celebration – it’s an opportunity for the broader industry to learn and engage. We invite you to explore the full report to delve into each honoree’s story and insights. This comprehensive report is an important resource for Identity and security professionals, offering perspectives on emerging trends and best practices from those on the front lines of digital Identity innovation. By sharing these success stories and lessons learned, we hope to inspire more organizations and up-and-coming leaders to push the boundaries of what’s possible in Identity.

To discover the full list of this year’s Identity 25 honorees and the details of their achievements, read the complete Identity 25 (2025) report.​ There you will find in-depth profiles of all 25 leaders, additional insights, and context on the state of digital Identity today.

To provide a more personal look at the people behind the innovation, we’re excited to share video testimonials from two of this year’s honorees — Eric Scouten and Hanna Kim. In these short videos, Scouten and Kim discuss the rewards of delighting users, the responsibility of protecting their information, and how they leverage standards and protocols to ensure no one is left behind in the digital revolution​.

We encourage you to watch their stories in the videos below and hear first-hand what drives these leaders in their work:
 

Eric Scouten, Identity Standards Architect, Adobe​
 

Hanna Kim, Director, Login.gov​

As we celebrate the accomplishments of the Identity 25 class of 2025, we also look ahead with optimism. Initiatives like this help the community of Identity professionals grow stronger and more interconnected. Okta Ventures remains committed to supporting these innovators and the broader Identity community on our shared journey toward a more secure and seamless digital future. Congratulations to this year’s honorees, and thank you for inspiring all of us who care about the future of Identity.

— The Okta Ventures Team (Austin Arensberg, Jessica Martinez, Eunice Wong)