Identient Podcast
Identient Podcast
Podcast Description
The Identient Podcast delves into the intersection of strategy, governance, people and culture, and technology featuring insightful conversations with industry experts tackling the toughest challenges in enterprise identity and access management. Listeners can expect actionable advice, bold ideas, and real-world stories that empower leaders to drive innovation and elevate business performance through Sentient IAM.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
This podcast delves into themes including strategic governance, technology, and organizational culture, with episodes focusing on critical issues like the evolving role of metrics in IT leadership, fostering a robust security culture, and the importance of cultural alignment in cybersecurity efforts. For example, the premiere episode features a discussion with a seven-time CIO exploring how to balance operational excellence with strategic initiatives in IAM.
The Strategy Layer Live helps CISOs and cybersecurity leaders rise above the noise and drive measurable business value. Hosted by Identient, this podcast explores how to lead with intelligence, influence, and clarity—aligning security with the priorities that matter. It’s not just about protection—it’s about performance.
In Episode 2 of The Strategy Layer Live, we dig into one of the most urgent — and least acknowledged — leadership challenges in cybersecurity today.
The CISO role isn’t dying. But it is being slowly redefined, compressed, and undermined by structural misalignment, rising board expectations, and misused metrics. What one security executive called the “co-morbid poisoning” of the role has become a shared, often unspoken reality for many cybersecurity leaders — especially those navigating the tension between visibility and actual control.
In this episode, host Steve Tout, Founder & CEO of Identient, sits down with Steve Zalewski, former CISO of Levi Strauss & Co., trusted advisor, and respected voice in the cybersecurity leadership community. Together, they unpack how the CISO role is being reshaped — not by failure, but by a system that was never built to support sustainable, high-impact security leadership in the first place.
📌 What we cover in this episode:
- The origins of the term co-morbid poisoning and why it resonates now more than ever
- How modern CISOs are over-indexed on responsibility and under-indexed on authority
- The role of frameworks, dashboards, and performance theater in eroding trust
- What aspiring and seasoned CISOs alike need to understand about governance drift
- How Strategic Performance Intelligence (SPI) can anchor the next evolution of security leadership
- Reflections on RSA Conference and how many “leadership” panels are missing the real conversation
This conversation directly inspired a chapter in Steve Tout’s upcoming book,
The CISO On The Razor’s Edge: Leading Cybersecurity When the System Is Designed to Break — launching June 2 on Amazon.
🎯 Whether you’re a CISO, CIO, or cybersecurity executive navigating the shifting expectations of your role — or you're simply trying to lead with more clarity in an increasingly fragmented environment — this episode will give you language, perspective, and energy for what’s next.
📘 Pre-order the book or download a free chapter:https://tout.media
🧠 Join the SPI 360 Executive Circle:https://www.identient.ai/slack
🌐 Learn more: https://identient.ai
Disclaimer
This podcast’s information is provided for general reference and was obtained from publicly accessible sources. The Podcast Collaborative neither produces nor verifies the content, accuracy, or suitability of this podcast. Views and opinions belong solely to the podcast creators and guests.
For a complete disclaimer, please see our Full Disclaimer on the archive page. The Podcast Collaborative bears no responsibility for the podcast’s themes, language, or overall content. Listener discretion is advised. Read our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for more details.