Leadership & Executive Communication , Training & Security Leadership , Video

Profiles in Leadership: Agnidipta Sarkar

Biocon CISO Discusses Securing the Many Components of the Pharmaceutical Industry
Agnidipta Sarkar, group CISO, Biocon, and CyberEdBoard executive member

The biggest challenge facing security leaders is using security to enable business, says Agnidipta Sarkar, group CISO of Biocon. In the pharmaceutical industry, the business includes research, development, manufacturing, distribution and sales, and Sarkar says distribution is the most attacked area.

See Also: Post-Transformation: Building a Culture of Security

"During COVID-19, everyone was dependent on this industry for provisioning of medicines, and attackers were trying to attack that channel," he says.

Sarkar says that CISOs need to focus on communication with business leaders, their own leadership and IT teams. "Every CISO is looking for a more cost-optimized and operationally easy way to implement security," he adds.

In this video interview with Information Security Media Group conducted as part of the CyberEdBoard's ongoing Profiles in Leadership series at ISMG's Cybersecurity Summit in Bengaluru, Sarkar discusses:

  • The need to learn how the technology relates to the business - and then to focus on people and processes;
  • The importance of knowing what is critical to protect and building layered defenses;
  • Why seeing cybersecurity from the attacker's viewpoint is essential to prevent attacks.

Sarkar previously worked with CMS IT services, DXC Technologies, HPE and HP Inc. He spent three decades working for global companies, including HP, HPE, DXC, HCL, Wipro and CMS IT services. He has been both an auditor and an auditee and a consultant, advising business leaders on cybersecurity, business continuity, privacy, risk optimization, standardization and resilience.


CyberEdBoard is ISMG's premier members-only community of senior-most executives and thought leaders in the fields of security, risk, privacy and IT. CyberEdBoard provides executives with a powerful, peer-driven collaborative ecosystem, private meetings and a library of resources to address complex challenges shared by thousands of CISOs and senior security leaders located in 65 different countries worldwide.

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About the Author

Rashmi Ramesh

Rashmi Ramesh

Assistant Editor, Global News Desk, ISMG

Ramesh has seven years of experience writing and editing stories on finance, enterprise and consumer technology, and diversity and inclusion. She has previously worked at formerly News Corp-owned TechCircle, business daily The Economic Times and The New Indian Express.




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