Zero Trust Playbook

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Mark Simos is a leading voice in modern cybersecurity architecture and strategy, shaping how organizations around the world design and operate security to build organizational resilience to continuous threats

As Lead Cybersecurity Architect at Microsoft and Security Forum Chair at The Open Group, he helps define the principles, reference architectures, and prescriptive guidance that organizations rely on to secure complex digital environments at scale using a Zero Trust approach. Mark’s perspective is grounded in both Microsoft’s experience operating hyperscale cloud platforms and firsthand lessons from customers navigating digital transformation under real-world constraints.

Mark is co-host of the Azure Security Podcast and actively contributes to open standards and publications including the  Zero Trust Reference Model, Zero Trust Commandments, Security Principles for Architecture, NIST Guide for Cybersecurity Event Recovery (SP 800‑184), NIST Guide to Enterprise Patch Management (SP 800‑40), the Microsoft Digital Defense Report, and Microsoft Security blogs.

Mark is also a sought-after speaker with a reputation for inspiring and challenging audiences – he translates complex security topics into practical, personal, and actionable advice that helps organizations and individuals manage the overwhelming changes from threat actors, technology providers, and evolving business risks and priorities.

Mark has presented at numerous conferences worldwide including Black Hat USA, RSA Conference, Gartner Security & Risk Management, BSides, Microsoft BlueHat, Microsoft Ignite, and Financial Executives International.

Mark’s goal is to help security leaders and practitioners be effective at making our world safer – helping people build, operate, and secure resilient systems so that they remain trustworthy and productive in the face of endless threats.

The Zero Trust Playbook series helps bring Mark’s learnings to life with role-by-role guidance for adopting modern security practices and operating them every day.

Nikhil Kumar is an Author, Computer Scientist, Telecomm Engineer and Software Expert. He is Founder of ApTSi (Applied Technology Solutions Inc.), a products and solutions company focusing on Zero Trust, Enterprise and Solutions Architecture, AI, Information Architecture, Business Consulting, FinTech and Precision Medicine.

Nikhil is an accomplished author having written several books, standards, articles and papers in the fields of Computer Science, Service Oriented Architecture, Information Security, Governance, and Precision Medicine. Some of Nikhil’s publications include the SOA Reference Architecture Standard, the Zero Trust Core Principles, the Zero Trust Reference Model Snapshot, the Zero Trust Commandments, and the Zero Trust Playbook Series from PackT.

A frequent speaker, Nikhil often speaks at industry and academic conferences, webinars, podcasts and other forums. Working from the C-Suite to being a hands-on practitioner, Nikhil is a renowned architect, having held leadership roles such as Chief Architect and CTO from Fortune 1 companies to startups, and is known as a technologist and leader who can work from the board to the engineer. 

He has led many global initiatives in the banking, healthcare and other sectors, including large security and compliance initiatives. Nikhil has been an MIT Mentor, taught computer science at various institutions, and has taught the world’s first experiential Zero Trust Class to undergraduate and graduate students at Eastern Michigan University. Some of Nikhil’s other accomplishments include being a former Board Member of Henry Ford Health Systems and Chairing the SOA standards from the Open Group, leading the Zero Trust Working Group for the Open Group, and Co-Chair for the Boston Chapter of the Global Association of Enterprise Architects.

Previously, Nikhil held technical and leadership roles at Quicken Loans, Volkswagen/ Gedas, ADSC and Price Waterhouse. Apart from delivering the world’s first true Zero Trust Platform (ApTSiSecureTM), leading cybersecurity and other areas at a large Federal Healthcare client, Nikhil is actively working on bringing his vast experience as a practitioner and author of standards on Zero Trust, on the authoring of the Zero Trust Playbook Series.