Securing the AI‑Native Enterprise with Zero Trust -Industry Keynote
Organizations can’t fully capitalize on the potential of AI—including agentic automation, intent-based operations, and accelerated innovation—if their security is reliant on legacy architectures. In this keynote, Dhawal Sharma, EVP of AI Security at Zscaler, will present a concrete blueprint for both enabling and securing AI applications and infrastructure through a Zero Trust framework. This approach focuses on continuously discovering and managing your AI footprint, ensuring the safe and compliant use of AI applications, and robustly securing the underlying AI infrastructure.
Dhawal Sharma is responsible for driving Zscaler’s overall AI security strategy, including product management, AI partnership ecosystem, and go-to-market for the AI security businesses. He is also responsible for strategic product initiatives around inorganic growth and corporate development opportunities for Zscaler’s business, including M&A and venture investments in emerging businesses.
Dhawal has been at Zscaler since 2012 and has been instrumental in building Zscaler’s flagship products, including Zscaler Internet Access (ZIA) and Zscaler Private Access (ZPA). In recent years, he has been leading Zscaler’s product strategy for the Zero Trust Exchange platform and introduced many new innovations such as Zscaler Digital Experience, Zero Trust Branch, and Zero Trust Cloud, among others. Dhawal has also led early go-to-market initiatives for various new product lines at Zscaler as a General Manager, growing them into successful businesses and making them an integral part of the Zscaler growth engine.
Prior to joining Zscaler, Dhawal brings diverse experience in the AI, Security, Networking, and Enterprise Architecture space. He has worked in product management roles at Actiance and HCL-Cisco and was also part of a startup team in India that introduced cloud-based managed UTM services for enterprises. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree specializing in Computer Science and an MBA degree, and multiple patents in the security space.”
