Singapore, August 28, 2025 — At Zenith Live 2025, Zscaler showcased more than new products and technical launches. The conference became a platform for dialogue on how enterprises must rethink trust, resilience, and innovation in the digital age. Three voices stood out: Stephen Singh, Phil Tee, and Dhawal Sharma offered different perspectives shaped by their areas of expertise, yet together, they formed a holistic view of the future of cybersecurity.
For finance and technology leaders, their insights provide a roadmap for balancing risk, opportunity, and trust in a world where every transaction, connection, and decision carries digital weight.
Stephen Singh: From Transactions to Transformation
For Stephen Singh, Global Vice President of M&A, Divestiture and Cyber Risk at Zscaler, the speed of change is forcing enterprises to rethink their risk strategies. He has seen how quickly organisations can miscalculate the risks of mergers or divestitures, leaving vulnerabilities in place that erode deal value.
“The rate of change far exceeds what most enterprises and cybersecurity organisations can really digest,” Stephen explained. To address this, Zscaler brings structure to chaos with frameworks, blueprints, and cyber-resilient architectures that help clients measure, manage, and mitigate risks in real time.
The company’s Risk360 platform takes this further. By quantifying cyber risk through telemetry, it shifts risk management from static checklists to live intelligence. Stephen noted how this impacts deal-making: “When an acquisition requires secure, cross-company access, we can deliver it in hours, not years.” That ability accelerates transactions and transforms them, allowing risk insights to shape deal structure, integration planning, and long-term continuity.
Stephen is also clear about Zero Trust’s role in M&A. “Most companies have no idea how much risk they’re accepting as part of a divestiture. They left the back door wide open.” For him, Zero Trust is more than technology. It is a mindset that helps organisations avoid inheriting invisible weaknesses.
The implications stretch into cyber insurance. As Stephen explained, the Marsh study Zscaler participated in revealed a direct financial outcome: “When Zero Trust is deployed, it reduces claims and losses by up to a third. On a global scale, this approach has the potential to reduce economic losses by nearly $465 billion annually.”
For CFOs and dealmakers, this is a critical shift. Cybersecurity is no longer a compliance function. It directly influences enterprise value, insurance premiums, and the resilience of growth strategies.
Phil Tee: Agentic AI and Human Accountability
Phil Tee, Executive Vice President and Head of AI Innovations at Zscaler, has built his career on making sense of data. From creating Netcool to founding Moogsoft and now leading AI at Zscaler, his journey reflects the evolution of operational intelligence into the age of AI.
“What’s radically changed over the last few years has been the arrival of generative AI in our space,” Phil said. The challenge, however, is that AI is a tool for both defenders and attackers. State actors and cybercriminals are already exploiting generative AI, making resilience an urgent priority.
Zscaler’s advantage is its position in the global data flow. “We are positioned at the centre of the network flow for nearly half of the Fortune 500 companies worldwide. Tens of millions of endpoints. We process 500 billion transactions daily, generating 500 trillion data points.” For Phil, this massive dataset is not just scale; it is fuel. “Generative AI loves data. It is the oil that powers the engine.”
Phil introduced the concept of agentic AI, which goes beyond static large language model responses. Instead of relying on single-shot prompts, agentic AI breaks complex problems into multi-step workflows, combining live telemetry with active actions. Imagine a scenario where you need to determine whether compromised users are gaining access to your critical applications. An agentic system would not only identify the risk, but it could also raise a ticket and update policies in real time.”
But Phil is careful to balance ambition with accountability. “There’s going to need to be a human hand on the yoke because people want human accountability.” He draws a comparison with aviation: planes can already fly themselves, yet passengers still expect pilots in the cockpit.
For enterprise leaders, his advice is direct: “Engage with AI, engage with Zero Trust, and engage with both enthusiastically. Having a learning mindset is the root of being transformational.” Zscaler’s approach is explored further through Zscaler AI, where security and AI converge to build anticipatory defences.
Dhawal Sharma: Zero Trust Everywhere
While Stephen speaks the language of risk and Phil the language of intelligence, Dhawal Sharma, Executive Vice President and Head of Product Strategy at Zscaler, focuses on architecture. For him, the old rules of networking no longer apply.
“The concept of network perimeter is slowly going away,” Dhawal said. With SaaS adoption, AI-driven services, and cloud workloads, the hub-and-spoke model is outdated. Zscaler’s Zero Trust Branch offers an alternative, enabling organisations to connect users, workloads, and locations directly to the cloud through its 160 global points of presence and counting. The result is faster access, stronger security, and reduced cost. The result is faster access, stronger security, and reduced cost.
He also addressed the complexity of Secure Access Service Edge (SASE). “Networking and security used to be separate. SASE brought them together, but the boundaries are still blurred. Our goal is to make sure no matter which stage the customer is at, they can scale without complexity.”
Dhawal places strong emphasis on predictive security. Zscaler’s in-line services continuously analyse posture, update adaptive policies, and even predict breaches before they occur. “We can show you lateral movement in your environment, even if compromise hasn’t happened,” he explained.
For him, cyber hygiene is about ongoing improvement rather than a static checklist. “There needs to be a continuous discovery of what you own, tying vulnerabilities to assets, and testing controls. Our goal is to help customers not just maintain but improve their hygiene.”
The future, Dhawal added, is Zero Trust everywhere. This approach applies not only to users but also to workloads, branches, and even AI agents operating within cloud environments.
One Message, Three Perspectives
Taken together, the voices of Stephen, Phil, and Dhawal reflect a consistent truth. Enterprises cannot afford to treat security as a silo. Risk intelligence influences deal value. AI generates both threats and defences. Network architecture defines agility and cost efficiency.
Zero Trust is the common foundation across these domains. It shapes M&A resilience, powers AI-driven responses, and secures workloads across distributed enterprises. For financial leaders, the issue is not an abstract discussion. It affects capital, operations, and long-term growth strategies.
Connect with the Leaders
Zenith Live 2025 was not just a showcase of technology but a reminder of the importance of leadership in shaping secure digital ecosystems. To continue learning from their insights, connect with the speakers on LinkedIn: Stephen Singh, Phil Tee, and Dhawal Sharma
