Ishan Girdhar

I have over 11 years of experience working in Information Security.

I have been helping businesses balance security and business risk/reward decisions while complying with external regulatory and legislative requirements.

I am currently working with Assembly Payments as Head of Information Security. I am responsible for establishing, maintaining, and overseeing the vision, strategy, architecture, policies, and programs to protect information assets while understanding regulatory compliance challenges.

I have been serendipitous to have broad experience in diverse industries such as Ride-Hailing/ FinTech/Telecom / Online Payments, from complete startup to late-stage with exit to publicly listed companies. My experience in cybersecurity envelops a comprehensive understanding of application security, data, network, malware, risk, compliance, and more.

Before Joining Assembly Payments, I was fortunate to get an opportunity to build an Information Security Program and Team from Scratch at Funding Societies as Head of Information Security. I can not express my gratitude enough to Kelvin Teo, Founder of Funding Societies, for entrusting me and empowering me.

I also have practical expertise in developing, refining, and automating the Information Security Management System (ISMS), including all ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, and MAS TRM controls using existing tooling and platforms like Atlassian JIRA, Confluence, and Asana, etc. I am passionate about strategizing, architecting, and aligning effective infrastructure technologies to enable core business objectives. What motivates me is to build value for my stakeholders.

I find this essential to build and nurture relationships outside the organization as much as within. Therefore, I actively partner with service providers and vendors to design custom and business-specific solutions based on the business's risk appetite and budgetary constraints.

I have hands-on expertise with both AWS as a partner and a user. As an engineer, architect, and practitioner, I have several industry certifications, including CISM, OSCP, AWS Developer Associate, AWS DevOps Associate, AWS Solutions Architect Associate, AWS Security Speciality, CEH, MCSE, CCNA, & RHCT, and many others.

I have co-authored the "Kali Linux Intrusion and Exploitation Cookbook" available on Amazon.