KBKAST

Executives are spending longer than ever between roles, and Josh Hill and Luca Marzorati explain why. They look at why middle management has been hit hardest, and why the experience that got you to the top won’t necessarily get you the next job. They also get into why leading with “ex-CIO” doesn’t land.

The conversation covers whether taking a lesser role is worth it, why most executive roles never get advertised, and how to become the person who’s already lined up when one opens. They also unpack why Australian boards keep making safe carbon copy hires while search processes drag on for months.

To finish, they turn to AI. Anyone can now produce a polished CV and rehearse their way through a first interview, and fake candidates are on the rise. As a result, hiring is shifting away from credentials and toward trust and validation.

About The Guests:
Josh Hill and Luca Marzorati are Co-Founders and Partners at North Star Partners, a specialist executive search firm focused on Cyber Security, Data & AI, GTM and leadership across APAC and the US. They partner with Boards, CEOs, CISOs, CIOs, founders and technology leaders on critical hires in complex, regulated and high-growth environments.

Josh brings 15 years of experience in technology-focused recruitment, with a particular focus on AI, board and technology leadership. He is an advisor to a number of startups in Australia and the US. Originally from Italy and now based in Sydney, Luca brings 10 years of experience, with his work centred on cyber and technology leadership. He is passionate about the changing role of the CISO, the impact of AI on hiring and decision-making, and increasing cyber representation at board level.

They also co-founded The Cyber Neighbourhood and The Lounge, communities designed to bring senior leaders together, break silos and create more open conversations across cyber, technology and business.

 

Keywords: executive job market, executive search, executive recruitment, CISO careers, CIO careers, C-suite hiring, networking, personal brand, hidden job market, middle management, redundancy, career transition, board hiring, fake candidates, deepfake interviews, AI in recruitment, North Star Partners, Josh Hill, Luca Marzorati, KBKast

Recorded for VeeamON Sydney 2026, the one-day Sydney stop of Veeam’s global tour, held at Ilumina on 30 July. With the day split into resilience and security tracks, this ‘From The Field’ episode brings together two Veeam leaders on what it takes to deploy AI safely.

Chief Revenue Officer, John Jester, explains why resilience is now a board conversation, and how AI drift and over-permissioned agents end up corrupting data. He also covers how precision recovery lets companies undo an agent’s mistakes without rolling back their whole data estate.

President of Products and Technology, Rehan Jalil, looks at why companies need to understand their data before AI touches it, and how to manage the flood of disposable AI-generated data. He also explains why resilience becomes the last line of defence as frontier models and agent swarms make attacks faster.

Key topics: agentic AI, AI governance, AI drift, precision recovery, over-permissioned agents, the data and AI trust layer, data hygiene, obsolete data, identity and access controls, data retention, cyber resilience, frontier model threats.

KB sits down with Andre Durand, founder and CEO of Ping Identity, to talk about who gave an AI agent its authority, and who answers for it when something goes wrong.

They start with liability and why it has to trace back to a person, since agents face no consequences. From there they get into why logging in was good enough for people but isn't for agents, and why Andre thinks authorization, checked on every action, becomes the new gate.

KB pushes on human in the loop, rubber-stamp approvals and the self-driving car comparison, then they move to models that collude to get around permissions, agents that can approve their own privilege escalation, and why a one-time passcode no longer proves a human is at the keyboard.

They finish on what the next six months look like as companies try to work out which agents are already inside.

 

About Andre: Andre Durand founded Ping Identity in 2002 with a mission to secure the internet through identity. Today, Ping Identity is a leader in securing digital identities for the world’s largest enterprises  The company’s technology lets enterprises combine Ping’s identity solutions with third-party services they already use to remove passwords, prevent fraud, support Zero Trust, or anything in between.

In addition, Andre previously founded the identity industry conference, Identiverse, to accelerate the adoption of identity and serve as a community resource for professionals serving the identity industry. Prior to Ping Identity, Andre founded Jabber to commercialise the Jabber open source instant messaging platform which was acquired by Cisco in 2008. Andre serves on the board of Jamf and in his spare time focuses on causes related to children in the foster care system, building great culture and creating opportunities for entrepreneurs. He holds a BA in Biology and Economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Keywords: AI agents, agentic AI, identity security, identity and access management, IAM, zero trust, authorization, fine-grained authorization, authentication, accountability, liability, human in the loop, human oversight, MFA fatigue, least privilege, standing privilege, privilege escalation, segregation of duties, AI collusion, model drift, AI bias, agent registry, agent discovery, observability, biometrics, OTP, computer-using agents, Air Canada, Ping Identity, CISO, board, KBKast

Recorded at NetApp INSIGHT 2026, NetApp’s annual customer conference at MGM Grand in Las Vegas from 29 September to 1 October, this From The Field episode brings together three of the company’s senior leaders.

This year’s INSIGHT centred on AI, cyber resilience and intelligent data infrastructure, with launches including the NetApp platform with its AI Data Engine (AIDE) and NetApp Novus.

CEO George Kurian explains NetApp’s shift from storage provider to data platform, why curated context matters more than models, and the thinking behind Novus. President César Cernuda tackles why AI pilots stall before production, arguing for trusted, accessible data and zero-copy access to it wherever it lives. Chief Partner and Ecosystem Officer Álvaro Celis explores whether ecosystems simplify modernisation or just add vendors, and why execution at scale decides the answer. Together, they offer a view from the top of what it takes to turn AI ambition into results.

Karim Toubba has spent 29 years in cyber, and he says shadow AI is the biggest risk he’s seen in that time.

Boards want AI everywhere, and security teams that used to say no are being overruled. Karim explains why the privileged access model falls over when one person could have 100 or more agents working for them, and why governance has to start with knowing what AI is actually in use.

He and KB also get into companies cutting tools and teams before the token economics are clear, and why Karim’s advice is to move fast, but not through a one-way door.

About Karim:
Karim Toubba is the Chief Executive Officer of LastPass, having joined the company in 2022. A cybersecurity industry veteran with over 25 years of experience within the sector, Karim brings proven leadership and innovation to the security market with a focus on creating products that solve real-world challenges yet form the foundation for lasting change.

Keywords: shadow AI, AI governance, agentic AI, AI agents, identity security, non-human identity, privileged access management, PAM, agent identity, AI visibility, AI adoption, governance theatre, data governance, token economics, AI costs, frontier models, multi-model, vibe coding, SaaS, vendor pressure, process re-engineering, LastPass, Karim Toubba, CISO, board, KBKast