Identity at the Center

00:44:27

#432 - IdentiBeer Rome and 3 Courses of IAM with...

Identity at the Center ·

2026/07/06

Jim McDonald takes the Identity at the Center podcast on the road to Rome, Italy, for a special two-part episode. The first segment is an IdentiBeer roundup where Jim gathers quick-fire takes from practitioners in the Italian IAM community, including Andrea Rossi and Alessandro Piscopo of IAMONES and Marco Venuti of Thales on the biggest trends shaping identity today. The second segment is a three-course meal where Jim sits down with Alessandro Piscopo, Head of AI and Co-founder at IAMONES, to

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01:01:03

#431 - Tectonic Shifts in Identity Security with...

Identity at the Center ·

2026/06/29

Recorded live at EIC 2026 in Berlin, Jeff and Jim sit down with Martin Kuppinger, founder and distinguished analyst at KuppingerCole. They dig into the tectonic shifts AI is bringing to identity and security, the AI security fabric framework, why decentralized identity thinking may be essential for governing the agentic mesh, the ongoing debate over NHI terminology, what organizations can do tactically today, and what concerns Martin most about where the industry is heading by 2030.Connect with

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00:59:57

#430 - AI for IAM and IAM for AI with Martin Sandren

Identity at the Center ·

2026/06/22

Recorded live at EIC 2026 in Berlin, Jeff and Jim sit down with Martin Sandren, IAM Product Lead at IKEA, for a wide-ranging conversation covering nearly every corner of modern identity security. Martin shares what has changed since his first IDAC appearance on episode 293, including the rise of AI, growing interest in digital sovereignty, and the maturing shared signals framework. The conversation moves through risk-based defense in depth, tiered MFA rollout strategies, session management, and the

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01:07:26

#429 - Sponsor Spotlight - SailPoint

Identity at the Center ·

2026/06/17

This episode is presented courtesy of SailPoint. Rob Sebaugh, Senior Identity Strategist at SailPoint, joins Jeff and Jim for a wide-ranging conversation on the past, present, and future of identity governance. Rob brings more than two decades of practitioner experience to the table, including 16 years running large-scale identity programs before making the move to the vendor side. The conversation covers what identity governance means today, why it must move to the forefront rather than be treated

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00:42:11

#428 - Modernizing IGA with Thomas Zarnhofer

Identity at the Center ·

2026/06/15

Recorded live at EIC 2026 in Berlin, Jeff and Jim sit down with Thomas Zarnhofer, IAM Architect at a major retail company in central Europe. Thomas shares his experience leading a full IGA transformation from a decade-old on-premise system to a modern cloud-based platform. The conversation covers the shift from a contract-based to a person-based identity model, the importance of cleaning data before migration begins, a three-phase framework of Foundation, Migration, and Adoption, lessons learned

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01:13:49

#427 - Identiverse 2026 Preview with Heather Flanagan...

Identity at the Center ·

2026/06/08

Jeff and Jim are joined by Heather Flanagan, Content Chair, and Andi Hindle, Conference Chair, for a full preview of Identiverse 2026 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. They cover the 2026 theme of trust and change, why AI was removed as a standalone track and redistributed across all content areas, the provocative argument that non-human access now dramatically outpaces human access and is reshaping identity system design, whether authentication is truly solved, authorization as the harder unsolved

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01:02:08

#426 - Sponsor Spotlight - Crowdstrike

Identity at the Center ·

2026/06/03

This episode and the Identity at the Center podcast is supported by CrowdStrike. Learn more at crowdstrike.com.Jeff Steadman and Jim McDonald sit down with Scott Kriz, GM of Continuous Identity at CrowdStrike, for a deep dive into continuous identity, zero standing access, and the convergence of identity and security. Scott traces his path from co-founding Bitium, to selling it to Google Cloud, to building SGNL and ultimately joining CrowdStrike. The conversation covers how continuous identity works

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00:46:41

#425 - EIC 2026 Recap & IdentiBeer Berlin

Identity at the Center ·

2026/06/01

Jeff and Jim recap their week at KuppingerCole's EIC 2026 in Berlin, covering standout keynotes, hallway conversations, and sessions on securing AI agents, CIAM, and AI versus nuclear regulation. They announce a giveaway of Eve Maler's signed copy of Mastering Digital Identity for YouTube commenters by June 12th. The episode also features live footage and a full interview with Espen Bago, founder of IdentiBeer, recorded at the Berlin event. Jeff, Jim, and Espen discuss the rapid global

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01:11:09

#424 - IDAC Mailbag for May 2026

Identity at the Center ·

2026/05/25

Jeff and Jim are back with the May 2026 mailbag, answering listener questions from Amsterdam, Mumbai, Austin, and Berlin. Topics include navigating IAM vendor acquisitions, defending against AI deepfakes in remote onboarding, governing contractor and third-party identities, fixing the leaver process in IGA, and tackling a decade of IAM technical debt. The episode closes with unpopular industry opinions: why RFPs are procurement theater, why rip and replace should be normalized, and why

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01:01:57

#423 - The Middle Market Identity Security Gap with...

Identity at the Center ·

2026/05/18

Jeff and Jim welcome back Robert Snodgrass, Principal at RSM, for a deep dive into the RSM Middle Market Business Index cybersecurity report. The conversation covers the confidence gap facing middle market organizations, why digital identity remains undervalued despite being the primary attack surface, non-human identity governance, flat cybersecurity budgets, risk framework adoption, and what good incident response preparedness actually looks like. The episode wraps with a spirited Bitcoin Pizza

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01:18:17

#422 - Decoded - Securing AI Agents with Standards...

Identity at the Center ·

2026/05/15

Episode 422 is the debut of Decoded by Identity at the Center, a new sub-series hosted by Jeff Steadman and Sean O'Dell dedicated to unpacking the specifications and standards powering IAM. Joining them is Pieter Kasselman, VP of Open Standards at Defakto and chair of the WIMSE working group. The conversation covers why traditional non-human identity approaches break at agentic scale, how SPIFFE and SPIRE enable short-lived automated credential provisioning without long-lived secrets, and why

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01:10:09

#421 - The AI Identity Control Plane with Henrique...

Identity at the Center ·

2026/05/11

Jeff and Jim welcome back Henrique Teixeira, SVP of Strategy at Saviynt, for his fourth appearance on the podcast. The episode opens with Jim's firsthand experience building an AI agent for a work project and discovering in real time how identity management challenges surface in the agentic era. After conference updates on EIC in Berlin and Identiverse in Las Vegas, Henrique unpacks the crowded terminology around AI agent governance, from Gartner's agent management platforms to UADP, the

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01:13:23

#420 - Sponsor Spotlight - GitGuardian

Identity at the Center ·

2026/05/06

This episode is made possible by GitGuardian. Jeff speaks with Dwayne McDaniel, Principal Developer Advocate at GitGuardian, about secrets sprawl, non-human identity governance, and the findings of the State of Secret Sprawl 2026 report. With 28.6 million secrets leaked to public GitHub in 2025 - a 34% year-over-year increase - they explore why hardcoded credentials persist, how agentic AI tools are making the problem worse, and what IAM practitioners can do to start addressing machine identity

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00:29:37

#419 - Identity Management Day 2026 - IDAC Live

Identity at the Center ·

2026/05/04

Recorded live as part of the Identity Management Day 2026 streaming program, Jeff and Jim mark their fifth IMD episode. Introduced by Jeff Reich from the Identity Defined Security Alliance, they reflect on how the IAM industry has evolved since their first IMD episode in 2021 and grade overall progress a C. Topics include what has genuinely improved (passkeys, MFA adoption, broader awareness), what hasn't (compliance fatigue, security theater, persistent credential theft), the exploding

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01:08:59

#418 - Ethical IAM with Elizabeth Garber

Identity at the Center ·

2026/04/27

What does it mean to build an identity system that is ethical? Jim McDonald and Jeff Steadman are joined by Elizabeth Garber, Executive Director of IDPro and marketing lead for the OpenID Foundation, for a conversation spanning ethics in digital identity, the tension between privacy and safety, biometric exclusion risks, and how practitioners can use structured frameworks to navigate these discussions productively. Elizabeth shares her three-part career journey, the latest from the IDPro community,

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00:48:35

#417 - Sponsor Spotlight - Elimity

Identity at the Center ·

2026/04/22

This bonus episode of Identity at the Center is brought to you with support from Elimity. Jeff and Jim sit down with Maarten Decat, co-founder and CEO of Elimity, to explore the emerging product category known as IVIP, Identity Visibility and Intelligence Platforms. Maarten explains how Elimity was built around a question every IAM practitioner eventually faces: who can actually do what within our organization? The conversation covers why IVIP is distinct from traditional IGA, how identity data

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01:00:56

#416 - European Identity and Cloud Conference 2026...

Identity at the Center ·

2026/04/20

Jeff and Jim are joined by Warwick Ashford, senior analyst at KuppingerCole and returning MC of the European Identity and Cloud Conference, for a full preview of EIC 2026. The conference runs May 19-22 at the Berlin Congress Center and is expecting around 1,500 attendees with roughly 250 speakers across 200 sessions. Warwick walks through the 2026 tagline, Digital Trust Through Intelligent Identity, and unpacks the five parallel content streams covering identity governance, real-world IAM use cases,

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01:01:41

#415 - Identity Management Day 2026 with Jeff Reich

Identity at the Center ·

2026/04/13

Jeff and Jim welcome back five-time guest Jeff Reich, Executive Director of the Identity Defined Security Alliance, just ahead of Identity Management Day 2026 on April 14th. Jeff walks through the structure of the 21-hour global event, this year's theme of Finding Identity: The Search for You, Me, and the Machines, and highlights from each regional program including a remarkable 11th grader presenting on cybersecurity and neuroscience. The conversation expands into AI guardrails, the growing

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00:40:04

#414 - Sponsor Spotlight - Evolveum

Identity at the Center ·

2026/04/08

This sponsored episode is made possible by Evolveum, the company behind midPoint, an open source IGA platform made and owned in the EU that is in use worldwide. Jeff Steadman and Jim McDonald welcome Pavol Mederly, interim CPO at Evolveum. Pavol shares how IAM found him in 1991 while building an identity solution at a university before the term even existed. The conversation covers two core reasons IGA projects fail: data quality and slow application onboarding. Pavol explains how midPoint addresses

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00:52:36

#413 - Standards, AI Agents, and the Digital Estate...

Identity at the Center ·

2026/04/06

Jeff and Jim welcome back Heather Flanagan for her fifth appearance on the show. Heather shares updates across a wide range of current work including her new role as content chair for the Identiverse conference, an appointment to the W3C Technical Architecture Group, ongoing support for NIST and NCCOE, advising the SIROS Foundation open source wallet project, and the continued growth of the Identity Salon. The conversation explores who is actually building identity standards for AI agents and

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