TAL Australia in program to source future IAM talent

Life insurer TAL Australia said its participation in a “cyber associates program” has given it immediate value, as well as a pipeline of future talent with identity and access management specialisation.

Head of cyber transformation and identity access management Samer Fouani told Okta’s Oktane conference late last year that program participation had “been a game-changer” for the company.

“We are taking very active measures around building identity expertise really early on in our [talent] pipeline,” Fouani told the conference.

“One of the things we have done around this is we’ve partnered with industry and government to be part of a program that’s referred to as the cyber associates program.

“What that looks to do is introduce first year university students into the workforce where they study and have hands-on experience for the three years of the time in which they would take to complete a degree.”

Fouani said participating in the program had provided TAL Australia with an opportunity to build a talent pipeline, particularly with identity and access management skills, which she added were “quite niche and quite tailored”.

“[The] young leaders can get hands-on with the tooling and processes, be embedded in a security team, as well as work with the business, which has been a game-changer for us,” she said.

“The value that those leaders have been able to bring into our business has been exceptional and watching them flourish and grow, I think, has been one of the biggest highlights.”

For existing cyber security personnel at the organisation, not necessarily just those in identity and access,  Fouani said that a combination of certifications and immersive education proved effective in helping people to “level-up”.

“We look for education experiences that immerse our people in the company to be able to build skills and experiences that also help ensure that they are cyber aware, cyber resilient, and cyber efficient in the day-to-day roles they perform,” she said.

“Whilst they’re not part of an IAM team directly, they have the skills that they need to be able to be the best corporate citizen they can be in their everyday life, and … that can then flow onto into the company as well.”

TAL is a long-time Okta user, with the technology underpinning customer self-service capabilities.

Fouani added that cyber security teams had a key role to play in the ongoing evolution of offerings generally.

“Especially with our business, I know we are looking to more digital capabilities, so how do we enable moving away from very manual processes into a more digitised enterprise?” she said.

“The role of security is around the enabling components of that, not only the solution and process, but fundamentally the thought leadership that we need to bring about future capabilities that we can then leverage quickly as well.”

Fouani saw security as becoming “a trusted partner in terms of enabling those strategies to come to life across the business”.