Decades spent in identity security equips analysts with a unique trait: How to spot someone who really knows their stuff. So when Martin Kuppinger, founder of KuppingerCole, sat down with Praerit Garg, CEO of One Identity, the conversation wasn’t about products or roadmaps. It was about experience and why it matters more than ever in an industry that seems to change by the day.
Building the foundations of identity security
Praerit Garg didn’t arrive in identity security by following trends. He helped create the foundations the industry still relies on.
Beginning his career at Microsoft in 1995, Praerit worked on what would become Active Directory as we know it – designing core elements such as Kerberos authentication, PKI infrastructure and access control models. These weren’t just features. They were architectural decisions that continue to underpin identity and access management (IAM) environments across the world today.
As Martin noted, some of the interfaces and security models designed during that era are still in use – sometimes in environments organizations struggle to modernize, including operational technology (OT). That longevity isn’t accidental. It reflects how deeply identity becomes embedded once it’s deployed.
A career that comes full circle
What makes Praerit’s perspective particularly rare is not just where he started, but where he’s been since.
From Microsoft, his career expanded into hyperscale cloud environments, including leadership roles at AWS, where identity and security operate at massive scale. That experience exposed the limits of perimeter-based security and reinforced the critical role of identity within that context.
As Praerit explains, cloud adoption and SaaS have effectively dissolved the traditional network perimeter. Firewalls alone can no longer protect organizations. Attackers now target identities directly – through phishing, credential theft and privileged account compromise.
Analysts trust experience over hype
The identity market has grown dramatically – more vendors, more tools, more complexity. For customers, navigating that landscape requires independent expertise and grounded guidance.
A gap emerged in the market when specialist analyst firms disappeared into larger research organizations, That’s what makes KuppingerCole’s focused approach matter so much to the identity security community. Analysts who truly understand identity don’t just evaluate features. They assess architecture, maturity and long-term viability.
For One Identity, working closely with analysts like KuppingerCole reflects a commitment to transparency and strategy over short-term noise. That focus and dedication to the core needs of the market is why One Identity continues to be recognized in analyst research across identity governance and administration (IGA), privileged access management (PAM), access management (AM) and identity security as a whole.
A leader grounded in industry reality
One of the most telling moments in the discussion came from Praerit describing a recent conversation with a large enterprise customer – an organization with hundreds of Active Directory instances, thousands of systems and countless privileged accounts.
These are not theoretical challenges. They are operational realities.
And they reinforce a core truth both leaders agree on: Identity security success doesn’t come from ripping and replacing everything. It comes from evolving: Building strong foundations in IGA, PAM and AM while accounting for the legacy systems that will inevitably remain.
Thought leadership as a result of decades of experience
Praerit’s career spans the origin of enterprise identity, the rise of cloud-scale security and the modern reality where identity defines an organization’s attack surface. That depth of experience is exactly what analysts look for in leadership, and what customers rely on when the stakes are high.
In an industry that often chases what’s next, One Identity leadership is grounded in what lasts. And that’s why analysts believe in the direction and the people guiding it.
