Cover story

Zaid Parak, Group CISO, Discovery

It’s a Monday morning at Discovery headquarters in Sandton, and staff members are queuing for coffee in the airport-scale atrium. Zaid Parak, Group CISO, strides into the reception area promptly at 8am smartly dressed in a blazer, which he says is only because he’s meeting with prudential authorities later that morning.

Parak was awarded joint Enterprise CISO of the Year at ITWeb Brainstorm’s CISO Awards earlier this year, along with Manoj Puri, Absa Group CISO. The judges, of which I was one, were impressed by their deep knowledge gained through decades-long careers in large enterprises. Both men were self-effacing and credited their teams, but the final responsibility falls to them, with thousands of staff members and endpoints, and deep datasets to protect.