Aparna Achanta: Strengthening security posture of US federal agencies

As a Principal Security Architect, Aparna works as a consultant who oversaw mission-critical projects for US Federal Agencies, including the US Department of Transportation (USDOT), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Aparna specializes in securing and defending important federal applications and sensitive data for organizations such as the VA and FDA. During her tenure, she successfully implemented the Zero Trust framework in federal agencies, which included establishing secure development practices, evaluating vendors, scanning and mitigating vulnerabilities, establishing observability, performing performance monitoring, and making sure that SaaS applications have strong security frameworks and controls in place. Aparna worked closely with development teams to prepare all the security documentation required for critical healthcare applications to go live at FDA and VA and worked with ISO and ISSO in federal agencies to monitor Authority to Operate (ATO) statuses for critical healthcare applications to go live. Aparna is also an important part of IBM’s GenAI CoE, which establishes rules for Microsoft CoPilot and WatsonX governance.
With 10+ years of experience, Aparna has designed digital transformation projects for large federal clients that have greatly increased output and expedited procedures. Aparna is a motivated person who is committed to making an impact in the cybersecurity industry. She is an active mentor, author, peer-reviewer and speaker.