Brian Barnes, CTO of Coretek was recently recognized as on the C-Level Focus list of 10 Best CTOs.
Brian is an expert in translating business challenges into technology solutions. He leads a brilliant and talented group of solution architects. Together, they work with customers, partners, and account teams to design accurate and flexible solutions built with cloud technologies. Before his time at Coretek, Brian held the role of Vice President of Enterprise Technology for a financial services firm in the banking industry. He also served as a Senior Architect in multiple consulting organizations. Brian is a much sought-after speaker, easily sharing client stories and emerging technology breakthroughs.
Interview Details
In his feature article with C-Level Focus, Brian says, “Data protection, zero-trust, and perimeter security keep C-Level IT leaders up at night. Data breaches, ransomware attacks, social engineering, and phishing continue to be attack vectors pursued by identity thieves and state-sponsored cybercriminals. Today, employees use devices to access company networks more than ever before through VPNs, app gateways, and virtual desktops. If not protected, that data can be accessed from devices within your business' four walls one day and then via public networks the next day by hackers waiting for unsuspecting and unprotected devices in the wild. This new way of work has produced new ways of thinking about security.”
Coretek's partnership with Microsoft has shaped their understanding of customers' challenges and how they build products to overcome those complexities. Cloud-based SIEM Solutions in Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Products enable increased security protection if owned at the proper levels. Coretek has built its Security Operations Center (SOC) on native Microsoft tools that customers may, in part, already own. Coretek's new managed service offerings enable customers to rely on the strength of Microsoft Modern Management and Secure Cloud-Based SIEM and SOAR solutions to overcome their security and business challenges quickly and cost-effectively.
Building a partner ecosystem and developing solution offerings is a key responsibility of any CTO. Architecting different solutions together while telling the story of how it addresses significant business challenges is what Brian does at Coretek. “Our partnerships stretch around a customer’s unique cloud journey. For adopting, building, and standardizing cloud-native applications, Coretek has partnered with HashiCorp,” he says. “Our Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) projects leverage Terraform which enables infrastructure automation for provisioning, compliance, and management of any cloud, data center, and service.” Coretek has also been a long-time partner of Imprivata. “One of the newest Imprivata solutions I am excited about is Imprivata’s Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution. This product offering allows Coretek to minimize the risk of data breaches associated with compromised privileged credentials and meet wide-ranging regulatory compliance requirements such as GDPR, HIPAA, HITRUST, and NIST, to name a few.”
Coretek’s Intellectual Property (IP) and product offerings allow their customers to engage on their own unique cloud journey. Coretek has developed a platform called Insights, which helps customers manage and track their cloud spending, automate cloud tasks, and govern Microsoft Modern Work and Azure environments. Brian states, “This differentiates us from competitors by providing true value with no attached costs.”
C-Level Focus Media Company
C-Level Focus is a global media, branding, and technology company focusing on news and information about business, investing, technology, entrepreneurship, leadership, and affluent lifestyles. C-Level Focus publishes its most significant discoveries and showcases the most outstanding business leaders. They publish primary research and reviews, critical comments, news, and analysis.