About Steve

Steve is obsessed with helping transform business by delivering disruptive insights, reducing risk and enabling safer online experiences through strategy and design thinking. For over 18 years he has worked in a variety of roles related to global identity and access management with a focus on programs, architecture, engineering, and operational excellence at some of the world’s largest companies in telecommunications, financial services, high tech, and Big 4 consulting. Steve is currently an independent advisor and host of the Nonconformist Innovation Podcast where he has produced three seasons and 30+ episodes on topics including ethics, privacy, data protection, digital identity, GDPR, CCPA, entrepreneurship, leadership, and inclusive innovation.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Tout was a Sr. Advisor at Optiv, the largest holistic pure-play cybersecurity solutions integrator in North America where he advised prestigious clients in the Pacific Northwest on solutions to reduce financial risk through use of technology and business process optimizations. Prior to that, he was the CEO of a seed funded Seattle start-up, VeriClouds, a cyber threat intelligence company focused on making credential breaches a thing of the past. While at VeriClouds, Mr. Tout led a start-up team (of former Microsoft security researchers and product mangers) pioneering the identity threat protection space. Notable project includes leading the ForgeRock integration to deliver the most comprehensive integrated threat intelligence solution for the ForgeRock Identity Platform.

Before making the leap to the start-up world, Mr. Tout was a Director of Cybersecurity & Privacy at PwC where he worked with PwC clients on identifying, assessing and treating risk, building security services, and incorporating long-term strategies that enable superior user experience and improved operational efficiency.

Prior to PwC, he was the global head of IAM at VMware (one of the four largest enterprise software companies) where he designed and managed global customer and partner facing IAM systems. Prior to joining VMware, Steve was a consultant at Oracle where he led deployments at strategic accounts in the manufacturing and high-tech sectors.

Mr. Tout has presented numerous times at Kuppinger Cole’s Consumer Identity World including on the topic of Building World Class Security Products with Privacy by Design (2018) and delivered a keynote on Risk Aware IAM (2017) in Bellevue, WA. In 2018, Mr. Tout moderated a panel of industry experts on the topic of Risk Informed IAM, Compromised Credentials and the Future of Authentication at Identiverse 2018 in Boston, MA.

As an advisory board member, Steve helps founders and executives with business development, nonconformist innovation, and strategic marketing. Startups he has helped include VeriClouds, TrustLogix, and Palerra, the leading cloud access security broker and pioneer of the API-based CASB. (Palerra was acquired by Oracle in October 2016)

Mr. Tout is a 2023 MBA candidate at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business.