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Zachary Smith
Director Analyst
Gartner
Speaker Topics
- IAM Program Management
- Maximizing Business Value
- AI Challenges and Opportunities
- Leadership
- Agentic AI
- Business Enablement
Speaker Bio
Zachary Smith is a Director Analyst for Identity and Access Management (IAM), creating insights and actionable guidance for CISOs, CIOs, and IAM leaders on their most important IAM challenges. Specific areas of expertise include IAM for AI Agents and IAM Program, Leadership, Governance, Communication & Metrics.
Zachary lives in Fort Washington, MD USA with his wife and their three cats who can usually be found sleeping on his desk.
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Zachary lives in Fort Washington, MD USA with his wife and their three cats who can usually be found sleeping on his desk.
Sessions
Monday, December 07, 2026 09:30 AM - 10:15 AM PST
Gartner Opening Keynote: Identity Unleashed
Zachary Smith,
Director Analyst, Gartner
Nayara Sangiorgio,
Principal Analyst, Gartner
Identity and Access Management is entering a new era of challenge and possibility. The lines between physical and digital life are blurring. The nature of access is changing. AI agents are increasingly the focus of business initiatives and cybersecurity defenses. The common thread tying these chaotic changes together? Identity.
Identity has become the competitive edge organizations need to stay ahead in a volatile world. IAM is the foundational control plane for cybersecurity and the key driver of business value and trust.
Join this keynote to reimagine the future of IAM, of what identity can do if we realize its full potential. This is your cue to unleash identity to secure your organization, fuel its ambitions and launch the future. ... Show More Show Less
Identity has become the competitive edge organizations need to stay ahead in a volatile world. IAM is the foundational control plane for cybersecurity and the key driver of business value and trust.
Join this keynote to reimagine the future of IAM, of what identity can do if we realize its full potential. This is your cue to unleash identity to secure your organization, fuel its ambitions and launch the future. ... Show More Show Less
Monday, December 07, 2026 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM PST
Gartner's Hype Cycle for Digital Identity
Zachary Smith,
Director Analyst, Gartner
The digital identity landscape is being transformed by AI agents, identity visibility and identity threats. IAM leaders must use this Hype Cycle to foster innovation and investment to securely enable an adaptable digital business. AI agents and other workloads are spurring rapid innovations in the field of digital identity. Meanwhile, promising innovations for visibility, open standards and fine-grained authorization shape the broader digital identity landscape.
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Tuesday, December 08, 2026 12:00 PM - 12:30 PM PST
Prepare for the Rise of AI Agent Identity
Zachary Smith,
Director Analyst, Gartner
Before you can apply appropriate IAM policy and controls for agentic AI, you need a high-level strategy for how AI agents are identified, authenticated and authorized. This session will explore the emerging best practice of assigning unique identifiers to AI agents and treating AI agents as workloads.
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Tuesday, December 08, 2026 03:45 PM - 04:30 PM PST
Roundtable: Putting the MA in IAM: Navigating Mergers and Acquisition With Peer Insights
Zachary Smith,
Director Analyst, Gartner
Best practices for M&A are highly specific to the organizations that are involved. Or are they? Come join a roundtable discussion to share challenges, lessons learned and guidance specifically for navigating mergers, acquisitions and divestitures successfully.
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Wednesday, December 09, 2026 12:00 PM - 12:30 PM PST
It's Time for CISOs to Own IAM
Zachary Smith,
Director Analyst, Gartner
Identity-first security in the age of AI agents requires that CISOs own IAM. IAM is vital for securely enabling and scaling AI agent automation while guarding against profound risks agentic AI introduces for enterprise IT environments. CISOs need to enforce accountability, exert influence on controls and securely scale agentic AI. IAM teams need to align with cybersecurity and bring the culture of business enablement to cybersecurity teams that have the reputation of being the office of no.
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