Zach Karimov CISSP l CISM l CISA l CRISC l AAISM l AAIA

Chief Technology Officer at Mind Matrix Identity

Washington, District of Columbia, United States

About Zach Karimov CISSP l CISM l CISA l CRISC l AAISM l AAIA

Zach Karimov CISSP l CISM l CISA l CRISC l AAISM l AAIA is Chief Technology Officer at Mind Matrix Identity. Location: Washington, District of Columbia, United States.

I’m a Co-Founder and CTO of Mind Matrix Identity, a boutique Identity & Access Management (IAM) consulting firm based in the U.S., where I focus on designing and operating IAM programs that are secure, scalable, and practical to run. I bring over 15 years of hands-on engineering experience across network infrastructure, security, and identity systems. My background spans complex routing and switching environments, WAN/SD-WAN architectures, firewall and security platform integrations, and deep troubleshooting of core network services such as DNS and DHCP. I’ve spent years working directly with security logs, incident response, and forensic analysis—understanding not just how systems are designed, but how they fail under real-world pressure. At Mind Matrix Identity, my work centers on IAM foundation design, SailPoint implementations and remediation, access governance, and Joiner–Mover–Leaver automation—often in regulated environments where audit readiness, compliance, and operational stability matter. I work closely with both technical teams and business stakeholders, bridging the gap between policy, platforms, and how people actually work. What I care about most is clarity. IAM should reduce risk without creating friction, confusion, or workarounds. My approach is to avoid overengineering, focus on strong fundamentals, and build identity programs that teams can understand, maintain, and trust. I stay deeply hands-on, continuously learning and adapting as identity, security, and infrastructure evolve—because the best IAM decisions are made by leaders who understand both the architecture and the human behavior behind it.

Skills

  • Palo Alto Networks Twistlock
  • ActiveMQ
  • Git
  • Ansible
  • Apache Web Servers
  • Jenkins
  • JIRA
  • Confluence
  • Windows Server
  • Linux
  • Active Directory
  • VMware
  • MS Entra ID (Azure AD)

Additional experience

  • IAM Architect

    Ford Motor Company

    Started July 2022

Education

  • BS Manufacturing & Production Management/Information Systems Management, The Manchester Metropolitan University