Smitesh Valanju has started as Global CISO at Tata Communications.
In this role, he will lead the company’s global cybersecurity strategy, strengthen enterprise resilience, protect critical digital infrastructure, and advance trust-led security frameworks across global operations.
Prior to this, he served as Group Chief Information Security Officer at Tata Digital, where he led cybersecurity programs across the group’s digital businesses.
Earlier, he was CISO at Croma and Tata CLiQ, overseeing cyber risk, governance, and secure customer-facing digital platforms.
He also held the role of Vice President – Technology Information Security Officer at Virtusa, driving enterprise security transformation and governance initiatives.
Before that, he served as Head of Cyber Security at Vodafone and Vice President – Security and Infrastructure Shared Services at Essar Group.
Earlier in his career, he was Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Paraphora LLC, worked as Senior Consultant – Technology and Security Risk across telecom and healthcare sectors, and held IT leadership roles at CDSL – Central Depository Services India Ltd and APPLIED TECHNOLOGIES INT.
With nearly three decades of experience across cybersecurity, infrastructure, risk management, telecom, digital commerce, and enterprise technology, he brings deep expertise in building secure, scalable, and resilient global organizations.