Vehere’s Director of Systems Engineering, Vipul Kumra, featured in the people’s section of tele.net magazine and spoke about the company’s Situational Intelligence platform and the transformation that the telecom industry has undergone.
Vipul Kumra has over two decades of experience in the comput- er and network security industry. He has been associated with several global security companies as a pre-sales leader, creating and building teams with a specialisation in cybersecurity. Curr- ently, he serves as director, systems engineering, global opera- tions, Vehere, and is passionate about the company’s mission to develop cyber-situational awareness in order to enable and em- power enterprises, telecom companies and national security organisations to protect themselves.
In his current role, he spearheads the adoption of Vehere’s Si- tuational Intelligence Platform. It is a unified platform that har- nesses the power of advanced big data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence to intercept, interactively visualise and analyse data from diverse and disparate sensors. This platform serves as a foundation for telcos’ compliance requirements.
According to Kumra, “The telecom industry has undergone a major transformation and has shifted to a whole new paradigm. This requires leveraging the power of deep packet inspection and working transparently without disrupting services across a wide range of technologies and network types to deliver throughput beyond terabits per second.”
In the past, Kumra has worked at Forescout as a systems engi- neering leader for the Indian market. He has also been associated with FireEye as its systems engineering leader for the Asia-Pacific and Japan region. One of his most memorable assignments was working on the Unique Identification Authority of India’s Aadh- aar security framework.
As for his management style, he believes in leading from the front, “with sleeves rolled up”. His strong technical skills and di- verse background in IT security software have helped him in executing pre-sales activities and establishing successful rela- tionships with sales, customers and product teams. “I have cre- ated high performance teams and am proud to have nurtured young leaders who are flourishing in their respective roles and the industry,” he says.
Kumra has completed a general management programme fr- om the National University of Singapore. He grew up in Delhi.
His wife, Neha, is a schooltea- cher. They have two daughters, Vanya and Vrinda, who are in school. A technology enthusiast, Kumra likes to spend his free time learning about new tech- nologies. He has also contribu- ted technical papers to various national and international stan- dards organisations. “Teaching my daughters computer progra- mming has become my favourite pastime of late,” he says.
