Venkat Subramanian is Director and Head of Engineering for Cisco AI Defense, a product dedicated to securing the use of AI. Cisco AI Defense focuses on securing AI Runtime environments, AI Supply Chains, AI Model and Agent Validation, and Discovery and Protection of AI Assets across cloud environments. With deep experience in software engineering, cybersecurity, cloud platforms, and AI, Venkat has built his career around building products and scaling high-performing engineering organizations in the cybersecurity industry. Prior to Cisco, he held senior engineering leadership roles at cybersecurity companies including Balbix and Lookout, and a decade plus long experience in the telecom industry where he led teams across security, cloud infrastructure, AI, Identity, and large scale distributed systems. Venkat holds a Master's in Computer science from the University of Houston and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley.