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Sev Kelian
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Developer
Montreal, QC, Canada
Toptal member since May 29, 2021
Bio
Sev is a strategically focused technologist experienced in cyber and cloud technology management and 20 years of experience in the financial services industry. He's adept at building strong relationships to drive value while maintaining secure infrastructure, cloud, data, and app platforms. Sev also excels at defining and modernizing cloud and cyber strategies, architecture and delivering DevSecOps processes via the automatic acceleration of cloud adoption.
Portfolio
National Bank of Canada
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cybersecurity, Identity & Access Management (IAM)...
Kelian
Technology
Paysafe
Cloud, Cloud Infrastructure, IT Infrastructure, IT Strategy, Cloud Security
Experience
- Cybersecurity - 15 years
- PCI Compliance - 15 years
- Security Architecture - 15 years
- Digital Transformation - 5 years
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 5 years
- Cloud Infrastructure - 5 years
- Cloud Security - 5 years
- Azure - 3 years
Preferred Environment
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cybersecurity, Cisco, Azure, PCI Compliance, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Digital Transformation, Security Architecture, Enterprise Architecture, Cloud
The most amazing...
...thing was leading teams in the delivery of secure, regulatory-compliant cloud platforms while accelerating secure cloud adoption among all business units.
Work Experience
Senior Director of Cloud Security
2020 - PRESENT
National Bank of Canada
- Worked as a senior member of the CISO cybertechnology management team and defined and modernized BNC’s cloud cyber strategy and delivered DevSecOps processes through automation accelerating secure cloud adoption among all business units.
- Developed and managed cloud security governance frameworks, policies, and architectural blueprints.
- Built and managed a strong cross-functional security architecture and engineering team to accelerate cloud migration and adoption; empowered those teams by transferring our templates, methodologies, and cloud best practices with an actionable plan.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cybersecurity, Identity & Access Management (IAM), Data Protection, Architecture, Cloud, Digital Transformation, DevSecOps, Agile
Technology Consultant | Advisor
2003 - PRESENT
Kelian
- Served as a technology consultant and advisor for clients in Montreal, Canada.
- Evaluated, analyzed, designed, and implemented secure IT solutions.
- Established standards and procedures for the configuration, diagnosis, and support of critical customer IT infrastructure.
Technologies: Technology
Director of Cloud Platforms and Security Services
2017 - 2020
Paysafe
- Led the cloud migration program, including its development, design, and operationalization.
- Built a cloud adoption business case and obtained board approval to accelerate the full-scale migration strategy—reducing the annual IT budget by 20%.
- Migrated new and existing workloads securely and compliantly to the cloud which reduced the annual global IT budget by 20%.
- Built a highly secure cloud production platform meeting PCI and NIST best practice design standards.
- Designed a data-centric security platform to enable the discovery, classification, and protection of sensitive data.
- Led a team of data and security engineers to design, deploy, and migrate the enterprise data platform to the cloud—reducing costs, simplifying security management, and providing self-service access to business and data teams.
Technologies: Cloud, Cloud Infrastructure, IT Infrastructure, IT Strategy, Cloud Security
Director of Information Technology and Security
2015 - 2017
Paysafe Group
- Oversaw and delivered the technology and IT security infrastructure.
- Consolidated, modernized, and transformed Paysafe’s technology landscape in areas such as data centers and infrastructure, software delivery, data, and cybersecurity.
- Created a global data center consolidation program (from 14 to six)—enabling synergy, reducing hardware and software refresh cycles, and simplifying IT ops—and resulting in $2 million/year in OPEX reduction and $10 million in CAPEX avoidance.
- Reduced cyber risk and improved the IT infrastructure and application security posture by implementing a cyber protection platform such as DDoS, application security, IAM and governance, SSO, PAM, SIEM, DLP, and end-point protection capabilities.
Technologies: Architecture, IT Infrastructure, Cisco, Software-defined Networking (SDN), Virtualization, VMware, IT Automation, Team Leadership, IT Security
Team Lead of Information Technology and Architecture
2009 - 2015
Optimal Payments
- Led the production of data center architecture, deployment, and operations which included designing, deploying, and operating globally disbursed, highly available and PCI compliant production data centers.
- Designed and led the deployment of a globally standardized corporate security infrastructure by leveraging security in-depth design principles.
- Designed, deployed, and operated the Akamai DDoS security platform which included migrating the corporate DNS services and enabling Akamai GTM (global traffic management) to improve production services' reliability, up time, and security.
Technologies: IT Systems Architecture, IT Infrastructure, IP Networks, F5 Networks, Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), DDoS, Akamai, Web Application Firewall (WAF), Cybersecurity, CyberArk, Cisco, Fortinet Firewall Configuration, Checkpoints, RSA, Data Loss Prevention (DLP), IP Routing
Team Lead of Network and Security Engineering
2006 - 2009
Terra Payments
- Served as a tech lead of a team of network and security engineers to support Terra Payments' corporate and production infrastructures.
- Managed many projects from modernizing the production and corporate data centers to supporting day-to-day production operations.
- Analyzed, evaluated, and recommended new technologies to optimize and improve the redundancy, high availability, and security of the network.
- Performed network and security optimization to ensure the availability, redundancy and security of real-time online transactions (credit card, debit card, and e-check processing) with partners, customers, and financial institutions.
Technologies: IP Networks, Cybersecurity, Data Center Migration, IT Operations Management (ITOM), Networking, Vendor Management, Technical Design
Network and Security Consultant
2001 - 2003
Metafore
- Led a team of three network telecom and security specialists.
- Evaluated, analyzed, designed, and implemented secure IT solutions for medium and large LAN/WAN networks.
- Performed pre- and post-sale activities supporting the sales and marketing team with technical expertise.
Technologies: Networking, IT Security, Cisco, Firewalls, ASA Firewalls, Cisco Switches, SAN Switches, WAN, WLAN, IP Routing, Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), VPN
Network and Security Consultant
2000 - 2001
ESI Technologies
- Developed the customer data network infrastructure to satisfy business requirements.
- Designed, deployed, documented, and troubleshot secure LAN/WAN networks.
- Established standards and procedures for the configuration, diagnosis, and support of critical customer IT infrastructure.
- Evaluated technologies, interacted with vendors, prepared business cases, and presented strategies to IT management.
- Developed the first-ever French language "Cisco Firewall" and "Cisco Routing" training material for ESI's customers IT personnel.
Technologies: Cisco, Networking, IT Security
Experience
Enterprise Cloud Data Analytics and ML Platform
Lead a team of data and security engineers design, deploy and migrate the Enterprise Data Platform to cloud reducing cost, simplifying security management and providing self-service access to business and data teams.
Cloud Containerization Platfrom
I led a team of architects and engineers to design, build and operationalize a next-generation multi-cloud Kubernetes containerization platform based on PCI principles. It enables agility, flexibility, and on-demand scalability on any cloud whether it be private, hybrid or public AWS, GCP, or Azure.
Consolidation and Modernization of a Data Center
I defined and presented to C-level executives a global data-center consolidation program and led teams of senior engineers to design and deploy highly secure state-of-the-art data centers by leveraging cutting-edge technologies such as SDN, SDS, and SD-WAN.
Entreprise Cloud Adoption Program
I led the cloud adoption program, including its development, design, and operationalization. This included building a persuasive cloud-adoption business case and obtaining board approval to accelerate a full-scale migration strategy that reduced the annual IT budget by 20%, i.e., an approximately 10 million in cost reduction.
I also built a highly secure cloud-production platform that met PCI and NIST best practice design standards. I then designed a data-centric security platform to enable the discovery, classification, and protection of sensitive data.
Finally, I partnered with legal, compliance, privacy, and QSAs to establish security governance frameworks for infrastructure, data, and application systems—achieving PCI-DSS, SOC, FCA, GDPR, data residency, and privacy compliance.
I also built a highly secure cloud-production platform that met PCI and NIST best practice design standards. I then designed a data-centric security platform to enable the discovery, classification, and protection of sensitive data.
Finally, I partnered with legal, compliance, privacy, and QSAs to establish security governance frameworks for infrastructure, data, and application systems—achieving PCI-DSS, SOC, FCA, GDPR, data residency, and privacy compliance.
Cybersecurity Architecture and Engineering
I built and managed a strong cross-functional security architecture and engineering team to accelerate cloud migration and adoption by empowering teams via templates, methodologies, and best cloud practices
with an actionable plans.
I also developed the cloud security architecture and compliance practices to deliver security by design and continuous compliance automation capabilities as code. I then worked with business unit stakeholders to establish security context and help stakeholders to understand the security requirements, practices, and risks.
with an actionable plans.
I also developed the cloud security architecture and compliance practices to deliver security by design and continuous compliance automation capabilities as code. I then worked with business unit stakeholders to establish security context and help stakeholders to understand the security requirements, practices, and risks.
Skills
Tools
VMware, VPN, Amazon EKS, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Terraform
Frameworks
Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
Platforms
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift, Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
Industry Expertise
Cybersecurity
Languages
Python
Paradigms
DevSecOps, Agile, Software-defined Networking (SDN), DDoS, DevOps
Other
Cisco, Digital Transformation, Security Architecture, Cloud, Architecture, Cloud Infrastructure, IT Infrastructure, IT Strategy, Cloud Security, PCI Compliance, PCI DSS, Enterprise Architecture, Identity & Access Management (IAM), Data Protection, Virtualization, IT Automation, Team Leadership, IT Security, IT Systems Architecture, IP Networks, F5 Networks, Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), Akamai, Web Application Firewall (WAF), CyberArk, Fortinet Firewall Configuration, Checkpoints, RSA, Data Loss Prevention (DLP), IP Routing, Data Center Migration, IT Operations Management (ITOM), Networking, Vendor Management, Technical Design, Technology, Firewalls, ASA Firewalls, Cisco Switches, SAN Switches, WAN, WLAN, Software-defined Data Centers (SDDC), Virtualization Technology, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), Secure Storage, SANs, Cisco MDS, Cisco UCS, Cisco Routers, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Cloud Architecture, AWS Cloud Architecture, SOC Compliance, SIEM, System-on-a-Chip (SoC), Data-level Security, Agile DevOps
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