Vice President, Non-Human Identity & Agent Identity Security

IDC is seeking a Vice President, Non-Human Identity & Agent Identity Security to serve as a senior market-facing leader defining IDC's point of view on one of the fastest-moving, highest-consequence shifts in enterprise security. Non-human identities — service accounts, API keys, workload identities, and autonomous AI agents — already outnumber human identities by roughly 45 to 1 in the average enterprise, and by as much as 150 to 1 in cloud-native environments. The market for governing them is projected to grow significantly over the next decade.

This role will define and lead IDC's research agenda spanning non-human identity governance, agentic identity and access management, machine credential lifecycle, and the vendor landscape racing to address it. The category is at an inflection point: vendor consolidation is already underway, with established security players acquiring specialized non-human identity and agent-security startups as early signals of where the market is heading. Market coverage in this space is limited, and that gap is the opportunity: this role has a genuine window to establish IDC as the definitive voice in NHI before the category fully formalizes.

The Research Director/Vice President will engage regularly with senior vendor executives, enterprise buyers, investors, media, and industry stakeholders to assess market requirements, technology adoption patterns, investment priorities, and competitive dynamics, while helping build out IDC's tracker, MarketScape, and advisory offerings in this space.

• →Lead IDC's research agenda for non-human identity (NHI) and agentic identity security, including machine credential lifecycle management, workload identity, service account governance, and AI agent authentication and authorization.
• →Shape IDC's market taxonomy, research priorities, and point of view on how NHI is emerging as a distinct security buying category — separate from, but adjacent to, traditional identity and access management (IAM).
• →Develop and publish differentiated research, including market sizing, vendor assessments (MarketScape), forecasts, buyer guidance, and executive-level advisory content.
• →Conduct and oversee market sizing, forecasting, competitive analysis, and trend analysis across the NHI and agentic identity vendor landscape.
• →Track vendor strategy, M&A, startup activity, funding trends, partnerships, and product innovation across the space — from PAM incumbents extending into NHI to venture-backed pure-plays.
• →Engage senior technology vendor executives through briefings, inquiries, advisory calls, strategy sessions, and industry events.
• →Engage enterprise security, identity, cloud, and AI leaders to understand adoption priorities, governance gaps, implementation patterns, and buying behavior.
• →Represent IDC externally through presentations, webinars, conferences, media engagement, investor discussions, and executive client meetings.
• →Partner with IDC analysts across security, cloud infrastructure, AI infrastructure, and identity to build integrated, cross-domain research perspectives.
• →Support and help grow syndicated subscriptions, custom research, consulting opportunities, and strategic account engagement tied to IDC's expanding coverage of NHI and agentic identity security.

The role may include leadership across several of the following domains:

• Non-Human Identity Governance: Discovery, inventory, lifecycle management, and governance of service accounts, API keys, secrets, and workload identities.
• Agentic Identity & Access Management: Authentication, authorization, and privilege control for AI agents and autonomous systems, including dynamic runtime permission acquisition and sub-agent spawning.
• Machine Credential & Secrets Management: Rotation, vaulting, and cryptographic key management practices across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
• Privileged Access Management (PAM) Evolution: How PAM incumbents are extending two decades of privileged-access discipline into service accounts, OAuth clients, and AI agents.
• Cloud-Native Identity Security: Workload identity across multi-cloud, Kubernetes, and serverless environments.
• Agent-to-Agent Trust: Identity and trust chains between autonomous agents operating without direct human oversight.

• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree preferred.
• 10–15+ years of relevant experience in technology research, advisory, consulting, product strategy, cybersecurity, identity, or related markets.
• Deep understanding of identity and access management, privileged access management, or cloud security markets — their vendors, buyer priorities, and adoption patterns.
• Strong knowledge of AI and agentic systems as they intersect with identity, security, and governance.
• Demonstrated ability to define research agendas, analyze emerging markets, synthesize qualitative and quantitative inputs, and produce clear, differentiated market insight.
• Proven executive presence, including the ability to engage CISO, CIO, CTO, product, strategy, investor, and senior vendor leadership audiences.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to present complex market shifts clearly to senior executive audiences.
• Experience engaging with technology vendors, enterprise buyers, investors, media, and industry influencers.
• Strong commercial instincts, including the ability to support syndicated research growth, client inquiry, custom research, consulting, and strategic account development.
• Ability to work independently while influencing and collaborating effectively across a global research organization.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office tools, especially PowerPoint and Excel; experience with forecasting, survey analysis, and market modeling is a plus.
• Willingness to travel for client meetings, industry events, and team collaboration.

IDC is committed to providing equal employment opportunities for all qualified persons. Employment eligibility verification required. We participate in E-Verify.

IDC is currently able to employ remote workers in the following states: Arizona (AZ), California (CA), Colorado (CO), Connecticut (CT), Washington D.C. (DC), Florida (FL), Georgia (GA), Illinois (IL), Indiana (IN), Kansas (KS), Massachusetts (MA), Maryland (MD), Maine (ME), Michigan (MI), Minnesota (MN), Missouri (MO), Mississippi (MS), North Carolina (NC), New Hampshire (NH), New Jersey (NJ), New York (NY), Ohio (OH), Oregon (OR), Pennsylvania (PA), Rhode Island (RI), South Carolina (SC), Tennessee (TN), Texas (TX), Utah (UT), Virginia (VA), Vermont (VT), Washington (WA), and Wisconsin (WI).