Protiviti Acquires Identropy, a Leading Identity Access Management Firm

Strategic acquisition of additional IAM capabilities strengthens Protiviti’s solutions to help solve enterprise customers’ security challenges

MENLO PARK, Calif., December 21, 2020 – Global consulting firm Protiviti has acquired Identropy, a security consulting firm that specialises in advisory, implementation and managed services for identity and access management (IAM) and access governance solutions. Identropy was a privately held company headquartered in Austin, Texas with more than 40 employees. With this acquisition, Protiviti strengthens its ability to meet the growing need to combat data breaches and provide clients with pragmatic and innovative IAM services.

Identropy’s team of IAM experts joins Protiviti’s leading Security and Privacy practice and contributes to the Digital Identity as a Service offering, which provides end-to-end services from strategic advisory through the management of identity environments. When companies tackle IAM effectively, the result is empowered and trusted users who can safely connect to sensitive resources no matter where they are. Securing enterprise information in a compliant and cost-effective manner while enhancing cyber protection with an optimal user experience is complex and difficult, particularly in today’s boundary-less environments in which employees use a variety of applications and tools – in the cloud, via mobile and on their own devices.

“Identity has become the new technology perimeter for today’s business technology solutions and digital transformation. Yet, IAM projects are often overly complex and mired in point solutions when a holistic platform solution would serve them better,” said Ron Lefferts, managing director and global leader of Technology Consulting, Protiviti. “The combination of Identropy and Protiviti’s extensive knowledge and expertise will help corporate security teams that are already stretched thin to simplify, fortify and run their identity programmes effectively.” 

Founded in 2006, Identropy has three lines of business – advisory, implementation and managed services – that help clients in a variety of industries achieve compliance, security, cost containment and operational reliability.

“Boards today want to mitigate their companies’ risk of data breaches while also achieving compliance. The addition of Identropy’s talent, business and partnerships in the IAM space further enables us to provide our clients with cybersecurity solutions that help them confidently face the future,” said Joseph Tarantino, president and CEO, Protiviti. “Additionally, the fact that Identropy’s collaborative culture aligns so closely with ours is yet another benefit and reason we decided to pursue this acquisition.”

“Identropy has a strong reputation in the industry for successfully delivering identity solutions to its customers. Through this acquisition, we’re excited to provide our customers with a stronger set of identity-centric cybersecurity services,” said Victor Barris, managing partner and co-founder, Identropy.

“Both Identropy and Protiviti have consistently placed a strong emphasis on the importance of company culture. Our entire team is excited to join the Protiviti family due to our shared values of innovation and customer-centricity,” said Ashraf Motiwala, managing partner and co-founder, Identropy.

Motiwala is an IAM industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience in the identity consulting and software sectors, and holds multiple patents related to cloud-based identity interfaces and architectures. As Identropy’s co-founder, he led the Security Cloud-based Unified Identity (SCUID) product line, which was ultimately acquired by CA Technologies in 2014. Prior to Identropy, he held positions at the CRT Group, Stagebuilder.com, Firm Financial Systems and AIG. Motiwala earned a bachelor’s degree in information systems and philosophy from Stony Brook University and a Master of Liberal Studies degree from Southern Methodist University. 

Barris has been in the information technology industry for over twenty years serving in various positions including security architect, programme manager, customer executive sponsor and as a strategic business development leader. Prior to Identropy, he was executive vice president of Security Services for CRT Group where he doubled CRT's security practice revenue within two years. Barris’s career began with Arthur Andersen and he later continued his path as a senior information security consultant for IBM Global Services where he was part of the original team building IBM's first managed services offering - Emergency Response Services. Barris has a bachelor’s degree from Southern Vermont College.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

About Identropy

Identropy’s proven “Plan, Build, Run” approach has helped customers build and maintain successful Identity and Access Management (IAM) programmes. Through exclusive focus on IAM and a combination of vendor-agnostic advisory services, deep domain and implementation expertise, and flexible managed services capabilities honed over 200+ successful implementations, Identropy has pioneered the development of a model that balances needs, security best practices and operational requirements. To learn more, visit www.identropy.com.