Zero Trust pioneer and Zscaler founding leader joins as 1Password redefines identity security for humans and their AI agents
1Password, a leader in identity security, today announced the appointment of Dr. Manoj Apte to its Board of Directors, where he will serve as an independent director. A founding member of Zscaler, he helped build one of the most influential security platforms in the world and defined the Zero Trust model that reshaped how enterprises manage access. Dr. Apte brings category-defining expertise, AI strategy advisory experience, and deep cybersecurity insight at a time of market shift, as organizations build AI agents and turn to 1Password to securely manage access across human and non-human identities. He is the second independent director to join 1Password’s Board, following Mark Anderson’s appointment in August 2024.
“The rise of AI agents is forcing a fundamental shift in enterprise security: identity is now the perimeter,” said David Faugno, CEO of 1Password. “Access no longer just involves people — it spans applications, automated systems, and autonomous agents, and organizations need to understand not just who has access, but how it’s being used and under whose authority. In environments where agents are being built and deployed at scale, access is continuous, which makes visibility and accountability non-negotiable. Manoj helped define how the industry thinks about access through Zero Trust, and that perspective is exactly what’s needed as we work to help organizations deploy AI agents and automated workflows without losing control of their credentials, secrets, and machine identities.”
Dr. Manoj Apte is a seasoned cybersecurity and cloud executive with deep expertise in cybersecurity, cloud platforms, and enterprise transformation. As a founding member and Chief Strategy Officer at Zscaler, he spent over 13 years shaping one of the industry’s leading Zero Trust platforms, helping enterprises securely connect users, applications, and data. Prior to Zscaler, Dr. Apte held product management and engineering leadership roles at Juniper Networks, where he launched high-performance security platforms and contributed to core networking and security technologies. He holds a Ph.D. in Computational Engineering (Machine Learning) and currently advises companies across cloud, AI, and cybersecurity.
“I’m honored to join the board of 1Password at a time when identity is at a similar cusp to the early days of Zero Trust,” said Dr. Manoj Apte. “For too long, identity has been centralized, with long-lived and overly permissive access tied to a person. In a world of humans and agents, identity must be delegated narrowly for a specific purpose, locally, and exist ephemerally when needed. 1Password is at the center of this shift, with the opportunity to become the system of record for identity across humans and their delegated agents and I’m excited to support the team as they bring this bold vision to life.”
At Zscaler, Dr. Apte identified a fundamental shift in how access should be secured and helped build the Zero Trust category around it. He brings that perspective to 1Password at a pivotal moment, as the company addresses a new set of security challenges driven by another industry transformation driven by agentic AI: securing access across human, machine, and AI workflows. The 1Password® Unified Access platform enables organizations to discover, secure, and audit credential use across developer environments, applications, and AI-driven workflows, providing visibility and control where traditional approaches fall short.