Hawcx Launches Authentication Platform, Hires First CPO

Hawcx has officially launched its passwordless authentication platform and hired Lakshmi Sharma as its first chief product officer.

Hawcx works with channel partners, MSSPs, solutions/services delivery partners and technology partners. Riya Shanmugam, Hawcx’s co-founder and CEO, previously was New Relic’s group vice president of global alliances and channels/MSP sales.

Hawcx's Lakshmi Sharma

“Hawcx offers a simple and unified intelligent passwordless platform that reduces the time to sign-up and login to any application and service across on-premises and cloud, and limits the window for attackers to get access to the systems," she said. "For channel partners, it becomes a highly secure and cost effective add-on to any service in any industry that offers web and mobile apps across any operating system (IOS, Android, MacOS)."

For MSSPs, one of the biggest challenges has been the complexity in integrating multiple security solutions that keep coming up every day, and the time spent on integrating different login and connectivity increasing the time to offer new services in a timely manner, Shanmugam said. With Hawcx's unified and simple approach, integration becomes seamless and secure.

"For tech partners, with Hawcx’s simple and industry-standard APIs built on easy-to-integrate SDKs and interfaces such as OpenID, we offer an amazing developer experience to developers adding value-based services on Hawcx," she said.

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Authentication Platform Provider’s New CPO

Sharma brings more than 25 years of experience in the technology industry building and leading  global teams, scaling businesses of various size revenues, and single product companies to multiproduct companies across her leadership roles at Fastly, Google, Cisco and Target.

Hawcx's Riya Shanmugam

“Lakshmi Sharma's appointment as chief product officer aligns perfectly with our commitment to driving growth through product and establishing leadership in the passwordless authentication space,” Shanmugam said. “Her extensive experience in building products from zero to one, and leading global teams, scaling businesses, and driving product innovation makes her the ideal leader to spearhead our product strategy and development efforts.”

Sharma’s strategic vision and customer-centric approach will be instrumental in further enhancing Hawcx’s product offerings, and driving adoption among enterprises and end users, she said.

“By leveraging her expertise, we aim to accelerate our growth trajectory and solidify our position as a leader in the authentication space,” Shanmugam said.

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“I look forward to collaborating with the super talented and humble leadership team with vast experience in security, cloud and large-scale systems and organizations at Hawcx to build upon its strong foundation and drive innovation across our product portfolio,” Sharma said.

Reaching CSOs, CTOs Through the Channel

Hawcx is investing in making the company a space for developers to learn and implement passwordless solutions to their global workforce and user base through product-led sales, while also building routes to market that directly speak to the CSO and CTO audience through the channel ecosystem, Shanmugam said.

“When interviewing a cohort of CSOs, we learned that CSOs prefer buying security products from partners that they trust and have a pre-existing relationship with than a newer technology company that is still in early stages of their maturity,” she said. “Our conviction in investing in channels continues to strengthen through these learnings.” 

Hawcx’s primary focus area is the Americas with plans to expand operations in EMEA and APJ, Shanmugam said.