Risks of Cloud: A chat with Confident Governance CEO Mr. Bhavesh C. Bhagat

Lots of companies are getting into the cloud business. One DC area entrepreneur says that comes with risk. Naturally, he created a business to show just how much.

Former Ernst & Young auditor Bhavesh Bhagat created Confident Governance two years ago to help companies figure out their business risks and follow governance strategy. Customers of the Governance-as-a-Service platform include Coca-Cola, T-Mobile, and Constellation Energy. The business was recently named one of the top 50 global entrepreneurial startups by the Kauffman Foundation. And Bhavesh just launched a version that targets collaboration and manages the risks that come with companies that have employees work together on projects in a social domain like Salesforce.com’s Chatter. (The biggest risk of his clients collaborating: spilling Coke on your T-Mobile cell phone.)

Bhavesh, here with Va. Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, Amishi, says US companies are pretty good at minding risks but companies in other parts of the world like China and India lack resources and education to be as focused on it. Yet overseas sales are growing, especially once he tells them the legal, security, and regulatory risks of moving to the cloud. The company is growing its Indian office where all its coding and development is managed. (Bhavesh moved to the US from India over 15 years ago.) Also the founder of consulting and services firm EnCrisp and the DC chapter of the Cloud Security Alliance, Bhavesh recruited his wife and brother to help run the business. (Wonder what his risk software says about that?) He says he could raise venture capital and grow the business quickly but he’d rather “slog it out.”

Courtesy: Fed Tech BisNow, Washington DC, 23rd November,2011