Advisory

I take a small number of board and advisory engagements with companies and institutions working on trust, identity, and security in communications — and, increasingly, in AI.

Where this comes from

For most of the past fifteen years my work has been at the source of the standards that govern trusted communications — STIR/SHAKEN and the IETF, ATIS, and ITU-T frameworks that carriers, regulators, and vendors build on. That vantage point has a useful property: it tends to surface where trust and identity requirements are heading well before they arrive, and it makes it possible to tell whether an architecture, a technical claim, or a regulatory bet is sound.

The same questions are now surfacing in AI — identity, delegated authority, and verifiable trust for autonomous agents. These are, in large part, problems the telephone network has already had to solve: certificate governance, transparency, accountable delegation. Having operationalized a trust framework of that kind at national scale in a regulated industry, I am interested in helping the companies and institutions working on the AI version get the architecture and the governance right.

Where I am useful

• Reading the standards and regulatory pipeline early, and what it means for strategy and exposure.
• Technical due diligence — separating real capability from claim.
• Trust and identity architecture, and the governance that has to surround it.
• Positioning and credibility in markets where trust is the product.

How this works

I am currently employed full time, and engagements are kept selective and compatible with that role. My standing governance and standards roles — including service on the SIP Forum board and co-chair roles across ATIS, the IETF, and CFCA — are catalogued in the public record, which is the fuller account of the work behind this page.

If your work sits in this space, the best way to start is email: chris@appliedbits.com.