Steve Tout

Invited three times to teach in How Engineers, Businesspeople and Lawyers Communicate With Each Other (Prof. Jeff Klaben), helping graduate students practice cross-disciplinary communication among technical, business, and legal audiences.

"Steve demonstrated a pragmatic sensibility and seemingly effortless navigation across disciplines that students so desperately need to learn. I am grateful for his generous and thoughtful contribution to education."

Designed and delivered a 10-session, all-staff AI education and culture program pairing foundational AI literacy with operating lessons from guest executives — including the MultiCare CISO, Model N's Chief Security & Data Privacy Officer, and JPMorgan's former Head of AI & Data Products. The program continues under client ownership.

Trained client teams on retrieval-grounded AI agent patterns in hands-on workshops; participants built a working governance/compliance agent prototype grounded in their own documentation.

Three-session cohort program teaching professionals to design and build governed digital twins, developed and delivered with futurist Heather Vescent.

Designed and led the State of Washington's two-day Enterprise IAM Requirements Workshop (2023) for the modernization of resident identity and access management — a structured, seven-module program with facilitated breakouts, interactive exercises, and read-outs, attended by 50+ leaders representing more than 11 state agencies and opened by the state CIO. Also designed and facilitated executive discovery sessions across the $13M statewide modernization, presenting reference architectures to 50+ enterprise architects.

AI governance and transformation advisory helping regulated and mid-market enterprises move from AI experimentation to governed, sustainable adoption.

• Led a two-phase AI transformation for a FINRA-regulated fintech: a 51-page assessment surfacing 100+ findings became the roadmap; an AI Review Board, ratified AI use standards, audit-ready regulatory guardrails, and a managed risk register became the operating model — transitioned to client leadership for continuity.
• Deployed a governed AI agent portfolio into production, including a GRC reference agent with grounding, provenance, and audit controls; serve as fractional technology leader for a specialty insurance brokerage running governed agents in daily operations.
• Developed the Verified Intelligence governance framework, AI maturity diagnostics, and reusable engagement methodology (Diagnose → Design → Deploy → Defend).

• Co-led a $13M identity modernization program for Washington State: three-year strategy and roadmap, governance model, technical standards, and stakeholder alignment across 50+ agencies, including a $1M organizational change management workstream.
• Advised public-sector leaders on governance, identity proofing, AI risk mitigation, and fraud reduction.

• Product lead for Oracle's WAF for SaaS; led Voice of Customer programs with Fortune 1000 and EU customers.

• Developed business cases and SOWs across financial services, manufacturing, and utilities; key role in closing multiple six-figure engagements.

• Founded and led a credential-security data company; raised Angel/VC funding, earned multiple design patents, and grew bookings 10× through partner-led sales with ForgeRock, SailPoint, and Oracle — driving the path to acquisition.

• Delivered strategy refreshes, business cases, risk analyses, and proofs of concept for Fortune 500 clients within the Advisory practice.

• Led the enterprise identity program through hypergrowth from pre-IPO to $6B+ revenue: secured a $4.5M business case, set standards on the Enterprise Architecture Council, and built globally distributed teams in Bangalore and Cork.

• Sr. Principal Consultant, Oracle (2007–2009) — led the pre-IPO design and implementation of Oracle Identity Management at VMware.
• Security Architect, US Bank (2004–2007) — secured the SinglePoint banking portal with two-factor authentication protecting $1M+ in daily transactions.
• Sr. Systems Analyst, AT&T Wireless (2000–2004) — supported single sign-on for a 5M+ user platform, pioneering IAM practices at telecom scale.

Selected graduate coursework: Ethics for Managers · Leading People & Organizations · Entrepreneurship · Business Analytics · Game Theory & Strategic Behavior · Strategic Analysis · Leadership of Dynamic Organizations · Mergers, Acquisitions & Corporate Restructuring