Five Reasons To Hire ZHUK

1. We start by listening to you and learning about your business.

Yes, they all say that: “we listen…” Don’t take our word for it. See the endorsements on the bottom of this page and then give us a call at 888.669.8998. If after 5 minutes of speaking with us, you feel that we failed to hear you out, please let us know (see item # 4 on this list).

2. We meet you where you are, rather than "throw the book at you," and collaboratively move forward at your pace.

If you are an ambitious entrepreneur running a promising FinTech startup, it’s only a matter of time, before someone from the Audit and Compliance team of a partner bank will reach out to you asking for prompt answers to one of their mega-questionnaires. Ignore them you cannot, but drowning in the often pointless time-consuming correspondence will drain the precious time and resources from your business.

Let us represent you. We have the credentials and the first-hand experience necessary to help you successfully pass even the most stringent assessment. In the process, we will apply agile development principles to assist you in building and improving your IT governance, risk, compliance, information security, and IT service management practices using the latest ISO and NIST standards as well as COBIT, COSO, ITIL, and our practice-proven Stellar GRC™ framework.

3. With 20+ years of Fortune 100 and multiple startups experience, we know our business inside and out.

It is possible to spend an entire career doing the same thing learning very little else in the process. Years of experience don’t count for much, unless they are spent constantly pushing oneself, one’s team, and organization to learn, evolve, and improve. Over the 20+ years, we have had an opportunity to run projects of various complexities and manage distributed teams of different sizes—working with and performing functions of IT auditors, service managers, and IT governance experts—in Fortune 100 financial service organizations as well as nimble startups.

4. We never stop learning and improving ourselves, so you always benefit from the latest best practices and guidance.

Organizations change, standards and regulations evolve, best practices are replaced with even better ones. To ensure that we never fall behind, at ZHUK, we are very passionate about learning. Every year, we set rigorous professional development plans we diligently follow and measure our progress against. We teach and mentor, for teaching is the best way to learn.

When you speak with us, please don’t hesitate to ask about what’s new and what’s hot. We love sharing what we learn with others! We are looking forward to working with and learning from you!

5. Maximizing your business value, rather than imposing new tools and cumbersome processes, is our topmost priority.

This is another near-cliché assurance: “Your business value (or your satisfaction) is our topmost priority.” We are different. After all, how many other consultants or trusted business advisers do you know, who created a global professional association uniting 20,000+ professionals in 40+ countries in relentless pursuit of business value realization and maximization to move above and beyond current IT Service Management practices? Dr. Zhuk, our President, did just that.

Aleksandr Zhuk, DM, BRMP, CISSP, CGEIT, CISM, CRISC, CSM, ITIL Expert

Chief Information Security Officer

Aleksandr has 20+ years of experience in delivering business value through innovation, business transformation, collaboration, customer engagement and skillful application of a wide range of technologies in Fortune 100 financial services and startup organizations. His areas of expertise include agile project and product management, information technology governance, IT risk management, compliance, information security, and IT service management.

He is the creator and co-founder of Business Relationship Management Institute, a go-to source of professional learning and a community catalyst for more than 40,000 BRM professionals in 40 countries around the world.

Aleksandr holds a doctorate in Management and Organizational Leadership and has taught graduate courses in Leadership Strategies. Dr. Zhuk has published numerous articles on the topics of IT and business management. He holds BRMP, CGEIT, CISM, CISSP, CRISC, CSM, ITIL Expert, and other leading professional certifications.

Aleksandr is a senior information security professional. He excelled at every task I assigned to him including review and further development of the bank's information security program, policies, and procedures; creation and tuning of benchmark-based system configuration baselines; and providing assistance to the more junior members of my team. I enjoyed working with Aleksandr and am happy to endorse him!

Max Tumarinson, CISO, Apple Bank

"Working with Aleksandr was an amazing experience. He was able to apply ITSM practices to a very complex and customized service catalog. His deep technical skills and ability to communicate effectively across the organization were the key drivers for long-term improvement processes that carried over to groups that had not been part of the critical IT Services ecosystems."

Marty Redler, Senior Enterprise Solutions Architect, VMware

"Aleksandr is a person I turn to whenever I need any advice. Its always a pleasure to be professionally associated with a consummate professional of great caliber, an excellent knowledge on IT service delivery! Highly recommend to all others. Thank you!"

Vallabh Dalal, Vice President, JPMorgan Chase & Co.

"Aleksandr and I have worked together over many years spanning roles in Technology and Client facing Service Delivery. Working alongside Aleksandr at Salomon Smith Barney I have affirmation first hand his technical and inter-personal intelligence, commitment and sound common sense being applied to operational and project delivery tasks, strategic thinking and its application are makeup that have allowed Aleksandr to make an impact in many different areas and across all levels of an organization. I respect his judgment and trust his guidance and would be honored to work alongside him again shall the opportunity arise."

Michael Bekman, Associate Director, Design & Solution Architecture, Ernst & Yong, LLP.

"It was truly my pleasure to have worked with Aleksandr on a day-to-day basis at PlusFunds. To speak toward his superior technical abilities doesn't do him justice. He is a technical perfectionist with an intense drive to meet delivery dates. This intensity is tempered by his endearing manner, inviting personality and genuine desire to help others. That unique mix of personality traits is something that I recommend you experience firsthand."

Paul Vinciguerra, CCIE, CISSP, Owner, Vinci Consulting Corp, Computer and Network Security Specialist

"Aleksandr is a hard working professional, who often goes above and beyond his formal duties to provide exceptional service to his clients."

Vitaliy Dubinskiy, CISSP, Cybersecurity Executive & CISO

"Aleksandr and I entered into a mentoring relationship through the Business Relationship Management Institute (BRMI), with me as the mentee and Aleksandr as the mentor. He has been an extremely valuable resource to not only me, but my team as we attempt to make BRM a reality at Penn State. Over the past months, Aleksandr has been invaluable to me in providing resources and strategies for a variety of topics including: Financial Management, Business Strategy and so on. I thoroughly enjoy our mentoring relationship and appreciate the time and knowledge that Aleksandr puts into it."

James Business Relationship Manager, The Pennsylvania State University

"I met Aleksandr in 2011 through my blog. He was not only a prolific commenter, but his contributions were always insightful, often profound, and his writing skills were superb. It was clear that his passion was putting the humanity back into business relationships—a perspective that was largely lacking in the world of IT management, and sorely needed.

In early 2013, Aleksandr shared with me and Aaron Barnes his vision for an institute that would serve the needs of the emerging global Business Relationship Management community. This was one of the most exciting business conversations I had ever been part of and by the end of the call the three of us had reached a decision to join Aleksandr and bring his vision to reality.

Aleksandr's creativity, work ethic, technical skills and emotional intelligence are superb. He sometimes refers to me as his teacher, but the reality is that I have learned so much from him, and he has had a profound impact on my career and family life. My relationship with Aleksandr is one of the treasures that my work with BRMI has brought me! I am proud to recommend him and the skills and qualities he brings to the table!"

Vaughan Merlyn, CBRM, Renowned BRM Expert, Author, Co-Founder of BRM Institute

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