Q&A: Sectigo Senior Vice President Dena Bauckman Describes a Market in Overdrive and Discusses Certificates, Automation, and the Next Security Shift

The digital security landscape is entering a period of rapid and sustained disruption. Long-standing practices around certificate management, encryption, and identity are being reshaped by a combination of regulatory pressure, evolving standards, and emerging technologies like AI. What was once a relatively stable and predictable domain is now moving at an unprecedented pace—forcing organizations to rethink how they manage risk, scale operations, and maintain control.

At the center of this shift is a convergence of forces: compressed certificate lifecycles, the rise of post-quantum cryptography, and the growing need to secure not just people, but machines and AI agents. As these changes accelerate, organizations—particularly those in the mid-market—are finding themselves under increasing pressure to modernize. Tech Channels spoke with Dena Bauckman, Senior Vice President of Product at Sectigo shares a firsthand perspective on how the market is evolving, where organizations are struggling, and what it takes to keep up in a landscape defined by speed, complexity, and constant change.

Q: How would you describe the current market environment?

A. I joined Sectigo 2-1/2 years ago. It is the craziest market I've ever been in. When I've worked for companies, we try and drive the market. The market is driving us, and it's exciting, because there are these tailwinds that I've never seen when working for a company before. It’s a very exciting time for us. Suddenly, companies are waking that accelerated certificate renewal must be addressed.

Q: What’s happening with certificate timelines, and why does it matter?

A. When I joined, everybody in the company was talking about Google is going to force public certificates, TLS certificates, to 90 days. And it didn't happen. Then Apple stepped in and put out this whole plan to not do 90 days, but 47 days. They did it in a really good way, because they spread it out over several years. We just hit the first milestone in March—certificates went from basically a year to six months. Next year, they're going to go down to about three months then finally, we’ll say 47 days, but it's really 30 days.

Q: How are organizations reacting to these changes?

A. Suddenly, now companies are waking up and going, “Wait a minute. I've been managing my certificates with a spreadsheet–that's not going to work.” So, that's huge for us. It’s been really interesting to watch this whole dynamic.

Q: What role does automation play in this shift?

A. A big part of our business is CLM—certificate life cycle management—which is automating, not just notifying you, that something's going to expire. It automates the whole deployment. So, you do nothing, the certs are automatically renewed.

Q: How is post-quantum cryptography (PQC) adding complexity to the landscape?

A. On top of that, we have PQC. That is going to force companies to not just change their certs every 47 days, but change them to new encryption algorithms. You've got to be flexible enough to change out the algorithms; we've had the RSA [cryptographic algorithm] forever. We don't expect those to be long-term like RSA was. We expect they're going to keep evolving and changing. So now you've got to change your certs every 47 days, and you've got to change all your encryption algorithms, and you've got to know where all your certs are.

Q: What is the impact on organizations trying to keep up?

A. That’s just driving a lot of companies into this new mode of “what am I going to do?” The need to automate everything is really driving a lot of interest to Sectigo.

Q: Where are organizations most vulnerable—and where is the opportunity?

A. What we're trying to do is a little bit different. A lot of competitors focus much more on really large organizations. We've kind of made our focus more on the mid enterprise. They are the ones that are really going to struggle because they don't have a big IT staff. We feel like that's our sweet spot.

Q: How are you addressing the needs of that segment?

A. A lot of what we do is more focused on how to make it simpler to do the automation. We don't do a lot of professional services. We try and provide a solution that is easier for organizations to do themselves.

Q: What gaps do you see in how companies are approaching this today?

A. A lot of them are using it kind of like a glorified ticketing system.They automated notifications, but they haven't really automated the full deployment. I think that's partly because professional services is so expensive. They get to a point where they feel like they can manage it then they stop.

Q: How are partnerships evolving in this space?

A. “We just launched what we call the Sectigo Partner Platform. It provides total self-service to MSPs. They can set up the customer, purchase the products, do the billing, and manage the service all through a single interface. And they don't have to have us there. They can do it all themselves.

Q: How is AI shaping the next phase of your strategy?

A. A lot of what I'm focused on, which everybody is, is the AI aspect. We're trying to see if we can help with securing the AI agents because you've got to be able to give them almost an identity. In fact we're doing a partnership with [a company] that is trying to do the same thing. They want to provide the management and the governance around the identities, and we're going to provide the certificate.

Q: Where are you in that journey today?

A. That’s an area we're just now really starting to get into. We're still very much in the early stages. But we decided we want to go ahead and put it out there that this is the direction.

The certificate and identity security landscape is no longer evolving incrementally—it is shifting at a pace that is forcing organizations to fundamentally rethink how they operate. What was once manageable through manual processes and periodic updates is now defined by constant change, compressed timelines, and increasing technical complexity. From 47-day certificate lifecycles to the emergence of post-quantum cryptography, the environment is pushing enterprises toward automation, visibility, and continuous adaptation.

At the same time, this disruption is creating a clear divide. Organizations that embrace automation, simplify operations, and modernize their approach to certificate and identity management will be positioned to keep up—and even capitalize on the change. Those that rely on legacy processes and partial solutions risk falling behind as the operational burden becomes too great to manage manually.

Looking ahead, the rise of AI and machine identities adds another layer of urgency and opportunity. As identity expands beyond humans to include systems and agents, the need for scalable, automated, and flexible security frameworks will only intensify. In this environment, success will not come from reacting to change, but from anticipating it—building systems that are designed to evolve alongside the market itself.