Koteswara Rao(Koti) Banavathu

LevelBlue is a pure-play managed cybersecurity services company — a joint venture between WillJam Ventures (majority stake) and AT&T (minority stake), officially launched at RSA Conference 2024. The India operations transitioned to LevelBlue in 2025, with roles and responsibilities carrying over organically from AT&T Cybersecurity. • Lead and mentor a team of 8 senior cybersecurity Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) — an elevation from operational Tier 2/3 management to strategic SME leadership — ensuring world-class managed security service delivery for enterprise and government clients across global regions. • Maintain a consistent customer satisfaction score of 9–10/10 across managed security service engagements — a reflection of the team's operational discipline, client focus, and delivery excellence. • Spearhead strategic initiatives aligning LevelBlue's service portfolio with emerging threat landscapes, including cloud-native security, AI-driven threat detection, and Zero Trust architecture frameworks. • Champion innovation and automation programs across India's delivery centre, driving measurable improvements in Mean Time to Detect/Respond (MTTD/MTTR) across managed client environments. • Represent LevelBlue's India operations as a key stakeholder in the company's global growth strategy — supporting its mission to become the world's leading pure-play MSSP.

AT&T Global Business Services India served as AT&T's strategic delivery hub for managed security services, cloud security, and security engineering supporting enterprise and government clients across the USA and globally. • Led geographically diverse security engineering and managed security operations teams spanning 4 countries — India, Singapore, Czech Republic, and the USA — delivering services to 500+ enterprise and government clients globally. • Launched AT&T's Cybersecurity SOC (C-SOC) in India from the ground up — creating a centralised command point for incident and change management across all cloud security services, significantly elevating India's strategic role in AT&T's global delivery model. • Played a key leadership role in designing and establishing AT&T's Global Enterprise Management Centre (GEMC) in Hyderabad — a cornerstone of AT&T's 24/7 global network and security infrastructure support. • Guided teams through compliance frameworks including ISO 27001, PCI DSS, HIPAA, and NIST — ensuring successful audit outcomes and maintaining enterprise-grade security posture for Fortune 500 clients. • Drove execution of the global cybersecurity transformation roadmap, advancing automation, governance, and risk management practices across managed security services. • Scaled and retained high-performing teams ranging from 15 to 35+ professionals across business transitions — maintaining consistently high employee engagement and a customer satisfaction score of 9–10/10 throughout. • Partnered with senior executives and clients to present cybersecurity posture, influence security investment decisions, and build long-term strategic relationships. .

Transitioned into senior management, overseeing security operations teams and supporting delivery of managed security services. Bridged technical execution with strategic leadership ahead of promotion to Associate Director.

Managed day-to-day security operations teams, driving service delivery, team performance, and client satisfaction across AT&T's managed security services portfolio.

Led a frontline network and security engineering team, overseeing technical operations, incident management, and service quality for AT&T's enterprise clients.

STPI is a Category-A ISP and pioneer of India's digital infrastructure, supporting India's early IT and software export ecosystem with a state-of-the-art NOC, 51 international gateways, and nationwide enterprise connectivity. • Secured and administered 200+ mission-critical systems within STPI's Network Operations Centre (NOC), significantly reducing security incident rates across client environments. • Designed and delivered network and security services for 100+ enterprise and government clients, consistently maintaining 99.9% uptime SLA compliance. • Deployed and managed enterprise security architecture including Checkpoint Firewall, IDS/IPS, Trend Micro VirusWall, ServerProtect, and OfficeScan solutions. • Managed end-to-end leased line deployments for multinational corporations and government agencies — from feasibility studies through device configuration and client knowledge transfer. • Built the technical foundation in network security and infrastructure management that launched a 22-year leadership career at AT&T.