Meet Our Team
Empowering Excellence: Our Exceptional Team Drives Innovation and Success. A focused leadership core, a credentialed bench of subject matter experts, an established external auditor network, and a tertiary-institute internship pipeline — built for breadth, designed for depth.
Empowering Excellence: Our Exceptional Team Drives Innovation and Success
Three pillars define every person on the Cianaa team — what we hire for, what we reward, and what we expect from ourselves.
Highly Educated
Our people come from various fields and are highly educated. We are happy to recruit PhDs specialising in their fields — combining academic depth with practical compliance experience.
Professionalism
Our staff shows excellent ethics, responsiveness to clients, reliability, self-motivation to go the extra mile, and adaptability to the requirements of every engagement.
Integrity
Our success is driven by a dedicated team known for their unwavering integrity, honesty, and objective mindset. Every member adheres to a strict code of ethics and embodies a relentless commitment to excellence.
The People Behind Cianaa
Seven leaders across ANZ, the Middle East and beyond, grouped by what each of them does, and one honorary member who helped it all begin.
Executive team
3 peopleAssurance that matters, owned at the top
Dr Rizwan Ahmad
Auckland, NZPhD-credentialed Founder of Cianaa Technologies (2014). Drives the firm’s vision of practical, evidence-driven compliance across PCI, ISO and emerging-tech assurance — building a multi-region credentialed bench from Auckland to Dubai.
Syed Saad Arshad Kazmi
Auckland, NZLeads Cianaa’s PCI DSS, PCI 3DS and SAQ programmes across ANZ and APAC. Practising QSA — deep expertise in cardholder data environment scoping, segmentation strategy and merchant-level determination.
Shaheer Rizwan
Auckland, NZPart of Cianaa’s senior executive team. Leads the firm’s commercial strategy, revenue generation and market growth, taking Cianaa’s assurance services into new markets across Asia Pacific, Europe and Canada.
Audit and assessment
3 peopleThe people who deliver it, engagement by engagement
Mehar un Nisa
Dubai, UAEHeads Cianaa’s Middle East operation — engaging with banks, fintechs and government entities across the GCC. Brings deep regional regulatory knowledge and on-the-ground delivery for PCI, ISO and assurance engagements.
Noor Ul Ain Ali
Auckland, NZLeads Cianaa’s ISO certification audit programme across ISO/IEC 27001, 27701 and 42001 — integrated audits, multi-standard scoping, and chair of the audit report review panel.
Minahil Saad
Auckland, NZSpecialises in ISO/IEC 42001 AI Management System assessments and the legal-compliance overlay across Privacy Act, GDPR and emerging AI regulation — bridging Cianaa’s technical assessment with regulatory rigour.
Quality and governance
2 peopleThe people who prove it held, before any report leaves us
Asma Khan
Auckland, NZOwns internal audit, report review and the integrity of the certification recommendations we submit. Ensures every Cianaa engagement meets ISO/IEC 17021 impartiality and competence requirements before sign-off.
Jenny Low
Auckland, NZHonorary member. Jenny backed Cianaa before there was a company to back, helping win our first engagement when we had nothing to offer in return. More than a decade on, that support is part of how this firm was built.
A Credentialed Specialist Bench
Beyond named leadership, Cianaa fields domain specialists across these disciplines — each backed by deep technical credentials and years of practical engagement experience.
Senior PCI DSS Assessor
Cardholder data environment scoping, SAQ guidance & merchant-level determination
PCI 3DS Specialist
EMV® 3-D Secure — ACS, DS and 3DSS environments
Multi-Standard ISO Lead Auditor
Integrated audits across ISO 27001, 27701 and 42001
SOC 1 / 2 / 3 Practitioner
Trust Services Criteria — security, availability, confidentiality
AI Governance Specialist
ISO/IEC 42001 AI Management System assessments
NZISM & NZ Government Assurance
Public sector compliance & Trusted Authority (TFA) evaluation
Senior Penetration Tester
Red-team simulation across web, network and cloud environments
Cryptography & Key Management
FIPS-aligned cryptography, HSM and key lifecycle assessment
Independent External ISO Auditors
When impartiality demands it — or scope-coverage requires it — Cianaa engages an established panel of independent ISO lead auditors covering our certification scope: ISO/IEC 27001, 27701 and 42001. All peer-reviewed, accredited, and ISO/IEC 17021 conformant.
Dr Shams Qazi, PhD
PhD Cyber Security · Independent ISO 27001 Lead AuditorPhD in Cyber Security. Independent ISMS lead auditor combining academic depth with practical information security risk assessment — engaged for complex cyber-security scopes and witnessed assessments.
Dinesh Kumar Aggarwal
ISO/IEC 27001 & SOC 2 AuditorIndependent auditor specialising in ISO/IEC 27001 information security management systems and SOC 2 (Trust Services Criteria) examinations. Engaged for ISMS certification audits, SOC 2 Type I and Type II reporting, and independent control and pre-audit assessments.
Ankit Prashar
Lead Auditor — ISO 27001 & SOC 2Cross-standard lead auditor combining ISO/IEC 27001 ISMS with SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria. Engaged for integrated security & trust assurance scopes spanning ISMS and SOC reporting requirements.
Carew Hatherley
Independent ISO/IEC 27001 Lead AuditorIndependent ISMS lead auditor with broad multi-sector experience. Engaged for accreditation-witnessed audits and high-complexity information security management system assessments.
Michal Everis
MSECB Accredited Multi-Standard AuditorMSECB-accredited certification body auditor engaged across ISO/IEC 27001, 27701 and 42001 — bringing certification-body witnessing rigour to Cianaa’s multi-standard scopes.
Nick Fagan
Management System AssuranceIndependent management-system assurance specialist within Cianaa’s external auditor network, with broad experience across the ISO management-system standards. Engaged to strengthen scope coverage and peer review in support of impartial, independent certification.
The Next Generation of Cianaa Specialists
Cianaa partners with leading tertiary institutions across New Zealand and Pakistan — University of Auckland · NUST · LUMS · EIT — mentoring doctoral researchers and hosting internies to build tomorrow’s compliance, audit, and AI-governance bench.
Doctoral Research
PhD Information Security
Doctoral researchers focused on cryptography, AI risk, and cyber-physical systems — co-supervised with Cianaa senior specialists.
Postgraduate
MSc Cyber Security
Postgraduate internies completing thesis work on PCI DSS scope reduction, ISMS automation, and SOC 2 evidence collection.
Specialist Track
AI Governance Internship
ISO/IEC 42001-aligned research on AI risk assessment, model governance, and responsible-AI control framework design.
Undergraduate Pipeline
BSc / BCom Final-Year Projects
Final-year project sponsorships across computer science, accounting and business — a direct pipeline to Cianaa’s graduate intake.
Our People — Diverse Industry Experience
Deep sector knowledge across eight industries — applied to every engagement.
Payment Card Industry
Financial & Fintech
Government
Telecommunication
AI & Big Data
Cloud & Datacentres
Insurance
Health and Safety
Get in Touch! We are Looking Forward to Start a New Project
Tell us about your compliance, audit, or security challenge. A specialist from our team will be in touch within one business day.
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