● Services

Three surfaces. One discipline.

Cloud, security, and AI are not separate practices here. They are sequenced together, owned together, and shipped together. Every engagement is led by a senior principal, scoped to outcomes, and built to leave your team stronger than we found it.

01Cloud 02Security 03AI

§ Cloud

Ownership before optimization.

Most cloud problems are accountability problems wearing a cost-or-architecture costume. We start by clarifying who owns each surface, then attack cost, standards, and resilience from there. Migrations get unstuck. Bills come down. Platform teams stop apologizing.

You might call us if…

A migration has stalled or quietly missed its date.
Your cloud bill is trending the wrong way and no one can say exactly why.
You inherited a multi-account, multi-region environment and need a defensible standard.
You need to consolidate after an acquisition or a reorg.
A platform team has the right people but no operating model to back them.

What good looks like

A surface-by-surface ownership map your CFO and CTO both agree to.

A standards baseline that engineers actually adopt.

A cost trajectory that bends, with the line items to prove why.

CLOUD · architecture review

§ Security

Visibility before policy.

Policies that aren’t enforced are paperwork. We restore identity, logging, and visibility first, then write rules that hold under audit and incident pressure. Programs become defensible. Audits become predictable. Boards stop asking the same question every quarter.

You might call us if…

You have an audit on the calendar and gaps you do not yet have a plan for.
A breach, near-miss, or insurance review has put pressure on the program.
Identity has sprawled across SaaS and cloud and nobody owns it cleanly.
You need an Acting CISO to stabilize the function while you hire.
The security program exists on paper but cannot answer “what changed last week?”

What good looks like

An audit-ready posture with traceable evidence, not a binder.

Identity, logging, and detection that actually answer the questions an investigator asks.

A program a successor can run, not a person-shaped dependency.

SECURITY · controls and visibility

§ AI

Governance before automation.

Automation without governance is a quiet liability. We build the evaluation, logging, and approval scaffolding first, then partner with your team to ship the first regulated workflow. Pilots become production. The board hears “we govern this” instead of “we are exploring it.”

You might call us if…

Pilots have been running for a year and nothing is in production.
You need an AI policy that your legal, security, and product teams will all sign.
A regulated workflow needs deployment without a downstream compliance fire.
You want to put your operations or knowledge work on AI without losing the audit trail.
You are evaluating tools and need a senior, vendor-neutral read.

What good looks like

Your first governed AI workflow live, with logged inputs, outputs, and approvals.

An evaluation framework you can apply to the next ten use cases.

A defensible position when leadership, customers, or regulators ask how the system behaves.

AI · evaluation and governance

§ Engagement models

Five shapes. Sized to the actual problem.

Pricing is not on this page on purpose. Engagements are scoped to outcomes, not hours, after a brief conversation about what is actually happening.

01Fixed scope · 4–6 wks

Assessment or sprint

A bounded engagement with a defined outcome: a security audit, a cloud cost review, an AI readiness assessment, a stalled-program diagnostic. You walk away with a sequenced plan and the conviction to fund it.

02Embedded · 3–12 mo

Acting CISO or program lead

A senior principal in a leadership seat for a defined window. Carries the responsibility, runs the function, and prepares the in-house successor. The clock starts on day one.

03Retainer · monthly cadence

Advisory partnership

A monthly cadence with the leader who owns the surface. Working sessions, decision support, and a private channel for the questions that need a senior answer in real time, not three weeks later.

04Recovery · scoped to outcome

Turnaround engagement

When a migration, deployment, or program has stalled or failed. We diagnose what broke, restart the work with named owners, and run with the team until the outcome lands.

05Build → hand off

Functional build with mentoring

Build the function, then leave. We stand up the practice, hire and mentor the in-house lead, and exit cleanly when the team can run it. The hand-off is a deliverable, not an afterthought.

§ FAQ

Things people ask before the first call.

Six honest answers to the questions a careful buyer asks before reaching out. If yours is not here, send it.

No. We compete on the level of person doing the work and the standard at which it gets done. If a junior consultant’s rate is the deciding factor for an engagement, we are probably not the right fit, and that is a fine outcome for both of us.

Engagements are led by a senior principal who is in the work, not above it. When an engagement calls for additional senior expertise, we bring in trusted associates from a vetted network of operators with their own track records. The bench is deep; the ratio is intentional.

Outcomes, not hours. We scope to a defined deliverable or a defined seat, agree on duration, and quote a fixed engagement fee or a defined retainer. There are no surprise change orders if the scope holds.

Yes. Anything you share with us is treated as confidential by default, NDA or not. The intake call is a working conversation about your situation, not a sales pitch.

No. We are independent of the vendors we evaluate or recommend. The conviction in a recommendation is the same whether the answer ends up being a vendor product, an open-source tool, or building it in-house.

A 30-minute call. You describe the situation; we ask the questions that surface what is actually happening. By the end of the call you should know whether ZIXIA is the right fit, and what a sensible first engagement would look like if it is.

● Contact

Tell us what’s pressing.

Brief us in a few sentences. We read everything that comes through this form, and reply within two business days. Calls happen only after a fit looks plausible. Your time is respected.

01
Read
Within 2 business days
02
Reply
A short, direct response, not a sequence
03
Call
Only after written exchange suggests fit