Joy Chik is corporate vice president of the Identity and Network Access Division in Microsoft’s Cloud + AI group. Her team builds innovative identity solutions to provide secure access for billions of people every day—from consumers around the world to employees of the world’s largest enterprises. She’s responsible for products such as Azure Active Directory, a leading enterprise identity solution serving over 300,000 customers; Microsoft Account, one of the world’s largest consumer identity services; Microsoft Identity Platform and Microsoft Graph, serving millions of developers; Microsoft Authenticator, and more.

Joy believes that strong authentication and risk-based Conditional Access are essential for helping organizations explicitly verify every access request, one of the core principles of a Zero Trust security strategy. In today’s climate, when a single compromised password can bring critical infrastructure services to a halt, strong authentication methods provide necessary protection—and hope. For several years, Joy has championed the elimination of passwords as a security paradigm. Microsoft has been at the forefront of the passwordless revolution, building authentication technologies tied to individual biometrics and cryptographic keys that make signing-in seamless for legitimate users across platforms and virtually impossible for malicious actors. These innovations include Windows Hello, Microsoft Authenticator app, and Temporary Access Pass. An avid proponent of Microsoft’s conviction that security is a team sport, Joy encourages her team to collaborate with partners to build seamless customer experiences that improve both security and productivity. Her organization works closely with members of the FIDO Alliance on open standards and with partners in the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association—including Ensurity, Feitian Technologies, HID, Trusona, TrustKey, and Yubico—to provide a range of passwordless options that organizations can adopt to strengthen their security posture.