The Winners Archive — Two Bound Volumes on Record
A continuing record of the Customer Identity & Access Management programs, deployments, and teams selected by a 41-member panel of practicing CISOs and identity architects. Each entry carries a verifiable cryptographic badge, a judges' citation, and an audited benchmark against the CIS Excellence Framework.
Hardback · Digital · Indexed. Two volumes on the shelf. One open call for 2026.
Volume VII · 2025 Cycle
Selected from 1,847 submissions across 38 countries — each entry below was independently benchmarked against the 142-criterion CIS Excellence Framework and confirmed by a final-round panel of practicing CISOs and identity architects.
Best CIAM Deployment — Financial Services
Northbridge Trust, N.A. · New York
"A textbook migration of 14.2 million retail identities with zero unplanned downtime across the cutover week — and a measured 38% reduction in account-recovery contact volume within ninety days."
Workforce Identity Program of the Year
Helix BioPharma · Cambridge, MA
"Eleven thousand clinical identities across nineteen hospital systems, federated under a single entitlement model with provable, attestation-grade joiner-mover-leaver controls."
Privileged Access — Identity Threat Detection
CivicGrid Energy Corp. · Houston
"A defensible, board-readable model of standing privilege replaced by short-lived, identity-attested sessions — credited internally with averting a confirmed lateral-movement attempt in Q3."
Decentralized Identity — Production Deployment
Verifiable Travel Consortium · Singapore
"The first production federated credential accepted at six international ports of entry — privacy-preserving by design, interoperable across four issuer trust frameworks."
IAM Team of the Year — Mid-Market
Lumen Retail Group · Manchester
"A four-engineer team that built and now operates an identity observability stack the rest of the sector is quietly copying — particularly the certified-credential rotation workflow."
CIAM Program — Public Sector
Civic OneID Programme · Wellington
"Three point four million citizens onboarded under a single, audited identity proofing standard — with measurable accessibility gains at every enrollment channel."
Why a CIS Excellence Award Carries Weight
The program was built by former KuppingerCole and Gartner identity-security analysts and has been operating continuously since 2018. Every badge, citation, and finalist benchmark is independently auditable.
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Every winner receives a verifiable digital badge backed by cryptographic proof-of-award. Procurement teams and buyers can confirm the year, category, and recipient directly — preventing the badge-fraud common in vendor-run programs.
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Every finalist is independently benchmarked against the CIS Excellence Framework — a 142-criterion maturity model used by Gartner as a reference. Scores are returned to the submitter and form the spine of the judges' citation.
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A 41-member final-round panel of practicing CISOs and identity architects from Fortune 500 enterprises. The panel is 100% CISSP or CIAM-certified, refreshed 25% annually for independence, and audited annually by Deloitte.
Volume VI · 2024 Cycle — Prior Edition on Record
Volume VI (2024) remains on record as the prior bound edition of the CIS Excellence Awards. Its recipients — including the widely-cited Okta win in Best Workforce Identity Platform — were subsequently referenced in fourteen enterprise RFP shortlists that named the award as an explicit selection criterion, a documented downstream effect consistent with the program's positioning as an industry-standard mark of credibility for boards, buyers, and the market.
The 2024 volume is available as a fully indexed digital edition. Category winners from that cycle include:
Volume VI featured coverage in CSO Online, Dark Reading, and Identity Week. The 2024 program was also awarded "Cybersecurity Recognition Program of the Year" at the 2024 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards.
The 2025 Cycle in Numbers
1,847
Submissions received across the 2025 cycle — up 62% year-over-year.
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Countries represented in the 2025 field, the broadest international reach in the program's history.
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Categories spanning CIAM, workforce IAM, privileged access, decentralized identity, and identity threat detection.
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Final-round judges — 100% CISSP or CIAM-certified, refreshed 25% annually for independence.
Practical Questions from Practitioners
A win here is a meaningful, peer-validated mark of credibility — one you can show to boards, buyers, and the market.
Submit Your Entry for 2026