Identity: Season One

The calendar invite doesn’t say “budget.”

It never does.

It says “Business Alignment Discussion.”

Forty-five minutes. Executive conference room.

Jordan knows what it really is.

They arrive early, more out of habit than necessity, and set their notebook on the table. The room is quieter than the others. Bigger chairs. Thicker glass. The kind of space designed to make decisions feel deliberate.

Karen from Finance is already there, flipping through a thin stack of papers. She looks up and gives Jordan a small nod.

“Thanks for coming prepared,” she says.

Jordan isn’t sure if they are.

The meeting fills in slowly.

Mark takes a seat to Jordan’s right, posture straight, unreadable.

Lena arrives a few minutes late, apologizing without sounding sorry.

Evan slides in quietly and opens his laptop, already scanning something Jordan can’t see.

A VP Jordan hasn’t met before joins last, listens more than they speak.

Karen opens the conversation.

“We’ve all agreed there’s a visibility problem,” she says, folding her hands. “What we need to understand now is what that means in business terms.”

Jordan feels the shift immediately.

This isn’t about agreement anymore.

It’s about justification.

Jordan starts where they’ve learned to start.

Not with tools. Not with solutions.

They talk about what happens today when access isn’t clear.

Delayed onboarding that costs teams days, sometimes weeks.

Partners waiting on approvals while deals stall.

Audit findings that reappear because no one owns the root cause.

Incidents that take longer to contain because no one can quickly answer who has access to what.

They pause after each point, watching the room.

Karen makes notes.

Lena leans back, arms crossed, listening carefully.

Mark nods once when audit comes up.

Evan stays focused on his screen, jaw set.

Jordan keeps going.

“None of these are catastrophic on their own,” they say. “But they compound. Over time, they create drag. Risk. Cost.”

Karen looks up. “Can you quantify that?”

There it is.

Jordan hesitates just long enough to be honest. “Some of it,” they say. “But not all of it.”

The VP across the table raises an eyebrow.

Jordan continues. “We can estimate time lost to access delays. We can track audit remediation effort. We can measure incident response time.”

They pause.

“But the bigger cost is optionality. How fast the business can move without tripping over access every time it changes shape.”

The room is quiet again.

Lena speaks next. “From Sales’ side, friction shows up as delay. Deals don’t die loudly. They slow down. Sometimes they just… fade.”

Karen nods. “That’s still cost.”

Mark adds, “And from Security’s side, lack of visibility means we’re always reacting. We spend more time explaining why something happened than preventing the next one.”

Jordan notices something. No one is arguing anymore. They’re translating.

Karen flips to a new page in her notebook.

“So let’s be clear,” she says. “What does the business get if we solve this?”

Jordan answers carefully.

“Faster decisions. Fewer exceptions. Clearer ownership. Less time spent unwinding access that never should’ve existed in the first place.”

Karen presses. “And if we don’t?”

Jordan doesn’t dramatize it.

“We keep paying in small ways that don’t show up cleanly on a spreadsheet. Until one day, they do.”

The VP leans forward slightly. “And what are you asking for?”

Jordan had expected that question. Prepared for it, even.

It still lands heavier than they thought.

“Time,” Jordan says first. “Authority. And investment — phased, not all at once.”

Karen doesn’t respond immediately.

She looks around the table instead.

“This isn’t a tooling discussion yet,” she says. “This is a business capability discussion.”

Jordan recognizes the phrasing.

It’s not approval.

But it’s movement.

The meeting ends without numbers being finalized.No budget line approved.No contract signed. But something important has changed. Identity is no longer framed as a cost center problem. It’s being discussed as a constraint on growth. As people file out, Karen lingers.

“Bring me something concrete,” she says quietly. “Tie it to outcomes. Not features.”

Jordan nods.

They leave the room feeling something they hadn’t expected. Pressure — but also momentum.

That evening, Jordan sits alone again, notebook open, city lights steady outside the window.They flip back through earlier pages.

The map. The name. The table. Now this.

Jordan realizes the work has shifted again.Visibility created urgency. Urgency created questions. Now the questions demand answers that hold up beyond the identity team.

Jordan closes the notebook.

Next week, they’ll have to show how this turns into a real program — not just a convincing argument. And that means choices.

Episode 5 is where identity becomes a business conversation. Not because funding is approved, but because value is finally on the table. Here’s how to navigate this moment without overreaching.

Executives don’t buy platforms. They invest in capability. Frame identity work around the following:

Technology comes later. Outcomes come first.

Not everything worth fixing fits neatly into a spreadsheet. Be clear about what you can measure today and what you expect to measure once visibility improves. Credibility grows when you don’t pretend certainty where it doesn’t exist.

Identity work pays off when the business changes. Mergers. New partners. New products. Automation. If identity makes those moves easier instead of harder, the investment starts to make sense quickly.

You don’t need full funding on day one. Ask for enough support to prove progress, reduce uncertainty, and demonstrate value. Momentum is built, not granted.

Funding doesn’t follow problems. It follows a clear connection between effort and outcome. When identity is positioned as a business capability instead of a technical fix, the conversation changes and so does who leans in.

Next episode, Jordan has to turn intent into execution. Teams. Roles. Ownership. Because once money enters the conversation, delivery becomes the expectation.

Episode 6 drops Monday.