O’Sullivan says a lot of his peers at enterprise organizations remain skeptical about—or simply won’t discuss—cloud security. His response is that enterprises are headed to the cloud, and Time is choosing to stay ahead of the curve so it can leverage the benefits of cloud computing while keeping its data safe.

“With any new technology, security usually follows and is not in front of the tech push,” he says. “At Time Inc. we chose to stay ahead of the tech and build new frameworks for cloud deployments. It also gave my team the chance to work with emerging security technology, which helps retain the amazing talent we have.”

There are other benefits as well. Time foresees saving tens of millions of dollars in IT costs by moving to AWS through a combination of closing or consolidating data center resources, accelerating the delivery of features and products, and improving operational efficiencies. Those cost benefits are already being seen in security.

“Moving to AWS delivers huge cost savings for security," says O’Sullivan. “We’ve already saved $600,000 on managed security services, and the overall savings will be in seven figures if we factor in the costs of hiring and monitoring external companies. We estimate that we’ll cut our security-related monitoring costs between 50 and 60 percent by moving to AWS. We’re already taking those savings and putting the money into other activities, like more detailed and advanced monitoring of internal breaches and data exfiltration.”

O’Sullivan adds that the cost savings and innovation go hand in hand when moving to the cloud, and that IT security departments need to embrace changes that will simultaneously protect information while supporting the business’s success.

“I tell others to never shut down new technology and always be forward thinking on security,” he says. “You will never be 100 percent secure on any platform, but you have to be 100 percent prepared. AWS gives us the tools and access to the right partners to be 100 percent ready as we move to the cloud.”