SecureWorld Manufacturing Virtual Conference 2023

Chris is the CISO for Boom Supersonic and works as an advisor for several entities and organizations around the globe. His most recent projects are focused within the aerospace, deception, identity, cryptography, Artificial Intelligence, and services sectors. Over the years, he's founded or worked with several folks specializing in OSINT/SIGINT/HUMINT research, intelligence gathering, cryptography, and deception technologies. These days he’s working on spreading the risk, maturity, collaboration, and communication word across the industry. (Likely while coding his EEG driven digital clone that’s monitoring his tea and biscuit consumption!)

Since the late 90’s Chris has been deeply involved with security R&D, consulting, and advisory services in his quest to protect and defend businesses and individuals against various types of attack. Prior to that he jumped out of planes for a living, visiting all sorts of interesting countries and cultures while doing his best to avoid getting shot at too often. (Before that, he managed to get various computers confiscated by several European entities.)

He’s considered one of the world’s foremost experts on counter threat intelligence and vulnerability research within the Information Security industry. He’s also gotten a name for himself in the transportation arena, basically anything with wings, wheels, tracks, tyres, fins, props or paddles has been the target for research for the last 15 years. (To interesting effect.)

Chris has led or been involved in information security assessments and engagements for the better part of 25 years and has a wealth of experience with regulations such as GLBA, GDPR, HIPAA, HITECH, FISMA, and NERC/FERC. He has also worked with government, state, and federal authorities on standards such as CMS, ISO, CMMC, and NIST.

Chris has been credentialed in many of the top IT and information security disciplines and as a CyberSecurity advocate and passionate industry voice, he is regularly featured in national newspapers, television news, industry publications and several documentaries. He can typically be found waving arms on a stage somewhere on this planet…or hacking into whatever’s taken his fancy… (Cows and camels being two of the more bizarre things, we’ll ignore things in space for now.)

As one of the well-known hackers and researchers, Chris is routinely invited to speak at industry conferences. CNN, The Washington Post, WIRED, Business Insider, USA Today, Forbes, Newsweek, BBC News, Wall Street Journal, and numerous others have covered him in the media.

And worst case, to jog the memory, Chris was the researcher who gained global attention in 2015 for demonstrating the linkage between various aviation systems, both on the ground and while in the air that allowed the exploitation of attacks against flight control system.

Changiz Sadr is an accomplished Telecommunications Engineer, licensed Professional Engineer in Ontario, and a distinguished Fellow of Engineers Canada. With a strong background in Communications Infrastructure Engineering and Cybersecurity, he has made significant contributions to the field throughout his career. Changiz holds prominent positions within the industry, currently serving on the Board of Directors of the Cyber Security Global Alliance (CGSA) and as an Engineer-In-Residence (EIR) Advisory Board member for Engineers of Tomorrow. He has also been appointed to prestigious roles on the Canadian Engineering Qualifications Board and the Board of Engineers Canada.

Fred Gordy is a nationally recognized thought leader, speaker, and expert in building systems cybersecurity specializing in organizational and technical vulnerabilities. He has over 20 years of industry experience including information technology and building controls systems. Fred has been the Chairperson of the Cyber Security Committee for the InsideIQ 55 international member companies, Security Steering Committee Member for S.E.A.T. (Sports & Entertainment Alliance in Technology), founding member of Cyber Security for Control Systems Association International (CS2AI), past president and current president emeritus the Atlanta CS2AI Chapter.

Jason Kikta is the Chief Information Security Officer at Automox. He previously served for over 20 years in the United States Marine Corps, which included seven years at U.S. Cyber Command designing and managing the national counter-APT and counter-ransomware missions.

Tom Brennan is the CIO of the national law firm Mandelbaum Barrett PC and leads the U.S. arm of CREST International. In this role, he works with government and commercial organizations to optimize the value of CREST as a cybersecurity accreditation body and industry standards advocate, particularly for companies in the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency’s 16 critical infrastructure sectors which are vital to U.S. security, national economy, and public health and safety. As CREST USA Chairman, Brennan spearheads strategic plans for CREST USA’s organizational growth while also serving as an industry evangelist and educator on the value of using accredited cybersecurity products and professionals to improve consumer privacy, security, and protection worldwide.

As a proud U.S. Marine veteran, Brennan became involved with CREST International in 2016 while serving the Global Board of Directors for the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP). Seeing similar goals, he became more active in the CREST organization and was nominated to lead the organization’s U.S. Advisory in 2019. Over his career, Brennan has amassed security expertise across the cybersecurity spectrum, including penetration testing, vulnerability assessment, application security, threat intelligence, and more. In addition to being CREST USA Chairman, he is the Chief Information Officer of the national law firm Mandelbaum Barrett, overseeing critical infrastructure, privacy, and security operations. He is also an Advisory Board Member of the information services advisory Gerson Lehrman Group, a Cyber Fellows Advisory Council Member, a Member of the Information Technology Advisory Committee of the County College of Morris, a Senior Advisor and Industry Advisory Board Member of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and a Cyber Fellows Advisory Council Member of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering.

Chris Sistrunk is Technical Leader on the Mandiant ICS/OT Security Consulting team at Mandiant (now part of Google Cloud) focusing on helping protect and secure critical infrastructure around the world for over 9 years. Before Mandiant, Sistrunk was a Senior Engineer at Entergy for over 11 years where he was a subject matter expert for Transmission and Distribution SCADA systems. Sistrunk was awarded Energy Sector Security Professional of the Year in 2014. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and is a registered Professional Engineer in Louisiana. He founded BSidesJackson, co-founded the BEER-ISAC, and helped organize the ICS Village at DEF CON 22. He holds BS electrical engineering and MS engineering and technology management degrees from Louisiana Tech University.

Deidre Diamond is the founder and CEO of CyberSN, the largest cybersecurity talent acquisition technology and services firm in the U.S., transforming job searching and hiring for the cybersecurity industry. Standardizing all cybersecurity job functions into a common taxonomy of 45 roles, the CyberSN platform allows professionals to make anonymous, public profiles that match with employer-posted job descriptions using the same taxonomy. This innovation is disruptive and solves a serious national security issue. Deidre’s leadership style combines 25 years of experience working in technology and staffing, her love of the cybersecurity community, and a genuine enthusiasm for people. She has led large-scale sales and operations and built high-performance teams at Rapid7 and Motion Recruitment prior to founding her own organizations. She believes a company-culture established on ‘anything is possible’ attitudes and open communication frameworks, along with positive energy, career advancement, and kindness, enables her teams to have fun at work and reach beyond peak performance. She also encourages the use of EQ (Emotional Intelligence) skills: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, social skills, and empathy. Deidre has also founded SecureDiversity.org, a non-profit organization working to raise awareness for, and increase the hiring of, women and underrepresented humans in the cybersecurity workforce. She has also spoken at some of the biggest tech summits, conferences, and podcasts in the world including ISC2 Congress, RSA, ISSA International, and Hacker Halted.

Wes Spencer is a nationally recognized technology innovator and co-founder of multiple cybersecurity companies including Perch Security which was successfully acquired in 2020. He has numerous awards including the 2020 Cybersecurity Educator of the Year by the Cybersecurity Excellence Awards. Wes has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Pro Publica, Dark Reading, and many other outlets. He is the Vice President and Channel Chief for FifthWall Solutions, one of the nation’s largest insurance brokers focusing exclusively on cybersecurity insurance. Wes is also the co-host of the CyberCall with over 5,000 MSP weekly listeners.

Reanna Schultz, from Kansas City, MO, holds both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Cybersecurity. With over six years of professional experience, Reanna has contributed to various corporate environments, leveraging her expertise to strengthen cybersecurity practices.

Throughout her career, Reanna has worn many hats, including roles in Endpoint Security Engineering, Detection Engineering, and leading a Security Operations Center (SOC) team. In addition to her primary responsibilities, Reanna serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Central Missouri (UCM) and is also an entrepreneur.

Reanna is the founder of CyberSpeak Labs, a platform dedicated to fostering community engagement through collaboration. She hosts the podcast Defenders in Lab Coats, where she delves into cyber threats and occasionally invites passionate guests to share their insights.
Driven by her passion for cybersecurity, Reanna frequently travels to speak at events, sharing her industry knowledge and empowering others to improve their organizations' cybersecurity practices.

Dafina Buçaj counsels and advises Octillo clients on the development and implementation of enterprise-wide data security and privacy programs and regulatory compliance under federal, state, and international privacy regulations. Her practice includes helping organizations build out data privacy and security regulatory assessments, information privacy and security protocols and policies, external policies, data collection, vendor risk assessments, contract development and review, and threat mitigation plans. With a global perspective, Dafina also helps organizations address compliance with number global regulations, including the GDPR, PIPIEDA, CASL, POPIA, LGDP, PIPL, and other emerging privacy and security laws.

Melissa Ventrone focuses her practice on class action privacy litigation, privacy breach response (pre- and post-event), payment card industry (PCI) standards and investigation, and advising clients in identifying, evaluating and managing first- and third-party data privacy and security risks. Melissa has represented numerous clients in litigation and arbitration, including in disputes related to privacy, invasion of privacy, contracts, consumer fraud, statutory claims and other matters, using her strong organizational and advocacy skills to obtain the best results for her clients.

Melissa frequently advises clients on compliance with regulations and state, federal and international law. She serves as the leader of Thompson Coburn's breach response team, quickly bringing lawyers, clients, and forensic and breach response vendors together to enhance response time and effectiveness. Melissa has handled numerous breaches for small and large corporations, including merchants, financial institutions, medical providers and educational institutions, successfully reducing public and regulatory scrutiny and protecting her clients’ reputations.

Melissa was featured in the March 1, 2013, Chicago Lawyers Inspiring Innovators series, and was recently quoted in Dark Reading, How to Cushion the Impact of a Security Breach. She is a frequent speaker on data privacy and security, cyber liability and breach response.

James R. Slaby is the Director of Cyber Protection at Acronis. Previously, James was an industry analyst covering cybersecurity, cloud computing, and networking at Forrester Research, HFS Research, Yankee Group, and The Info Pro. He has also held solutions, vertical, product, and campaign marketing roles at tech security and networking vendors including Sonus, Acme Packet, Bay Networks, and Motorola.

Ryan brings over a decade of storage and data management experience to Acronis leading a commercial enterprise sales organization. Acronis’ enterprise sales team is focused on helping organizations improve their business continuity plans and reduce cyber exposure in historically difficult computing areas such as the edge, endpoints, industrial automation, and R&D labs. Ryan began his sales career selling knives door to door and holds a BS in Sales & Business Marketing from Western Michigan University.

With five+ years of experience as a sales engineer with Acronis, John currently works with some of the company’s largest enterprise customers, helping them develop, deploy, and maintain software to ensure system uptime and business continuity. John’s expertise also includes working with smaller to medium businesses so he understands the complexity of needs that can range from various customer deployments.

Stephen Dougherty has over a decade of investigative experience. His career as a Financial Fraud Investigator in support of the federal government has played a pivotal role in criminal investigations, surrounding cyber-enabled financial crime, money laundering, human trafficking, identity theft, healthcare fraud, embezzlement, tax/government program fraud, dark web crimes, among others. Stephen’s main area of expertise is combatting money laundering in all its forms. Aside from this, Stephen has been proactive in identifying new and future trends in the world of financial crime. Such trends include the cyber security nexus of financial crimes and its ever-growing relationship in major financial crimes such as Business Email Compromise and the rise of the dark web and the use of virtual currency as a vehicle for facilitation of financial crimes. Stephen has been a leader and a mentor to other investigators teaching them how to uncover fraud internally and externally. Stephen is currently an investigator contracted to the U.S. Secret Service’s Global Investigative Operations Center (GIOC) in Washington D.C.

Lisa Plaggemier is Executive Director at the National Cybersecurity Alliance. She is a recognized thought leader in security awareness and education with a track record of engaging and empowering people to protect themselves, their families, and their organizations. Lisa is a University of Michigan graduate (Go Blue!) and while she wasn’t born in Austin, Texas, she got there as fast as she could.

Cedric Leighton is a CNN Military Analyst and a retired United States Air Force Colonel. On CNN, he has provided incisive commentaries on the Israel-Hamas War, the War in Ukraine, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and numerous other conflicts around the world. His analysis has been seen by millions of viewers around the world and provided much needed context to some of the most pressing national security issues of our time. As a U.S. Air Force officer, Colonel Leighton served at U.S. Special Operations Command, the Joint Staff, and the National Security Agency, where he helped train the nation's cyber warriors. A Middle East combat veteran, he is the recipient of numerous military awards, including the Defense Superior Service Medal and the Bronze Star. After serving 26 years as a U.S. Air Force Intelligence Officer, Col. Leighton founded a strategic risk consultancy and became the co-founder of CYFORIX, where he advises multinational businesses on developing better cyber strategies designed to reduce risk and unpredictability.

VJ Viswanathan is a seasoned technology executive recognized and awarded for innovation, business capability transformation, and thoughtful mentorship. Most recently, VJ is the founding partner at CYFORIX, a global cybersecurity research, advisory, and strategic consulting firm delivering solutions to public and private sectors. He also serves as the CEO at TORQE, a specialized advisory firm focused on analytics, automation, and convergent technologies. VJ is the co-host of ELEVATEINTEL, a podcast series at the nexus of technology, social, and defense.

With more than 25 years of pioneering enterprise technology, cybersecurity, privacy, and compliance & risk management experience, VJ has a detailed track record of designing, implementing, and leading highly successful programs, products, and services at multinational Fortune 100 brands spanning CPG, telecom, media, supply chain, healthcare, and finance segments. As a strategic thought leader, VJ has delivered the first of its kind "Supply Chain Security" & “Omni-channel Risk Management” frameworks. As a published author and featured keynote speaker at global industry events, he approaches disruptive digital paradigms with innovation, creativity, and active collaboration with his key industry peers, researchers, national & international law enforcement, and defense groups.

VJ is an active mentor at various incubators and accelerators groups, serves as an advisory board member for growth stage companies. As a strategic adviser to VC & PE firms, he specializes in developing market analysis, competitive product road maps, and guides in opportunity mapping. As a board member and subject matter advisor to CEOs and corporate directors, VJ evaluates and audits enterprise technology and cybersecurity programs for veracity and operational effectiveness.

VJ is passionate about animal rights and giving back to the technology and security industry. He has created a rescue and foster care group for large breed dogs. He is actively engaged with academic institutions and purpose-driven professional groups like Minorities in Cyber Security, where he serves as a board member and chair of mentorship programs to develop the next generation talent through coaching and facilitating scholarships for technology and cybersecurity education.