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Dr Richard Harris SC OAM
Dr Richard “Harry” Harris OAM is a man who defies categories. A specialist anaesthetist, world-renowned cave diver, underwater cinematographer, and joint 2019 Australian of the Year, Harry is best known for his extraordinary role in the 2018 Thailand cave rescue. When 12 young soccer players and their coach became trapped deep within a flooded cave system in Chiang Rai, it was Harry’s rare blend of medical knowledge and cave diving expertise that helped orchestrate their safe return, a mission deemed impossible until it wasn’t. For his bravery and critical involvement, Harry was awarded the Star of Courage, one of Australia’s highest civilian honours, and the Medal of the Order of Australia.
But Harry’s story didn’t begin or end with that rescue. With over three decades of cave exploration behind him, he has travelled to some of the most remote and dangerous locations in the world, always seeking new frontiers beneath the surface of the earth. After a lifelong fascination with the ocean and adventure, Harry has now turned his attention to underwater storytelling. His first feature-length documentary, Deeper, premieres at the 2025 Sydney Film Festival. As executive producer, underwater cinematographer, and subject, Harry uses the film to share not just the thrill of exploration, but also a deeper message: the need to embrace risk, challenge, and uncertainty, particularly for the younger generation.
With humility, humour, and cinematic storytelling, Harry inspires audiences to think more deeply about their own courage, curiosity, and capacity for change. Whether addressing global executives, first responders, educators, or students, Dr Harry Harris delivers more than just a survival story. He offers a compelling reminder of what’s possible when deep knowledge, calm resolve, and human spirit meet the moment.
Jacqui Nelson
Jacqui Nelson is the Chief Executive Officer at DekkoSecure where she brings extensive expertise across technology, finance, and information security. With a decade of experience in the cyber security arena she is a respected advisor and industry thought leader.
As CEO, she leads a team of highly skilled cyber security professionals that focus on harnessing technology to improve operational efficiency whilst strengthening security frameworks across the government and private sectors.
She is also the current Chair of the AUKUS Forum Cyber Security Taskforce where she educates and advocates across the three nations to raise awareness and build strong collaboration partnerships amongst the defence industrial base.
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Belinda Heggen
Belinda is one of Australia’s most experienced and well-respected media trainers, drawing her expert insights from more than 25 years as a journalist and presenter across TV, radio and print, and as a media strategist and advisor to senior politicians.
A trusted and effective coach, her clients include national industry leaders in education, cyber security, finance, health, law, property and construction, real estate, travel, tourism and government.
James Duncan
James Duncan has over 15 years of experience working in a variety of Government ICT roles, and for the last nine years has been specialising in cyber security. He has experience performing cyber security assessments, implementing security controls, and developed practical mitigation strategies for a wide range of environments.
Currently, James specialises in purple team assessments for government entities, bringing deep expertise in penetration testing, Active Directory security, and Windows internals.
Hazel Chester
Hazel Chesters is a senior technology consultant at Friday Initiatives, a female-founded data company, focusing on data mapping, governance and risk. With experience delivering
complex, high-risk digital initiatives across Defence, law enforcement, aviation, and government sectors in the UK and Australia, Hazel brings a unique blend of strategic clarity
and technical depth to data-first transformation.
She has led multimillion-pound data platform programmes, managed diverse delivery teams, and advised on tooling, data exposure, and compliance strategies in sensitive operational
environments. Her hallmark is helping organisations cut through security tool clutter to focus on what truly matters: understanding and protecting their data.
Hazel previously held senior roles at Accenture and Kubrick Group in London. She holds a BA in International Politics from Kings College London, is a certified Scrum Master, and has
completed advanced cybersecurity programs through AWSN and Cisco.
Sean Park
Sean Park is a cyber security researcher specialising in AI-driven systems and emerging threats in large language model (LLM) workflows. His expertise lies in uncovering vulnerabilities in autonomous agents, including sandbox escapes, prompt-based injections, and AI-native supply chain risks.
Sean’s work has revealed how a single compromised AI component—such as a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server—can cascade into broader system compromise. He combines deep technical analysis with practical risk modeling to help organisations build safer, more resilient AI infrastructure.
Zoe Adam
Zoe Adam is the Security Operations Team Lead for CyberCX overseeing the South Australian and ACT regions. With nearly five years of frontline experience in critical infrastructure, industry, and government, she has trained analysts across all levels - from new CyberCX Academy Associates to AFP and Defence personnel - fostering practical, resilient defenders. Zoe specialises in building high-impact detection and hunting strategies, uplifting team capability, and instilling an analyst mindset that goes beyond dashboards and playbooks.
Outside of her operational role, Zoe is a passionate advocate for women and girls in cybersecurity. She serves as a Regional Champion for the CyberCX Women in Cyber program, led the AWSN Explorers Canberra chapter, where she created pathways and opportunities for women entering the field. In 2024, her efforts were recognised with the Canberra International Women in Cyber Day Cyber Catalyst Award, celebrating her impact on diversity and inclusion in the cyber community.
Zoe brings both technical depth and a people-first approach to everything she does - driven by a mission to build a more inclusive, capable, and high-performing cyber workforce.
Rob Linton
Rob Linton is a senior developer at Senetas, where he builds secure file-sharing and data protection tools used by global enterprise and defence clients, including the US and Australian military. With over 30 years in the tech industry, Rob has deep experience in data architecture, software development, and cyber security. He’s the founder of Podzy — a secure, on-premises alternative to Dropbox — which won the 2013 Australian iAward for Toolsets and was later acquired by Senetas, where it evolved into the SureDrop platform.
A published author (Amazon Web Services: Migrate your .NET Enterprise Application to the Amazon Cloud), Rob was one of the first advocates for cloud adoption in Australia. He founded Australia’s first AWS User Group, growing it to 4,500+ members, and was named an AWS Community Hero in 2015 — one of only 22 worldwide at the time. Rob holds certifications in ISO 27001 information security and SQL Server Administration. A former C/C++ developer turned C# advocate, he now spends his time toggling between .NET, Angular, Flutter, and the occasional embedded system — with varying levels of enjoyment.
When he’s not writing code or reverse engineering network protocols, Rob can be found restoring a 1966 Series IIa Land Rover or chasing land speed records on vintage motorcycles.
Bob Smart
Bob Smart has extensive experience in organisational resilience, cyber security and IT service governance across financial services, critical infrastructure, state government, consulting and aged-care sectors, including as a CISO of several prominent organisations.
Bob is recognised for his contributions to enhancing cyber security measures in Australia over the last two decades. His focus on resilience (SOCI Act, CPS 230 and ISO 28000) and contributions to risk management and compliance frameworks helped protect Australian critical infrastructure from operational and cyber threats.
Karl Sellmann
Karl Sellmann is the Chief Information Security Officer of Flinders University and is the Chairperson of the Australasian Higher Education Cyber Security Services partnership which connects the capabilities of partners for the betterment of institutions in developing sector cyber security capacity. Karl is a highly experienced technology and business leader who is skilled in governance, strategic planning, risk management and digital business transformation. Karl is an advocate for creating innovative ecosystems, often connecting students, practitioners and entrepreneurs to discuss and seek opportunities in addressing security and business challenges.
Karl has assisted multiple sectors with a particular focus on providing strategic direction to navigate the nexus of an innovative and shifting digital environment, a growing and evolving threat actor environment and the desire to support organisations, their operations, digital assets, staff and customers in a safe and secure manner..
Yvonne Sears
Yvonne brings over 25+ years experience in business resilience, cyber security, privacy and strategic advisory, with a deep understanding of how to protect and enhance business operations in today’s dynamic risk landscape.
As the founder of Elev8 Resilience, she works closely with Boards, executives, and operational teams to design and embed fit-for-purpose continuity and resilience frameworks that are practical, measurable, and tailored to each organisation’s goals.
Clients value her ability to translate complex concepts into actionable strategies, and her commitment to delivering clear, ongoing support. Whether supporting critical incident response planning, uplifting governance structures, or aligning practices to standards like ISO 22301 (Business Continuity), ISO 42001 (AI), and ISO 27001 (Cyber security), she focuses on building internal capability, confidence, and clarity.
Yvonne has been awarded the Business Continuity Institute (BCI): Continuity and Resilience Consultant of the year for Australasia for both 2018 and 2020, is a Fellow of Information Privacy and AISA Fellow based on her years of experience and dedication to the profession.
Chris Keune
Chris is a Managing Partner for Cyber Resilience Group, working primarily with enterprise clients, their boards, and executives to enhance their cyber resilience and preparedness to respond to cyber threats.
With a solid technical background having started his career in Cyber Forensics, Chris has spent more than 15 years helping government agencies and corporations around the world prepare for and deal with the aftermath of major business impacting cybersecurity attacks. He has also built and led Cyber Defence teams to protect Australia’s national critical infrastructure.
Emily Wingard
Emily Wingard is a passionate leader with 19 years' experience across information technology and cyber security in the Government of South Australia. Currently serving as the Senior Manager, Cyber Capability and Engagement in the government’s lead agency for cyber security, Emily plays a crucial role in enhancing cyber awareness, capability and collaboration across the state to safeguard the community against continually evolving cyber-attacks.
In addition, Emily has volunteered for the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) for over 6 years as the South Australian Branch Deputy Chair, Branch Chair and now currently serving on the national Board as a Board Director. She is dedicated to strengthening skills and creating knowledge sharing opportunities, which has driven collaboration within South Australia and beyond.
Emily’s contribution to making a positive impact on the cyber industry has been acknowledged with the Department of the Premier and Cabinet’s ‘Making a Difference’ award and AISA ‘Branch Executive of the Year’ award in 2021 and 2024.
Daniel Brinkworth
With a career in local government spanning back to 1999, this speaker has held a variety of roles across multiple councils, bringing deep operational insight to the evolving challenges of the local government sector IT. Since joining the LGITSA Board in 2018, he has played a pivotal role in advancing cyber security and data governance across South Australian councils—most notably through the development of a widely adopted Cyber Security Toolkit and Data Governance Standards.
A driving force behind numerous cyber initiatives in the local government space, they combine strategic leadership with a strong commitment to sector-wide collaboration across all levels of government. Holding an MBA from the University of Adelaide and a Graduate Certificate from the Australian Institute of Company Directors, he brings together both technical acumen and local governance expertise to the panel.
Fern Hillyard
Fern Hillyard is a Senior Manager for Cyber Policy and Risk in the lead agency for cyber security in the Government of South Australia. With over 18 years of experience in public sector cyber security, Fern leads strategic initiatives that enhance cyber resilience across government agencies. Her expertise spans policy development, risk management, and cyber security management, with a strong emphasis on managing third-party risks.
Fern has recently led across-government projects including updating the South Australian Cyber Security Framework and uplifting cyber security risk management in government procurement processes.
Alistair Coombe
Alistair Coombe serves as the Manager of Cyber Threat Intelligence within the Office of the Chief Information Officer, Government of South Australia. He brings extensive expertise in cyber threat intelligence, incident response, and threat hunting, developed through years of experience in both strategic and operational roles.
In his current position, Alistair leads a comprehensive cyber threat intelligence program designed to empower decision-makers and cybersecurity practitioners across government. His work enables proactive identification and mitigation of complex threats in dynamic operating environments.
Alistair has a particular interest in the application of adversary-generated threat intelligence to enhance threat hunting and detection capabilities. He is passionate about leveraging intelligence-driven approaches to strengthen cyber resilience and improve response effectiveness across the public sector.
Bronwyn Furse
Bronwyn Furse is a specialist privacy, data, cybersecurity and intellectual property lawyer. Her practice traverses public and private industry sectors. These include financial services, insurance, government, health and aged care, medtech and life sciences, manufacturing, automotive, higher education, energy and resources and retail from start-ups through to multinational groups. Bronwyn is adept at providing industry specific advice to her clients, and her work with multinationals often involves complex cross border work requiring an understanding of relationships between various local and offshore regimes.
She advises clients on the broad spectrum of privacy, data and cyber matters, including data licensing and commercialisation, compliance advice, advising on data breaches, complaints and regulator investigations, including liaising with the regulator, assisting with contractual negotiations, developing compliance frameworks, undertaking compliance audits, conducts privacy impact assessments, and designing and delivering tailored training. Bronwyn is on the Australia and New Zealand advisory board for the International Association of Privacy Professionals, a member of the Law Council of Australia's Privacy Committee and is Vice President of the Licensing Executives Society.
She is routinely recognised by her peers as one of the Best Lawyers in Australia in the areas of Privacy and Data Security Law, Intellectual Property Law and Franchise Law, and in Doyle’s Guide as a recommended lawyer in the areas of Intellectual Property and in Technology, Media & Telecommunications Law.
Derek Grocke
Derek Grocke is the Founder and Director of Madrock Advisory, with over 30 years of experience in cyber security, systems integration, risk, and radio/electronics engineering. He is a passionate advocate of immersive training and capability uplift across Defence, government, and critical infrastructure industries. Derek is a strong advocate for hands-on learning through cyber ranges, process simulation, and strategic workforce programs that build resilience and reinforce security culture across all organisational levels.
Derek contributes to national security and cyber capability uplift through initiatives such as AISA, Aus3C, JCSC/ACSC, DHA TISN, SecTalks, B-Sides Adelaide, NATO Cyber Wargames, ISACA , Uni of Adelaide guest lecturer and a range of sector-specific working groups. He brings together deep technical expertise and strategic insight to help organisations navigate complex threat landscapes and implement practical, resilient solutions.
Outside of work, Derek is a lifelong learner and enthusiast of software defined radio, ground station systems and the amateur radio community. His downtime often involve tracking satellite signals or enjoying a glass of Clare/Barossa Valley red wine.
Andrew McDonnell
Andrew McDonnell is an experienced entrepreneurial software developer and security engineer, and has always been into hacking, making, and tech generally, and has presented at conferences on a range of topics from reverse engineering to radio telemetry and application security.
After having spent his teenage years hacking on a Commodore 64 he received for Christmas one year, he developed, designed and later helped secure a wide variety of software systems in the defence industry, later building prototypes for an agtech startup. After spending a couple of years in the trenches holding all the cyber & IT hats for a small company, he is currently working to implement a software product security programme.