adelaidESEC Speakers

Mark Wales was a career special forces officer in charge of 30 elite soldiers, his role was to lead combat missions deep behind enemy lines. Mark has completed 10 tours of duty to Afghanistan, Iraq, East Timor, Lebanon and the Solomon Islands.

Mark Wales' successful transition from the Army led him to a high-profile business career. He graduated with an MBA from the Wharton School of Business – and joined McKinsey & Company. Mark was listed in Wharton’s prestigious 40 under 40 awards for business excellence. He is the founder and CEO of a tough-luxury brand, Kill Kapture.

Mark Wales’ best-selling memoir: Survivor: Life in the SAS, is known as one of the leading contemporary war memoirs.

Tony Chapman is the Deputy National Cyber Security Coordinator and First Assistant Secretary, National Office of Cyber Security (NOCS). Tony leads the day-to-day operations of the NOCS Group within the Department of Home Affairs. The NOCS Group supports the National Cyber Security Coordinator, Lieutenant General Michelle McGuinness, CSC, in the coordination of: national cyber security policy; responses to nationally significant cyber security incidents and data breaches; whole-of-government cyber incident preparedness efforts; and strengthening Commonwealth cyber security capability.

Tony has made extensive contributions to both the Australian and New South Wales (NSW) governments in various cyber security, criminal intelligence, law enforcement and whole-of-government forums, shaping policy and driving major programs and projects.

In his capacity as NSW Chief Cyber Security Officer, Tony was responsible for leading the whole of NSW Government organisation, Cyber Security NSW. During his five-year tenure, Tony delivered the Cyber Security Framework and established governance models to support entities in preparing for, preventing, detecting, responding to, and recovering from cyber incidents. Tony led the response to significant cyber incidents in accordance with NSW Cyber Incident Response Arrangements. He was responsible for developing and implementing the NSW Cyber Security Strategy, NSW Cyber Security Policy, and NSW Cyber Security Emergency Plan to increase the resilience of NSW Government systems and services. Tony was a member of National Cyber Security Committee (NCSC) and the NSW State Security Group (SSG).

Prior to this role, Tony held several leadership positions including NSW Chief Cyber Security Officer and Executive Director of Cyber Security NSW, Director of Cyber Security Engagement and Prevention with the NSW Office of the Chief Information Security Officer, and various senior managerial and advisory positions with the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission.

FLUENT Media founder Belinda Heggen is one of Australia’s most experienced and well-respected media and presentation trainers and an in-demand corporate MC.

With more than 25 years’ experience as a journalist and news presenter across TV, radio and print, and as a media strategist and advisor to senior politicians, she specialises in developing confident and inspiring leaders who seek to build their profile and elevate their business brand through strategic communication.

Brooke regularly advises boards and executives on their cyber risk and strategy and conducts cyber scenario training.  Brooke works with clients from the “ground up” to build the organsiation’s cyber circle of active oversight.  Brooke is an experienced commercial litigator and technologist who has worked on all of the commonly known meg litigations of Bell, One.Tel and C7 Pay TV rights.  Brooke also acts for clients in relation to cyber incidents, commercial space disputes, EV network disputes and data breaches, including advising an institutional US Bank in relation to an inadvertent data spill.  Brooke speaks about technology in a way that lawyers understand and the law in a way technologists understand.  She regularly presents locally and internationally including to members of the judiciary on emerging tech, including cyber, data, privacy, crypto and blockchain. 

 Recent speaking invitations include Cyber and AI Japan, Sept 2023; Cyber workshop with Tim Brown, Solar Winds CSO (biggest supply chain hack in the world) Orlando Florida Aug 2023.  Brooke was the recipient of a Commonwealth Fellowship to teach/study Master of Laws, University British Columbia, Canada in commercial law and native law and completed at Harvard, Cyber Security: Managing Risk in The Information Age.  She was shortlisted in the Euromoney Asia Women in Business Law Awards in Privacy & Data Protection 2018; Doyle’s Guide 2017, 2022, 2023 and Lawyers Weekly Tech Partner of Year 2022; Cyber Partner of Year 2023, 2024; and Australian Cyber Security Awards Cyber Lawyer of Year 2024.  

Brooke is a member of the AICD and a director on Boards.  Prior to joining LK Brooke worked for King & Wood Mallesons in Sydney.  Prior to commencing private practice she was an associate to the Hon John von Doussa QC (then a Justice of the Federal Court) and then a research assistant on specific Federal Court cases in relation to native title claims in WA and NT and the stolen children.  

As the Chief Information Security Officer for the Government of South Australia, Will brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the cyber security industry. His role is pivotal in leading and supporting the collective effort across the South Australian Government to protect and strengthen the state’s community and economy from ever-increasing cyber-attacks. Will leads the Cyber Security Directorate, which is responsible for setting whole-of-government strategic direction and policy, as well as leading large-scale incident and emergency responses. He also heads the team that provides security to whole-of-government ICT and digital functions within the Government’s Office of the Chief Information Officer.

Will has a broad range of skills, expertise, and training across national and cyber security, emergency management, and critical infrastructure protection. He holds undergraduate degrees in Business and International Relations, postgraduate qualifications in Intelligence, and is a Certified Information Security Manager and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Will is passionate about supporting the professionalisation of the cyber security industry and the community. 

He serves in a voluntary capacity as the Vice President of the Adelaide Chapter of ISACA and is also a Non-Executive Director of Crime Stoppers SA.

Alexander Duffy’s career started in the Royal Australian Army, where he worked for six years as a Telecommunication Technician. Since leaving in 2016, he has led in cyber security roles across state and federal government, and private industries. Before SA Power Networks, he was a cyber SME within Boeing Defence Australia, where he worked on securing the P8-A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft. He now works as the Cyber Risk and IT Resilience Manager for SA Power Networks, where he oversees the awareness, cyber risk, architecture, and IT resilience capability. 

He is also responsible for the IT resilience of the organisation, and for delivering a threat and risk informed cyber security program. A key part of this is leading the alignment of cyber security strategy, awareness program, risks, threat profile and corporate risk appetite.

Vannessa Van Beek is an accomplished Cyber Risk Leader with deep experience in Security and Transformation. She has a unique combination of strategic, operational, and leadership skills, which she has utilized to build enduring relationships and lead cyber security strategies for critical infrastructure organizations across Australia. 

Her diverse background in law, business, and psychology enables her to inspire her teams to achieve excellence through innovation and resilience.  Vannessa holds security certifications such as Certified Information Manager (CISM) and Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM), and is a graduate of the Cyber Leadership Program.

Min Livanidis is an executive security advisor at Microsoft, offering strategic insights to customers on enhancing cyber resilience. In addition to this role, Min serves as a director for both the Australian Cyber Collaboration Centre and the Oceania Cyber Security Centre, where she is dedicated to fostering cyber capacity building initiatives in Australia and the Pacific region. 

Before her tenure at Microsoft, Min spearheaded AWS’s public policy initiatives concerning cybersecurity, critical infrastructure, privacy, and responsible AI. She also founded and led the Security Intelligence Centre at NBN Co., was a professor of practice in cybersecurity at Deakin University, and held various roles within the Australian Signals Directorate and the Office of the Deputy Secretary for Intelligence and Security. Min’s contributions to the intelligence community were recognised with three Australian Intelligence Community Medallions.

Min holds a Master of Public Policy and Management and a Bachelor of International Relations (Hons I) . She is a Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia and a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, reflecting her deep commitment to governance and leadership in the cybersecurity domain.

Simeon is a lifelong technologist with experience across operations, delivery, design, security architecture and leadership. He has contributed to complex projects and regulatory frameworks across many industries including Energy, Finance, Defence and Government. 

As a cloud security specialist at Palo Alto Networks, he helps customers on a daily basis to plan and execute their cloud security transformation initiatives. 

Jesse is a Senior Lead within Telstra's Threat Research and Intelligence Group, managing the Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and Red Team. 

Samuel has more than 10 years experience in IT working in both Systems Administration, Security Architecture and Digital Forensics and Incident Response. He specalises in EntraAD (Previously known as Azure), Microsoft 365, Windows Active Directory and Linux based investigations.

Since Samuel has moved to DFIR in 2019, he has used his previous experience as a Systems Administrator, to lead and deliver detailed containment, remediation and eradication projects for a mixture of on-oremesis and hybrid Active Directory environments for a number of organisations. 

Medha Mishra, Senior Application Security Engineer at PaperCut Software. Has been working in Cybersecurity her whole career. Winner of Best Secure Coder in 2023 Australian Women in Security Awards.