An award-winning leader with over 15 years’ global experience, Jen has spent her entire professional career working at the intersection of cyber and national security to protect against cyber and geopolitical threats. She builds and leads high-performing, mission-focused teams, and advises executives, boards and leaders at the highest levels of government on managing strategic and regulatory risk.
Jen recently spent 12 months as Senior Cyber Security Adviser to the Minister for Home Affairs and Cyber Security, as a leader both in the development of Australia’s new cyber security strategy, and in the response to major cyber incidents and national technology policy issues.
Jen previously held policy and operational leadership roles at Telstra, within the Australian Cyber Security Centre, and in security and intelligence organisations in both Australia and the UK.
Jen cares deeply about supporting the wider cyber security community; she is a former member of the Victorian Government’s Cyber Strategy Expert Advisory Panel, RMIT’s Industry Advisory Board on Cyber, and former Board Director of the Australian Women in Security Network.
Dr. Philip CAO (aka #DrTekFarmer), EDBA, MSCS, ZTX-I, CCISO, CISM, CMSC, CCSP, CCSK, CASP, GICSP is a Strategist, Advisor, Contributor, Educator and Motivator. Currently, he’s Deputy CEO at VinCSS - a Trusted Cybersecurity Pioneer established to protect the Digital way of Life. He has 22 years’ experience in IT/Cybersecurity industry in various sectors & positions.
• One of the very first few people on the globe that were certified by Forrester as Zero Trust Strategist (ZTXI):
to-date, the 1st Vietnamese on the globe, in August 2019
• The 1st Vietnamese featured on EC-Council Elite Members’ Wall for C|CISO, as an inspiration to others in the industry and community, in August 2019
• The 5th in ASEAN and 1st person in Vietnam to achieve Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP) from (ISC)² in May 2016
• The 1st person in Vietnam to achieve Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge (CCSK) from Cloud Security Alliance in April 2014
Dr. CAO is actively participating in global ICT/Cybersecurity associations such as FIDO Alliance, (ISC)², IEEE, ISACA,
IAPP, ISA, IASA, Cloud Security Alliance (CSA)... and constantly driving cybersecurity activities across Southeast Asia
countries and APAC region in the recent years. He's also participating in Vietnam ICT/Cybersecurity associations such as: Member of Vietnam Information Security Association (VNISA) since 2008; Board of Advisors (2011) & Member Board of Judges (2015, 2016, 2017) for ASEAN CIO/CSO Awards by IDG; Co-founder & Advisor, Cloud Security Alliance, Vietnam Chapter; Co-founder & Advisor, (ISC)² Ho Chi Minh City Chapter; Co-founder and Motivator, CISO Vietnam Community; Board Advisor of CyberKid Vietnam. He's also a keynote speaker at global CSA Zero Trust Summit 2022, TEDxHUS and other top industry conferences; as well as Creator & Host at Ask Me Anything: CYBER.
Dr. CAO received an Executive Doctor of Business Admistration (EDBA) from Sabi University and graduated from EC-Council University with a degree of Master of Science in Cyber Security (MSCS): Executive Leadership in Information Assurance, and held Executive Leadership certificate from Oxford University, Advanced Computer Security certificate from Stanford University. He can be reached anytime at https://philipcao.com or https://linkedin.com/in/philipcao.
With over 17 years of experience as a journalist and presenter with ABC Radio, Di Darmody is a well known - and popular – voice for listeners in Perth and throughout Western Australia.
Di has presented ABC Perth Breakfast, Mornings, Afternoons, Drive, Saturday Breakfast, The Country Hour as well as National Nightlife. She has also worked on National Grandstand, AFL and WAFL coverage and has hosted a variety of regional and state-wide programs across WA.
As a MC her versatility and range of experience enables her to connect with people from all walks of life and areas of business. And its this experience, coupled with her passion for bringing corporate, community and sporting events to life, that has seen Di become an MC people rave about.
Her warm and friendly nature gives her the ability to engage any crowd, from business executives to guests at a gala ball or families at a community event.
Daniel Zatz serves as the Director Cyber Security Services for Australia and New Zealand at Sygnia, the foremost global cyber readiness and response experts, applying creative approaches and battle-tested solutions to help organizations beat attackers and stay secure.
With over 20 years of practical experience, Daniel provides effective advice, solutions and implementation of advanced security operations centers,
incident response services, and proactive security services for both public and private sectors. Prior to joining Sygnia, he worked at Accenture as a Senior Security Solution Architect, architecting security solutions for some of the company's largest clients in ANZ.
Vannessa Van Beek known as "V" is an accomplished cyber security leader with deep industry experience. She has experience leading multi-disciplinary teams, embedding robust security into digital transformation. V is an advocate for continuous learning and knowledge sharing within the cyber security community seeing this as critical to staying ahead of emerging threats.
She has 20 years of industry experience, coupled with a Law degree, Master of Business Administration, and a post-graduate diploma in Psychology, which guides her understanding of Technology, Risk, Strategy, and Culture. Her professional qualifications include CISM, CIPM and she is a graduate of the Cyber Leadership Institiute.
Her experiences have shaped to know crises are inevitable, and preparing to respond requires disciplined operational procedures, responsive technology and a culture of teamwork and continuous learning. Vannessa was a finalist in the Most Outstanding Woman in Protective Security at the 2023 Australian Women in Security Awards and winner of WitWA Tech+ Most Outstanding Women in Leadership.
Chirag is a seasoned cyber security executive with extensive experience building and leading cyber security and risk management programs in multiple countries across various industries. He is the Founder and Chief Executive of 7 Rules Cyber - a cyber security company focused on enabling businesses to be secure in a cost-effective and efficient manner. He has built the company on the key pillars of strategy, architecture and culture.
He is the author of the two bestselling books – “7 Rules to Become Exceptional at Cyber Security” and “7 Rules to Influence Behaviour and Win at Cyber Security Awareness." Chirag is featured in the prestigious CSO30 2022 list of top 30 cyber security executives in Australia. He was also recognised as a finalist for the Australian Cyber Security Professional of the Year Award in 2022 and 2020.
Chirag is a well-known keynote speaker and has presented at numerous leading international and regional conferences and forums on topics such as cyber threat landscape, effective cyber security strategies, cyber regulations, security culture, and the importance of human factor.
He is also a Director for the ISACA Sydney chapter and has conducted several successful cyber security education sessions for executives and non-technical audiences in industries such as financial services, energy, healthcare, government, and higher education. He has led teams and multi-million-dollar cyber transformation initiatives. He has experience in both IT and OT environments and has managed cyber security through demergers and divestments.
Chirag’s academic qualifications include Master’s degree in Telecommunications Management and Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering. He holds multiple certifications including CISA, CISM, CRISC and CDPSE.
Caitriona has more than 20 years of experience in the IT sector and specialises in cyber security. In recent years she's developed a passion for cyber awareness education, formalising her knowledge with a Masters in Cyber Security graduating from ECU in 2022.
Caitriona founded her business caIT in 2019 to deliver people-focused cyber security training programs. Her programs help organisations build cyber-safe behaviors and develop a culture of cyber safety. As well as being a dog mum to two golden retrievers, Caitriona's superpower is turning technical babble into practical, easy-to-understand programs. She deeply believes that cyber skills are life skills that are essential at work and home.
Caitriona is a Women in Technology WA award winner and was a finalist for Australian Women in Cyber Security. She holds a BSc Hons degree in Computing and Information Systems and a Master in Cyber Security.
Shana Uhlmann (she/her) is the Chief Information Security Officer at the Minderoo Foundation and Tattarang. Prior to this she was Assistant Director-General Cyber Defence Capability at the Australian Cyber Security Centre.
John Uhlmann (he/him) is a Security Research Engineer at Elastic where he works on the Elastic Defend (EDR) Windows agent. His research into detecting modern in-memory malware threats has been presented at Black Hat Asia and BSides Canberra. Prior to this he did similar work at the Australian Cyber Security Centre where he was a member of the technical working group that undertook the last major update to the Essential Eight Maturity Model released in July 2021.
Gillian van Rensburg is a passionate Privacy Specialist with a background in business law, data privacy and cyber security. She champions insightful dialogues on data privacy and cyber security, and has made it her mission to empower people with practical knowledge while keeping it fun.
Meet the SIEM whisperer from Seamless Intelligence. When Jordan isn't taming ChatGPT to conjure up speaker bios, you'll catch him delighting in the art of regex (no, seriously!), conjuring nifty tools with Python and PowerShell, and unravelling the mysteries of all things reverse-engineerable.
With a journey spanning over a decade, Jordan's adventures include captivating lectures, crafting code and mastering the art of security engineering. From healthcare and finance to retail, he's left his mark across various domains, switching hats between customer and service provider realms.
Christian Frichot (he/him) is an application security professional with a passion for threat modelling who spends his free time trying to avoid computers. Currently working at Atlassian as a Principal Product Security Engineer, Christian has a history spanning both large tech companies Internationally (LinkedIn, Salesforce, SafeStack, Cruise, HashiCorp), and local Aussie orgs as well (Asterisk, CyberCX, Bankwest, Rio Tinto).
He's also been fortunate enough to present at wonderful events such as Kiwicon, DEFCON, CactusCon, OWASP APAC, Blackhat Arsenal & BSidesSF. Christian also co-authored the Browser Hacker’s Handbook.
Pauline Willis is the WA Chair of the College of Organisational Psychologists and an AHPRA registered Organisational and Coaching Psychologist. As Director of Lauriate, she offers integrative, systemic solutions for individuals, teams and organisations, Pauline delivers high impact team coaching and development solutions using a wide range of psychological tools and approaches. Pauline's work with teams involves launching & sustaining high performance as well as sorting out serious dysfunction. She uses team ‘health checks’ to inform the design and evaluation of evidence-based interventions.
With experience in Australia & internationally, Pauline has worked in high pressure, high stakes environments including energy, military, aerospace, FMCG, pharmaceutical, animal/veterinary & human health, emergency services, banking, IT & Telco. She also provides professional supervision for coaches, team coaches, leaders, and psychologists. She is a registered psychology practice supervisor in both Australia and the UK.
Oliver Guidetti is a Cybernetics researcher at Edith Cowan University holding a PhD in Psychology with a specialisation in the human factors of cyber security. Throughout his academic career, he has been committed to researching the nuanced relationship between humans and technology, especially in the context of applied socio-technical projects.
He has forged extensive collaborations with national industry stakeholders, focusing on the psychological aspects of cyber and national defence.
His partnerships span organizations such as Data 61, CSIRO, Deakin University, Penten, The WA Department of the Premier and Cabinet, The Department of Home Affairs, and the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Center. Dr Guidetti has contributed to a variety of Q1 academic journals and is in the process of authoring a book titled 'Psybersecurity: Human Factors of Cyber Defense.’
Connect With Oliver Guidetti on LinkedIn
Zena Burgess is an experienced non-executive Director and Chief Executive Officer with significant experience across commercial and social enterprise organisations. She holds a PhD in Organisational Psychology and Master’s Degrees in Business Administration and Education.
Zena was awarded Fellowship of the Australian Institute of Company Directors in 2013. Prior to joining the APS in 2020, Zena was the Chief Executive Officer of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) for 11 years. During that time she oversaw a transformation of the RACGP to be the largest, most influential and innovative medical college in Australia.
Zena has a passion for building human capability in individuals, organisations and systems. Zena has driven new strategic directions and change implementation, achieving a culture of high-performance and innovation in organisations.
Hayden Fricke is the National Chair of the College of Organisational Psychologists is a coach and an expert in leadership, wellbeing and workplace culture who has devoted his career to unearthing the secrets of high-performance leadership.
As an AHPRA registered Organisational Psychologist and Global Managing Director of Melbourne-based organisational development consultancy Steople, Hayden has helped some of Australia’s biggest brands develop leaders, improve workplace culture and drive widespread behavioural change
Rachel Mahncke leads and manages cyber security programs and projects at the Office of the Digital Government WA. She has been involved in the cyber security ecosystem in WA, since 2005.
Rachel has a software engineering undergraduate degree and has held positions of Academic Director and Engagement Lead.
Adon Metcalfe has been in security for over 15 years and managed a SOC for WA Government for the past 2 years. Adon spent a lot of time focusing on risk management and threat prevention at scale for OT, software development and enterprise IT.
Nicholas Putra is a cyber security specialist focusing Governance Risk and Compliance specialising in information security auditing, risk management, and strategic development. Nicholas is a certified ISO 27001 Implementer and passed CISM as well as trained in conducting IRAP assessments.
Ben Jones is an experienced journalist and university research communications professional, currently leading cyber security engagement and project management efforts in the Western Australian public sector, working to enhance skills and capabilities and build maturity and preparedness. Ben has a solid background in strategy, project management, and cyber security, delivering engaging content for diverse audiences and building strong relationships with stakeholders.
Vasanth S. Kumar is currently working as security operations Lead at a reputable company in Perth. Before this role, he lent his expertise to the WAPOL Forensics division as a Digital Forensics System Specialist, during which he was instrumental in enhancing the policing and intelligence command with implementation of cutting-Edge digital forensics solutions. With a career span of over 17 years, he has traversed across industry, academia, and entrepreneurship. He has been associated with global giants like IBM, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments, having contributed across multiple geographies including Australia, India, the USA, and Germany.
Furthering his academic pursuits, Vasanth is close to completing his Ph.D. in Cyber Security from Edith Cowan University. His ongoing research, on IoT memory forensics, is supported Cyber Security CRC, WA Government and WA Police. This research seeks to expand the horizons of digital forensics and incident response (DFIR), particularly its applicability on the Internet of Things (IoT) and cyber-physical systems in IT and OT environments.
Vasanth's expertise paints a broad canvas, from cybersecurity and digital forensics, the dynamic realm of the Internet of Things (IoT), to the intricacies of artificial intelligence, including deep learning and machine learning. He also holds knowledge in computer vision, the evolving landscape of Industry 4.0, mining-centric smart solutions, precision agriculture, and the specialised domain of deep submicron digital electronic design.
In his current role, Shaun works with clients to ensure they’re up to date with the latest cyber security trends, threats, and tools, and guides strategies to heighten their online security.
Shaun has extensive experience in the IT and Cyber Security sectors, has presented at multiple conferences including the CyberWest Summit, was a finalist in the 2023 WA Cyber Awards, and has co-authored an article on Ransomware 2.0 for the Australian Journal of Defence and Strategic Studies.
He has trained in Digital Forensics, Incident Response, and Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC).
Kylie is an Insider Threat program development specialist. She works for Scyne Advisory supporting Federal and State governments to strengthen their security posture by helping to reduce their risk of insider threats through divery of services.
Kylie comes from over 30 years experience of working in and with government departments, supporting the uplift of security posture through many different roles.
Matthew Sear is the founder and Managing Director of Best IT & Business Solutions, a market-leading company with offices in West Perth, Karratha, Broome, and Kununurra. With over 20 years of experience in the ICT industry, Matthew established his computer business in Broome back in 2003, which has since flourished into an established company serving a diverse range of clients, from major resource companies to local primary schools.
Matthew is deeply passionate about cybersecurity education and empowering individuals to protect themselves from scams. He thrives on demystifying the inner workings of scams and illustrating exactly how they operate in a simple and relatable manner. By deconstructing scams, he equips his audience with practical strategies to avoid falling victim to fraudulent schemes.
Driven by his dedication to cybersecurity awareness, Matthew regularly shares his expertise through speaking engagements throughout Western Australia and beyond. He has been recognized for his contributions to the field and was the recipient of a 40under40 award in 2017, celebrating his achievements and leadership.
Recent speaking engagements include Cybercon Canberra in 2023, where he shared his insights on cybersecurity trends and best practices. He also spoke at The Pharmacy Western Australian Forum of 2023, offering valuable guidance on safeguarding sensitive information in the healthcare industry. Additionally, Matthew will be presenting at Cybercon in Melbourne again this year, furthering his mission to promote cybersecurity awareness and protection.
In addition to his speaking engagements, Best IT & Business Solutions, under Matthew's leadership, offers comprehensive Cyber Security Training Modules for businesses. These training modules are designed to educate employees and key stakeholders on the latest cybersecurity best practices, threat detection techniques, and incident response protocols. By providing tailored training programs, Best IT equips organizations with the necessary skills and knowledge to mitigate cyber risks effectively.
Beyond his professional pursuits, Matthew is committed to making a positive impact in the community. He actively participates in numerous charities and not-for-profit initiatives, and since 2016, he has served as President of The Kyle Andrews Foundation, which supports children with serious illnesses.
With his extensive experience and unwavering passion for cybersecurity, Matthew Sear has positioned Best IT & Business Solutions as a trusted partner for businesses in Western Australia. By sharing his knowledge and expertise, he strives to create a safer digital environment while driving business efficiencies and success in the ever-evolving tech landscape.
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