Executive Summit

Data doesn’t like to stay put—so how do you keep it safe in a fast-moving, global organization? In this compelling session, a seasoned CISO pulls back the curtain on his team's journey to implement Data Loss Prevention (DLP) across the enterprise, sharing the real-life hurdles, practical tips, and lessons learned. 

Join this session for candid insights on enterprise-wide DLP implementation and key challenges, including:

• Turning Resistance into Resilience: Proven strategies for building executive support, winning over skeptical teams, and fostering a security-first culture.
• Making DLP Work for the Business: Practical approaches to data classification, policy enforcement, and aligning security controls with real-world workflows.
• Moving Beyond Encryption to Observability: Plans for continuously improving enterprise DLP program in an AI-focused world.

In the fast-paced world of cybersecurity, CISOs benefit immensely from sharing savvy strategies that enhance their organization's security posture. In this session, we turn the spotlight on an industry at the forefront of rapid change and technology advancements -- healthcare -- and invite infosec leaders from across this varied industry to each take the floor for 10 minutes share their best tips for securing innovation.

Join your CISO peers in healthcare as they:

• Introduce practical tools, techniques and ideas that can be implemented to enhance cybersecurity, and discuss their effectiveness in different organizational settings.
• Identify common challenges faced by CISOs, such as limited resources and evolving threats, and offer insight on strategies to overcome these obstacles.
• Share their experiences and successes, promoting knowledge exchange and continuous improvement in cybersecurity practices.

Stepping into a new CISO role might seem like you've finally reached that pinnacle of your career, but it's just the start of the next journey, one with just as many -- if not more -- challenges and hurdles as it took to get there.
 
In this session, a panel of some of Houston's newest CISOs -- either in their first CISO role or taking on a CISO role at a new organization -- will reflect on their own experiences and share how they might advise the next "class" of new CISOs. They'll discuss lessons learned from:

• Navigating the process of landing their new CISO role
• Working to ensure stability during the crucial first 100-days on the job
• Charting their own courses as the new CISO to scale cybersecurity's business impact

As the role evolves, CISOs no longer want to be seen as technologists but as essential business leaders who happen to be tech savvy. In this newly defined role, how are you demonstrating your understanding of business priorities and gaining trust and support from stakeholders as you outline an infosec strategy that enables the enterprise?

Join your peers to discuss:

• Balancing a sense of urgency with due diligence
• Building a team with the right blend of technology and business skills
• Cultivating persuasive leadership

 Sensitive data movement can be risky but restricting it outright can create operational and security challenges. In an era of agentic AI, generative AI, and emerging quantum computing, organizations need security frameworks that protect data while ensuring agility. This session explores how modern security platforms enable secure data flow, adapt to diverse use cases and prepare for the post-quantum encryption (PQE) shift.

Join this keynote to learn:

• How to choose the right secure access method for each use case
• Why security must be adaptive to risk, user behavior and AI-driven interactions
• How to prepare for post-quantum encryption and its enterprise security impact

For most organizations, the number of connected, essential devices is growing by the second. In response, the CISO's jurisdiction is changing just as rapidly. Now, in the case of any security issue, the rest of the C-suite may be looking to you for answers.

Join this session and start understanding:

• Your new or growing operational technology responsibilities
• What you can do to smoothly plot and control your OT workload
• How you can best juggle IT and OT security simultaneously

The path to a stronger IAM strategy lies within an agile digital system. CISOs are often challenged with keeping an entire company up to date, as well as identity-related breaches and core business operations being interrupted - but easy to use technology (when leveraged correctly) can be a game changer.

Join this boardroom to discuss:

• What the essentials are for building an efficient IAM system
• The challenges faced when protecting remote workers’ environments
• Optimizing user experience when adopting a user access program

Security functions are being tasked with achieving greater outcomes with the same or fewer resources — from budgets to headcount. How can CISOs ensure security posture isn’t impacted by a lack of resources?

Join this session to discuss:

• Challenges in scaling at the pace of the business
• Strategies to allocate tools and resources effectively
• Methods to communicate the business value of security investment

In today’s fast-moving tech and security landscapes, disruption is inevitable—but it doesn’t have to derail your team’s performance. In this high-energy, 30-minute keynote, Dr. Vijay Pendakur will explore why disruption often leads teams to get stuck and how this stagnation threatens business success. Vijay will share his Alchemy of Talent model and explain how leaders can increase productivity and efficiency on their teams, even when it feels like we’re working in an endless earthquake!

Attendees will learn:

• Why disruption can lead to stuck teams and how to avoid it
• The critical impact of stuck teams on business performance and results
• How to make your teams more resilient, adaptable, and willing to learn from failure

AI boosters have promised a lot, setting up a wide gulf between serious discussions of sentient AI taking over the world and expensive LLMs that can’t count the letter Bs in “blueberry.” But regardless of how we feel about the future of AI, it’s already here — it’s just a lot more basic than we might have expected, and should play a key role in mitigating the security risks you care about, from data security to human resilience.

Join this session to hear:

• How threat actors are currently leveraging and attacking AI in the wild
• What use cases are actually driving value with AI agents
• The top 5 mistakes to avoid