HACKING DEMOCRACY

Koos Lodewijkx is CTO and VP Technology for IBM Security. He is responsible for innovation and technical strategy for the IBM Security product and services portfolio. Prior to joining IBM Security in 2017, he was the CTO in the office of the IBM CISO, responsible for the security and technology strategy and implementation for protecting the IBM enterprise. Koos joined IBM in 2007 with the acquisition of Consul Risk Management, a Netherlands based security software start-up, where he held various management positions. Koos lives with his wife and 2 daughters in the Washington, DC, area.

Chris Ahern is the Senior Associate at Strategic Cyber Ventures (SCV). As the Senior Associate, Chris drives the investment process, from deal sourcing and due diligence to funding and takes an active approach towards advising, tracking, managing, and supporting SCV’s portfolio companies.
Prior to joining SCV, Chris attended Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, graduating with his Masters of Business Administration in 2017. During his time at Georgetown, Chris participated in and helped his team win the MBA Global Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC). Chris also led and was one of four students selected to participate in the Georgetown MBA program’s Venture Fellows program where he spent one year working with Lavrock Ventures, an early stage investor in enterprise software and cybersecurity.
Prior to getting his MBA, Chris was a Manager in Ernst & Young’s audit practice. During Chris’ six years at Ernst & Young, he managed several audit projects for a variety of clients in the Washington, D.C. area including several large government contractors and biotechnology companies. Chris graduated from the University of Virginia with a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce with concentrations in Finance and International Business and later went on to earn his Master’s degree in Accounting, also from the University of Virginia.

Paul Battista is CEO and Co-Founder of Polarity, creator of the world’s first commercial memory augmentation platform. Prior to Polarity, Paul was an intelligence officer for the United States Government and participated in all elements of the intelligence cycle from planning operations through dissemination to senior policy makers in the White House. Before his government service, Paul was a senior engineer for Aetna Inc., a penetration tester, and incident responder for multiple Fortune 100 customers.

CEO and Founder of CybrIQ Solutions and Chairman, Advisory Board, CyberGRX

Patrick Gorman is the CEO of CybrIQ Solutions and serves as the Chairman, Advisory Board for CyberGRX, a Third Party Cyber Risk Management platform, and on the Board of Directors for Securonix, the leader in Security Analytics. With 30 years of experience, Gorman has worked in multiple capacities in digital technology leadership, risk management and cybersecurity.

He recently served as the Chief Security Officer (CSO) for Bridgewater Associates, where he was in charge of cyber, physical, and staff security for the world’s largest hedge fund. Mr. Gorman was the Senior Vice President and global Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, where he had global oversight of cyber security policy, technology, management and operations. Previously, he worked at Booz Allen Hamilton as Senior Executive Advisor of Cybersecurity responsible for strategic planning, business development, capability development, marketing and capture management for firm’s government and commercial cyber-portfolio.

His technology and risk background stems from holding the position as Asst. Director of National Intelligence (ADDI) and Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the U.S. Intelligence Community where is was responsible for IT transformation and cybersecurity for all national intelligence agencies in the US. He served as one the principal parties to set up the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) after 9/11, and worked at the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the 1990s on developing DoD doctrine and capabilities design and development for Network Centric Warfare, Information Operations and Cyberwar programs. Prior to that, Patrick spent over ten years in the United States Air Force as part of The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) in signals intelligence, electronic warfare, and psychological operations with service in the Electronic Security Command, Air Force Intelligence Command, and USAF Special Operations Command.

He holds degrees in government and economics from the University of Maryland, a Masters of Arts in Russian and Eastern European Studies from the George Washington University, executive program in Business Strategy at Harvard Business School, and is a graduate of the Defense Language Institute (Russian and Serbo-Croatian).

Sean Kanuck is an attorney and strategic consultant who advises governments, corporations, and entrepreneurs on the future of information technology. Sean is affiliated with Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and has received several international appointments, including: Director of the Future Conflict and Cyber Security program at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London, England), Chair of the Research Advisory Group for the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace (Hague, Netherlands), Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), and Distinguished Fellow with the Observer Research Foundation (New Delhi, India).

Sean served as the United States' first National Intelligence Officer for Cyber Issues from 2011 to 2016. He came to the National Intelligence Council after a decade of experience with the Central Intelligence Agency’s Information Operations Center, the White House National Security Council, and the United States delegation to the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on international information security. Prior to government service, Sean practiced law with Skadden Arps in New York, where he specialized in mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, and banking matters. He holds degrees from Harvard University (A.B., J.D.), the London School of Economics (M.Sc.), and the University of Oslo (LL.M.). He also proudly serves as a Trustee of the Center for Excellence in Education in McLean, Virginia.

Simone Petrella is Chief Cybersecurity Officer at CyberVista, where she leads product development and delivery of cybersecurity training and education curriculums as well as workforce initiatives for executives, cyber practitioners, and continuing education. Previously, Simone was a Senior Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton where she helped build the firm's cybersecurity practice in the commercial sector focusing on the creation of cyber fusion centers and the integration of cyber threat intelligence, security operations, and cyber defense operations into effective cyber security operations. For a decade she led the firm's all source cyber threat intelligence business in the national security and Defense sectors, where she built out a threat capability and team with in depth subject matter expertise in all aspects of cyber threat intelligence, including intelligence support to both defensive and offensive operations. Her areas of specialty included predictive cyber intelligence based on an understanding of the threat adversary and developing service offerings to integrate intelligence into exercises to provide realistic cyber scenarios. Simone received her J.D. with honors from Catholic University's Columbus School of Law and graduated from Georgetown University with a B.A. in Government and a M.A. in International Law and Policy. She is a member of Women in International Security and is admitted to the New York Bar. A native of New Jersey, she has resided in Washington D.C. since 2000.

Hank Thomas is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Strategic Cyber Ventures (SCV). Hank leverages 21 years of experience in cybersecurity, military intelligence, management consulting, and business to identify, assess, invest in, and mature differentiated business and technology teams positioned to revolutionize the cybersecurity landscape. Hank serves as a member of the SCV board of directors and on the boards of cybersecurity product companies TrapX Security, ID DataWeb and Polarity. All are a part of the SCV portfolio of companies. Before co-founding SCV, Hank served an 11-year tenure as an executive at Booz Allen Hamilton—a global strategy, technology, and consulting firm—leading a highly successful consulting business focused on military grade cybersecurity for both commercial and government clients. Hank also served as the director of Booz Allen’s Cyber4Sight™, a multi-capability, global-cyberthreat intelligence team supporting commercial and government clients around the globe.

Prior to his work at Booz Allen, Hank was commissioned through the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) as an officer in the U.S. Army immediately upon graduation from Northwestern State University with a B.A. in Political Science. Selected for the Military Intelligence Corps, Hank served as an active duty intelligence officer for eight years in a variety of tactical, operational, and strategic assignments. Hank is currently completing his Master’s degree in Technology Managmement at Georgetown University and is active in the Washington D.C. business community.

Sean Weppner is a skilled technologist, strategic business leader, and cybersecurity expert experienced in building solutions and leading engineering and data science teams within the commercial space and the United States Defense and Intelligence Communities. As Managing Director for Operations at Nisos Group, Sean oversees client engagement, product management, and is responsible for building the firm's technology partnership strategy. His unique background allows him to provide the bridge between the highly technical prowess of Nisos’ operators and the needs of business leaders to drive impacts and outcomes for Nisos Group's many clients. Before joining Nisos, Sean spent nearly 10 years consulting in the Defense and Intelligence communities, providing expertise in cloud and distributed computing, and delivered everything from prototypes to enterprise level capabilities in the realm of data ingest, storage, analysis, and visualization. During his time in the DoD and IC Sean acquired a specialization in Deep Learning and delivered capabilities by turning forward leaning academic research into operational statistical models which could then be used to analyze vast amounts of image and text data. Sean is an active member of the State University of New York University at Buffalo’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Deans Advisory Council and is a Cloudera Certified Apache Hadoop Developer.

Jeff is a Managing Director and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at BNY Mellon. As CISO, he is responsible for defining, building and operating a highfunctioning, enterprise-level cyber-security organization that securely enables BNY Mellon's core businesses, protects the assets of the company and its clients, and preserves shareholder value. The security organization collaborates with a wide range of internal and external clients to securely enable new technologies and securely drive innovation across all BNY Mellon platforms and services. Jeff is also a member of the senior leadership team for BNY Mellon's Client Technology Solutions group. Previously, Jeff led the Cyber Financial Services practice at the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. During his 18 year tenure with Booz Allen, Jeff provided cyber security services and expertise to a wide range of financial institutions as well as other commercial and government clients. His experience includes providing cyber security support to many of he top U.S. and global financial institutions and helping complex financial services organizations establish comprehensive cyber security strategies, to providing technical assessment services such as penetration testing and dynamic web assessments for mission critical platforms and applications. In his role at Booz Allen, Jeff led a number of regulatory compliance and cyber security engagements for BNY Mellon, establishing a strong foundation for his current role as CISO. Mr. Lunglhofer has held a variety of technical cyber security certifications over the course of his career, and received his undergraduate degree in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia.