Speakers

Manit Sahib, Ethical Hacker & Former Head of Penetration Testing & Red Teaming, Bank of England

Manit is an experienced offensive security expert who is certified by UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) as well as His Majesty’s CESG Check scheme (HMG CHECK). He has over ten years professional experience in both UK Government and private offensive security operations. Formerly, Manit was the Head of Penetration Testing & Red Teaming at the... Bank of England. He is contracted to Global Fund.more

James Kwaan, CIO - GS&S, Lloyds Banking Group

James Kwaan has worked for a number of blue chip companies in Simulation, Energy and Financial Services. He is a former director of Information Security (CISO) and Global data protection officer. In his spare time he is a supporter of women into cybersecurity by starting the ISACA "SheLeadsTech" initiative in 2019. He is a recognised expert in Information Security... and in 2017 was awarded three prizes for his contribution: Malcolm Turner Memorial Prize for outstanding contribution to Risk Management and Information Security, Wayne K. Snipes prize for best European Chapter and Cyber Evangelist of the year at the Scottish Cyber Awards. James is currently working for Lloyds Banking Group.more

Jill Robertson, Former Deputy CISO Metro Bank & Independent Consultant

Jill Robertson is an experienced Cyber Security professional within Financial Services and Consultancy sectors performing a range of roles in delivery & Leadership. Formerly the Deputy CISO at Metro Bank, she is actively engaged in many Cyber Security communities supporting all sectors such as in-house organisational security, supplier tool & services and... research. Companies she has worked at include Bank of America MBNA, RBS, LBG, F-Secure and Metro Bank.
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Federico Iaschi, Information Security Director, Starling Bank

Federico Iaschi is a multilingual Information Security Director at Starling Bank with over 20 years of experience across global private and public sectors. He specialises in cyber security resilience and observability, building robust practices to proactively identify and mitigate risks across diverse systems. A recognised speaker and author, Federico holds extensive... certifications including CISSP, CISM, and CCISO, underscoring his deep expertise in information security and risk. His strategic insights are vital for navigating the evolving landscape of financial services cybersecurity and resilience.
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Adam Avards, Principal for Cyber and Third Party Risk Policy, UK Finance

Adam Avards joined UK Finance in 2022 as Principal for Cyber and Third Party Risk Policy. He leads UK Finance’s engagement on the Critical Third Party regulatory pathway and chairs a number of industry forums and committees on Third Party Risk Management, Cyber Security and Cloud. Before joining UK Finance, Adam spent over 15 years within the UK’s Intelligence... Community, dealing with both physical and digital security, operations and policy.more

Ali Shepherd, Director of Cyber & Operational Resilience (CISO), FCA

Ali Shepherd is the Director of Cyber & Operational Resilience (CISO) for the FCA, and is co-leading the FCA’s internal AI adoption. Ali has over twenty years of experience working in security and incident response, both inside government and in the private sector. This has included extensive experience of managing organisational responses to sophisticated cyber... intrusions by nation state and organised crime groups. Prior to joining the FCA, Ali was a Managing Director at Mandiant, heading up teams across EMEA providing advice and expertise on cyber security to governments and private sector companies, including major incident response services.more

Dhruv Bisani, Head of Adversarial Attack Simulations, Starling Bank

Dhruv is a leading cybersecurity professional with a key interest in leading & delivering Adversarial Attack (Red/Purple Team) simulations. He is currently the Head of Adversarial Attack Simulations at Starling Bank and formerly established and served as the Head of the Red Team at Resillion. Dhruv’s core focus has been on developing the red team (attack simulation)... capability at Resillion, while focusing on testing less common environments such as MacOS environments and zero-trust red team engagements. He has successfully delivered advanced attack simulations across a range of sectors including finance, healthcare, legal, and retail. Dhruv possesses extensive experience in executing projects under the UK CBEST/TBEST schemes. Dhruv’s role encompasses a wide array of responsibilities such as recruitment, training, overseeing sales/finances, as well as enhancing technical methodologies and processes. As part of his role, Dhruv has collaborated closely with C-suite executives and CISOs, providing strategic cybersecurity insights to help secure the organisation. more

William Dixon, Associate Fellow, Royal United Services Institute Senior Technology Cyber Fellow, The Ukraine Foundation

William Dixon is an Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute, Senior Technology Cyber Fellow of the Ukraine Foundation and is a featured contributor on Cyber for the World Economic Forum. He started his career at GCHQ working on international security issues, and held senior positions at Barclays and the World Economic Forum where he was Head of Future... Networks and Technology. He holds a Masters Degree from the War Studies of King's College London, and is regularly featured in media outlets. more

Henry Glynn, Cyber Security Solutions Specialist, Bytes

Henry Glynn is a seasoned Cyber Security Solutions Specialist at Bytes Software Services. With a strong focus on email resilience, endpoint, and identity security, Henry brings extensive expertise to his role, helping organisations safeguard their digital environments against a wide range of cyber threats.

James Fenton, Senior Regional Sales Manager UK, Contrast Security

James Fenton is Senior Regional Sales Manager UK at Contrast Security, with 20+ years in enterprise IT security sales. He specialises in application security, DevSecOps, and CI/CD integrations, helping organisations protect applications from modern threats. Previously at Synopsys, he led security adoption across EMEA. A frequent OWASP and ISSA contributor, James brings... deep expertise in bridging security and development.
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John Wood, Leader, Next-Gen Application Security, Contrast Security

John Wood, Leader, Next-Gen Application Security, at Contrast Security, has been a leading figure in Application Security since 2006. He played a pivotal role in establishing one of the first SAST vendors in the United Kingdom and Europe, contributing significantly to the evolution of the industry. With extensive experience across a range of Application Security projects—both... successful and challenging—John has developed a deep understanding of how development teams operate and has continually adapted to new methodologies, fostering innovative approaches to align security with evolving development practices. A graduate of Portsmouth University and Queensland University of Technology, he holds degrees in Economic History, Entrepreneurship, and Technology Management. Professional Claim: Revolutionising AppSec: Putting an end to the Drama, Comedy and Tragedy of Security Theatremore

Khetan Gajjar, Sales Engineering Manager, Crowdstrike

Khetan is passionate about cybersecurity, and making business collaboration on the Internet a safer experience. Khetan’s career has traditionally followed the theme of growing Internet connectivity businesses and getting people online. He has facilitated businesses and start-ups to scale and deploy products and systems across geographies, platforms and skill-levels,... for fixed-line and mobile operators, service providers and content providers.more

Raymond de Jong, EMEA Field CTO, Isovalent

Raymond de Jong is Field CTO for EMEA at Isovalent, the originators of the Cilium project, providing networking, observability, and security for cloud-native applications using eBPF. In this role, he is supporting and enabling customers and partners to be successful with Cilium in their mission-critical environments. Leveraging almost a decade of experience in Software... Defined Networking he is passionate about learning customer use-cases and designing solutions to meet their requirements. When not working, Raymond enjoys playing tennis, riding bikes, gaming, and music playing the guitar or piano.more

James Burchell, Manager of Sales Engineering, Mimecast

James Burchell is a cyber security professional currently serving as the Manager of Sales Engineering at CrowdStrike. With a strong background in both military and corporate cybersecurity, James has developed a multidisciplinary skill set that allows him to tackle complex IT security challenges effectively.