Speakers

Bassel Assah, Head of InfoSec and Business Continuity, Bankmed

Bassel Assah is the Head of InfoSec and Business Continuity at Bankmed Group. He is a passionate Information Security and Business Continuity expert with more than 15 years of experience. He holds an MSc. in Computer Science from Syracuse University NY, along with an MBA and BSc. in Computer Science from American University of Beirut. Bassel is also CISSP certified... since 2015.Throughout his career, he has been driven by his love for learning, technology, and innovation. Bassel is a strong advocate of providing the best user experience for both customers and employees, without jeopardizing security.​ more

Taimur Ijlal, Head of Cloud Security & DevSecOps, Network International

Taimur Ijlal is an experienced Information Security and Data Protection executive with over 18 years of experience in cyber-security, enterprise risk assessments and cloud technologies like Azure and AWS. Taimur is currently the Head of Cloud Security & DevSecOps at Network International where he is responsible for handling the cloud security portfolio across... the group, this involves working with multiple agile DevOps team, coding security services for Azure / AWS cloud while ensuring compliance to standards like PCI-DSS, NIST etc. Taimur has served as Head of Information Security for several major companies in the Middle East and has spoken at numerous industry events over the years. His security and cloud certifications include CISSP, CIPP/E, AWS Certified Solution Architect, AWS Security Specialist and Azure Certified Security Engineer. more

Shakeel Ahmed, Head of Infrastructure & IT Security, Leading Investment and Development Company Based in Abu Dhabi

Shakeel Ahmed is an experienced information security professional with almost two decades of experience covering a range of industries including financial services, government and technology services. Currently, Shakeel is the Head of Infrastructure & IT Security at a leading investment and development company based in Abu Dhabi. His specialities include IT Security... Management, Cloud Security Architecture, IT Security Governance, Security Risk Assessments and Disaster Recovery. more

John Elliott, Director, Industry Standards, Mastercard

John is a member of the Industry Standards team at Mastercard. He participates in many of the PCI SSC working groups developing and maintaining various PCI Standards. Before joining Mastercard, John held senior information security roles in a variety of sectors including the financial services and airline industries. John’s involvement in the PCI standards and payment... security extends for over ten years - he started as a Qualified Security Assessor, worked for a European payment band as their PCI SSC representative and until recently was the chair of the UK Merchants’ PCI working group. more

Sreedevi Jayachandran, Information Security and Risk Advisory, MIG Holding

Sreedevi Jayachandran specializes in Pro-active Threat Management, Incident Management and Response, SOC designing and establishment with a holistic approach. A cyber security enthusiast with 10 years of industry experience in multiple domains like Security Device Management, Malware Analysis, Vulnerability Assessments, Use-case Development, ISMS policy implementation... and Risk Assessments. Prior to MIG Group, Sreedevi worked on Incident Response and SOC Implementation for MSS clients for companies including ehosting DataFort and EY. more

Mohammad Faheem, Cyber Security Lead, Chalhoub Group

Mohammad Faheem is a senior security professional and architect with over 15 years of experience in delivering large scale cyber security and infrastructure transformation projects. He has experience in delivering complex security programs for customers operating across Europe and Asia with varying regulatory, compliance and industry-specific requirements. He has... consulting experience in a wide range of industries including the Financial Services, Public Sector, Luxury Retail, Oil and Gas and at organisations including Worldpay, Avanade, Fujitsu and PwC. Mohammad currently is leading the Tech Security at Chalhoub Group, reporting directly to Chief Digital Technology Officer. more

Frederik Weidemann, Chief Technical Evangelist, Onapsis Inc

Frederik is a cybersecurity expert and Chief Technical Evangelist at Onapsis. He has presented over 50 times at SAP and security-related conferences including RSA, Troopers, SAPPHIRE, TechEd, SAPinsider, ASUG, DSAG, and OWASP. He has focused on SAP security for the last 14 years and is the co-author of the first book on secure ABAP programming. Frederik also frequently... writes articles on SAP security and has found numerous zero-day defects in mission-critical applications. more

Wissam Abed, Leader – Financial Intelligence Unit - Middle East & South Asia, Western Union

Wissam Abed – Leader – Financial Intelligence Unit – Law Enforcement Outreach & Investigation for Middle East and South Asia Region (MESA) based in Dubai. Wissam joined Western Union in Dec 2014. His previous roles were with MashreqBank based in Dubai as a Team Leader; National Bank of Dubai as a Risk Manager; Visa International as a Fraud Control Manager... covering MENA Region. Prior to joining WU, Wissam worked for Visa Inc. based in San Francisco, CA as a Sr. Investigator within the Cyber Security Team responsible for fraud control and Security Breach incident response. Wissam is a Certified Fraud Examiner – CFE and has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Management more

Ron Peeters, Vice President Middle East and Emerging Markets, Synack

Ron Peeters is a seasoned IT industry executive with more than 30 years experience working for an array of advanced technology companies around the world.  He is Vice President of Middle East and Emerging Markets for Silicon Valley based Synack, Inc., a rapidly emerging market leader in offensive and crowdsourced security testing. Normally Ron is every month... in the Middle East with focus on UAE and Saudi Arabia. more

Srikant Dasondhi, Cyber Security and Compliance Specialist, Alef Education

Srikant Dasondhi is a Senior Cyber & Cloud Security Specialist with more than 13+ years of experience covering various domains of Information security. He has vast experience working with Education, Media and Banking industries in the UAE. Srikant 
specialises in Security Monitoring (SOC), Cloud security, Security Information and Event Management (SIEM),... Malware Analysis, Incident Response, Threat Intelligence, Vulnerability Assessment, Risk assessment, Compliance and IT governance. more

Dan Fein, Director of Email Security Products, Darktrace

Based in New York, Dan is the Director of Email Security Products for the Americas. He joined Darktrace’s technical team in 2015, helping customers quickly achieve a complete and granular understanding of Darktrace’s world-leading Cyber AI Platform and products. Dan has a particular focus on Antigena Email, ensuring that it is effectively deployed in complex digital... environments, and works closely with the development, marketing, sales, and technical teams. Dan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from New York University.   more

Luna de Lange, Partner and Data Protection Officer, KARM Legal Consultants

Luna is a Partner Lawyer, Data Protection and Deputy Anti Money Laundering Officer at KARM Legal Consultants, practicing in the specialised fields of IT, Cyber / Information Security and Threat Intelligence; Policy, Regulation & Governance drafting and compliance; Data Protection & Privacy; Data Governance and Compliance; Fintech; RegTech; as well as... Estate, Legacy, Succession Planning  & Wills drafting. Luna further practices as a legal and non-technical certified trainer, hosting an array courses and workshops across the GCC for technical and non-technical persons alike, wanting to understand and gain practical insights on the adoption and use of new-age technologies, development of policies, strategies, implementation techniques and methodologies; understanding risk mitigation, together with above-standard compliance; as well as general education and awareness creation across the broader ecosystem of any organisation, creating essential channels of cooperation, interactions and communications. Luna strongly advocates a proactive, risk-based approach to security and threats, together with Intelligence driven Security Operations, through the building of strong, trust-based relationships and the channelling of communications between individuals, teams, communities and the broader spectrum of players on a global scale. Luna is honoured to serve as an Ambassador, Advisor and Member of the Regulatory Fintech Working Group of the Arab Monetary Fund. During her tenure, she observes her greatest honour to date, being honoured as the drafter of the “Cyber Resilience Oversight Guidelines for the Arab Region, concerning Financial Market Infrastructures”, published in May 2020. Luna previously practised in South Africa as a Senior Attorney and Co-Director of a law firm, being a member Legal Practice Council of South Africa and having her Right of Appearance before the Superior Courts of South Africa. more

Roland Abi Najem, Cyber Security Consultant & Instructor, American University of Science & Technology

Roland Abi Najem is a Cyber Security & Digital Transformation Consultant & Expert. He is the Founder and CEO of Revotips – Expert Tech Consultants in G.C.C. and Arab Countries. He was the I.T. & Cyber Security Consultant at the Ministry of Information – Kuwait and the Personal Consultant for the Minister of Information From 2014 till 2016. Roland... is a University Instructor at the American University of Science & Technology (AUST), Teaching MBA and Masters Students. He is Also a Part-Time Instructor at Lebanese American University (LAU). Certified Trainer & Content Developer by ISTD (International Society for Trainers & Developers). He holds a Master’s in Business Administration (M.B.A.), Focus on M.I.S) Management Information Systems). Technical Consultant and Information Security Expert with the Mohammed Al Jassim Group for Lawyer and Legal Consultation and specialized in Cyber Crimes. Roland is the Chairman at several seminars and conferences in the region and a Keynote speaker & Panelist.  more

Trevor Dearing, Technology Director, EMEA, Illumio

Trevor is an experienced technology expert, who has been at the forefront of new technologies for nearly 40 years. From the first PCs through the development of multi-protocol to SNA gateways, initiating the deployment of resilient token ring in DC networks and some of the earliest use of firewalls. Working for companies like Bay Networks, Juniper and Palo Alto Networks... he has led the evangelisation of new technology. Now at Illumio he is working on the simplification of segmentation in Zero Trust and highly regulated environments. more

Nour Fateen, Presales Manager, UKI & META, Recorded Future

Nour Fateen is a cybersecurity specialist with over seven years of experience in the industry. Currently at Recorded Future, Nour has spent the last three years helping some of the largest businesses in the world improve their security posture using security intelligence. He has previously held positions in Cisco Systems and Goldman Sachs. Nour received a Master in... Electronic Engineering and Nanotechnology from University College London. more

Simon Brady, Managing Editor, AKJ Associates Ltd

Simon is a former journalist, editor and publisher specializing in wholesale financial markets, particularly the technology intensive areas of derivatives, securities trading, cash management and FinTech. He has sat as an Executive Director on the main board of a FTSE-250 listed media company and has spent a lifetime travelling the globe talking to CEOs, CFOs and... government ministers about the trends driving business and finance. His experience has led him to look at cybersecurity as a key component of the value chain and to ask whether firms are really taking cyber threats seriously and why third-parties will force them to. more

Thom Langford, Security Advocate, SentinelOne

Thom is an industry engaged and sought after information security subject matter expert and speaker. As Security Advocate for SentinelOne Thom is able to further explore his passion of communicating and educating on information security topics to a global audience through storytelling, humour and plain language .He is the founder of  (TL)2 Security (tl2security.com),... a strategic Information security Consultancy that focuses on Virtual CISO, strategic business alignment and public speaking/advocacy for hire. As Chief Information Security Officer of Publicis Groupe, Thom was responsible for all aspects of information security risk and compliance as well as managing the Groupe Information Security Programme. Additionally, the role was responsible for business continuity capabilities across the Groupe’s global operations. Having successfully built security and IT programmes from the ground up Thom brings an often opinionated and forward-thinking view of security risk, both in assessments and management, but is able to do so with humour and pragmatism (mostly). An international public speaker and award-winning security blogger, Thom contributes to a number of industry blogs and publications. Thom is also the sole founder of Host Unknown, a loose collective of three infosec luminaries combined to make security education and infotainment films.  Thom can be found online at both thomlangford.com  and @thomlangford  on Twitter. more

Migchiel de Jong, Systems Engineer, Illumio

Migchiel de Jong, CISSP CSSLP, has developed hardware and software for the nuclear medicine and nuclear industry for 10 years before joining Rational Software. During the 5 years at Rational Software (later acquired by IBM) he was involved in many software development process improvement projects mainly in the embedded systems space. The last 15 years the focus has... shifted to security having worked at Fortify Software, Veracode, Tanium and currently Illumio. more

Kostas Lotsis, Senior Sales Engineer, Firemon

Kostas is a Senior Sales Engineer, working as part of the EMEA team at Firemon. He has over 20 years of experience in the security industry, working in various roles including engineering, operational & consulting roles for major financial, telecommunications and government organizations. His areas of interest include firewall engineering, cloud security, compliance... and automation. more

Hamid Qureshi, Territory Sales Manager, Middle East & Africa, Entrust

Hamid Qureshi is directly responsible for the Entrust Data Protection Solution business in the Middle East. Hamid’s primary focus is to cultivate existing relationships with key customers and expand into new areas leveraging the expanded data security portfolio of Entrust.  Hamid has over 20 years’ experience of helping organisations, across all industry... verticals, solve their complex IT requirements. He has been part of and led successful sales teams both at Entrust and previously at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. In his spare time Hamid enjoys playing football and is a keen golfer. more

Michael Byrnes, Director of Solutions Engineering Middle East, India & Africa, BeyondTrust

Michael Byrnes is the Director, Solutions Engineer MEIA for BeyondTrust. He has acquired a wealth of cyber security experience in a number of engagements over the last 10 years with a diverse set of enterprise across the Middle East.

Amjad Khader, Enterprise Sales Manager, LogRhythm

Amjad Khader is a seasoned cybersecurity expert with 16+ years progressive business and technical experience. Passionate about solving todays security problems and currently Regional Sales Manager, working hard to strategize with LogRhythm customers to ensure they reach their professional goals. Experience with different security vendors and contributing in the success... of many key projects in the middle east region. Also, accomplished many industry leading certifications including: CISSP, CISM, C|EH, ISO27001. more

Miles R. Tappin, VP, EMEA, ThreatConnect

Miles R. Tappin, VP, EMEA leads ThreatConnect’s efforts in sales, sales engineering, business development and channels through the next phase of growth in the EMEA region. With his 20 years of experience in the cyber security market, he brings an exceptional track record of building and leading teams to deliver breakthrough revenue growth. Tappin joins ThreatConnect... from InfoSys Ltd., where he led their cyber security practice for the EMEA region. Prior to that, he led the DXC Technology and HPE Enterprise Security go-to-market practices in the UK, US, EMEA. more

Lonnie Benavides, Head of Infrastructure and Application Security, OneLogin

Lonnie Benavides is an accomplished cybersecurity leader with more than 20 years industry experience, and is currently the Head of Infrastructure and Application Security at OneLogin. Lonnie began his career as a communications encryption specialist in the U.S. Air Force and went on to conclude his military service as a Technical Lead of the first red team in the... Air National Guard. As an advanced penetration tester, Lonnie supported companies such as Washington Mutual and JP Morgan Chase, and eventually went on to launch the Boeing red team. Lonnie was responsible for leading global cybersecurity services and operations at DocuSign and McKesson, fostering his expertise in enterprise cyberthreat detection and response. Lonnie is a recognized speaker within the Phoenix education community, numerous industry conferences, and has also contributed to publications and radio shows such as TechRepublic and NPR.  more

Hatem Ali Global Services and Intelligence Lead, MEA, FireEye

Hatem Ali is the regional lead for FireEye Global Services and Intelligence (GSI) division, covering Middle East and Africa. Prior to this role, Hatem held many cyber security technical and sales positions within companies like HPE, RSA, IBM-ISS, and Fortinet.  Hatem has devoted the last 20 years working with organizations across multiple industries on the... best practices to become more resilient to cyber risk, traversing areas like security organization and architecture, security operations, threat intelligence, cyber security consulting, governance, risk, and compliance (GRC). Hatem has a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the American University in Cairo, and cyber security public policy diploma from Harvard, and is a certified ISO 27001 Lead Auditor, and an active CISSP member.  more