25 years at the forefront of cybersecurity
An international vision
For the last 25 years, AKJ Associates has been at the forefront of cybersecurity. We understood from the start that cybersecurity was not just a business issue, but a collective challenge to the privacy and safety of citizens and to core national security and critical national infrastructure. We also recognised early that it was a vehicle for organised crime funding everything from terrorism to hybrid warfare.
So, we called early for collective and holistic security, seeing how third-party dependencies would become the real problem – meaning that it is not enough for individual organisations to secure only their own weaknesses.
We campaigned for transparency – a battle that remains critical as organisations stay destructively secretive about their security and incidents.
We also advocated for far greater spending on security than organisations seemed willing to commit.
These beliefs led us to found the e-Crime Congress after approaches by the Home Office, National Crime Squad, National Criminal Intelligence Service, and the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU). Today, we still work in partnership with the National Crime Agency (NCA) as well as governments and intelligence agencies worldwide.
We were also present at the very first UK Government discussions that led to initiatives like Get Safe Online and CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre).
AKJ Associates also initiated and ran large and acclaimed international security conferences on behalf of Interpol, Europol, World Customs Organisation (WCO), World Trade Organisation (WTO), World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).
25 years later we have been proved right.
Today, the digital fabric of society underpins everything – hospitals, water supplies, elections, markets, transport, defence.
“Our daily life, economic vitality, and national security depend on a stable, safe, and resilient cyberspace,”
US Department of Homeland Security
“We all need to increase the pace we are working at to keep ahead of our adversaries,” – Richard Horne, Head of GCHQ’s NCSC
The distinction between physical and digital systems is disappearing, and with it, the distinction between public and private sectors (the latter is a critical supplier to the former).
National security now depends on the cyber hygiene of thousands of separate companies. We are in a new “cyber cold war,” fought not with nuclear stockpiles but with vulnerabilities in global systems. This is a world of ransomware, supply chain attacks, IP theft, sabotage, and election interference.
The frontlines of national defence are digital – running through routers, endpoints, and login pages.
One attack can cascade internationally. A ransomware attack on logistics can paralyze ports. A breach in a payment processor can freeze financial flows. A vulnerability in an identity provider can open gates to hundreds of customers.
That’s why third-party risk, email compromise, and supply chain security are national priorities – not just IT problems.
That’s why security professionals are frontline defenders of health, economy, and democracy.
Yet many CISOs lack the budget, authority, or board support they need – often held accountable without being empowered.
Too many organisations still treat security as a compliance checkbox, but the era of checklist security is over.
For 25 years, AKJ Associates has been the trusted platform where governments, intelligence agencies, industry leaders, and frontline practitioners come together to address the world’s most pressing security challenges.
We convene serious, closed-door events that foster honest discussion, trusted networking, and actionable insight. For delegates, this means access to knowledge and peers they cannot get anywhere else. For sponsors, it means direct engagement with decision-makers who are shaping strategies, allocating budgets, and redefining what effective security looks like.
At a time when cybersecurity is a matter of national survival, AKJ Associates continues to deliver unrivalled expertise, credibility, and access. That is why the world’s leading organisations have worked with us for decades – and why the next 25 years will matter more than ever.
We have an international presence, allowing us to help connect experts in the cybersecurity space all over the world, and to bring a valuable global perspective to each of our events. We host events in cities including London, Abu Dhabi, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Budapest, Cairo, Copenhagen, Dubai, Dublin, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, Helsinki, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Madrid, Milan, Mumbai, Munich, Paris, Qatar, Singapore, Stockholm, Yaoundé and more!
