SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Michael Bacon, Director of Enterprise Solutions Marketing, Accedian

Michael Bacon is Director of Enterprise Solution’s Marketing at Accedian, where he builds messaging for the secure network performance solution, which provides convergence of network and security operations all from a single sensor.

Michael has been with Accedian since April, 2021 and has several years of network performance and security experience, that includes MDR, EDR, NDR, SIEM, SOAR and analytics. He also holds a Master’s in business administration from the University of Phoenix.

Nick d’Amato, Senior Solutions Engineer, Okta

Experienced Security Engineer with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry. Skilled in OS X, Retail, Sales, Cloud Security, DLP, CASB, and Leadership. Strong information technology professional studied at The Ohio State University. 

Doug Howard, CEO, Pondurance

Doug Howard has over 30 years of experience as a technology leader and innovator in security with a highly-developed background in business development, M&A, operations, engineering, marketing, sales, and executive leadership. In his previous role at RSA as Vice President of Global Services and IT Innovation, he provided leadership support for RSA’s strategic vision and global operational execution, various Dell Governance Programs and the M&A exit to STG from Dell. A former member of the U.S. Air Force, Doug holds a bachelor’s degree in Management and Marketing from Strayer University.

Fred Kwong, Ph.D., Vice President, Chief Information Security, DeVry University

Dr. Fred Kwong has been in the information technology field for the past 15 years in working in education, financial, and telecommunication sectors. Fred currently works at a Farmers Insurance where he currently is the Global Head of Privileged Access Control. Fred is currently building a new program seeking to govern, control, and profile privileged identities throughout the enterprise.

Fred’s work includes the creation of security and privacy policies, standards, and procedures. He is a subject matter expert in PCI, leading organizations to pass their report on compliance. With an extensive background in IT technologies, Fred continues to challenge the status quo by providing guidance in security and network architecture creating holistic designs that align to todays’ threat vector for organizations.

Fred has a passion of combining IT skills with organization development values. His broad range of IT skills has allowed him to view IT from many different paradigms and present them to the business partners in an easy to understand language. Fred servers as an adjunct professor at Benedictine and Roosevelt University teaching courses in international business, organization behavior, project management, and information systems. He holds a Ph.D. from Benedictine University and earned his master’s degree in business administration from Roosevelt University. Fred is a Certified Project Management Professional (PMP), a Certified Information Systems Manager (CISM), and a PCI Professional (PCIP).

Chris Lane, Data Protection Officer, Thor Industries

Chris Lane is the Data Protection Officer for THOR Industries, where he is responsible for information security and data-privacy. With backgrounds in accounting and IT security, Chris has a deep background in controls and compliance. He has led globally distributed teams in web site hosting, cloud computing, and information-security governance.

Prior to THOR Industries, Chris spent 18 years in the consumer-packaged goods (CPG) with Wrigley and Mars.

Chris is an alumnus of Florida Institute of Technology and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business. In his free time, he is an avid tennis player.

Michael Neuman, Chief Information Security Officer, Backstop Solutions Group

As an accomplished professional and dynamic leader with hands-on experience defining and implementing security programs for financial services, e-commerce, banking, retail, and software organizations, I excel in regulated environments with my ability to navigate ever-changing needs, improve operations, and continuously drive compliance. 

I cultivate partnerships and build trusted relationships across global business sectors, including executive-level communications within industry-leading organizations.

During my career, I have led onshore and offshore teams, maintaining a high level of performance standards, while simultaneously enhancing operations focused on business solutions and client engagement.

Subject Matter Expertise: Security Program Infrastructure, Compliance, Risk Mitigation, Threat Analysis, Enterprise Security, P&L, Team Leadership, SOX, HIPAA, and Technical Problem Solving.

Fayyaz Rajpari, Senior Director, Product Management, Gigamon

Fayyaz Rajpari is the Sr. Director of Product Management of ThreatINSIGHT Guided-SaaS NDR at Gigamon, where he leads the firm’s security products. Fayyaz’s expertise includes serving as a lead incident responder for a large insurance provider before transitioning his expertise to Symantec as a Security Architect, then later driving products for Mandiant, FireEye, and Recorded Future. He also spent some time as an Executive Director for Optiv’s global security consulting organization.

The last 20 years he has devoted his career to all domains of cyber security with the latest interest being in blockchain and crypto. Fayyaz continues to take pride in the enablement of the greater good of fighting evil, speaking at conferences, reading, writing and participating in the cyber security community whenever he can.

Byron Rashed, Vice President of Marketing, Centripetal

Byron Rashed has over 20 years of industry experience spearheading global marketing and public relations programs in various B2B organizations that target IT security solutions to the enterprise and OEM markets.

As Vice President of Marketing at Centripetal, he leads all marketing and PR functions and is part of the senior management team. In his previous role as the Vice President of Global Marketing, Advanced Threat Intelligence for InfoArmor (acquired by Allstate), he was directly responsible for creating and implementing all global marketing and public relations strategies and tactics to develop brand awareness, product positioning and corporate communications.

Prior to joining InfoArmor, Mr. Rashed was the director of global marketing and product management at Emerging Threats (acquired by Proofpoint), and has held senior level global marketing positions at Altior, FirstCarbon Solutions and SSH Communications Security, the original developer of the Secure Shell (secsh) protocol, and senior global marketing manager at VPNet Technologies (acquired by Avaya).

Mr. Rashed holds a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engineering from New York University – Polytechnic, and is pursuing a graduate certification in marketing and communications from the University of California, Irvine. He is a member of the Public Relations Society of America, American Marketing Association and Institute of Industrial Engineers.

Richard Rushing, CISO, Motorola Mobility

Richard Rushing is the Chief Information Security Officer for Motorola Mobility where he leads the global security team responsible for tackling the emerging threats of mobile devices, targeted attacks, and cyber-crime.

With over 30 years of ground-up success in information security, Richard has led world-class security organizations by building and implementing custom methodologies and frameworks that balance information protection, business agility, innovation, and risk. He is a business and technology visionary with executive and hands-on experience in automating and managing multi-billion dollar enterprises including a strong record of success in deploying robust and flexible IT security architecture and infrastructure.

Prior to Motorola Mobility, Richard served as Chief Security Officer at Motorola AirDefense. Previously, he founded and served as Vice President of Technical Services and Chief Security Officer at LOCH Technologies, a global leader of next-generation wireless threat monitoring. In addition, he founded and served as Chief Technical Officer at SecureIT, a Security Services company, and held various senior security positions at VeriSign, GE Capital, and Siemens Energy & Automation.

Richard is an alumnus of Arizona State University. He participates in several corporate, community, private, and government security councils to set standards, policies, and solutions for current and emerging security issues.

Annur Sumar, Chief Technology Officer, Cloud Unity

Annur Sumar is a Microsoft Cloud and Datacenter MVP and technology consultant in the areas of Infrastructure Design, Enterprise Content Management, CRM, Microsoft Azure, System Center and Cloud Technologies. Annur is an industry recognized leader and independent speaker around strategic service automation, technology driven process improvements, IT service alignment, engineering best practices and operations management. All of which are targeted in his presentations to helping businesses with complex IT environments lower Total Cost of Ownership and raising Return On Investments.

Prior to joining a Microsoft Partner Consulting firm, Annur served as a Vice President of Technology for Duff & Phelps. One of the world’s leading independent financial advisory firms serving client needs in the areas of valuation, investment banking, transaction advice, and dispute consulting. During his tenure at Duff & Phelps, Annur worked closely with Microsoft product teams and case study managers in providing invaluable feedback around how businesses such as his were able to benefit from cloud technologies that were molded into business solutions. As a Microsoft MVP and industry expert, Annur brings 10 years of experience to work actively with other MVPs and Microsoft Partners to provide industry insight and strategic direction.