West IT & Security Leaders Forum 2024

As organizations adapt to technological advancements, remote collaboration tools, and changing workforce dynamics, the CIO emerges as a key strategist, orchestrating digital transformation initiatives and ensuring seamless integration of technology into the fabric of the modern workplace. This Panel will discuss how CIOs can drive innovation, enhance cybersecurity measures, and foster a flexible and inclusive work environment to meet the challenges and opportunities presented by the future of work.

We invest a lot into patching and correction of misconfigurations, but we never really reach a point where we can say we have a tolerable amount of risk in our environment. We feel deeply, at a certain point, with a skilled enough attacker, or one bad decision, a breach is likely to happen. This can be incredibly taxing.

Join this session to discuss:

• Can I define a “tolerable” amount of risk?
•  How do I measure more within my security program (and why should that matter)
• What helps me sleep the most at night?

Presented by: Lacework

This session will explore strategies to ensure organizational resilience against unexpected disruptions, focusing on crafting robust disaster recovery and continuous business operations plans. We will discuss how to assess risks, implement effective recovery tactics, and maintain operational integrity under various scenarios. The session aims to equip organizations with the tools and knowledge to swiftly recover from setbacks while minimizing impact on operations, ensuring a seamless path to business as usual.

Presented by: Torq

Getting past the hype of AI and ChatGPT, there are huge benefits to practical (and less sexy) applications of AI that can make the lives of security practitioners better. And despite all the buzzwords and overpromises coming from our industry today, there actually are real and meaningful ways AI tools will help security professionals make better risk decisions, faster and more accurately in order to mitigate risk in tangible ways for the business. In this talk, we’ll show some examples of how AI can help predict risk, cut through complexity when making risk decisions and even help to retain senior staff while keeping them focused on the tasks that matter most.

Speaker: Nathan Wenzler, Chief Security Strategist, Tenable

Presented by: Tenable

Delve into the flaws of the traditional cybersecurity landscape and how a modern SOC should focus on outcome-based services without relying on logs or the cost and complexity of a SIEM.

Presented by: LMNTRIX

Circle back with your Peers on the content so far while grabbing a coffee or tea and a snack

The software-defined data center (SDDC) is a concept in which all data center infrastructure is virtualized and delivered as a service. Control is fully automated through software, allowing hardware configuration to be maintained through automated policies. SDDC advances virtualization and cloud computing by supporting both legacy enterprise applications and new cloud computing services. It thus provides a solid base for using public, private, and hybrid clouds. By abstracting applications from hardware, SDDC allows apps to run anywhere and even move from place to place. It also allows for greater automation within a data center and faster, simple orchestration across centers.

Enterprises have hordes of data and many opportunities to integrate other data sources. But readying data for AI experimentation is expensive and requires an iterative approach. This session will focus on finding the best opportunities to experiment with AI and on applying agile practices in machine learning initiatives.

It’s time to get serious about data protection. With breaches on the rise and sensitive data widely distributed across cloud and mobility, organizations need a solid data protection strategy more than ever. But how should you structure your data protection program to ensure you can deliver game-changing security?

Join this engaging session to learn the best strategy for building a five-star data protection program. You’ll get guidance from industry experts on cutting-edge approaches that not only provide airtight protection, but drastically reduce cost and complexity.

This session will cover:

1. What the best architecture for data protection is
2. How to gain complete visibility to all your sensitive data
3. Strategies to secure top uses cases around data in motion and at rest
4. Data protection best practices

Speaker: Tyrin Ford, Director, Data Protection, Zscaler

Presented by: Zscaler

In this session, we’ll explore best practices for orchestrating, securing, and scaling containerized applications in the enterprise. We’ll discuss the importance of container orchestration, delve into the challenges of security, and examine methods for efficient provisioning. Additionally, we’ll cover the essentials of network and communication strategies, the importance of robust monitoring and logging techniques, and strategies for managing persistent storage. Our goal is to provide actionable insights for implementing a robust container management ecosystem that enhances deployment speed and reliability.

Join our nonprofit partner SustainableIT.org for this panel session to learn:

• How companies are making sustainability part of their IT/Business alignment, and achieving success.
• How companies should be thinking about and addressing the growing number of government regulations around sustainability.
• How your organization can gain quick sustainability wins and start making progress on initiatives today, regardless of where you are on your journey.

Brought to you by SustainableIT

Panelist: Jason Simpson, VP of Engineering, Choice Hotels

Open seating, Buffet-style lunch. Serving food for all tastes, Palates, and preferences. Vegan, vegetarian, halal options available

Technology leaders are now key players in strategic decision-making processes. Their insights are crucial for identifying new business opportunities, assessing risks, and making informed decisions that balance innovation with sustainability. They play a vital role in developing strategies that capitalize on digital transformation, data analytics, and artificial intelligence to drive growth and efficiency.

Speaker: Shawna DelHierro, Former CTO, Sportsman Warehouse

During this session, we will discuss how to bridge the gap between theoretical cybersecurity frameworks and their practical implementation within organizations. It offers insights into effectively translating high-level security strategies into actionable steps that can be understood and executed by IT teams and security professionals. The session emphasizes the importance of aligning cybersecurity measures with business objectives to ensure both are resilient against evolving digital threats.

In today’s dynamic business environment, companies face the imperative of delivering instant answers and assistance to customers engaging with digital channels. This informative discussion addresses the vital elements needed to produce tangible results to meet this demand. While AI tools and smart agents can minimize human intervention, professionals across sales, marketing, and customer service must navigate customer interactions and team collaboration in new ways. In this chat we will address the challenges to be aware of in the strategic deployment of these technologies and steps to take to ensure they deliver expected value.

Speaker: Mike Egli, CX Client Principal, RingCentral

Presented by: RingCentral

Circle back with your Peers on the content so far while grabbing a coffee and a snack

Managing endpoint risk and compliance is more challenging today than ever before. Today’s CISOs have to manage risk from many thousands of globally distributed, heterogeneous assets, while also responding to ever increasing audit scrutiny and regulatory compliance requirements.

Join this session, Achieving the Benefits of Converged Endpoint Management, to learn more about how to:

• Identify & remediate risks that create the greatest exposure.
• Assess & measure unknown vulnerabilities.
• Maximize IT budgets and staffing during economic uncertainty.
• Enhance existing investment in strategic technology vendors.

Presented by: Tanium

Artificial Intelligence is a pervasive part of our lives today, and cybersecurity teams and adversaries alike have learned to harness the speed and power of machines to strengthen their capabilities. With machine learning becoming one of the most important tools of defense, leaders must balance the overwhelming speed and accuracy advantage of AI with the need for measured and intuitive interactions with a real-world human element.

Join this session to discuss:

• What these trends mean for the hands-on practitioner
• What happens when the velocity of innovation outpaces the capabilities of human intellect
• The evolving role of automation in the effective practice of securing our digital world

Presented by: SentinelOne

It is no secret that technology is changing the fabric of business operations and outcomes, and collaboration between IT and the business is more important than ever before. The conversation is no longer about how to align IT with the business, however, in many cases, technology is still viewed as a commodity rather than an enabler. So what can we do to successfully change this mindset both within our own organizations and across the industry as a whole? During this session, we will discuss the various challenges IT and digital leaders face when undergoing this cultural shift.

Moderator: Jason Frame, CIO, Southern Nevada Health District

Panelist: Kondal Yennaram, VP, Enterprise Technology, LPL Financial

This Panel will discuss how to seamlessly blend cybersecurity measures with overarching business objectives. The panel will explore practical approaches for ensuring that cybersecurity investments enhance business value, support growth, and align with long-term strategic goals. This dialogue aims to equip participants with strategies to make cybersecurity a driving force behind business success, rather than an afterthought.

Moderated by: Cyera

Panelists:

Sasha Pereira, CISO, WASH Multifamily Laundry Systems

Nadeem Iftikhar, CISO, NextNav

Threat actors, Red-Teams, and Ransomware have been abusing Active Directory for years. In fact, attackers have compromised or leveraged AD in 100% of the successful ransomware attacks over the last 3 years. This discussion will discuss new technologies to help you visualize the risk in your AD and add a layer of security around this very important part of enterprise infrastructure.

Circle back with your Peers on the content so far while grabbing a coffee and a snack

Everyone’s journey to being data-driven is unique. It’s like making an apple pie. It’s easy to get the ingredients, but you need to know how to put together the right recipe for a great apple pie. In this interactive discussion I will share insights and lessons learned in leading data modernization initiatives and in sharing the journey with customers. Data literacy, culture, governance, quality, technology stack modernization and architecture are all ingredients in driving towards the right data driven recipe. The discussion will include tips and tricks for reducing friction points and how to build the right recipe for your organization.

The result of digital transformation: It’s easier to do business with your customers and partners. But with new architectures, web apps and APIs now deployed from on-prem servers to the cloud, it is harder than ever to get a holistic view of all of these potentially vulnerable assets – never mind defend them.

What are your biggest challenges today in defending these diverse assets? What are the known gaps in your current defenses? What are you seeking in the future to defend your apps and APIs?

Topics covered will include:

• How are adversaries preying upon unprotected web apps and APIs?
• How are traditional web application firewalls deployed, and what are they missing?
• What does the future look like with unified web app and API security solutions?

To meet the speed and agility demands of digital business, CIOs are transforming their IT departments and shifting a growing share of IT work from projects to products. At the same time, growth in business-led IT has expanded the span of employees across the enterprise who are responsible for technology initiatives.
This session will explore a cost management model and discuss how evolving IT cost management efforts to focus on value over pure cost will reduce (and even eliminate) reactive calls to cut IT costs. This session will provide a model and tactics to elevate the maturity of IT to focus on value over costs, while still meeting the business directives.