SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Patrick Benson, Senior Systems Engineer – North Central, Veeam

For over two decades I’ve been involved in the IT industry starting with desktop support. I have steadily moved upwards, having been a network administrator, manager of the IT staff, network supervisor for an ASP division with data centers around the globe, a senior systems engineer designing new components and refining the existing infrastructure for a global organization, and a solutions architect for a VAR advising clients and designing complex infrastructures as a pre-sales resource.

In my current role, I am a Systems Engineer with Veeam Software. I help my customers prepare for and overcome the worst-case scenarios that could threaten their organizations. I consider it a privilege to be entrusted with designing their disaster recovery and business continuity solutions, and I humbly do my best to make sure they are protected when a disaster strikes.

Bruce Coffing, Chief Information Security Officer, City of Chicago

Bruce Coffing is an information security professional with over twenty-five years industry experience in information technology and cyber security. He is currently the Chief Information Security Officer for the City of Chicago. Prior to joining the City of Chicago, Mr. Coffing held information security positions at Bank of America and at consulting firm Accenture. Mr. Coffing holds the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification.

Mr. Coffing was a Finalist for the 2023 Chicago CIO ORBIE CISO of the Year Award and was a Semi-finalist for the 2022 Chicago CISO of the Year Award.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/coffingb

Snehal Contractor, VP Worldwide Systems Engineering & Technical Services, Stellar Cyber

Snehal Contractor is responsible for Worldwide Systems Engineering and Technical Service at Stellar Cyber. He is an engineering professional with over 30 years of experience in technical sales, marketing, and management. Snehal has worked for startup companies such as Netscreen, Palo Alto Networks, Riverbed, Fortinet, Aerohive, Cisco, and USRobotics. During his tenure at these companies, he has supported the largest Service Providers and System Integrators globally. Some of the accounts he has supported are Accenture, Dimension Data, Verizon, French Telecom, ATT, Forsythe Security, and Sprint; these accounts eventually became the top partners for his company. Snehal is called upon to be a trusted consultant to on-board these global partners from business development to complete technical enablement. Snehal earned his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from University of Illinois.

Josh Fazio, VP Solution Architects, SecurityScorecard

Josh Fazio is the VP of the Solution Architects at SecurityScorecard. Josh is a long time Law Enforcement professional with over 20 years of experience investigating electronic crimes. Josh also has many years of experience helping enterprise customers reduce risk and proactively improve their security posture.

Laszlo Gonc, Founder, Next Era Transformation Group

Laszlo is a recognized senior executive with thirty years of progressive experience in business and information technology. He is responsible for helping organizations – corporate and nonprofit alike – navigate the digital frontier, advising clients on cybersecurity, IT risk mitigation, and building digital technology strategies that drive both performance and business value. He has experience across several industries, consulting for senior executives and boards, developing cybersecurity strategies, evaluating IT risk, and spearheading critical security and transformation projects for senior leadership including, but not limited to, healthcare, manufacturing, mining, legal, insurance, marketing, advertising and banking.

Mark Houpt, CISO, DataBank, Ltd.

As Chief Information Security Officer of DataBank, Mark brings over 30 years of extensive information security and information technology experience in a wide range of industries and institutions. Mark joined DataBank in September of 2017 with the acquisition of Edge Hosting (CISO since 2015). In his leadership position, Mark’s responsibilities include strategic planning, oversight of security, and compliance, as well as providing subject matter expertise for developing and maintaining a comprehensive, integrated information security and compliance program.

Mark is a successful and sought-after security speaker, blogger, podcaster, and entrepreneur. He has been responsible for security and compliance solutions at Fortune 50 financial and banking institutions, health care entities, the CTO in a higher education institution, a technical operations manager in a startup as well as the role he credits for starting it all, a Cryptologist with the U.S. Navy.

Mark is also a talented and published aviation and wildlife photographer and enjoys spending time with his wife. Mark and Maria have three grown children.

Further information on Mark can be found on his LinkedIn profile.

Mark has the distinct pleasure of leading a talented and professional team of Security Architects and Compliance Engineers at DataBank.

Victor Hsiang, CISO, GATX

Victor Hsiang is an accomplished Information Security, Risk and IT Professional with over 19 years of experience working within the Financial Services and Healthcare sectors. He has an established track record of delivering successful IT and Information Security solutions that manages risk while supporting business requirements. His experience includes implementation of technology, security audits, risk assessments, information records management, privacy concerns, compliance and legal issues related to security, forensics, security practices and policy development. He currently leads the Information Security program at GATX Corporation.

Matt Johnson, Technical Account Director, TrueFort

Matt Johnson has worked in IT for 30 years, behind the keyboard from everything from helpdesk and VAX/VMS administration to consulting and leadership. Matt’s focus for the last fifteen years has been primarily on InfoSec and Zero Trust for the past 6 years.

Jonathan Lampe, InfoSec Sr. Manager, Milwaukee Tool

Jonathan manages the SecOps and AppSec teams for Milwaukee Tool, a growing multi-billion dollar manufacturing company focused on solutions for professional construction users. He spent about half his career as a software engineer, architect and product manager for a company that sold security solutions primarily into the financial, health, energy and government sectors, learning how regulation and time-to-market shaped deployments and operations. Jonathan made the full-time switch into security in 2013 and has spent the past ten years establishing and leading application security and security operations departments for three large Milwaukee-based companies, with a year-long break to advise the UAE (NESA) on security awareness and training. He joined Milwaukee Tool last year and now leads a team of hybrid security staff, contractors and managed security resources that protect thousands of employees and critical company assets across dozens of sites.

Alexander Leslie, Associate Threat Intelligence Analyst, Recorded Future

Alexander Leslie is a Threat Intelligence Analyst with the Advanced Cybercrime & Engagements (ACE) Team at Recorded Future.

Doug Lubahn, F/Lt. Michigan State Police (Ret.), VP Customer Success BlackFog

As head of BlackFog’s Customer Success team Doug is responsible for BlackFog’s customer journey. As a supportive and strategic partner for BlackFog’s customer and partner base, Doug leverages his law enforcement and cybersecurity leadership background to help drive success for customers and partners. Prior to joining BlackFog Doug spent 10+ years at Absolute Software where he was part of the risk management and investigations team. Doug is actively involved in many cybersecurity initiatives in his home state of Michigan and is committed to helping our customers maintain the highest level of cyber protection.

Liz Ogunti, Chief Information Security Officer, JBT Corp. 

Senior Manager of IT Security and Compliance, molded by 20 plus years of IT/Information security experience I have become a thought leader with the ability to translate technical jargon to a variety of audiences. This is a major benefit in building relationships with clients and stakeholders. Reliance on my experiences, successes as well as lessons learned, to overcome challenges and to bring knowledge, improvement, and success to my career and organizations.

Brian Palmer, Director IT Security & Infrastructure, Ventas

Adaptive, customer-focused cyber security and infrastructure executive skilled at delivering projects and services of superior quality; history of leading large, geographically-disbursed teams to meet service level agreements, timelines, and budget targets with solutions that result in improved IT scalability, availability, security, and cost efficiency.

Highlights of Expertise:
• CISSP and CCSP Certified
• Global Technology Management
• Enterprise IT Infrastructure Management
• Data Center & Network Management
• IT Security Management
• ITIL Methodologies
• Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity
• Short / Long-Range Strategic Planning
• Recruiting, Team Building & Training
• Contract Negotiation / Vendor Relations
• Budget Management & Cost Reduction
• Metrics Creation, Analysis & Reporting

Nitin Raina, Global CISO and Global Head of Enterprise Risk, Thoughtworks

Nitin has close to 24 years of experience in performing IT, Security and Risk leadership roles for various organisations and serves as a global advisor tasked with prioritizing and evaluating trade-offs and conflicts among various security initiatives within the realm of ThoughtWorks businesses.

Proven leadership with key skills like security governance, compliance, budgeting, hiring, risk management, project management, mentoring, negotiation, and problem-solving skills demonstrated throughout his career.

Expert in translating between technical and business contexts; people, processes, technical aspects of technology, and in assisting organizations delivering effective, secure, and business-enabling solutions. Stakeholders/CxO advisory experience in IT/ITes organizations. Customer-focused and strategic mentality. Problem-solving and process-oriented.

Tony Sabaj, Head of Channel Security Engineering for the Americas, Check Point Software

Anthony (Tony) Sabaj is currently the Head of Channel Security Engineering for the Americas at Check Point and member of the Office of the CTO, with over 25 years of experience in the Cyber/Information/Network security industry. Tony has been at Check Point since 2002 in a variety of sales and technical roles including starting and building the Channel Team in North America. Prior to joining Check Point Tony was a Senior Product Manager at Telenisus, a startup MSSP/VAR in Chicago. In 2001 the MSSP business of Telenisus was sold to Verisign to start their MSSP business and the VAR business was sold to Forsythe(Sirius/CDW) to start their Security Practice, Tony joined Forsythe shortly after that acquisition as a Security Consultant and Certified Check Point trainer. Tony started his career with Arthur Andersen/Andersen Consulting, building their worldwide IP network, designing the security controls for the firm and helping build their external Security Consulting Practice.

Larry Slusser, Vice President & Global Head Professional Services, SecurityScorecard

Larry Slusser is the Sr. Director Cyber Risk, Resilience, & Incident Response at Security Scorecard. In addition to leading our Professional Services Delivery Team, Mr. Slusser runs point on SSC’s Incident Response Team, who respond to ransomware and extortion negotiations. Mr. Slusser served as an Officer in the United States Air Force for 6 years and has held P&L responsibility for various Fortune 500 companies as well as run a successful printing and manufacturing business. Graduating with a Master’s in Cyber Security, Mr. Slusser successfully transitioned to cybersecurity. Security Scorecard’s clients and partners find Larry’s combination of business leadership experience and cybersecurity knowledge a valuable asset whether in a time of crisis or helping to prepare their cybersecurity defenses through SecurityScorecard’s cyber resilience and emergency preparation services.

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.