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John Bandler Founder & Principal, Author

Bandler Law Firm PLLC, Policies and Procedures for Your Organization

Adam Cohen Counsel

BakerHostetler

Adam Cohen previously served as Senior Director and Associate General Counsel for Capital One’s Cyber Division, where he supported the company’s cyber operations and intelligence, incident response, and insider threat programs, as well as broader cyber strategy, governance, and policy work.  In this capacity, Adam regularly advised the company's CISO and other senior executives on the management of legal, regulatory, and reputational risk in connection with Capital One's proactive efforts to thwart malicious activity along with the company's enterprise response to such events.   

Prior to joining Capital One in 2020, Adam spent ten years as an attorney with the FBI's Office of the General Counsel.  During that time, he served as the principal legal counsel for a number of complex cyber criminal and national security investigations, held the role of Privacy Officer for the Terrorist Screening Center, chaired a legal working group on computer network operations, and regularly advised senior executives at the FBI and White House on efforts to counter violent extremism.    

Adam has been recognized by the Attorney General, Director of National Intelligence, and FBI Director as a key member of investigative teams responsible for disrupting numerous terrorist attacks around the globe and bringing a major cyber criminal to justice.  This includes receiving the Attorney General's Award for Excellence in Furthering the Interests of National Security in 2017.   

Prior to joining the FBI, Adam spearheaded strategic planning efforts to create the Department of Defense's Civil Liberties Office while serving as the principal civil liberties advisor to DoD's Chief Privacy Officer, and earlier in his career spent time with the Committee on the Judiciary in the U.S. House of Representatives. 

Jennifer Franks Director, Center for Enhanced Cybersecurity

US Government Accountability Office

Vipin Gautam Security Engineering and Architecture

Hoag Health System

Diana Kelley AI Expert and Former Cybersecurity Field CTO for Microsoft, CISO

Protect AI

Diana Kelley is the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for Protect AI. She also serves on the boards of WiCyS, The Executive Women’s Forum (EWF), InfoSec World, CyberFuture Foundation, TechTarget Security Editorial, and DevNet AI/ML. Diana was Cybersecurity Field CTO for Microsoft, Global Executive Security Advisor at IBM Security, GM at Symantec, VP at Burton Group (now Gartner), a Manager at KPMG, CTO and co-founder of SecurityCurve, and Chief vCISO at SaltCybersecurity. 

Her extensive volunteer work has included serving on the ACM Ethics & Plagiarism Committee, Cybersecurity Committee Advisor at CompTIA, CTO and Board Member at Sightline Security, Advisory Board Chair at WOPLLI Technologies, Advisory Council member Bartlett College of Science and Mathematics, Bridgewater State University, and RSAC US Program Committee. 

She is a sought-after keynote speaker, the host of BrightTALK’s The (Security) Balancing Act, co-author of the books Practical Cybersecurity Architecture and Cryptographic Libraries for Developers, instructor for the LinkedIn Learning class on Security in AI and ML, has been a lecturer at Boston College's Masters program in cybersecurity, a 2023 Global Cyber Security Hall of Fame Inductee, the EWF 2020 Executive of the Year and EWF Conference Chair 2021-Present, an SCMedia Power Player, and one of Cybersecurity Ventures 100 Fascinating Females Fighting Cybercrime. 

Tamara Lilly Assistant Inspector General, Cybersecurity & IT Audits

HHS/OIG/OAS

Laura Sheriff Contracting Risk Adjustment Specialist 

MSN with 10 years’ experience in Medicare, Medicaid, and Marketplace Managed Care with proven success in Risk Adjustment. Confirmed track record in operations, program management and process improvement. Demonstrates effective leadership, innovative problem solving techniques, and goal oriented focus to execute business objectives and meet performance expectations. Designed and coordinated all team activities including provider education, training, auditing, data mining, and data analysis to steer program success and achieve performance metrics. 

Dr. Sterling Thomas Chief Scientist

US Government Accountability Office

Dr. Sterling Thomas is GAO’s Chief Scientist in Science, Technology Assessment, and Analytics.
Prior to joining GAO, he was the Chief Scientist at Noblis, a Reston, VA based research institute overseeing their applied research programs for the past 13 years. Sterling has also served as a principal investigator for research programs funded by the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, and Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity. His work has included creating new methods regarding synthetic biology, strategies for decoupling qubits for improving error correction in quantum computing, methods for using artificial intelligence to detect decentralized coordinated cyber-attacks, and network-based optimization algorithms to detect abnormalities in public equities markets.
He also worked with the institute’s executive council to develop their five- and ten-year research strategy. Sterling also served as the Deputy Chief Technology Officer and collaborated with the institute’s professional development department to create data science and cyber analytics training programs in partnership with George Mason University (GMU) and George Washington University. Additionally, he is an adjunct professor at GMU, sits on the Dean’s Advisory Board at GMU’s College of Engineering and Computing, along with sitting on Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center for Biological Data Science Advisory Board.
Sterling’s contributions have been recognized across industry including by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for best paper utilizing machine learning methods in detecting breast cancer, and at his former institute where he received the Science and Technology Achievement award. He has also been awarded four patents and has multiple pending patent applications. Sterling earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Integrated Life Sciences from VCU, a Master of Business Administration