With over 20 years of experience spanning government, intelligence, finance and telecommunications, Laura is a seasoned cyber security leader, known for driving cyber resilience and securing critical national infrastructure, with a focus on enabling innovation without compromising trust. When she’s not charting strategic security roadmaps, you’ll find her under sail navigating the waters of the Hauraki gulf.

Laura will be speaking on ‘The journey to zero trust’.

Stuart Gilberd has worked in Cyber Security and Information Technology roles across some of New Zealand’s biggest names, including Air New Zealand, Orion Health, ASB and Fisher & Paykel. He has wide experience working with developers, system administrators, and business groups to implement and run secure modern IT systems. He currently holds the position of Head of IT Service and Security at Fisher & Paykel Appliances.

Greg is a cyber security leader with 20+ years of experience across healthcare, retail, insurance, telecommunications, and central government in the UK and New Zealand. With time in both consulting and operational roles, he has focused on developing and implementing transformational programs of work that lift organisations cyber resilience and while reducing risk at pace.

Greg will be speaking on Threat Modelling in Healthcare: Understanding Risk in a Unique Industry Landscape

A seasoned cybersecurity and GRC professional with extensive experience in private and public sectors. Expert in designing robust security systems and programs that align with business goals, delivering tangible value, mitigating risks, and ensuring clear ROI. Skilled in AI governance and security, security consulting, certifications and accreditations, cyber and technology risk management, and GRC coaching/mentoring. PECB certified professional and trainer.

At CybersecCon, Adwin will be speaking on Strengthen cybersecurity posture through partnership, “trust but verify”. 

Strengthening cybersecurity requires partnerships built on “trust but verify”, with our suppliers and partners. We need ecosystem-wide collaboration, shared posture, and responsibility, supported by effective oversight and clear obligations, so let’s talk about, the what, the why and how.

Alex Teh is a cybersecurity business leader with over 20 years of proven industry success. Over a 16-year period as Director and founder of Vigil Software, Alex built the company from a start-up into a $44 million plus turnover operation. Vigil Software was then sold to a Pan-European company in 2016. Since joining Chillisoft as CEO, Alex has spearheaded the transformation of the company, turning Chillisoft from primarily working as ESET NZ, into a multi-Gartner leading vendor business. Chillisoft are now proud distributors of ESET, LogRhythm, CyberArk, Imperva, Help Systems, Netskope, Extrahop, Radware, Mimecast, Attack IQ and more. Chillisoft has since won many awards, including: 2020, 2021 and 2022 LogRhythm distributor of the year. 2021 Imperva APJ Partner of the year. 2020 Reseller News Specialist distributor and most recently, 2022 Reseller News Distributor Innovation Specialist.

Alex has been dedicated to building and growing sales, technical and marketing teams, with focus on achieving accelerated growth through ensuring high levels of integrity and excellence in cybersecurity. Alex works in a direct touch channel sales capacity, having sold and marketed to over 5,000 partners in EMEA and ANZ who trusted Chillisoft to provide commercial and technical value back to their customers. Chillisoft no works with over 2,000 partners in the ANZ market. Alex is a subject matter expert in all aspects of cyber security including; Next Generation Firewalls, SD-Wan, SASE, Data Loss Prevention, Cloud security, SIEM, WAF, DDOS, Email and Web security, Identity and Cloud Access Management (MFA, PAM, SSO), End point security (EDR), Network detection and response (NDR) and Mobile security.

Most keen on helping business build SOC’s and security services, Alex is highly passionate about cybersecurity. Most of all, Alex is dedicated to helping make the right security solutions available, bringing the best in cyberseucity to New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific!

A Security Maestro of safety and efficiency with an eclectic blend of talents and experiences! From orchestrating symphonies of cybersecurity to navigating the complex waters of commercial seafaring, a seasoned professional and more than just an accomplished security leader.

Someone who not only understands the intricate chords of banking, finance, and insurance but also knows how to hit the right notes in travel, government, and public transport sectors. With a background that spans technology, music, broadcasting, and even a Ferry Captain!

Andrew has fine-tuned his skills to streamline operations, enhance security, and drive excellence, all while maintaining an infectious enthusiasm that motivates everyone around them. Whether solving complex security puzzles or adding a touch of flair to everyday operations, he has dedicated himself to ensuring that every system runs smoothly and every challenge is met with a dynamic, upbeat approach.

Winner of the 2024 Cyber Excellence Awards CISO of the Year, Andrew doesn’t just lead security, he composes a symphony of success!

Paul Macpherson leads the Information Security team for Te Pūtea Matua, with responsibility for managing information and cyber security risks across the organisation.

The Information Security team plays a critical role in ensuring the security and privacy of information entrusted to Te Pūtea Matua as kaitiaki of New Zealand’s financial system.

Paul has over 30 years’ experience in information security administration, consulting and management roles across the public and private sector. Previously he held information security management roles at Westpac NZ and Xero, and spent 10 years with KPMG where he provided information security consulting and audit services to clients globally. He is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP).

Darren is a seasoned security professional with over 30 years’ experience, starting with 12 years in the UK military dealing with crypto and communications security. Head hunted in 2007, took the step and became a senior firewall specialist for Telecom NZ (now Spark NZ). Darren has been with Tower Insurance for 6 years and has spent the past couple of years as the Head of Information Security, being responsible for all aspects of cyber security across the NZ and Pacific Islands operations. Being a thought leader in cyber, Darren encourages businesses to take leading edge approaches in cyber technology and processes, whilst instilling good governance across the business.

Tony is the Head of Security for Silver Fern Farms and has over 30 years experience working in technology. He is passionate about helping organisations and staff improve security and believes that a good security culture can be an enabler that provides many benefits to an organisation.

Catherine is an experienced crisis manager who transitioned from handling some of New Zealand’s largest emergency events to Cyber Incident Management four years ago.

In 2020, she established Incident Response Management for Health Alliance, leveraging co-design, creative thinking, and a people-centred approach to transform the nationwide delivery of cyber security incident response across Health New Zealand.

By integrating Coordinated Incident Management into cyber security practices, Catherine has enabled Health New Zealand to take a holistic, sector-wide approach to response capability, collaborating with teams across the health sector to protect the most vulnerable from cyber-attacks.

Beyond actively managing Cyber Response efforts, Catherine leads projects to strengthen response capabilities across the Health NZ workforce and Sector. She is currently focused on the “Workforce Readiness” Initiative, aimed at Transforming Health NZ to be workforce ready for response nationally, regionally, and locally.

Catherine has also partnered with PHO’s to co-design the Response Ready Playbook for Primary Health and has recently launched the “Women in Cyber” initiative at Health NZ, designed to support and provide mentorship for women in cyber security and privacy teams. Cathrine was also named the 2024 Cyber Excellence Awards CyberSec Woman of the Year!

Colin is the Head of Information Security and Risk Management at Southern Cross Health Society, where he oversees the protection of sensitive data and systems for one of the largest health insurers in New Zealand. He has a passion for technology and innovation, and how they can improve the lives and well-being of people.

Before joining Southern Cross, Colin spent more than 15 years in the telecommunications sector including the global stage, working with various providers and regulators to ensure the safety and reliability of internet services. It was during this time he led global cyber strategy for Vodafone group and was the CISO for the AMAP region of Vodafone markets. He has extensive experience in dealing with technology and cyber threats, and has collaborated with law enforcement and national security agencies to combat malicious online activity. He is an advocate for providing safe and trusted internet access, especially for young and vulnerable users, and supports initiatives that promote digital literacy and inclusion.

Outside of work he enjoys doing landscape photography, astronomy, and skateboarding (longboards and electric boards). He has also dabbled in the musical theatre world, where he has Stage Managed, Produced and Directed several productions. 

With a technology career spanning over 30 years, Eli Hirschauge held several security and technology leadership roles in financial services.

Heading ANZ New Zealand, Information Security function since 2023, Eli is a member of both ANZ New Zealand Technology Leadership Team and ANZ Group’s Cyber Security Leadership Teams.

Prior to joining ANZ, Eli worked for Tower Insurance during a successful 5-year digital transformation, holding both CIO and CISO roles. During his time in Tower, Eli served as the chair of the University of Auckland School of Computer Science Industry Advisory Board, and as a director of the New Zealand Insurance Claims Register.

Eli holds an MBA from the University of Auckland Business school (2010) and a graduate of the Auckland University 2018 Strategic CIO programme.

Eli is a frequent panelist and keynote speaker on topics of Cybersecurity, digital transformation, and IT leadership.

Alastair Miller has been in the cybersecurity industry for 15 years on both the consultancy side and in various organisations, so he has given the advice and then had to implement it. He is currently the GM of Network and Security at Genesis Energy.

Tony Johnson has over two decades of experience in the IT industry, with the past 10 years spent as a Systems Engineer at Outsource IT and now operating as a Solutions Architect. Known within his company as the go-to expert when something needs to be hacked into, critical data recovered, or security vulnerabilities identified, Tony has developed a deep, practical understanding of cyber threats. His hands-on experience in uncovering weaknesses has fostered a strong commitment to building secure, resilient systems, making him a passionate advocate for robust cyber security practices.

Dane Blackmore is the country manager for Netskope, and has over a decade of experience working on digital transformation and cyber security objectives with business and government orgs of all sizes.

He is passionate about helping organisations to use zero trust architecture and cybersecurity to safely exploit one of their most valuable assets – customer data.

Lizelle is the Director of Channel at Mimecast, a cybersecurity company. Prior to this, she was Director of SaaS Partnerships at Microsoft; and Head of Partnerships at AWS for 6 years. With over 25 years of experience in technical pre-sales, product marketing, strategy, sales, Lizelle is passionate about the long term success & diversity of the Australian tech sector. She sits on the Board of Spectrum – a NFP, servicing refugees, migrants and the aged care sector. She has lived and worked in the Middle East, Germany and USA.

Exabeam Chief Security Strategist, Host of The New CISO Podcast, and Co-Founder TEN18 

Stephen Moore is the Chief Security Strategist at Exabeam, a co-founder of TEN18, and the host of The New CISO podcast. He has over 20 years of experience in information security, including intrusion analysis, threat intelligence, and security architecture. Before joining Exabeam, Stephen spent seven years at Elevance, a Fortune 20 company, where he held various leadership roles in cybersecurity. During his tenure, he notably established their Cybersecurity Analytics capability and Security Operations Center (SOC), eventually advancing to an officer-level position. Stephen has extensive experience in identifying, responding to, and remediating nation-state espionage, insider threats, and criminal adversaries. He also serves as an advisor to several cybersecurity companies and often works as an executive breach response coach. 

Working at ESET for over a decade, Peter grew through the ranks and bolstered his leadership skills. Since 2017, he has been the Security Research and Awareness Manager for ESET. Now, based in Christchurch, New Zealand, Peter leads a multinational team of cybersecurity researchers, awareness specialists and editors. His team is responsible for experimental research, awareness and research publication process, and for a threat telemetry framework. Peter oversees the creation of the bi-annual ESET Threat Reports, as well as the production of the ESET research podcast. When not sitting at his computer, he enjoys the outdoors and everything to do with coffee, both factoring in his decision to call Christchurch home.

With over 18 years of experience in the cybersecurity industry, Sam has built a remarkable career trajectory. He has held key roles at reputable organizations such as Spectrum in UAE, Extol Corporation in Malaysia, IPSec, Optus, and Trustwave in Australia, where he served as the APAC Sales Director. Throughout his professional journey, Sam has demonstrated exceptional leadership skills in driving successful sales teams and highlighting the business value and return on investment (ROI) of diverse cybersecurity solutions. Sam holds a master’s degree in engineering management from Malaysia’s Universiti Tenaga Nasional, adding a solid academic foundation to his practical expertise in the field.

With over two decades in cybersecurity, Andrew Younger is a seasoned Senior Sales Engineer at WatchGuard Technologies, bringing deep expertise in secure network architecture, cloud protection, and threat detection and response. Based in Melbourne, Andrew Younger has held senior technical and leadership roles across industry leaders including Thales, Gemalto, Senetas, and SafeNet. He is known for bridging technical depth with commercial insight to deliver practical, outcome-driven solutions for customers across A/NZ.

With over 8 years of cybersecurity presales experience, Scott Jenner specialises in helping organisations of all sizes navigate today’s complex threat landscape. As a trusted advisor to resellers and MSPs across the APAC region, Scott excels at translating technical security concepts into clear, actionable insights for both technical and non-technical audiences. His collaborative approach and deep industry knowledge enable him to tailor effective solutions that meet the unique needs of businesses—from small enterprises to large multinationals.

Reinhart is an experienced Information Technology and Cyber Security leader of over 30 years.  His career, founded on a degree in Computer Science from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), has a demonstrated history of working in technology leadership, advisory and sales/pre-sales roles that help businesses uncover and explore new opportunities for growth.

With a strong technical and entrepreneurial background, Reinhart founded a company earlier in his career that successfully developed and sold authentication security reporting and billing software to enterprises worldwide. The company and technology were later acquired by a global 2FA vendor.

Today, Reinhart has a large focus on cyber security and technology innovation powered by AI and automation.  He helps organisations understand how they can source, build, and leverage technology to drive better business outcomes, while at the same time understand and manage their cyber risk.   As a pragmatic technologist, he understands the importance that people and process play in the success of securing an organisation’s users, applications, infrastructure, and most importantly their data from cyber threats and cyber-attacks.

Patrick McCue, Senior Vice President of Global Partner Sales at Armis, where he manages the company’s partners, strategy and programs. Most recently he led the Global Partner Team at Okta where they grew Partners to over 50% of company’s business.  Before joining Okta, McCue was at customer identity and access management company Gigya, where he was responsible for the strategy, development and management of Gigya’s Partner Program, as well as the company’s channels and alliances partners. Before that, he served as the VP of Channels at QlikTech and ExactTarget where he grew Partner business by over 50% and executed numerous strategic OEM agreements.  Patrick has more than 25 years of experience in the technology industry with 20 years focused on Alliances and Channels, having been involved in 3 successful IPO’s and multiple companies being sold to current Partners, under his management.  He has been named a Top Channel Chief, by CRN, the last four years.

Patrick McCue is the senior vice president of global partnerships at Armis where he leads the company’s partner strategy, program, partners and alliances. Patrick is responsible for forging new partnerships for Armis in a broad array of verticals and geographies while expanding and empowering existing partners. Before joining Armis, he led the Global Partner Team at Okta where they grew Partners to over 50% of company’s business. Patrick has more than 25 years of experience in the technology industry with 20 years focused on Alliances and Channels, having been involved in 3 successful IPO’s and multiple companies being sold to current Partners.  He has been named a Top Channel Chief, by CRN, the last four years

Simon is the Area Vice President for ExtraHop. A respected industry expert in the APJ region with over 25 years of sales and management experience Simon collaborates with the cyber security community to inform and uplift cyber security programs and capability.  Previous to this role, Simon was responsible for building and managing relationships with organisations in Asia Pacific & Japan (APJ) for AttackIQ.  Simon has also held senior sales and leadership roles at LogRhythm where he served as Vice President of Sales for Asia Pacific, Symantec, Commvault and Acronis. Originally from the UK, Simon has lived in Sydney since 1998.

Marc has been with Entrust since 2019, having 25 years of leadership experience in cybersecurity and technology he has supported many organisations from the Banking & Government sector, to Telco, Retail and Airlines for many organisations around the world.

He embarked in the smartcard industry as an Engineering major, but soon after started his career and Sales & Sales Management, supporting global EMV transition projects with some of the largest Banking customers in APAC, Middle East, Africa & North America. He turned his attention to the NFC, PKI & blockchain technology in 2013.

During his time with Entrust, Marc has focused his attention is solving the real challenge of Data Protection & Digital (Human & Machine) Access Control. Underpinning his vision for safer organisational resilience and citizen day-to-day access to their digital services, Marc truly believes that the perimeter is not the end-point, but rather it is the organisational cybersecurity perimeter which is the critical focus.

Therefore, Cybersecurity resilience is where an organisation is in complete control of their digital assets, such as Keys, Secrets & Certificates and therefore having complete secure visibility and single pane of glass view of your Cryptographic Security Platform (CSP). This is possible with Entrust’s unique award wining (RSA2025) global CSP, so please ask Marc what that means and how Entrust assists all organisations to be truely Cybersecure!

Paul Prokop, Senior Solutions Architect for Exabeam, has been dedicated to IT Security. With 25 years of dual experience as both a client and provider, Paul is fueled with a drive to surpass performance objectives, thriving amidst dynamic business landscapes, and rapidly adapting to evolving technological challenges. Paul works closely with customers to reduce risk with Exabeam’s award-winning platform and readily adapt to evolving business and technology challenges. Prior to LogRhythm, Paul held various roles within IT security at Check Point, CyberArk and Fairfax Media, where he deepened his technical expertise in IT security, architecture and operations.

Adam has over two decades of hands-on and leadership experience architecting, operating, automating, and testing Security Operations Centers for Detection and Response. As a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Chief Security Officer (CSO), Adam offers expertise in securing and monitoring AWS, Azure, Windows, Mac, and Linux with cutting-edge tools such as Firewalls, Email Gateways, EDR, SIEM, and SOAR, having developed a market leading Managed Detection and Response (MDR) vendor named ActZero to manage hundreds of customer SOCs globally. Adam also lead an in-house consulting service called the VCISO program at ActZero, which offers vertical-specific expertise in compliance and hardening for Healthcare, Manufacturing, Consumer Privacy, and Financial regulations and best practices.

Adam has worked in 24/7 mission-critical war rooms to actively respond to fast-moving adversaries from BlackCat/AlphaV, Maze, Royal, and DarkSide ransomware actors. He has successfully protected customer bases across many different environments from the endpoint, network, cloud, and mobile security events, with 10ms system response times, 16-minute MTTRs, and 1-hour remediations while scaling to meet new customer and security demands.

Adam brings the architecture for threat intelligence, red-team testing, and MITRE mapping to various vulnerability, compliance, and monitoring tools. This approach helps demonstrate our current state to senior leadership in daily, weekly, and monthly briefings with other teams such as DevOps, SRE, Customer Experience, Management, and the board of directors. Adam also brings a strategic approach to help the teams around him build world-class products to flourish by seamlessly enabling security in the software development lifecycle and operation. He has also run security awareness programs and compliance/infosec for SOC2, PCI, CMMC, and FEDRAMP programs to ensure products meet the highest standards to service financial, automotive, department of Defense, and healthcare standards.

Himanshu Kathpal is Vice President of Product Management, Platform and Technologies at Qualys. With 15+ years’ experience, he leads teams delivering solutions for Continuous Threat Exposure Management, Risk-Based Vulnerability Management, Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform, Artificial Intelligence Security Posture Management, Application Security, and Development Security Operations. Himanshu specializes in product strategy, go-to-market, and innovation to strengthen customer security and drive business growth

Brad Collins is the Enterprise and MSP Business Manager for ESET, focusing on our MSP partners and customers with our Complete, Enterprise and Elite products with the goal of allowing our MSPs to increase the security of their customers in an easy and cost effective manner. Brad has worked in IT Companies and MSPs for just over 20 years including growing one of those companies from 6 to 55 staff and is applying his wealth of real world experience in customer expectations and security solutions in this role to discuss the wider ESET product stack with MSPs.

With over 15 years of experience spanning cybersecurity, mobility, and networking, Zak Menegazzi is a seasoned sales leader and strategic driver of growth in the technology sector. As a Regional Sales Director at Armis, Zak leads the charge in expanding the adoption of Armis’s market-leading Exposure Management solution across Asia, Pacific, and Japan.

Known for a deep understanding of complex enterprise environments and a customer-first approach, Zak has built a track record of delivering consistent revenue growth, building high-performing teams, and fostering strong relationships with partners and key stakeholders across the region.

Throughout his career, Zak has held leadership roles that bridge technical insight with commercial execution, helping organizations securely navigate digital transformation and manage risk at scale. At Armis, he is focused on helping customers gain complete visibility, continuous monitoring, and actionable intelligence to protect their expanding attack surfaces in today’s hyper-connected world.

Pierro is a senior technical manager and cybersecurity architect with more than 28 years’ experience in the IT industry across Cyber Security, Cloud, Infrastructure & Hyperconverged Technologies, IT Support and Professional Services. He has delivered solutions to various multinational and international companies spanning finance, government, utilities  and retail.  

Alex Scarpato, Solution Architect at CyberArk, brings over 20 years of enterprise security expertise, with a deep focus on enterprise PKI and cryptography. His career includes shaping data protection strategies at Commonwealth Bank, where he designed reference architectures for secrets management, and leading cryptography services at Symantec, overseeing critical PKI transitions.

Anthony Rowell is a Channel Account Manager for Chillisoft, New Zealand’s specialist cybersecurity distributor. Representing cybersecurity industry-leading vendors including ESET, Imperva, Mimecast, and NetSkope to partner and customer bases numbering in well into the thousands.
With a strong background in information technology and security, Anthony has a comprehensive understanding of the evolving landscape of cyber threats and the mapping of these to the vendor technology and solutions Chillisoft represents

With a channel-first approach, mirroring the values of Chillisoft, Anthony works with partners to understand the unique security challenges of their clients, and providing guidance on tailored solutions to address their specific needs.