CIO & CISO Think Tank

Dr. Erin Boyd is an energy economist with 25+ years of experience working across a multi- dimensional spectrum of organizations, economies and sectors including: consultancies focused on small to large scale energy access in developing and emerging markets as well as competitive behavior in European electricity markets; public and private utilities crafting optimal energy tariffs to incent desired outcomes; non-profits and trade organizations contributing to public policy and regulation in everything from EV charging to federal allocation of water rights for hydro; and now for a Fortunate 500 Global Energy Company, AES, where she is Chief Digital Commercial Transformation Officer. Underlying every aspect of her work is the utilization of data and analytics, with Erin considering herself a closet data scientist. Erin also loves to speak publicly and presents any chance she can, including at TEDx.

Ray Austad began his IT and Information Security career in Higher Education and Non-Profit, and pivoted over to financial enterprise after 18 years. Commencing his career with Zurich Farmers Insurance’s Group Information Security as a Business Information Security Officer. In 2014 he joined the Farmers Insurance Group Business Unit to lead Cloud and Application Security, Vulnerability Management, and Incident Response. In 2020 Ray took a different view of Cybersecurity and risks to business by moving over to Farmers Risk Management team. As Director Information Security and Risk Management, the next chapter started with being able to evaluate the organization with a new and intriguing lens. The first quarter was allocated to learning more about Enterprise Risk Management and adjusting to a role of business assurance, opposed to operational execution. The second quarter changed the organization and our personal lives with the pandemic, and provided new, unforeseen challenges. However this offered new opportunities to calculate organization and supplier risks, and view business resiliency differently. Heading into the third quarter, the focus will be on continued improvements with information security risk baselines, collaboration with our operational and business partners to monitor pandemic impacts, and evaluate new and emerging risks.

Dr. Chris Pierson is the Founder & CEO of BlackCloak, the pioneer in Digital Executive Protection for corporate executives, board members, and high-net-worth individuals and their families. Chris has been on the front lines of cybersecurity and privacy in both the public and private sectors for over 25 years. Previously at the Department of Homeland Security, Chris served for over a decade as a special government employee on the Cybersecurity and Privacy Committees. He’s also spent time as the Chief Privacy Officer for Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), as the Chief Information Security Officer for two prominent FinTechs, and is also a Distinguished Fellow of the Ponemon Institute.

With close to 25 years in advertising, broadcast media, live event production, experiential, news, and film/television from pre- to postproduction, Josh also works as a CTO, Director of Technology as well as Operations Manager. Josh implements innovative and creative solutions resulting in a track record that shows increased productivity and cost reduction. He works in system design and integration, design and installation of large technological infrastructures, and data distribution systems (internet: wired and wireless) for private and commercial construction. He has extensive experience customizing information and technology for diverse client needs, encoding systems, digital asset management, and collaborative software. He demonstrates skills as a maintenance technician, transmission specialist, video hardware engineer, and as project manager/coordinator/supervisor.

Experienced Technology Executive with a demonstrated history of working in the computer and network security industry. Skilled in Computer Security, Information Security Management, Start-ups, Security, and Project Management. Strong information technology professional graduated from UCLA.

Dave Williamson has extensive experience working in information technology within the biotech industry to increase manufacturing, quality and supply chain efficiency and effectiveness. Most recently, he worked for Abzena, a life science group headquartered in San Diego, CA as the Chief Information Officer.

Tyler works as Revefi's Head of Sales for North America - West. He helps enterprise companies maximize their cloud warehouse investments across Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery and Redshift. Revefi is your AI Agent for automated, continuous spend, quality, performance and usage optimimzation.

Rhino Linings Corporation, established in 1988 and headquartered in San Diego, California , is a privately-held corporation and world leader in protective coatings and linings. Products manufactured and distributed by Rhino Linings Corporation include polyurethane, polyaspartic and epoxy coatings, concrete coatings, spray foam insulation and sealants, and interior and exterior stucco. Rhino Linings Corporation has a global retail and industrial applicator network consisting of independently owned and operated businesses and is the first company in the sprayed-on bed liner industry to achieve ISO 9001 certification.

A cyber security professional with over 20 years of experience. He spent 12 years of his career as the chief security architect for a global Fortune 500 organization and led their global security engineering, SOC and SIRT teams. At Fortinet he has designed security solutions for many of the nation’s Fortune 500 organizations, helping them defend against today’s emerging security threats.

Currently at ADP as Chief Architect of Cloud Infrastructure. Future-focused technologist with over 35 years of technology innovation and experience. 2nd US Patent granted for Domain Transcendent File Cryptography Network securing multi-cloud workloads. 1st US patent granted for application development in mobile device technology for ABC News delivery. From building innovative workflow solutions for broadcast television to architecting enterprise cloud adoption and solutions. As a contributing member of the CSA Cloud Security Alliance and OACA Business Transformation Workgroup authoring and co-authoring numerous white-papers and documents ranging from the published Cloud Maturity Model through Integration and Business Strategy for Cloud Adoption. With an unstoppable passion for technology solutions and a pragmatic technologist, consistently implementing technology that drives business, leveraging over 30 years of technology expertise. Specialties: Cloud architecture, adoption, migration and integration.

Kim Pham has 15 years of experience at the intersection of cybersecurity and human rights, leading award-winning teams and programs. As Principal at Code Switch Security, she advises clients including global think tanks, conflict zone journalists, and Nobel Peace Prize nominees on both their organizational and personal cybersecurity. Under Kim's leadership, her teams have been internationally recognized for their impact—including being shortlisted for the EU Parliament's Sakharov Prize in 2010 and honored with the 2023 National Endowment for Democracy's Trailblazer Award. She also serves as Vice President of ISSA SoCal, where she champions community-building, mentorship, and equity within the cybersecurity profession. Her work reflects a belief that strong security is rooted not just in tools—but in people, relationships, and shared purpose.

Business development and go-to-market leader with over 25 years of experience in technology solutions, passionate about building from the ground up—launching products, forging partnerships, and creating new revenue streams. I focus on understanding the priorities, challenges, and goals of CIOs, CISOs, and CTOs, delivering tailored technology and security strategies through a transparent, outcome-driven approach. By leveraging cutting-edge solutions and industry insights, I drive operational excellence and resilience, building trust and innovative value.

Sean is a data, machine learning, and analytics marketer/practitioner/lover with a strong focus on innovative open-source ecosystems. He has been a key player in integral technological shifts, including the rise of cloud computing, open-source standardization, big data, and machine learning. Sean quickly became a go-to resource and speaker for data and analytics workloads focusing on technologies like machine learning, data science, data engineering, Apache Spark, Apache Hadoop, MongoDB, Redis, ElasticSearch, SQL and data warehousing. Recently, Sean has been immersed in the world of generative AI, tackling practical applications and on a mission to eliminate LLM hallucinations. At Rackspace Hosting, Sean helped define the company brand around delivering cloud-based database services, including the launch of cloud data products for Hadoop, MongoDB, Elastic Search and Redis. At Cloudera, Sean was responsible for Apache Spark and data science marketing. He launched a new capability to bring common, open-source data science practices to distributed data with the introduction of The Cloudera Data Science Workbench. At StreamSets, Sean led programs and research around data engineering and data pipelines. This included authoring several definitive research products on the emerging discipline of DataOps. Sean managed a cross-functional team of product marketers, product-led growth marketers, and developer advocates. At Select Star, Sean was the foundational marketing hire and managed the company's content, analyst, and events strategies. Sean is currently Head of Product Marketing at Vectara, managing the company's strategy for content, analyst relations, and community. Vectara is entering the market with one of the world's best retrieval and hallucination evaluation models.

With over 25 years of sales and business development experience fostering C-level relationships, Khoi is passionate about helping customers leverage cloud-based technologies to accelerate their innovation and growth. As a Senior Enterprise Account Executive, he provides business value and expertise to Fortune 100 companies. He has been at LaunchDarkly, a leader in feature management, and Lucidworks, a leader in search and AI solutions for big data applications. He consistently exceeded sales targets and earned the President’s Club recognition for outstanding performance there. He also has a strong background in data intelligence and analytics, having worked as a senior manager at ClearStory Data and a Gartner Cool Vendor in big data. He is skilled in solution selling, managing C-level and executive relationships, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to drive successful go-to-market strategies and digital transformation.