Speaker Biographies

Speakers

Moderators

James Morrison

Head of Cabinet of Commissioner Julian King, European Commission

James Morrison has been the Head of Cabinet of the Commissioner for Security Union since September 2016. Prior to this, from November 2014, he was Director of the Policy Coordination Directorate in the Secretariat-General of the European Commission. From 2009 to October 2014 James was the Chief of Staff of the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/ First Vice President of the European Commission. Before joining the European Commission James was a British diplomat for over 20 years specialising in EU business. He was Senior Policy Advisor to the Minister for Europe in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and to the Leader of the House of Lords from 2007-2008. From 2006-2007, he worked for Ashridge Business School, UK as a Programme Manager and Strategy Tutor. He served twice at the UK Representation to the EU (1994-1999 and 2004-2006) covering two UK Presidencies of the Council (1997 and 2005). James Morrison has occupied a number of other posts in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He was FCO spokesman on EU issues from 1999-2000, Private Secretary to the Minister for Europe (2000-2002), European Correspondent and Head of the CFSP Department (2003-2004). James Morrison holds a Masters degree in Business Administration. He was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the 2015 New Year's Honours.

Antonio Missiroli

Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges, NATO

Dr. Antonio Missiroli is the Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges.

Prior to joining NATO, Dr. Antonio Missiroli was the Director of the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) in Paris (2012-17). Previously, he was Adviser at the Bureau of European Policy Advisers (BEPA) of the European Commission (2010-2012); Director of Studies at the European Policy Centre in Brussels (2005-2010), and Senior Research Fellow at the W/EU Institute for Security Studies in Paris (1998-2005). He was also Head of European Studies at CeSPI in Rome (1994-97) and a Visiting Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford (1996-97).

As well as being a professional journalist, he has also taught at Bath and Trento as well as Boston University, SAIS/Johns Hopkins, at the College of Europe (Bruges) and Sciences Po (Paris). Dr. Missiroli holds a PhD degree in Contemporary History from the Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa) and a Master’s degree in International Public Policy from SAIS/Johns Hopkins University.

Despina Spanou

Director Digital Society Trust & Cybersecurity DG CONNECT, European Commission

Despina Spanou is the Director for Digital Society, Trust and Cybersecurity at the Directorate-General Communications Network, Content and Technology. In this capacity she is responsible for cybersecurity policy and law, digital privacy, connected cities and mobility, digital health and e-government as well as electronic identification. She oversaw the work on the actions on Cybersecurity adopted in September 2017, including the Cybersecurity Act and Recommendation on large scale cybersecurity incidents. She is a member of the Management Board of ENISA and of the Steering Board of CERT-EU. She recently led the restructuring of the Directorate to expand on research technology and capacity building in cybersecurity.

She was previously Director for Consumer Affairs at the Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers (2013-2017). She has served as Principal Adviser in the Directorate-General for Health and Consumers where she was responsible for communication and strategic issues.

She was the Deputy Head of Cabinet for the European Commissioner for Health and Consumers Mr. Kyprianou (2004-2008) and for the Commissioner for Health, and later Education & Culture, Mrs. Vassiliou (2008-2010).

Despina Spanou started her career at the European Commission at the Directorate General for Competition in 2003. She had previously practised European law with the Brussels branch of a US law firm. She is of Cypriot origin, a member of the Athens Bar Association and holds a Ph.D. in European law from the University of Cambridge.

Steven Wilson

Head of European Cybercrime Centre , EUROPOL

Steven originates from Ayrshire in Scotland and was a Police Officer in Scotland from 1985-2015.

He performed a variety of senior Detective roles and worked in covert policing, major investigations, sex offender management, CT investigations, witness protection, cybercrime and cyber enabled crime including online child sexual exploitation.

He commenced as Head of EC3 in January 2016 and is responsible for the central collation of criminal intelligence on cybercrime across the EU, supporting member state investigations into Online Child Sexual Exploitation, Cyber-dependent crimes, non-cash means of payment fraud and Crime on the Dark Web.

He is also responsible for the Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce (JCAT), a team of specialist cyber investigators seconded to EC3 from multiple countries. His teams at EC3 further provide digital and document forensic support in complex cases across EU, strategic analysis of threats and trends, liaison with industry, academia and non-law enforcement partners, prevention and awareness raising, and capacity building.

Robert Hannigan

Former Director General, GCHQ

Robert Hannigan is European Executive Chairman of BlueVoyant, a global cyber security services company, and a Senior Adviser at Flint Global. He was Director of GCHQ, the UK’s largest intelligence and cyber security agency, from 2014-17 and recently retired from Government after 20 years in national security roles, including Prime Minister’s Security Adviser.

Robert established the UK National Cyber Security Centre in 2016, having been responsible for the UK’s first cyber strategy in 2009. He is a leading authority on cyber security, cyber conflict and the application of technology in national security and writes regularly on cyber issues in the Financial Times, Washington Post and elsewhere. He has commented recently on global IT supply chain integrity, US tech companies and privacy, and encryption policy.

He is a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center, the UK’s Institute of Engineering and Technology, and the Royal United Services Institute, and an Honorary Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford.

Nils Puhlmann

Chief Trust and Security Officer, Twilio

Mr. Nils Puhlmann has been Chief Trust and Security Officer at Twilio Inc. since August 16, 2018. Mr. Puhlmann serves as an Advisor of Beachhead Solutions, Inc. He has served as an advisor to Twilio since 2014. Mr. Puhlmann served as the Chief Technology Officer of Endgame, Inc. since November 2013. Mr. Puhlmann served as Chief Security Officer of Zynga, Inc. He served as the Chief Security Officer and Vice President of Risk Management at Qualys Inc. since November 5, 2008. He has 20 years of broad industry experience within security and IT management. He served as the Chief Security Officer of Electronic Arts, where he was globally responsible for managing information security and risk management. While CISO of Robert Half International, he led information security and business continuity on a global enterprise-wide scale. Mr. Puhlmann served as Director of Global IT & Security and Chief Privacy Officer at Mindjet Corp. and Senior Manager Product Security at Adobe Systems where he created Adobe's product security incident response team, chaired Adobe's Security Task Force and managed Adobe's first Common Criteria Certification. He was responsible for managing Mindjet's global information technology, security and privacy activities. He held senior positions at Nortel Networks and START Amadeus, and was an independent security consultant with clients such as the State of California. He has been a Director of Information Systems Security Association since September 2012. He served in director positions (ISACA Silicon Valley, OVAL) and is a member of numerous corporate advisory boards. He Co-Founded and serves as Director of Cloud Security Alliance, Inc. He serves as Member of Advisory Board of Nok Nok Labs, Inc. He serves as a member of the CSO Interchange, the CISO Executive Council and is a subject matter expert for ISACA and ISC2. Mr. Puhlmann serves as a member of the Advisory Council for the CISO Forum of ISS. He is a graduate of Kant College in Germany.

Jürgen Schneider

Head of Product Security, SAP Global Security

Dr. Jürgen Schneider is the Head of Product Security at SAP. His area of responsibility includes definition, facilitation and enforcement of SAP's secure Software Development Lifecycle (secure SDL) for SAP's products and cloud services, consisting of security training and education for SAP's development workforce, security risk assessment methodology, security planning, secure programming, security testing, security validation, security response and security research. In previous roles at SAP, Jürgen headed security and identity management development as Vice President of SAP's NetWeaver technology platform and, as a developer at SAP, implemented security functions in the AS ABAP kernel. Dr. Schneider studied computer science and received a Master and PhD degree from the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, Germany.

John Frank

Vice-President for EU Government Affairs, Microsoft

John Frank is Microsoft's Vice President, EU Government Affairs. In this role, John leads Microsoft's government affairs teams in Brussels and European national capitals on EU issues.

John was previously Vice President, Deputy General Counsel and Chief of Staff for Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith based at Microsoft’s corporate headquarters in Redmond Washington. In this role, he managed several teams including the Law Enforcement and National Security team, the Industry Affairs group, Corporate, Competition Law and Privacy Compliance teams and the department's technology and business operations team.

For his first eight years at Microsoft, John was based at Microsoft’s European headquarters in Paris. Initially he was responsible for the legal and regulatory issues involved in the launch of the Microsoft Network (now MSN). From 1996 to 2002, Mr. Frank led Microsoft's Legal and Corporate Affairs group for Europe, Middle East and Africa focusing on issues including privacy, security, consumer protection and antitrust. Mr. Frank began the company's European Government Affairs program, which focused on advocacy on software and online policy issues.

Prior to joining Microsoft, John Frank practiced law in San Francisco with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Mr. Frank received his A.B. degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and his J.D. from Columbia Law School.

Tony Graziano

Vice-President of European Public Affairs, Huawei

Since May 2011, Antonio Salvatore Graziano has held the position of Vice-President at Huawei’s European Public Affairs and Communications Office in Brussels.
Mr Graziano holds a B.Sc. Honours in Electrical and Electronic Engineering and a Master's certificate in Business administration from the University College of Cardiff, UK. Starting off as an engineer for AB Electronics Newport, Wales, he spent nine years at Matsushita Electric (Panasonic) Television Division, where he held senior European and international positions. He went on to join EACEM (the former European Association of the Consumer Electronic Manufacturer) where he was appointed Technical Officer charged with organising, coordinating and administering EACEM's Technical Committee liaisons with standardisation institutes and EU legislators and with providing expert information and advice on regulatory issues.

In 2001, Mr Graziano joined DIGITALEUROPE, the organisation representing the ICT industry in Brussels, to become their Director of Public Affairs with a specific focus on technical and environmental policy and regulation.

François Zamora

Chief Security Officer, European Division Orange on behalf of ETNO members

As Chief Security Officer for the Europe division of Orange, Francois is in charge of a multi-country security work streams to integrate security in IT and Network (ITN) transformation. Such transformation consists in introducing cloud technologies and infrastructures to support the future generations of telecommunications networks. To anticipate the effects on architecture design and on operations requirements coming from regulatory, standardization and certification, Francois is closely teaming with the entire ecosystem (European industry, standardisation bodies and institutional representatives).

Before joining Orange’s Technology and Global Innovation, Francois was successively at Orange’s Group Security Department where he lead the global security management system for the Group, one of the Group’s pillars for security governance in its Europe, Africa and the Middle East operations, the B2B division and spent two years in the United States in developing remote sensing business for mobile networks engineering.

Francois is member of various France-based professional clubs promoting risk management best practice such as the EBIOS Club, the CESIN, the Club of Business Continuity. He sits at President-elect of the French National Standardization Body national commission mirroring the joint ISO/IEC Sub-Committee 27 for the standardization of Information Security, Data protection and Privacy. Francois also provides lectures at University of Limoges, Telcom ParisTech and others institutions in France.

Thomas Boué

Director General, Policy — EMEA, BSA l The Software Alliance

Thomas Boué oversees the BSA | The Software Alliance’s public policy activities in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. He advises BSA members on public policy and legal developments and advocates the views of the ICT sector with both European and national policy makers. He leads on security and privacy issues as well as broader efforts to improve levels of intellectual property protection and to promote open markets, fair competition, and technology innovation in new areas such as cloud computing.
Prior to joining BSA, Boué served as a consultant in Weber Shandwick where he advised clients on a wide range of technology and ICT-related policy issues and represented them before the EU institutions and industry coalitions. In this role, he also served as policy and regulatory adviser for both EU and US telecom operators. Prior to that Boué worked for the EU office of the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry where he was responsible for the lobbying activities towards the EU Institutions in the areas of trade, education, and labor, as well as for the organization and running of seminars on EU affairs for SMEs and business professionals.
Boué holds a Master of Business Administration from the Europa-Insitut (Saarbrücken, Germany), a Certificate of Integrated Legal Studies (trilateral and trilingual Master’s degree in French, English, German and European Law, from the Universities of Warwick (UK), Saarland (Germany) and Lille II (France) as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Law from the University of Lille II, France. He is based in BSA’s Brussels office.

Jeroen de Muijnck

Managing Director, Sectra Communications B.V

In his role as Managing Director of Sectra Communications BV, Jeroen de Muijnck has been securing the Dutch government since 2004. Before that, he held positions as Program Manager at Nokia, responsible for product development as well as Research Engineer at KPN, standardizing IP telephony. Jeroen de Muijnck holds a MSc degree in Physics and likes sculpturing.

Monica Macovei

Member, European Parliament

Monica Macovei is a Member of the European Parliament in the European People's Party Group, elected in Romania in 2009 and in 2014 for a second mandate. In the European Parliament, she is the head of the EP Delegation to the EU-Albania Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, member in the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) and Budgetary Control (CONT) Committees, and substitute in the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET). In 2012, she was ranked the 1st out of 754 MEPs with 35 laws and reports adopted by the Plenary of the European Parliament and in September 2012, she received "MEP 2012" award for her work in the field of justice and civil liberties.

She served as Romania’s Minister of Justice from 2005 to 2007, and received international recognition and awards for her anti-corruption initiatives and justice reforms that allowed Romania to enter the European Union. Financial Time wrote "To her admirers in Brussels, Monica Macovei is a hero who presided over Romania's transformation from one of Europe's most corrupt corners into a credible candidate to join the European Union", and Die Welt stated that "For Romania, joining the European Union would have been barely possible without Monica Macovei" (2006).

Monica Macovei was a legal expert for the Council of Europe and other international organizations, has successfully represented applicants before the European Court of Human Rights, and has published on human rights and judicial matters. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Central European University and of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience. She is also a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, an Eisenhower Fellow, as well as a founding member of Transparency International, Romanian Chapter, and member in other NGOs.

Zahra Khani

CEO and Founder, Firmalyser

Zahra is the founder and CEO of Firmalyzer SPRL, a Brussels-based company specialized in providing security solutions for IoT/connected devices. Their key product is the first automated firmware security analysis solution for IoT device vendors, security labs and enterprise device users. They also provide IoT security and privacy consultancy services for companies in terms of audit and compliance check with regulations, standards and leading practices.

Zahra has more than 12 years of experience in IT security including embedded systems, operating system, software, network, mobile and cloud security. She was the co-founder of the Operating System Security Lab in Alzahra University, which is aimed at fostering women's participation in IT security technology. She was also the co-founder and CISO of MBSCo company that provides secure products and services for enterprises.

Liga Rozentale

Director of EU Governmental Affairs for Cybersecurity Policy, Microsoft

Līga Raita Rozentāle recently joined Microsoft as the Director of EU Governmental Affairs for Cybersecurity Policy bringing to the role her experience as the Counsellor on Cybersecurity Policy at the Latvian Permanent Representation to the EU and the Latvian Delegation to NATO. During the Latvian Presidency of the Council of the EU, she was the Chairwoman of the Council Working Party on Telecommunications on the NIS Directive and for the Friends of Presidency on Cyber Issues. Ms Rozentāle has also worked for the Global Cyber Alliance and James Martin Center for Non-proliferation Studies. Ms Rozentāle completed her studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, CA, USA and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. Ms. Rozentāle is a former UN Fellow on Disarmament.
Līga is enthusiastic about enhancing and energizing public private partnership, facilitating the role of Micorosft in Europe and driving the future of cybersecurity policy in the EU and globally.

Nienke van den Berg

Director, Z-CERT

Nienke van den Berg is an experienced manager in setting up new organizations in the field of cyber security and cybercrime. Nienke has in the past, among other things, been at the start of GovCERT.NL the High Tech Crime Team of the National Police. In spring of 2017 she started the company Z-CERT; the Computer Emergency Response Team for the healthcare sector.

Luigi Rebuffi

Secretary General, European Cyber Security Organisation

Luigi Rebuffi is the Secretary General of ECSO (European Cyber Security Organisation) and the CEO and founder of EOS (European Organisation for Security). After having graduated in Nuclear Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano, he worked on the development of high power microwave systems for the next thermonuclear fusion reactor (ITER). He continued his carrier at Thomson CSF / Thales where he took on increasing responsibilities for European Affairs (R&D) in different sectors: telecom, industrial, medical, scientific, and becoming in 2003 Director for European Affairs for the civilian activities of the Group. In 2007, he suggested the creation of EOS and coordinated its establishment while he was still Deputy Director for Security at ASD.
He is also the President of the Steering Board of the French ANR for security research.

Juan Losa

Head of Security Architecture within Engineering, BBVA

Juan F. is the Chief Technology Security Officer and Security Architecture leader at BBVA group. He is the global responsible for defining, designing and implementing all the capabilities needed to address cybersecurity risks within BBVA different lines of business.

Prior to that, Juan F. was CISO for BBVA’s Digital Bank helping boost digital transformation within the group.

Before BBVA, Juan F. worked for other multinational companies in financial services, always in positions related to Cybersecurity. He is member of various advisory boards, cybersecurity working groups and teacher in different master programs.

Juan F. holds a Masters degree in Computer Science by ICAI and an Executive MBA by IE Business School.

Rory Domm

Acting Head of the Security Policy Division, EEAS

Rory Domm is Acting Head of the Security Policy Division in the EEAS. Rory joined the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union in 2007. He was subsequently assigned to EEAS, serving in the EU delegation to fYROM, followed by the EU Delegation to the USA. Rory holds a PhD. in Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute, Florence, Italy.

Geert Maes

Senior Manager, Industry & Infrastructure, Standards, CENELEC

Biography to appear soon.

Paul Adamson

Chairman, Forum Europe

Paul Adamson is chairman of Forum Europe and founder and editor of E!Sharp, an online magazine dedicated to covering the European Union and Europe's place in the world.

He is a member of Rand Europe's Council of Advisors and sits on the external advisory board of YouGov-Cambridge, a polling think-tank. He is a member of the advisory groups of the European Institute in Washington DC and the Washington European Society. He is also on the advisory group of the EU chapter of Women in International Security (WiiS).

Paul is a Visiting Professor at the Policy Institute, King's College London, a patron of the University Association of Contemporary European Studies (UACES) and a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences.

He founded the consulting firm Adamson Associates, which was sold to Weber Shandwick and The Centre, which was later sold to Edelman.

In 2012, Paul was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) "for services to promoting understanding of the European Union", a part of the Queen's 2012 New Year Honours Diplomatic Service and Overseas List. In 2016 he was made a Chevalier in the Ordre national du Mérite by the French government.

Ria Thomas

Partner, Brunswick Group

Ria co-leads Brunswick’s global cyber offer, with a focus on the United Kingdom and Europe. She has deep expertise in private and public sector cybersecurity strategies and policies, including advising senior government leaders, Board members and C-Suite executives on enterprise-wide crisis preparedness, incident response and corporate resilience strategies in the face of significant cyber-attacks.
Ria spent the first decade of her career with the U.S. Federal government, where she specialized in security, foreign policy, and counterterrorism. Over the last decade, she has led cyber practices for multiple companies advising senior government and corporate leaders in the United States, Middle East and Asia on a range of cyber-focused business risks and resiliency strategies.
She joined Brunswick from Washington-based management consultancy, Obsidian Analysis, Inc., where she was Principal and Senior Director for Cybersecurity; she led the firm’s cyber practice, which advised senior government and corporate leaders on the development and execution of cyber-focused resiliency strategies. Prior to Obsidian, she was the Managing Director of Occid-Orient Strategies, which advised companies expanding within the Middle East and Asian cyber markets.

Previously, Ria was Director, Cybersecurity and Counterterrorism, for Global Strategies Group, where she headed the practice advising select Middle East and Asian governments on critical national security issues. After leaving government service, she worked for Fabiani & Company, where she established the firm’s advisory capabilities on promoting advanced cybersecurity technologies in the defence and security market.

Ria is an attorney licensed by the State Bar of New York, with a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. She writes and speaks extensively on cyber threats, corporate-wide cyber crisis preparedness and crisis response.

Brooks Tigner

Chief Policy Analyst, SECURITY EUROPE

Brooks Tigner is EU/NATO Affairs correspondent for IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly and founder and editor of Security Europe, the on-line information source that analyses the EU’s internal/external agendas in security policy, technology and research.

Based in the Belgian capital, Brooks has reported on security and defence issues across Europe for nearly three decades – from the post-Cold War’s impact on NATO and its subsequent expansion, to the EU’s growing role in security and defence. He regularly covers cyber-security, military capability programmes, dual-use technologies such as RPAS, civil security research projects, regulatory developments and the policy implications that cut across all these domains. He has moderated many international security and defence-orientated conferences, including debates on cyber-security.

Formerly Defense News’ bureau chief in Brussels, he reported extensively across Eastern and Central Europe throughout the 1990s, followed by two years in Washington DC where he was the newspaper’s International Editor. He returned to the Belgian capital in 2001 as the paper’s EU/NATO affairs correspondent – a position he held until launching Security Europe in January 2007 and joining Jane’s later that year.