Keith Conlee, Chief Security Officer, IT, College of DuPage

Keith Conlee has over 30 years in the Information Technology field delivering innovative and effective solutions including working at the National Security Agency (NSA), Bell Laboratories/Lucent Technology, and is currently the Chief Security Officer for Information Technology at the College of DuPage. His duties are focused on building strong security governance, security policy/procedure and risk management programs including Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery. Keith is a Payment Card Industry Professional (PCIP)™, Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP®), a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA®), and a Certified Business Continuity Planner (CBCP). He is an active member in the ISC2, ISACA, PCI Security Standards Council, and the BRPA of Chicagoland. His undergraduate and graduate education is in Computer Science, and with an added Law Degree gives Keith the unique ability to interpret and align technical legal regulatory compliance and business objectives.

Dave Gochenaur, Sr. Manager, Information Security, Ensono

Full biography coming soon!

Alex Holden, Founder & CISO, Hold Security

Mr. Holden is credited with the discovery of many high profile breaches including Adobe Systems, JPMorgan, and the independent discovery of the Target breach. In 2014, he led Hold Security to discover the largest breach of data to-date (CyberVor): 1.2 billion stolen credentials gathered from 420,000 exploited web sites.

Under his direction, Hold Security is helping businesses of all sizes with their data security needs, including Fortune Global 500 companies. Considered one of the leading security experts, Mr. Holden regularly voices his expert opinion in the mainstream media including CNN, New York Times, and Reuters.

Mr. Holden works with clients to address their IT security, investigative, and forensics issues, ranging from penetration testing and critical incident response to full-scale security solutions. A nationally-recognized expert in designing, maintaining, and auditing information security solutions; Mr. Holden has over 15 years of experience in computer security and networking. By designing, implementing, and maintaining company-wide, end-to-end security solutions, Mr. Holden works with all the areas of a company to assess security risks, design policies to comply with HIPAA, PCI, SOX, and SEC/FINRA regulations, identify and fix security issues, as well as successfully lead the enterprise to pass internal and external IT security audits.

Prior to joining the consulting world, Mr. Holden worked for over 10 years as the Chief Information Security Officer for a large brokerage firm in the United States. He also has extensive experience in Windows, Unix, and network administration along with corporate information security governance. He holds a number of IT certifications, including CISSP. Mr. Holden is a frequent speaker on IT security issues, and teaches IT and business security education programs.

Brian Kobishop, Chief Security Officer, Great Lakes Educational Loan Services, Inc.

Brian Kobishop is the Chief Security Officer for Great Lakes Educational Loan Services, Inc. in Madison, Wisconsin. Brian is responsible for implementing computer, cyber, information and personnel security policy and controls that help Great Lakes obtain and keep business relationships with the US Department of Education, lenders and other business partners. Brian started his professional career as a Deputy Sheriff for Columbia County. After seven years in law enforcement he transitioned into the information technology field. Brian has worked at United Airlines as well as regional utility companies where he has held a variety of positions of increasing authority in the information/cyber security arena. Brian has more than 30 years of experience in security, the last 23 of which are with Great Lakes. Brian is a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM). 

Terry Kurzynski, Senior Partner, Halock Security Labs

Terry is the founder and Chief Innovation Officer of HALOCK Security Labs. With a background in security, networking, application development, audit, project management, and consulting, Terry has a unique skill set in providing strategic advice to clients particularly in a time of crisis. Terry is a CISSP, CISA, QSA, and ISO 27001 Auditor with over 20 years of experience in IT and Security Consulting. He Graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a B.S. in Computer Science. Terry founded what is now HALOCK Security Labs in 1996.

Kevin Rubin, Managing Partner, Stratosphere Networks

Kevin Rubin is the president and COO of Stratosphere Networks and Converged Communication Systems. He holds a bachelor of business administration, marketing and finance from Loyola University in Chicago. Additionally, he has earned various technical engineering certifications from companies such as Avaya, Cisco and Microsoft.

Through his earlier work in the telecom industry, Kevin met Steve Melchiorre, the current CEO of Stratosphere and CCS. In 2003, they co-founded CCS, which produced $116,000 in revenue during its first year. Since then, the company has seen its revenue grow every year, increasing by an average of 40 percent on an annual basis and exceeding $8 million by 2015. The company has received a number of accolades – such as the Channel Partners 360° award, Inc. 5000, and CRN MSP Elite 150 – for its performance as a provider of IP telephony and unified communications solutions and services.

Seven years after founding CCS, Kevin and Steve launched Stratosphere Networks, a multifaceted provider of IT managed services and solutions. Stratosphere’s state-of-the-art Network Operations Center (NOC) in Evanston leverages the latest diagnostic tools, monitoring solutions and other technologies to deliver the highest quality proactive support for its clients. Stratosphere earned recognition as one of Crain’s Best Places to Work for Millennials in 2015, Best Places to Work for Women Under 35 in 2016 and Best Places to Work for Minorities in 2017 and Best Places to Work in 2018.

Kevin has also received recognition for his work in the realm of IT managed services. He has been named as one of the Top People in Managed Services by MSPmentor with the MSPmentor 250 award. Additionally, he is an executive council member of the CompTIA Managed Services Community, a group of industry leaders that provide guidance and leadership on programs, education, and research offered by CompTIA, the non-profit trade association for the IT industry.

Jessica Stanford, Director of Product Marketing, Cybereason

Jessica Stanford is a cyber security expert with years of experience connecting technology with the stories of the people using it. She is the Director of Product Marketing at Cybereason, a security company known for its ability to detect and respond to complex cyber attacks in real-time. Prior to joining Cybereason, Jessica was a senior manager at CyberArk where she helped drive the company’s successful initial public offering and reinforce their position as a market leader. She attributes her passion for cybersecurity to her first job in the industry at RSA, where she learned about the unique challenges and the necessity for solutions that can help both organizations and individual consumers combat cyber threats.

Neil Sullivan, Area Director – North Central US, Fortinet

Neil Sullivan is an expert in providing solutions that prevent and/or remediate real-world cyber attacks. He has been in the network security space since the 1900’s (as he likes to joke) recommending cyber security solutions for applications, end point, email, cloud, and the data center so he offers a vast amount of experience from years of solving challenges that touch every point of the current-day attack surface. Neil’s past experience includes working for companies like F5, Cisco, Blue Coat, and Centrify. He has training from the Chicago Booth School of Business in Strategic Business Leadership and a B.S. from Bradley University, along with several technology certifications. He has always had a passion for applying the latest technologies to solve everchanging and always challenging emerging cyber threats.

Annur Sumar, Chief Technology Officer, MaeTech,  Microsoft MVP, Former Vice President of IT D&P

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.

Kenneth Townsend, Vice President, Information Security, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Kenneth Townsend is an information security officer with diverse information security experience across various enterprises in financial services, transportation, retail, oil and gas and marketing and entertainment.  Kenneth’s experience includes global IT architecture and operations, cyber strategy development and execution and advisory consulting.  He is currently the Assistant Vice President of information security supervision at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.  In his current role, Kenneth creates a vision and executes strategies to help supervisory teams appropriately assess cyber risk a financial institutions.  Prior to joining the Federal Reserve, Kenneth was a cybersecurity consultant where he has developed an executed IT and security strategies for numerous clients that cut across many verticals.  Kenneth experience and key focus areas includes, threat and vulnerability management, data protection, security architecture, network security, threat modeling, penetration testing and incident response planning.

Arlene Yetnikoff, Director, Information Security, DePaul University

Arlene Yetnikoff is the Director of Information Security for DePaul University. DePaul University is one of the ten largest private universities in the United States, offering numerous degrees in Computer Science and other fields, including a Masters in Computer, Information and Network Security and a Bachelor’s in Information Assurance and Security Engineering. Arlene has worked in Information Security for over twenty years both as a consultant, educator and hands-on practitioner. Arlene’s many years of consulting experience in the Technology Risk group of a major accounting firm allowed her to help clients of varied sizes in numerous industries assess and design their information protection architecture, policies and processes. Today, Arlene leads DePaul’s Information Security and Business Continuity initiatives. Arlene also teaches Information Security sessions at DePaul and in the University of Chicago’s Masters of Computer Science program. Arlene is a CISSP and a CISA. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Chicago and a Masters in Computer Science, Telecommunications from DePaul University.