Cybersecurity Conference

Shawn Tuma
Co-Chair, Cybersecurity & Data Privacy Practice Group at Spencer Fane LLP

Shawn Tuma is an experienced cybersecurity and data privacy attorney and partner at Spencer Fane, LLP, where he serves as Co-Chair of the firm's Cybersecurity & Data Privacy Practice Group. He is widely recognized as an international thought-leader and subject matter expert in cybersecurity and data privacy law. Having practiced in this area of law since 1999, he is one of the most experienced and well-respected cybersecurity and data privacy law attorneys in the United States.

Shawn devotes his practice exclusively to cybersecurity and data privacy law and views his role as helping businesses protect their information and protect themselves from their information. He represents a wide range of clients, from small to midsize companies to Fortune 100 companies, across the United States and globally in dealing with cybersecurity, data privacy, data breach and incident response, regulatory compliance, computer fraud related legal issues, and cyber-related litigation. He is frequently sought out and hired by other lawyers and law firms as a consulting expert to advise them when these issues arise in cases for their own clients.

Shawn is a Member- Board of Advisors at University of North Texas Cyber Forensics Lab, a member of the Policy Council at National Technology Security Coalition, and a Member- Board of Advisors Cyber Future Foundation.

Alain Espinosa 
Cybersecurity Executive | Board Member | Cyber Resilience | Risk Mitigation & Management | Business Legal & Regulatory Compliance

Alain is Global Director, Cybersecurity Operations for Upbound Group, formerly known as Rent-A-Center, a $4 billion public retail and financing company. In this role he leads the enterprise security strategy and operations, ensuring the company is vigilant, resilient, and empowered in pursuing business goals.

Alain thrives in the business-technology continuum, viewing business and technology as interwoven concepts. He excels at strategizing, planning, and coaching people as he moves easily between the big picture and the details.

In addition to his corporate roles in information security, he is a Cisco CISO Advisory Board Member, Security Advisor Alliance Advisory Board Member, DallasCISO Advisory Board Founding Member, and Evanta Dallas CISO Governing Board Member. He previously served as a Board Director for InfraGard National Members Alliance (Nonprofit public/private partnership with FBI) and  frequently speaks at industry meetings and conferences and was recently interviewed about holiday fraud on NBC News.

Peter Vogel
Attorney & Counselor at Law at VOGEL IT LAW; General Counsel- North Texas ISSA

Peter is a lawyer, court appointed neutral, mediator, and arbitrator for information technology (IT) and internet service disputes and contract negotiations. After receiving his master’s in computer science and experience as a programmer, Peter has been involved with the IT industry for several decades. As a lawyer for the more than 30 years for clients in healthcare, international manufacturing, state & local government, utilities, and eCommerce, he negotiates contracts and litigates disputes regarding: Software Development & ERP Implementation Projects; Patent, Copyrights, Trade Secrets, and Trademarks Ownership and Infringement; Internet eCommerce and Social Media including Terms of Service and Privacy Policies; Domain Name Disputes; Blockchain integration; Artificial Intelligence (AI) eCommerce applications

Peter assists clients with cybersecurity & privacy by assisting in: creating and testing Incident Response Plans (IRP), responding after cyber intrusions, and negotiating cyber security contract terms in SaaS and Cloud Agreements .

Brian Walker
Chairman & CEO – Rubicon X and Founder & CEO-The CAP Group

Brian is an experienced director, board advisor, and technology executive specializing in managing cybersecurity risk. His primary focus is on ensuring transparency and alignment between corporate boards and executive teams with complex geographic, economic, and regulatory situations.

Walker leverages his 35 years of technology expertise as both a director and board advisor. He is the CEO of The CAP Group, a board advisory firm, and the chair of Rubicon X, a venture capital fund focused on artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

His expertise is informed by his executive leadership roles with premier firms as CIO and senior partner. Prior to founding CAP, Walker was Accenture’s global managing director responsible for cybersecurity strategy, focused on clients with critical infrastructure portfolios. He was also a managing director (partner) with KPMG, focused on technology risk identification and mitigation. Previously, he was the global technology executive responsible for all technology of Marathon Oil, a Fortune-40 integrated oil company.

Brian is a frequent contributor to Forbes and is routinely quoted by the Wall Street Journal and other major publications.

Johnny Lee
Principal, Risk Advisory Services – Grant Thornton Advisors, LLC

Johnny Lee is a Principal in the Forensic Advisory practice and the National Practice Leader of the Forensic Technology practice. He also serves as the technology lead for the firm’s digital assets practice. A forensic investigator, management consultant, and former attorney, he specializes in data analytics, digital forensics, and electronic discovery in support of investigations, litigation, and complex regulatory issues. He also provides advisory services to and expert testimony for organizations working to address complex Cybersecurity, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and Data Privacy issues.

Johnny’s broad range of experience includes nearly thirty years of software development and systems analysis, including over twenty years within the legal industry. He has delivered solutions (in both public and private sectors) to Law Firms, General Counsel, Boards of Directors, Audit Committees, and Chief Financial / Information / Operations executives, on the effective identification and mitigation of business, compliance, and litigation risk within the enterprise. His particular expertise involves advising attorneys, executives, and Boards on the proper management of vast and complex stores of information to address operational, financial, legal, and regulatory risks facing organizations today—from policies and procedures to training and systems implementations.

He has led hundreds of forensic investigations over the past fifteen years, including numerous matters involving significant data volumes and complex forensic analytics tools and techniques. These matters include forensic analytic support for a wide variety of digital asset and cryptocurrency projects, complex monitoring engagements, and investigations involving federal law enforcement and regulators.

FBI Special Agent with the FBI Dallas Division

FBI Special Agent with the FBI Dallas Division since 2018 and member of the Dallas Cyber Criminal Task Force since joining the office. They have worked criminal cyber investigations domestically and abroad and is also an active member of the FBI Dallas SWAT and Bomb Tech programs. Prior to joining the FBI, they were an officer in the United States Marine Corps, where they also worked cyber-related matters.

Gina Moore
CFO & Vice President – Black Swan Cyber Security, LLCMs.

Gina has over 20 years of experience in business process and operational audits, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, information technology (IT) risk management, cyber security framework compliance, fraud reviews, accounting, project management and process improvement. Gina is a respected leader who excels at building, developing, and managing high-performance teams and not-for-profit boards to deliver results. She has consulted for a variety of public and privately held companies, as well as not-for-profit and educational institutions. Prior to Black Swan, Gina worked at industry leading audit service providers and was head of internal audit at the largest US private healthcare group purchasing and performance improvement company.

James F. Reed
CIPP/US - Vice President-Regional Cyber Advisor, Executive & Professional Risk Solutions (EPS) – USI

James is Vice President-Regional Cyber Advisor for the Super West Region (comprised of USI’s West/Northwest/Southwest Regions) for USI within the Executive & Professional Risk Solutions Practice (EPS). His responsibilities and expertise are focused on Technology E&O and Cyber insurance products along with Cyber Risk Management Consulting for emerging middle market to Fortune 1000 companies in various industry verticals.

James has over 25 years of experience within the insurance industry both on the brokerage and the carrier side. From 2017 to 2022, he served as VP-Western Regional Leader for Allied World Insurance Company and prior to that he was an Underwriting Consultant for CNA Insurance Company for five years. He also worked as the National Accounts Manager for Zurich Insurance Company for two years with a particular focus on Cyber & Technology insurance products. Prior to this, James was on the brokerage side for 12 years at Marsh; Frank Crystal & Co. (Alliant) & Beecher Carlson (Brown & Brown) respectively within the Management & Professional Lines Divisions.

James is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US) which is a designation for Privacy Professionals for proficiency in U.S. Privacy Laws and Regulatory Environment. He earned his B.A. in History from Kean University in New Jersey.

Shardul Desai
Partner Holland & Knight

Shardul is a cybersecurity, data privacy, and white collar defense and government investigations attorney in Holland & Knight's Washington, D.C. office. Mr. Desai has extensive experience in handling cyber intrusions and data breaches, trade secret thefts, emerging technology matters and complex white collar investigations. With a computer science and physics background, Mr. Desai is highly skilled and knowledgeable to advise companies on novel issues at the intersection of law, technology and data privacy. He is also a Certified Information Privacy Professional in the United States (CIPP/US) with the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).

Prior to joining Holland & Knight, Mr. Desai was a federal prosecutor in the Cyber and National Security Section and the Economic Crimes Section at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania. For more than eight years, Mr. Desai was the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property Assistant U.S. Attorney for the office where he led groundbreaking cybercrime investigations, built international cooperation on cyber matters, and used emerging technologies, including facial recognition and cryptocurrency blockchain analysis, to advance prosecutions.

Mr. Desai received the Attorney General's Distinguished Service Award for leading the landmark GameOver Zeus prosecution and for helping design a cyber operation to dismantle the GameOver Zeus botnet that caused hundreds of millions of dollars in losses to the U.S. financial sector. He also led the investigation of the Evil Corp group, which was responsible for the Bugat/Dridex malware that caused an estimated $100 million or more of loss to the banking system worldwide, and led a novel law enforcement operation, which the Attorney General later announced as the Joint Criminal Opioid Darknet Enforcement (J-CODE) operation, that targeted illegal opioid distribution on darknet marketplaces.

Prior to joining the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Mr. Desai was a litigation associate for a global law firm, and served as a law clerk for the Honorable Raymond Gruender of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

Andrew Jackson
Cofounder and President, BravoTECH

Andrew has been building and managing technical staffing companies for more than 30 years. In 1988, he started and managed the IT staffing division of a global engineering and technical staffing provider. Under his leadership at BravoTECH, the company has evolved from a local startup to a nationally recognized leader in IT and diversity staffing. Today, the company serves Fortune 500 and mid-sized organizations in more than 20 industries across the country.

Andrew is a recognized leader in the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) business community and beyond. He is president of the board for TechServe Alliance, the premier national association for IT and engineering staffing firms. He currently leads the Society for Information Management’s (SIM) new chapter development initiative and is a past member of the national and DFW SIM boards. Andrew is a past chairperson for the Executive Connections Tech SIG, the Dallas and Fort Worth chapters of The Texas Association of Business, The National Multiple Sclerosis Society and The National Kidney Foundation.

Andrew received the Partners in Professionalism Award from the Association of Information Technology Professionals, was honored as a Healthcare Hero by the Alliance for Healthcare Excellence and was a nominee for the Metroplex Technology Business Council Tech Titans award. He received a BS degree from Illinois State University, where he was inducted into the College of Business Hall of Fame.

Shawn Wiora
Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder, Maxxsure Cyber Risk Management

Shawn is co-founder and CEO of Maxxsure, a leading cyber risk quantification and blockchain company. He is a keynote speaker and frequently interviewed in national / international media for cyber risk management, and the intersection of 1) Blockchain 2) cyber security and 3) cyber insurance. He has recently appeared in the Wall Street Journal, CIO.com, CNNMoney and many other media outlets. He is a cyber industry expert and frequent conference speaker for SOX, PCI, NIST and HIPAA. Mr. Wiora notably took the first healthcare company in the U.S. to be 100% in the cloud ... and in doing so, received designation of the most cyber-resilient healthcare company in the U.S.

Kevin Dunn
Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer & Chief Information Security Officer, U.S. Retirement & Benefits Partners

Kevin is a technology strategist, speaker, and thought leader with over 20 years’ experience in highly available infrastructure, e-commerce, mobile application and payments, BYO Enterprise strategies, and the leadership of technical teams. He joined U.S. Retirement Partners (USRP) in December 2014 as the Chief Information Officer and Chief Information Security Officer where his responsibilities include technology platform development, enterprise security, and information management. Before that, through his independent practice, he assisted clients in creating innovation through a combination of people, process, and technology.

Prior to entering independent practice, Mr. Dunn served as the Vice President of Infrastructure and Operations for First Command Financial Services, Inc. He and his team were responsible for defining and solving business problems through the application of state-of-the-art information technology. Mr. Dunn also served as the CIO for EdExpress Texas, LLP. In this role, he was a key participant in the development of a patented loyalty program supporting saving for education expenses. During this time, Kevin Dunn created the application and technology infrastructure of EdExpress, including customer service, transactional, and e-commerce systems.

Bets Lillo
Board Director – Entara and River Logic

Bets Lillo serves as a Board Director and Advisor to companies in cybersecurity, IT services, software and telecommunications industries, active on Compensation, Technology Oversight, Nominating and Governance Committees. With Fortune 100 domestic and overseas leadership roles in Technology, M&A, Operations and Finance, Bets brings to the boardroom a unique ability to assess cross-functional risk and opportunity in dynamic international environments.

Bets holds NACD certifications in board governance, cyber and climate. She is a technology patent holder who stays on the leading edge of innovation and global oversight as an Adjunct Professor in Information Systems and Supply Chain for the Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University.

Her civic leadership highlights the international expertise of her domestic and international postings and includes board service for NACD, the World Affairs Council of Dallas Ft. Worth and the International Women’s Forum. She supports early-stage companies as a mentor and pitch competition judge with Capital Factory, EmpowHer and Ignite.

Alena Funtikova-White, Ph.D., GCTI, CRISC, GSEC, GSLC
Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst and Product Owner for CTI Team at State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

Prior to joining the Information Security team at State Farm, Alena was a university professor and a researcher in the field of agribusiness. During her 8-year career at State Farm, she has worked as a governance, risk, and compliance analyst, helped build internal training programs for cybersecurity professionals, and is currently working on maturing cyber threat intelligence capability within State Farm's vulnerability management program. Alena is an active member of several cyber threat intelligence communities as well as the DFW cybersecurity community. In addition to her full-time job as a threat intelligence analyst, she is an adjunct professor of cybersecurity at Collin College and a Student Subchapters Director at North Texas ISSA Board.

Ellen Shew Holland
ARM - President, Strategic Risk Frameworks, LLC

Ellen Shew Holland is President of Strategic Risk Frameworks, LLC (SRF), an independent risk advisory firm specializing in minimizing the ever-present risk of client strategy so that the client can focus on bottom-line growth. She adds value to client entities by focusing on strategic enterprise risk, resilience, emerging risks, and supply chain assessments while providing them with effective resources in a dynamic environment.
Ellen is a member of the University of Texas, Dallas, Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance (IECG) as well as a member of the Private Directors Association Dallas (PDA) Chapter. She also serves as an Expert Content Creator for the International Board Director Competency Designation (IBDC.D), through Mark Pfister Strategy Group. She is a Distinguished Risk Manager (DRM), past president, board member, and former finance chair of the University Risk Management & Insurance Association (URMIA) with over 3,000 members. Throughout her career she has been active in the Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS).