This yeaR's Agenda

The CyberMarketingCon
2026 Agenda

Please note that session times and dates may change.

High Level Schedule: When should I arrive?
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To experience the whole conference, plan to arrive in the late morning on Sunday, November 15 and leave late afternoon on Wednesday, November 18 (or stay over to Thursday if you would like or are attending our CEO-Founder-Investor Dinner!)

Sunday - 11/15

Sunday will be a day of workshops and our opening night reception! Plan to arrive around in the late morning or early afternoon if you don't want to miss our 3 hands-on workshops, which start at 1pm CT. Opening night reception starts around 7pm CT.


Monday - 11/16

We kickoff with a keynote at 8:45am CT. Sessions, workshops, and networking throughout the day, including our GovCon Summit. We end the day with a group outing!


Tuesday - 11/17

Today we have sessions, workshops, and networking, plus our CyberCMO Summit; the day kicks off at 9am CT. Tonight we will have multiple activities and dinners.


Wednesday - 11/18

Our final keynote will kick off at 9am CT. Today we will have a three-quarters day of sessions, workshops, and our closing remarks end at 3:30pm CT. Founders, CEOs, and Investors may attend our CyberCEO Dinner at 5:30pm CT.

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8:00am
9:00pm
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Note on event times

Event times are subject to change and may not reflect the most up-to-date schedule. Please refer to the conference event app VirtualPro for the latest and most accurate times.

Sunday

Registration Desk Open!

Stop by the Registration Desk on the 2nd Floor Foyer and pick up your badge, swag bag, official conference notebook, and official conference t-shirt!

Explore the Expo Hall, the Fun Station, and join one of the workshops that we have set up on Sunday!

12:00 pm
-
12:45 pm
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)
Workshop

Claude Beginner Workshop

Curious about Claude but not quite sure what to do beyond opening a chat and asking it questions? This hands-on beginner workshop is for you.

Designed specifically for cybersecurity marketers at CyberMarketingCon, this session will help you get comfortable using Claude for real marketing work — without requiring any technical or AI expertise.

We’ll cover the basics of how to work with Claude effectively, how to give it the context and direction it needs, and how to start using it across everyday workflows like research, campaign planning, content development, messaging, analysis, and more.

You’ll work through practical examples alongside other cybersecurity marketers and leave with ideas you can put to work immediately.

Bring your laptop and your corporate or personal Claude account. No AI expertise required!

1:00 pm
-
2:00 pm
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)
Workshop

Claude Intermediate Workshop

Ready to move beyond one-off chats and start building repeatable AI workflows?

This hands-on workshop is designed for cybersecurity marketers at CyberMarketingCon who already use Claude and want to take the next step: turning the work you do repeatedly into reusable systems.

We’ll focus heavily on Claude Skills—what they are, when to use them, and how to build them around real cybersecurity marketing workflows. We’ll also explore more advanced ways to structure Claude around your work, connect context and resources, and create repeatable processes that can help you and your team work faster and more consistently.

Rather than spending the session perfecting individual prompts, we’ll think bigger: How do you teach Claude how you work once, then reuse that knowledge again and again?

Bring your laptop, your personal or corporate Claude account, and come ready to build!

2:10 pm
-
3:00 pm
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)
Workshop

Points for Creativity: A Roller Derby Workshop for Cybersecurity Marketers

Cybersecurity marketing is defined by constraint: dense jargon, complex concepts, and audiences who demand precision. The challenge isn’t a lack of creativity; it’s finding space to play, experiment, and make ideas feel truly memorable inside those constraints. This workshop is designed as a creative reset for marketers whose brains have been on “perform under pressure” for a little too long… or those who know they are over-relying on AI for tasks that used to feel fun.

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Using the bold, irreverent naming culture of roller derby as our playground—think Penelope Bruise, Hermione Danger, Momentum Mori—we’ll explore what happens when you step away from AI and lean back pure sporting instinct. We’ll treat derby naming as a proxy for branding; names must instantly signal identity, tell a mini-story, and provoke a reaction, just like the best campaigns.

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The workshop starts with a short individual warm-up to get people out of polished marketing mode and into free thinking. Attendees will quickly jot down the words, frustrations, and ideas that feel most “stuck” or overused in their day-to-day work—terms they’re tired of, value props that feel flat, or product areas that feel impossible to make exciting. This becomes our raw material.

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From there, we’ll move into guided prompts such as:* “If this product or problem were a derby skater, what kind of troublemaker would they be?”* “If you could lean into FUD as a joke, what would you really call this thing?”Participants will then work in small teams, remixing their raw material into surprising combinations: pairing technical jargon with unexpected metaphors, fusing emotional states with security concepts, and bending industry clichés until they become something stranger and more interesting. The focus is less on “getting it right” and more on seeing how far they can stretch a concept without compromising accuracy. Teams will, for example: - Take a word from someone else’s list and combine it with their own to create a new character or brand.- Build a “family” of three related derby names that could all be features of the same product.
Additional playful constraints will push their creativity further: limiting word counts, forcing a quick pivot from serious to absurd, or asking teams to defend a ridiculous name as if it were going into a boardroom deck. Each round builds on the last, moving from silly and safe to sharper and more deliberate.

As the workshop progresses, teams will converge on a brand concept and tagline born from this chaos—something that still nods to the original cybersecurity idea but now feels alive, specific, and ideally, fun to scream out loud.

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Throughout, we’ll surface the meta-lessons: how constraints can unlock creativity instead of shutting it down, and how embracing a bit of discomfort or a “bad idea” often leads to better ones.

Attendees won’t leave with a rigid framework or a perfect campaign. They’ll leave with at least one absurd-but-delightful concept, a renewed sense of creative confidence, and a reminder that even in a jargon-heavy, high-stakes industry, there’s room to play for points.

3:15 pm
-
4:15 pm
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)
Workshop

Workshop: Business Networking Pickup Lines

There will be NO NAPPING during this workshop, where everyone will stand up, talk, move around, and learn how to be a professional business “flirt.” We challenge both extroverts and introverts to come to this session and learn how to make in-person cold connections, find *the* person in the room you need to talk to, and qualify someone for a potential business relationship. Check out this video from our workshop at Cyber Marketing Con 2023. If you attended the 2023 workshop, come back again! This brand new workshop is loaded with new exercises.

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4:30 pm
-
5:30 pm
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)

Opening Night Welcome Reception

CyberMarketingCon 2026 Welcome Reception: Choose Your Own Character

Every adventure starts with a character. Who will you be?

We’re kicking off CyberMarketingCon 2026 and our theme, Create Your Own Adventure, by inviting you to dress as your favorite character—from literally anything. Anything!

Here's some ideas: Indiana Jones, a medieval knight, an enterprising elf, Taylor Swift, the CISO at the last company that you sold into, Steve Jobs, Skyrim guards, a boxer, or someone entirely of your own creation.

Go all out or come as yourself (if you’re your own favorite character, that's totally fine)!

Join us to meet fellow adventurers, reconnect with friends, and get the CyberMarketingCon conference started!

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7:00 pm
-
9:30 pm
CT
Moontower Hall - Expo

Monday

Book Your Complimentary Extras & Activities

Make the most of your CyberMarketingCon experience with these complimentary experiences. Reserve your spot in advance—or stop by to see if a walk-in time is available.

Podcast Studio

Record a podcast, interview, or video in a private, professional studio. Four microphones and an AV technician are included, so all you need to bring is your idea. Walk-ins are welcome when the studio is available.

One-on-One Expert Consultations

Get complimentary, personalized advice from experienced professionals—including cybersecurity industry analysts. Book a session to discuss marketing, channel strategy, graphic design, career strategy, your LinkedIn presence, or the cybersecurity market.

Professional Headshot

Refresh your LinkedIn photo, speaker profile, or professional bio with a polished new headshot. Visit the headshot studio in the Expo Hall, located behind the Fornix Marketing booth. Walk-ins are welcome when space is available.

Fun Station & Postcards

Add some personality to your conference badge with stickers, supplies, and badge ribbons—or write and mail a postcard to someone back home. Stop by the Fun Station in the Expo Hall aka Marketing Land whenever you’re ready for a creative break.

7:30 am
-
8:15 am
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)

Registration Desk Open!

Stop by the Registration Desk on the 2nd Floor Foyer and pick up your badge, swag bag, official conference notebook, and official conference t-shirt!_x000D_

8:00 am
-
8:45 am
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)

Complimentary Coffee, Breakfast & Expo Hall (Marketing Land) Open!

Good morning, CyberMarketingCon! Join us at 8:00 AM for complimentary coffee and breakfast, catch up with fellow attendees, and explore the booths in the Expo Hall, aka Marketing Land!

We’ll have a set number of breakfasts ready to welcome you, available first come, first served while supplies last.

There’s plenty to explore: send a postcard from our fun station, drop in for a fresh headshot, catch content on the Expo Hall stage, or settle into a seat for networking and meetings. Come grab a bite and start the day with us!

8:00 am
-
8:45 am
CT
Waller CD General Session
Keynote

Resist Comfort: How to Block Your Caveman Urge to Be Boring and Do the Best Work of Your Life

As AI makes it easier than ever to create content and campaigns, it's also making it easier than ever to sound exactly like everyone else. The more marketers rely on the same tools, prompts, playbooks, and best practices, the more the market becomes flooded with safe, predictable, and forgettable work.

In this keynote, Nathan Burke makes the bold claim that discomfort is becoming a competitive advantage. That being uncomfortable pushes the boundaries of your work towards what’s actually new, impactful, and worth making.

Drawing from lessons learned building high-growth cybersecurity companies, working within cultures obsessed with continuous improvement, and embracing AI as a force multiplier rather than a crutch, Nathan will explore why complacency is the enemy of great work. He'll share practical ways to seek criticism instead of compliments, challenge conventional thinking, and push beyond the ideas that feel safe.

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8:45 am
-
9:45 am
CT
Waller CD General Session (Virtual Room 1)

Virtual Conference - Room 1

8:45 am
-
5:55 pm
CT
Virtual Conference - Room 1

Virtual Conference - Room 2

9:00 am
-
5:00 pm
CT
Virtual Conference - Room 2

Virtual Conference - Room 3

9:00 am
-
5:00 pm
CT
Virtual Conference - Room 3
Single Speaker

Nobody Read Your Threat Report. Designing Security Research Practitioners Want to Read

Our industry publishes hundreds of "state of" reports, threat landscapes, and security surveys every year. Practitioners ignore most of them. But there are good news for marketers: The report practitioners actually read, cite, and share is also the one that does the most for your brand and your pipeline. Useful and effective are not opposites. But most security research is just more of the same: Recycled dwell-time stats, leading survey questions, "n=12 CISOs" passed off as data, and a single headline number nobody can map to their own environment.This session is a practical design guide for reports and surveys the practitioner actually wants to read. We'll cover survey design that doesn't generate garbage, metrics that survive a skeptical reader, why segmentation beats a scary average, and how to mine the telemetry you already own instead of running another opinion poll. The goal is produce content practitioners trust — which is the only research that earns the awareness and demand you were after in the first place.

10:00 am
-
10:30 am
CT
Waller EF Breakout Room (Virtual Room 3)
Workshop

Embed Analyst Interactions In Your Marketing Roadmap

Many marketers view working with industry analysts as a necessary evil and an opportunity to tell them everything about what makes their product or service great. Marketers may only interact with analysts during evaluations, then forget about them until the next one. Getting the most out of industry analysts, however, requires ongoing engagement and listening as much as (or preferably, more than) you speak. Embedding analyst interactions in your marketing roadmap can provide objective third-party insight at crucial points throughout the year. Hear from Recovering Marketer and Forrester VP and Research Director Joseph Blankenship (JB) who was a cybersecurity marketer for 10 years before joining Forrester as an analyst. JB will talk about what worked for him as a marketer, what he sees successful marketers doing as they interact with analysts, and how well-timed analyst interactions can inform your marketing roadmap. Session attendees will learn:•_x0009_Understanding what analysts really do and how they can inform your marketing•_x0009_Creating a playbook for ongoing, successful analyst engagement•_x0009_Embedding analyst interactions to inform your product and messaging launches

10:00 am
-
10:30 am
CT
Waller AB Breakout Room (Virtual Room 2)

Tuesday

Movie Screening: Midnight in the War Room

The clock is ticking.

Every day, defenders fight an unseen war in cyberspace. Midnight in the War Room tells their stories.

Through the voices of global CISOs, reformed hackers, military strategists, cyber psychologists, journalists, and victims, this pioneering film exposes the human side of cyber war.

Join Semperis Studios and fellow security leaders, practitioners, and advocates for this exclusive screening.

- Understand the escalating conflict between nation-states, criminal groups, and the defenders protecting critical systems.

- Get a rare glimpse into the adversarial mindset from the perspectives of former attackers.

- Be part of the conversation shaping the future of cyber resilience.

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Cyber war is here. The outcome depends on all of us. Join the fight.

7:00 pm
-
9:00 pm
CT
Waller CD General Session

Locks & Mocktails with Sober in Cyber

Sober in Cyber proudly presents Locks & Mocktails!

Join us on Tuesday from 7:00 pm-9:00 pm for a fun, alcohol-free networking event at the Marriott Downtown Austin Hotel. Get ready to unlock your curiosity and learn lockpicking techniques. Try your hand at lockpicking while enjoying some tasty mocktails and snacks!

Our heartfelt thanks to the Cybersecurity Marketing Society for their support of this event. We can't wait to see you there!

7:00 pm
-
9:00 pm
CT
Waterloo 3 Breakout Room

Karaoke with Mary Yang aka Maryaoke with the Cyber Karaoke Queen

If you’ve never sung karaoke with Mary Yang at a conference, have you truly experienced a CyberMarketingCon?

Join Mary for a post-dinner, late-night karaoke party right at the host hotel. Bring your vocals, your confidence, or neither...it’s guaranteed to be a good time!

Whether you’re ready to command the stage, sing with a group, or cheer from the audience, everyone is welcome to join the fun.

Get ready for an unforgettable night of Maryaoke!

9:00 pm
-
10:00 pm
CT
Offsite - Please See Description

Wednesday

Book Your Complimentary Extras & Activities

Make the most of your CyberMarketingCon experience with these complimentary experiences. Reserve your spot in advance—or stop by to see if a walk-in time is available.

Podcast Studio

Record a podcast, interview, or video in a private, professional studio. Four microphones and an AV technician are included, so all you need to bring is your idea. Walk-ins are welcome when the studio is available.

One-on-One Expert Consultations

Get complimentary, personalized advice from experienced professionals—including cybersecurity industry analysts. Book a session to discuss marketing, channel strategy, graphic design, career strategy, your LinkedIn presence, or the cybersecurity market.

Professional Headshot

Refresh your LinkedIn photo, speaker profile, or professional bio with a polished new headshot. Visit the headshot studio in the Expo Hall, located behind the Fornix Marketing booth. Walk-ins are welcome when space is available.

Fun Station & Postcards

Add some personality to your conference badge with stickers, supplies, and badge ribbons—or write and mail a postcard to someone back home. Stop by the Fun Station in the Expo Hall aka Marketing Land whenever you’re ready for a creative break.

7:30 am
-
8:15 am
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)

Registration Desk Open!

Stop by the Registration Desk on the 2nd Floor Foyer and pick up your badge, swag bag, official conference notebook, and official conference t-shirt!

8:00 am
-
8:45 am
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)

Complimentary Coffee, Breakfast & Expo Hall (Marketing Land) Open!

Good morning, CyberMarketingCon! Join us at 8:00 AM for complimentary coffee and breakfast, catch up with fellow attendees, and explore the booths in the Expo Hall, aka Marketing Land!

We’ll have a set number of breakfasts ready to welcome you, available first come, first served while supplies last.

There’s plenty to explore: send a postcard from our fun station, drop in for a fresh headshot, catch content on the Expo Hall stage, or settle into a seat for networking and meetings. Come grab a bite and start the day with us!

8:00 am
-
8:45 am
CT
Waller CD General Session
Keynote

Social Engineering 101: Scam Your Way Into Anything

How do you get someone to open a door, bend a rule, or trust a stranger? Magicians, con artists, and social engineers have spent generations figuring it out.

In this funny, interactive keynote, Brian Brushwood (host of Discovery's Scam School and National Geographic's Hacking the System) takes you on a fun, funny tour inside the attacker's mindset. Through stories and demonstrations, he explores how trust, urgency, authority, and familiarity can be used to steer decisions, and why smart people are still vulnerable to a convincing story.

For cybersecurity marketers, it's a look at the human behavior behind the headlines: how believable deception gets constructed, why it works, and how understanding those mechanisms can help us recognize manipulation. Expect a talk that's fun, funny, and just a little bit dangerous.

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8:45 am
-
9:15 am
CT
Waller CD General Session (Virtual Room 1)
Single Speaker

MQLs, Memes and Building a Growth Team

Most growth marketing sessions focus on channels, tools, or that magic campaign that'll solve everything. This isn't one of them.

In this session, Nicole Gates, VP of Global Growth Marketing at Varonis, shares the three things she found actually determine whether your growth team scales or stalls: the metrics you choose to optimize for, the people you hire (and why), and the culture that makes growth at the center of everything you build.

Because real growth happens when your strategy becomes shared thinking and your team can carry the vision without you in the room.

This session is for marketing leaders at every stage of building - whether you're making your first growth hire, restructuring a team that's outgrown its design, or trying to figure out why a talented team isn't producing the results the strategy promised.

9:25 am
-
10:10 am
CT
Waller AB Breakout Room (Virtual Room 2)
Single Speaker

Zero to Flagship: The Campaign Architecture Behind 96% Engagement in One Quarter

In Q1 2026, CIS launched its first-ever flagship campaign, Secure by Design, and the results rewrote our marketing playbook. In one quarter: 96% engagement rate to our campaign landing page, 85% audio completion rate, 3,000+ guide downloads, 1,400+ leads, and 900k+ paid media impressions. None of it happened by accident. This session is a candid, step-by-step breakdown of how we built an integrated paid, owned, and earned campaign around a single idea and made it work for two completely different audiences simultaneously. You’ll leave with a replicable framework, the lessons we learned, and the one number that surprised us most.

9:25 am
-
10:10 am
CT
Waller EF Breakout Room (Virtual Room 3)

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