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

Virtual Conference - Room 1

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

Virtual Conference - Room 2

9:00 am
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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
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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

Single Speaker

The Death of Feature Marketing: How AI Forces Cybersecurity PMMs to Become Category Architects

AI is reshaping cybersecurity faster than traditional product marketing can adapt. As enterprises move from copilots to autonomous agents, buyers are no longer evaluating features—they are evaluating trust, governance, and operational control. This session explores how cybersecurity PMMs must evolve from messaging products to defining categories, shaping executive narratives, and building the mental models CIOs and CISOs use to navigate the autonomous enterprise.

9:55 am
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10:20 am
CT
Waller AB Breakout Room (Virtual Room 2)
Single Speaker

CyberCMO Summit Welcome & Introductions

Join us for CyberCMO Summit introductions. We'll talk about the Summit and give every CMO in the room a chance to introduce themselves.

9:55 am
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10:20 am
CT
Waterloo 4 Summit Room
Single Speaker

The Pendulum Swings Back: Why the Best Marketing Is Art Informed by Data, Not Driven by It

For the better part of a decade, the dominant gospel in B2B marketing has been measurement. If you could not attribute it, you should not spend on it. Creative became a variable to test, not a discipline to invest in. Brand became a line item to defend rather than an asset to build. The marketers who rose fastest were the ones who could read a dashboard, not the ones who could write a brief.

The results are everywhere. Categories full of companies that sound identical. Messaging optimized for search terms no buyer actually uses. Campaigns that convert in the model and disappear from memory the moment the window closes.

Eric Gaither has spent twenty years on the other side of that equation. As the brand and creative lead through some of the most consequential moments in cybersecurity marketing, including the FireEye global rebrand, the Mandiant relaunch after divestiture, and the Google Cloud Security integration, he built programs where the creative work did the strategic work. Where the words sounded like something a real person would say to another real person, not a sentence assembled from intent data.

In March 2026, he led the launch of Armadin, which raised $189.9 million in combined seed and Series A funding, the largest raise in cybersecurity history. The launch captured national media attention, drew partnerships with CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks, and reached enterprise customers in search of cybersecurity proof. The launch did not land because of a keyword strategy. It landed because the narrative was clear, the message was human, and the story gave a sophisticated audience something worth paying attention to.

His argument is not that data does not matter. It is that data without creative judgment produces marketing that is measurable yet forgettable. The most effective B2B marketing has always been both rigorous and human. The pendulum swung too far in one direction, and the companies that recognize that first will have a material advantage.

This session will cover what it looks like in practice to let data inform creative rather than replace it, why the cybersecurity category is a particularly instructive case study in what happens when messaging gets optimized into abstraction, and what the return to balance actually requires from marketing leaders who built their careers in the data era.

9:55 am
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10:20 am
CT
Waller EF Breakout Room (Virtual Room 3)
Single Speaker

Future of the Cybersecurity Marketing Society

Join Jen, Gianna, and some other members of the team for an open conversation about what’s ahead for the Cybersecurity Marketing Society. Hear their vision for the community’s future, learn about emerging priorities, and share your ideas and feedback. This interactive session is an opportunity to help shape the Society’s next chapter.

10:00 am
-
11:00 am
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)
Speed Session

Spokespeople GPTs: Using AI for Speed, Not the Final Say

AI-generated “spokespeople” are showing up everywhere—but the real value isn’t in letting them speak for you. It’s in how fast they help you get to a strong, human-ready message.

This session breaks down how to build Spokespeople GPTs—custom AI models trained on a brand’s voice, expertise, and guardrails—to rapidly generate drafts, talking points, FAQs, and scenario responses without replacing human judgment.

Attendees will learn how these GPTs can compress hours of prep into minutes, support comms and marketing teams under pressure, and reduce risk by standardizing first drafts—while keeping humans firmly in control of the final output.

No hype, no “AI replaces your team” narrative—just a practical framework for using AI as a speed layer in modern marketing and communications.

10:05 am
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10:15 am
CT
Waller CD General Session (Virtual Room 1)
Speed Session

Hi, I'm Claudia! Lessons from My AI Executive Proxy

Everyone's talking about AI for content. This talk is about something harder and far more interesting: using AI as a genuine executive proxy to extend your judgment, not just your output.

I was drowning in reviews, my team was bottlenecked by my calendar, and everyone was frustrated. I knew there had to be a better way, so I built an AI system that knows my team, my standards, my stakeholders, and my review criteria well enough to triage decisions, draft feedback, manage review queues, and hold my quality bar—whether I'm in meetings all day or out of office for three weeks.

This isn't about prompt hacks or saving 20 minutes on a blog post. It's about what happens when you invest in training AI on how you think. We'll dive into the surprising places where it works, the important places where it doesn't, and what that distinction teaches you about your own leadership.

I'll share the real system behind the 'real' Claudia: how I documented my standards, how I trained my AI proxy, where it's saved me meaningful time, where it's failed, and what it's revealed about the gap between what I think I communicate and what my team actually receives.

10:15 am
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10:25 am
CT
Waller CD General Session (Virtual Room 1)

Wednesday

Panel

The VC Perspective: Building a Go-to-Market Strategy Worth Investing In

Every go-to-market investment is a bet on how your company will grow. What gives investors confidence that you’re making the right bets—and that your cybersecurity company is ready to scale?

This session explores how venture capital investors evaluate a cybersecurity company’s go-to-market strategy, spending, and performance. We’ll discuss what signals repeatable growth, how expectations change by company stage, and how investors assess decisions about sales and marketing hires, customer acquisition, and expansion.

CEOs and founders will leave with a clearer understanding of how to connect GTM investment to business milestones, explain the tradeoffs behind their plans, and have more productive conversations with their board and investors about what it will take to grow.

10:20 am
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11:15 am
CT
Waterloo 4 Summit Room

Customer & Community Marketers Mixer

Connect with the marketers who turn customers and communities into lasting relationships. Share ideas about advocacy, engagement, retention, customer storytelling, user groups, ambassador programs, and creating spaces where cybersecurity professionals genuinely want to participate.

10:20 am
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11:00 am
CT
Mixer Space in Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)
Workshop

How to build a product marketing operating system with Claude

Marketing new reality is fully dependent on AI - that’s a given. What you do with AI is a different thing, and in this session I would offer a blueprint for product marketers on how to build an efficient working platform all using Claude Code. The session will cover the pillars of the operating system, the skills that are required as minimum to kick such platform and the collaborative tools that can expand such platform across the entire team.

11:05 am
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12:00 pm
CT
Waller CD General Session (Virtual Room 1)
Single Speaker

UGC and Community Marketing: Leveraging users to beat the AI content tsunami

Now, with content creation, outreach, and marketing campaigns being fully automated and commoditized by AI, building trust with users and buyers is more difficult than ever before. Authentic communication and social proof are the answers when it comes to making your brand stand out. The core question for marketers is: how can this be scaled?

In the past few years, Hack The Box has attracted a community of over 4 million users. The most interesting part is that most of that growth has been led by the community itself, especially through user-generated content and peer-to-peer recommendations, making it not only a wildly successful but also an extremely cost-efficient growth channel.

In this session, based on my last 2.5 years leading product marketing at Hack The Box, I will share how we’ve leaned on and recruited our own users to be the spokespeople for the brand, not only on the consumer side but also on the business side.

11:05 am
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11:45 am
CT
Waller AB Breakout Room (Virtual Room 2)
Workshop

Workshop: The Human MOAT: Building a Personal Brand in the Age of AI

AI has made your personal brand the most important professional asset you have.

Becca Chambers, CMO at Scale Venture Partners and one of LinkedIn's most-followed voices in marketing makes the case for why why your personal brand matters more today than ever before—and what to do to build yours. This session introduces the Human MOAT: a personal branding framework built for the AI era. Based on a foundation of mastery, originality, authenticity, and trust that AI cannot replicate—and the foundation of every individual brand that's cutting through right now.

This session will take you from urgency to execution:* Why the professionals who built their presence before they needed it are the ones winning today* How to identify your content pillars — and the one prompt that unlocks them* What consistency actually looks like when you have a full-time job* How to show up like a human in a feed full of AI-generated everything

You'll leave with a clear read on your own Human MOAT and a concrete plan to start building it.

11:05 am
-
12:00 pm
CT
Mixer Space in Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)
Single Speaker

Failure Modes in Go-to-Market -- What Every CEO Should Know

Most go-to-market failures in cybersecurity don't look like failures at first. The numbers get murky. MQLs are up; pipeline isn't. The CRO and the CMO start telling slightly different stories about the same quarter. The board asks for a better marketing plan, and eighteen months later, somebody is "not a fit." The pattern repeats — at venture-backed companies with great products, talented operators, and strong pedigrees. It's almost never the people. It's the system underneath them. And by the time the CEO sees the symptoms, the drag is already compounding.

This session is for early-stage cyber CEOs who suspect the system isn't working but can't yet pinpoint where it's broken. We'll walk through the durable failure modes that show up across stalled go-to-market motions in cybersecurity: fuzzy positioning, an ICP defined by deal momentum rather than buyer fit, messaging that lands flat with sophisticated cyber buyers, the "marketing versus sales" structure that turns every pipeline review into a fight, and the founder reflex to pile on new programs before removing the friction underneath the old ones. No villains required. The patterns are recognizable, durable, and — once named — fixable.

The thesis is simple. In cyber, where buyers are the most sophisticated in enterprise software, weak foundations get punished faster than anywhere else. If positioning is fuzzy, ICP is loose, the message doesn't land, the value prop isn't concrete, or differentiation isn't defensible, you're screwed before you start. No campaign budget compensates for that. And the advice that worked at $5M ARR is wrong at $20M. Stage conditions everything. Most generic G2M frameworks ignore that, which is why so many of them under-perform in cyber.

CEOs will leave this session with a diagnostic checklist for spotting drag before the board does, a framework for telling alignment problems apart from talent problems, and a short list of moves that consistently produce compound growth at this stage.

11:20 am
-
12:20 pm
CT
Waterloo 4 Summit Room

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