View the 2026 Speaker Lineup!

Valerie Zargarpur is Head of Marketing at Monad, a security data pipeline platform backed by Sequoia and Index Ventures. Previously, she launched Hopper Security out of stealth at the seed stage. She's the former Head of Marketing at JupiterOne (employee #33, Series A to Series C), and before joining cyber in 2020, she co-founded a B2C experiential marketing agency working with brands like Coca-Cola, Nike, and HBO. Passionate about problem solving, puzzles, and authenticity.

Varun is a Managing Director with BDO’s Third Party Attestation practice. In his current role, he works with tech companies to evaluate their cybersecurity posture and assess compliance with SOC 2 and various ISO standards to help them meet customer requirements and build trust with stakeholders. He focuses on complex and emerging requirements for security, privacy, cloud and AI assurance.

Varun is an IT audit and risk management professional with 15+ years of progressive experience that he gained through various roles for Big4 firms and world leading corporations across various geographies. He has managed and executed a variety of IT audit-based projects from end-to-end. He has provided various types of IT audit and assurance services, such as, SOC 1/SOC 2 examinations, ISO 27001/42001/22301 audits, cybersecurity assessments, SOX testing, and privacy reviews. Varun is the VP of the ISACA SF chapter and part of ISACA’s IT Audit and Assurance Task Force.

Venkata Kartheek Reddy Somasani is an accomplished Information Technology Security and Cybersecurity Engineer with over nine years of specialized experience designing, implementing, and securing enterprise-scale network infrastructures across on-premises and cloud environments. Based in Dallas, Texas, he has built a distinguished career focused on protecting critical public sector systems and safeguarding sensitive government operations.

Since May 2018, Venkata has served the City of Dallas through KC Synergy Solutions Inc., where he plays a pivotal role in securing vital municipal infrastructure. His responsibilities include comprehensive cybersecurity defense for the Dallas Police Department and Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS), ensuring the protection of sensitive law enforcement data through multi-layered security controls such as OKTA two-factor authentication, advanced VPN architectures, and strict CJIS compliance. He has engineered secure, disaster-resilient communication channels between CAD911 dispatch systems and the Texas Department of Public Safety, ensuring uninterrupted emergency response coordination statewide.

One of Venkata’s most significant accomplishments is the architecture of a secure, multi-zoned SCADA network for Dallas’s freshwater, wastewater, and stormwater treatment facilities. By implementing air-gapped environments, zero-internet-access zones, and IDS/IPS protections, he has directly safeguarded critical public health infrastructure from cyber threats. His expertise was further demonstrated during a major ransomware incident, where he successfully detected, contained, and eradicated malware by isolating compromised systems and blocking communication with the Royal ransomware group.

Venkata’s technical expertise spans Cisco ASA, Firepower Threat Defense, SD-WAN, Palo Alto firewalls, F5 BIG-IP, and web application firewalls. He has architected secure hybrid cloud environments using AWS Direct Connect, Azure ExpressRoute, and IPSEC tunnels, supported by AWS architect level certifications. He holds a Master’s degree in Information Assurance and maintains advanced certifications, including CJIS Level 4 and Cisco Firepower NGFW, consistently ensuring compliance with NIST and federal cybersecurity standards.

Virginia (Satrom) Peterson is a cybersecurity marketing leader with over 15 years in the industry.

Currently VP of Growth Marketing at Onapsis, Virginia leads corporate marketing, brand, digital, and content to drive revenue growth. Her career spans some of the most respected names in security: Flashpoint, Forcepoint, RSA Security, among others. She has been recognized by CRN as a Woman of the Channel and was a contributing member of the Forbes Communication Council.

Virginia holds degrees in Marketing and Psychology from UMass Amherst.

William Jardine is a Strategist at Miscreants, where he helps cybersecurity companies shape the strategy and positioning behind their marketing. Before moving into marketing strategy, he spent 10 years in cybersecurity consulting, performing pentests against tier-one financial organizations, leading attack simulations on critical infrastructure, and designing security architectures for modern cloud environments. On the business side, William has run a cyber practice, managed vendor relationships, and owned service portfolios, giving him a clear view of how buyers evaluate security solutions. He has spoken at events including OWASP Poland, DevSecOps Manchester, and CPS-SPC, as well as on podcasts and webinars covering cloud, AI, and other modern security topics.

Experienced and result-oriented marketing leader with the ability to develop, implement, and manage forward-driven marketing campaigns that elevate brand value, drive lead generation, and increase revenue. A dedicated marketing innovator with the experience in motivating teams to deliver at peak performance, enhance efficiency of processes and spend to positively impact revenue and brand equity.

Dr. Yonesy F. Núñez is a 6x Chief Information Security Officer, board director, and senior security executive at Surf AI, the agentic security platform closing the execution gap between detection and resolution.

Over more than two decades, Yonesy has built and scaled cybersecurity programs across financial services and critical infrastructure, including CISO and senior security leadership roles at DTCC, Jack Henry & Associates, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, The New School, and Pall Corporation. At DTCC, he served as both CISO and inaugural Chief Cybersecurity Risk Officer for an institution settling multi-quadrillion-dollar transaction volume. He has engaged directly with U.S. and global regulators including the SEC, Federal Reserve, OCC, FINRA, FCA, and Central Bank of Ireland, and has led security through M&A, consent order remediation, and enterprise modernization.

He serves as an Independent Board Director at Chain Bridge Bank, N.A. and Pentegra Retirement Services, and is a named inventor on four U.S. patents in fraud risk detection.

At Surf AI, Yonesy shapes how the world’s largest enterprises approach agentic security, from the boardroom to the analyst. He advises CISOs on where automation earns trust and where it breaks it, convenes security leaders through roundtables and industry forums, and carries the technical weight in the rooms where Surf’s own security posture is put under a microscope. He engages CISOs as a peer because he has been in the chair, and he knows why context matters more than model intelligence the moment agents start making decisions at machine speed.In a world of AI attackers, hygiene is your best defense.Context is the differentiator. Decisions are the product.

Yuliya Gorenko is an award-winning influencer marketing strategist with over a decade of hands-on experience building and executing influencer programs. Yuliya has worked with 100+ brands globally, facilitated thousands of brand-influencer partnerships, and scaled cybersecurity influencer programs from zero to eight-figure budgets.

From LinkedIn creator campaigns and podcasts to short-form video and in-person activations, she’s done it all and knows how to make each channel perform.

Yuliya has been championing influencer-led storytelling in cybersecurity long before it was widely accepted. She now drives influencer strategy at Mischka, the leading cybersecurity influencer marketing agency.

Zach Deming is Vice President of Corporate & Product Marketing at Horizon3. His career has been built at companies that arrive before the market fully understands what they are. In that space, Zach believes the real work isn’t outspending competitors, it’s out-thinking them, at speed. He has done that twice at scale, with both journeys ending with a public offering.The through-line across Zach’s career has been category creation: moving companies beyond feature comparison into market definition. His work focuses on finding the language that reframes an industry, building the internal conviction to commit to it, and orchestrating every customer touchpoint around a single, unmistakable narrative.Zach operates with a “One Voice” philosophy: the belief that whether a customer encounters a brand through a press release, a partner, an event, or a product launch, its value should be instantly recognizable, consistently felt, and clear.