Our Speakers

William MacMillan is the Chief Product Officer at Andesite. Prior to this position, he was Senior Vice President for Information Security at Salesforce.

Prior to his retirement from the federal government, William served as the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where he led a sweeping transformation of the CIA’s cybersecurity strategy and organization.Prior to serving as CISO, William held multiple senior leadership positions at CIA dealing with various aspects of intelligence, counterintelligence, and cyber operations. During his career, he focused significant attention on insider threat, supply chain risk, and incident response issues, as well as the development of CIA’s Cybersecurity Operations Center (CSOC). Prior to joining CIA, William served as an officer and a pilot in the United States Air Force’s Combat Rescue and Special Operations communities.

William graduated from the United States Air Force Academy with a BS in Biology. He also holds an MA in International Relations from Salve Regina University and an MS in cybersecurity from George Mason University.William, his wife, and their three children reside in the Pacific Northwest.

Darren is an accomplished executive with close to 20 years of international cyber risk/security experience and served as the Group Chief Information Security Risk Officer at Standard Chartered bank. He was recently appointed as Ambassador for the Global Cyber Alliance in recognition of his collaborative work advising small businesses in a voluntary capacity and is the Co-Founder/ Chairman of Cyber Leadership Institute.

Darren has a wealth of real-world hands-on leadership experience to impart; he was the former Group Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Qantas Airlines and, before coming to live in Australia, the former Chief Information Security Officer at IHS Markit, a global FinTech headquartered in the UK, and also held various senior international cyber security leadership roles at Symantec and IBM.

In 2016, Darren was featured on the front cover of SC Magazine (an award-winning cybersecurity media publication) then, in 2017 and 2022, was named in the top 100 Chief Information Security Officers globally, and, in 2018, was listed in the top 100 IT security influencers globally. Darren is adept at using real-world stories to demonstrate the critical importance of striving for cyber resilience.

Kylie Watson is an experienced executive in the Information Technology Infrastructure, Apps, and Services Industry. Driven by a strong client focus, she supports large-scale business and technical transformation, leveraging her expertise in change management and behavioural economics. Kylie excels in leading large sales and delivery teams across multiple disciplines and regions, driving the adoption and embrace of new technologies. She is adept at growing capabilities and skills to meet market demand across Australia, New Zealand, and Asia, and at building partnerships and alliances to solve client challenges.

Kylie has extensive experience working across all industries and is well-connected with key C-suite stakeholders in federal, state, and local government, as well as in retail, mining, oil and gas, utilities, distribution, health, and financial services. She has a proven track record of driving cultural change and embracing diversity and inclusion, earning awards in coaching, mentoring, and innovation.

With over 25 years of executive leadership experience in technology and consulting, spanning multiple industries, international geographies, and platforms, Kylie is well-versed in Google, AWS, IBM Cloud, and Azure. Her solution experience and qualifications include cybersecurity, data, AI, cloud, and change management. Additionally, she is an AI ethicist with some quantum computing capability.

Kylie is also a media spokesperson, keynote speaker, and author on technology topics, and serves as an advisor to universities and government agencies on cyber, technology research, and education.

Marek Kowalkiewicz is a Professor and Chair in Digital Economy at QUT Business School. Listed among the Top 100 Global Thought Leaders in AI by thinkers360, Marek has led global innovation teams in Silicon Valley, was a Global Research Program Lead and Founding Research Manager of SAP’s Machine Learning lab in Singapore, and a Research Fellow at Microsoft Research Asia. His newest book, “The Economy of Algorithms: AI and the Rise of the Digital Minions”, is an international bestseller, recently released as an audiobook.

In addition to his present work at AustCyber, he provides professional counsel and assistance to the Australian ecosystem on all elements of cyber security. Jason is very involved in Australia’s cyber security start-up ecosystem. He was there from the beginning, first with Cyber Aware in 2017, then with 6clicks, and ultimately with Cyber Hive, and has played an important role in assisting these firms to grow and scale.

Jason’s experience with start-ups has given him a unique insight of the issues that new cyber security organisations face and how to overcome them. He is enthusiastic about assisting businesses in protecting their data and assets against attacks, and he takes satisfaction in offering solutions that are suited to the unique demands of the Australian market.

Jason has extensive experience in sectors other than cyber security. He was a founding stakeholder of Starward Whisky, which was purchased by Diego’s Distill Ventures in 2015, and a co-founder of Altius Mining Ltd (ASX: AYM), which went public in 2011. Jason offers a broad range of experience to his job at AustCyber, providing a well-rounded approach to tackling the industry’s issues and potential.

Daisey Stampfer is the Group Executive for Business & Wholesale, responsible for Enterprise, Wholesale, and Smart Communities at Superloop. Daisey has more than 15 years’ experience in technical and non-technical leadership roles in tier 1 organisations such as Bosch, Thales, Telstra and more recently NBN Co where she was the GM of Sales Enablement and Client Services for business service delivery.

Leveraging her education in Robotics Engineering, Computer Science, and Law, Daisey’s passion lies in solving business challenges with Superloop’s modern day solutions, enabling customers to succeed in their pursuits.

I deliver business outcomes using technology.

I do this by assessing where a product/project is at, where it needs to be and implementing a crawl/walk/run strategy that covers people, process and technology improvement by building solid teams and using the “always be shipping” methodology with a strong focus on end customer outcomes.

Worked in/for banks, insurance, utilities, e-commerce, state/federal government, telco’s, etc…

I like a good challenge

Fabio is a technology and security executive with over 25 years of international experience working for private companies and large multinationals, in a variety of leadership, technical and advisory roles.

Currently Fabio is the Chief Technology Officer for the Asia-Pacific & Japan region at CrowdStrike, working on accelerating growth and driving strategic direction, technology innovation and partnerships around the globe. Fabio is also responsible for developing and executing on CrowdStrike’s regional technology roadmap and helping customers developing cyber defence strategies aligned to their risk appetite and cyber journey.

Prior to this role, Fabio had a prolific career in the financial service industry, having held leadership roles at Insurance Australia Group, HP Australia, Westpac Banking Corporation, UBS Group and Banca Intesa Sanpaolo in Australia and in Italy. In addition, Fabio was also a member of the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Centre (FS-ISAC) APJ Strategic Committee, setting the strategic direction within the region and coordinating the group threat research to identify threats that could affect the sector broadly.

Fabio has spoken at numerous conferences, customer and non-customer events across the Asia Pacific region and contributes to various government and industry associations’ initiatives on security. Fabio holds a Master of Management in Information Technology and several security and technical certifications, including CISSP, SABSA, CRISC and CPDSE.

Brett Winterford is the APJ CSO at Okta advising policy makers, business leaders and fellow security professionals on evolving threats and opportunities to improve their security posture. Prior to Okta, Brett held senior leadership roles in the security teams at Symantec and Commonwealth Bank. Yet, he’s best known for his work as a security journalist. In 2020, he was the founding editor of the Srsly Risky Biz newsletter, a companion to the Risky Business podcast, providing the cybersecurity, policy, defence and intelligence communities with a weekly brief of the news that shapes cyber policy.

Prior to working as a security practitioner, Brett was the editor-in-chief of ITnews Australia and has contributed extensively to ZDNet, the Australian Financial Review and the Sydney Morning Herald.

Jim is well known in the local market for delivering on his promise and his entire career has been spent connecting the right people at the right time in roles across Europe, China and Australia.

He founded ADAPT to deliver quality outcomes with integrity and since 2011, growth has been consistent. Jim is still positioned across sales and account management where he delivers innovative results and programs and leads by example.

He also runs entrepreneurial product development and the evolution and clear differentiated value of ADAPT’s offerings. As well as a NSW Small Business Excellence nomination, ADAPT were 55th in BRW’s 2014 Top 100 Start Ups – Jim’s 3rd time there – previously as Founder of Strategic Path, an award-winning ICT publisher, he steered the company to make the list in both 2009 and 2010.

Gabby’s primary role is managing ADAPT’s overall strategy for Data Analytics. He has extensive experience in using data to identify trends in technology that help shape Australian organisations. Utilising modern Data Science techniques, he provides ADAPT and their customers with confidence in the accuracy and validity of the information used for ADAPT’s Research, Advisory, and Events.​

With a passion for creating stories with data, Gabby is consistently rated as one of the top speakers at ADAPT Events. In round table discussions, he specialises in using statistics to initiate thought-provoking discussions. Gabby is effective in translating information into insights, enabling ADAPT’s customers to become more data-driven.​

Gabby’s primary areas of expertise are: ​

– Advanced AI and ML practices, including AI ethics.​
– Building models to benchmark and predict IT performance.​
– End-user behaviour and human-centred design.​
– Cross-functional team design and value, such as DevSecOps.​