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Go to home page | Fall 2024 Advisory Council Meeting and Dinner

The Great Debate: Public vs. Private in the Cloud Era

As technology evolves, so do the demands on organizations to stay agile and secure. In this panel, our experts will examine whether the public cloud and Just-in-Time (JiT) model remains the gold standard for efficiency or if it’s time to reconsider our approach. With events involving Microsoft, SolarWinds and most recently, CrowdStrike, are the security risks and vulnerabilities of public cloud environments prompting a return to private cloud solutions, where control and confidentiality reign supreme? Join us as we explore the future of JiT and cloud strategies in our increasingly complex digital landscape. 

Speaker Bios

Derek Collison, Founder & CEO, Synadia and Creator of NATS.io

Derek Collison is a 30-year industry veteran, entrepreneur and pioneer in secure and large-scale distributed systems and cloud computing. He helped change the way financial, transportation, and logistics systems fundamentally worked while spending over a decade at TIBCO, designing systems that still power much of those industries today.

At Google, Derek co-founded the AJAX APIs group and created the largest CDN for popular javascript libraries, identifying the need for easy and secure access to Google’s services without the need for additional servers. During his time at VMWare, Derek designed and architected CloudFoundry, the first open-source enterprise PaaS. He then founded Apcera, a company designed to drive security and policy into easy-to-use platform technologies.

After the successful sale of Apcera to Ericsson, Derek took the messaging technology he designed to power the CloudFoundry and Apcera systems, NATS.io, and created Synadia. Synadia is pioneering secure and global messaging as a digital utility to help drive security and powerful communication and collaboration into IoT, edge, and cloud computing systems. He is also a technology futurist around Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, IOT and Cloud Computing.

 

Hector Hoyos, Chief Customer Officer, Green Hills Software (GHS)

Hector Hoyos has over 40 years of experience in supercomputing, biometrics, defense, and cybersecurity, focusing on delivering large-scale, defense-grade solutions. He co-developed significant technologies such as iris recognition systems and the Praetorian perimeter defense, used by the U.S. Army and later integrated into L3 Communications. His work has been crucial in supporting U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, with over 100 patents to his name.

Hector co-authored the Biometrics Open Protocol Standard, an IEEE-recognized global standard for secure identity authentication. Recently, he led the development of an unhackable smartphone, using the same operating system that protects the U.S. nuclear arsenal from cyber threats. Currently, Hector is Chief Strategy Officer & Head of Cybersecurity at Green Hills Software (GHS), responsible for global corporate strategy, business strategy and development. He is focused on extending military-grade cybersecurity solutions to civilian and enterprise sectors, protecting critical systems from nation-state cyber threats.

 

Anjana Rajan, Assistant National Cyber Director, The White House

Anjana Rajan is a cryptographer, tech executive, and policymaker focused on national security and human rights. As Assistant National Cyber Director for Technology Security at The White House, she leads efforts to implement the President’s National Cybersecurity Strategy on issues like open-source software, generative AI, and space.

Previously, she was the first CTO of Polaris, a leading U.S. anti-human trafficking NGO, overseeing engineering, security, and technology. She also served as CTO of Callisto, a social enterprise leveraging cryptographic technology against sexual assault, and was a Tech Policy Fellow at the Aspen Institute. Anjana has consulted for the Homeland Security Advisory Council and testified before Congress on using tech to protect trafficking victims.

Earlier in her career, she was a forward-deployed engineer at Palantir, leading projects in Europe and the Middle East, including a deployment in Oman’s energy sector, and began her career at Johnson & Johnson developing global healthcare software.

Anjana holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Operations Research and Information Engineering from Cornell University as a Knight Scholar. She is also a former elite triathlete who competed for Team USA at two World Championships.

 

Marc Sorel, Partner & Cybersecurity Practice Lead, McKinsey (moderator) 

Marc serves private, public, and not-for-profit clients at the intersection of technology, digital transformation, and cybersecurity. He founded the firm’s work on cybersecurity in private equity across the deal life cycle and leads McKinsey’s Cyber Market Map, a capability that identifies trends in the cybersecurity market and implications for providers, investors, and users of cybersecurity technology. He also leads a firm tool that delivers credible, actionable insights about potential and current compromises, using automated, artificial-intelligence-driven network-flow analysis.

Examples of Marc’s recent client experience includes the following:

  • Designing and delivering multi-year cybersecurity growth strategies for a top-5 global telecommunications company, a top-5 US-based aerospace and defense company, and a leading US-based software provider
  • Assessing a Fortune 100 consumer-packaged-goods manufacturer’s cybersecurity performance, embedding cybersecurity into its digital transformation, and designing a two-year program of initiatives to drive step-change improvements in enterprise risk management
  • Conducting numerous due- and exit-diligence efforts on cybersecurity and other technology assets, on a range (antiphishing, MSP, PAM, IAM, SecOps, SIEM and DNS security) of providers

Marc is a regular speaker at industry forums and has published several articles on cybersecurity and related topics. Prior to joining McKinsey, Marc worked in a range of US national-security roles. He continues to provide expertise on information warfare to a national naval service.

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