The Global Cyber Innovation Summit (GCIS), renowned as the “Davos of Cybersecurity,” returned this year to bring together a preeminent group of leading Global 2000 CISO executives, cyber technology innovators, policy influencers, and members of the cyber investment community to catalyze the industry into creating more effective cyber defenses.

“The National Security Agency supports the mission objective of the Global Cyber Innovation Summit and has been featuring Rob Joyce as a contributing thought leader since the program’s inception in 2019”

The “invitation-only” Global Cyber Innovation Summit—featuring representatives from the National Security Agency (NSA) and Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD)—gathered in Baltimore for two days of high-level strategy, policy, and technology discussions on the future of cyber threats and defense. The Summit was kicked off with opening remarks from Governor Wes Moore, State of Maryland and a special welcome by Kevin A. Anderson, Commerce Secretary, State of Maryland.

“The National Security Agency supports the mission objective of the Global Cyber Innovation Summit and has been featuring Rob Joyce as a contributing thought leader since the program’s inception in 2019,” stated an NSA spokesperson.

“This annual forum is unlike any other in the cybersecurity realm, convening thought leaders from Fortune 100 CISOs, cybersecurity CEOs, policy makers, cyber investors and the intelligence community in a trusted, non-commercial setting to raise the level of dialogue and facilitate collaboration on how we as a community meet the challenges of the rapidly evolving threat landscape and move the future of cyber innovation forward in actionable ways,” said Chairman of the GCIS forum and Founder of cybersecurity venture capital firm, AllegisCyber, and Co-Founder of DataTribe, a cybersecurity and data science startup studio, Bob Ackerman.

GCIS offers a confidential cybersecurity venue for top-tier intellectual discourse and collaboration amongst peers. The Summit included a series of keynote presentations, panel discussions, fireside chats and briefings by cybersecurity practitioners and thought leaders operating at the very cutting edge of the industry.

This year’s event kicked off with the inaugural pre-conference CISO Masterclass Series exploring the “Journey to Board Appointment: Building your Personal Brand (for CISOs)” and “Preparing For The Board Seat.”

Summit topics this year included “The Next Frontier of Cybersecurity”; “Cyber’s State Of Play– State of The Market”; “NSA: Advancing The Cyber Defense Strategy in 2023”; “ONCD: Cyber Collaboration To Become More Cyber Resilient”; “CISO’s Call To Action”; “The Way Forward: Driving Growth & Impact In Cyber”; “Workforce As A Service”; “Active Measures–Identifying Cyber Breaches In 2023 and Beyond”; “The Race To Respond–The Colonial Gas Breach Explored”; “Team In Training: Preparing Next-Gen CISO Leadership For Cyber”; “Continuous Controls Monitoring”; “Nation State Threats Are On The Rise: Are We Prepared to Disrupt a Possible Attack?”; “Securing Industry and Infrastructure: Why Trust Is the Top Leadership Quality”; “War Of The Worlds: Global Cyber Threat Protection + Elevated Exposures”; “Cyber Resilience & Preparing For Cyber Strikes”; “Preparing for Quantum”; and “Human Security Engineering.”

Overseeing the strategy and direction of the Summit is GCIS Chairman Bob Ackerman and a 14-member advisory council that includes:

• Former CISO, TikTok, Roland Cloutier
• CISO, Google Cloud, Phil Venables
• CISO, Southern Company, Tom Wilson
• CISO, CIA, Rich Baich
• CISO, Delta Airlines, Deborah Wheeler
• CISO, Blackstone, Adam Fletcher
• Co-Founder, DataTribe, Mike Janke
• Managing Director, Deloitte, Doug Powers
• Partner, Mayer Brown Law and Former General Counsel, NSA, Rajesh De
• CISO, Koch Industries, Gabe Green
• Chairman, Chertoff Group and Former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security
• Ron Gula, Co-Founder, Tenable Networks, Michael Chertoff,
• Senior Partner, In-Q-Tel, Katie Gray
• Managing Director, Chief Security Officer, USAA, Jason Whitty

Honouring 8 Disruptive Innovators

As part of the Summit, eight early-stage disruptive cybersecurity companies—dubbed the “Disrupt 8″— were awarded by the community and selected to deliver “TED talks” that describe the most challenging, emerging industry problems and their innovative, over-the-horizon solutions.

The 2023 GCIS Disrupt 8 Award Recipients:

SixMap

CloudCover

VulnCheck

Balance Theory

Conceal

Thistle Technologies

This year’s Global Cyber Innovation Summit took place March 29-30, 2023 at The Sagamore Pendry Hotel, Baltimore, MD.

The date for the 2024 Global Cyber Innovation Summit has been set for April 10-11, 2024 and will take place at The Sagamore Pendry Hotel.

Attendance to the Summit is “by invitation only.” For consideration for an invitation please contact info@GlobalCyberSummit.org.