Ryan Smith is the Manager of IT Cyber Security at First West Credit Union with just under 20 years’ experience in Information technology within the Defence, Government, Education and Finance sectors he currently specializes in security operations and incident response. Ryan is currently is enrolled in the Technology Management program at BCIT, holds a diploma in information technology and maintains the following Certifications: CISSP, Lean Greenbelt, CCNA Cyber Ops, CMFE, CCFE, and MCS.

Ryan Smith is the Manager of IT Cyber Security at First West Credit Union with just under 20 years’ experience in Information technology within the Defence, Government, Education and Finance sectors he currently specializes in security operations and incident response. Ryan is currently is enrolled in the Technology Management program at BCIT, holds a diploma in information technology and maintains the following Certifications: CISSP, Lean Greenbelt, CCNA Cyber Ops, CMFE, CCFE, and MCS.

Umang Handa is a Director in PwC Cybersecurity consulting with over 16 years of experience in designing, architecting, implementing and running Next generation cybersecurity analytics and operations centers (NG-SOC). He holds a Masters in Engineering, CISSP and Six Sigma Green belt.

He has global experience of serving clients in Australia, Europe, North America, Asia and Africa. Mr. Handa has developed a number of innovative methods in security operations using automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning and analytics to better help detect cyber incidents in an advanced fashion, as well as optimize SOC. He has built managed services for big 4 firms internationally and is specialized in setting up, operating and maturing SOC and as well as managed service operations.

Bilal Qamar is the technical lead for the Cyber Threat Intelligence team, within the Managed Services practice of PwC Canada. Over the course of his cybersecurity career, he has provided cybersecurity operations and advisory services to a variety of clients in Financial Services and Insurance, including the Big 5 banks, credit unions, and FinTech organizations.

Bilal holds a degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo. He also has his CISSP, PMP and CISA in good standing and has an active SANS GIAC Penetration Tester (GPEN) certification. Bilal has his SECRET II level and Reliability security clearances from the government of Canada.

Alex Laurie will be joining us from the UK. He is responsible for the Global Sales Engineering Team at ForgeRock and has over twenty years of experience in security and identity technologies. During this time, Alex has been involved in countless digital transformation projects on both the vendor and system integrator side, working alongside the banking sector, government departments, the military and multiple police forces. On a daily basis, Alex interacts with enterprise scale organizations supporting clients and partners with his wealth of knowledge in this complex and fast-paced industry. Outside of work, Alex races a Cork 1720 yacht from Brighton Marina and really enjoys developing with the crew and the challenge of racing, often in challenging conditions.

As Founder & Chief Strategist at CyberSC, Dominic Vogel holds a proven track record within cyber security across multitude of industries (financial services, logistics, transportation, healthcare, government, telecommunications, and critical infrastructure). Dominic actively participates in the Vancouver security community and is a well-respected cyber security expert for appearing on media news outlets across North America and Internationally on BBC World News. Dominic is highly regarded as a cyber security thought leader and serves on the British Columbia Provincial Cyber Security Advisory Committee.

Dominic focuses much of his energy on providing strategic security leadership to technology start-ups and small/midsize businesses to proactively solve their cyber risk challenges. He strives to provide practical cyber security advice to his clients and actively turning the security consulting world upside down.

Alvin Madar is a Cyber Security Partner in PwC’s Vancouver office with over 21 years of experience in information security. Alvin has been involved in strategy development, solution architecture, threat and vulnerability management, and deployment of many enterprise solutions for multiple financial institutions across BC. He has been involved in a number of IT transformation projects and has worked as interim CISOs for a number of organizations, helping to develop their information security programs. Alvin is also a leading subject matter specialist in cyber incident response advisory, helping clients through breach preparedness, breach response and compromise assessments.

Jakub Mamos is the Vice-President IS Risk Management with Servus Credit Union, and a passionate security practitioner. Jakub has worked in both the physical and information realms of the security industry for over 25 years. His leadership roles in the security space include assignments in various industries, including utilities, consulting, non-for-profit, government and financial services.

Jakub received his BA in Sociology and Political Science in 1998 and Master of Information Systems Security Management from Concordia University as a member of the first graduating class in 2007, and has held his CISSP designation since 2003.

Stephen has a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineers from Cape Peninsular University South Africa. He also holds professional designations in Security Management, Intrusion Detection, Incident Response and Forensics from the SANS Institute. Stephen holds a MBA through SFU’s Beedie School of Business. His Information Security career began in the mid-nineties connecting corporations to the Internet. Prior to joining Coast Capital Savings Federal Credit Union as Director information Security in 2017, Stephen spent 20 years in the Telecom sector (Telus) where he held a variety of security leadership roles.

Jo-Ann is an IT security professional who has worked in information technology as both an employee and a consultant for more than 25 years. She has played many roles ranging from a technology review and implementation to senior leadership on global cybersecurity teams supporting business and technology. She currently leads a team of cyber and forensic professionals, at Vancity, that are able to adapt to the ever changing threat landscape. She is responsible for assessing risks to ensure the protection of the information assets entrusted to the organization. Orchestrating and innovative, proactive and cost-effective cyber program enables her to provide practical guidance to business and IT teams while enabling business strategy in parallel.

Jo-Ann has extensive experience and skills in risk management and compliance, incident investigations, network design and analysis, the application and integration GRC tools, and security operations. She leverages this experience to integrate traditional information and physical security practices, develop and maintain modern, usable, policies and technology practices to ensure the mitigation of risk in today’s world of ongoing cyber threats while continually maturing the cyber program at Vancity.

Her background and skills include a strong technical support background for cyber security operations, threat hunting, and data incident response has led her to work with both IT and executive teams, up to and including the board of directors.