Kostas Georgakopoulos serves as the global chief technology and CISO of Mondelēz International. Mr. Georgakopoulos brings over 25 years of experience building and leading information security programs for some of the largest global financial institutions and consumer manufacturing companies in the world, and is an industry-recognized expert in cybersecurity design, response and regulation.

Prior to joining Mondelēz International, Mr. Georgakopoulos served as the global CISO of Procter & Gamble, Americas CISO; global head of security operations for UBS; and as global CISO for NASDAQ, where he successfully led the organization through the largest breach of the period. In addition, he has held global CISO roles with Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, and the Bank of China.

Eben Louw is the European Lead for X-Force IR.
Eben has over 25 years in the IT industry and a specialist in cyber incident response and digital forensic services. He served 6 years as ad hoc member to South African law enforcement agencies providing DFIR support. He has led many incident response investigations throughout Western Europe and Africa covering identifying potential (personal) data at risk, containing and remediating measures along with investigating the initial attack vector by reconstructing chronological events. Eben has performed guest lectures at the University of Amsterdam and University of Kwazulu-Natal (South Africa) on Digital Evidence Recovery. He holds several IT certifications, EnCase Certified Examiner, AccessData Certified Examiner, GCFA and attended SANS (504) Hacker Tools, Techniques, Exploits, and Incident Handling training.

Mike Smart is a Product & Solutions Director, at Cybereason Inc.
In his role, Mike helps defenders at organisations in the private and public sector to develop
operation-centric security programs designed to reverse the adversary advantage and improve operational efficiency and effectiveness as they embark on their SOC modernisation programs.
Mike joined Cybereason in July 2020 and has been in the information security market for over 25 years. During this time, he has worked across many disciplines from technical support, product management, product marketing and business development. This broad set of technical and business level experience enables Mike to address a wide range of topics and technologies.
Prior to Cybereason, Mike held roles at organisations including Forcepoint, Symantec, McAfee, Novell, SonicWALL.

Will Wilkinson is General Manager of WSJ Pro, a position he has held since Pro’s launch in June 2015. In this role, he is responsible for the development of a premium suite of industry specific content services, combining news, data and events in a single membership platform. Mr. Wilkinson started with Dow Jones in September 2013 as vice president of sales for The Wall Street Journal, overseeing multimedia sales for The Journal and its local language sites, as well as Barron’s and MarketWatch. Prior to joining Dow Jones, he spent 12 years with The Economist Group, where he was managing director, northern Europe, and held a range of sales and marketing roles, with posts in London, New York, Geneva and Frankfurt.  

Daljit (Dal) has 25 years of industry experience and has held key leadership roles spanning across multiple sectors areas with experience in setting up, leading and scaling Cyber Security, Audit & Compliance, Business Continuity team and solutions ensuring the delivery of expected customer outcomes. Recognised for leading and directing Transformation Security programs aand maintaining trusted relationships, Dal comes with rich CXO experience from Hutchison (Three) prior to joining TCS and holds excellent industry experience and knowledge. Dal has been a truste collaborator and influencer across industry bodies, strategic partners, government agencies and regulatory bodies. 

Brian Holliday is a member of the Executive Management Board of Siemens plc and Managing Director for Siemens Digital Industries, which serves the manufacturing and infrastructure sectors. He is also Chairman of Siemens Industry Software UK.

He is a supervisory board member for the High Value Manufacturing Catapult in addition to being a main board member for Make UK, the Manufacturers’ Organisation and in 2022 was appointed co-chair of Made Smarter, the national digitalisation movement to drive productivity, growth and sustainability in manufacturing.

A Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, Brian started his career with Texas Instruments and went on to read Computer Systems at Cardiff University before joining Siemens, the global leader in electrification, automation and digitalisation in 1993.

He attained his Executive MBA at Manchester Business School in 2000 and in 2014 became a graduate of the CBI’s Executive Leadership Programme.

Brian was made a Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering in September 2022

With a decade of experience in the information security industry, John leads strategy for X-Force: a global team of over 500 hackers, researchers, threat intelligence analysts, developers, and incident responders. The team provides clients - from Fortune 100 enterprise companies to small and mid-sized companies – offensive and defensive security services. 

John is a former United States Naval officer, is OSCP-certified and has significant experience in offensive security and threat intelligence. His experience extends across several industries, including finance, manufacturing, pharmaceutical and life sciences, and healthcare.

Koos Lodewijkx is the Chief Information Security Officer for IBM, responsible for all aspects of IT security ranging from enterprise to product and offering security. Until February 2019, he served as the Chief Technology Officer for IBM Security. Previously, he led IBM’s security technical direction as a Chief Technical Officer to the IBM CISO. Koos joined IBM in 2007 with the acquisition of Consul Risk Management, a Netherlands based security software start-up. 

Latha Maripuri is the Chief Information Security Officer for Uber.  She oversees all aspects of cybersecurity and privacy engineering across Uber’s many business lines including mobility, delivery, freight and transit.  She leads a global organization of engineers focused on risk management through automation, secure development and advanced analytics and monitoring.  She has extensive experience in driving tech strategy, market research, product management, engineering, business development and M&A.  She currently sits on the Board of Directors for JupiterOne.

Nick Bradley possesses more than 20 years of physical and cyber security experience. Nick currently manages IBM’s X-Force Incident Command which is a part of IBM Security's X-Force organization. The IBM X-Force Incident Command provides a rapid, unified incident command response structure for confirmed/potential crises that affects organizations globally and requires a response from IBM Security.

Nick has been with IBM for over 14 years functioning in many key roles within the Security division. These roles span from Senior Operations Manager, X-Force Threat Analysis Team Manager, and IT-ISAC Director of Operations. He is one of IBM’s public speakers on security matters and has spoken at multiple conferences, webcasts, and podcasts.

Prior to IBM, Nick worked in many other positions as an analyst and manager. Additionally, he also served in the United States Army as a systems administrator, military policeman, and team lead of an SRT (Special Reaction Team).

As Global Leader for IBM’s Security Strategy Risk & Compliance practice, Randy is responsible for IBM’s Security Strategy portfolio of offerings that includes advising CISO’s and CIO’s on risk management, security strategy, risk quantification, GRC, and supply chain risk management.   Randy has worked with clients worldwide as well provided briefings to US Congress and Australian Parliament on IT Risks, cyber security trends and commercial best practices.  

In addition, Randy was an advisor to the 2000 Sydney Olympics for Crisis Management and is a member of the Ithaca College Cybersecurity Advisory Board.

Rishi Tripathi joined Mount Sinai in 2021 as the Chief Information Security Officer, Prior to Mont Sinai, Rishi was the first Chief Information Security Officer at the National Basketball Association (NBA). Over the course of 5+ years, he developed and implemented the NBA's first global information security strategy to secure sporting events, Replay Center, and digital technology as well as on-premise and cloud systems.

Over his career, Rishi has executed cybersecurity transformations for highly complex environments like SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition), financial, manufacturing, R&D, cloud, broadcast, and arena systems, In addition to the NBA, Rishi has held cybersecurity roles at Citi, Tyco International, and Florida Power & Light.

Rishi holds an MBA in entrepreneurship from Florida International University, a BS in industrial electronics engineering from India, and multiple certifications.

Dr. Sridhar Muppidi is an IBM Fellow and CTO for IBM Security. He is responsible for driving the technical strategy, architecture & research for IBM Security's portfolio of products & services to help clients manage defenses against threats and protect digital assets.

He is a results-oriented technical thought leader with 25 yrs experience in building security products, delivering solution architecture for clients, driving open standards, and leading technical teams. He is one of the industry-recognized technical experts and thought leaders with a proven track record of blending technology vision with business acumen, resulting in innovative security solutions for enterprises' digital transformation journey. In the last ten years, he has been instrumental in building the IBM Security business unit into one of the largest security companies in the world.

He has an MS and a Ph.D. in computer science from Texas A&M University and now serves on TAMU's board of directors. He is an IBM Master inventor with 50+ issued patents.

Jason Keenaghan is the Leader for IBM Security's zero trust strategy.  In this role, he is responsible for defining the vision and delivering IBM's support of zero trust through the combination of technology integrations and services.  With more than 20 years of experience in the IT industry, ranging from product management to software architecture and development, Jason collaborates closely with clients and business partners to apply the tenets of zero trust to help enable organizations to achieve secure business outcomes.  Jason holds an MBA from Marist College and a BA in Economics, with a minor in Computer Science, from Boston College.

In his leadership role, Julian helps clients develop their security strategy in the context of the cyber business risk that they face; he has a particular focus on advising boards on the potential business impact of cybersecurity by quantifying cybersecurity risk in financial terms.

Julian is IBM’s executive sponsor for the Charter of Trust, a unique initiative by leading global companies to secure the digital world and a member of the FAIR Institute Industry Advisory Group.

Julian has been assisting governments to raise awareness of the business risk posed by the cyber security threat since 2005 and has lectured both at Oxford University's Said Business School and Centre for Doctoral Training on Cybersecurity, and at Warwick University's MSc Course on Cybersecurity and Management.

Billy O'Brien is Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at News Corp.

Prior to joining News Corp, he was Senior Vice President and Business Information Security Officer at Wells Fargo & Co. In this role, he worked closely with the CTO while overseeing critical initiatives and comprehensive cyber risk mitigation for the global technology organization.

Prior to joining Wells Fargo, Billy held a number of cybersecurity positions, including Director and Chief of Staff in Sony’s Global Information Security & Privacy division as well as a management consultant and Director of Operations for the Center for Security & Privacy Solutions at Deloitte & Touche, LLP. He also served as President Bush’s Director of Cybersecurity & Telecom Policy and Vice President Cheney’s Special Assistant for Homeland Security Affairs at the White House, where he provided counsel to senior administration officials on homeland and national security policy issues.

Billy received his MBA from Cornell University’s S.C. Johnson School of Management and BA from the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond.

Stephanie directs editorial strategy and operations for The Trust, the creative consultancy for WSJ | Barron’s Group. Prior to coming to The Trust, Stephanie served as content strategy director for JWT, and worked on a variety of programs for brands including Qualcomm, KPMG and Amplify. During her days as an award-winning journalist, Stephanie was the editor of PC Magazine, driving editorial strategy and operations for the print and digital magazine. She also served as founding editor and SVP of Access Media, a 10-million circulation, weekly tech and lifestyle magazine. She began her career in daily newspapers, as a general assignment reporter, copy editor and deputy city editor in suburban New York.

Will Wilkinson is General Manager of WSJ Pro, a position he has held since Pro’s launch in June 2015. In this role, he is responsible for the development of a premium suite of industry specific content services, combining news, data and events in a single membership platform. Mr. Wilkinson started with Dow Jones in September 2013 as vice president of sales for The Wall Street Journal, overseeing multimedia sales for The Journal and its local language sites, as well as Barron’s and MarketWatch. Prior to joining Dow Jones, he spent 12 years with The Economist Group, where he was managing director, northern Europe, and held a range of sales and marketing roles, with posts in London, New York, Geneva and Frankfurt.    

Chris Meenan the VP of Product Management and Strategy within the IBM Security division. He has over 15 years experience in product management and has been involved in developing, managing, releasing and selling software products for over 25 years. Chris has extensive market, domain and customer knowledge in IT Security, Customer Relationship Management and Telecom OSS solutions. Chris holds a 1st Honors degree in Physics and has a PhD in telecommunications.

Laurene Hummer is a Program Director of Product Management at IBM Security Services. In this role, she defines, designs and delivers Zero Trust Services that help solve our customers’ toughest security challenges. With a background in product marketing, Laurene is passionate for understanding users and connecting with clients. Before that, she learned to solve hard problems while working as a process design engineer in the petroleum and renewable energy industries. Laurene earned a BA in chemical engineering and an MBA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. 

Charles Henderson is the Global Head of IBM's X-Force. Throughout his career, Charles and the teams he has managed have specialized in incident response, penetration testing, adversary simulation, vulnerability management, and vulnerability research. X-Force’s clients range from the largest on the Fortune lists to small and midsized companies interested in improving their security posture or in need of assistance handling a security incident. 

Charles is also an enthusiastic member of the information security community and an advocate of vulnerability research. He has been a featured speaker at various conferences (including Black Hat, DEFCON, RSA, SOURCE, OWASP AppSec USA and Europe, and SXSW) around the world on various subjects relating to security testing and incident response. He has also appeared on or in CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, CNN, BBC, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, USA Today, The Register, SC Magazine, Engadget, eWeek, Reuters, Car & Driver, and various other media outlets.

Jeff Crume is a Distinguished Engineer, Master Inventor and CTO for IBM Security Americas with 39 years’ experience in the IT industry. He has a PhD in Cybersecurity and serves as an Adjunct Professor at N.C. State University. Jeff is the author of a book entitled "Inside Internet Security: What Hackers Don't Want You To Know” as well as a contributing author to the "Information Security Management Handbook.” He is a member of the inaugural class of the N.C. State University Computer Science Alumni Hall of Fame where he has served on the school’s Strategic Advisory Board. He also serves on the editorial board for the “Information and Computer Security” research journal and is a member of the IBM Academy of Technology. He holds CISSP and ISSAP professional IT Security certifications as well as Distinguished Chief IT Architect credentials from The Open Group. Jeff lived in Beijing on assignment in 2006 and has worked with clients in 50 countries.

Joshua Brown is vice president and global chief information security officer of H&R Block. In this role, he leads the teams responsible for identifying, tracking and mitigating security risk, ultimately ensuring the company can move quickly and safely to innovate and fulfill its ambitious Block Horizons growth strategy. 

Prior to H&R Block, Brown worked for several different entities within the Omnicom Group of companies, where he established a global infrastructure team to drive technology and security throughout the organization.  His love of teaching and lifelong learning led him to become a mentor for the SANS Institute, the leading authority for information security education. He has been a frequent author and speaker on myriad information security topics, including speaking at the InfoSec World conference, the ISC2 World Congress and being published in Security Current magazine and Enterprise Security magazine. Brown holds a bachelor’s degree from Duke University and a master’s degree from Georgetown University.

Ricardo Lafosse is CISO  for Kraft Heinz. Lafosse is responsible for IT risk governance, OT security, incident management, technical disaster recovery, and determining enterprise-wide security policies and procedures. Lafosse regularly presents on security topics at global conferences, including MirCon, ISACA CACS and Secure World. 

Prior to his current role, Lafosse was CISO for Morningstar, where he was responsible for providing strategic information security leadership, implementation and governance for the Information Security Program.

Lafosse has more than 18 years of experience in information security for the government, banking, legal, healthcare and education sectors. Lafosse began his career in information security consulting in finance. 

Lafosse holds a master’s in information assurance from Iowa State University. He also holds the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) designations.

As CISO, Shaun Marion leads McDonald’s global cybersecurity organization and is responsible for overseeing risk management, brand protection, and executing McDonald’s enterprise cybersecurity strategy. With over 20 years in the security industry, Shaun brings a wide breadth of technical leadership and operational expertise to McDonald’s. 

Prior to joining McDonald's, Shaun was the CISO for Republic Services and was also the former CSO for Honeywell, where he was ultimately accountable for cyber, product, and physical security operations. 

Shaun’s responsibilities have ranged from executive protection, guard-force management, corporate investigations, and business continuity, to classified security management, cybersecurity strategy and operations, and incident response. Shaun is active in the cybersecurity startup community where he has advised multiple budding cybersecurity companies, as well as several global venture capital firms. Shaun is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps where he served for four years.

Chris McCurdy has more than 25 years in the IT Consulting Services Industry, specializing in Information Security and Advisory Services.  Chris has extensive experience working with large enterprise as well as government clients around the world.  As a Managing Partner, Chris has helped large clients on the design, deployment, and ongoing management of their complex Information Technology programs.  Chris has also served as a CIO helping transform a retail automotive group rapidly expand business operations through the use of technology and acquisition.

Mr. McCurdy currently serves as the General Manager and Vice President of Worldwide IBM Security Services.  Chris has been with IBM Security since 2006 through the acquisition of Internet Security Systems.  Chris has grown the IBM Security Business revenue to double digit growth over the past 5 years globally.  Chris works with clients to help reduce cyber risk, support compliance, and drive overall security maturity based upon knowledge of business and threat landscape.  Chris has worked to evolve the Go To Market across IBM in all markets for Security and supported synergy targets with other brands including Cloud and Red Hat.  Chris has worked in a variety of security services roles within the IBM Security Services business unit and consistently demonstrated leadership evidenced by the continued rapid growth of the IBM Security business.  Chris drives the worldwide Go-to-Market strategy for IBM Security and is responsible for managing sales globally.  Chris has served in several positions as he has driven the security business at IBM.  Positions include; Vice President IBM Security Services, Director of North America Security Services, West Region Security Sales Executive, Security Services Leader for Strategic Outsourcing, and Security Services Business Development Leader.  

Prior to joining IBM Chris was a Managing Consultant at several consulting firms including Andersen, International Network Services, and Lucent Technologies.  Chris was also a former CIO at a large retail automotive group located across the United States.  Chris holds a BBA in Information Systems from Baylor University.  Chris has held his certification as a Certified Information Systems Auditor.

Rachel Garofola is a host of exceptional ability. Studies show that a vast majority of guests attending events by Rachel have been known to leave more elated than visitors to Santa's Workshop, The Lost of Continent of Atlantis, and the Fountain of Youth.

Ric Lewis is SVP of Infrastructure for IBM and has global responsibility for the company’s servers, storage, associated software and infrastructure support and services. Mr. Lewis oversees IBM’s cloud business and also leads the IBM-wide mission for IBM Supply Chain.

Prior to joining IBM, Mr. Lewis worked for 32 years at Hewlett Packard and Hewlett Packard Enterprise where he held numerous leadership roles focused on business and product innovation. Most recently, he was SVP and GM of the Software Defined and Cloud Group, where his team incubated the software technology and strategy to enable as-a-service delivery of HPE’s entire portfolio. His groups created the industry-wide composable infrastructure product category and led it with an entirely new HW/SW design known as HPE Synergy that became the fastest new product/business in HP/HPE’s history to reach a billion dollars of revenue. 

Munir Hafez serves as SVP CIO of TransUnion Credit, where he oversees IT transformation, aligns technology with business results, and safeguards consumer data of hundreds of millions of credit-active consumers in the U.S. 

Mr. Hafez joined TransUnion from Luminar, where he was CIO and responsible for the global scaling of the IT organization in support of the rapid growth from a startup to a $7B valued global enterprise. Prior to Luminar, Mr. Hafez worked at Aptiv where he was CIO for the autonomous driving division for three years. He was the VP of strategy and architecture for two years before that and was responsible for data analytics, enterprise architecture, innovation, vendor management and M&A.

Javier Polit is the executive leader of Mondelēz Digital Services and serves as the Chief Information &  Digital Officer of Mondelēz International, a global snacking leader evolving the role of snacking with 2021 net revenues of approximately $29 billion. As part of the executive leadership team, he plans and executes the global digital strategy and is responsible for all business and technology systems and infrastructure worldwide. 

Previously, Mr. Polit has served as CIO with Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola. Today Javier serves on the board of directors of Quickabase (a Vista Equity portfolio company) and  Forward Air. He also serves on the board of Girls Who Code, a nonprofit supporting girls in the study of  STEM. 

In 2022 Mr. Polit was recognized on the Forbes CIO Next List. He has also been named a Top 25 Corporate Elite by Hispanic Business Magazine.

Raakhee Mirchandani is anchor and contributing editor at Dow Jones. She also serves as VP of Community. Previously, she was the founding editor for Moneyish and the Editorial Director for Diversity and Inclusion at the Barron's Group. A longtime writer, editor and columnist, Raakhee is also the award-winning author of two children's books. She serves on various non-profit boards including the Hoboken Public Library, Steven's Cooperative School, the Children's Book Council and the Tomorrows Children's Fund, where she is the board President.

Brian Kamenetzky is a Senior Editor at The Trust, with extensive experience developing content for subjects including cloud technology, artificial intelligence, supply chains, healthcare, marketing and advertising, financial services, cybersecurity and the future of work. Clients include Amazon Business, Microsoft, Informatica, UnitedHealthcare, Viant, Samsung, Blue Yonder, UserTesting, IBM, Salesforce and Adobe. 

In addition to his work for The Trust, Brian has a long background in writing, reporting and broadcasting, including live broadcasting (radio and television), podcasting and events. He has worked for the LATimes.com, ESPN The Magazine, ESPN.com, ESPN Radio and The Athletic, and currently co-hosts the "Locked On Lakers" podcast, focusing on the Lakers and the NBA, with well over two million downloads yearly. He has been a regular contributor to KPCC, the largest NPR station in southern California, as well as Spectrum Sportsnet.

Jeff Gautney is the VP and CIO at RUSH University System for Health. Mr. Gautney is responsible for implementing the Foundations project at RUSH, which helped to unify IT infrastructure across the organization.  

Mr. Gautney previously served as managing director of the electronic health record practice at Huron Consulting Group in New York. In this role, he provided a range of IT consulting services to health provider clients, including strategic IT planning, vendor selection, IT organizational effectiveness and IT-enabled transformation. Prior to Huron Consulting Group, he also led IT services at Northwell Health, where he grew his team from 160 to more than 750 of the industry's top IT professionals. In addition, he managed more than 700 different vendor applications, multiple data centers with more than 1000 servers and an operating budget of $120 million.​

Sean Farney is the executive director of data center strategy and innovation, working with clients to fully leverage the firm’s capabilities to maximize digital infrastructure value, minimize facility risk and drive data center innovation. 

Prior to his current role, Mr. Farney was director of marketing and business development for Kohler’s data center business. As founder and COO of Ubiquity Critical Environments, a first-mover edge data center start-up, he partnered with Schneider Electric and Sears Holdings to design a national network of 50+ sub-1MW facilities located in Tier 2/3/4 MSAs to provide streaming content and services. Mr. Farney also built and operated Microsoft’s 120MW Chicago data center, implementing containerization to drive sustainable operations while deploying 100,000 servers in less than 12 months. Previously, Mr. Farney has also led digital transformation strategic programs at two Fortune 500 companies.     

Charles Brooks joined Kemper in May 2016 as SVP and CIO and assumed his current position in March 2017. Previously, Mr. Brooks served as the global operations and technology officer for ACE Limited (now Chubb), a position he held from August 2011 to December 2015. From February 2009 to August 2011, he served as SVP/Head, member and plan sponsor services for Aetna. Mr. Brooks previously served as SVP of operations and CIO of personal lines for Travelers from December 2003 to February 2009 and as partner, financial services–insurance practice at Accenture from June 1998 to December 2003. He is board director for Make-A-Wish Illinois and a trustee of the University of Chicago Cancer Research Foundation.​

Christine Kashkari has over 15 years of editorial and custom journalism experience. At Dow Jones, she has developed custom programs for clients, including IBM, Intel, and PMI and created custom content on topics ranging from healthcare technology to digital and business transformation, talent recruitment and the evolving workforce.

She previously produced custom events at the intersection of policy and government for Bloomberg Government and served as editorial director at Bloomberg Live where she helped launch its Bloomberg Markets 50 franchise, CFO conference, and led the editorial program for economic summits held in Japan, Australia, Hong Kong and Canada. 

She began her career at Bloomberg as a producer for Bloomberg Asia TV and previously worked as a reporter for Money-Media. Ms. Kashkari received her master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.

Ann Madea joined Simmons Bank in 2021 and serves as EVP, CIO, where she is responsible for the bank’s overall information technology strategy and operations. With more than 20 years of experience in the financial services industry, Ms. Madea previously served as U.S. CIO for a large, global financial services company. Throughout her career, she has held leadership positions focusing on delivery, strategy, digital transformation, cloud, data and cyber strategies. She is passionate about women and girls in technology and was recently the executive sponsor for the summer immersion program for Girls Who Code, a nonprofit organization which aims to increase the number of women in computer science.

Ron Argent has over 40 years in the IT industry, covering sales, design and engineering. With a deep understanding of technology, Mr. Argent continually looks at ways that IT can be applied to a business solution. In the past 5 years he has expanded his focus to help fledgling start-ups take an enterprise view of application design early in their program cycle. The aim is to help enable their applications to be massively scalable, highly secure and sustainable.

Nancy Mahon is the Chief Sustainability Officer for Estée Lauder. She is a transformational, collaborative leader with deep global experience in enterprise-wide management as well as leading Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategy, operations, marketing, reporting and risk reduction. In the increasingly disruptive ESG arena, Ms. Mahon is a trusted and sought-after advisor, speaker and enterprise ambassador. She is committed to taking the long view on building sustainable and inclusive companies, teams and communities. She is an influential and effective company liaison with investors, ESG rankers and raters, government officials, NGOs, employees and customers. A senior executive at The Estée Lauder Companies who serves on the CEO’s Executive Leadership Team, Ms. Mahon helms best practices, synergizing them across brands, regions and functions, integrating ESG operations into the enterprise and ensuring compliance with all local and international laws. She oversees the enterprise wide leadership initiative on sustainability at The Estée Lauder Companies and serves on the Inclusion and Diversity Council.

Christina Shim is a global strategist, with an emphasis on innovation, sustainability, and growth. She is currently the Global Head of Product Management and Strategy for IBM Sustainability Software. Ms. Shim sits on IBM’s AI Ethics Board and the ESG Steering Committee.

Her experience includes time with Booz Allen Hamilton, Bain & Co, and PricewaterhouseCoopers, and as the Managing Director for Palladium International at the intersection of strategy, technology, and impact. Additionally, she worked at the Central Intelligence Agency. Ms. Shim has spoken and been quoted on sustainability and ESG in Forbes, Fortune, Reuters, Bloomberg, A.I. and Sustainability, and at the UN, among others. She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA degree from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, where she was a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar.

Valerie Smith is the Chief Sustainability Officer and Managing Director for Citi.

She was appointed the company's first Chief Sustainability Officer in 2019 and has helped grow sustainability efforts at Citi since 2004. She oversees Citi’s Sustainability & ESG team, with responsibility for the bank’s Sustainable Progress Strategy and priority initiatives, including the $1 Trillion Sustainable Finance Goal. Ms. Smith is leading the development of Citi’s Net Zero Emissions by 2050 plan. She also leads Citi’s implementation of the Principles for Responsible Banking and guides its climate risk disclosure. She is an advisor and spokesperson on sustainable finance, Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) disclosure, stakeholder engagement, human rights, ESG integration and sustainability trends.

Prior to joining Citi, she spent a decade working in the environmental sector, including the National Audubon Society, Brainerd Foundation, and the Houston Advanced Research Center. Ms. Smith began her career with the United States Peace Corps, where she served for two years as an environmental specialist in Honduras. She serves on the board of Net Impact and is a member of the UNEP FI Global Steering Committee and the Aspen Institute Business & Society Leaders Forum. She earned her MBA from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and her BA in Environmental Science from the University of Virginia.

Kareem Yusuf leads product management and growth for IBM’s software portfolio. His focus includes product strategy and roadmap, customer acquisition, expansion, retention based on compelling product experiences, and market perception and sentiment. He also leads IBM’s sustainability initiative, including the company’s technology point of view and corporate environmental affairs. Mr. Yusuf has been with IBM for over 24-years and has held senior leadership positions in a variety of disciplines across the company including offering management, software development, SaaS operations, mergers & acquisitions, and field technical sales. He holds a Ph.D from the University of Leeds, focused on Decision Support Systems for Civil Engineering construction. He maintains an active interest in all things technical, with a particular interest in digital media and programming languages. Mr. Yusuf is a TED Speaker and the author of Enterprise Messaging Using JMS and IBM WebSphere.

Andy Serwer is the editor at large at Barron's, covering a wide range of topics. Prior to Barron's, Mr. Serwer led Yahoo Finance’s editorial team for nearly eight years. He spent 29 years with Fortune Magazine, rising to the position of managing editor, and was the business news anchor of CNN’s American Morning from 2000-2006. Serwer is the 2020 winner of the Elliott V. Bell Award for financial journalism.

Appointed to Chief Sustainability Officer in February 2021, Kristen Siemen helps to lead General Motors to a future with zero emissions as the company continues to take bold actions against climate change, including GM’s commitment to becoming carbon neutral in its global products and operations by 2040. Under her leadership, GM has received numerous recognitions including JUST Capital’s MOST JUST Companies, the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices Gold Class for Corporate Sustainability Leadership, and Ethisphere’s World’s Most Ethical Companies for demonstrating exceptional leadership and commitment to business integrity.

Ms. Siemen began her career with GM in 1994 and served in a number of engineering and staff positions. Since 2010, she has held senior leadership positions in several global engineering functions including Electrical Engineering, Thermal Engineering, Test and Validation, and Energy, Certification, and Compliance.

In addition to her accomplished technical career, she is also passionate about promoting inclusion and gender equality. She was instrumental in creating GM’s career reentry program, “Take 2,” as well as the GM Women Ally Program, and serves as GM’s key executive for the Society of Women Engineers. Since transitioning into her role as CSO, Ms. Siemen has garnered several individual recognitions for exemplary leadership, including Crain’s Notable Leaders in Sustainability, Future 50 Tech, and Sustainability Magazine’s Top 100 Women in Sustainability. She serves on multiple sustainability advisory boards, and on the Oakland University School of Engineering & Computer Science Advisory Board, where she received both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering.

Aisha Speirs is the executive editor for APAC at The Trust, the intelligence-led creative consultancy for WSJ | Barron's Group. Prior to joining The Trust, she oversaw the editorial process for The New York Times T Brand Studio in Asia on programs across the tech, business, luxury, and place branding sectors. Originally from London, she served as Monocle's bureau chief in both New York and Hong Kong, working on newsroom and partner stories across magazines, books, film, and Monocle24 Radio. A graduate of the University of Cambridge, Ms. Speirs began her career 15 years ago at an independent magazine in New York and is now based in Hong Kong.

Paul Papas is Senior Vice President of IBM Consulting, Americas. In this role, he leads one of the largest professional services organizations in the world, providing clients across North America and Latin America with business transformation and technology consulting services powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and hybrid cloud.

Prior to this role, he was the Global Managing Partner of IBM’s Business Transformation Services and was responsible for IBM's consulting, technology implementation, analytics, and Business Process Outsourcing services worldwide. Working globally for over a decade, Mr. Papas launched and globally scaled IBM’s iX, Enterprise Strategy, and Salesforce consulting businesses and has led the successful acquisition of multiple companies worldwide.

He cares deeply about people and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. He co-chairs IBM’s Women’s Executive Council, is a member of IBM’s Industry Academy Advisory Board, and is IBM’s Senior Location Executive for New York City. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr. Papas led the creation of IBM’s Work From Home Pledge.

Andre Argenton is Dow’s Chief Sustainability Officer and Vice President of Environment, Health and Safety (EH&S). Previously, he was the Vice President of Core R&D and oversaw a broad portfolio of research programs and world-leading innovation capabilities that enable technology development across multiple key market segments. He was the global R&D Director of Industrial Intermediates & Infrastructure and his responsibilities included managing the innovation pipeline across multiple chemistry envelopes including polyurethanes and industrial solutions.

Mr. Argenton earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Sao Paulo. He joined Dow Brazil in 1999 and moved to the U.S. in 2007. Throughout his career, he worked across the

the spectrum of chemistries and technologies at Dow supporting a broad range of industries and

covering all facets of innovation from new product development to process research to

customer-facing application development.

He has served on several academic advisory boards. Currently, his external commitments

include the University of Michigan Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan

Erb Institute and the NYSE Sustainability Advisory Council.

Sarah Thuo is a Partner and Americas Practice Leader for Sustainability Business Transformation Services at IBM Consulting. Ms. Thuo is passionate about enabling companies to create sustainable and resilient supply chains. With a supply chain and operations background, her career spans management consulting and industry. She is a trusted advisor with a track record of successful transformation with leading brands such as Kearney, EY Parthenon, and Atlas Holdings. 

Sustainability Magazine has recognized her as one of the top 100 Women in Sustainability (Rank 17) and by Diversity & Inclusion Inc. as one of the top 50 Multicultural Women in Technology. Her thought leadership has been featured in various publications including Forbes, Economist Impact, and as a panelist at the UN COP27 conference. 

Ms. Thuo holds an MBA from Boston University, an MS in Information Services from Boston University, and a Bachelor of Engineering from McGill University. She is certified as a Future of Sustainable Business practitioner by Oxford University.

On February 9, 2021, President Biden appointed Andrew Mayock to serve as the Federal Chief Sustainability Officer. He leads President Biden's efforts to improve the sustainability of the federal government, including by helping federal agencies prepare for and respond to the impacts of climate change on their operations and services.

Mr. Mayock also served in the Obama Administration as Deputy Director for Management and Associate Director for General Government Programs at the Office of Management and Budget. He led OMB's management offices and the President's Management Council with a focus on digital services, cybersecurity, acquisitions, financial management, personnel, and performance management. As Associate Director for General Government Programs, he oversaw policy and budget for six cabinet agencies comprising $225 billion of the President's budget and covering over one million federal employees. Prior to his OMB roles, Mr. Mayock served as the Deputy Vice President for Compact Operations for East and Southern Africa at the Millennium Challenge Corporation. 

In the Clinton Administration, he worked at the White House and the U.S. Treasury Department. He was a consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton from 2003-2009 and at McKinsey & Company from 2017-2020, where he focused on public sector programs. During 2019-2020, he also served on the steering committee of the Climate 21 Project, which delivered advice for a coordinated, rapid-start, whole-of-government climate response.

Mr. Mayock holds a law degree from George Washington University and a master's in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

In this decisive decade for climate action, the UAE will seek to bring the world together at COP28 to agree on bold and ambitious solutions to this unprecedented global challenge. With a proven track record of building consensus in international negotiations ranging from climate change to energy to aviation,  Ambassador Majid Al-Suwaidi brings invaluable diplomatic expertise to the UAE COP Presidency.  

As the UAE’s Lead Negotiator on Climate Change, Energy, and Sustainability, Ambassador Al-Suwaidi played a key role in the negotiation and adoption of the landmark Paris Agreement in 2015, as well as in the design and adoption of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.  

In his most recent role, Ambassador Al-Suwaidi served as the UAE Ambassador to Spain, Andorra, and  Vatican City. In a previous role as Consul General, he was responsible for opening the UAE’s first-ever consulate in New York, where he also led the UAE Mission to the United Nations. 

As well as being a firm believer in the power of multilateralism, Ambassador Al-Suwaidi also brings considerable insight into the scale and practical complexity involved in the global transition to clean energy, having worked for almost a decade in the international energy sector.  

Ambassador Al-Suwaidi has an undergraduate degree in Geology from Brunel University (United  Kingdom), as well as a graduate degree in Earth Sciences from Simon Fraser University (Canada).  In 2023, he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic by the Government of Spain in recognition of extraordinary services in the promotion of international relations,  following his three-year stint as UAE Ambassador to Spain.

On January 20, 2021, John F. Kerry was sworn in as the nation’s first Special Presidential

Envoy for Climate and the first-ever Principal to sit on the National Security Council entirely

dedicated to climate change. President Biden announced Kerry would have a seat at every table around the world as he combats the climate crisis to meet the existential threat that we face. In recent years, Mr. Kerry was the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s first-ever Visiting Distinguished Statesman, following his four years as the 68th United States Secretary of State. 

As America’s top diplomat, he guided the Department’s strategy on nuclear nonproliferation, combating radical extremism, and the threat of climate change. His tenure was marked by the successful negotiation of the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Climate Agreement.

From 1985 to 2013, he served as a U.S. Senator representing Massachusetts and was Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2009 to 2013. Secretary Kerry served in the U.S. Navy, completing two combat tours of duty in Vietnam for which he received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star with Combat V, and three Purple Hearts.

He received his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his law degree from Boston College Law School. Secretary Kerry is the best-selling author of A Call to Service, This Moment on Earth with his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry, and his 2018 memoir, Every Day Is Extra, which The New York Times described as “a bittersweet reminder of what the country once demanded of its leaders.” Secretary Kerry was the Democratic Party’s nominee for President of the United States in 2004.