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Join IANS at Blue Team Con 2026

In Person Event

September 11, 2026
9:00 AM - 3:30 PM CT

Microsoft Technology Hub at Aon Center
200 E Randolph Dr, Suite 200, Chicago, IL 60601

IANS is proud to be partnering with Blue Team Con 2026 in Chicago to run a CISO Roundtable. These are closed-door, invitation-only sessions where CISOs and senior security executives sit down with IANS Faculty practitioners to work through the challenges that don't get solved in a Slack channel. No vendors in the room. No press. Just peers who've been in your seat, sharing what's actually worked (and what hasn't).

Why join this CISO Roundtable:

  • Get advice from people who've done the job — IANS Faculty are practicing security leaders, not analysts reading a report.
  • Talk freely — a vendor-free, closed-door setting means real conversations about real problems.
  • Walk away with something usable — practical takeaways you can bring back and implement immediately, not just talking points.
  • Build your network — connect with CISO peers facing the same pressures you are.

Agenda

Event Kickoff & Introductions

9:00am - 9:30am

Welcome and set the stage for a high-impact day.

Talking Defense at the Board Level: Build Consensus on Your Org's Risk Appetite

9:30am-10:30am

Defense quickly becomes a quagmire to discuss at the board level. The combination of frequently changing threat dynamics and complex risk management levers the organization could pull to counter those threats often makes the conversation too nuanced to adequately explain to non-technical, board audiences. At the same time, CISOs frequently get the same advice about what not to do — avoid FUD, speak in business terms, don't get into the weeds — without as much help around what to do. In this panel discussion, we'll bring together members of the Blue Team Con Board - Alyssa Miller, Stel Valavanis and Frank McGovern -- to share tips and offer substantive guidance on how you elevate critical defense topics to the board level and use that venue to create an organizational consensus around risk appetites.

 

 

Speakers

Alyssa Miller

 

Stel Valavanis

 

Frank McGovern

This event is intended exclusively for CISOs and senior security leadership. All registrations are reviewed prior to confirmation, and IANS reserves the right to decline registrations that do not meet the event's eligibility criteria.
Agentic Threats: Outside In, Inside Out and Your New Insider Threat

10:45am-11:45am

Rapid adoption of agentic AI solutions is changing the shape of the threat landscape, creating new classes of insider threats and giving both external and traditional insiders new ways to hack you. Between threat actor agents accessing system, agents going rogue (think OpenAI vs Hugging Face, and your own agents causing damage, CISOs must rethink how they strategize to defend against agentic capabilities. In this session, IANS Faculty Jake Williams will facilitate a discussion to cover the scope of the problem and tangible ways to solve it.

Speakers

Jake Williams

11:45am-12:45pm- Networking Lunch

Recharge and continue the conversation with industry peers.
 

12:45pm-1:45pm

TBD

Speakers

TBD

Build a Team (and Budget) to Foster Resilience

2:00pm-3:00pm

Resilience is taking on a broader meaning as organizations embrace AI and agentic-enabled threat actors create new challenges around speed and reactiveness. It's about more than availability. Becoming resilient requires organizational agility, an ability to shift spending priorities as business strategies change at a speed we've rarely seen, and a culture that incentivizes employees to develop new skills and become more flexible in how they work. In this session, IANS Faculty Steve Martano and Senior Research Director Nick Kakolowski will use benchmarking data from the 2026 IANS and Artico CISO Compensation and Budget Survey as a launching off point to lead a conversation on how CISOs can think about structuring, equipping and training their teams to become more adaptable and, as a result, resilient during a period of rapid change.

Speakers

Steve Martano

3:00pm-3:30pm- Closing Remarks