14 - 16 January, 2025 Dubai, UAE

CISO Business Briefing

Date: 14 Jan 2025
Venue: Sharjah D Meeting Room, DWTC

In today's complex digital-first landscape, companies need strong security that protects critical information whilst supporting business agility, innovation and anytime, anywhere operations. The push for onsite, remote and hybrid access is creating complex challenges for security leaders in their efforts to protect an organisation against increasingly sophisticated threat actors.

The Intersec CISO Briefing will investigate the key trends, threats and opportunities in information security, offering tangible, actionable advice. It will bring together the region’s top Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and Security Heads from diverse industries and provide a platform to identify how they are enhancing an organisation’s resilience to protect against emerging threats.

The CISO Briefing will look at cutting-edge technologies, threat intelligence, regulatory compliance, and best practices to offer increased protection against threats. Participants will engage in high-level discussions, gaining insights from industry experts and thought leaders.

Join us and stay ahead of the evolving threat landscape.

Reasons to attend:

The CISO Briefing is a pivotal component of the larger Intersec event taking place in Dubai. With over 50,000 attendees, it offers a unique platform to connect with peers, create new business relationships, and deepen your professional knowledge and expertise
Don’t miss this opportunity to stay informed and network effectively
Hear how security leaders are embracing key technologies to protect and prevent material impact on their business
Optimise security investment decisions through greater insights into risk management and global cyber security trends and threats
Hear how the latest technologies can protect and predict against new threats
Learn how digital transformation can create opportunities for CISOs
AI is not just a threat – hear how organisations are using AI and automation to provide more intelligent visibility and save operational effort and cost
Get business driven insights on how CISOs can support and drive business needs, growth and continuity

2025 Agenda

14 January 2025

11.00 | Arrival and Registration

11.30 | Welcome

Daniel Norman, Regional Director EMEA, ISF

11.35 | Keynotes: CISO pulse check – Mitigating risk from AI agents, disinformation security

This scene-setting keynote will present and discuss one of the most pressing trends and strategic challenges facing CISOs, i.e. the rise of Agentic AI. The rise of agents will require advancements in AI governance and new security tools to combat disinformation through deepfakes, impersonations and attacks on brand reputation.

Faheem Siddiqui, Director Information Security, Majid Al Futtaim Holding

11.50 | Panel: Proactive defence through rigorous crisis management simulations

Business trust is crucial for securing new contracts and safeguarding your reputation. But how many companies run truly vigilant crisis management cybersecurity exercises, to identify vulnerabilities before threat actors exploit them? This discussion will look at why you should run robust security exercises that challenge your defences to the breaking point, who to involve internally and from your supply chain, and how to close holes identified and rewrite the response for any weak spots found, all whilst fostering a culture of continuous improvement without assigning blame.

Panellists:

Led by - Daniel Norman, Regional Director EMEA, ISF
Abdulrahman Al Musfir, Regional Cybersecurity Officer MEA, Schneider Electric
Ali Al Kaf Alhashmi, Vice President - Cyber Security and Technology, Mubadala
Amit Mehta, Vice President Cybersecurity Services EEMEA, Mastercard
Simon Bell, Managing Director, Cyber Practice Leader - Marsh Specialty India
Middle East and Africa, Marsh Management Services MENA
Srinivas Mathala, Global Cybersecurity and Compliance Director, Kent

12.35 | Panel: How board-friendly ROI can increase your security budget

In light of the increasing number of high-profile breaches, are boards now viewing cyber security functions as business critical and backing the required security investments? How are CISOs demonstrating ROI and competitive edge through incident response, mitigation or threat free audits? This session will explore how CISOs can sustain and enhance board-level support, ensuring these measures permeate the entire organisation.

Panellists

Led by - Hani Bani Amer, Head of Information Security, Al Etihad Payments
Ashraf Aboukass, Head of Cyber Security, Energy Sector, Qatar
Dana Haubold, Cyber Security Advisor, DH Cyber Security Consultancy
Dr. Hussain Aldawood, Cybersecurity Innovation Director, NEOM, Member of the Global Centre for Cybersecurity, World Economic Forum
Mohamed Ujaimi, CISO, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)
Olivier Busolini, Executive Vice President, Head of Information Security, Information Security Unit, Mashreq Bank

13.20 | Fireside talk: Strengthening security in cloud-based environments

Cloud infrastructure is relatively young in the Middle East, with providers still expanding into the region and companies building their on-prem and distributed infrastructure environment. For CISOs, what are the security challenges they are trying to solve? Here we discuss how to improve identity authentication in hybrid environments, and the types of tools available, ways to crack ongoing concerns around visibility of use, particularly in multi-cloud organisations, and opportunities to rapidly close the cloud security skills gap.

Panelists

Led by: Jeevan Badigari, Head of Cybersecurity, ARADA
Aus Alzubaidi, Group CISO, MBC Group
Tilak Ratnayake, Group IT Security & Infrastructure Lead, GAC Group

13.40 | Panel: Navigating cybersecurity in the age of AI

The impact of Artificial Intelligence on cybersecurity and a CISO’s daily role is hotly debated. While AI offers enterprises the chance to implement advanced defensive technologies, it also equips threat actors to launch sophisticated attacks at unprecedented speeds or employees to unknowingly introduce business risk, such as through use of large language models and chatbots. This panel will explore AI-driven threats and prevention, and how organisations are navigating the reward of new efficiencies through its use against the risks being introduced.

Panelists

Led by - Daniel Norman, Regional Director EMEA, ISF
Abdulrahman Al Musfir, Regional Cybersecurity Officer – MEA, Schneider Electric
Ankit Satsangi, Director - Enterprise Development, BEEAH Group
Faisal Bin Humaid, CISO, ACWA Power
Kausar Mukeri, CISO, GEMS Education
Nisha Rani, CISO, Emirates Leisure Retail