Cloud Security Alliance Announces Federal Summit 2019 Speaker Line-up

Former U.S. CIO Vivek Kundra to share his experience leading change across the U.S. government, the world’s largest consumer of information technology

Seattle, WA – April 23, 2019 – The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), the world’s leading organization dedicated to defining and raising awareness of best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment, is pleased to announce the speaker line-up for the fifth annual CSA Federal Summit (Washington, D.C., May 7). Vivek Kundra, the nation’s first Chief Information Officer (2009-2011), will be the featured speaker and will address Leading Change and the Challenges of Transformation, during which he will share his experience leading change across the world’s largest consumer of information technology—the U.S. government—and the lessons every organization can use when leading a transformation in a change-averse environment.

As the nation’s first Chief Information Officer, Kundra was faced with the tremendous challenge of leading the federal government’s information technology bureaucracy at a time when cutting costs, increasing efficiency and driving innovation was of paramount importance. Having managed the $80B federal technology budget, his efforts yielded significant progress in transforming the way technology is purchased and managed by bringing best-in-class private sector solutions to solve massive public sector inefficiencies.

“We’re excited that Vivek Kundra will be on hand to share what he learned during the three years he served as the CIO for the United States, and during which time he created a highly transparent, efficient and accountable environment focused on making systems and information useful to the public. Combined with other fantastic speakers and sessions, the CSA Federal Summit promises to provide attendees with perspectives on the Federal cloud computing strategy, civilian and defense agency cloud security standards, and real-world implementation experience with state-of-the-art cloud security architectures,” said Jim Reavis, co-founder and CEO, Cloud Security Alliance.

This informative, one-day summit is expected to draw over 200 information security professionals from civilian and defense agencies, as well as innovators in cloud security who will share case studies, lessons learned and new technologies that promote secure implementation of cloud computing to support agency missions. Additional sessions include:

• A Data-Driven Blueprint to Scaling Cloud Operations Security. Mohit Kalra, Director, Cloud Operations Security, Adobe
• State of Federal Cloud Security: A Practitioner's Perspective. Mari Spina, Principal Cyber Security Engineer, MITRE
• Regaining Our Lost Visibility. Michael Quealy, Vice President, Public Sector, Qualys
• A Walk in the Clouds: Zero Trust Security for a Cloud World. Sean Frazier, Advisory CISO, Federal, Duo Security
• Security Profile from the Bank Policy Institute. Kenice Middleton, Senior Vice President, Technology & Cybersecurity Risk
• Ensuring the Integrity and Availability of Services in the Cloud. Archana Kesavan, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Thousand Eyes
• Update on CSA DC Chapter Events and Research. Anil Karmel, President, CSA DC Chapter

Attendees will also benefit from the combined knowledge and experience of top industry executives, during the following panel discussions:

• FedRAMP (Moderator: Ashley Mahan Moderator, Acting Director, FedRAMP & Secure Cloud Portfolio Moderator). This panel will focus on changes to the program that have been recently implements or are in-process. These improvements are all aimed at addressing the time and cost of obtaining a FedRAMP certification.
• Implementing Cloud Services in Challenging Environment. (Moderator, John Yeoh, Research Director, Americas Region, Cloud Security Alliance. Panelists: Michael Coleman, Federal Solutions Architect, F5 Networks; Michael Pitcher, Vice President, Coalfire Federal; John Davis, Vice President, Federal Chief Security Officer, Palo Alto Networks; and Stephen Kovac, Vice President, Global Government and Compliance, Zscaler). Panelists will discuss the development and implementation of standards for cloud solutions and overcoming the challenges related to regulation, funding, politics, and governance for the secure adoption of cloud services and solutions.

The CSA Federal Summit will take place on May 7 (8 am to 5 pm) at the Marriott Metro Center (775 12^th Street, NW, Washington, DC). The event is FREE for government employees (with valid form of government ID), $150 for non-government employees ($175 on-site) and $50 for students (please bring Student ID as proof).

Learn more or register here. Members of the media and analyst community interested in attending the event should contact Kari Walker for more information, to receive press credentials and to schedule interviews with CSA leadership and conference speakers.

About Cloud Security Alliance

The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) is the world’s leading organization dedicated to defining and raising awareness of best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment. CSA harnesses the subject matter expertise of industry practitioners, associations, governments, and its corporate and individual members to offer cloud security-specific research, education, certification, events and products. CSA’s activities, knowledge and extensive network benefit the entire community impacted by cloud — from providers and customers, to governments, entrepreneurs and the assurance industry — and provide a forum through which diverse parties can work together to create and maintain a trusted cloud ecosystem. For further information, visit us at www.cloudsecurityalliance.org, and follow us on Twitter @cloudsa.

Media Contact
Kari Walker for the CSA
ZAG Communications
703.928.9996
[email protected]