From Engineer to Executive - The story of a cyber nerd

This talk is about my journey into the world of Cyber along with the failures and success I had up to my role. I will share my own stories and provide examples of how the times have changed from IR in the late 2000s to the world with AI, LLMs, and Clouds.

This talk will be both technical and non-technical with stories of my entry into the Cyber world from the early 2000s. I will share my own failures and how I was able to succeed. Have you ever wondered if you can be that guy speaking in front of a crowd or even be that expert that others want to listen to? This is about my journey from an introvert to a semi-extrovert. I will also discuss other journeys I took from being a security engineer, incident responder back when there was no such thing, then moving into leadership positions and into advisory and investor positions for cyber startups. We will compare the people, process, technology and the paradigm shift from data centers to the cloud. I will share pro tips and material as l learned from my own experiences being around the biggest and brightest in this industry. If you want to be successful and thrive in the world of Cybersecurity, you don’t want to miss this talk.

Hello fellow CFP reviewers! I’m making an effort for next year to speak publicly about topics that others would want to hear about and end up walking out saying that it was useful. (Both technical and non) I’ve been in this industry for over 20 years and recently realized that there are way too many deeper technical talks with great content but many times lack personality. Presentations i have looked forward to, end up being ones i felt were a total waste of my time. As someone in this industry for almost two decades, I realized I have not given back to the community enough. I speak occasionally at conferences when asked or i can, but not enough.

Whenever i do talk, people tell me they enjoyed it so I feel i need to do more of it and give back whenever I can. Feel free to see my LI profile at /in/frajpari/ or on X @FayyazR. I love to meet both others in our industry, regardless if i speak or not!