Speakers

Christopher Barnhurst, as the deputy director of the Defense Information Systems Agency, supports the DISA director in leading and overseeing the operations of the agency with a focus on delivering efficient and effective Information Technology services in support of the warfighter.

He previously served as the DISA chief financial officer/comptroller providing executive leadership and oversight for the formulation and execution of the agency’s $11 billion dollar budget, which finances critical communications support to the president of the United States, as well as essential command and control; telecommunications; computing; cyber operations and mission assurance; and other services to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the military services, the defense agencies, the intelligence community and joint and coalition warfighters worldwide.

Mr. Barnhurst was appointed to the Senior Executive Service in July 2017. Prior to his appointment, he served as the principal advisor to the DISA comptroller for planning, programming, budgeting and execution and as a senior manager of DISA’s Defense Working Capital Fund budget and operations division. In these roles, he led the development and implementation of a revised pricing structure for DISA’s network services that resulted in significant departmental savings and incentivized DoD-wide adoption of more efficient technologies.

Mr. Barnhurst earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration with a concentration in finance from Elon University in 2007 and is a level three certified DoD financial manager.

West Coile is the Assistant Director of the Center for Enhanced Cybersecurity at the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), and has over 15 years of audit experience, with an emphasis on reviews of many complex and highly interconnected computer control environments both inside and outside of government. He has led and executed a wide variety of computer security reviews to evaluate the adequacy of information systems general and application controls. 

Ms. Monica Montgomery is the Deputy Chief Information Security Officer for Management and Strategy, and the Deputy Director of the Cybersecurity Office at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, based in Springfield, Virginia.

Named to the position in March 2022, Ms. Montgomery is responsible for the cybersecurity strategy, standards, policy, and procedures that safeguards NGA’s information systems against cyber threats. Additionally, she is responsible for the development of cybersecurity performance measures, and a comprehensive investment plan, education and outreach, and cybersecurity workforce management.

Prior to her current position, Ms. Montgomery served at NGA as its Chief of Staff for the Office of the Chief Information Officer, and the Director of Corporate Services. In these roles, she led the directorate in managing and executing administrative, communication, and business operations, and led the CIO-T workforce through the COVID-19 response. Additionally, she served as the Chief of Risk Management in the Cybersecurity office, where she broke new ground by streamlining the assessment and authorization process and creating an agile, risk-adaptive cybersecurity posture. She also decreased the time to market for vital intelligence applications, enabling analysts and collectors to gather and exploit intelligence in near-real time.

Prior to joining NGA in 2016, Ms. Montgomery spent 15 years in the private sector, supporting the Intelligence Community’s Chief Information Officer, the Central Intelligence Agency, and other public sector partners. Most recently, Ms. Montgomery created and published ODNI policy and standards for safeguarding and information sharing, and provided strategic direction as a senior advisor to the IC’s CIO.

Ms. Montgomery received a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Bucknell University, and holds the Certified Information Systems Security Professional and the Certified Cloud Security Professional certifications.

.

Ian has consulted, implemented and researched cybersecurity for over 30 years.  He started his career at Macquarie University, deploying the initial security infrastructure for the campus, then moving into research and development which included some of the seminal development in mobile networking and security.  He then went into roles at Silicon Graphics/Cray Research, Sun MicroSystems, Cisco and RSA.  At Gigamon Ian is Field CTO, responsible for security architecture; zero trust; cryptography and SSL/TLS; and risk management in enterprise, service provider and government networks.  Ian is the lead of Gigamon’s PSIRT team and has contributed to the design of multiple Gigamon products.

Evan Pelecky is Thales Trusted Cyber Technologies (TCT) Product Manager for Cryptographic Key Management. In this role, Evan is responsible for delivering innovative, trusted, and secure hardware security modules and cryptographic key management solutions for use in U.S. federal infrastructures.

Evan has been with Thales TCT (formally SafeNet Assured Technologies) since 2018, most recently filling the role of lead technical support engineer for hardware security modules. Additionally, he serves as an officer in a cyberspace operations group of the Maryland Air National Guard and is a member of the Maryland State Bar.

Richard Maigue, is a Sales Director at Carahsoft Technology with over 15 years of experience in supporting U.S. Federal and State and Local Government Customers by providing the best of breed cyber security solutions to help secure the customer mission. Specializing in understanding current and future trends in technology and how they can support the customer mission, Richard uses that experience to provide holistic solutions to solve customer challenges.

Donald Meyer, Director of Product Marketing for Prisma Access and Prisma SASE at Palo Alto Networks, has more than nineteen years of networking and security industry experience having held senior marketing positions at Cisco, Check Point Software Technologies, Aruba Networks, Juniper Networks, Nokia, Inc., and the Associated Press. He holds a B.S. from San Jose State University.

Jeff Reichard is Vice President, Solution Strategy in the Office of the CTO at Veeam. Jeff drives
strategic product and go-to-market engagement with public sector and enterprise customers,
with a particular focus on risk and compliance. Jeff has 25 years of experience in data
protection/availability, business continuity, and regulatory compliance solutions. His previous
roles have ranged from designing SAN and data backup solutions to systems engineering and
engineering leadership serving public sector and enterprise customers. Prior to Veeam, Jeff
most recently led Commvault’s federal civilian SE team. At Veeam, Jeff works with partners,
customers, and industry analysts to evangelize Veeam's vision for modern data protection at key events worldwide.

Troy K. Schneider is GovExec's General Manager for Government Technology Brands, and for many years has been the Editor-in-Chief of both FCW and GCN, two of the oldest and most influential publications in public-sector IT. Both publications (originally known as Federal Computer Week and Government Computer News, respectively) were acquired by GovExec in 2021.

Prior to that acquisition, Mr. Schneider was General Manager of Public Sector 360, the government-focused business unit of 1105 Media. Prior to joining 1105 Media, Mr. Schneider was the New America Foundation’s Director of Media & Technology, and before that was Managing Director for Electronic Publishing at the Atlantic Media Company, where he oversaw the online operations of The Atlantic Monthly, National Journal,The Hotline and The Almanac of American Politics, among other publications. The founding editor of NationalJournal.com, Mr. Schneider also helped launch the political site PoliticsNow.com in the mid-1990s, and worked on the earliest online efforts of the Los Angeles Times and Newsday. He began his career in print journalism, and has written for a wide range of publications, including The New York Times, WashingtonPost.com, Slate, Politico, Governing, and many of the other titles listed above.

Mr. Schneider is a graduate of Indiana University, where his emphases were journalism, business and religious studies.