SPEAKERS

Scott Ainslie

Managing Director

Sycon Security Consultants

Scott has served in a wide variety of roles across a career distinguished by the breadth and depth of his exposure to the cybersecurity threat landscape. His approach reflects extensive experience in the physical, personnel and logical security domains.  His use of intelligence-based threat and risk management approaches underscore his success record in understanding cybersecurity and associated critical infrastructure vulnerabilities.  His personable approach and demeanour provide an ideal platform for collaboration and negotiation environments.

Scott has a degree in Criminology from CSU and a Masters in Cybersecurity, Strategy and Diplomacy from UNSW.  He is currently undertaking graduate research for a PhD in cybersecurity with the University of Melbourne. He is a member of multiple security, risk, intelligence, and cybersecurity-related organisations.  This active membership provides an ideal platform for empowering outreach from a broad global community of cybersecurity practitioners

 

Jil Blyth

Manager Te Whakaara, Te Whakaara | The Open Source Hub
New Zealand Police

Kia ora! Jil is from New Zealand Police where she manages a unique, all-of-government coworking space and training programme for staff who manage, collect, and analyse open source information. Her background is in information technology & information management and prior to working for Police, spent over 10 years working for national museums in all things online.  She is currently completing a Master’s degree in International Security at Massey University.

 

Michael Hickey MAIPIO

Director, Compliance & Enforcement
Victorian Building Authority (VBA)

Michael is Acting Director, Compliance & Enforcement at the Victorian Building Authority (VBA), Victoria’s regulator of the building and plumbing industry, where he has held various compliance and enforcement related roles for almost 14 years. Michael is responsible for leading the Practitioner Intelligence Team, Complaints Team, Investigations Team and the collection of Victoria’s statutory building activity data and building permit levies. In 2014, he was tasked with establishing the organisations new Practitioner Intelligence Team. Today, it is central to the industry regulators compliance activities, with a growing reliance on data, analysis and generation of actionable insights to address regulatory risk and inform enforcement activities, organisational decision making and support the addressing of harms and achievement of strategic outcomes.

Before relocating to Australia, Michael had a varied past in the UK, primarily as an Analyst in the private sector and Data Manager in national projects at the Department of Health (UK), along with a stint in the dot com boom in London, during the late 1990s and website development in the not-for-profit sector. Michael has completed the ANACAPA Criminal Intelligence Analysis course, in addition to possessing a master’s degree in Intelligence Analysis (Charles Sturt University, Australia), master’s degree in Computer Science (Newcastle University, UK) and a Post Graduate Certificate in Internal Auditing (Institute of Internal Auditors, Australia).

 

Catherine Lee

Director
Lethbridge Piper & Associates

As Director of Lethbridge Piper & Associates, Catherine is dedicated to working with client organisations to achieve real and tangible improvements in their organisational culture and business performance through strategic occupational health and safety (OHS) and risk management.

With more than 30 years’ experience as an OHS Professional both in Australia and the United Kingdom, Catherine has established a solid reputation for risk management, leading change and business improvement to enhance the health and safety of workers. She holds a Graduate Diploma in OHS, a Graduate Certificate in Management and a Diploma in Professional Coaching and is currently completing Master of Arts Research at Griffith University. Catherine is an accredited OHS Management Systems Auditor (Exemplar Global), Fire Safety Advisor (QFRS) and Licenced Private Investigator (Queensland Government) and is also one of Queensland’s approved panel Self-Insurance Auditors. She has also completed professional development in Mental Health First Aid and Neurodiversity in the Workplace. Catherine is a Certified Professional Member of the Australian Institute of Health and Safety (AIHS) and serves on the National College of Fellows Mentoring Committee.

Catherine has led high performing, multi-disciplinary OHS teams across a diverse range of organisations and industries and worked in senior roles in the private, not-for-profit and public sectors including as the Director of Health and Safety for the Department of Emergency Services in Queensland. Most recently Catherine has designed a new approach to the management of health and safety for neurodivergent workers and established “The Neurodiverse Safe Work Initiative” which is attracting international attention. Since 2019 Catherine has served as a Board Member for Protect All Children Today (PACT) a not-for-profit organisation that provides support to vulnerable child witnesses required to give evidence in the Queensland Criminal Justice System.

 

Shannon Lorimer

Chief Information Security Officer
KPMG Australia

Shannon Lorimer is the Chief Information Security Officer of KPMG Australia and has 24 Years of experience in security, intelligence, and investigations. She is very active in multiple Global and Regional Security initiatives and advisory committees within KPMG. In her last role she spent two years in leadership at ANZ Bank developing a human risk, investigations and insider threat program. Prior to that she was the Deputy Director for Security at the Department of the Navy from 2015 to 2018, overseeing security for the United States Navy and Marine Corps, strategic planning and budgets for security, policy, operations, investigations, intelligence, and security. Shannon has a robust history in standing up and leading complex Government Agency Security Programs, including programs such as Continuous Evaluation, Insider Threat, and playing an essential part in automating components of the Security Clearance Process through the use of big data across the Government and Privacy Sectors. She was instrumental to the development of the Executive Order on Insider Threat, Privacy Exemptions for use of Social Media for Vetting, and creation of the US Department of Defense Big Data Platform for Continuous Evaluation and Background Investigations.

 

John Molnar

KPMG

Currently working for the Management Consulting branch of KPMG, John’s career spans the corporate, government and Defence sectors. Recently he has completed two years supporting the Victorian Government’s response to COVID 19 in both a Defence and Public Service capacity. In these recent roles, John led Strategic Planning teams working on the practical analysis and application of data to develop response planning and inform decision making during the pandemic.

His prior experience extends to international engagement in both commercial business primarily focused on the Asia Pacific region and defence where has built multi agency and culturally diverse executive teams with a strong focus on organisational design and leadership development.

 

Emerald Sage

Head of Intelligence Services

OSINT Combine

Prior to joining OSINT Combine as Head of Intelligence Services, Emerald spent over a decade working within the Federal Government's security and intelligence community. Emerald has worked across a range of national security programs including: Counter-Terrorism, Counter-Intelligence, Cyber Security, Insider Threats and Personnel Vetting. Emerald has applied a diverse array of operational counter measures to this work including open-source intelligence (OSINT).  Emerald is thrilled to be speaking about OSINT and how it can be used to ethically generate capability uplift and foster collaboration amongst the international intelligence community on national security issues.  

 

Benjamin Scott

Financial Crime Compliance
Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Benjamin Scott works in financial crime compliance at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, where he leads an intelligence team. He spent eight years as a financial intelligence analyst at the New South Wales Crime Commission. He has degrees in history and law. His academic articles have been published in the Journal of Financial Crime and the Journal of Money Laundering Control. Benjamin's research interests include intelligence methods, financial crime law and the history of organised crime. He also has a particular interest in the use of data analytics and intelligence technology in detecting financial crime.

 

Rajiv Shah

Managing Director
MDR Security

Rajiv Shah has over 25 years of experience in the cyber, data and digital business, and runs a boutique consulting firm providing strategic, business and technical advice. He is also a Fellow of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and has published a number of policy papers for them. His earlier career has included a range of senior technical and business leadership roles at major multinational companies, establishing and running various cyber focussed business units.

Rajiv’s experience includes working with clients in the UK, USA and Australia, across the full project lifecycle – from business analysis and design through development and into implementation and operation. He is a regular speaker at industry conferences and contributor to industry publications.

Before joining the commercial world, Rajiv completed a PhD in computational physics and retains a keen interest in mathematics and science.

 

Meg Tapia

Principal Director, National Security and Safety
Accenture

Meg is a seasoned national security and foreign policy practitioner focused on intelligence capability and technology, based on over 20 years of experience in Commonwealth and state governments including 16 years as a diplomat. As Principal Director, National Security and Safety, Accenture, she brings the best of Accenture's sovereign and global network to help government clients build their digital core, optimise their operations, and shape a better future. Meg co-hosts the Women in National Security (WiNS) Podcast and champions the strategic benefits of diversity in Australia’s national security community. She has been awarded the Australian Operational Service Medal and NATO Medal for her civilian service in Afghanistan and several departmental awards during her time with DFAT. Meg is an MBA candidate at Deakin University, has a Master of Policy Studies (International) from Sydney University and a Bachelor of Arts (Sociology/Politics) from Macquarie University.

 

Dr Tim van Gelder

Director
The Hunt Laboratory for Intelligence Research, The University of Melbourne

Tim van Gelder is Director of the Hunt Laboratory for Intelligence Research at the University of Melbourne. Most of his career has been devoted to understanding human thinking and how it can be improved, with particular focus on reasoning. This has included developing new ways to teach critical thinking in undergraduate courses, developing software to support reasoning processes, and providing consulting and training for large organisations in government, corporate, and professional services arenas. In 2017-2020, he was co-lead of a major research program ("SWARM") funded by the US Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity under its CREATE program.  

 

Andrew Vild

Kuva Space

Andrew Vild has a varied background in Engineering, Entrepreneurship, Military and Training. With experience working across Africa and Asia as well as the technology landscape, he now consults for Defence and for a Hyperspectral Satellite company developing CubeSats to provide Hyperspectral Imaging insights to agriculture, carbon accounting, emissions monitoring and national security. 

 

Associate Professor Patrick Walsh, PhD

Associate Professor, Intelligence and Security Studies
Charles Sturt University

Patrick F. Walsh, PhD, is a former intelligence analyst who has worked in Australian national security and law enforcement agencies. He is an associate professor, intelligence and security studies at the Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security, Charles Sturt University, Australia. He consults to government and his research focuses on a range of intelligence capability issues including governance, leadership, intelligence and ethics, biosecurity, health security and cyber.

He is the author of Intelligence and Intelligence Analysis, Routledge, UK 2011; Intelligence, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, Palgrave Macmillan, UK, 2018; and Intelligence Leadership and Governance. Building Effective Intelligence Communities in the 21st Century, Routledge, 2020.

 

More speakers to be announced soon.