Absolute Leadership

Charles Blauner is an internationally recognized expert independent advisor on Cyber Resiliency, Information Security Risk Management and Data Privacy.

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Charles is a Partner and CISO in Residence at Team8 Ventures and a Venture Advisor at the Cyber Mentors Fund. Charles is also the President of Cyber Aegis, a boutique cyber risk management consultancy.

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Previously, Charles had a distinguished career working on Information Security for over 30 years, 25 years in Financial Services, including being the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank, and most recently the Global Head of Information Security at Citi.

During this time, Charles held numerous industry leadership roles including Chair of the Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council (FSSCC), founding Director of the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC), and the Chair of the OpenGroup’s Security Program.

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Charles has worked closely with banking regulators around the world (OCC, FRB, BoE, MAS, and HKMA) to help reduce the risk posed by cyber threats to the financial sector at large.

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Charles is a regular conference speaker and has had the honor of appearing in front of US House and Senate committees.

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In 2015, Charles was recognized by his peers, winning the Wasserman Award, which recognizes outstanding career achievement and contribution to the Information Systems Audit, Control, Security, Risk Management, and/or Governance professions.

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Charles has a M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California (USC) and a B.S. in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).

Art Coviello is an active investor and advisor in the security industry, guiding a number of security startups as a private investor and in his roles as a Venture Partner at Rally Ventures (an early stage investor in business technologies), as an adviser to ClearSky Security Fund, and as a Senior Advisor to Blackstone’s Tactical Opportunities Group.

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Art Coviello served as Executive Chairman of RSA and Executive Vice President of EMC. Mr. Coviello has been a central figure within the information security industry for more than 25 years. His vision and strategic and financial management as long-time head of RSA helped drive the company’s growth to revenues of over $1 billion in 2014 when he retired. Under his leadership, he built the most respected, vendor agnostic event in cybersecurity, RSA Conference. His expertise and influence have made him a recognized leader in the industry. He is frequently a featured presenter at conferences and forums around the world, and he has played key roles in several national cyber-security initiatives.

Mr. Coviello serves on the Board of Directors at Synchrony Financial, Bugcrowd, Tenable, Capsule8, ZeroNorth, and SecZetta.

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Prior to RSA, Mr. Coviello had extensive executive management experience in several technology companies. He started his career as a certified public accountant at Deloitte, Haskins & Sells (Deloitte.)

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Mr. Coviello graduated magna cum laude from the University of Massachusetts in 1975 with a BBA, concentration in accounting.

John Zangardi is an executive with over three decades of experience as a leader in transforming and implementing information technology, and strengthening business initiatives and partnerships. As the President of Redhorse, John is responsible for streamlining daily operations for efficiency and growth. He is creating a path to center Redhorse as an industry leader in information technology and digital and data services. He also serves on the Board of Directors at Qualys and Symetrica. Previously, John worked at Leidos as a senior vice president responsible for business initiatives and strategic partnerships on key strategic areas such as digital transformation, security products/services, and logistics.

John has a track record of implementing information technology efficiently across his time in government service. His distinguished career includes Chief Information Officer for the Department of Homeland Security, where John led multiple initiatives to implement cybersecurity technology, cloud computing, and data analytics, and identity management and telecommunications. His work for DHS garnered recognition by Federal Computer Week for his work in transforming DHS into, “one of the federal government’s top IT performers.”

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Prior to his appointment as CIO of DHS, John was the Acting CIO at the Department of Defense (DoD) – a position he assumed from his role as Principal Deputy Chief Information Officer. During this time, John represented the Department at NATO’s C3 Board. He previously served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Information Operations, and Space, the Department of the Navy Chief Information Officer, and Director of Program Integration on the staff of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare. John began his time in government service in the US Navy as a Naval Flight Officer where he served in various staff and command assignments.

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A native of Scranton, Pa., he graduated from the University of Scranton. He earned a Master of Science degree from the Naval Postgraduate School and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from George Mason University, where his dissertation topic was the regulation of Top-Level Domain Names.