Hernandez has been an influential figure across government, driving improvements in cybersecurity and being an early advocate and thought leader for zero trust architecture. Beyond his leadership at DOE, he also serves as vice chairman of the Federal CISO Council and government chairman of the ACT-IAC Cybersecurity Community of Interest. He consistently stresses the importance of engaging with industry on new approaches to cybersecurity and mentoring the next generation of cybersecurity leaders. Hernandez has also worked with the General Services Administration to help automate and streamline the processing of security control requirements for cloud service providers under FedRAMP.

Sean Frazier is Federal CSO at Okta. In his role, Sean acts as the voice of the CSO for Okta's federal business. Prior to joining Okta, Sean spent more than 25 years working in technology and public sector security for companies such as Duo Security, Netscape, LoudCloud/Opsware, Proofpoint, Cisco & MobileIron. Sean has helped lead numerous projects used by the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community, including the Fortezza Crypto Card, Defense Messaging System (DMS) and many others. He also has extensive experience in identity and public key infrastructure (PKI), network, applications, mobile and IoT. Sean has testified in front of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on the importance of public/private partnership in protecting the nation’s digital infrastructure. Sean also advises public/private partnership working groups including ACT-IAC, ATARC and many others.

Jim has spent over 25 years in the technology space. He brings background across many technologies, creating solutions and products for the Federal and managed service markets. He started his career in software development, scripting, automation and operations. Prior to Palo Alto Networks, Jim spent 13 years as CTO for Iron Bow Technologies focused on developing and deploying solutions for the Federal Government. From 2004 to 2008 Jim managed the engineering team focused on the Army and DoD agencies for EMC Corporation. During his tenure, Jim used his security and scripting background to create automated STIG scripts used by EMC in hundreds of deployments throughout the DoD.

Prior to working with the Federal government, his background is in operations and solutions working in software development, telecommunications, service providers and managed services.

Jesse Trucks has worked in IT and Security operations for over twenty (20) years. In that time, he has worked for the US Department of Energy Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in security operations, D. E. Shaw Research (DESRES) supporting HPC clusters and supercomputers, and at multiple telecoms and MSPs. Trucks has extensive experience in designing and implementing risk mitigation and security programs, compliance auditing processes and systems, and defensive security operations. Trucks has worked for Splunk for over eight (8) years as a global security strategist.

Saeed Akhter serves as the Executive Security Advisor at Amazon Web Services. He leads the cloud security and compliance strategy, innovation, and business acceleration for Worldwide Public Sector customers and partners. With over two decades of experience in network architecture, cybersecurity, and cloud computing, Saeed helps organizations achieve their business and mission outcomes while enhancing their security posture and resilience in the cloud. He is responsible for developing the strategy to influence and measurably impact customers’ perceptions and experience around AWS’s cloud security and compliance capabilities. Prior to joining AWS, Saeed worked for over 28 years at Fortune 100 technology companies, including Cisco Systems, as a global Technology and Business Leader for Cybersecurity, Enterprise Networking, and Collaboration. Saeed has served as Chief Security and Chief Technology Officer, Board Member, and Advisor to Cloud and Cybersecurity Startups. He has served as a lead and co-lead for NIST public working groups on ZeroTrust and Multicloud.

Adam Cerini is a Partner Solution Architect leader at AWS. In his role, Adam helps AWS partners architect technical solutions and expand their business on AWS in the public sector. He also works as a security specialist and advises customers across industries design and implement secure environments on AWS. Adam has more than 15 years experience in cyber security. Previous to AWS Adam helped the US government to grow and train cyber operators through live and realistic cyber exercises at CMU/CERT.

George Jackson is Vice President of events at GovExec – the largest and most-influential media company in the public sector marketplace. George joined GovExec in October of 2020 to enhance the scale of their events and audience experiences.

He graduated from The Ohio State University in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in English. In 2006, he earned his master’s in broadcast journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park.

George spent the first five years of his journalism career at WJHL-TV in Johnson City Tenn. – beginning as an overnight producer for the station’s 6 a.m. broadcast. He advanced to lead on-air reporter for WJHL’s 11 p.m. newscast.

As a reporter, George examined the earnings of two non-profit hospital systems, felony charges filed against a local sheriff, predatory paving companies, a health benefits backlog for local veterans, and a series of cold-case murder investigations. He received an honorable mention for Best TV Reporter in the 2011 Tennessee AP Broadcast awards and won a Best Investigative Reporting award from Media General in 2010.

George joined DC’s ABC affiliate WJLA-TV in 2012 to produce Capital Insider, which won him an Emmy award. One year later, he developed and recorded the pilot episode of Government Matters – a program about the business of government. It debuted as a weekly show on Sunday, August 4th of 2013. George led Government Matters through September of 2020, expanded its reach to a daily worldwide audience, and produced its first feature-length documentary “The Dawn of Generation AI.”

George is from Toledo, Ohio. He lives with his wife, twin daughters, and a pair of rescue dogs in Northern Virginia.