Speakers

Don Means Jr. is a Class of 1989 Illinois Institute of Technology graduate. He used his Bachelor of Science in Engineering as the foundation for a stellar career in IT, with 34 years of service, including as an officer in the U.S. Navy and as a civilian in the United States government. He has a Masters Degree in National Resource Strategy from National Defense University and is a Harvard Senior Executive Fellow.

Mr. Means holds a position that is equivalent to a two-star military general and currently serves as a senior executive at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service as the agency’s Chief Information Officer and Director of Information Technology. In this role, he oversees the I&T responsible for enabling the Department of Defense to uphold its fiscal responsibilities for all financial transactions, including payroll and accounting services, enterprise systems for financial transactions, and infrastructure support. Moreover, he ensures that all networks and transactions made through those networks are secure and cyber defended.

Prior to recently joining the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, Mr. Means served as a senior executive and director of the Defense Information Systems Agency’s Operations and Infrastructure Center. Mr. Means oversaw the Defense Information Systems Agency’s largest component, with a global workforce of 6,100 or one-third of the agency’s military, civilian, and contractor personnel. As center director, he led a multi-billion dollar cybersecurity portfolio and, in support of the Department of Defense’s mission, he was responsible for maintaining and defending the world’s third largest IT network next to the United States and China: the Defense Information Systems Network. His center installed and maintained enough optical fiber to wrap around the world more than two times and defended the Department of Defense's global network from hundreds of millions of attacks daily. Without his team's expertise and the capabilities they deliver, the United States cannot fight or support an ally in war.

He has dedicated his professional career to serving the United States and is among few who have the experience of doing so as a member of the armed forces, a civilian and as a member of industry, having spent several years as a senior engineer and analyst with Raytheon.

His commitment to the mission and to driving solutions has been recognized with numerous awards including the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Black Engineer of the Year Award, and most recently, the Exceptional Civilian Service Award. Mr. Means regularly engages with colleges and universities in support of their efforts to develop the future cyber workforce. To that end, he is currently serving on the Illinois Institute of Technology’s College of Computing Board of Advisors.

Kyle Black is a Security Strategist with the Symantec Enterprise Division of Broadcom - he currently leads the cross portfolio Zero Trust initiative within the business to ensure the Symantec Enterprise Cloud is able to deliver on the data-centric needs of the organizations it supports. Kyle has spent more than a decade in the cyber security industry focusing on Governance, Risk, and Compliance; User and Entity Behavior Analytics; Vulnerability Management, and Data Protection - key elements in the greater Zero Trust Architecture.