Maria Adebahr studied law and modern history in Paris, Halle, Siena, Florence, Berlin and New York. In 2004, after passing the second state law examination, she commenced work as a research fellow in the field of international law at the Freie Universität Berlin. In 2006 she entered the foreign service. Following her attaché training, Maria Adebahr took up her first post in the Afghanistan Task Force in Berlin. From 2009 she worked in the Press Division as a spokesperson for Afghanistan and Asia, before moving to the German Embassy in Tehran in 2011 to take up the post of Consul. In summer 2013 she moved to a new post in the political affairs section of the German Embassy in Washington, where she was responsible for the Middle East dossier. In 2016 Maria Adebahr returned to Berlin, joining the Federal Foreign Office Policy Planning Staff with responsibility for the United States. From February 2017 she served as Deputy Spokesperson for the Federal Foreign Office. She was appointed Spokesperson of the Federal Foreign Office in March 2018 before taking up service as Deputy Ambassador and Head of the Economic Department at the Embassy in Rome in September 2021.

She has held the post of Director for Cyber Foreign and Security Policy at the Federal Foreign Office since July 2024.

Maria Adebahr is married with two sons.

Nina Olesen, Head of Sector at ECSO and COO at the Women4Cyber Foundation, has over a decade of experience in the European cybersecurity landscape. She has been deeply involved in many cybersecurity projects, making contributions to the field that are focused on practical ways of addressing the gap of experts and diversity in cyber. In her current role, Nina is responsible for supervising all activities related to ECSO’s WG5 on ‘Skills & Human Factors’, including the Road2Cyber and Youth4Cyber initiatives, and leading the Women4Cyber team. In 2023, Nina was a Finalist for Belgium’s Cyber Security Personality of the Year Award.

Senior Capability Expert – Security & Trust at Plat4mation

As a Security & Trust expert at Plat4mation, a pure-play ServiceNow Elite partner, Maximilian advises customers globally on their information and cyber security strategy. He’s an expert in guiding customers on their maturity journey towards a single integrated Information & Cybersecurity program.

Associate Director Security & Trust at Plat4mation

Carel leads the Security & Trust practice at Plat4mation, a pure-play ServiceNow Elite partner, guiding organizations on their digital transformation journey with the Now® platform. As strategic advisor, Carel knows Integrated Risk Management, Cyber Security and Privacy inside out.

Zac Warren is Chief Security Advisor EMEA at Tanium and started his career in IT with a passion for cybersecurity and was a senior security analyst at a leading manufacturer of security platforms and later a cybersecurity architect and consultant for large system integrators. Zac has spent most of his career helping government agencies and several Fortune100 companies reorganize their security architectures, controls, policies, and procedures. Today, Zac is responsible for developing and supporting Tanium’s cybersecurity business in EMEA.

Lisa Lobmeyer works in Incident Response at HiSolutions as Team Lead, helping organizations affected by IT security incidents. She is responsible for managing HiSolutions daily IR business as well as advancing HiSolutions’ participation in various communities. She enjoys helping people discover hidden talents during crisis.

Shari Joosten is a Senior Cybersecurity Expert at Eye Security with a strong focus on incident response and security operations. As a Team Lead, he’s streamlined processes, enhanced security workflows, and tackled everything from email fraud to ransomware. Shari’s technical expertise spans designing alert pipelines, investigating complex threats, and optimizing secure software on AWS. With a deep passion for cybersecurity and a hands-on approach, Shari is the go-to expert when things get critical.

From a young age, Michael knew that he had found his challenge in technology; building systems and applications is interesting, but breaking and manipulating systems in ways that were not intended is way more interesting. After his studies, Michael worked as an offensive cybersecurity specialist in the field of server and (web-)application infrastructures, after which he made the transition to Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) specialist and coördinator. In his current role, Michael leads the Security Operations team at Eye Security, fighting cybercrime on the European SMB market.

Bruce Watson is Chief Advisor (Technology) at Canada’s National Security Centre of Excellence, AI Subject Matter Expert to the Government of Canada, and Co-Director of AI Research at the African Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence.

Bruce was the Founding Director of Computational Thinking for AI at the Centre for AI Research, as well as Full or Visiting Professor at various universities, such as TU Eindhoven, King’s College London, Stellenbosch, and Pretoria. Bruce’s research is at the intersection of quantum computing, cryptography (especially post-quantum cryptography), national security, and explainable AI. He is particularly interested in cryptographic agility and the technical and social effects of the looming arrival of quantum computing.

His research has found diverse applications in various fields, such as reactive cyber-defense, long COVID-19 diagnosis, fish farming, yeast growth in closed systems, success predictors for women in business, and winemaking – and was recently featured in CNN’s Inside Africa. Bruce’s book “The Correctness-by-Construction Approach to Programming” (with Derrick Kourie) is the leading work on provably correct techniques, mostly for life-critical systems.

Globally, almost all data will pass through something Bruce worked on — thanks to his R&D work at Microsoft, Cisco, and ASML over some decades. He currently serves as an advisor to several companies in a variety of cryptography, cybersecurity, and AI applications.

Bruce’s first PhD is in Algorithm Taxonomies from Eindhoven, after studying Combinatorics & Optimization and Computer Science in Waterloo. He later returned to Eindhoven as Chair of Software Construction. His second PhD is in Compact Graphs from Pretoria.

He is a frequent moderator and participant at various conferences, such as NATO’s flagship CyCon conference as well as the Munich Security Conference. Academically, he has more than 100 publications to his name, and he has supervised more than a dozen PhD students and 45 Master’s students, most of whom graduated Cum Laude.

Louis Jarvers is a senior consultant for tech and security at “PD” – a public sector consultancy exclusively owned by the German state. Louis holds an MPA from Columbia University and an MPP from Hertie School Berlin, where he specialized on cyber security, intelligence and data analytics. In his works, he focuses on Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and disinformation with particular regards to emerging technologies. He serves as an external advisor to German law enforcement and security agencies.