Call for Speakers
COVID-19 Message:
The safety and security of our attendees always comes first. We expect to hold our conference as we always have but understand that this could change based on CDC and WHO guidance. The EWF is sensitive to your needs and committed to giving opportunities to women to showcase & share their expertise. This year we’re asking everyone to be flexible and prepared when they submit that they may present in-person and/or through a virtual session.
We are looking for knowledgeable women who can passionately and effectively share their subject matter expertise, real life experiences, tools and templates with attendees of our 18th Annual Conference, October 20-22, 2020 at the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale at Gainey Ranch, Arizona.
If you are capable of providing thought leadership we ask that you please review our panel topics and submit to be a part of the annual conference. Panel descriptions are draft outlines that are open to your interpretation and ideas. We value creativity, innovative ideas and audience interactions. Each panel should provide take-away tools and solutions for attendees to utilize in their respective companies and/or positions.
If you are interested in being a speaker, please fill out our official submission form. You must submit a copy of your biography and the idea(s) of the panel or panels you wish to participate and the reasons why.
New Guidelines for 2020 Submissions
- Only the speakers themselves may submit. Any submission from a PR firm or marketing department will be immediately rejected.
- No product, vendor or individual business pitches.
- Incomplete submissions will be automatically disqualified.
- The EWF will prioritize any submission that includes a case study. Make sure you get permission to present your company’s case study before you submit your proposal.
- Those selected must be able to present in person and/or through a virtual session
- Direct any questions to conference@ewf-usa.com
Important Dates
- Final panelist submissions are due no later than July 30, 2020
- Acceptance notifications will be made the week of August 17, 2020
Session Working Title |
Description |
Format |
Category |
Looking to the Future |
Annually recurring panel open to senior executives only (C-levels or their plus 1) describing critical challenges and opportunities in the next 5+ years. Be prepared to substantiate and defend your predictions. Expect audience questions. |
Panel |
Interdisciplinary (security, IT risk, privacy) |
Strategies for Being Heard |
This is a hands-on, very practical session that helps women be heard - in meetings, amongst peers and throughout their organizations. The talk requires a handout describing proposed approaches and methods. Please bring real life examples showing how & why your methods are effective. |
Individual, breakout session |
Leadership |
Case Study: Managing Visibility |
This executive panel session will present real case studies on strategies and tactics for gaining more visibility in your company. Visibility leads to promotions, leadership in high value projects. How do women do it? Is it through mentorship, sponsorship, high potential programs? What other avenues are there? |
Panel |
Leadership |
Data as the Life Blood and High Risk for Corporations |
This session will show ways to handle the 2 sides of the same coin – data as a critical asset as well as a high risk to your company. This can be a single presenter session or a panel discussion. |
Individual speaker, breakout session, panel |
Privacy, Risk |
How to be a Great Presenter/Keynote |
This is a challenging session to conduct outside of a small group. The presenter should cover the key presentation areas, be an experienced keynote speaker, preferably with Ted Talk experience. There must be an interactive exercise as part of this session. Be sure to describe your qualifications and how you would approach an exercise when submitting for this talk. |
Individual speaker, breakout session |
Leadership |
How BISOs (Business Information Security Officers) bring policies to the business |
This panel should cover how BISOs bring policies to the business and how they help the business understand how to implement those policies. You should also be prepared to discuss the role of the BISO and metrics BISOs use to measure their effectiveness. A diverse panel is preferred showing either BISOs from multiple vertical markets or BISOs from one company who serve very different divisions or business units. |
Panel, breakout session |
Cyber |
Infosec & IT’s Struggle with Agile |
While the business is moving to Agile, information security and IT teams are struggling. This panel session would benefit from an interdisciplinary group of speakers representing business, IT Ops, Dev Ops, cyber and privacy. A Scrum Master would likely be the best candidate to host a spirited discussion. |
Individual speaker, breakout session |
Technical |
Emerging Threats Deep Dive |
A lot of conferences feature a session on emerging threats. We want to differentiate ourselves by addressing specific threats to vertical markets, especially critical infrastructure domains such as healthcare, financial, resource (water, gas, electric), military. This is meant to be a deep technical session showing which demonstrates what makes these threats critical, credible and how they’re different from the previous 5-10 years. |
Individual speaker, breakout session |
Technical |
Workshop on Cloud Security |
We require this workshop must be run by a practitioner and not a vendor. The workshop should focus on the key security and privacy features of major cloud vendors. Don’t forget to include not only the capabilities but also an enterprise’s cost to implement and support these features. This session is designed to go beyond the cloud basics and give the audience an intimate look at practitioner/customer experience securing their services in the cloud. Due to the unique insider view of this topic, speakers must ensure they have company permission to speak before submitting. |
Individual speaker, breakout session, workshop |
Technical |
The Unintended Consequences of AI and How It Can Add Risk to Your Business |
This session should look at ways AI is backfiring in the enterprise and what tools are at our disposal to fix the problem. While this is a business problem, some of the practical solutions to solving this are technical. |
Individual speaker, breakout session |
Technical |
Creative Ideas to Limit 3rd Party Risk that Go Beyond Contracts |
Speakers for this session must come from enterprises and not vendor companies. This session should be a behind-the-scenes look at creative approaches companies have used to limited 3rd party risk. In addition to infosec, let’s make sure we also include BCP and physical security as part of this discussion. |
Individual speaker, breakout session |
Risk |
Panel - Cyber Workforce Challenges |
This interdisciplinary panel should cover creative ways companies are retaining and attracting the limited talent pool. In addition, how will attracting and developing talent be different after COVID-19? What are companies doing that is successful or different? |
Panel |
Leadership |
Infosec, Privacy, Risk and Data |
Panel discussion format that discusses how these teams tie together and provide maximum value back to their companies. There should also be a candid discussion of the cost of not working well together. This session would be a good time for war stories and candid insights into what works well and what doesn’t. It’s also important for speakers to be prepared to talk about their org structure and how that plays into the dynamic. |
Panel |
Privacy, Risk, Cyber |
How Do I Keep Up? |
This session is a great opportunity for a co-presentation by an infosec/privacy/risk presenter and a chief human resource officer to show common training & career paths for security, risk and privacy professionals. Are certifications important? If so, which ones? What about regulatory risk and compliance training paths and certifications? In a post-COVID-19 world, has distance learning changed how we get training? |
Individual speaker, breakout session |
Personal Development |
Why Coaching Women to Act and be More Like Men Doesn't Work |
This session is open to Millennials because we would like the discussion to focus on what’s different in the workplace from a Millennial’s perspective. How do women not lose their authenticity, especially when working and surviving in predominantly male environments? This is a panel discussion where panelists with different viewpoints will be chosen. Be prepared to explain your viewpoint and make sure you belong to the Millennial generation before submitting. |
Panel |
Personal Development |
Deep Technical and Non-Technical Panel – Presenting to Opposite Audiences |
This panel or co-presentation is designed show approaches technical women use to communicate and interact with non-technical stakeholders. At the same time, non-technical women will discuss how they communicate effectively with technical stakeholders. Come prepared with tangible takeaways and key learnings. |
Panel |
Personal Development |
Real World Examples – Empowering & Promoting Women |
Designed as a case study, this session must address difficult situations and include the right way to approach them:
|
Panel |
Personal Development |
How to Navigate the Role of a Business Leader and a Technology Leader |
This panel of business and technology leaders will share their stories. Topics of interest include:
|
Panel |
Leadership |
Effectively Cross-pollinating Security, Risk and Privacy Teams |
Each area has operational teams, and when working well together can be a very powerful and efficient force. This session will explore how a single company, or 3 different women leveraged the power of bringing these groups together and leveraging each area’s operational teams. The session can be a case study from one company or have speakers represent from privacy, risk and cyber. |
Individual speaker, panel, breakout session |
Privacy, Risk, Cyber |
Better Resiliency – Converging Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plans |
In a post COVID-19 world, what lessons did we learn about business continuity and disaster recovery planning? Who’s doing this effectively? How? And did they anticipate this prior to COVID-19? |
Individual Speaker, breakout session |
Risk |
M&A: Getting to the Party Early |
A panel discussion to discuss practical ways to get privacy, risk and cybersecurity to the table faster during an acquisition. Pre-acquisition due diligence is critical, and there are many examples of companies who experienced data breaches or cyber security events shortly after an acquisition. This panel must show effective measures taken to get to the table early. |
Panel |
Privacy, Risk, Cyber |
How Has 3rd Party Risk Management Changed? |
Nearly 50% of certified 3rd party risk management professionals are women. How did that happen? How has the field changed over the years? Have cybersecurity, audit and risk managers made their way into 3rd party risk? Have changes been driven from the boardroom? |
Individual speaker, breakout session |
Risk |
Getting to the Next Level |
This is a panel of executives who tell their personal stories about how they reached corporate VP, C-level or partner. It’s important for the audience to learn how you attained a major promotion and took a big step into executive management. Things to include are as follows:
|
Panel |
Leadership |
Negotiation Techniques Workshop |
Negotiation is a part of everything we do. This session will show the principles of good negotiation and how they can be applied. The speaker should be prepared to discuss very tactical, hand-on approaches to using negotiation techniques in a variety of situations. |
Workshop |
Personal Development |
Audit & Compliance as Code |
Defining compliance and audit requirements that are both understandable to humans as well as machines is easier said than done. Applied DevOps teams work with audit, risk, compliance, and infosec teams to help test, deploy, monitor and report compliance across a large enterprise. This session is designed as a technical discussion from a DevOps perspective how this is accomplished and how enterprises benefit from audit & compliance as code. |
Individual speaker, breakout |
Technical |