Chris has been with SonicWall since January 2016, where was responsible for North America sales, including marketing and distribution.  In August 2016 he transitioned from North America to Americas sale leader with the addition of Central and South America. Chris lead the transition of SonicWall from a mixed direct and channel company to a 100% channel centric company as SonicWall separated from Dell.

Chris previously with Dell since 1998 where he started in product development as a test engineer, then moving to create a team solely focused on providing direct access for engineering into a small group of customers to drive innovation.  Chris spent the next 7 years as a technology strategist.   Moving into sales leadership, for four years Chris built and led a team of technology strategists focused on public sector customers globally, and created a team focused exclusively on networking.  In 2011, Chris became responsible for Enterprise Systems sales in Dell’s Large Enterprise segment (Server, Storage, and Networking) roughly a $1B business.  His role expanded to Server, Storage, and Networking sales in Dell’s Large Institution Segment which contains the largest public sector and private sector customers across the US, roughly a $2.4B annual business. In January 2016 Chris transitioned to lead the North America Network Security business.  In his current function, Chris is responsible for the overall P&L of Network Security (SonicWall) for all technologies and routes to market.

Jennifer M. Blatnik is vice president of cloud and enterprise marketing at Juniper Networks with a focus on marketing cloud solutions, enterprise deployments of routing, switching, security and SDN products. Blatnik specializes in deployment topologies in enterprise core networks, WAN access, Data Center Interconnects and campus and branch LAN networks. At Juniper, Blatnik has held leadership positions in product line management in routing and Junos software. Before joining Juniper, Blatnik was the director of product management at Cisco and has served as a telecommunications consultant, and in various capacities with Pacific Bell/SBC and Lucent Professional Services in Amsterdam.

Tom Ervin has been supporting the FBI with cyber forensics analysis for the past sixteen years.  He specializes in computer intrusions and the dissection of computer viruses and worms.  In 2000, Tom helped establish the FBI's first malicious code laboratory at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C.  He has been working at the San Antonio Division since 2010, supporting the Cyber Squad on criminal and national security investigations.  Tom holds BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering.

Aaron Geer has more than 18 years of experience in the IT industry.  In that time, Aaron has led a sales team at Avnet and excelled in various roles.  In these roles, Aaron was directly responsible for creating new businesses, relationships and partnerships in both public sector (FED/SLED) and commercial markets.  He focuses on marketing strategies for sales of security software on-premise and in the cloud, servers, storage, professional services and financing.

Lance James is an internationally renowned information security specialist. He has more than fifteen years of experience in programming, network security, digital forensics, malware research, cryptography design, cryptanalysis, counterintelligence and protocol exploitation. He provides advisory services to a wide range of government agencies and Fortune 500 organizations including America’s top financial services institutions. Credited with the identification of Zeus and other malware, James is an active contributor to the evolution of security practices and counterintelligence tactics and strategies. James was the founding force behind the CryptoLocker Working Group, where he and his team of researchers were acknowledged for their critical role in disrupting CryptoLocker.

Matt Johnson is the CEO and Co-Founder of Phalanx Secure Solutions a pure play Cyber Security consulting firm based out of Baltimore, MD. With over 20 years in the industry Matt brings life to the vision of Phalanx Secure as a premier IT Cyber Security Consulting source for any sized business. He oversees the design, marketing, promotion, delivery, and quality of programs, products, and services, assuring that the organization and its mission, programs, products and services are consistently presented in strong, positive image.

Security Industry veteran at this stage with particular expertise in web filtering and anti-spam solution deployments both in the cloud and on-premise.  

Dean Shroll is Director of Sales Engineering at Sophos.  He has worked in the technology industry for 17 years, with a focus in network security for the past 12 years. He previously held roles at Electronic Data Systems (EDS), 7-Eleven, and Fortinet. He was part of a 7-Eleven task force to combat data breeches and played a key role in PCI compliance.

Robert Westervelt is a Research Manager within IDC's Security Products group. He provides insight and thought leadership in the areas of cloud security, mobile security, and security related to the Internet of Things (IoT). Rob is also responsible for research and analysis around a wide range of evolving security markets, including endpoint security, security and vulnerability management (SVM), and identity and access management (IAM). Prior to joining IDC, Rob was senior editor at The Channel Company where he led the information security news coverage, reporting on threats, vulnerabilities and technology trends impacting the security market for CRN.