I have been reminded every year by my friends and mentors in this industry why we do what we do:

• We protect the lives and assets of our communities.
• We advance excellence in our profession.
• We intentionally share and collaborate although we are in different, perhaps competitive, organizations.

We are risk, resilience and security professionals.

In a few days, I will be joining the best of the best in our profession to share what we know today and to look into our future. And those of us who have been to The Great Conversation in Security, sponsored by Security magazine, will know that we will walk away with a reaffirmation of our purpose, as well as learnings that will take our program and our professional acumen to the next level.

Take John Turey, Vice President of Enterprise Risk and Security Management (ESRM) for TE Connectivity. John will kick-off the forum by anchoring how business executives (CEO, COO, CFO, CTO) are thinking about enterprise risks and what we can do to enhance our role as a strategic enterprise business partner. Walk away with a high-level framework in which you can leverage then engage the “enterprise owners of risk” in your organization.

Or Tyson Aiken, the Director of Global Security at Nike, Inc.: You may be building on ESRM, but without assessing and leveraging your culture, you have a program with serious risks.

And without a new approach to how you construct your technology architecture so that you can have a 360-degree dashboard around the measures of performance in risk, resilience, process optimization and technology, you cannot see where you are going. Lynn Mattice, a four-time CSO and now a thought-leader in the value transformation of security, moderates a panel on how this might be done. We are following this panel with breakouts in intelligent communications, a 360-degree case study, edge security and machine learning in surveillance. Because, without knowing where the technology is going, we cannot inform and infuse the planning of our future.

Dr. Thomas Cellucci, who once was an advisor to the White House while he was in Homeland Security, provides a first-hand account of how technology expertise must be embedded in our security risk and optimization efforts. The future will inform the present, but not without changing how we do risk assessments and security strategy and planning.

Dr. Michael Gelles, an expert in insider threat will provide a holistic view of the mitigation efforts needed to address 70 percent of the breaches that invariably will occur without adequate planning.

Two panels of CSOs and technology domain expertise will discuss how to treat your actionable response in terms of seconds rather than minutes. And well as how to proactively identify who is in your building and on your campus.

And, finally, the one missing element in most planning efforts that might forever change your approach to security. Kristina Anderson, the Executive Director of the Koshka Foundation, has taken her experience as a victim of an active shooter event to a great conversation with senior risk and security leaders in our industry. Her message is not only powerful, but her insights incredibly valuable in building a safe, secure and resilient culture of security.

They are all giving generously of their knowledge, time and wisdom. And all we have to do is listen, learn and share in return.

Editor’s note: The Great Conversation in Security is March 5-6 on the waterfront in Seattle. Register here: https://www.the-great-conversation.com/