Dr. Chris Peiris's information technology career spans over 25 years, the last 15+ years dedicated to cybersecurity. Chris is an avid publisher and a thought leader in the cybersecurity, enterprise architecture, and cloud integration spaces. He has advised Fortune 500 companies, federal and state governments, and defense and intelligence entities across the U.S., Asia Pacific Japan, Middle East Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

Chris is a published author of 10 books on multiple technologies, including cybersecurity, cloud computing, web services, C#, and Java topics. These books have been translated into nine languages and are available in 30+ countries. He is also an academic researcher at Monash University and University of Canberra. Chris was awarded an Associate Professorship (Adjunct) fellowship at the University of Canberra in recognition of academic research contributions to cybersecurity and cloud computing. He has multiple tertiary qualifications from Harvard University, the University of Canberra, and Monash University. He is an author of multiple academic research journals and frequent speaker at professional IT conferences.

Chris was the Director of Cybersecurity for Microsoft, Asia Pacific Japan, and Australia. He was also the National Security Lead for Avanade (Accenture and Microsoft joint venture) and an advisor to multiple defense and intelligence think tanks. Chris has assisted in creating “government wide secure threat management frameworks” in Taiwan, Singapore, New Zealand, and Australia. He also created incident response, security operations center/cyber fusion center, advisory services, and threat intelligence capabilities across Asia Pacific Japan, Middle East Africa, and Americas.

Binil Pillai is a strategic-thinking business development professional with 23 years of multifaceted experience building relationships, cultivating partnerships, retaining customers, and growing profit channels by establishing trust. As Global Director of Security, Compliance and Identity (SCI) at Microsoft, Binil focuses on the small, medium, and corporate segment and works with corporate executives to evangelize security as a foundational capability to accelerate a secure digital transformation journey. Binil has experience in security product development, managed security product marketing, and led worldwide security go-to-market and sales activations. He was the business architect who designed and launched the Business Value Analysis (BVA) model to quantify security risk exposure for B2B customers. Before joining Microsoft, Binil worked as a regional practice manager for Deloitte Consulting's strategy and operations practice. His business strategy consulting experience spans business transformation, corporate strategy alignment, post-merger integration, adoption and change management, customer relationship management, IT strategic planning, and more, with a wide range of companies and government agencies.

Binil is passionate about establishing a coaching culture to improve learning and performance, make the most of the people's potentials and deliver sustainable results. As a PROCI-certified change management practitioner, Binil embraces the leadership accountability to take a step-by-step approach that helps the organization achieve success, no matter how complex the system, process, method, or culture need to affect or transform. Binil graduated from INSEAD in Business Strategy & Financial Acumen and has a master's in business administration. He is TOGAF certified enterprise architect and account-based marketing (ABM) professional from ITSMA.

He has also published many thought leadership documents. His recent publications are “How COVID-19 Changes Small Medium Enterprise (SME) Priority on Security,” “Identity – Building Trust in a Digital World,” “How Does Your Cybersecurity Posture Need To Change?,” and “What Does It Take To Protect Your Workplace?”

Abbas Kudrati, a long-time cybersecurity practitioner and CISO, is Microsoft Asia's Chief Cybersecurity Advisor. Abbas works with customers on cybersecurity strategy, how Microsoft sees the threat landscape, how we are investing in the future of security at Microsoft, and how organizations can take advantage of Microsoft's security solutions to help improve their security posture and reduce costs.

In addition to his work at Microsoft, he serves as an executive advisor to Deakin University, LaTrobe University, HITRUST ASIA, EC Council ASIA, and many security and technology startups. He supports the broader security community through his work with ISACA chapters and student mentorship. He is also a part-time professor at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia, and a regular speaker on Zero Trust, cybersecurity, cloud security, governance, risk, and compliance.

Abbas has received multiple industry awards, such as “Business Leader/Professional of the year 2021 by IABCA,” “Top Security Advisor for APJ for the year 2020 and the year 2019,” “Best Security Professional of the year 2018,” “CISO 100 Award 2018,” “Finalist for Australian CISO of the year 2015,” “IT Governance Professional of the year 2014,” and “Security Strategist of the year 2011.”

He graduated from Gujarat University, India, with a bachelor's degree in Accounting and Auditing and is a certified Forrester Zero Trust Strategist, C|CISO, CISM, CISA, CGEIT, CPDSE, and CSX-P, among other professional certifications.