What a CISO Summit it was!
We recently hosted the Team8 CISO Village for our largest CISO Summit to date, where we welcomed 130 global CISOs from leading enterprises for a week in Tel Aviv. To top it off, we held our annual Rethink event to launch Cyber Week, bringing together 500+ industry leaders, leading entrepreneurs, government officials, and global VCs.
This year’s event focused on two major themes. The first was personal and professional resilience: CISOs face various challenges, risks, and liabilities that all take a toll; at the event, we explored ways to build resilience that go beyond technology and encompass elements such as downtime, recovery, and community. The second area of focus was innovation – including the latest developments in generative AI, and their potential impact on enterprise security.
Over the five days of the event, we had a ton of great content, networking opportunities, and a really incredible lineup of speakers – including Chris Inglis, the Former Cyber Director of the White House,, Lt. Gen Aviv Kochavi, the Former IDF Chief of Staff and Joe Sullivan, the former CISO of Uber, Meta and Cloudflare.
Celebrating Cybersecurity Innovation
Innovation Night was one of the main highlights of this year’s CISO Summit. I had the pleasure of hosting this event, which was all about celebrating cybersecurity innovation and showcasing the next generation of startups originating from Israel.
Innovation Night started with startup pitches. 12 of Israel’s finest and most promising cybersecurity startups had the chance to present their innovations to a group of world-class CISOs, get feedback, and compete for the CISO’s Audience Choice Award.
Each company was given 10 minutes to present and answer the CISOs’ questions. This was followed by roundtable sessions, where the CISOs had further opportunity to directly interact with the startups. Attendees then ranked each startup – with the award going to the highest-ranked startup.
When the voting was done, we held the CISO Village Awards Ceremony. We revealed the winning startup, and also recognized outstanding individuals in the cybersecurity industry for their contributions to community development, thought leadership, diversity and inclusion, and lifetime accomplishments.
The evening concluded with a special conversation moderated by Team8 Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Nadav Zafrir, alongside former IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi and the Co-CEO of Standard Industries, David Millstone. The panel explored ways to cultivate innovation in traditional industries such as defense and manufacturing and how those same lessons can ring true for startups.
The Awards
Without further ado, let’s move on to the winners of the night!
The CISO Village Choice Award
This award was presented based on attendee rankings of the companies that presented during Innovation Night. The startups participating were: Akeyless, Astrix, Dig Security, Gem Security, IONIX, Salt, Seemplicity, Silverfort, Talon, Torq, Transmit and Vena Security.
Each of these startups is doing something new and interesting to advance the field. It takes a lot of resilience to build a successful company in 2023 – and to pitch your idea in front of an audience of 130 CISOs.
And the winner was…Dig Security
Dig and their Co-Founder and CEO, Dan Benjamin impressed attendees with their cloud-native data security platform, which is solving one of the most pressing security challenges: the need to protect unprecedented amounts of sensitive data in increasingly-complex cloud environments. While this field is busy with vendors, Dig’s technology gives it an edge by providing real-time data detection and response capabilities, which enable its customers to remediate data exposure and compliance violations in minutes.
Congrats to the entire Dig team for their well-deserved win! We’re looking forward to seeing what you’ll come up with next.
The Cyber Community Development Award
The Cyber Community Development Award recognizes leaders who have gone above and beyond in fostering a collaborative, thriving community within cybersecurity. This award is given to individuals who have not only made a significant impact in their own organizations but have also dedicated their expertise and time to uplift their peers and elevate the entire ecosystem.
Israel Grimberg, Team8 co-founder and former head of the Intelligence Unit 8200’s Cyber Division, along with Ann Johnson, Corporate Vice President of Security, Compliance, and Identity Business Development at Microsoft, announced the winner: Cassio Goldschmidt, CISO at ServiceTitan.
Cassio has shown long-standing dedication and made broad contributions to the security and privacy community. These include supporting various security initiatives, coining new terminology, and introducing innovative practices. He also developed the Practical Privacy for Products and Services course, which has helped inform over 12,000 learners worldwide.
The Thought Leadership Award
This accolade was given to an individual who has shared thought-provoking work on a wide range of cybersecurity policies, and which has profoundly impacted the community through writing, campaigns, or speaking engagements.
Team8 Enterprise’s Managing Partner, Amir Zilberstein, and Petrofac’s CISO George Eapen (who was part of our esteemed judging committee), were proud to present the Thought Leadership award to Marietje Schaake, International Policy Director at the Cyber Policy Center and International Policy Fellow at the Institute for Human-Centered AI, Stanford University.
Marietje is a staunch advocate for human rights, digital rights, and democratic values. She has dedicated her career to the promotion of ethical and responsible policies in the digital age; in doing so, she has extensively contributed to shaping global governance and technology policies. The judges commended her continuous impact, and pointed out her notable influence and impact on a global scale. Ms. Schaake donated her award prize to The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School.
An honorable mention in the category went to Renee Gutman-Stark, Founder and CISO at CisoHive, who has consistently demonstrated her commitment to advancing the industry through insightful perspectives, original research, and thought-provoking content.
The Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion Award
The DEI Award is a recognition for individuals committed to enhancing the representation and engagement of underrepresented minorities in the cybersecurity industry. It was presented by Boaz Mizrahi, Partner at Meitar Law Firm, and Derek Vadala, Chief Risk Officer at BitSight.
The winner was Alexander Schuchman, CISO at Colgate-Palmolive, for his work on Colgate’s Abilities Network Resource group. His tireless efforts in nurturing and affirming the cultural values of employees from different backgrounds, and his determination to create an inclusive environment for people with disabilities, make him an exemplary leader in this respect. Alexander decided to donate his prize to NPower, a non-profit organization providing cybersecurity training for underrepresented individuals.
An honorable mention in the category was awarded to Thomas Leen, Global CISO at BHP, for his pioneering initiative — the “Neurodiverse Hub” at BHP. This initiative focuses on unlocking the potential of individuals with neurological conditions like ADD/ADHD, Dyslexia, and Autism, acknowledging their unique abilities and skills that greatly benefit IT and cybersecurity sectors.
The Lifetime Accomplishment Award
We concluded the awards ceremony with the prestigious Lifetime Accomplishment Award, presented to a CISO who has shown exceptional dedication, leadership, and innovation in the cybersecurity field throughout their career.
Nadav Zafrir, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Team8, alongside Jerry Geisler, the Global CISO/SVP at Walmart and a member of our esteemed judging committee, unveiled the award recipient: Phil Venables, CISO at Google Cloud.
A visionary in his own right, Phil has consistently brought in a wealth of knowledge and innovative approaches to the field of cybersecurity. His ability to bridge complex technical concepts into practical, business-friendly solutions has made him a go-to guide for leaders and decision makers, and has helped redefine the understanding of risk management across organizations. Mr. Venables chose to donate his prize to Cyversity, an organization focused on increasing representation of women, minority groups, and all veterans in the cybersecurity industry.
See You All Next Year!
The CISO Summit was a truly inspiring event. The personal and professional connections, and the experiences we shared during this week are testament to the power of our CISO Village. And with challenges that are more pressing than ever, the community and support channels that are formed at these events play an important role in building resilience.
You can count on next year’s CISO Summit to be even better. I personally can’t wait.