Michael Farnum

Michael Farnum is the CEO and co-founder of CYBR.SEC.Community.

Michael has been in the IT and Information Security fields since 1994. During this time, Michael has held numerous senior cybersecurity consulting, architecture, and leadership roles in various industries such as healthcare, staffing, and software development. Michael has spent the last several years working for cybersecurity solutions providers in the consulting, application security, and reseller spaces, where he has helped numerous organizations assess and build their security and compliance programs.

In 2010, Michael founded HOU.SEC.CON, a non-profit cybersecurity conference in Houston, with over 1000 attendees annually. In addition to organizing a security conference, Michael often speaks at conferences such as RSA, Infosecurity Europe, and several BSides events, and he is also a prolific cybersecurity podcaster.

Prior to his career in IT and security, Michael spent 2+ years as a land surveyor, and he also served in the US Army and drove an M1A1 main battle tank in Desert Shield and Storm.

James Bryant

James “JB” Bryant is a speaker, mentor, and connector who helps people turn life experience into career opportunity, with a focus on cybersecurity and technology. With a background in athletics and entrepreneurship, JB brings a practical, people-first approach to growth, centered on communication, relationships, and accountability. His leadership style is rooted in discipline, real-world problem solving, and a deep ability to connect with others. Known for his energy and authenticity, JB focuses on helping individuals navigate career transitions with clarity and confidence. He is passionate about helping people recognize their value, take ownership of their next move, and create momentum into the cybersecurity space. He believes that when people gain clarity and take action, they can shift their entire trajectory. 

Dan D'Armond

Dan D’Armond serves as Vice President of the American Heart Association and oversees the national Paul “Bear” Bryant Awards honoring excellence in college football coaching both on and off the field. Prior to this role, he served as the American Cancer Society’s Senior Executive Director leading the organization’s community outreach initiatives throughout Houston and Southeast Texas.

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Prior to joining the ACS, Daniel served as BMC Software’s Director of Community and Government Relations for 19 years. During this time, he was the principal architect for the company’s community relations programs covering corporate headquarters as well as 12 major sites across the U.S as well as throughout Canada, Latin America, Europe, India, Israel and Asia Pacific. He managed a multi-million dollar budget that included philanthropic gifts and sponsorships and led the company’s government relations program covering federal and state legislative issues. Prior to his role in community and government relations, D’Armond served as Senior Manager, Corporate Public Relations where he provided strategic direction and served as principal contact for national broadcast, daily business and trade media outlets regarding BMC’s strategic direction as well as business and financial operations.

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D’Armond has also served as Public Affairs Specialist – Deputy Press Secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy where he was responsible for coordination of all media relations for the Deputy Secretary, the number two-ranking official and top spokesperson at the department. He also served as Confidential Assistant to the Press Secretary for the U.S. Department of Agriculture where he assisted in the coordination of all media relations activities for the Secretary and the department.

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D’Armond is currently serving in many aspects of the Houston community including: Volunteer Houston (past president, Board of Directors), Corporate Community Relations Council (Past President and Current Membership Chair), Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo (Board of Directors and past chairman of Western Heritage Community Challenge Committee, Houston Children’s Charity (Board of Directors), Devereux Texas Treatment Network (Advisory Board) and Theatre Under the Stars (Board of Directors).

Jamie Zolan

Jamie Zolan is a cybersecurity professional specializing in governance, risk, and compliance (GRC), with experience supporting enterprise security programs through consulting, security standards development, and technical documentation. Her work focuses on translating complex security requirements into practical guidance for engineering teams. She has contributed to initiatives spanning secure development, data protection, incident response, and operational technology (OT) security aligned with frameworks such as NIST, OWASP, PCI DSS, and IEC 62443. Jamie serves on the board of CYBR.SEC.Careers to help expand accessible pathways into cybersecurity careers.

Dan Broussard

Dan Broussard is a seasoned cybersecurity executive with nearly three decades of experience leading high-performing enterprise sales organizations, building strategic channel ecosystems, and delivering sustained revenue growth across the cybersecurity and enterprise technology landscape.    Dan is known for his ability to blend strategic vision with operational execution, consistently delivering growth while building strong customer and partner relationships across the cybersecurity ecosystem.  Dan is currently the VP of global channel and alliances at Concentric.AI, a start-up company in data security.

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He holds a Bachelor of Science degree with a minor in Chemistry from Louisiana State University and has completed advanced sales and leadership training including MEDDIC certification, EcSell Institute management training, and Sandler sales methodology.

Paula deWitte

Paula S. deWitte, J.D., Ph.D,. P.E., holds a Ph.D. (Computer Science, TAMU, 1989) and a J.D. (St. Mary’s University School of Law, 2008). She is a licensed attorney in Texas and a registered patent attorney with the USPTO. She holds a Bachelors and Masters from Purdue University where in 2015 she was honored as the Distinguished Alumna in the Department of Mathematics, School of Science. She is an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Texas A&M University Law School and a Professor of Practice Emerita in Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University. Prior to joining Texas A&M University, she started several small technology businesses one of which was awarded a patent [US Patent US 8812236 B1]. Her interests are in cybersecurity law and policy and cybersecurity risk. She designed, developed, and delivers multiple courses on these subjects to myriad audiences. She serves as a Technical Director to several Houston-area high tech companies and on the Advisory Board for the Center for International Studies at St. Thomas University in Houston.

Gary Leibowitz

Gary Leibowtiz is a Technology Executive with extensive and diversified international experience in cybersecurity and high-tech Consulting, Product Management and Business Development.

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Gary’s experience includes VP positions at BMC, General Manager of Panda Security USA, EVP at Dexa Systems and Director, Americas at Claroty. Over the past 15 years, Gary has been focusing on and an SME of Industrial Cybersecurity,  directly involved in major projects protecting critical infrastructure with some of the largest global organizations.

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Currently Gary is Board Member of ThreatGen, ERASCOGroup and CYBR.SEC.Community, and Advisor Board Member of SecurityGate.io, AuthMind, and Hexight.

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In the past Gary was Board Member of InfraGard Houston Chapter and Advisor Board Member of Nolio (acquired by CA Technologies), GreenSQL (acquired by Hexatier), SAManage (acquired by SolarWinds), SkyFormation (acquired by Exabeam), Sealights Technologies (acquired by Tricentis) and Silverfort.

Anne Rogers

Ms. Rogers provides clients with technical and management consulting in Information Systems and Network management, Information security, solutions and compliance planning and design, performance and capacity management, as well as computer forensics and eDiscovery. From 2012 through 2021 she served as CIO for El Centro de Corazon, a non-profit, Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) with four locations in Houston, TX. From 2002 through early 2012, she was the Director, Information Safeguards for Waste Management responsible for company-wide information security and privacy protection strategy and compliance programs, information protection policies, procedures, and guidelines, and the company’s formal security awareness program. At Waste Management she established and managed an ASCLD certified Digital Forensics Lab and computer forensics program providing internal investigation and eDiscovery support. Prior to Waste Management, Rogers held positions as Principal Consultant with PMTech-Pro, LLC., Technical Program Manager with IBM, Technical Staff consultant for MITRE Corp, Director of Information Systems for Warren King Companies, and Deputy Director of Data Automation, USAF Alaskan Air Command. Ms. Rogers is a long-time member of ISSA and an ISSA Distinguished Fellow. She has served multiple terms as President of the ISSA South Texas chapter, was a founding member of the ISSA CISO Executive Forum, and served for ten years on the CISO Advisory Committee. From 2004-2006 she served as a Director and from 2013-2019 as a Director and then COO on the ISSA International Board. Ms. Rogers was a founding member and board member of the Corporate eDiscovery Forum. She is also a long-time member of InfraGard, former board member of the Houston InfraGard Chapter, has previously served as board member on several startup technology companies, and for many years was a board member for the non-profit Pregnancy Resource Center (now Pregnancy Resource Medical Center) in Rosenberg, TX. As an Adjunct Professor, Ms. Rogers developed and taught graduate level courses for St Thomas University, U of Houston, and SMU covering subjects such as Cyber Security, Risk Management, Data Structures, and Project Management. Rogers holds a B.S. in Physics from U.T. El Paso and an MBA from the University of Utah, Salt Lake. She holds CISSP, IAM and IEM Security certifications, the Project Management Institute’s PMP certification, and formerly held the CCE and EnCE forensics certifications. 

Sam Van Ryder

Sam Van Ryder is the co-founder of CYBR.SEC.Community, Director of Strategic Accounts at Dragos, and an Industrial Cybersecurity and Community Advocate. With his background in engineering, Sam has grown a passion for securing critical infrastructure and have been working with CIO's, CISO's and CSO's of owner/operators of these organizations to help identify and reduce the risk impact of security breaches both in IT and OT/Industrial environments. For over 20 years, Sam has helped companies in many verticals (Energy, O&G and others) achieve their risk management goals by applying a consultative approach to projects and turning around projects and product implementations that were at risk of failure. Focused on Customer Success. Experience in sales to Fortune 1000 companies, establishing and managing sales teams and channel partners, creating and managing sales processes and channel programs (including MSSPs), bringing new solutions and services to market, hiring and training sales teams, and setting up distribution in the US and internationally (fluent in German and Swiss German, some Spanish)