Chief Strategy & Trust Officer

Bugcrowd

Trey Ford is a seasoned strategic advisor and security thought leader with over 25 years of experience in offensive and defensive disciplines (incident response, application, network, cloud, and platform security). Trey has held key leadership roles at Deepwatch, Vista Equity Partners, Salesforce, Black Hat, and more. He has also been a valued member of Bugcrowd's advisory board for over a decade.

Trey is passionate about working with enterprise leaders, corporate directors, and investors to help teams strengthen their technology and execution strategy. He believes in a hands-on approach to building, breaking, and deconstructing security problems.

Trey has a Master of Science from the University of Texas at Austin and executive education at Harvard Business School. Hailing from Austin, he is a husband, father, and shares his passion for aviation as an instrument rated private pilot.

OT/IoT Cybersecurity Lead

Omdia

Hollie Hennessy leads Omdia's OT and IoT Cybersecurity research. She began her career in cybersecurity through managing comparative testing of technology and IoT, with regular testing and investigative work into the security of these devices. She now leads research on cybersecurity technology, product security and cybersecurity services across automotive, medical, embedded and industrial. She is a regular presence at industry events, and specialized OT and IoT communities. She has a particular interest in regulation and standards, supporting numerous research projects on the topic.

Chief Information Security and Privacy Officer

Western Carolina University

Matthew Martin is a cybersecurity executive with decades of experience building and leading security organizations at Fortune 500 financial institutions. He currently serves as CISO at Western Carolina University. His work in Africa, including cybersecurity masterclasses in Ghana and Uganda and collaboration with the Africa Digital Rights Hub, is part of a broader mission to elevate security capabilities in underserved and developing markets around the world.

Martin is a recognized thought leader in cybersecurity and AI security governance, with keynote and panel appearances at Harvard, Cambridge, the AI Summit at Black Hat USA, SecTor, and the AI Summit London. He advises a number of cybersecurity startups and venture capital firms.

CEO/Founder

Rad Security

Former Black Hat Startup Spotlight alum Brooke Motta is CEO and co-founder of RAD Security. Brooke is a dynamic leader in the cybersecurity industry who has scaled companies from seed to IPO, with deep expertise in go-to-market strategy, product innovation, and building high-performing teams. She brings a sharp eye for disruptive technologies and a passion for supporting the next generation of security founders.

Partner

Lytical Ventures

Lucas Nelson is a Founding Partner of Lytical Ventures; with roots as an old-school hacker and cybersecurity expert, Lucas brings deep technical expertise to venture capital.A Kauffman Fellow (Class of 2015), Lucas holds an MBA from Dartmouth and a BS in Computer Science from Purdue University.

Lucas began his career as part of the underground hacking scene, joining DefCon in 1995 as a Goon—helping to run what would become the largest hacker convention in the United States. He later joined @stake, one of the first elite hacking consulting firms, where he legally broke into banks and early internet companies from 2001 until its acquisition by Symantec in 2005.

In the venture capital world, Lucas served as a Principal at Evolution Equity and Gotham Ventures before co-founding Antecedent Ventures with his current partner, Steve Berg. Beyond investments, he has held operating roles at Adobe and several startups, giving him hands-on experience in the challenges faced by high-growth companies.

Partner

Foundation Capital

Sid Trivedi is a Partner at Foundation Capital where he leads early-stage investments in cybersecurity and IT. His investments include AirMDR, Prime Security, Stacklet, Aegis AI, DevZero, Nimble Security, Permiso, Pulse Security, Levo, Phenom, Attivo Networks (acq. SentinelOne), CloudKnox (acq. Microsoft), Respond Software (acq. Mandiant), and MistNet (acq. LogRhythm). Prior to Foundation, Sid was an investor at Omidyar Technology Ventures and STG Partners. He is also a co-founder of CyberSeed, a community of over 2,000 cybersecurity founders, and co-host of the Inside the Network podcast, which shares how category-defining cyber startups are built. Outside work, he serves on the advisory boards of Entrepreneurship at Cornell, the California Israel Chamber of Commerce, and Cornell Venture Capital.

Head of Growth

Kanary

Mikala Vidal is a seasoned go-to-market executive and startup advisor with a proven track record of driving growth for cybersecurity companies. She helps companies identify revenue opportunities, implement transformational strategies and empower teams to meet strategic business goals.

Mikala is currently the head of growth for Kanary, which provides human attack management for the agentic internet. She was previously the chief revenue officer at Phylum (acquired by Veracode), which won the first Black Hat Startup Spotlight Competition, and is an Advisor for Mobb, which won the second Black Hat Startup Spotlight Competition. She has also held leadership roles at Intralinks, Uplevel Security (acquired by McAfee), Allure Security, HCL Software and TruSTAR (acquired by Splunk).