Fusion Live! 2026

Alistair Mills is a cybersecurity leader with more than 15 years’ experience helping organisations protect their people and data from evolving threats. As Director of Sales Engineering for Northern Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Proofpoint, he combines deep technical expertise with a passion for building high-performing teams, helping customers address complex security challenges with practical, effective solutions. A regular speaker at industry events and conferences, Alistair shares insights on the evolving threat landscape, emerging cybersecurity risks and strategies organisations can adopt to strengthen resilience and better protect their people and information. Before joining Proofpoint, Alistair held senior roles at Forcepoint, Symantec and Sophos, giving him a broad perspective on the changing cybersecurity landscape and the approaches organisations take to defend against modern threats.

Alan Harper is Director of Corporate Technology at Shawbrook Bank and a technology leader with more than 20 years of experience driving digital transformation and aligning IT strategy with business growth. Over nearly a decade at Shawbrook, Alan has held a series of senior leadership roles, building scalable and resilient technology platforms while leading the adoption of AI-driven tools and automation that improve operational efficiency and support the bank’s evolving digital ambitions. He leads agile, cross-functional teams and has played a key role in embedding AI into everyday ways of working across the organisation, helping combine human expertise with AI-enabled capabilities in a highly regulated environment. Prior to Shawbrook, Alan held technical positions at International Financial Data Services and Mitsubishi UFJ Securities International, providing a strong foundation in financial services technology.

Chris will explore how organisations can build a flexible hybrid infrastructure that combines the strengths of on-premises environments and Azure, enabling workloads to run where they deliver the greatest value. Chris also demonstrates how AI-powered data agents in Microsoft Fabric are transforming the way people interact with data, making analysis faster, more intuitive, and accessible through natural language.

As part of the panel, Fajar will discuss how organisations can safely scale AI agent adoption by establishing the right governance, security, and operating models. The session will explore the challenges of managing autonomous AI agents, covering ownership, access, oversight, and monitoring as businesses move from experimentation to enterprise-wide deployment.

Gary Cox is the Technical Director for the UK and Ireland at Infoblox, where he has been a key part of the organisation since joining in 2010. Over the course of his career at Infoblox, Gary has held a range of technical and leadership positions, developing deep expertise in network, security, and infrastructure technologies. With more than 20 years of IT industry experience, Gary has worked across multiple sectors including finance, the public sector, media, and service providers. His broad industry knowledge and practical insights make him a trusted advisor to organisations navigating evolving technology and cybersecurity challenges. A recognised thought leader, Gary is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, customer events, and webinars, where he shares his expertise on topics spanning cybersecurity, networking, and digital transformation. He is also an active member of ISC2 and has held the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification since 2016.

Greg Holmes is the EMEA Field CTO for Apptio, an IBM Company. He works with CIOs, CFOs, and technology leaders to help organisations turn cloud, AI, and modern platform investments into measurable business outcomes. Greg partners closely with Apptio’s product teams to shape strategy and roadmap development based on customer needs and market insights, while also serving on the EMEA leadership team driving regional growth and execution. With more than 20 years of experience in enterprise software across Sydney, Boston, Munich, and London, Greg is a recognised industry thought leader and regular speaker at major technology events. He contributes articles, presentations, and industry commentary, and works closely with analysts and the media to advance FinOps and Technology Business Management (TBM) practices worldwide.

Joining Rebecca Taylor from Sophos, Jake will bring a security-focused perspective to the conversation around AI’s evolving role in the threat landscape. The session will explore how cybercriminal communities are adopting and promoting AI, separating real-world risks from hype, and highlighting what organisations should consider when strengthening their security strategies.

James will share insights into what modern cyber resilience looks like in practice, exploring the technologies, strategies, and lessons shaping the future of security. Through the discussion on Daybreak, Glasswing, and Mythos, James will highlight how organisations can adapt to an evolving threat landscape and build the capabilities needed to stay resilient in an AI-driven world.

James McKeown is a Principal Assurance Consultant at Acutest specialising in AI governance, assurance and digital risk. He works with organisations to design practical controls, testing approaches and governance models for emerging technologies, with a focus on transparency, accountability and delivery risk.

John Spencer is a seasoned technology leader with more than 30 years of experience in the software industry, leading sales engineering, product and technology teams across both global enterprises and high-growth startups. Throughout his career, he has helped organisations navigate complex technology challenges, driving innovation and customer success across a range of markets. Prior to joining CrowdStrike, John served as Chief Product Officer for a cyber identity startup and as Chief Technology Officer for Northern Europe at Citrix. Today, he leads CrowdStrike’s Sales Engineering team across Northern Europe, overseeing technical engagement and helping customers strengthen their cybersecurity strategies in an increasingly complex threat landscape.

Katie will explore how cloud marketplaces are transforming the way organisations procure, manage, and scale technology solutions. Bringing a procurement perspective to the panel, Katie will share insights into how marketplaces can simplify buying journeys, unlock greater value from cloud investments, and help businesses accelerate innovation while navigating adoption challenges.

Kamal will share expertise across two key discussions, exploring how organisations can securely harness the power of AI agents through effective governance, identity, and oversight. Kamal will also highlight how Microsoft Sentinel is helping NHS organisations build collaborative cyber resilience, using real-world examples to demonstrate how scalable security operations can strengthen protection across complex environments.

Kay will bring expertise in automation and the Microsoft Power Platform to the discussion on governing AI agents at scale. Kay will explore how organisations can move beyond experimentation by establishing the right ownership, visibility, and controls to safely deploy AI-powered automation while unlocking greater productivity and innovation.

Leo Hayden is a Solutions Architect at Trustmarque Ultima with expertise in networking, network security and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) technologies. He works closely with customer IT teams and business stakeholders to translate business objectives into technical solutions, guiding organisations from discovery and solution design through to implementation planning. By identifying networking and security challenges, demonstrating tailored solutions and providing strategic technical leadership, Leo helps organisations improve connectivity, security, performance and user experience while supporting long-term growth and digital transformation initiatives.

Mark Grant is RX Cloud & DSPM Specialist at Rubrik and has more than 23 years of experience spanning system integrators, software vendors and start-ups. His career has included roles at IBM, Intel, NTT and Rubrik, covering channel leadership, regional sales leadership, Microsoft practice development and go-to-market strategy. At Rubrik, Mark is responsible for driving sales and go-to-market activities across Western Europe for cloud-native protection and data security solutions, helping organisations secure Microsoft 365, Azure, AWS and Google Cloud environments.

Mark Osborn is an international technology leader with a passion for building strategic partnerships and helping organisations transform through AI. He began his career during the dot-com boom, supporting organisations through their first internet initiatives. Having worked across the UK, Germany and Singapore, Mark joined IBM through acquisition in 2003 and has since held a variety of international leadership roles spanning sales, technical services, delivery and channel ecosystem development. Today, he leads IBM’s Data & AI Ecosystem business across EMEA, helping partners sell, embed and deliver IBM AI technologies to customers across the region. Outside work, Mark is a keen science fiction enthusiast whose interests include Star Trek and the works of Douglas Adams, often noting how quickly science fiction seems to be converging with reality.

Neel graduated in Biotechnology and first entered the world of IT through Bioinformatics and Genomics software and tools, quickly discovering a greater passion for technology. After working for several years with two Bioinformatics software and training companies in India, he moved to Hewlett-Packard in the mid-2000s, where he specialised in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). In 2012, he joined Onyx, now part of Pulsant, where he developed extensive expertise in cloud and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Since 2014, Neel has led hybrid cloud infrastructure teams and now heads the Hybrid Cloud Presales Team at Trustmarque, now Trustmarque Ultima. In recent years, his team has expanded into AI, cloud-based data platforms and analytics, helping customers modernise their technology estates and unlock greater business value from data.

Ray Manash leads Customer Success at ManageEngine, a role that has given him first-hand experience of hundreds of customer identity environments across a wide range of industries and geographies. He works closely with IT and security leaders on the challenges that define modern identity programmes, including identity governance, privileged access management, and the rapidly growing risks associated with machine and non-human identities. His experience spans organisations of all sizes and levels of maturity, from teams managing long-established Active Directory environments to global enterprises modernising identity across hybrid and multi-cloud estates. Throughout that work, he has observed a consistent pattern: the most significant security exposures are rarely the result of sophisticated attacks. More often, they stem from overlooked identity gaps such as orphaned accounts, excessive privileges, unmanaged service accounts and weak recovery processes. Ray brings a practitioner’s perspective focused on what works in the real world. He helps organisations build resilient, Zero Trust identity ecosystems by balancing security, compliance and operational practicality, ensuring controls are effective without creating unnecessary friction for users.

Rebecca Taylor is a Threat Intelligence Knowledge Manager & Researcher within Sophos X-Ops, Sophos’ cross-functional threat intelligence task force. In her role, she combines intelligence from a wide range of sources, including dark web monitoring, underground forums, threat research, and incident response investigations, to help organisations better understand the evolving cyber threat landscape and the risks most relevant to their business. A highly respected voice within the cybersecurity community, Rebecca is known for translating complex threat intelligence into practical, actionable insights that enable security teams to make informed decisions and strengthen their defences. Her work focuses on helping organisations stay ahead of emerging threats by providing clear context, analysis, and guidance on attacker tactics, techniques, and trends. Rebecca is a recognised cybersecurity expert, TEDx speaker, and author. Her contributions to the industry have earned her several accolades, including Computing’s Cybersecurity Professional of the Year 2025 (WIT) and recognition as a TechWomen100 winner. Through her research, public speaking, and advocacy, Rebecca continues to help organisations and security professionals navigate an increasingly complex threat environment with confidence.

Robin Johnston has spent nearly 30 years in the technology sector across the UK, Ireland and Europe, leading technology sales and innovation teams. Holding an MA in Sales Leadership, Robin has held senior roles at organisations including O2 Business, Sage, BlackBerry and Vodafone. He was also a founding director of Guardian24, the NHS mobile lone worker solution launched in the early 2000s. In his current role at Cisco, Robin leads a team of 14 Partner Leaders managing more than 20 strategic partners and generating over $700 million in annual bookings across products, software, services and managed solutions. He has been part of Cisco’s UK Partner Leadership Team for the past four years.

Simon will bring a governance, risk, and compliance perspective to the discussion on modern cyber resilience, exploring how organisations can strengthen their security posture in an evolving threat landscape. Simon will share insights into the role of governance and risk management in building resilient organisations that are prepared for the challenges of an AI-driven future.

Seb Burrell is Head of Enterprise AI at Trustmarque Ultima, where he helps clients build AI strategies that start with business outcomes rather than technology choices. His specialism is the architecture of implementing AI across an organisation, not just individual use cases. This includes deep expertise across platforms from Microsoft, Anthropic and IBM, as well as the governance, observability, traceability and cost management required to run enterprise AI effectively and responsibly. Named an IBM Champion for 2026, Seb works with enterprise and public sector organisations to move AI from pilot projects into production environments without losing control of either risk or cost.

Tom Frost leads IBM’s Cyber Strategy & Risk practice in the UK and Ireland. He has over 20 years’ experience in cyber security with a career has spanning technical, industry and consulting roles, giving him experience of cyber from both practitioner and advisory perspectives. Before joining IBM, he has an extensively across the energy sector security and has delivered complex projects in critical national infrastructure (CNI) environments as a security leader and technical architect. Today, he works with organisations across multiple sectors including financial services, energy and UK government, with a particular focus on providing practical cyber strategy, governance and risk in complex and highly-regulated environments. Tom is also a security leader within IBM’s UKI Banking and Fintech sector and is passionate about growing the next generation of cyber talent.