Cybersecurity Forum

Boris Goncharov

Chief Strategy Officer, AMATAS

Boris Goncharov is an information security enthusiast and visionary with over 12 years of operations
and information security experience. He works as Chief Strategy Officer at AMATAS where he is
focused on envisioning the future of security and defining corporate protection strategies and
tactics.  
Prior to AMATAS, Boris was Chair of Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (CSeCoE) at G4S Europe. He
is a regular speaker at leading security events as InfoSec Europe, Gartner Security & Risk
Management Summit, IDC Security Roadshow and others. Boris currently maintains top-level
industry certifications including CISSP, ISSMP, CCISO, CCSP, CEH, TOGAF, CHFI and CBSP.  

Petko Petkov

Director Risk Assurance Services, PwC

Petko Petkov is Director Risk Assurance Services at PwC. He is an IT specialist with more than 10 years of experience in IT Security, mainly fulfilling an architect and management role in Identity, Access and Governance projects. He provides custom-driven solutions for customers across the main sectors such as Pharma, Financial, Education, Health Insurance, Public sector, etc.
In the past 5 years he focused primarily on the IAM and PAM area, working with solutions such as CyberArk, Sailpoint, Azure AD and Microsoft Identity Manager, designing, implementing and supporting tailored solutions for his clients.
Petko has strong knowledge and experience with automation of processes and activities in Windows based environments, Infrastructure and Identity and Privileged Access Management systems and cloud platforms. He has extensive experience with designing, implementing and managing customer projects in terms of process designs, migrations and operational management.

Markus Limbach

Partner Cyber Security at KPMG AG

Markus Limbach is a Partner Cyber Security at KPMG AG. He has 15+ years of experience conducting advisory engagements related to Cyber Security, Business and Technology Resilience, Cyber Risk Management and Identity and Access Management. He has advised multiple leading organizations regarding the strategic implications of cyber security and was responsible for complex cyber transformation programs to protect critical information assets and enhance response capabilities. Markus has gained broad international experiences, is an well-known lecturer and holds an MBA from the ESMT, Germany.

Atanas Maznev

Deputy Minister of Electronic Government

George Novtekov

Manager Cyber Security at KPMG IT Service

George Novtekov is Manager Cyber Security at KPMG IT Service, part of the Cloud Business Unit within the company. He has 20+ years of experience as systems engineer and 10+ years as systems architect. His expertise was applied and developed in large-scale platform development projects for some of the biggest multinational IT companies. His way of giving back to the IT ecosystem is through sharing his knowledge which makes him an experienced lecturer and trainer in the cloud technologies field. In his off-the-grid time, he is deeply engaged in non-professional astronomy, 3D objects printing and piloting of radio-controlled models. His rich international background in platforms development and "Information security" systems implementation makes George Novtekov’s name well known in the field and draws the attention of the talent.

Ioannis Solomakos

Chief Security Officer, Huawei, South Balkans

Ioannis has more than 20 years of professional experience in the area of Corporate Security in multinational corporations where he has served in positions of increasing responsibility.
Currently Mr. Solomakos serves as the Chief Security Officer for Huawei in the South Balkans region responsible for the cyber security and privacy aspects for 5 countries.
Previously, Mr. Solomakos have served as the Chief Security Officer for the OTE Group, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (leading among others all security aspects of the SNF Cultural Center landmark project) and PRAXIA Bank.
Also, he has served in positions of responsibility in Ericsson, Intrasoft International, and Ingersoll Rand.
Mr. Solomakos possesses an MBA from the University Bradford Management School, and a BSc from the American College of Greece.

Boyan Yanchev

CTO at Lirex BS

Boyan Yanchev is CTO at Lirex BS. He is an expert with more than 20 years’ experience in information security, managed services, IT process management, IT networks and infrastructure. Boyan has been part of over 70 projects for consulting, outsourcing, auditing and large IT infrastructure project in Bulgaria and around the workld. He has numerous certificates such as: CISA, CobiT, ISO27001 Lead Auditor, MCP, MCSE, ITIL Intermediate, ISO20000, ISO22301 Auditor.

Prof. DSc Valentin Kisimov

Main Coordinator of Center of Competence "Digital transformation of Economy with Big Data Systems"

Prof. D.Sc.Sc. Valentin Kisimov is the Main Coordinator of the Competence Center Digitalization of the Economy in a Big Data Environment at the UNSS. He has experience as a head of a group for Networking and Infrastructure at IBM Consulting Group, IBM SA, RSA, and Solution Architect for Big projects at T-Systems SA, RSA as
well as in the management, creation, and deployment of Innovative computer technologies for UNWE – full education and administrative digitalization of the university processes, Electronic Student Book, Online admission, registration, and examination system with Face and document authentication and AI at UNSS.

Joost de Jong

Director EMEA Channels, Veracode

Joost de Jong is the Director EMEA Channels at Veracode, an industry leader in application security solutions. Joost contributes senior channel management and senior leadership experience from his time at Internet Security companies like Sophos, NetScout, BlueSocket, and Intel where he built distribution networks across Asia/Pac, the Americas and Europe. Originally Dutch, he now splits time between Boston and Málaga (Spain). He regularly advises CTOs, CISOs, technical project directors and software development teams on software vulnerabilities, application security best practices, DevSecOps principles and cybersecurity education. With his international experience he can provide a unique view on global Application Security trends.

Lubomir Tilev

Security Ecosystem Sales Leader for EET, IBM Bulgaria

Lubomir Tilev is Security Sales Leader for Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia, part of the East Europe Security team and he is with the company since 2010. Working in the region in various roles like sales, technical and services management, he has grown a profound understanding on the dynamics, culture and opportunities in East Europe. A true believer of cooperation and sharing expertise, he advocates the importance of the global and local response to cyber-threats on corporate boards and country administration level.

Lyubomir Tulev

Director Managed Security Services, DIGITALL

Lyubomir Tulev is Director Cyber Security Services at DIGITALL. He drives the cyber security services business on a global level within the company and is responsible for managing the team of professionals who deliver cyber security operations and projects. He also consults on information and cyber security topic with deep expertise in InfoSec governance, penetration testing and assessments, SOC, security systems integration, and cyber security awareness.
Being a highly qualified cyber security professional with over 12 years of experience in Bulgarian law enforcement and business, he is also an international instructor and holds numerous international cyber security and information protection certificates like CCISO, ITIL, ECSA, CEH, CHFI, ECSS, CEI, etc.
 

Dimitar Stoyanov

Senior Consultant, VMware Instructor & Veeam Trainer

Dimitar Stoyanov is IT consultant with more than 15 years of experience focused on virtualization technologies and enterprise architectures. His main job is to design and size virtual infrastructures, provide professional consulting services and technical support to partners and end customers regarding virtualization projects based on VMware and Veeam solutions. He delivers VMware trainings as VMware Certified Instructor since 2016 and Veeam trainings as Veeam Certified Trainer since 2015. Presenter on topics such as virtualization and cloud best practices, workloads and endpoint security strategies, data center disaster avoidance and replication etc

Joanna Huisman

Senior Vice President of Strategic Insights and Research, KnowBe4

Joanna Huisman a cybersecurity, training and communications professional with over 20 years of experience in strategic, internal and customer-facing engagements in the financial services/tech industries with added experience in sales, operations and organizational development. Huisman was previously Senior Research Director at Gartner in the areas of security awareness, education, behavior management, culture, crisis communications, security and risk program management. Prior to that, she was Senior Director of Global Security Communications, Training & Awareness and Crisis Communications for ADP.

Simeon Kartselyanski

Team leader Security Operation Center, Information services

Simeon Kartselyanski is a security engineer with more than 10 years of experience in the development and maintenance of various infrastructures and strategies for the protection of corporate environments. It develops its activity entirely in the direction of security and protection of the critical IT infrastructure. He has implemented projects for state structures in Bulgaria and beyond. In "Information Service" he is responsible for the management, process improvement and best practices in the Security Operations Center (SOC). Teacher and lecturer on information security.

Milan Velev

Chief Information Security Officer, Nexo

Milan Velev has over 10 years of experience in information security. His expertise and experience are wide and vary from web security, ethical hacking, incident handling and investigation all the way to designing, building and implementing security solutions in various organisations. His personal time is dedicated to sharing his knowledge, and he teaches courses on Penetration testing and information security. Avid crypto and blockchain enthusiast Milan is Chief Security Officer at Nexo, the world’s leading regulated digital assets institution, created in Bulgaria.

Dean Belev

Neterra's Internet and Data Product Manager and NetIX's Vice President of Services

Dean Belev is Neterra's Internet and Data Product Manager and NetIX's Vice President of Services. He has a leading role in the design and development of products, services, IT and telecommunications solutions for both companies. Dean Belev is the conceptual co-founder of NetIX and is part of the Power 100 index of the hundred most influential people in the global telecom industry of the British telecommunications media Capacity.

Dan Pastor

Director, Product Management Global GTM Lead, Cyber and Risk Services, Mastercard

Denislav Denchev

Technology consultant Hybrid IT solutions, HPE operated by Selectium (Bulgaria)

Denislav Denchev is responsible for the architecture of the HPE Hybrid IT and HPE Ezmeral software solutions proposed to the Bulgarian market.
He has over 26 years of experience in the IT business environment with a strong focus to data storage systems.
Denislav holds a master degree in Computer Science from Technical University in Sofia.
 

Radoslav Georgiev

Networking Technical Consultant, HPE operated by Selectium

Radoslav Georgiev is working at Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium as Technical consultant for mobility and networking technologies. He is IT specialist at networking solutions with 15 years of experience, particular in networks access control, datacenter and campus networks. His main responsibility is to provide architectures and solutions, based on specific customer needs.

Samuel Ojeme (Sam)

Director, Product Management, Cyber Security & Resilience, Cyber & Intelligence Solutions - Europe, Mastercard

Samuel is responsible for the go to market strategy for some of Mastercard’s cyber resilience suite of products, specifically Onboard Risk Check (ORC), Cyber Secure and Systemic Risk Assessment (SRA). Samuel also oversees product evolution and optimization for the European market and engages with internal and external (both private and public sector) institutions to build and maintain strategic relationships, working with global teams to understand the specific needs of Mastercard customers and technology required to detect and protect them from Cyber Crime and ensure legislative and regulatory compliance. 
Prior to joining Mastercard, Samuel has several years of experience specialising in Technology Assurance, Audit and Information Risk Management.

Ivan Andreev

Cyber Security Account Executive, Darktrace

Ivan Andreev is an Account Manager at Darktrace, the world’s leading AI company for cyber defence. Ivan advises companies from a variety of industries on the use of artificial intelligence for cyber defence to minimize cyber risk, including manufacturing, energy, oil, and gas industry, to the financial industry. Born in Bulgaria, lived in 5 different countries and currently based in Madrid, he is responsible for the Iberian and Eastern Europe markets. Ivan holds a BSc in Business Administration and Management from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

Ivo Rousev

Chief Commercial Officer, Telelink Business Services (TBS)

Hristo Hristov

Security Lead for Eastern Europe, DXC Technology

Hristo has more than 13 years industry experience, starting from Operations specialist, went through several leadership roles, including Endpoint Protection lead, Security Governance lead and Security Advisory Services to his role today – Security Leader for Eastern Europe. He’s taking active part in the development of the Security portfolio by expanding the services the company delivers today to its Security clients. For the past several months his team managed to develop OT/IoT Security monitoring team, further strengthened the cloud security services and is actively working on the application security services. Hristo is sustaining the excellent relationship that the company has developed with the biggest vendors the company works with today, such as Microsoft, AWS, McAfee to position the team better on the map. Hristo’s team delivers Endpoint Security, Security Monitoring, Security Governance, Application Security, Identity and Access Management, Compliance Management, Vulnerability scanning and thanks to the complexity of the team, he’ll share insights why collaboration is key to success and makes the clients’ experience better.

Slav Umlenov

Lead Partner Success Manager for Balkans and Mediterranean, Acronis

Slav Umlenov is Lead Partner Success Manager for Balkans and Mediterranean at Acronis. With more than 10 years of experience in key account management, he has valuable multinational experience managing SMB, SME, Medium, Large, and Enterprise customers/partners from - Central and Eastern Europe, United Kingdom, Asia, and the Middle East.  Mr. Umlenov has Bachelor's degree in Finance and joined Acronis in 2018. As Partner Success Manager, Slav Umlenov is consulting Acronis partners and end-customers across all Cyber Protection solutions, developing a strong and organized network of distributors and service providers across the region.

Asen Kehayov

CEO, LogSentinel

Asen is a cybersecurity expert with more than 13 years of international experience as a CEO, CISO, Information Security Director, manager, consultant, penetration tester, entrepreneur, mentor, and instructor. He has extensive hands-on experience in performing complex information security assessments, creating well-versed cybersecurity strategies, building professional success plans, managing business development programs, leading product and service-oriented global companies.

Luca Tagliaretti

Deputy Executive Director, eu-LISA

Luca Tagliaretti is the Deputy Executive Director of eu-LISA since 16 March 2020 and Interim Executive Director since 1 November 2022. He has more than 20 years of experience working with European Institutions and International Organisations complemented with an Engineering degree and two additional post-graduate Masters."

Emil Melamed

Customer Success Manager Architect, IBM

Emil Melamed is part of IBM Eastern Europe security team since middle of 2022. During his long-term employment in various IT related roles for one of the biggest financial institutions in Bulgaria, he has grown a profound understanding in cyber security, IT and best practices and standards. He truly believes that in the modern era of digital transformation the importance of cyber defense is critical for the success of every company.

Tomislav Vračić

National Tech Officer at Microsoft for Central and Eastern Europe

Tomislav Vračić comes from Microsoft from the position of National Technology Director for Central and Eastern Europe. His main occupations include working with key and leading national cybersecurity agencies and institutions in this region to increase the country's preparedness and cyber resilience and orchestrate Microsoft's contribution to mitigation and response during cyber incidents. On the other hand, he is also involved in strategic initiatives at national levels to support innovation development and preparation for next-generation technologies by working with industry, regulators and political decision makers. In his presentation, Tomislav will present Microsoft's approach in establishing cyber resilience as well as experience of cooperation in the region.

Vladimir Kavalov

Board member of ISACA Sofia Chapter

Over the years, Vladimir has worked as a system administrator, cyber security expert, head of an IT department and IT auditor. He is interested in the Cyber security field, specifically in the analysis, implementation, audit and consulting. He has led major projects related to migration and implementation of ERP systems, MS Active Directory and various solutions for management and monitoring of information systems, processes and information security. He has been an ISACA member since 2008 and in 2016 was elected as the President. Currently he is a board member of the ISACA Sofia Chapter.