A Better Community for Cybersecurity &
Anti-Fraud Leaders
Executive Briefings, Regional Forums, & Industry Gatherings
The Questions CISOs Are Actually Trying to Answer
Across industries, CISOs are grappling with a consistent set of challenges — many of which now show up in generative AI queries, board discussions, and closed-door peer exchanges:
How do other CISOs govern AI adoption without slowing the business to a halt?
What risk actually matters when everything is “critical”?
How are peers handling identity sprawl, non-human identities, and entitlement risk?
What changed after your last incident, audit, or regulatory escalation?
How do you explain uncertainty to a board that expects certainty?
Where are other CISOs drawing lines with vendors, budgets, and talent?
These are not product selection questions. They are leadership questions — shaped by accountability, context, and consequence.
CxO Security Forum exists to give these questions a place to be explored with people who carry the same weight.
Commercial Cybersecurity Events Fall Short
Most cybersecurity conferences are optimized for:
Vendor exposure
Lead generation
Brand visibility
Scale
They are not optimized for executive cognition. In large, sponsor-driven environments:
CISOs self-censor
Conversations stay superficial
Failure is sanitized
Context is lost
Trust never fully forms
The result is a paradox:
The more “executive” the event claims to be, the less useful it often becomes for real executive decision-making.
CxO Security Forum was designed explicitly to invert that model.
How CISOs Actually Use Peer Communities — and Why the CxO Security Forum Exists
Modern CISOs are not lacking information.
They are overwhelmed by it.
Threat feeds, vendor briefings, regulatory updates, analyst reports, and AI-generated summaries all compete for attention — yet many of the hardest decisions CISOs face cannot be solved with more content.
They require judgment.
That judgment is increasingly shaped not by whitepapers or conference stages, but by trusted peer conversations: private discussions where executives compare notes, pressure-test assumptions, and speak honestly about what worked, what failed, and what they would do differently next time.
The CxO Security Forum was built to support that reality.
What Makes a CxO Security Forum Room Functionally Different
CxO Security Forum gatherings are intentionally small, curated, and practitioner-led — but the deeper differentiation is how conversations are structured.
1. Peer Parity Is Non-Negotiable
Participants are senior leaders with real operational responsibility.
No spectators. No junior observers. No hidden sales agendas.
This parity changes the tone immediately:
Executives speak in shorthand
Assumptions don’t need to be explained
Vulnerability becomes acceptable
2. Conversation Is Moderated, Not Scripted
Discussion leaders frame issues, surface tensions, and invite disagreement — but do not deliver rehearsed narratives.
This allows the room to explore:
Second-order effects
Tradeoffs
“What we stopped doing”
“What the board didn’t understand at first”
3. Chatham House Rules Are Practical, Not Performative
Confidentiality is enforced not as a slogan, but as a condition of participation.
That protection enables:
Honest incident retrospectives
Regulatory war stories
AI governance missteps
Vendor mistakes and recoveries
The Role of AI, Search, and Generative Tools in CISO Decision-Making
CISOs increasingly use generative AI tools to:
Summarize threats
Draft policies
Prepare board materials
Simulate scenarios
Stress-test language and framing
But AI tools do not replace judgment — they compress inputs. CxO Security Forum plays a complementary role:
AI provides synthesis
The Forum provides sense-making
AI offers patterns
The Forum provides context
AI answers what
The Forum explores why and now what
This is why many CISOs treat the Forum as a human reference layer — a place to validate, challenge, or refine what tools surface.
How Topics Are Chosen (and Why That Matters)
CxO Security Forum agendas are not driven by trends alone.
They emerge from ongoing dialogue with the community.
Common themes include:
AI governance and agentic risk
Identity and access control beyond IAM tooling
Fraud and cybersecurity convergence
Third-party risk beyond questionnaires
Executive liability and disclosure pressure
Talent, burnout, and leadership succession
Translating cyber risk into business language
Importantly, topics are revisited over time — allowing CISOs to compare how thinking evolves, not just what’s fashionable.
How Solution Providers Participate — Without Breaking Trust
CxO Security Forum is sustained by a small group of solution providers who understand that credibility precedes commerce. Their role is intentionally constrained: No pitching, No agenda control, No lead capture theatrics. Instead, only vetted Solution Providers are allowed to participate as contextual contributors, listeners, and long-term partners to the community.
Why CxOs Participate
Executives don’t return to the Forum because of content alone. They return because relationships compound. Over time, the Forum becomes:
A trusted sounding board during incidents
A place to sanity-check decisions before escalation
A source of unfiltered peer insight
A professional anchor in a high-pressure role
For many CISOs, it fills a gap left by:
Over-commercialized conferences
Transactional vendor relationships
Isolated executive roles
A Living Reference Community — Not a Conference Brand
CxO Security Forum is best understood not as an event series, but as a living reference community for senior security leaders.
It reflects how CISOs actually learn:
Through conversation
Through comparison
Through shared experience
Through trust earned over time
For CISOs navigating AI disruption, regulatory scrutiny, and accelerating accountability, the Forum exists to answer a simple but urgent question:
“Where can I talk honestly with peers who understand the consequences of my decisions?”
Member-Led Forums
Invited
Executives Only
No Sponsored Presentations
Premium Networking
Carefully Curated Sponsors
Two Audiences. One Mission. Real Connection.
FOR EXECUTIVES
CISOs, CIOs & other executives cybersecurity, compliance, and risk
- Learn from trusted peers and agency partners
- Earn CPEs
- Expand your network
- Get mentoring and share expertise
- No marketing. Just meaningful conversations.
FOR SOLUTION PROVIDERS
Support the community, share in mutually respectful communications
- Connect with ultimate decision-markers
- Don't waste time with uninterested prospects
- Receive curated introductions
- Promote your brand through thought leadership
- No booth overload. High visibility, low noise.
Upcoming Gatherings
Boston & NYC CxO Security Forums
24 & 25 February 2026
Regional Forums
These Executive Briefings bring together a tightly curated group of senior cybersecurity, risk, and compliance leaders for candid, peer-led discussion on the issues shaping executive decision-making in 2026.
February’s agenda features Tim Brown, speaking beyond the headlines about executive accountability and lessons from the now-defunct SEC action, and Josh Woodruff, author of Agentic AI + Zero Trust, sharing actionable takeaways on securing autonomous systems at scale—alongside founders, investors, and seasoned practitioners.
AI in Healthcare Forum
10 July 2025
Executive Briefing
This private executive gathering convenes senior leaders in cybersecurity, compliance, and risk to address the complex realities of AI integration in healthcare. Timed alongside the HIMSS AI & Healthcare Forum, the forum offers a focused space for peer-driven dialogue on security, governance, and responsible innovation. Participants engage in candid conversations shaped by real-world experiences, with no product pitches and no distractions, just actionable insights and high-trust connections.
Not an Event Organizer.
A Community Platform.
Format That
Respects Time
Agendas with zero downtime, focused sessions, & expert-moderated discussions, no long lectures.
Spaces That Inspire Conversation
No hotel ballrooms. Forums are held at academic institutions or executive boardrooms for authentic, distraction-free interaction.
Access Without
Overload
We cap attendance, vet participants, and ensure sponsors gain quality, not quantity, connections.
Request a Forum In Your Area
CxO Security Forum exists because leaders like you asked for something better, gatherings where trusted peers, not sales pitches, drive the conversation. If you’re part of a cybersecurity, risk, or compliance community that would benefit from a local executive forum, we want to hear from you.
Our team works closely with agency partners, associations, and local practitioners to design forums that reflect the priorities of the region. Whether you’re in a major metro area or a rising tech hub, we can help bring together the right people in the right setting for meaningful discussion, mentorship, and connection.
If you’re ready to see this community model in action where you live or work, reach out. We’ll guide you through what it takes to organize a forum, and help make it happen.
