Yesterday, we welcomed 5,000 participants for the first day of Protect 2021, the premier annual conference for Proofpoint. And yes, the jazzy jackets are back and better than ever (congrats to Ashan, whose jacket was voted #1).
Our theme this year is “Ready”—not only because our recent product innovations mean Proofpoint can now offer the best defense against evolving threats but also because we’re more focused than ever on making customers the security heroes within their own organizations. The goal of our sessions at Protect is to empower our users with the tools and resources they need to implement our products with ease, to communicate the value of their security investments and to convince their C-Suite that security preparedness is a critical business priority.
Here are four key highlights from day one. If you missed out, there’s still time to participate. Register here to get access to all of yesterday’s sessions on-demand and receive the information you need to join us today.
1. Proofpoint is aligning protection to the risks that matter most
In his opening keynote, Proofpoint CEO Gary Steele reviewed the top company milestones from this year and gave a sneak peek into the newest innovations from the Proofpoint team, including Advanced BEC Defense powered by our Supernova engine, our new machine learning and AI capabilities and much more. He also discussed the power of our three people-centric platforms—threat protection, information protection and compliance—which offer unprecedented protection against today’s biggest risks: ransomware, BEC and data breaches.
2. Patrick Gray of Risky Business discussed pain points and opportunities with leading CISOs
If we can’t take an honest look at the pain points our industry is facing, we cannot make productive changes. To help us get to the heart of some of the thorniest issues in cybersecurity, we invited our friend Patrick Gray, host of the world’s most influential infosecurity podcast, Risky Business, to interview our customers and expert CISOs, Paige Adams of Zurich Insurance and David McLeod of Cox Enterprises. In this candid conversation, McLeod, Adams and Gray explored major problem areas, including talent shortage and lack of diversity along with major opportunities for growth, including better user experience, increased apprenticeships and simplifying the security technology stack.
3. Ryan Kalember revealed what’s coming next in people-centric cybersecurity at Proofpoint
I’m not going to give too much away from this exciting session—for full details I encourage you to register and watch it here—but I will say this: Proofpoint is coming out with new innovations that will expand and improve our people-centric security offering exponentially. Ryan Kalember walked us through what’s ready for deployment today and what’s to come across email security, cloud security, information protection, compliance and security awareness training. Joining him to talk about critical security themes were Amol Kulkarni, Chief Product Officer at Crowdstrike and Joe Diamond, VP of Product Strategy and Marketing at Okta.
4. Pro Golfer Bryson DeChambeau Reveals His Philosophy for Innovation
While cybersecurity and professional golf may not seem to have a lot in common, many of the same principles of innovation Bryson DeChambeau implements to be the best within an unpredictable and ever-changing external environment ring true for our industry. DeChambeau shared his philosophy for achieving greatness, focusing not only on the big strides and goals ahead, but also on mastering the basics across each and every area of his game. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing his perspective and found many of his insights extremely relevant for our work.
Join us today!
We have another incredible line up at Protect today. 20 customers are joining us across 24 breakout sessions, and we’ll hear more exciting news from the product roadmap. Also, don’t miss our sessions aimed at communicating effectively with the C-Suite and the Board including “Effective Security Metrics for Your CFO”, which will reveal how to craft an effective business case for your security investments. Register here.