Cyber Innovation Den 2025

Saba Ahmed

Managing Director, Cyber Resilience, Accenture

Saba leads the Managed Security Services consulting practice for Accenture UK, Ireland and Africa with a focus on Cyber Detection & Response. She has over two decades of experience in the security industry spanning across geographies delivering security projects in Middle East, Asia and Europe.

For the last 10 years Saba’s focus has been on building Security Operations Centres and SIEM transformations for UK clients. More recently she has also been working with technology vendors in this space to define what the next generation of security operations looks like.
Saba is a passionate technologist at heart with a mindset to find innovative solutions for the client challenges. She’s ardent advocate for inclusion and diversity and leads I&D for Accenture across Europe.
 

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Jill Broom

Head of Cyber Resilience, techUK

Jill leads the techUK Cyber Security programme, having originally joined techUK in October 2020 as a Programme Manager for the Cyber and Central Government programmes. She is responsible for managing techUK's work across the cyber security ecosystem, bringing industry together with key stakeholders across the public and private sectors. Jill also provides the industry secretariat for the Cyber Growth Partnership, the industry and government conduit for supporting the growth of the sector. A key focus of her work is to strengthen the public–private partnership across cyber to support further development of UK cyber security and resilience policy.

Before joining techUK, Jill worked as a Senior Caseworker for an MP, advocating for local communities, businesses and individuals, so she is particularly committed to techUK’s vision of harnessing the power of technology to improve people’s lives. Jill is also an experienced editorial professional and has delivered copyediting and writing services for public-body and SME clients as well as publishers.

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Andrew Elliot

Deputy Director, Cyber Security, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology

Andrew has been at DSIT (previously DCMS) since 2016 working on digital policy including cyber, telecoms and data protection. Andrew’s team delivers policies and programmes that have made the UK more resilient against cyber threats and have grown the UK cyber sector achieving an 11% compound annual growth rate since 2015. They are currently focussed on work to accelerate the adoption of Cyber Essentials, professional standards set by the UK Cyber Security Council and memory safe technologies including CHERI.

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Diane Gilbert

Senior Innovation Lead - Programmes, Plexal

Diane  is the Innovation Ecosystem Lead at Plexal: the innovation company that helps industry and the government unlock the potential of technology.  She is a programme management specialist with 15 years’ cross-industry experience in the delivery of complex and strategically important projects, programmes and events. 
 
Over the past 5 years at Plexal Diane has led research projects, accelerators and innovation programmes for clients like the Information Commissioner’s Office and DSIT and oversees the delivery of Cyber Runway: the UK’s largest cyber security accelerator.
 
As an Innovation Ecosystem Lead Diane is growing Plexal’s cyber cluster and connects startups, industry, investors, policymakers and cyber hubs from across the UK’s cyber security ecosystem
 

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Elizabeth Huthman

Cyber Director, KPMG

Liz is a Director within KPMG’s Cyber Security team, with over 14 years’ experience in Cyber. She spent 8 years at Deloitte delivering projects to a variety of clients across industries, with focus on areas including supply chain risk, culture change and awareness, data privacy and maturity assessments.

She then moved into industry at Tesco. During her 5 years in industry, she led a global culture and awareness programme targeting over 470,000 staff and then led a global team to develop a programme to manage supplier risk for circa 10,000 suppliers.

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Stuart McKean

Chairman and Founder, Nine23

Stuart is a former British Army helicopter pilot with an accomplished service career spanning 23 years, this included a high-profile secondment to the Royal Air Force Defence Electronic Warfare Centre at RAF Waddington where he was responsible for all aspects of the UK’s APACHE mission system integration at above SECRET.

Stuart founded Nine23 in 2011 with a commitment to more effectively enable end-users, in the compliance and regulatory industries, who were often reliant on out-dated IT solutions. Stuart is passionate about what today’s secure technology can deliver to the frontline of business and believes that the end-user should be put first in any solution.

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Lawrence Munro

Interim CISO, Tide

Lawrence is a senior cybersecurity executive with over two decades of experience spanning technical, leadership, and advisory roles. He began his career in penetration testing, specialising in web applications and social engineering, and went on to present at leading international conferences including BlackHat USA.

He has held senior leadership positions at organisations including KPMG, Trustwave SpiderLabs, NCC Group, and Santander Bank. Over the course of his career, he has served as a Global Vice President, Chief Technology Officer, and Group Chief Information Security Officer. Alongside executive roles, he has contributed to the cybersecurity community as Director of B-Sides London and as an executive committee member of CREST.

Lawrence now operates a portfolio career, serving as Interim CISO for Tide, supporting NATO’s DIANA accelerator, advising venture capital funds, and holding advisory board and non-executive positions with a number of cybersecurity companies. He is also a member of the College of Experts for the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).

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Simon Shiu

Visiting Professor of Cyber Security, University of Bristol

Simon joined HP Labs as a member of technical staff and spent over 28 years in industrial research, mostly in cyber security. For the last 10 years he was Director and then VP of the HP Security Lab, managing a global organisation with a strong track record of industry leading impact in endpoint security innovation. In 2025 he started his role at the University of Bristol and recently, funded by the Centre for Economic Sectoral Performance (CSEP) at Imperial College, he led the UK cyber sector growth plan project. He is also a board advisor for the research institute in sociotechnical cyber security (RISCS - Research Institute for Sociotechnical Cyber Security). 

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Aurorah Smith

Founder, Uncharted Brands & Commercial Director

Best known across the UK cyber security community as an active advocate, mentor and public speaker in support of both DE&I and cyber skills development. Aurorah works with women and graduates interested in advancing security careers. Additionally she is passionate about helping small and medium businesses understand how they can roll out cyber security controls. Aurorah currently works as an independent consultant, advising on effective go to market and sales strategies for cyber businesses.  

Her previous roles include Director of Commercial Security Strategy and Growth at BT and Portfolio Director, Customer Success Programmes at Communisis. She has experience working globally across a number of sectors. She is skilled at creating and delivering the right strategies for commercial success, inspiring collaboration across organisations and ensuring outcomes that help corporations grow.
 

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