Cambridge Forum for Cybersecurity Leaders Keynote Speakers

Lieutenant Colonel Bill Hagestad, USMC (Retired) is an internationally recognized cyber warfare expert specializing in defensive and offensive cyber operations. He taught graduate-level cyber intelligence and critical infrastructure protection at NSA's Cyber Center of Excellence and completed foreign military cyber deployments to South America and the Balkans, where he discovered national critical infrastructure vulnerabilities.

An internationally registered white hat hacker, Bill is a leading military authority on China's use of cyber and information warfare. He speaks globally on Chinese cyber hegemony and has authored eight books on the subject, including "21st Century Chinese Cyber Warfare" (2012, 2nd ed. 2020), "Chinese Cyber Crime" (2015, 2nd ed. 2016), "21st Century Chinese Cognitive Warfare" (2024), and "Dragon's Algorithm: China's Military Artificial Intelligence Strategy" (2025).

Bill provides cyber threat assessments to international defense, intelligence, and law enforcement entities. His education includes a BA in Mandarin Chinese from the University of Minnesota, an MS in Military Strategy from USMC Command & Staff College, and dual MS degrees in Security Technologies and Management of Technology from the University of Minnesota. He maintains the research blog www.reddragon1949.com focusing on Chinese military informatization and cyber operations.

Jack has worked in information security and risk management for over thirty-seven years, ten years of which as a CISO with three different companies, including a Fortune 100 firm. He’s won several industry awards, including the Excellence in the Field of Security Practices award, the CSO Compass Award, and a Lifetime Achievement award.

Currently, Jack teaches in Carnegie Mellon University’s CISO executive program and provides strategic guidance to several companies. Jack also created the “Factor Analysis of Information Risk” (FAIR) and FAIR-CAM models which have been adopted as international standards for measuring risk.  

In 2016, he co-founded the FAIR Institute, which is an award winning, global non-profit dedicated to advancing the field of risk management. In 2015 he co-authored a book on FAIR entitled “Measuring and Managing Information Risk, a FAIR Approach,” which was inducted into the Cyber Security Canon in 2016.