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John Chambers is an award-winning entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of JC2 Ventures. In his role, Chambers focuses on helping disruptive startups from around the world build and scale, while also promoting the broader development of startup nations and a startup world. He invests in companies across categories and geographies that are leading market transitions, such as SparkCognition.

In addition to investing in and mentoring startups, Chambers is focused on promoting entrepreneurship, gender equality, and accelerating overall new business creation around the world, as he believes that startups will be the core driver of economic growth and job creation in the digital age. It is for this reason that he was appointed Global Ambassador of the French Tech by President Emmanuel Macron of France, and is the Chairman of the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum.

Prior to founding JC2 Ventures, Chambers served as CEO, Chairman, and Executive Chairman at Cisco Systems. During his 25+ years at Cisco, he helped grow the company from $70 million when he joined in 1991 to $47 billion when he stepped down as CEO in 2015.

Nima Baiati is Global Director of the Cybersecurity Solutions Group at Lenovo for which he is responsible
for the enterprise strategy, customer and market engagement and product-portfolio management
including ThinkShield. He is also responsible for Lenovo’s cybersecurity ecosystem.
Prior to his work with Lenovo, Nima previously served as Symantec’s Head of Global Go-to-Market
Strategy for their Enterprise Security efforts. Additionally, he was also Senior Director of Product
Management for Absolute Software where he successfully launched several new offerings into the
security market.  Nima’s background also includes working in finance at Morgan Stanley.  Additionally,
he has extensive experience working with the cyber venture capital and start-up ecosystems within
Silicon Valley and Israel.
Nima earned his undergraduate degree from the University of San Francisco and received his M.B.A.
from the S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University where he was a Fellow of
the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Institute.  He holds several cybersecurity certifications and has
consulted private equity firms in the area of cybersecurity investment.

When she’s not tap dancing or rapping about her teams, Elise Neel, VP of Verizon New Business Development, is leading efforts to generate and curate innovation across Verizon. Bringing to bear her experience in big data platforms, analytics, and digital advertising, Elise oversees everything from initial strategy to full-stack execution for all things innovation within Verizon. Her team houses industry experts in location technology, drone and aviation services, immersive entertainment and other nascent technologies, and the transformative work they’re doing is directly fueling Verizon’s 5G future.

Ramon Moreno Vergara has almost 20 years experience working in Mexico´s power sector, with significant field experience on power plants. He joined Mitsui Power Americas in 2010, the second largest IPP in Mexico as Chief Technical Officer, and was promoted to Chief Executive Officer in 2018. He is responsible for the operation and commercial relation of Mitsui & Co Group´s power assets as well as the development of new projects.

Vice-president at AME, Mexican Energy Association. Ramon holds a Master’s degree in engineering at Malaga University, Spain, as well as Postgraduate in-company trainings at ESADE and Harvard Business School.

General Tony Thomas recently retired after three years as the Commanding General for U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM). As the commander of SOCOM, he oversaw 85,000 troops and civilians deployed in over 100 countries.

During Gen. Thomas’s 39-year career, he had more combat deployments than any other senior officer. He is the only officer to have commanded a squadron at Delta Force and a battalion of the 75th Ranger regiment. Since 2001, he deployed every year to Afghanistan or Iraq.

Gen. Thomas previously commanded the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the elite counterterrorism unit that conducts the nation’s most dangerous missions. He has a long tenure in JSOC—in May 2011, he was the deputy commander and key planner of the mission that killed Osama bin Laden.

In his last two roles leading globally deployed forces, Gen. Thomas increased the focus on cyber and information operations. He was one of the military’s earliest and staunchest advocates for applied AI on the battlefield and was the first senior officer to appoint a Chief Data Officer to bring private sector solutions to the command.

Sandeep Mehta is an Executive Vice President at Wells Fargo responsible for Enterprise Platforms. Sandeep joined Wells Fargo in 2014 from UBS where he was a Managing Director based in Zurich, Switzerland, and Hong Kong. He has extensive financial services experience over two decades leading technology teams at Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and Lehman Brothers in New York, India, the Middle East, and Asia.

His background in computing includes research and software development in artificial intelligence, robotics, imaging, and speech recognition while at Philips Research Labs, NYNEX Science & Technology (now Verizon) and the University of Rochester. He serves as an advisor to Arts for Art in New York, an artist-led organization, known for the famous Vision Festival supporting jazz and performing artists. Sandeep is currently based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Secretary Robert O. Work is the Distinguished Senior Fellow for Defense and National Security at the Center for a New American Security and the owner of TeamWork, LLC, which specializes in national security affairs and the future of warfare.

Secretary Work previously served as the Deputy Secretary of Defense, where he was responsible for overseeing the day-to-day business of the Pentagon and developing the Department’s $600 billion defense program. He is widely credited for his work with leaders in the Department and the intelligence community on the “Third Offset Strategy,” which aimed to restore U.S. conventional overmatch over its strategic rivals and adversaries. He was twice awarded the DoD’s Distinguished Public Service Award, and has also received the National Intelligence Distinguished Public Service Award, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Distinguished Civilian Service Award.

Prior to serving as Deputy Secretary, Secretary Work spent one year as CEO of the CNAS, after serving as Undersecretary of the Navy from 2009–2013 in the first Obama administration. He was twice awarded the Department of the Navy’s Distinguished Civilian Service Award.

Andrea Thomaz is a renowned social robotics expert and the CEO and Co-Founder of Diligent Robotics. Her accolades include being recognized by the National Academy of Science as a Kavli Fellow, the US President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Tech, Fast Company on its Most Creative People list, MIT Technology Review on its Next Generation of 35 Innovators Under 35 list, Popular Science on its Brilliant 10 list, TEDx as a featured keynote speaker on social robotics and Texas Monthly on its Most Powerful Texans of 2018 list. Andrea’s robots have been featured in the New York Times and on the covers of MIT Technology Review and Popular Science. Her passion for social robotics began during her work at the MIT Media Lab, where she focused on using AI to develop machines that address everyday human needs. Andrea co-founded Diligent Robotics to pursue her vision of creating socially intelligent robot assistants that collaborate with humans by doing their chores so humans can have more time for the work they care most about. She earned her Ph.D. from MIT and B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UT Austin and was a Robotics Professor at UT Austin and Georgia Tech (where she directed the Socially Intelligent Machines Lab).

Jamie Montgomery is a Founder and Managing Director of March Capital Partners. Previously, he was the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Montgomery & Co., a well-known Los Angeles-based investment bank where he advised and financed hundreds of leading technology companies over a 25-year period. He is the founder of The Montgomery Summit, an annual conference that attracts over 1,000 global entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate executives to Santa Monica. Montgomery currently serves on the Board of Directors of Descartes Labs and Foghorn and is a Board Observer at Crowdstrike, Forter, and Earnin. Montgomery also had two successful exits at March Capital: the IPO of RUBI and the sale of Telesign to BICS.

Montgomery focuses on identifying disruptive technology companies and providing capital at a critical inflection point. In addition to serving on the Advisory Board of the Rady School of Business at the University of California San Diego, he actively supports programs for innovation and entrepreneurship at the University of California San Diego, Claremont McKenna College, the University of Southern California, and Chapman University.

Crystal Wang is the President and CEO of the Newland Science and Technology Group. She is a senior engineer and expert with special allowance under the State Council of the People’s Republic of China. She has successfully held positions as a representative of the 10th and 11th National People’s Congress, a member of the 12th national committee of CPPCC and its Committee of Education, Science, Culture, Health and Sports, a member of the 13th National Committee of CPPCC, and its Committee of Education, Science, Health and Sports. She is a member of the Sino-Germany Economic Advisory Committee, Vice Chairman of the Expert Committee of Internet of Things of Chinese Electronic Society, and the Vice President of the Digital China Industrial Development Alliance.

Marcus Weisgerber is an award-winning journalist who is the global business editor for Defense
One — an Atlantic Media property — where he writes about the intersection of business and
national security. He also authors the Global Business Brief, a weekly newsletter widely read
throughout the defense, aerospace, military, government, and investment communities.

Marcus has been covering defense and national security issues for more than a decade,
previously as a Pentagon correspondent for Defense News and chief editor of Inside the Air Force. He has reported from the Middle East, Europe, and Asia — oftentimes traveling with senior defense and military officials.

His work has been cited by the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and many other U.S. and international publications. He has provided expert analysis on BBC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, NPR, SiriusXM, and other television and radio networks. Marcus won a 2018 Neal Award for his coverage of the Pentagon and defense industry.

Charles Toups leads Boeing’s Disruptive Computing & Networks organization, which is leveraging core technologies in quantum communications, computing and sensing, neuromorphic brain-inspired processing, high-performance computing, and advanced networking to develop computing and communications solutions for advanced commercial and government aerospace applications. The organization works closely with Boeing Research & Technology, Information
Technology & Data Analytics, Boeing HorizonX, the company’s business units, Hughes Research Laboratory, university research partners, government research institutions and other companies on research development projects involving secure communications, artificial intelligence and complex system optimization.

Previously, he led Boeing Research & Technology, the company’s advanced central research-and-development unit, and the Boeing’s Development Program Excellence enterprise initiative to drive productivity and growth. He currently is a board member for HRL Laboratories and Near Earth Autonomy,
and is an executive member of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Exascale Computing Program Industry Council.