Sessions

Madeleine K. Albright is Chair of Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm, and Chair of Albright Capital Management LLC, an investment advisory firm focused on emerging markets. She was the 64th Secretary of State of the United States. Dr. Albright received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, from President Obama on May 29, 2012.

In 1997, Dr. Albright was named the first female Secretary of State and became, at that time, the highest ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government. As Secretary of State, Dr. Albright reinforced America’s alliances, advocated for democracy and human rights, and promoted American trade, business, labor, and environmental standards abroad. From 1993 to 1997, Dr. Albright served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and was a member of the President’s Cabinet. From 1989 to 1992, she served as President of the Center for National Policy. Previously, she was a member of President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Council and White House staff and served as Chief Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Edmund S. Muskie.

Dr. Albright is a Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. She chairs the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and serves as president of the Truman Scholarship Foundation. She serves on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Policy Board, a group tasked with providing the Secretary of Defense with independent, informed advice and opinion concerning matters of defense policy. Dr. Albright also serves on the Board of the Aspen Institute. In 2009, Dr. Albright was asked by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen to Chair a Group of Experts focused on developing NATO’s New Strategic Concept.

Dr. Albright’s most recent book is the #1 New York Times bestseller Fascism: A Warning (2018). She is the author of five other New York Times bestsellers: her autobiography, Madam Secretary: A Memoir (2003); The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (2006); Memo to the President: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership (2008); Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat’s Jewel Box (2009); and Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948 (2012).

Dr. Albright received a B.A. with Honors from Wellesley College, and Master’s and Doctorate degrees from Columbia University’s Department of Public Law and Government, as well as a Certificate from its Russian Institute. She is based in Washington, DC.

For over 50 years, General Colin L. Powell, USA (Ret.) has devoted his life to public service. Having held senior military and diplomatic positions across four presidential administrations, Powell’s deep commitment to democratic values and freedom has been felt throughout the world.

The son of Jamaican immigrants, Powell was born in Harlem in April 1937 and was raised in the South Bronx. He was educated in the New York City public schools and attended the City College of New York where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology. It was not until he joined the Army ROTC program at CCNY that he discovered his calling and launched his military career. He received a commission as an Army second lieutenant upon graduation in 1958 and went on to serve in the United States Army for 35 years, rising to the rank of Four-Star General.

From 1987–1989 Powell served as President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Advisor. He served from 1989–1993 as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for both President George H.W. Bush and for President Bill Clinton, and was not only the youngest officer and first ROTC graduate to ever serve in the position, but also was the first African American to do so. During his time as chairman, he oversaw 28 crises to include the Panama intervention of 1989 and Operation Desert Storm in the victorious 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Under President George W. Bush, Powell was appointed the 65th Secretary of State and was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. As Secretary of State, he led the State Department in major efforts to address and solve regional and civil conflicts. He used the power of diplomacy to build trust, forge alliances and then help transform these unstable regions into areas where societies and cultures have the potential to prosper. He also worked at the forefront of American efforts to advance economic and social development worldwide.

Among the many U.S. Military awards and decorations Powell has received are the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the Army Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Soldier’s Medal, Bronze Star Medal and the Purple Heart. His civil awards include two Presidential Medals of Freedom, the President’s Citizens Medal, the Congressional Gold Medal and the Secretary of Energy Distinguished Service Medal. In addition, he has received awards from over two-dozen countries to include a French Legion of Honor and an honorary knighthood bestowed by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Powell is the chair of the Board of Visitors of the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at his alma mater, the City College of New York (CCNY), which was inaugurated in May 2013. He also has nine elementary and middle schools named after him. He is the Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the America’s Promise Alliance, dedicated to forging a strong and effective partnership alliance committed to seeing that children have the fundamental resources they need to succeed.

Powell is a strategic adviser at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the renowned Silicon Valley venture capital firm. He serves on the Board of Directors of Bloom Energy, an alternative energy company that provides unique on-site power generation systems utilizing an innovative new fuel cell technology. In March 2014, he joined the Board of Directors of Salesforce.com, the world’s largest provider of Cloudbased customer relationship management software.

He was previously on the boards of AOL, Gulfstream, Howard University, the United Negro College Fund, and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.

Powell serves on the Museum Council of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

His autobiography, My American Journey, was a New York Times best seller and has been published in more than a dozen different languages. Powell's second book, It Worked for Me: In Life & Leadership (May 2012), was an instant New York Times best seller as well and reveals the lessons that shaped his life and career.

Powell is married to the former Alma Vivian Johnson of Birmingham, Alabama. They live in McLean, Virginia and have three children and four grandchildren.

Chris Young (@youngdchris) is CEO of McAfee, LLC. He works side by side with the industry's best and brightest to protect all that matters through leading-edge cybersecurity.

In 2014 he joined Intel, and later led the initiative to spin out McAfee, one of the largest, pure-play cybersecurity brands in the world. As a standalone company, McAfee has a clear mission and roadmap for the future—to drive limitless innovation, securely.

Under Mr. Young's leadership, McAfee protects mission-critical systems and data for nine of 10 Fortune 100 firms and is in more than two-thirds of the Global 2000. Governments and organizations of every size also rely on McAfee, as do more than 400 million consumers.

Mr. Young serves as a member of the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC), which advises the U.S. government on national security and emergency preparedness. He also helped establish the nonprofit Cyber Threat Alliance—a group of companies that share threat intelligence—and currently serves on its board.

Mr. Young is a recognized and respected voice in cybersecurity. Media rely on his insights gained across more than two decades in technology's most dynamic sector and demonstrated through his frequent live television and radio interviews and published op-eds. Global audiences are likewise energized and challenged to take action when he speaks on the cybersphere from any number of the world's largest and most influential stages, including at Mobile World Congress, RSA, and Israel's Cyber Week.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Young led cybersecurity efforts at Cisco, RSA (a division of today's Dell EMC), and AOL. He also led end-user computing at VMware and co-founded the company Cyveillance.

Mr. Young currently serves on the board of directors of American Express and Snap Inc. He was formerly a board member of cybersecurity data analytics firm Rapid7 before its IPO and during its transition to a publicly held company. He also served on the board of trustees of Princeton University.

Mr. Young holds a bachelor's degree, cum laude, from Princeton University and an MBA degree with distinction from the Harvard Business School.

Ashutosh (Ash) Kulkarni is executive vice president and chief product officer of the enterprise business group at McAfee. He is responsible for product strategy and execution and for delivering leading-edge cybersecurity offerings that protect McAfee customers from threats to their applications, networks, data, devices, and other critical assets.

Kulkarni is a passionate advocate of customer-centric design and of the use of data and analytics to create compelling offerings that thrill customers. Most recently, he was the senior vice president and general manager of the web security and web performance businesses at Akamai Technologies. During his tenure at Akamai, he led the teams that delivered the leading web application firewall, bot management, and DDoS mitigation solutions in the industry.

Kulkarni has over 20 years of product management, product development, product marketing, business development, and strategy experience. Prior to Akamai, he served in various senior leadership roles at Informatica and, as senior vice president and general manager, led Informatica’s cloud integration business, as well as their core data integration and data quality businesses. Kulkarni began his career at Sun Microsystems where he worked in various engineering, product management, and product marketing roles.

Kulkarni earned a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Mumbai, an M.S. in computer engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley.

Rajiv Gupta is senior vice president of the cloud security business unit at McAfee. Rajiv joined McAfee in January 2018 with the acquisition of Skyhigh Networks, the leading cloud access security broker (CASB) company where he was the founder and CEO.

Gupta has more than 20 years of successful enterprise software and security experience and is recognized as a pioneer of web services. Prior to founding Skyhigh, Rajiv was vice president and general manager of the policy management business unit at Cisco.

Prior to Cisco, Rajiv was founder and CEO of Securent Inc., a policy-based web services management company that was acquired by Oblix/Oracle. Before Securent, he spent 11 years at Hewlett-Packard, where his work on client-utility computing technology was the precursor to cloud services as we know them today. With more than 45 patents, Rajiv is the inventor or co-inventor of some of the seminal concepts that underpin web services.

Rajiv earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology and his doctorate in computer science from the California Institute of Technology.

Steve Grobman is senior vice president and chief technology officer at McAfee. In this role, he sets the technical strategy and direction to create technologies that protect smart, connected computing devices and infrastructure worldwide. He leads McAfee’s development of next-generation cyberdefense and data science technologies, threat and vulnerability research, and internal CISO and IT organizations.

Prior to joining McAfee, he dedicated more than two decades to senior technical leadership positions related to cybersecurity at Intel Corporation, where he was an Intel Fellow.

He has written numerous technical papers and books and holds 27 U.S. patents. He earned his bachelor's degree in computer science from North Carolina State University.

Allison Cerra is senior vice president and chief marketing officer at McAfee. In this role, she is responsible for leading all of McAfee’s marketing and communications initiatives. Cerra was previously vice president and head of marketing at Intel Security Group.

Before joining McAfee, Cerra served as vice president of marketing for the Americas Enterprise Group at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Prior to that, she served as vice president of marketing and communications at Alcatel-Lucent, vice president of sales and marketing at Frontier Communications, and director of consumer marketing at Verizon.

An accomplished senior marketing executive, Cerra has co-authored four books exploring how technology is changing business models and user behaviors. Most recently, she co-authored The Second Economy, which defines a new paradigm for how cybersecurity professionals can more effectively defend their organizations against online adversaries. She was named "CMO of the Year" and "Top Researcher of the Year" by the Dallas/Fort Worth American Marketing Association, and was recognized as a "Women in Business" and "Women in Technology" honoree by the Dallas Business Journal.

Cerra earned bachelor's degrees in marketing and management from the University of South Florida, and master's degrees in business administration and telecommunications from Southern Methodist University.