Each dinner begins with opening remarks and a briefing from a featured CISO or cybersecurity leader. This short session sets the stage for the evening, offering timely insights or a leadership perspective to spark thought and guide discussion. Whether focused on emerging threats, organizational change, or strategic priorities, this briefing is designed to frame the conversation and invite deeper peer engagement throughout the night.

Engage directly with your peers during dinner to share strategies, exchange lessons learned, and explore innovative approaches to safeguarding the business in an ever-changing threat landscape. This is your opportunity to step beyond formal presentations and build meaningful connections through candid conversations in a collaborative setting.

Challenges from the Desk of the CISO: Navigating a Lack of Executive Leadership Support
As organizations face competing priorities, structural change, and mounting performance pressure, leaders are sometimes forced to deliver results while navigating ambiguity, misalignment, and limited top-down air cover. At the Atlanta CISO Dinner, Dr. Ed Harris and Stacy Hughes will lead a discussion on what it means to carry responsibility without consistent executive backing. 

Drawing on practical leadership experience, the conversation will examine how to diagnose whether executive disengagement is situational or systemic, how to manage up using risk and ROI language, and how to build influence laterally when support from above is inconsistent. The discussion will also address how leaders can set boundaries, define their limits, and protect themselves from burnout while maintaining credibility and performance.

Participants will explore:

• How to identify whether a lack of executive support is temporary turbulence or a long-term cultural signal
• Strategies for managing up with data, building cross-functional alliances, and crafting executive-readable narratives
• How to protect and strengthen your team’s performance and morale, even when clarity and sponsorship are limited

As the dinner concludes, we’ll gather final insights and reflections from our discussions. We will highlight the most impactful ideas shared around the tables, and you will leave with peer-tested strategies and fresh perspectives to take back to your teams, along with new connections to support your ongoing leadership journey.

We will wrap up the evening with continued networking and conversations. Don't miss this additional opportunity to strengthen professional relationships and build new partnerships that will expand your leadership and cybersecurity priorities.