DMV Rising | Speakers

2025 Speakers

Jennifer Bisceglie, CEO & Founder, Interos

Founder & Executive Vice Chair Jennifer Bisceglie focuses on interos.ai’s strategy and vision for continued innovation and leadership in the supply chain risk management space, including the expansion of strategic public and private sector partnerships. A highly sought-after global supply chain architect and strategist with over 25 years of industry experience, Jennifer regularly appears in Bloomberg, Financial Times, Washington Post, and other top-tier media outlets. Jennifer has also been called on to share her expertise with numerous congressional committees and conferences, including the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus, the Homeland Security Governmental Affairs Committee, and the U.S.– China Economic Security Review Commission.

Daniel Bardenstein, Founder & CTO, Manifest Cyber

Daniel Bardenstein is the CTO and co-founder of Manifest, working to make software and AI supply chains more transparent and secure. Prior to founding Manifest, Daniel served as the Chief of Tech Strategy at CISA, where he drove technology modernization and OT/ICS strategy across the agency, and led the development of the Cybersecurity Performance Goals. At the Defense Digital Service, he led cybersecurity programs across the Department of Defense, including securing the COVID-19 vaccines and the Hack the Pentagon program. Before joining the government, Daniel directed product teams at Exabeam and Palantir developing cybersecurity and data analysis platforms.

Michael Edenzon, Founder & CEO, Fianu

Michael Edenzon is the CEO and Co-Founder of Fianu, a DevSecOps automated governance platform. He previously served as Director of DevOps at PNC Bank, where he co-authored the IT novel Investments Unlimited.

Jason Kaplan, CEO, SixMap

Jason Kaplan has spent over 27 years bridging the gap between technical excellence and business success. His experience ranges from founding and scaling startups to leading global teams at large enterprises. Jason was the first Director of Sales at Akamai Technologies. He founded and led the team at Milestone Sports, which was later acquired by Zwift. Most recently, Jason has been bringing his business acumen and leadership to the cybersecurity industry as CEO of two companies: CyTwist, Israeli-based advanced threat detection, and SixMap, a leading exposure data company focusing on commercial and DoD customers.

Mishi Choudhary, SVP & General Counsel, Virtru

A technology lawyer with over 17 years of legal experience, Mishi has served as a legal representative for many of the world's most prominent free and open source software developers and distributors, including the Free Software Foundation, Cloud Native Computing Foundation, Linux Foundation, Debian, the Apache Software Foundation, and OpenSSL. At Virtru, she leads all legal and compliance activities, builds internal processes to continue to accelerate growth, helps shape Virtru and open source strategy, and activates global business development efforts.

Mike Brown, Founder & CTO, Strider Intelligence

Mike Brown is the Chief Data Officer and co-founder of Strider, where he leads the company’s technology development. With over 20 years of experience as a technology executive, Mike previously served as Chief Technology Officer at ComScore and ID.me, managing large-scale data systems and launching products across 45+ countries. Earlier in his career, he held technical and leadership roles at CSRA, Global Systems Management Inc., Pragmatic Image Technologies, and IBM. Mike holds an M.S. in Computer and Information Science from Hood College and a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland. He is the inventor of 28 patents and a frequent speaker on big data and its business applications.

Will Ackerly, Founder & Chief Architect, Virtru

Will is the Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Virtru. Prior to founding Virtru in 2012, Will spent eight years at the National Security Agency (NSA) where he specialized in cross-agency cloud analytics and security architecture. During his tenure at the NSA, Will led the development of the Trusted Data Format (TDF), an open standard published by the US Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). TDF is the technical foundation on which Virtru was founded and is used today by agencies and companies for the secure transfer of data. Will holds 25 patents, and is a frequent speaker and quoted expert on cryptography, data access control policy and big data analytics

Dave Merkel, Founder and CEO, Expel

John Funge, Venture Partner, Data Tribe

In this discussion, John Doyle, former head of cyber security at Palantir and current founder and CEO of Cape Wireless, and Anup Ghosh, former founder and CEO of Invincea and current founder and CEO of ThreatMate, shared their candid experiences of building world-class cybersecurity startups in the DMV region. This panel explored the challenges, triumphs, and lessons learned in the competitive local ecosystem, offering valuable insights for aspiring entrepreneurs and established players alike.

Past DMV Rising Panels:

2023: State of Cyber Capital Markets: Early Innovators, M&A, and Public Performance

2024: (Moderator) Early Innovators, Big Ideas, and Crossing the Cyber Penny Gap

Yossi Appleboum, CEO, Sepio

With over 20 years in security, networking, computer science, and control systems, Yossi Appleboum began his career in the early ’90s as a team leader and Chief Architect in Israel’s Army Intelligence Corps (Unit 8200), designing critical infrastructure monitoring and security systems. In 1998, he co-founded WebSilicon, serving as VP of R&D to deliver more than 250 advanced networking and security solutions worldwide. Promoted to CTO in 2007, he oversaw North American business and next-generation product development. After WebSilicon’s 2013 acquisition by Magal (NASDAQ: MAGS), he led its integration and rebranding as CyberSeal and, as CTO for Cyber Security at Senstar Inc., drove the Tungsten and Rubidium convergence solutions. In 2016, he co-founded Sepio Systems and now serves as its Co-CEO, heading North American operations.

Seth Spergel, Managing Partner, Merlin Ventures

Seth Spergel is Managing Partner of Merlin Ventures, where he combines his technical operator background with over a decade of venture capital experience to drive the fund’s investment strategy. Seth came to Merlin from In-Q-Tel, the strategic investment firm of the US Intelligence Community. At In-Q-Tel Seth worked with the CIA, NSA and other government agencies to invest in commercial startups that helped address the intelligence community’s most difficult challenges. Prior to In-Q-Tel, Seth was VP of Engineering at ThinkGeek, a publicly-traded online retailer, and spent over a decade at IBM in roles ranging from software developer to sales manager. Seth is a graduate of Brandeis University, where he majored in Computer Science and Economics.

Stephanie Cherrin, Partner, JP Morgan Technology Ventures

Stephanie Cherrin is a Partner at J.P. Morgan Technology Ventures in San Francisco, California, with a background in international relations and foreign policy. She has made significant contributions to the firm's investments in Series A and Series B stages, particularly in sectors such as social networks, sales & CRM, IoT, and Israel. Cherrin's career highlights include serving as a Board Observer for companies like RunBuggy and RepairSmith by AutoNation, as well as holding roles as an Investor at Cresta and DSP Concepts, showcasing her expertise in strategic planning and investment decision-making.

Vikram Singh, Senior Vice President, WestExec Advisors

Charlie Katz, King & Spalding

Charlie Katz is Managing Partner of King & Spalding’s Northern Virginia office. He advises emerging growth and technology companies. On transactional work, Charlie offers deep knowledge on mergers and acquisitions, private equity and venture capital transactions, divestitures, recapitalizations and restructurings, debt and equity financings and securities offerings, leveraged and management buyouts, joint ventures, and strategic investments.