ISC East announces keynoters for 2018

NEW YORK—ISC East, to be held here Nov. 14-15, recently announced two keynote speakers for this year's event: Philip Halpin, senior vice president & head of global security for financial firm Brown Brothers Harriman, and James A. Gagliano, a retired FBI supervisory special agent, CNN law enforcement analyst, and adjunct assistant professor at St. John's University.

“We really wanted to have a mixture across our comprehensive security needs spectrum; so, having one that's from a very prominent private sector company in the financial services industry, Philip Halpin, and then the other, Jimmy Gagliano, has a long, incredible history in law enforcement and public safety,” Will Wise, group vice president, security portfolio at Reed Exhibitions, told Security Systems News.

Halpin, the first day's keynote speaker, has been with Brown Brothers Harrriman since 2014. Prior to his current role, he has served in the U.S. Marines and local law enforcement. Halpin has recently started working to change BBH's identity management and access, including convergence of physical and logical security.

Halpin will be presenting, “Friend or Foe? Technology Disruption and the Physical Security Industry.” In this session he will discuss how he deals with the demands on security and people management, while encountering technology disruption. Halpin will also cover how technology has changed working and living, and how it will disrupt the physical security industry.

“He's going to really emphasize the opportunity and challenge with all of the technology disruption and technology information, and what does that mean, running a physical security department,” Wise said.

Gagliano, a West Point graduate who served in the U.S. Army, was named supervisory senior resident agent of the NYO's Hudson Valley Resident Agency in 2008, responsible for FBI operations in the upstate New York counties of Orange, Dutchess and Sullivan. Gagliano was selected as the Deputy Legal Attaché in México City, México, in 2012, and he was appointed chief of staff, special assistant to the assistant-director-in-charge in 2015.

Gagliano's presentation on ISC East's second day, titled “Twenty-First Century Best Practices: Reporting from the Front Lines on How Law Enforcement and the Security Industry are Confronting Emerging Threats,” will discuss changes in law enforcement and security postures, recent responses to contemporary challenges, such as active shooters, bombings, VIP protection, and drone applications.

“He also will bring a strong leadership skills mentality to his talk. This will definitely appeal to all of the law enforcement, first responders, FBI,” Wise said. “The other thing that he emphasized to me when we first started talking is how important the partnering is between the law enforcement, FBI, and the private sector.”

For the past several years, ISC East has typically only had one keynote speaker, Wise pointed out, and now the show is looking to bring in more. “We've definitely got good demand to add additional thought leaders and then we've got a lot of great conference break out sessions, but really felt it was important to make sure we have a featured keynoter on the two days of the expo,” he said.

ISC East also features SIA Education@ISC, a free education program composed of more than 25 sessions on new and relevant technologies in the industry. Provided by SIA, the SIA Education@ISC East Program delivers all-new content on the most current business trends, technologies and latest developments in order to help security professionals learn from experts, keep up-to-date and take their security to the next level, the announcement said.

This year will feature the event's inaugural Keynote Series, including the two recently announced speakers, which “really reflects putting more of a commitment at the ISC East event to having keynote level speakers,” Wise said.

In addition to the Keynote Series, ISC East will be co-located with the Unmanned Security Expo and Infosecurity North America. “There's a lot of incredible content from bringing that full spectrum of public safety, physical security all the way to the info security side,” Wise said.

Wise also noted on the growth the show's expo floor. “We once again are seeing some really nice growth on the expo floor. Last year we grew in the neighborhood of 12 to 15 percent larger expo floor. This year, we're seeing very similar growth on top of last year,” he said. “I think we'll probably end up with 70 to 80 new exhibitors that weren't there last year.”