Sam Li is co-founder and CEO of Thoropass, the New York-based information security compliance and audit platform formerly known as Laika. He grew up in Shanghai, studied computer science and economics at the University of Virginia, worked at Goldman Sachs and Google, dropped out of Harvard Business School to run a YC-backed insurtech called Zinc Platform, watched it die, spent a year as an EIR at Bain Capital Ventures, then in 2019 co-founded a company to make SOC 2 audits less miserable. Thoropass has raised roughly $98 million across four rounds and now combines software with a licensed audit practice.
Scrut Automation is a security-first GRC (governance, risk, and compliance) platform that helps cloud-native companies automate evidence collection, manage risk, and stay continuously audit-ready across 60+ frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and GDPR.
Sprinto is a compliance and trust automation platform that helps cloud-first companies achieve and maintain certifications like SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and GDPR without drowning in spreadsheets. It connects to 300+ business systems, continuously monitors controls, and orchestrates audits end-to-end - turning what used to be a six-month consulting project into a continuous, mostly-automated background process.
Vanta is the trust management platform that automates security and compliance for more than 16,000 companies - turning SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, GDPR and dozens of other frameworks from a months-long PDF marathon into something a startup can pass before lunch.
Deepak Nagpal is the CEO of Audax Labs, a Bothell, Washington-based technology innovation company he has led since 2016. With a career spanning over two decades across NTT DATA, Capital One, and Interra Information Technologies, and an MBA from Oxford's Said Business School, he has built Audax Labs into a multi-practice consultancy operating across AR/VR/MR, AI, IoT, cloud migration, and data analytics - serving industries from automotive and healthcare to BFSI and government, with partnerships spanning Microsoft, Google, Amazon AWS, Hitachi Vantara, Oracle, and Rocket Software.

Taimur Ijlal is a cloud and AI security leader with 20+ years of international experience, currently serving as a Senior Security Consultant at AWS. Known as 'Cloud Security Guy,' he runs a popular Substack newsletter, YouTube channel, and Udemy courses reaching 80,000+ professionals. A CISO of the Year 2019 winner in the UAE, LinkedIn Top Voice in Cybersecurity, and UK Global Talent Visa 'Exceptional Talent' recipient, Taimur has authored multiple books on cybersecurity careers, certifications, and AI governance. He is recognized for making complex cloud and AI security topics accessible through practical, real-world teaching.