Lisa Ventura MBE FCIIS
Most breaches do not come through the firewall. They come through a tired employee, a shared password, a click on a convincing email, a process that nobody reviewed. Boards have spent a decade buying technology, and the human layer is still where attackers walk in.
Lisa Ventura MBE FCIIS is a cyber security awareness and culture specialist who helps organisations close the human gap that technology alone cannot fix, and who now works at the intersection of AI and cyber security.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Lisa Ventura
- An MBE-recognised and Chartered Fellow (FCIIS) authority on the cultural and behavioural side of cyber security, the area boards now name as their largest residual exposure once tooling is in place.
- Chief Executive and Founder of the AI and Cyber Security Association, the first global trade association for the convergence of AI and cyber security, which gives her a current read on how AI is changing both attacker behaviour and defensive practice.
- Founder of Cyber Security Unity, a global community of practitioners, which gives her live cross-industry visibility into what is actually working against social engineering, phishing, and insider risk.
- A practical voice on neurodiversity and inclusion in cyber security hiring, useful for organisations trying to widen a tight talent pool without diluting capability.
- Author of Artificial Intelligence in Cybersecurity (Kogan Page) and Human Factors in Cybersecurity (BPB), two trade-published books that map onto the two problems she is booked to address.
Biography highlights
- MBE, King Charles III Birthday Honours 2023, for services to cyber security and to diversity and inclusion.
- Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Information Security (FCIIS), 2025.
- Chief Executive and Founder of the AI and Cyber Security Association (AICSA), the first global trade association for the convergence of AI and cyber security.
- Chief Executive and Founder of Unity Group Solutions Limited, and Founder of Cyber Security Unity (formerly the UK Cyber Security Association).
- Author of Artificial Intelligence in Cybersecurity (Kogan Page) and Human Factors in Cybersecurity (BPB), alongside The Rise of the Cyber Women series.
- Recent recognition includes a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Security and Safety Entrepreneur Awards (2026) and a place in the Independent Impact 50, the UK listing of leading independent PR and communications practitioners (2026).
- Listed on IT Security Guru’s Most Inspiring Women in Cyber Security, We Are Tech Women Top 100, and IFSEC Global Influencers.
Biography
The cyber security industry sells controls. What it has been slower to sell is culture. Most organisations now have endpoint protection, SIEM platforms, and incident response retainers. The breaches that still happen are almost always human: a click, a credential, a process gap, an exhausted analyst missing a signal at 3am. That is the territory Lisa Ventura works in.
She founded Cyber Security Unity, a global community for cyber security practitioners, out of the view that the industry stays fragmented and works in silos. More recently she founded the AI and Cyber Security Association, the first global trade association built around the convergence of AI and cyber security, giving practitioners and organisations a place to work through what AI changes for both attack and defence.
As Chief Executive and Founder of Unity Group Solutions Limited, a cyber security awareness and strategic communications consultancy, she works across concurrent client engagements, which keeps her practice grounded in live delivery. Two trade-published books track the two problems she works on: Artificial Intelligence in Cybersecurity (Kogan Page) on where the field is heading, and Human Factors in Cybersecurity (BPB) on why people, not tools, decide most outcomes. An MBE in 2023 and a Fellowship of the Chartered Institute of Information Security in 2025 recognise that body of work.
Cyber security has a hiring problem, and one of the cheapest ways to widen the pipeline is to treat neurodiversity and non-linear career paths as an advantage. Ventura is openly autistic and ADHD, diagnosed later in life, and uses that experience to make the business case to CISOs and HR teams who are losing talent they could keep.
Key speaking topics
- Cyber security awareness and culture change
- The human layer of cyber risk
- Neurodiversity in cyber security hiring and retention
- Social engineering and phishing defence
- Burnout, stress, and mental health in security teams
- Cloud security collaboration
- Women and underrepresented groups in cyber security careers
Ideal for
- CISOs and security leadership teams running awareness programmes that have stalled
- CHROs and talent leads trying to widen the cyber security hiring pipeline
- Boards and audit committees treating cyber as a culture and conduct issue, not only a control issue
- Industry conferences and corporate events on cyber security, technology workforce, and inclusion
Audience outcomes
- A clearer view of where human factors sit inside the organisation’s actual cyber risk picture
- Specific, applicable approaches to awareness training that move behaviour, not just completion rates
- A practical case for treating neurodiversity as a hiring advantage in security teams
- Recognition of the burnout patterns that quietly damage incident response capability
- Cross-sector reference points from a practitioner community rather than a vendor stack
Talks
A working session on why the cloud security industry remains fragmented and what global collaboration between vendors, practitioners, and customers could change.
Key takeaways:
- The principal cloud security threats organisations are seeing in practice
- Where industry silos leave organisations exposed and how to close them
- What worldwide collaboration in cloud security looks like in operational terms