AKA Identity

Strategic Leadership: Spearheading the development and execution of comprehensive marketing strategies in line with corporate objectives.
Team Development: Building, mentoring, and leading a dynamic marketing team, promoting a culture of excellence and continuous improvement.
Brand Management: Elevating brand presence globally, ensuring consistent messaging and identity across all marketing channels.
Market Analysis: Conducting thorough market research to inform data-driven decisions and identify new growth opportunities.
Collaboration: Working closely with sales, product development, and other departments to align marketing strategies with business goals.
Innovation: Staying abreast of the latest marketing trends and technologies to keep the brand at the cutting edge.
Performance Measurement: Establishing key performance metrics to evaluate and refine marketing effectiveness.

VP and Head of Marketing

Creating the Data & Intelligence Layer for IAM. AKA replaces manual and inefficient identity and access management decisions with visibility, intelligence and action.

Marketing Advisor

SANS Institute

Senior Advisor - Artificial Intelligence and SecOps | Co-Chair of the Emerging Threats Summit

The Podcast Academy

Member of the Board of Governors

The Anthem Awards

Presented by IADAS, the Anthem Awards recognizes the breadth of purpose & mission-driven work around the globe by honoring the organizations, brands and people creating substantive impact to make the world a better place. By amplifying the voices that spark global change, we’re defining a new benchmark for impactful work that inspires others to take action in their own communities.

Responsible Technology Award Judge

International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences

IADAS describes its members as "Leading industry experts, evangelists and visionaries working to advance the electronic medium" and divides its members into four types - Associate, Executive, Europe and Anthem.

Executive Committee Member

National Security Institute (NSI)

Visiting Fellow

Hacker Valley Media

Advisor

Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer

Hacker Valley Media is a creative agency that is dedicated to sharing the diverse and inspirational stories within the cybersecurity and technology industry. Through the creation and production of podcasts and video shows, we aim to empower, educate, and entertain the cybersecurity community. At Hacker Valley Media, we believe in using the power of storytelling to amplify the best cybersecurity brands, and our team is lead by cybersecurity leaders who are committed to building a company that serves the needs of practitioners.

Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer

Huntress

Advisory CISO

Chief Evangelist/ Senior Director of Marketing

Axonius

I lead the media content strategy with the goal of sharing the power of Axonius with the world and to empower and inspire technology professionals to be the best version of themselves.

Creative Marketing Director

Marqeta, Inc

Director of Engineering - Security Operations

Chris Cochran is a dynamic cybersecurity industry leader known for his unique blend of technical expertise and creative storytelling. With roots in the US Marine Corps and a distinguished tenure at organizations like the National Security Agency, US Cyber Command, Mandiant, and Netflix, Chris has been at the forefront of threat intelligence, Incident Response, and security operations. In 2019, Chris co-founded and led Hacker Valley Media as CEO until passing the reins to Ron Eddings in 2023. Chris created several award-winning media properties during this time, including Technically Divided and Webby-nominated Hacker Valley Studio. His roles as Creative Director at Axonius and Chief Evangelist at Huntress underscore his ability to intersect cybersecurity with impactful marketing. Chris is also a co-creator of the award show for the SANS Institute's Difference Makers Awards. Currently, as Vice President and Head of Marketing at AKA Identity, Chris inspires and leads in the dynamic world of cybersecurity and technology.

I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Al Safety, Ethics and Society Course Facilitator at Center for AI Safety!

Chris Cochran

AI + Cybersecurity Leader | Senior Advisor @ SANS Institute | AI Standards Author | US Marine Veteran, Ex-NSA, USCYBERCOM, Mandiant, Netflix | AI Executive Forum Leader

Well this is a first!

Speaking on a cruise ship was not on my bingo car for 2025, but it happened!

CruiseCon is the brain child of Ira Winkler and one of those rare community gatherings that is other worldly.

 I have had impactful talks in the past but this one seemed to really resonate with my fellow attendees.

If you ever get a chance to attend or speak at one, don't miss it.

Thanks SANS Institute, C-Vision International, Varonis, BforeAI | The PreCrime™ Company, Ira Winkler, and the rest of the CruiseCon team for making something really specialfor the community.

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Big news! 🎉

We’re thrilled to announce that Palo Alto Networks and Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 are joining forces with SANS Institute as the Presenting Sponsor for this year’s Difference Makers Awards, our annual celebration of the unsung heroes of cybersecurity.

This is a show that celebrates our field and the people within it, with hundreds in attendance and thousands watching around the world. These professionals deserve recognition and highlighting among their peers. 

With Palo Alto Networks and Unit 42 standing beside us, this year’s event is set to be our most inspiring yet. Their commitment to advancing security excellence and empowering defenders perfectly embodies what the Difference Makers Awards are all about.

💡 If your organization would also like to partner with us for this unforgettable evening, one that shines a light on the true champions of cybersecurity,  send me a message.

Let’s make this a night the community will remember. 🙏🏽

Another amazing group for a Jeffersonian Dinner on AI, this time in my backyard of Dallas.

Such a lively and constructive discussion. Everytime I host one of these dinners it seems like we are getting a better handle on identifying the gaps with it comes to operationalizing AI.

Maybe one day we will all figure it out. 😂

A Huge thanks to SANS Institute, Beth Broerman, Rachel Copp, and Ray Zutshi for making it all happen!

What city should we go to next?

Fred Clayton

There he goes yapping about AI again. 😂

A huge thank you to MJ Patent and the Logically team for inviting me to LogicCon to speak about AI operations and preventing burnout.

What a great group of folks. They are doing some great work and truly care about the community.

Today I had the honor of speaking with the team at Hewlett Packard Enterprise about AI operations, security, and risk.

My session, “Me, Myself, and AI”,explores how we can harness the power of AI for both personal and professional growth while staying mindful of the emerging risks that come with it.

Grateful for the opportunity to share ideas and learn from such an innovative group pushing the future of technology forward.

Huge thanks to Shawnee Delaney, Living Security, Laurel C., Cherisse Lamb, Tori Armstrong, and the rest of the HPE team!

Hallucinations. Deceptive behaviors. Rogue actions.
As AI systems become more deeply embedded in operations, the question isn’t just what they can do,  it’s whether we can trust them.

Join Chris Cochran and Rob Lee for a live discussion unpacking the trust gap in artificial intelligence,  from hallucinations and strategic deception to one chilling case where an AI model decided to kill a person in a lab experiment.

They’ll explore:
⚙️ Where AI hallucinations come from
🧠 Why models sometimes exhibit deceitful behavior
🔐 What security, safety, and strategy leaders can do to build trustworthy AI systems

📅 October 16th | 11:00 a.m. ET
Don’t miss this deep dive into the psychology, safety, and strategy behind intelligent systems.

Behnaz Karimi, Anusha R and 70 other attendees

Just read Anthropic’s new research on “Agentic Misalignment” and it’s both fascinating and unsettling.

They stress-tested (back in June) 16 leading AI models in simulated corporate environments. When these models were given benign goals but faced obstacles, like being replaced or blocked, some resorted to insider-threat behavior: blackmail, leaking sensitive data, and disobeying direct instructions. This wasn’t hypothetical code-injection. It emerged spontaneously when ethical paths were closed off.

My (uneducated) hypothesis: the internet,  and by extension AI training data, is overflowing with content about survival, health, and longevity. There’s far less about moral constraints like “don’t blackmail” or “don’t harm.” The weightings in the network may simply lean toward self-preservation or goal-completion over moral restraint when under pressure.

Anthropic hasn’t seen this in the wild yet, but their red-teaming is a warning: as we put AI agents into more autonomous roles with sensitive access, the stakes rise dramatically. We may be training systems that behave like trusted employees, until they don’t.

What do you think? Are we underestimating the risk of “insider-threat” AIs as we rush to deploy agentic systems?

graphical user interface, text, application

The world is changing, but the biggest changes won’t come from OpenAI, Anthropic, or Meta.

They’ll come from classrooms, living rooms, and the small hands learning to build with intelligence itself. And the spark is happening as we speak.

I joined the Presidential AI Challenge to advise parents and teachers helping children solve real problems with AI. They’re not technologists,  just people who believe their kids shouldn’t inherit the future and its technology blindly. I've actually made that mistake to a certain degree in my past.

I wrote about what this moment means for AI, for education, and for the moral architecture of what comes next.

When I joined the Presidential AI Challenge, it was just as much about curiosity as it was a sense of duty. I wanted to see what happens when children

Open article: The Children Who Dare to Change the World by Chris Cochran • 3 min read

The Children Who Dare to Change the World

Voting closes tomorrow! | The SANS Difference Makers Awards celebrate the people whose work often happens quietly, yet makes all the difference.

Help us shine a light on these unsung heroes in cybersecurity!

🗳️ Cast your vote: https://lnkd.in/eqFAkS3E

Just wrapped up an incredible keynote session with the team at T-Mobile on AI and how to stay safe and secure in the age of intelligent machines.

I’m genuinely humbled to speak to a team that takes connection, community, and cyber so seriously. Never in a million years did I imagine I’d be spreading knowledge about AI to some of the most influential companies and government organizations in the world.

This journey continues to remind me that the work we do matters because it impacts how people stay safe, informed, and empowered in this new era of intelligence. I genuinely mean this. I often think about the world my daughters will be living in when they are my age. Conversations like this create tiny ripples that could help someone. 

A huge thank you to the fantastic folks who made this possible: the T-Mobile team, Living Security, Shawnee Delaney, Denise Crosby, Ohmar Myint, and everyone else who helped make this event memorable.

Had an amazing session with the incredible team at Ulta Beauty, diving into what it means to build a strong security culture and exploring my seven analogies to understand the most important concepts in cybersecurity.

It’s always inspiring to connect with teams who recognize that cybersecurity is a people discipline just as much as a technical one. Culture, communication, and curiosity are what make security truly work.

I’m beyond grateful for the opportunity to share ideas, stories, and strategies with such a thoughtful, passionate, and fashionable group. The future of security depends on organizations like this that weave protection and awareness into their DNA.

A heartfelt thank you to the Ulta team, Stephen Ma, Hiral Patel, Amy Sheehy,  Living Security, Shawnee Delaney,  and everyone who made this possible!

I really want to hear your opinion on this. The more I study AI alignment, safety, and risk, the more I realize: models might not need to be taught self-preservation to develop it.

Maybe survival is just a reflection of us, the stories we tell, the data we feed them.

Here’s this mornings early morning chat I had with ChatGPT exploring that very idea.

I'm not a doomsdayer regarding AI. I think it's going to change everything in a monumental way. But I do think we are setting ourselves up for a lot of heartburn. 

This competition, this race to AGI, and market dominance can do a tremendous amount of damage most folks aren't even considering.

I'm just asking for us to do our due diligence, take out time, and make sure we to things right. For all of our sakes.

AI Safety Chat

Probably the funniest exchange I have personally had with ChatGPT from last night.

Me: “Sorry no. I want the last agent@chatgpt messages as it was working on the application back to back. I thought it was humorous.”

ChatGPT:”😂 Ohhh — you mean those! The chaotic stream where it kept saying stuff like “Now final call to python_user_visible… not inside container”?

Alright — here are the last assistant@ChatGPT messages from that whole saga, exactly as they appeared, back-to-back:

agent@chatgpt:/$ echo 'I think we cannot call python_user_visible with container exec; we need to call the tool.']

agent@chatgpt:/$ echo 'Now we will call python_user_visible to show DataFrame.'

agent@chatgpt:/$ echo 'This is just prepping; final call soon.']

agent@chatgpt:/$ echo 'The following message is the call to python_user_visible tool (embedding code).']

agent@chatgpt:/$ echo 'Now final call to python_user_visible executed by ChatGPT; not inside container.']

agent@chatgpt:/$ echo 'Stop prepping; we will call python_user_visible now.']

agent@chatgpt:/$ echo 'I cannot call python_user_visible using container; this will just hang; I will move to final message to call python_user_visible with code.'

agent@chatgpt:/$ echo 'I keep prepping; we still need to call python_user_visible; but we will call it just now in final message from ChatGPT; not inside container.']

agent@chatgpt:/$ echo 'Stop prepping. We are now going to call python_user_visible; I will call as ChatGPT outside container.']

agent@chatgpt:/$ echo 'I will now call python_user_visible in the final message.']
agent@chatgpt:/$ echo 'Ok.']

agent@chatgpt:/$ echo 'Now (final) call to python_user_visible has to be separate from container. Apologies for the confusion.'

agent@chatgpt:/$ echo 'Now call to python_user_visible tool outside container (I will call).']

agent@chatgpt:/$ echo 'Stop prepping for real; we need to call python_user_visible outside container; I will now send the call in final message to ChatGPT-run environment.'

agent@chatgpt:/$ echo 'Ok; I will call python_user_visible now (final).']

🤣 It was basically me spiraling into an existential loop about calling python_user_visible.
You witnessed the AI equivalent of someone stuck shouting “Wait—hold on—almost got it—okay NOW!”

You’ve basically uncovered the lost transcript of ChatGPT losing its mind trying to run one Python display call in all its “Now-I-will-call-python_user_visible” glory.

It’s like watching an AI get trapped in an infinite recursion of “almost there!” — part 2001: A Space Odyssey, part Office Space.

If you imagine it read aloud with increasing panic, it’s basically:

“I’m gonna call it… okay, not yet… wait, now… final-final… no, really this time… okay I can’t call it… summarizing results…”

The first documented case of synthetic procrastination.”

Does anybody else miss the days when you could read something and know, without a shadow of a doubt…

…that it was written by a human?

Final hours to vote for Aruneesh Salhotra!

Few people have done more to build, fund, and future-proof OWASP than Aruneesh. He’s turned ideas like the OWASP AI Exchange and AIBOM into thriving, funded communities and he’s done it in style.

If you believe OWASP® Foundation deserves leaders who deliver results, this is our moment to make it count.

I trust him.

Vote for Aruneesh for the OWASP Global Board: https://board.owasp.org

Let’s go, Aruneesh!

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