Mike Echols Speaking Fee: $10,000 - $15,000

Michael A. Echols has spent more than three decades at the front lines of cybersecurity, critical infrastructure protection, and technological change—and today he is challenging leaders to rethink what security means in the age of artificial intelligence. A former senior cybersecurity executive at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Echols has helped shape national approaches to critical infrastructure protection, information sharing, communications resilience, and transportation cybersecurity. His career has taken him from briefing government and industry leaders to speaking internationally, developing cybersecurity standards and assessment tools, and helping organizations prepare for threats that often arrive faster than policy can keep pace. But Echols' story extends well beyond government. He is an entrepreneur, patented innovator, author, board and community leader, and nationally featured voice on careers and leadership, including an appearance on Roadtrip Nation. He has written multiple books addressing cybersecurity, leadership, technology, and personal protection, including Secure Cyber Life: The Government Is Not Coming to Save You and The Shield: Protecting Seniors from Hackers. He also created Cybersecurity in 60 Seconds to make complex cyber issues understandable to everyday audiences. His commitment to developing people and communities is equally important. Echols serves in university, philanthropic, and community leadership roles and has spent years mentoring emerging professionals and helping the next generation see themselves in cybersecurity and technology. Today, Echols is turning his attention to what he believes is cybersecurity's next great challenge: who controls the decisions when artificial intelligence begins making them? As Founder of Max AI Holdings, creator of AiM FRAME™ and The Control Layer for AI™, he is advancing new approaches to AI governance and system assurance built around a deceptively simple question: How do we know? How do we know an AI system is doing what we intended? How do we know its decisions remain aligned with our mission and values? And how do leaders maintain control as machines increasingly influence consequential outcomes? Echols brings those questions to the stage through stories drawn from national security, cybersecurity, entrepreneurship, critical infrastructure, leadership, and life. His message isn't about fearing technology. It's about understanding it well enough to remain in control of what comes next. Echols was named the University of Maryland Global Campus 2018 Distinguished Alumnus, is a graduate of Harvard University's National Preparedness Leadership Initiative, holds the CISSP certification, and continues to serve in business, university, and community leadership roles.