There’s nothing like New York City in late summer. It was the perfect setting last week for Proofpoint Protect 2019, our premier customer event.
A record number of customers from all around the world joined us. This year Proofpoint Protect featured over 30 customer speakers, 29 different breakout sessions, five workshops, three roadmap sessions, 12 tech tables, and dedicated tracks for security, compliance and security awareness training. Here are some of the key highlights I took away from the event.
Keynote sessions: Product announcements, three customer stories, two partnership announcements, and a hilarious comedian
Our CEO and chairman, Gary Steele, shared several product announcements across the Proofpoint portfolio, including new functionality in Targeted Attack Protection, CASB, archiving/compliance, security awareness training, and more. We continue to invest approximately twenty percent of revenue into R&D to ensure that our customers stay ahead of the threat landscape and keep their organizations protected from critical security and compliance risks. Gary also announced a new partnership with CrowdStrike, and an expansion of our partnership with Okta.
We also welcomed comedian and frequent Ted Talk speaker James Veitch as our guest keynote speaker, and he left our attendees rolling with laughter as he shared his stories replying to and trolling internet scammers. It was great to pause and have a laugh over what James did, which I’m sure is every infosec professional’s dream.
Comedian James Veitch delivering his keynote presentation
Our EVP of Cybersecurity Strategy, Ryan Kalember, wrapped up our keynote sessions by inviting three customers to share their people-centric security and compliance stories. IT and security leaders from Accenture, Michigan State, and LPL Financial shared how their organizations leveraged people-centric visibility to better understand and then mitigate the critical risks they identified.
Breakouts: Highly interactive sessions with customer speakers and workshops
When our organizing team started to plan out our agenda, we decided the goal was to have a conference for our customers by our customers. We had over 30 guest customer speakers join us in our 29 breakout sessions. This format allowed our attendees to hear from their peers and ask questions. I received very positive feedback from speakers who were happy to share their Proofpoint journey on all of our security, awareness training, and compliance products. On the receiving end, attendees were appreciative of the real-world learning lessons shared by their peers. On behalf of Proofpoint and our attendees, I want to take the opportunity to thank our customer speakers for joining us and sharing the stories of how they partner with us.
Our 16-foot-tall Very Attacked Person banner greeted Proofpoint Protect attendees
In addition to the breakout sessions, we had five interactive workshop sessions such as “Augmenting Microsoft Office 365 with Proofpoint”, “Addressing Business Email Compromise with Proofpoint”, “Implementing People-centric Security in Your Organization”, “Building an Effective Security Awareness Program”. We also had a workshop session on “Building Your Board Presentation with People-centric Security”, where participants each created a PowerPoint deck to present to their boards.
Networking and community building
In addition to networking lunches and cocktail reception, we also brought vertical communities together for industry-specific conversations, including healthcare and public sector. Customers traded contact information, shared insights, and strengthened their relationships.
Networking at Proofpoint Protect
We’re taking Protect on tour!
For our North American customers who weren’t able to join us in New York, don’t worry—with the great response that we received from you, we’ve decided to take Protect on tour and bring our conference highlights to a city near you. Details will be forthcoming, and we look forward to seeing you soon.