The Founders
Brian Bourne
Director and Co-Founder, Black Arts Illuminated Inc.
Brian has a passion for security and has been an active member of the IT security community for over 20 years. Being part of the IT community has always been important to Brian and his entrepreneurial spirit and industry experiences are what helped establish TASK and SecTor as part of Black Arts Illuminated.
When he’s not running conferences and events, Brian maintains his technical edge as Executive Vice President, Products, New Signature, a Microsoft National Solution Provider headquartered in Washington DC. In June 2015, New Signature acquired Microsoft technology consultancy CMS Consulting and cloud management service Infrastructure Guardian, two businesses Brian founded.
Brian also holds certifications including CISSP, MCITP, MCT and MVP status. When he’s not around a computer, you’ll find him out burning gasoline in a motorized vehicle, running a marathon or participating in a triathlon.
Bruce Cowper
Director and Co-Founder, Black Arts Illuminated Inc.
A self-proclaimed IT security and privacy geek, Bruce is the co-founder of Black Arts Illuminated and its conferences and events. He is also a founding member of the Ottawa Area Security Klatch (OASK), and an active member of numerous other organizations across North America including the Seattle Cloud Security Alliance chapter.
Bruce co-founded Black Arts Illuminated Inc. because of his passion to bring IT, security and privacy awareness and knowledge sharing to the community. When he isn’t organizing events with Brian, you’ll usually find him at Microsoft’s Redmond, WA headquarters. A former Executive Evangelist and Senior Security Strategist, Bruce is currently a Senior Trusted Cloud Advisor. He has been an active member of the Microsoft community in both Canada and the United States since 2004.
Aside from his passion for IT, Bruce is an avid traveller and award-winning craft-brewer.
The Team
Renu Bourne
Event Manager
Renu’s event management and business analyst history brings a new dynamic to the running of Black Arts Illuminated conferences and events. A creative and focused member of the team since the early days, you’ll find Renu liaising and engaging with sponsors, vendors, staff and attendees, while working tirelessly to ensure all aspects of each conference runs smoothly.
Renu@blackarts.ca
Clare McKenzie
Logistics and Social Media
Clare organizes the event logistics to ensure the successful delivery of each conference. From working with the Metro Toronto Convention Centre to catering, AV and setup to merchandise and organizing the reception, Clare’s knowledge of Toronto, event experience and logistics know-how guarantees success. You’ll also find Clare engaging with conference followers on Facebook and Twitter.
Clare@blackarts.ca
Jackie Arlen
Speakers
Jackie joined Black Arts Illuminated in 2015 to assist with the organization and appearance of every speaker at each conference, with the added responsibilities of organizing conference hotels, managing speaker travel logistics, meet-and-greets and pursuing presentations for online publication.
Jackie@blackarts.ca
Danny Bradbury
IT Journalist and Blogger
A journalist, editor, documentary film maker and podcast presenter with a passion for IT, Danny’s work with Black Arts Illuminated has cultivated new insights and engaged the IT community through his articles and videos on IT trends and perspectives from conference speakers. You’ll see Danny’s work on our SecTor and social media channels:
SecTor Facebook
SecTor Twitter
Danny@blackarts.ca
Mick O’Brien
Marketing and Communications
With a background in communications, media and event management, Mick provides marketing and communications support to the Black Arts Illuminated team in areas including attendee communications, media, web updates, event assistance, marketing and social media engagement.
Mick@blackarts.ca
