MONDAY MARCH 23, 2026

CRYSTAL GATEWAY MARRIOTT

ARLINGTON, VA

7:00am – 8:00am

Check-In/Badge Pickup

8:00am – 8:15am

Welcome - Office of IO Policy

Exhibits Open

8:15am – 8:45am

Keynote

• Dr. Richard Tilley, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict

8:45am – 10:00am

• COL Chevaso “Chevy” Cook, Ph.D, USA, Joint Staff Non-Kinetic Effects Cell
• Col Ian Fletcher, USMC, Commanding Officer, II MEF Information Group (MIG), II Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF)
• COL Sean Heidgerken, USA, Commander, 1^st Theater Information Advantage Detachment (TIAD)
• COL John Agnello, USA, Commander, 2^nd TIAD (ARCYBER)
• Information Warfare Squadron Two, USN
• Moderated by: CAPT Christi Montgomery, CoS, Naval Information Forces (NAVIFOR)

10:00am – 10:40am

Break

Morning Coffee Exposure Sponsors
    

10:40am – 11:10am

IO, the NSS and NDS Fireside Chat

• Mr. Shawn Chenoweth, Director for Cognitive Advantage, National Security Council
• Mr. Kennan Hedrick, Acting Executive Director OIOP and Deputy PIOA
• Moderated by: Dr. Jason Smith, USCG CAPT (ret.), Associate Professor, National War College

11:10am – 12:00pm

Supercharging the Defense Industrial Base for IO

• Becky Fair, Senior Vice President of Information Advantage, TwoSix Technologies
• Ben Kessler, Head of Enterprise Strategy & Public Sector, Meltwater
• Vic Garcia, Director, Cyber & Intelligence Sector – OPIAS & Cognitive Warfare, Peraton
• Tobias Musser, MNS Group (invited)
• Moderated by: Meagan Metzger, Founder & CEO, DECODE

12:00pm – 1:00pm

Lunch

Lunch Exposure Sponsors

1:00pm – 2:15pm

Intel Support to IO

• Bjorn Kjelstad, Senior Solutions Consultant, Sayari
• Shaun Kane, Chief Information Security Officer, DCI Solutions
• MAJ Will Lemieux Joint Forces HQ Cyber (Army)
• COL Dave Acosta, Professor, Naval Postgraduate School (invited)
• Moderated by: Juliet Fielding, Special Advisor, Operational Support Activity, OUSW(I&S)

2:15pm – 2:45pm

Keynote

2:45pm – 3:15pm

Break

Afternoon Break Exposure Sponsors
         

3:15pm – 4:30pm

Strategic Communications

• Jay Janzen, J10 StratCom Director, NATO/Supreme HQ Allied Powers Europe
• Col Juvenal Mark T. Tayamen, PA (GSC), XO, J3, Armed Forces of the Philippines
• Andrew Harrison, UK LtGen (Ret.), World Services Advisory Council, Saatchi World Services
• Karen Grissette, Managing Director, RPPR, DoS
• Moderated by: Martha C. Adams, Deputy Director, Strategy, Plans & Assessments, Office of the Secretary of War – Public Affairs

4:30pm – 4:45pm

Close

5:00m – 6:30pm

Reception

Reception Sponsors

TUESDAY MARCH 24, 2026

CRYSTAL GATEWAY MARRIOTT

ARLINGTON, VA

7:00am – 8:00am

Check-In/Badge Pickup

8:00am – 9:30am

Cyber, AI and IO Influence

• Dr. Paul Buvarp, Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, Senior Research Fellow
• Colin Rodgers, Vannevar Labs
• Col Byron Owen, MARFORCYBER G2
• Josh Levontin, VP Public Sector, Cyabra
• Moderated by: Mr. Raitis Vecmanis, NATO StratCom COE

Exhibits Open

9:30am – 10:00am

Keynote

10:00am –10:30am

Break

Morning Coffee Exposure Sponsors

10:30am – 11:45am

Allies and Partners

11:45am – 12:45pm

Lunch
Lunch Exposure Sponsors
    
-Lunch Presentation

12:45pm – 2:00pm

Influence Campaigning

• M. Brieuc GUIHAIRE, French Air Force, Ecole de guerre
• Sophie Williams-Dunning, The Royal United Services Institute
• Jeremy Parrott, Amentum
• Dr. Carrick Longley, Founder & CEO, ZenithFlow
• Moderated by: COL Jeremy Mushtare, Office of IO Policy

2:00pm – 2:30pm

Break

Afternoon Break Exposure Sponsor
    

2:30pm – 3:45pm

Determining Acceptable Risk for IO

• Dr. Hasan Davulcu, Arizona State University
• Dr. Svitlana Volkova, Chief of AI, Aptima
• Thomas Kent, American Foreign Policy Council
• Nick Wilcox, Senior Program Manager, CACI
• Moderated by: Dr. Andrew Whiskeyman

3:45pm – 4:15pm

Closing Keynote

4:15pm – 4:30pm

Updates

4:30pm – 4:45pm

Closing/Working Group Orientation

UNCLASSIFIED WORKING GROUPS AND PRESENTATIONS

WEDNESDAY MARCH 25, 2026

CRYSTAL GATEWAY MARRIOTT

ARLINGTON, VA

8:30am – 1:00pm

Working Group: Institutional Evolution. This working group will generate PME thesis recommendations for IO, develop IO TTX/Wargame requirements, and explore future IO workforce organization/categories.

Presentation from 8:45am - 9:15am: Beyond ‘Our Worst Enemy’:
Institutionalizing and Driving Change

• Michael Jackson, HII

8:30am – 1:00pm

Working Group: Acquiring AI to improve influence activities. This working group will define AI capability requirements for influence activities, provide recommended Policy guidance inputs, develop guidelines (guardrails) to govern the use of AI-generated output in influence activities and provide known AI training and education opportunities.

8:30am – 1:00pm

Working Group: IO Assessments. This working group will discuss best assessment best practices and provide feedback on the IO assessment capability. There will be an IO Assessments WG panel from 8:45am – 10:00am. Panel members will include:

• Fred Baier, GTRI
• Dr. Monica Robbins, Behavioral Scientist
• Jacob Coakwell, EUCOM J39/AFS
• Michael Stanisich, TetraTech

8:30am – 1:00pm

Sprint Presentations. There will be additional presentations that offer valuable insights and specialized knowledge for Information Operations professionals.

9:00am – 9:40am

The Asymmetries of Cognitive Warfare: Defence, Deterrence, Offence

• Sviatoslav Hnizdovskyi, Openminds

9:40am – 10:00am

Securing the Signal: Strategic Communications for Mission – Critical Decision Advantage

• Cody Mitchell, Mattermost

10:00am – 10:20am

Stop reacting, start predicting: the new paradigm for AI – powered intelligence

• Dmytro Plieshakov, Osavul

10:20am – 10:40am

Cog War Prime

• Paul Sparks, Itility

10:40am – 11:00am

Achieving Strategic Dominance in the Battle Against the Global Adversarial Complex

• Jessica McFate, Babel Street

11:00am – 11:20am

STRETCH

11:20am – 11:40am

Beyond the flashpoint: Taiwan as a strategic partner in the information domain

• AIT PDS and III MEF Representatives

11:40am – 12:00pm

Unquiet Peace: The domestic front of Russia’s war in Ukraine

• James Beadle, Fraym & Maksym Tereshchenko, Mantis Analytics

12:00pm – 12:20pm

STORM 1516, a Case Study of Effective Capabilities to Counter Disinformation Swarms

• Erika Escalen, French Army War College

12:20pm – 12:40pm

Building an AI World Model for the Information Environment

• Dr. John Kelly, Graphika

CLASSIFIED WORKING GROUPS

WEDNESDAY MARCH 25, 2026

PENTAGON

7:30am – 8:30am

Pentagon Visitor Center

8:30am – 1:00pm

Intel Support to IO (S//REL FVEY)

IO and Deterrence

S//REL FVEY/NATO/SGP/JPN. Real world intelligence brief and notional TTX.

11:00am – 1:00pm

U.S. Council of Colonels - INDSG/NDS priorities

12-1:00pm w/ DDGO and DPIOA (subject to their availability)