Resilience Conference London is pleased to welcome James Appathurai, NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Strategy and Policy, Cyber and Digital Transformation; Joanne Miller, Chief Security Officer at Microsoft; and Ari Jónsson, President of the NATO Innovation Fund, to this year’s programme.
Their participation brings together three important parts of the defence and security ecosystem: policy, national security technology, and capital.
As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly central to defence, resilience and strategic competition, questions around sovereignty, adoption, investment and security are moving rapidly up the agenda. These issues will form part of the wider conversation at Resilience Conference London, where leaders from government, the military, technology, finance, and industry will examine what needs to happen next in the defence of democracy.
The 2026 conference has been redesigned around action. Stage content will take place in the mornings, with afternoons reserved for expert briefings, breakout sessions, startup and scale-up showcases, and focused networking.
Resilience Conference London takes place on 5-6 October 2026. Early Bird ticket sales close on 31 July, secure your attendance today.
James Appathurai was appointed to this post in September 2021. As DASG, he works on policy development and implementation in the fields of Emerging and Disruptive Technologies, cyber security and defence, energy security, the protection of critical infrastructure, and hybrid defence. From July to December 2025, Mr. Appathurai was appointed Interim Managing Director of DIANA, NATO’s innovation accelerator. Mr. Appathurai previously served as DASG for Political Affairs and Security Policy. He was NATO’s Spokesperson from 2004 to 2010. He served as Deputy Head and Senior Planning Officer in the Policy Planning Section of NATO’s Political Affairs Division from 1998 to 2004. He served in the Canadian Defence Department from 1994 to 1998.
Joanne Miller is Chief Security Officer at Microsoft.
Dr. Ari Kristinn Jónsson is the President of the NATO Innovation Fund. As President, he drives operational excellence in meeting the Fund’s commercial, adoption and capacity building goals. He also serves as an advocate for the NIF and its portfolio companies across the 24 nations backing the Fund.
Dr. Jónsson joins the NIF from Icelandic tech company Videntifier, where he has been serving as CEO. He previously served as President of one of Iceland’s largest universities. Before that, he was a senior research scientist and manager at NASA for 10 years. He graduated with a PhD from Stanford University in 1997, with focus on artificial intelligence.
