The Future of Crime Intelligence & Analysis - Speaker Announcements

Opening Address - Mark Breen, Director, Emergency Management Monitoring and Intelligence, Emergency Management Ontario

Mark Breen is the Director of the Emergency Management Monitoring and Intelligence Branch at Emergency Management Ontario. Mark is dedicated to enhancing provincial surveillance and monitoring of emerging emergency hazards and risks through building a modern, one-window data management and intelligence system for emergency management that will put the right information in the right hands at the right time, to keep Ontarians prepared and safe.

Mark is a seasoned emergency management professional with over 20 years of experience in the public sector leading multi-disciplinary teams at the Ontario Ministry of Health and Ministry of Indigenous Affairs in achieving successful outcomes in emergency prevention, preparedness, mitigation and response, including:

• Establishing the Ontario Ministry of Health’s Emergency Medical Assistance Team (EMAT) - a mobile medical field unit that can be deployed anywhere in Ontario with road access within 24 hours.

• Serving as Incident Command at the Ministry of Health for the response to multiple emergencies, including the 2006 Lebanon evacuation and repatriation of over 2000 evacuees to Ontario.

• Designing and implementing the emergency management program for the Ontario Ministry of Indigenous Affairs.

• Partnering with northern First Nation regional organizations to co-develop a tripartite protocol for responding to social emergencies in remote First Nations, for which he was a recipient of the 2019 Federal/Provincial/Territorial Emergency Management Exemplary Service Award.

Keynote Speaker - Andrew Kirsch, Speaker, Author, and Consultant on issues of physical, cyber and national Security

Andrew Kirsch served as an intelligence officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) for just under a decade. He held roles as a policy analyst and a field investigator, ultimately leading teams on clandestine warranted special operations. His memoir, I Was Never Here: My True Canadian Spy Story of Coffee’s, Code Names and Covert Operations in the Age of Terrorism was an instant national bestseller charting on the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail Nonfiction lists. Since leaving CSIS Andrew founded Kirsch Group (KG) a boutique Risk Consultancy serving government, corporate and private clients. He is also a trainer and public speaker on issues of national and cyber security. Drawing on entertaining stories from his career; Andrew gives a rarely seen look behind the curtain at what Canada’s security service does, what it’s really like to be a spy, the threats he faced and the challenges to come. You can purchase the book here. For more information visit Iwasneverhere.ca

Co-Host - Gary Galbraith, Academic Chair, School of Public Safety & Behavioural Studies; School of Recreation & Environmental Studies, Seneca

Gary is a respected and strong advocate for industry and academic partnership in his role as the Academic Chair at Seneca College. He led the development of the Honours Bachelor of Crime & Intelligence Analysis (CIA), the first crime and intelligence degree offered at an Ontario postsecondary institution.  Gary leads a dedicated team of full-time, adjunct faculty and staff delivering innovative and applied learning experiences for over 1,600 post-secondary students across nine academic programs for two Schools at Seneca.

Co-Host - Cynthia Weeden, Founder and President, FutureShield Inc.

President and founder of FutureShield Inc. Cynthia Weeden, has over 30 years of recognized experience in strategic leadership roles, including senior management at global companies. She has spent more than 15 years working directly in the area of public safety technology as Founder and President of FutureShield. Cynthia offers her expertise to assist the leaders in Canadian security and emergency management, including critical infrastructure and government organizations as they work to integrate innovative technology into their daily operations.

Cynthia has been a speaker on technical solutions, and at times offered counsel, on the subject of the convergence of IT and Public Safety for the Canadian Electrical Association, Federated Press, CANASA, Conference Board of Canada, CITIG and the York University Masters in Emergency Management Program. In 2021 Cynthia was selected by Women’s Executive Network, as one of Canada's Most Powerful Women: Top 100 2021 Award Winners in the category of BMO Entrepreneurs.

Seminar Presenter - Frank Bradley, Director of National Accountss,Cap Index Inc.

Frank Bradley is the Director of National Accounts for CAP Index, responsible for managing customer and partner relationships across Canada and the United States. Frank is dedicated to helping public and private organizations better understand, expand, and improve the use of crime risk intelligence in their security programs to keep their customers, employees, and products safer.

Frank joined CAP Index in 2015 and spearheads product innovation and market expansion across the retail, technology, restaurant, and financial sectors. He is an active member and presenter at the Loss Prevention Research Council Violent Crime and Product Protection working groups, the IAHSS (for Hospital Security), ASIS, and RLPSA (Restaurant Loss Prevention). Frank lives in the Philadelphia area and holds a bachelor’s degree from the Penn State University.

Seminar Presenter - Brendan Phelps, Senior Account Executive, Flashpoint

Brendan is a Senior Account Executive at Flashpoint, responsible for supporting customers across Canada. He joined the Flashpoint team from Echosec, a Victoria, BC based social media monitoring company that was acquired by Flashpoint last year. Brendan's background is in open-source intelligence and he has provided training to government, military and commercial customers to help them detect and mitigate threats originating online. Most recently, Brendan was involved in a case with the Community Security Initiative, an organization that works to protect the Jewish community in New York. During this engagement, Brendan was able to set up and refine searches to alert the customer to violent threats posted on social media. One of the searches triggered an alert to a post discussing a plan to attack a synagogue, which was escalated to the NYPD and FBI. This led to a manhunt and resulted in the arrest of two individuals on the subway travelling in the direction of the synagogue, armed with an illegal glock firearm, bulletproof vest, ski mask and swastika armband.

Seminar Presenter - Sean McElaney is a Solutions Architect, Flashpoint

Sean McElaney is a Solutions Architect at Flashpoint, responsible for creating customized solutions for customers across Canada. He received his MSc. degree from University of Western Ontario with a focus on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) which led him to join Echosec in January 2020. Echosec, a Victoria, BC based company focused on geospatial social media intelligence, was acquired by Flashpoint in August 2022. Sean’s main focus at Flashpoint is helping organizations detect threats posed by online threat actors and use this data to mitigate real life harm to organizations and the general public. Sean has worked on creating solutions for a wide variety of clients including law enforcement, corporate security teams, military and intelligence agencies.