Derek Schatz, Participant

Derek Schatz has been working in cybersecurity for over 25 years, with much of that time in the aviation/aerospace sector at Boeing and in his currently role as head of information security for Virgin Galactic. At Boeing he was the technical lead for ground and airborne security for inflight Wi-Fi provider Connexion by Boeing, and later worked in the Commercial Airplanes division in Cabin and Network Systems. He represented Boeing in a number of international aviation cybersecurity standards committees, including as a founding member of both Eurocae Working Group 72 and RTCA Special Committee 216. As part of that work, he performed the industry’s first cybersecurity safety analysis using SC-216’s DO-326A process for the SwiftBroadband Safety specification in ARINC 781. At Virgin Galactic, he is responsible for the overall information security program for the leading provider of commercial private space travel. He lives in Southern California, where he enjoys hiking and gourmet cooking with his wife.