Leanne Joseph
Host ONE Conference
Sessions (4)
Sessions featuring Leanne Joseph at ONE Conference
Opening day 1
Europe’s cyber resilience critically depends on the rapid, trusted, and inclusive collaboration of diverse stakeholders. The 2026 ONE Conference serves as a vital nexus, intentionally bringing together government, industry, and academia—from hackers to policymakers—to forge connections and collectively strengthen European sovereignty. Leanne Joseph opened the event by framing its two-day program around six key themes, all unified by this ambition to bolster digital defenses through cross-sectoral engagement. This unique convergence of expertise acknowledges that fragmented efforts are insufficient against an increasingly sophisticated threat landscape, establishing a foundational premise for shared responsibility and coordinated action. The imperative for cooperation intensifies as digital interdependence transforms every societal connection into a potential vulnerability. Jan van Zanen, Mayor of The Hague, underscored this reality, explaining how the very networks enabling modern life also create gateways for sophisticated criminals and state-sponsored actors. The accelerating pace of artificial intelligence and quantum computing further compresses response times, making the threat more pervasive and immediate. Since vulnerabilities inherently transcend organizational and national borders, no single institution possesses the capacity to respond effectively in isolation. The Hague, as an international city of peace and justice, positions itself as a natural epicenter for this essential cybersecurity cooperation, leveraging its robust security cluster, European innovation, and dedicated educational investments to become a global cybersecurity capital. Shifting from the necessity of collaboration to the urgency of action, Willemijn Aerdts highlighted the shrinking window between vulnerability discovery and exploitation, exacerbated by AI. She emphasized that smaller suppliers now represent critical entry points into larger digital supply chains, demanding a proactive, multi-pronged defense strategy. Her proposed response involves three core pillars: significantly increasing the pace of collective defense mechanisms, embedding intrinsic security into products throughout their entire lifecycle, and cultivating a highly skilled, AI-ready workforce. Furthermore, Aerdts stressed that diversity is not merely an ethical consideration but a strategic cybersecurity imperative, asserting that overlooking female talent in STEM fields is a luxury the Netherlands, and Europe, cannot afford. The session concluded with an optimistic call to action, urging participants to view technological change not with fear, but as an opportunity for proactive engagement. The path forward involves dedicated knowledge exchange, the formation of robust cross-sector partnerships, and the collaborative creation of secure, resilient European digital products. The core message resonated: genuine security cannot be engineered by any single institution in isolation. Instead, it emerges from a continuous, integrated effort across all sectors, fostering a collective defense posture that is agile, resilient, and inclusive against evolving cyber threats.
Closing day 1
The core message of the closing session was that cyber resilience depends on active cooperation, practical information sharing, and the willingness of public and private actors to expose weaknesses before a crisis forces them to. The host first closed the loop on day one by acknowledging that attendees could not see every session, especially as many were networking or choosing between simultaneous talks. She pointed participants to the forthcoming recap hub, which would provide access to transcripts, videos, and slides where speakers had permitted sharing, so missed sessions such as “the pragmatic path to continuous purple teaming” could still be revisited. The final guest, Eefje Zents, Director of Collaboration and Digital Resilience for the NCSC Netherlands, reflected on the day’s atmosphere of cooperation. She highlighted the nearly 2,000 visitors at the conference center and expressed hope that those left on the waiting list could be accommodated next year. She also connected the event to The Hague’s ambition to become the city of cyber security, referencing the mayor’s “house of cyber” framing and describing a useful discussion with her French colleague Geoffrey from Campus Cyber in Paris about lessons for building such an ecosystem. Zents argued that public-private collaboration matters because no single organization has the full picture of the cyber threat landscape. Using the image of people viewing an elephant from too close, she explained that separate perspectives can be misleading unless information is shared. She then connected that need to the changed European threat environment, saying the “honeymoon phase is over” and noting that Russia is knocking on NATO’s borders physically and cyber-wise. For her, the opportunity is not to create more ecosystems but to connect existing ones, including the Cyber Resilience Network, Cyclotron, and the Anti Phishing Shield. The most concrete example came from Ukraine. Zents described how, just before Russia’s 2022 invasion, Ukraine suffered a major DDoS attack targeting the financial sector, yet cooperation among individual banks, the Federal Bank of Ukraine, and Ukrainian National Cybersecurity Center colleagues helped restore the payment system within 24 hours. Her closing request to attendees was practical and direct: show weaknesses, share vulnerabilities, talk about incidents, and be open about mistakes so the wider ecosystem starts sharing too. The session ended with a preview of day two, including Ukrainian leaders, a new DIVD hack session, an Odido hack session, and thanks to organizers, speakers, staff, and attendees before drinks in the lobby.
Opening day 2
The core message of the opening session was that cyber resilience now depends on confronting human optimism before it becomes operational naivety, especially as artificial intelligence increases both defensive capability and malicious reach. Host Leanne Joseph welcomed attendees to day two of ONE Conference 2026, noting that the previous day had already worked through six themes: geopolitics, the human impact, the core of tech, the future of cyber, critical infrastructure, and cyber governance. She said day two would continue those themes while focusing on the human side of cybersecurity, thanked the National Cyber Security Centre, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, and the municipality of The Hague, and introduced the Minister of Justice and Security, van Weel, as someone whose role sits where policy meets the people it is meant to protect. Minister van Weel opened with the image of buying a white car without thinking about mud puddles, using it as a metaphor for unfounded optimism. He connected that mindset to the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline four years earlier, recalling that after the incident he had spoken, in his former capacity as assistant secretary general at NATO, with CEOs of pipeline construction companies who had factored many risks into the pipeline but not sabotage. He argued that the same pattern persists in cyber: too many people, including executives, still turn a blind eye to malicious actors. As an example, he cited telecoms company Odido, saying it may have believed it had sufficient measures to prevent a data breach until data from millions of customers was stolen. The minister then shifted to progress and policy. He said the Dutch Cybersecurity Act had been in place since the summer to protect the country and organizations against hacks and other cyberattacks, and that a public-private cyber resilience network launched last year now spans the Dutch business community, from small local bakeries to big multinationals. He urged attendees to join the morning session on collaborating in the cyber resilience network and Cyclotron, and to join the network afterward. He also referred to National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security Mark Kuypress, who had called the previous day for a higher gear on cyber resilience, and said the government plans to present an action plan before the end of the year. Artificial intelligence was framed as neither apocalypse nor simple opportunity, but as a force with far-reaching consequences. Van Weel compared AI’s impact to humanity’s mastery of fire: it can keep people warm or allow others to burn everything down. Used responsibly, he said, AI can support economic growth, innovation, and help address severe labor shortages by handling administrative tasks while scarce human staff focus where the human touch is important, such as at patients’ bedsides. But he warned that in the hands of hackers, spies, terrorists, extremists, criminals, and state actors, AI amplifies sabotage, disinformation, hacking, radicalization, and theft. He cited a Russian hacker group posing as a European foreign ministry to invite diplomats to wine tastings and use grey bloater malware, and a China-linked cyber espionage attack that used AI to autonomously target organizations globally. He closed by emphasizing that Europe and the Netherlands have computing power, expertise, and people, but also need unity: attendees should learn from each other and work together to keep the cyber domain safe.
Closing day 2
The closing session framed the value of the two-day ONE Conference as connection, shared learning, and renewed focus on practical cyber resilience. The host opened by asking what had stood out, and the speakers described the event as both enjoyable and meaningful: one highlighted how much there was to tell, share, and connect around, while another, attending the ONE for the first time, said it was a “true joy” and an honor to learn more about the community, hear the talks, and see the proactivity across the field. The conversation then turned to the Ukrainian colleagues who had just spoken and to the speaker’s own visit to Ukraine in August. The most striking comparison was between air raid sirens in the Netherlands and in Kyiv. In the Netherlands, the Monday siren is treated as a routine test; in Kyiv, it means drones and ballistic missiles may be coming. The speaker connected this to the cyber world’s idea of a tabletop exercise, asking how seriously exercises are being taken when, for Ukrainian colleagues, the scenarios are real life. This led directly to the resilience message for the Netherlands: keep the basics in order and remember that the situations discussed are already happening elsewhere. The session also reviewed a significant year of organizational change for the NCSC. The speaker recalled that the planned January 1 merger with D2C and CSIRT DSP had happened, the reorganization had taken place on July 1, and the hoped-for Cybersecurity Act was now in place. On that basis, the speaker said the NCSC is ready. Looking ahead, the discussion identified AI as something that will keep everyone busy in the coming year, with emphasis not only on challenges but also on how AI can be used to the community’s benefit. The final message was deliberately practical: follow the five basic principles of the NCSC and get basic cyber hygiene in order. The speaker hoped that, after the stories shared during the day and the closing session, attendees could return next year and say real progress had been made. The close also recognized the event team, announced the next ONE Conference dates as 5 and 6 October 2027, encouraged attendees to complete the feedback form, and ended by inviting everyone to networking drinks.