Become a YSPA Accelerator Pilot Cohort Member
Join YSPA for its pilot Accelerator program from September 1 to October 23, 2026!
This 8-week live-virtual, cohort-based program turns early-career security professionals into business-savvy risk partners.
Launching Sept 2026 | Pilot Cohort
Accelerator was built to address a recurring challenge CSOs and senior security, intelligence, crisis management and resilience leaders have observed: talented young professionals can run investigations, analyze intelligence, manage incidents, or support security operations - but often lack the business fluency, strategic perspective, and organizational understanding required to influence decisions at the highest levels.
Over 8 weeks - live, virtual, cohort-based program - you'll develop the business fluency, crisis thinking, intelligence tradecraft, and leadership foundation that separates early-career professionals from future security leaders.
What is the YSPA Accelerator?
The Accelerator from YSPA is designed to address that gap. Its unique format blends self-paced learning with live-virtual workshops led by senior industry experts and mentorship focused on a real-world capstone project. It delivers a cohort of security professionals who can connect disciplines, translate risk into business language, and lead across domains.
Over 8 weeks, Accelerator’s modular structure will explore:
- Aligning security strategy to the business
- Security Storytelling and how to communicate your value add
- The handshake between corporate security and corporate resilience
- The role of integrity and governance in building trust with stakeholders
- Integrating intelligence into risk comprehension and decision-making
- The impact of geopolitics and hybrid threats on security convergence
- How AI is shifting the threats and the corporate responses
- Practical application of lessons-learned through a capstone project based on real-world challenges, guided by industry-leading mentors.
YSPA’s Accelerator is running as a pilot program this fall and is available at the discounted price of €999.
Submit your applications by July 17.
Seats are limited to preserve the quality of interaction, mentoring, and diversity of professional backgrounds that have always been at the heart of YSPA. If you’re in the first seven years of your corporate security, risk or resilience role, you can submit your application.
The world is changing how businesses operate. YSPA is preparing early-career security professionals to stay ahead of the threats.
YSPA’s Accelerator Program is built on lived experience and lessons learned.
The Accelerator captures the lessons senior security practitioners have learned, to transfer them to the next generation. YSPA would like to thank the leaders and experts who have donated their time and insights to develop security professionals in their first seven years of corporate service.
The Accelerator Facilitators from the YSPA Team
The YSPA Core Team members are a curated collective of senior security practitioners who serve as educators, architects, and guides - directly shaping how the next generation of security talent develops through hands-on workshops, cross-disciplinary dialogue, and reverse learning.
Thea
Gioe
Workshop: Ethics & Governance
Thea is the architect of The Accelerator at YSPA and a founding member of the Academy. She is the founder of GioeIntelligence Solutions, a training and advisory firm that helps organizations develop the systems and people needed for intelligence‑led decision‑making. A Visiting Fellow with King's College London's Centre for the Study of Intelligence, she brings expertise in organizational intelligence capability-building and the professional development of security leaders.
Lana Djurkin-König
Workshop: Security in the Resilience Ecosystem
Lana is the Founder of YSPA. A senior global security executive with 20+ years of international leadership experience across military intelligence, NATO operations, and Fortune 500 organizations including Swiss Re, EY, DHL, and Lenovo, she brings expertise across corporate security, intelligence, crisis management, and conflict-affected regions. Her commitment to practitioner-to-practitioner learning and knowledge exchange underpins YSPA as a community-centered ecosystem where operational experience, mentorship, and cross-generational dialogue directly shape the next generation of security leaders.
Julia
Vincke
Workshop: Geopolitics and Hybrid Threats
In addition to being a founding member of YSPA, Julia is a criminologist and senior corporate security executive with extensive international experience in security leadership. Until 2025 she served as Vice President Security at BASF and previously held senior roles at Volkswagen, MediaMarktSaturn, and Metro AG, following a career in law enforcement with the Lower Saxony Police. Her international assignments in Afghanistan and Libya and her recognized speaking on geopolitical risk and organizational resilience underpin her advocacy for diversity and professional development within the global security community.
Pranoti
Surve
Workshop: Aligning Security with the Business
Pranoti is a leadership team member of YSPA. A senior global security, resilience, and crisis management executive with almost two decades of international experience, she has held leadership roles at Philip Morris International, Meta, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, building and scaling security and risk management teams at the intersection of operational excellence and strategic risk. She also founded Pay It Forward Jobs, serves on the Asia Pacific Analyst Roundtable, and contributes widely through teaching and writing on geopolitical risk and leadership.
Accelerator Facilitators: Industry Leaders
These industry experts and senior practitioners are running live-virtual workshops that enable the Accelerator cohort to hone skills, test frameworks, and question thought leaders about trends that are shaping the evolution of corporate security functions.
Nathalie Wlodarczyk
Workshop: From Risk Manager to Strategic Partner: Intelligence‑Led Decision Making
Over the past 20 years, Nathalie has worked with senior leaders across the private and public sectors to transform intelligence functions and integrate geopolitical intelligence into strategic decision‑making. Much of her recent work focuses on the geopolitical risks and opportunities linked to climate change and the green transition. In addition to serving as Managing Director at Gatehouse, she is a non‑executive director at sustainability specialists Forster Communications.
Cedrick Moriggi
Workshop: Security in the Resilience Ecosystem
For over 25 years, Cedrick has equipped FTSE 100 companies, C‑suites and security agencies across more than 80 countries to safeguard their PEARL$ — People, Environment, Assets, Reputation and Bottom Line, guiding them through over 500 crises with a 98% business continuity rate. He bridges boardroom strategy and on‑the‑ground execution as a trusted advisor, adjunct professor and global speaker, sharing boardroom‑tested resilience strategies with universities, corporate leaders, media and international forums such as UNDRR. Cedrick co‑facilitates the “Security in the Resilience Ecosystem” workshop alongside Lana Djurkin‑Koenig.
Colin Reed
Workshop: Innovating with AI as a Security & Risk Professional
Colin is the Chief Intelligence Officer at Clock&Cloud, a geopolitical risk management software company, and Chair of the Association for Geopolitical Risk Management. He previously led Salesforce’s Geopolitics & Strategic Risks team and served as a senior intelligence analyst in the U.S. government. He holds an MA in National Security Studies from Georgetown University and BAs in History and International Relations from North Carolina State University, and he guest lectures at Sciences Po Paris. Colin's work regularly appears in both academic and popular media and he is the coauthor of Merchants of Power: The History of Corporate Geopolitics, forthcoming from Hurst Publishers in Spring 2027.
Accelerator Facilitators: Industry Leaders
The best security intelligence means nothing if your leadership doesn't understand why it matters. Storytelling is how you move from operator to advisor - it's how you earn a seat at the strategy table.
Rachel Briggs OBE
Workshop: Storytelling for Security Leaders
Rachel is CEO of The Clarity Factory, which produces research, thought leadership and consultancy on corporate security and cyber security. She is author or co‑author of multiple works on corporate security and resilience, including The Business Value of Corporate Security, Holistic Security and The Business of Resilience, and she leads The Clarity Factory’s Annual CSO Survey, a key benchmarking resource for CSOs. Rachel is an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, a board member of the Risk and Security Management Forum, and was Founding Executive Director of Hostage US and the first Director of Hostage International, with her work recognized through honors such as an OBE and major industry awards.
Peter Rudge
Workshop: Storytelling for Security Leaders
Peter is the founder of HumanStory, where he works with senior leaders and teams to enhance their use of neurochemically active storytelling techniques to influence, persuade, and communicate purpose. He has taught, coached and supported politicians, artists, lawyers, finance professionals, business leaders and government officials to develop and deploy powerful personal, professional and strategic stories. Previously, he was Managing Director of a documentary film production company and served in the British Diplomatic Service in the UK, Europe and East Africa on non‑proliferation, counter‑terrorism and security policy.
Who This is For
The Accelerator is designed for security professionals with 1–7 years of experience who are:
The Young Professional
You're 1–3 year into global security. You understand operations. Now you need to understand the business—how organizations actually make decisions, how risk translates to strategy, and how security becomes trusted counsel. The Accelerator fast-tracks that learning.
The Emerging Professional
You're 3–7 years into a security role. You're solid at what you do. But you're ready to think bigger. You're ready to invest in strategic thinking—to move from "expert practitioner" to "security strategist" who influences decisions at the highest levels. This program is built for that transition.
The Corporate Pivoter
You come from another part of the business—legal, risk, operations, human resources, communications, crisis management, governance, enterprise resilience, etc. You bring organizational credibility and business fluency. Now you're moving into security or expanding into a security leadership role. You need to understand how practitioners think, operate, and see the world. The Accelerator bridges that gap.
Your Cohort
You're learning alongside security professionals from different countries, industries, and backgrounds:
- Corporate security
- Intelligence and investigations
- Military and defense
- Crisis management and resilience
- Emerging markets/geopolitical risk
The diversity of perspective makes the learning real.
After the Program
You join the YSPA alumni network — a growing community of emerging security leaders who stay connected, share challenges, and support each other's careers.
FAQ
Answers to the questions you might have
Q: What if I'm not a native English speaker?
English is the working language of the Accelerator (our cohorts are international). We're looking for people who can engage in English-language conversations, not perfect English speakers. If you have concerns, mention them in your application.
Q: Am I qualified for YSPA Accelerator?
If you have 1–7 years working in corporate security, intelligence, crisis management, or resilience — and you're ready to think strategically about organizational risk instead of just executing tactics — you're exactly who this is built for.
Q: Can I do this while working full-time?
Yes. The program is designed for working professionals. Expect 5–8 hours per week, spread across the week. Most participants continue their regular jobs.
Q: What's the cost?
Pilot price is 999 Euros.
Q: How is this different from any other online security course?
This is not your typical on line program. It's practitioner-led, peer-based learning. You're not competing for grades. You're developing your thinking with mentors and peers who are actually doing this work.
Q: What happens after the 8 weeks?
You join the YSPA alumni community.
Accelerator Video Content Creators
Meet the leading security practitioners and subject-matter experts who generously contributed their knowledge and experience to create the YSPA Accelerator’s digital learning content.
Marco Mille
Chief Security Officer at Siemens AG, brings over three decades of public- and private-sector leadership experience and is a recognized expert in geopolitical risk, resilience, security innovation, as well as a Corporate Founder and Advisory Council member of YSPA.
Cheryl Steele
Global Head of Security, Crisis and Continuity at Millennium Management, brings extensive international leadership experience and is a recognized expert in global security, crisis management, business continuity and geopolitical risk, as well as an Advisory Council member of YSPA.
Gilad Solnik
Vice President of Worldwide Operations Security at Amazon, brings over four decades of cross-sector leadership experience and is a globally recognized expert in global security operations, organizational resilience and talent development, as well as a Corporate Founder of YSPA.
Chris Rackow
Vice President of Global Security and Resilience Services at Google, brings leadership experience across corporate, government and military sectors and is an expert in security and resilience, as well as a Corporate Founder and Advisory Council member of YSPA.
Jay Bimbrah
YSPA’s Chief Information Security Officer, brings over 20 years of leadership across UK policing and international aerospace security and is an expert in crisis management, national security and public-private collaboration, with extensive experience supporting senior government and industry leaders.
Huw Longmore
Global Lead for Security Risk Governance at Gallagher, draws on nearly a decade in the British Army and subsequent private-sector experience and is an expert in security risk management, organizational resilience, intelligence and strategic consulting across complex international environments.
Laura Bratu
Senior Manager leading AI Governance and Security in Lenovo’s Chief AI Office, brings over a decade of experience across cybersecurity, governance and transformation and is an expert in secure, responsible and scalable AI, risk management, compliance and organizational change.
Tracy Reinhold
Global Chief Security Officer and SVP of Industry Consulting at Everbridge, brings extensive leadership experience across enterprise security, incident management and resilience and is an expert in critical event management, enterprise response strategy and protecting people, operations and assets.
Maria Robson-Morrow
Researcher and lecturer leading intelligence studies programming at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center and teaching intelligence analysis at Johns Hopkins University, brings private-sector consulting experience and is a recognized expert in intelligence analysis, professionalization and global risk intelligence practice.
Pranoti Surve
Governance Lead of YSPA, brings almost two decades of leadership experience across global security, resilience and crisis management and is an expert in building risk functions, strengthening enterprise resilience and positioning security as a business enabler across complex organizations.
Alan Leung
Chief Security Officer at Moneycorp, brings 20 years of leadership experience across finance, national security and geopolitical risk and is a recognized expert in translating political, economic, regulatory, supply-chain and climate risks into practical investment, security and operational strategies.
Claire Coady
Founder of The Attention Practice and Chief Strategist of YSPA, brings two decades of experience advising multinationals, governments and NGOs in over 90 countries and is an expert in the attention economy, brand and communications strategy and cognitive warfare.
Nicole Buratovich
Senior Manager of Worldwide Engagement for Amazon’s Worldwide Operations Security team, brings expertise in organizational leadership, employee wellbeing and engagement and is dedicated to strengthening resilience, connectivity and emotionally intelligent leadership through mental health resources, transparent communications and collaboration.
Angie Gad
Founder and CEO of GadIntel, brings over a decade of experience across government, law enforcement, private intelligence, technology and academia and is an expert in intelligence analysis, analyst development and building training programs that equip intelligence professionals to succeed.
Moira Andrews
Senior legal and national security professional, brings over 45 years of experience across intelligence, security, justice and international affairs and is an expert in strategic governance, risk, accountability, ethical decision-making and operational assurance within complex and high-threat international environments.
Lana Djurkin-König
Founder and Chair of YSPA, established it with a mission to develop the next generation of security professionals, drawing on over 20 years of global, cross-sector leadership experience across corporate security, crisis management, organizational resilience and strategic risk management.