The version we rejected
A cyber chapter of its own would have forced a choice: this, or the network you already give your evenings to. Nobody needed another thing to belong to.
Newly established
GTA Cyber launched in Istanbul on 7 October 2026. Read the news
A Global Tech Advocates working group
We make the GTA network more resilient.
AI is helping bad actors exploit new vulnerabilities faster than most organisations can patch them, and quantum computing threatens the encryption that protects today’s data. GTA Cyber gives every founder, leader and investor in the network practical guidance from the security practitioners already inside GTA networks worldwide, so they can spot risks earlier and act before bad actors do.
Title sponsor
40,000+Business leaders, experts and investors across the GTA network
42+Global Tech Advocates working groups in the world’s fastest growing tech regions
One centre of excellenceCybersecurity expertise that every GTA network can call on
About
Security knowledge is everywhere. Reaching it is the hard part.
Cybersecurity expertise is already distributed across Global Tech Advocates. It sits with a CISO in one city network, a founder building detection tooling in another, a policy specialist somewhere else entirely.
What has been missing is the connective tissue. A new vertical chapter would have added another silo and asked those people to choose between it and the network they already belong to. GTA Cyber does the opposite. Members keep their existing GTA membership and their day jobs, and the group becomes the community’s centre of excellence for cybersecurity: the place where security practitioners meet, compare notes, and answer the call when any part of GTA needs a security perspective.
The model
One of forty, built sideways
Most Global Tech Advocates working groups have a territory or an industry. Ours has a discipline, and that single difference decides almost everything else about how it runs.
The version we built
Nobody leaves anything. You keep your network, you keep your job, and the group is simply the wire between them when a security question turns up.
What the whole community gains
A standing group of experienced security practitioners that every GTA network can call on: people sharing what they are seeing, tested guidance, and a trusted place to ask before something goes wrong. In effect, an information-sharing centre for the GTA community.
Focus areas
Four subjects we work on
Post-quantum readiness leads because it is the only one carrying fixed dates. All four connect: you cannot migrate cryptography you have never inventoried.
Post-quantum readiness
The standards are finalised and the deadlines keep moving forward. The hard part is knowing where cryptography actually lives in an estate before you can sequence a migration.
Orchestrated digital governance
Discovery produces inventories. Governance requires an owner, a deadline and an audit trail for every asset, across security, GRC, legal and brand rather than in four disconnected tools.
AI and cybersecurity
Securing AI systems and using AI in security are two different problems, routinely discussed as one. Bad actors adopted the technology faster because they face no procurement cycle.
Data sovereignty
Usually treated as a legal question. The security framing asks where data physically sits, which keys exist and who holds them, and what technically happens when a provider is compelled.
How we work
Two standing mechanisms
Not subjects. These are the two things the group actually does, whatever happens to be on the agenda.
Practitioner exchange
A room where security people can say the unflattering thing out loud: what broke, what the tool did not do, what they would decide differently now.
Small and periodic beats large and showy. Fifteen of the right people at a time is the whole design.
Expertise on call
Somewhere in a network of 40,000 people, someone has already solved the thing you are stuck on. The problem has always been finding them.
Ask, and we point you at a peer who knows. Not a consultancy, not free labour, just a considered answer from someone who has done it.
Deliberately not
Four things we will not do
- Issue badges. No certification, no accreditation, no scheme with our name on it.
- Take work off our members. Plenty of them sell security services. We are not going to bid against them, or quietly become a shortlist.
- Answer the phone at 2am. This is not an incident response service, and implying otherwise would get someone hurt.
- Sell you a threat feed. Practitioners sharing what they are seeing is one thing. A product with a subscription is another.
The list matters more than it looks. Every one of these would cost us the trust of the people we need in the room.
Partners
Volunteer-led, sponsor-funded.
Global Tech Advocates is not-for-profit and volunteer-driven, financed by sponsors and collaborating partners. GTA Cyber follows the same model. Nobody draws a salary from it; sponsorship pays for the programme itself.
Klarvant is our title sponsor. We are talking to a small number of further partners who want to support security practitioners rather than market at them.
Get involved
Ways in
The group is new, so its remit and its programme are being shaped now by the people joining it. This is the moment where taking part actually changes what it becomes.
Practitioners
If you work in security and are already part of a GTA network, or would join one to take part, this is the main way in. Membership is free.
GTA groups
If another Global Tech Advocates group wants a security strand for an event, or a considered answer to a security question, ask us.
Funders and partners
Sponsorship pays for programme delivery rather than salaries. The terms, including what sponsorship deliberately does not buy, are on the partners page.
Common questions
The short answers
What is GTA Cyber?
The cybersecurity working group within Global Tech Advocates. Not a regional chapter and not a vertical business line, but a cross-cutting group that draws on security practitioners already inside GTA networks and makes that expertise available across the whole organisation.
How is this different from the other GTA working groups?
The others are mostly defined by where they are or what industry they serve. We are defined by what our members do for a living, which means we cut across the rest of them instead of sitting alongside. Nobody gives up an existing membership to take part.
Who can join?
Practitioners working in cybersecurity who are already part of a Global Tech Advocates network, and those who would like to join GTA in order to take part. Membership is free and volunteer-led.
How is it funded?
Through sponsorship, as the wider organisation is. Klarvant is the title sponsor. Sponsorship funds programme delivery, not salaries.