Book an Expert Facilitator: Cybersecurity Architecture - The Game

Dr. Sven Herpig

Lead for Cybersecurity & Emerging Threats, interface

Sven leads cybersecurity and emerging-threats research at interface, the European tech policy think tank. His work sits across active cyber defence, government hacking, vulnerability management, AI security, open-source software security and election security; always with one foot in policy and the other in technical reality.

Before interface, Sven spent years inside Germany's federal government: first with the IT security staff at the Federal Foreign Office, then as deputy of the cybersecurity and society unit at the BSI. His PhD examined the strategic implications of cyber operations for the state. Today he advises the EU Cyber Diplomacy Initiative, represents civil society on Germany's national cybersecurity council, and is a regular columnist for Tagesspiegel Background Cybersecurity.

He has keynoted the G7 Digital Ministerial Meeting and presented to the US Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus, the European Parliament and the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute. He's a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Hull and Associate Fellow at CASSIS, University of Bonn.

What he brings to the table: a habit of explaining rather than dramatising, structuring rather than simplifying, and making space for the uncomfortable questions that produce real policy.

Editions: Various Languages: German, English Based in: Bonn, available across NRW

Lena-Sophie Drews

Researcher, International Cybersecurity Project (ICS), Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH)

Lena-Sophie joined IFSH's International Cybersecurity research focus in January 2025. Her work sits at the intersection of cybersecurity and international relations, with particular interests in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, cyber feminism, the challenges posed by disinformation, and the impact of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure. She watches the geopolitical dynamics between the US and China closely, especially where they shape the direction of global cyber governance.

Before IFSH, she worked at the Digital Society Institute at the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) in Berlin, focusing on cyber policy and cyber diplomacy. She supported the German Bundestag's Committee on Digital Affairs and spent time in the Digital Public Services team at Fraunhofer FOKUS. She studied at Bielefeld University and holds a master's in political science with a focus on World Politics.

What she brings to the table: a researcher's instinct for the structural questions - who makes which decision, with what authority, and on what evidence - and the patience to slow a group down until they answer them properly.

Edition: Germany Edition Languages: German (native), English Based in: Berlin

Christina Rupp

Lead for International Cybersecurity Policy, interface

Christina is a cybersecurity policy professional based in Berlin, leading international cybersecurity policy at interface. Her specialism is cyber diplomacy and EU cybersecurity policy: UN cyber norms, the public attribution of cyber operations, the role of ENISA. She’s a specialist in understanding the connective tissue that holds (or fails to hold) European cybersecurity together.

She maintains the EU Cybersecurity Policy Directory - a first-of-its-kind open-access overview of the EU cybersecurity ecosystem - and represents interface as a stakeholder in UN cybersecurity governance processes. She's previously contributed to interface's work on Germany's cybersecurity architecture.

Before interface, Christina worked at the Permanent Mission of Germany to the United Nations in New York, the German Federal Ministry of Defense's United Nations Unit, the Aspen Institute Germany, and the German Federal Agency for Civic Education. She holds an M.Sc. in Political Science from the University of Copenhagen, an LL.M. in Public International Law from the University of Amsterdam, and a B.A. in Political Science, Sociology and Public Law from the University of Bonn.

What she brings to the table: an unusually steady grasp of how international law, EU policy and national implementation actually fit together, and the ability to make those connections visible to a room of people who didn't come in expecting to enjoy international cyber law.

Editions: International Law Architecture, Germany edition Languages: German, English, French Based in: Berlin, facilitating across Europe, and beyond if required

Andrea Reichl-Streich

Information Security Officer, City of Ingolstadt

Andrea brings more than a decade of hands-on information security experience across the places where it matters most: hospitals, KRITIS-regulated organisations and public sector administration. Her work covers ISMS implementation, business continuity, data protection, awareness measures and crisis management exercises. Her speciality lies in understanding the operational reality behind every NIS2 obligation.

Before her current role as Information Security Officer for the City of Ingolstadt, she spent four years as Information Security Officer and Business Continuity Manager at a KRITIS hospital, three years as a Manager-level cybersecurity consultant at a Big Four firm, and a year as a freelance consultant in Switzerland. She is currently leading work toward ISMS certification for the City of Ingolstadt, with active engagements in AI security and NIS2 implementation.

She is a regular conference speaker, has co-created online training materials on the Bayern Digital Campus, and contributes to publications including the 2025 IEEE paper Through the Looking-Glass: The Current AI Landscape in German Hospitals from a Cybersecurity Perspective. She holds a Bachelor in Business Administration, a Master in Health Care Management and an MBA in Digital Business.

What she brings to the table: a practitioner's view of what NIS2 really costs to implement, deep sector knowledge across healthcare and municipalities, and a strong network of working-group peers across the German public sector.

Editions: Hospital & Public Sector (City Edition), NIS2, Inter-sectoral Disaster Management, Germany edition Languages: German, English Based in: Bavaria, facilitating across German- and English-speaking regions

Andreas Könen

Senior Fellow, Brandenburg Institute for Society and Security (BIGS)

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Few people have shaped Germany's cybersecurity architecture from as many angles as Andreas. Until March 2024, he was Head of the Cyber and Information Security Department at the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community (BMI), having previously led units covering IT and cyber security, secure information technology, and cyber security for police forces and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

From 2013 to 2016 he served as Vice President of the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), which he originally joined in 2006. Before that, eighteen years at the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), including senior roles in cryptography and technical reconnaissance, and a final post in the management staff of the BND President. He holds a degree in mathematics with a focus on algebraic number theory and cryptography.

Since summer 2024 he has been a Senior Fellow at BIGS, working with the institute's researchers on cybersecurity studies, including a recent study on the state of information security at universities and research institutes, and an emerging research project on active cyber defence.

What he brings to the table: institutional memory most people don't have access to, a mathematician's patience for the awkward question, and a willingness to pressure-test the assumptions a group thought were settled.

Editions: Cyber Defence; AI and Cybersecurity Interdependencies Languages: German, English Based in: Bonn and Berlin

Sabine Griebsch

Managing Director, GovThings

Sabine is a cyber and IT crisis manager who has actually been in the room when the worst happens. As External Chief Digital Officer for the Anhalt-Bitterfeld district from 2020 to 2022, she served as Technical Operations Lead in the disaster management task force during a major ransomware attack on the district - work that became a reference point for municipal cyber crisis response in Germany. She has since supported further deployments, including in the state capital Potsdam.

Since 2022, she has been Managing Director of GovThings, where she works with an interprofessional and interdisciplinary network of experts to support municipal stakeholders in managing IT crises and running IT crisis exercises; both in operational practice and in the harder, slower work of building the systems that make a calm response possible.

She trained in public administration (Dipl.-Verww. (FH), B.A. Public Management), starting her career at the Ministry of the Interior of Saxony-Anhalt before moving into IT project management with a focus on open government data, geospatial data, sensor data and the municipal use of data.

What she brings to the table: lived experience of a cyber crisis at municipal scale, a clear-eyed view of what exercises need to do (and not do!) to actually prepare a team, and a working network across the German municipal landscape.

Edition: Germany Edition Languages: German Based in: Germany, facilitating nationwide

Annika Wägenbauer

Founder & Strategic Partner, Cybersecurity Redefined

Annika works across the strategic, international and educational sides of cybersecurity. She drives collaborative projects across sectors through Working Groups of the World Economic Forum, and others, and serves as Vice Chair within the International Nuclear Security Education Network Leadership at the IAEA. She is helping to shape cybersecurity education in some of the highest-stakes environments there are.

Her career bridges public and private, including extensive experience in the German automotive industry. She holds a Master of Social Sciences in International Security and Law from the University of Southern Denmark and a B.A. in European Studies from The Hague University of Applied Sciences. She has lived, studied or worked in nine countries and speaks eight languages. Two threads run through her work: integrating ethics and legal philosophy into cybersecurity, and increasing female participation in the field, as a supporter of Women4Cyber Germany and an Ambassador at She@ISACA.

What she brings to the table: multilingual, multi-jurisdictional fluency that lets her run the same exercise across very different regulatory and cultural settings, and the lived conviction that ethics and security belong in the same conversation, not in separate departments.

Editions: Open to all editions Languages: German (native); English, Dutch and Spanish fluently Based in: Stuttgart, facilitating worldwide

Julia Schuetze

Julia Schuetze is the founder of Cyber Policy Haus and an international cybersecurity training designer and facilitator with over ten years of experience helping organizations strengthen cyber resilience through interactive learning. She has designed and facilitated exercises, workshops, and serious games for organizations including the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), the European Commission, GIZ, the German Energy Agency (dena), and the Federal Academy for Security Policy (BAKS), working with participants across Europe, Africa, the Caucasus, and Latin America. Julia specializes in transforming complex cybersecurity topics into engaging experiences that bring together technical experts, policymakers, executives, and operational teams. Every Cyber Policy Haus game is inspired by methods that have been tested and refined in real-world workshops and international exercises, helping participants learn through discussion, collaboration, and decision-making rather than slides.