Jelle Niemantsverdriet is a cyber resilience advisor at Ferm, the organisation coordinating digital resilience across the Dutch port sector. Working as an independent consultant, he focuses on risks that don’t fit neatly into any single organisation’s scope: chain dependencies, shared infrastructure vulnerabilities, and the governance gaps that emerge when critical processes span multiple parties. The GPS case presented in this session is one of the systemic risks he’s actively helping to organise a response to. Jelle is also co-founder of CyberInstinct, where he works on making security more human-centered and effective. He believes security should enable rather than obstruct – a perspective shaped by over 20 years investigating major data breaches and leading security teams across Fox-IT, Verizon, Deloitte, and most recently as National Security Officer for Microsoft Netherlands. His approach draws on cross-disciplinary insights from behavioural science, safety engineering, and design thinking to build security that works with human nature rather than against it. He advocates for resilience over compliance: understanding that systemic risks cannot be managed through checklists alone. Jelle has delivered over 300 presentations at conferences including Black Hat USA and NCSC One Conference, and is known for engaging, non-traditional presentation styles. He holds an MSc in Artificial Intelligence (University of Groningen) and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, alongside CISSP and CISM certifications.
