The Convergence of Defense & Energy Panel in Securing Our Future

Ahead of the Eisenhower Award Gala, where BENS will honor leaders advancing space security and energy independence, BENS will surface a shared picture of the future across space, air, cyberspace, land, and sea.

Organized and moderated by BENS Board Director Andrew Hersh, we're hosting an afternoon of panels with leaders from defense, energy, investment, and industry to address one of the defining challenges of our time: securing the future across domains, identifying who is building it, and translating ambition into execution.

Thank you to Andrew Hersh of Willis Towers Watson and Will Fork of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP for sponsoring this event.

Networking & Panel Sessions

The program will feature three panels with several leading experts and time for Q&A. In-person attendees are welcome to arrive 30 minutes early for networking and refreshments.

Panel 1: Securing the Future
Establishing a credible future state and the strategic drivers behind it: the threats shaping defense-energy priorities, the capabilities required, and the industrial capacity and challenges to get there.

Panel 2: Building the Future
Investors and innovators creating that future: what is fundable, what is systematically underfunded, and what it takes from tech to partnerships in order to scale dual-use technologies across defense and energy.

Panel 3: Assuring the Future
Managing risk to succeed: designing for resilience and supply chains, measuring the cost of action vs. inaction, and identifying where risk insurance helps and where market innovation is required.

Featured Panelists

Moderator: Andrew Hersh, BENS Board Director & National Security Practice Leader, Willis Towers Watson — aligns insurance, capital, and strategic industry ecosystems around sectors critical to national security. Founder of Sigma7 Risk, the largest independent risk services business globally, and former Special Risk Advisor to the U.S. Department of Energy's Acting Director for ARPA-E.

Hon. Jerry Hultin, former Under Secretary of the U.S. Navy — led one of the Pentagon’s most comprehensive studies on national security, The Global Century: Globalization and National Security, and the Defense Business Board’s study on AI and automation of the Pentagon’s business operations. Board Director at iRocket and Co-Founder of Global Futures Group, leveraging 21st-century innovation in science, technology, education, and economic development to improve the lives of people around the world. 

Rear Admiral Michael Hewitt, USN (ret.), Co-Founder and CEO, IP3 — career naval aviator with success in major acquisition programs, legislative affairs, joint warfare, and most notably as lead for Information Operations, Cyberspace Operations, Non-Kinetic and Net Warfare for all of DOD. Currently leads IP3, an international energy and security company, with the mission of bringing safe and secure nuclear power to the world’s most critical markets.

Joseph K. Miller, President of Government Operations, BWXT — responsible for the oversight of the company’s Nuclear Operations Group, Technical Services Group and Advanced Technologies. Most recently served as the president of Advanced Technologies and subsidiaries Cunico Corporation and Dynamic Controls, Ltd., where the team made significant strides in demonstrating and deploying new nuclear technology for terrestrial and space applications, including ground-breaking advanced microreactors, nuclear thermal propulsion, and specialty fuel production.

with more expert panelists to come…

Organizer:
Alex Volp
avolp@bens.org

Cost: Free