I’m excited to be speaking at TechMentor & Cybersecurity Live! @ Microsoft HQ 2026 in Redmond, WA. I’ll be presenting two sessions on Tuesday, August 4th. The first on deploying and operating AI at enterprise scale, and the second on eliminating secret sprawl with Azure Managed Identity and Key Vault. Both sessions are heavily hands-on, practical, and aimed at IT Pros working in real-world Azure environments.

Event Details

Dates: August 3–7, 2026
Location: Microsoft Headquarters, Redmond, WA

My Sessions

TT02: Enterprise AI for IT Pros: Architecting, Securing, and Operating AI at Scale

Day: Tuesday, August 4, 2026
Time: 8:00 AM – 9:15 AM
Track: AI for IT Professionals

Artificial intelligence is no longer an experiment, it’s becoming a core part of enterprise infrastructure, operations, and security. As organizations accelerate their AI adoption, IT professionals are now at the center of deploying, governing, securing, and operationalizing AI systems across the enterprise.

In this session, I’ll give you a practical, IT-focused deep dive into Enterprise AI with Azure and Microsoft Foundry. We’ll cut through the hype and focus on what IT Pros need to know to support, run, and safeguard AI in the real world. I’ll walk through the 13 Considerations for Enterprise AI and show how Azure and Microsoft Foundry work across these critical domains.

Expect demos, architecture guidance, and actionable patterns you can bring back to your organization immediately. Whether your organization is building copilots, rolling out agentic AI, deploying RAG systems, or integrating AI models into business applications, this session will equip you with the knowledge to deploy AI securely, reliably, and at enterprise scale.

You will learn:

• The Enterprise AI landscape and the role IT Pros play in deploying, securing, and managing AI systems at scale.
• How to plan and implement cost governance strategies for model hosting, fine-tuning, inference, and long-running agents.
• How to monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize AI workloads.

TT18: Eliminating Secret Sprawl with Azure Managed Identity & Azure Key Vault

Day: Tuesday, August 4, 2026
Time: 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM
Track: Azure: Public, Hybrid & Operations

Managing credentials across sprawling application configurations is one of the biggest security and operational challenges facing IT Pros today. Hard-coded passwords, shared keys, connection strings, certificates, and service principals create unnecessary attack surface, complicate audits, and make it nearly impossible to maintain strong security hygiene at scale.

In this session, I’ll show you how to eliminate secret sprawl by shifting to identity-driven, zero-trust access with Azure Managed Identity and Azure Key Vault. We’ll explore how to remove secrets entirely from application code and configuration, securely authenticate workloads without credentials, and centralize secrets, certificates, and keys with robust governance and rotation policies. I’ll walk through real-world patterns for Azure VMs, App Services, Functions, containers, and automation scenarios—along with common pitfalls, migration techniques, and operational best practices.

By the end, you’ll be equipped with the practical knowledge to modernize your organization’s approach to secrets, reduce risk, and simplify operations through secure-by-default Azure platform capabilities.

You will learn:

• About Azure Managed Identity and how it works.
• How to get started with Azure Key Vault to protect secrets, keys, and certificates.
• How to eliminate secrets in applications with Azure Managed Identity and Key Vault.

Event Highlights

• Five full days of deep technical training on Microsoft’s Redmond campus.
• Expert-led sessions across PowerShell & automation, AI for IT Pros, Azure, Microsoft 365, client & endpoint management, infrastructure, security, and more.
• Co-located with Cybersecurity Live! for a combined IT and security training experience.
• Direct access to speakers, Microsoft insiders, and fellow IT professionals.
• Networking, activities, and a chance to explore Redmond and the Pacific Northwest.

Register & Connect

• Register here: TechMentor @ Microsoft HQ 2026
• Full session list and agenda: TechMentor @ Microsoft HQ 2026
• Ping me on X/Twitter, BlueSky, or LinkedIn if you’re planning to attend—I’d love to connect.