Talks, articles & public appearances

Seminar on the intersection of cybersecurity, AI, and NIS2 compliance for Bulgarian businesses.

Industry expert engagement at CyberConf BG, Bulgaria's cybersecurity conference.

AI-focused session at DEV.BG.

Joint session with Svetoslav Hristov (CEO of Evolink) on trust in the AI era — digital identity, the qualified trust-services infrastructure beneath it, and how to deliver secure online services at scale.

Panellist on „AI, Automation and Accountability: Who Is Responsible for the Outcome?" at the Sofia Compliance Forum — the question of human accountability when AI and automation drive operational decisions.

As President of BAK, explained why Anthropic's Mythos model — which chain-exploits decades-old vulnerabilities — is a wake-up call that makes identity and MFA hygiene table stakes.

External industry expert speaker at the Belgrade edition of ManageEngine's Shield NxG 2026 European tour — practical lessons from 2025's cyberattacks and identity-centric defense.

Featured industry expert speaker at the Sofia edition of Shield NxG 2026, alongside Yavor Piperov (CIO) and ManageEngine's Michell Almeida — unpacking 2025's biggest breaches into practical IAM and SOC takeaways.

Serving as cybersecurity mentor in the ABLE Mentor program for high-school and university students exploring careers in infosec.

Walked developers and security engineers through what changed in the 2025 edition of the OWASP Top 10, focusing on design flaws, misconfigurations and supply-chain risk.

Argued that blanket bans on generative AI fail and that organisations need an "AI hygiene" culture plus GDPR / EU AI Act-aligned controls rather than prohibition.

Runner-up in Forbes Bulgaria's 2025 "Innovative Leader of the Year" recognition.

Opening keynote at SpinOff 2025, hosted at the GATE Institute in Sofia.

Named one of the Top 100 Executives in Bulgaria by Career Show.

As CISO of Evrotrust, unpacked the three pillars of cybersecurity, managing psychological stress under breach pressure, and lessons from 1,000+ hiring interviews.

Panelist on the Cybersecurity 360° track of the first Festival of Technologies in Vratsa (opened by Mayor Kalin Kamenov), alongside Prof. Dimitar Dimitrov (Rector, UNWE), Yasen Tanev (EDIH Trakia), Col. Assoc. Prof. Rumen Marinov and Margarita Kirilova (Lev Ins).

Participated as Chairman of BAK in the OWASP Sofia Demo Day alongside Hristian Daskalov, Petar Dzhalaliev, Lyuben Petrov and Michlo Hekimov.

Warned that at least 10 Bulgarian companies a month suffer costly breaches and that mass cyber-maturity among Bulgarian businesses remains low.

Speaker at Capital's Cybersecurity Forum 2024 — the annual industry gathering convened by Bulgaria's leading business publication.

Framed Bulgaria's IT-outsourcing maturity as a springboard into cybersecurity product development as DORA / NIS2 ramp demand.

Reminded the largest Bulgarian dev conference audience that security responsibility belongs to every role, not just the CISO.

Drew on his AWS Managed Security background to walk through a practical AWS incident response playbook.

450+ registrants heard a career-navigation seminar based on international frameworks and his 1,000+ hiring interviews.

Ranked among the 100 most influential IT personalities in Bulgaria.

Bulgarian-language lecture to UniBIT students on building a cybersec career — skills, certifications vs. experience, Bulgarian market segmentation (junior/regular/senior) and salary benchmarks. Delivered as VP Cybersecurity at Payhawk and President of BAK.

Highlighted that ~80% of business incidents stem from human factors and that thousands of AI-rewritten "mushroom sites" amplify propaganda and election disinformation.

Bulgarian-language phishing awareness talk (~80% of incidents start with phishing), with Bulgaria-specific numbers (1–2k victims/month, ~€1M in monthly losses) and case studies (Uber, Colonial Pipeline, Sony).

Delivered a practical information-security training to Radomir municipality staff covering attacker motives, modern phishing techniques and defensive basics. One of the earliest public engagements in his BAK presidency.

Panelist in a Team8 / OX Security AppSec discussion on making dev-sec collaboration actually work in modern organisations.

Replaced Svetlin Iliev as chairman of БАК; the Pernik-born executive became the association's main public voice.

Helped co-organise the annual end-of-year gathering for the Bulgarian cyber community.

As Payhawk VP Cybersecurity, argued that Business Email Compromise is the #1 risk in modern payment workflows and demonstrated concrete mitigations.

Brought practical cybersec awareness to one of Bulgaria's leading maths / science high schools.

Made the case that information security is fundamentally a people problem, not a tick-box exercise.

Long-form Bulgarian interview on his path into the field, the Bulgarian cybersec scene and industry trends.

Session for career-changers and juniors on the skills, mindset and habits that distinguish senior infosec professionals.

With SoCyber founder Krasimir Kotsev, mapped junior entry points, certifications and non-technical qualities that matter in Bulgaria's cybersec hiring market.

Profiled as one of Bulgaria's leading white-hat hackers and co-founder of the Bulgarian Cybersecurity Foundation, opening the "cyber new year" 2023.

First major DEV.BG phishing deep-dive — spear / whaling / smishing / vishing, BEC, BITB attacks, concrete detections & takedowns. Delivered as VP InfoSec at Payhawk.

As Head of InfoSec at Payhawk, mapped his own career journey into cybersecurity for a Bulgarian audience considering the same path.

Guest-lectured modules inside UniBIT's Ethical Hacking course in Fall 2022 — confirms an ongoing university teaching role at UniBIT beyond standalone guest lectures.

Told ~160 attendees that roughly 80% of breaches originate in phishing and that realistic simulations beat classroom training.

His LinkedIn analysis broke the news that Bulgarian torrent site Zamunda had been breached, with 2.6 million credentials on sale for €750.

Co-founded Sofia's first BSides and opened it with a keynote making the case for formal vulnerability disclosure programmes. CTF held the next day.

Interviewed as Director of InfoSec at Payhawk and Chairman of the Bulgarian Cybersecurity Foundation ahead of BSides Sofia 2022.

End-to-end DevSecOps walkthrough — design / development, static & dynamic analysis, security testing and ops security — delivered as Security Engineer at Dext and Chairman of the Cybersecurity Foundation. Earliest verifiable DEV.BG talk in the record.

Delivered as Senior Security Specialist at Dext — practical guidance on managing CVEs inside library dependencies.

Founded a non-profit publishing cybersecurity awareness materials for Bulgarian citizens, businesses and government.

Early career talk on WordPress security at the first WordUp conference in Sofia — practical guidance on hardening WordPress installations, plugin/theme hygiene, and common attack vectors against the Bulgarian web community.

Co-organises regular AppSec meetups in Sofia and speaks at most editions.

Recurring speaker at Bulgaria's first monthly cybersecurity meetup.

Founded and runs Bulgaria's largest online cybersecurity community / forum.

Recurrent webinar speaker inside DEV.BG's cybersecurity group (including the Jan 2026 OWASP Top 10 webinar above).

Regular guest lecturer on AppSec, cloud security and security culture; specific universities / dates not published publicly.

Offers paid advisory calls on infosec careers and security-program building.

Public Sessionize profile with speaker bio.