In today’s newsletter we announce our first Cornerstone sponsor, plus some exciting news from two of our WSS 2026 speakers - Laura Thomas and Bianca Goodloe, and a CNN interview with WSS 2027 speaker Nancy Youssef on the resignation of the Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll.

WSS is proud to welcome Helio Risk as a Plankholder Cornerstone Partner of the Whitefish Security Summit.

Helio Risk is a risk financing and captive insurance management firm with a deep focus on national security, aerospace, the firearms industry, and defense. These are sectors whose risks are often misunderstood by commercial brokers, leaving owners exposed to volatile premiums. Helio Risk uses captive insurance to help them regain control of that spend and turn insurance from an expense into a revenue stream.

"Helio Risk understands this community and the real risks its businesses carry," said Kyle Sweet, Helio Risk founder and CSO. "As a founding Cornerstone Partner, we're helping build WSS from the ground up, and we'd welcome others who share that mission to stand alongside us as sponsors."

Bianca Goodloe gave one of our more popular talks at our inaugural WSS event last April on the use of AI in entertainment and its broader implications for data privacy. She is also the Executive Producer for the upcoming Netflix release “Fortitude” about the largest and most successful Disinformation campaign in any war to date. Known as “Operation Fortitude” it used a fictitious force—the First U.S. Army Group (FUSAG)—along with dummy tanks, landing craft, camps, false radio traffic, double agents, and Gen. George S. Patton’s public association with the supposed force to convince Germany that the main invasion would strike the Pas-de-Calais rather than Normandy. Check out the trailer!

Laura Thomas, another WSS 2026 speaker, is a former CIA Case Officer and Chief of Base. She’s also part of a group of former CIA and MI-6 officers that will trace the escape route of WWII spymaster Virginia Hall who worked first for the British, then for the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and later for CIA. Virginia operated behind enemy lines for years in France, running informants, conducting sabotage operations, and exfiltrating downed British pilots and French resistance fighters. She also helped protect Jewish children in hiding. An Allied postwar report concluded there was no doubt that progress in France would have been “impossible” without her. Learn more details about what Laura and her mission partners are planning at her Substack and, hopefully, make a donation to support the cause.

Learn more about the Whitefish Security Summit at www.whitefishsecuritysummit.com and register to join us in Whitefish, MT on February 24-26, 2027. Sponsorships and Summit Circle memberships are also available.