The Deepfake Resilience Symposium: London 2026
Cyber Awareness Month, Board Edition
This symposium features a live tabletop exercise simulating a deepfake AI-agent-enabled ransomware attack, led by forensic, legal, and AI experts.
State-sponsored attacks are rising. This is your rehearsal.
Hosted by:
Led by: Aarti Samani
Founder of Shreem Growth Partners. Building the deepfake fraud resilience ecosystem, from executive training through to simulations and investigations.
Time, date & venue:
Century Club, London,
W1D 6LQWednesday, 21st October
2 PM - 6 PM GMT
Boardroom agenda:
1:45 PM - Arrival
2:00 PM - 5 PM Executive Tabletop Exercise
5 PM -6 PM Networking
6 PM - Close
About the Symposium
Real Threats. Live Demos. Expert Voices.
An executive session for leaders responsible for decisions when an attack lands. Participants include board directors, chief financial officers, general counsel, chief information security officers, chief risk officers and heads of cybersecurity awareness.
Why attend?
In a real incident, information never arrives in order. Leaders make decisions with incomplete facts, under mounting pressure. The symposium replicates that reality.
Through a fictional scenario inspired by real attacks, the session walks delegates through a state-sponsored attack enabled by a deepfake AI agent.
Expert practitioners interpret each development, outline best-practice responses, and show the implications of decisions made under pressure.
You can expect
Expert insight into how senior teams interpret evolving evidence and shape a coordinated response.
Operational perspective on how governance, escalation and accountability hold up under pressure.
Actionable guidance to strengthen resilience, decision protocols and cross-team coordination.
Key Takeaways:
A clear picture of how an AI-enabled attack unfolds, start to finish
A model for how decisions should be sequenced, and who should own each one
The questions to take back to your own team
A sharper eye for synthetic media
Time with legal and forensic practitioners on regulatory and reputational exposure
Many organisations then run this exercise inside their own business, with their own board. If that would be useful, talk to us on the day.
94%
A 94% Year-on-year increase in deepfake attempts in the United Kingdom alone
in 2025.
£1.9B
Economic impact from a single UK cyber incident in 2025, affecting over 5,000 organisations.
75%
Of attacked businesses did NOT have a formal incident response plan in place in 2025.
40%
By 2028, 40% of social engineering attacks will target executives, not just staff.
Expert voices
Aarti Samani
AI Deepfake Fraud & Cybersecurity Strategist
Aarti Samani is a technology executive who has led multiple AI companies to successful exits, including SwiftKey's ~$250M acquisition by Microsoft.
She now applies her expertise to help leaders protect against AI-enabled threats. As founder of Shreem Growth Partners, she specializes in social engineering and AI deepfake fraud resilience, drawing on senior roles at Nomura, Microsoft, and iProov.
She teaches AI strategy and risk at MITxPro, INSEAD, and Durham Business School, and hosts the Deepfake Resilience Symposium series with the British Consulate-General, bringing together global leaders in finance, cybersecurity, law, and government to address one of AI's most urgent challenges.
Legal practitioner
To be announced
Forensic investigator
To be announced
Your agenda
Arrival, coffee, meet other guests
What AI-enabled fraud looks like now, and why this is on every boardroom agenda.
Led by Aarti Samani, Shreem Growth Partners
A fictional scenario inspired by real events, following two organisations through an attack that begins with a deepfake AI agent and ends in ransomware. At each turn the room decides what it would do. Results appear on screen. Practitioners explain what follows from each choice.
Led by Aarti Samani with legal and forensic practitioners
How deepfake evidence challenges legal systems.
Led by Legal and Forensic Practitioner
Event close and [optional] networking + drinks
Secure your ticket
This in-person executive tabletop exercise is followed by networking drinks. The event takes place at the Century Club boardroom in London and is strictly limited to 20 participants.
Days
Hours
Minutes
Seconds
Wednesday, 21st October 2 PM - 5 PM GMT
Who should attend:
✅ Board members and executive teams
See how the first hour plays out, and what a strong response looks like.
✅ Heads of cybersecurity awareness and security culture
Take back a training format your leadership will engage with.
✅ Chief information security officers, risk and fraud leads
See how the layer above you handles the part of the plan you do not control.
"Aarti’s deepfake training was eye-opening and thought-provoking. The demos brought the threat to life, showing how convincingly AI can mimic voices and faces. It was informative and unsettling in the best way, a wake-up call for anyone in defence, security, or leadership. Incredibly relevant and delivered with clarity and authority. We need more experts like Aarti helping us stay ahead of these threats."
Ministry of Defence
Get 25% off your ticket price when you join the Women of AI Community.
FAQs
The Deepfake Resilience Symposium is a flagship event presented by Aarti Samani, founder of Shreem Growth Partners. It brings together senior leaders serious about building resilience against AI-enabled fraud.
San Francisco, July 2025: British Consulate-General. Raising awareness of the problem.
New York, November 2025: British Consulate-General, supported by the Department for Business and Trade and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. A live tabletop exercise led by a forensic investigator, legal counsel and a crisis communications specialist, for senior financial services leaders.
London, October 2026: Cyber awareness month, the boardroom edition.
Every symposium has a different format. The threat landscape moves quickly, and the programme moves with it.
Leaders who make decisions when an attack lands. Board directors, chief executives, chief financial officers, general counsel, chief information security officers, chief risk officers, heads of cybersecurity awareness and heads of communications.
A threat landscape briefing, a live tabletop exercise built around a fictional scenario, and live audience decision points with expert commentary. Followed by networking and drinks.
No. The session is built for decision-makers, not security engineers.
No. This is where you see how the decisions should be made, and work out what that means for your business. Organisations that want to test their own team run a private version afterwards.
Twenty seats. Event follows Chatham House rules.
We may record some elements of the presentation and expert commentary. Delegates will be invited to share their experience and feedback of the event. Participation is optional.
Even amidst large-scale data breaches and cyberattacks, Cybersecurity Awareness Month reminds everyone that there are simple, effective ways to keep themselves safe online, protect their personal data, and ultimately help secure our world.
Launched in 2004, the National Cybersecurity Alliance and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) lead the campaign every October and create resources for organisations to talk to their employees and customers about staying safe online.