Vice President and Public Sector Chief Security Officer Asia-Pacific
Palo Alto Networks

Mihoko Matsubara is vice president and Public Sector chief security officer (CSO) for AsiaPacific at Palo Alto Networks. Based in Singapore, she is responsible for developing thought leadership, threat intelligence and security best practices for the cybersecurity community within Central and Local governments and academia in the region. Prior to this, Mihoko was CSO for Palo Alto Networks in Japan where she had similar responsibility with specific focus on the public sector, local enterprises and C-level engagements. Prior to Palo Alto Networks, Mihoko worked at the Japanese Ministry of Defense for nine years. During this time, she also received the Fulbright Scholarship to pursue her MA in International Relations and Economics at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC. Upon graduation, she worked at a think tank in Honolulu called Pacific Forum CSIS as a fellow to research Japan-US cybersecurity cooperation. She then came back to Tokyo, where she joined Hitachi Systems as cybersecurity analyst to research cyberthreat environments and policy issues. In addition, she worked at Intel K.K., Tokyo, as cybersecurity policy director where she led the company’s IoT policy influence efforts in Japan. Mihoko has published many papers and spoke at various engagements, regionally and internationally. Her most recent papers include “Countering Cyber-Espionage and Sabotage: The Next Steps for Japanese-UK Cyber-security Co-operation” from the RUSI Journal, and “Japan’s New Cybersecurity Strategy: Security Without Thwarting Economic Growth” from the Council on Foreign Relations’ blog. She is the first Japanese speaker (2015) at the NATO International Conference on Cyber Conflict in Estonia. She was most recently appointed as an Executive Committee Member of The Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) in 2017.