Safeguard Events

This is what a good meeting looks like. A handshake. A laugh. A hug between two people who finally met after years. A conversation that pulled both of them in. 650 senior fraud, identity, and compliance leaders. 6,500 of these moments at The Broadmoor in May. Every match requested by both sides. Every face in these photos there because they wanted to be. That's the Breakthru Meetings program. You can see it on them.

"I especially enjoyed learning to make truffles." That's a sentence a VP of Risk at a Bank shared with us. It's also a sentence you don't expect to read in a fraud, risk, and compliance event recap. The truffle-making session was one of our Breakthru Experiences offered at The Broadmoor in May at our AI Deepdive Retreat. Each one designed for the same purpose: Get a group of senior fraud, identity, and compliance leaders out of their comfort, into something slightly unfamiliar, and let the conversations happen naturally. By the end of the truffle session, the room smelled like chocolate and sounded like a working group on agentic commerce. Both happened on purpose.

I've seen a lot of posts celebrating Safeguard Events as a great conference – and it was. But what stuck with me most weren't the keynotes or the scale of the event. It was the conversations happening in smaller settings: at round tables, over coffee, and during lunch. A consistent theme kept surfacing: how effectively fraudsters are weaponising human nature. Erin West's session brought this into sharp focus. She unpacked how modern scammers are no longer opportunistic – they are systematic. They build scripts, gather detailed intelligence, and increasingly use AI to refine their approach in real time. The goal is simple: manipulate trust, urgency, and emotion with precision until victims willingly send large sums of money. In parallel, I heard several anecdotes about schemes exploiting something more subtle – the helpful instincts of bank staff. Fraudsters (or organised groups) use stolen or borrowed identities to open accounts, deposit small amounts, spend aggressively, and then report the activity as fraud after claiming their card was lost. In some cases, the decision to refund isn't purely about evidence – it's shaped by legal and compliance risk, where denying a claim could escalate into something far more costly. What stood out to me is how these attacks don't just target systems – they target people, processes, and incentives across the entire ecosystem. Over the course of my career in fraud prevention, I've learned to take a broader and broader view of the system. Safeguard was an amazing conference because it expanded my view of the system once again. The increasing sophistication of fraud means this is no longer just a fraud problem. It's a coordinated challenge that spans fraud, legal, compliance, operations, and beyond. Addressing it will require a true full-court press. 📸 Photo with Erin West Thank you to the organisers Mitul Parmar and Brian D. for putting together such a thought-provoking event.

500 feet off the ground. You're clipped in. The platform is behind you. The valley is in front of you. And somewhere in the middle of that ride, you forget you're at a work event. That's what a Breakthru Experience is supposed to do. Take a group of people who just had a 15-minute meeting and put them somewhere real together. One attendee described it: "𝘚𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 500 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘰𝘧𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱𝘴." We believe that.

Rarely do you get to say: I was at the first one. I said it last year at Fintech NerdCon. Simon Taylor, Joy Schwartz, and I built something from nothing in Miami, capped registration at 1,000, got bombarded by people literally on flights asking us to reopen registration, and ended at 1,300 in attendance. I said it again a few weeks ago in Colorado Springs. Mitul Parmar co-founded Safeguard Events. First ever. The AI-native community for fraud, identity, and compliance leaders. No fluff. Operators in rooms having the conversations that actually move the industry. Every person in the room felt it. Identity and fraud are moving faster than most teams can defend against. Agility isn't a nice-to-have. The fraudsters are not waiting for your roadmap. That's not a conference insight. That's the actual temperature in the room. I know what it takes to build something like this from nothing. The sleepless nights before the first ticket sells. The moment you realize people actually showed up. The quiet exhale when you look around and the room is exactly what you promised it would be. Congratulations, Mitul. Stoked for Safeguard next year, and see you at Fintech NerdCon 2026 in San Diego!

We watched something happen last week that has never happened in this industry before. 6,500+ 1:1 meetings. Every conversation double opt-in. No finding someone in the hallway and hoping they have five minutes. Just two people, fifteen minutes, and something worth talking about. One attendee said it felt like she'd met more people in two days than at every other conference combined. The largest networking program ever built for fraud, identity, and compliance professionals.