It's the 25th anniversary of the RSA Conference. What's planned for this year's landmark security event? Britta Glade, senior content manager for the conference, and Informatica CISO Bill Burns offer a preview of the RSA Conference 2016 in San Francisco.

As members of the program committee that selects the sessions for the RSA Conference, Glade and Burns helped to lead efforts to make changes for this year's event. Glade says the biggest change is creating more educational and networking opportunities throughout the week-long conference.

"The conference is big - it's getting bigger," Glade says. "But those opportunities to find those small moments within the conference to connect with peers of similar interest, to connect with people who can help you expand some of your thinking - I really think those networking opportunities are going to be a highlight."

Burns sees this year's conference as an opportunity for leaders to impart some true lessons learned about emerging trends, such as international privacy regulations, security in dev ops and the Internet of Things.

"Internet of Things obviously is very hyped," Burns says, "but it is a real concern for companies that are either building on that platform or have to handle these devices coming into their enterprises or their networks. They need to understand what are the practical implications of [IoT]."

In an exclusive pre-event interview about RSA Conference 2016 (see audio link below photos), Glade and Burns discuss:

What's new at this year's event; How the RSA Conference remains relevant; How best to take advantage of the agenda.

RSA Conference 2016 will be held Feb. 29 through March 4 at San Francisco's Moscone Center.

Glade, senior content manager for the conference, has been in the learning and security sector for 23 years. Previously, she headed analyst relations for RSA. In 2014, she was recognized as one of the top 10 analyst relations professionals by the Institute of Analyst Relations Professionals.

Burns is Informatica's first CISO, building security for enterprises to trust Informatica's new products and public cloud services. Previously, he worked at Scale Venture Partners to define its information security investment thesis and help it make its first InfoSec investment in eight years. Earlier, Burns established Netflix's security program, where his teams transitioned their corporate and production systems to the cloud and grew their footprint into a global business. His teams designed and ran one of the largest hybrid cloud security programs, including managing payment workflows and public cloud cryptographic key infrastructures.