Christopher A. Smith

Author & Digital Safety Advocate

Christopher A. Smith is an award-winning author, digital safety advocate, and entrepreneur who transformed a personal crisis into a mission to build the coordination infrastructure individuals need to withstand digital conflict.

After experiencing a widespread cyberattack in 2018 that compromised every aspect of his digital life, he founded DFend, an AI-powered platform that delivers proactive, cross-platform protection. The company demonstrated that individual digital safety requires machine-speed detection and coordinated defense across platforms, a mission that continues to drive his work today as he focuses on building the infrastructure this transformation demands.

Before DFend, Chris launched Stitch Video, a content distribution and monetization platform that was acquired in 2023. Under his leadership, Stitch grew to more than 500 million monthly video views, partnered with over 500 global publishers, and expanded into emerging markets.

Earlier in his career, he held senior leadership roles in business development and strategy at Civic Technologies, Turn, Collective, and Adap.TV. At Turn, he helped double global revenue to over $100 million in 18 months and launched one of the industry's first buy-side programmatic TV platforms. At Civic, he worked to transform Web3 identity verification into practical enterprise solutions for Fortune 500 partners.

Chris is the award-winning author of Privacy Pandemic, a Book of the Year finalist from Foreword Reviews. He was named to Cybersecurity Magazine & Ventures' inaugural Cybersecurity Pundit List for his advocacy around digital identity and individual protection.

He believes the next decade of cybersecurity will be defined by coordinated individual defense, complementing the industry's traditional focus on institutional protection by addressing the needs of people who live across every platform, service, and device.

His current work focuses on building the coordination layer required for cross-platform individual protection and infrastructure that transcends competitive boundaries to serve individuals at scale.

Chris is based in the United States.