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YellowHat 2025, held on March 6th, was a landmark event focused on Microsoft Security, drawing together a global audience of professionals and enthusiasts. Hosted at Microsoft’s Amsterdam headquarters, the event featured over 150 in-person attendees and 1500+ online participants, all eager to delve into advanced security topics.
MVP Myron Helgering and the organizing team shared their insights YellowHat’s ideas, motivations and future prospects for the event
What inspired you to organize YellowHat 2025?
We felt there was a need for something new: an event organized by and for the community, focused solely on Microsoft Security content. One thing was also clear: We wanted it to be a deeply technical event, so level 400+.
Our goal was to be visible worldwide, so we chose a hybrid event and focused on delivering a high-quality online and in-person experience. As it was our first edition, we aimed to create an exciting and easily recognizable event.
How did you ensure that the content was relevant and immediately applicable to current security challenges?
The most important thing was getting the right speakers on board for our event; they had to be top-notch. We selected our speakers based on their expertise, experience, and their ability to deliver engaging and relevant content. Luckily, we could attract visionary leaders and security experts like Raviv Tamir, Roberto Rodriguez, Dirk-Jan Mollema, Mattias Borg, Stefan Schörling, Thomas Naunheim, Ran Marom, and Eyal Haik.
In addition to selecting the right speakers, we aimed to tell a cohesive story throughout the day. By interconnecting our deep-dive sessions and zooming out when necessary, we could highlight different security challenges and make the content applicable to a broad audience.
How did you manage to attract such a large global audience, both in-person and online?
Most of the YellowHat organizers (not all of them) are also organizers for the Dutch Microsoft Security Meetup, which has 2000+ members. We used the power of our community to our advantage, attracting our local in-person attendees and promoting our event globally.
To reach the large global audience, we had the help of our international speakers and Microsoft Security MVPs who could promote the event, as well as Microsoft’s very own Raviv Tamir and Dan Michelson (YellowHat’s founder).
Lastly, our very own Ninja Cat with a yellow hard hat mascot was all over the socials for weeks to do our marketing for us.
How did the hybrid format (in-person and online) impact the overall experience for attendees?
When organizing a hybrid event, organizing suddenly becomes a lot more complex because you have to provide an excellent experience to both online and in-person attendees simultaneously. We engaged our online attendees during breaks by providing them with live interviews and sponsor commercials, while our in-person attendees had time for food, drinks, and networking opportunities.
Ultimately, I hope we made the people feel like they were part of that YellowHat experience we were going for by providing them with the same deep technical content, but not prioritizing one experience over the other.
We received overwhelmingly positive feedback from our in-person and online attendees, which reassures us that we are on the right track and motivates us to continue improving the YellowHat experience.
What are your plans for future iterations of YellowHat, and how do you envision the event evolving?
Even though YellowHat 2025 was already a global event, the in-person attendees mostly visited from the Netherlands. We would love to grow and evolve YellowHat into something that can attract an international audience, which will be a focus of our plans. We haven’t officially decided on anything yet, but YellowHat 2026 will definitely happen, and it will be bigger, bolder, and more exciting.
How can interested community members get involved in organizing or participating in future YellowHat conferences?
If you have any questions or suggestions or would like to get involved, please feel free to contact us using our contact form. If you want to be the first to receive sneak peeks, early announcements, and exclusive insider information then please go ahead and subscribe to our mailing list so you won’t miss anything about YellowHat!
Why YellowHat?
Yellow (Hard) Hats are used by construction workers for “protection and security”, which a reference to our work as Microsoft Security Defenders / Protectors. The content at the conference was aligned with that; we’re focused on the defensive / preventive side of (Microsoft) security. One of our unofficial sayings at the conference was; wear your yellow hat to prevent cyber threats.
