Fortune’s Focus on Finance: Fortune has announced another new event in its Brainstorm conference series: Fortune Brainstorm Finance. This new conference will happen on 19 – 20 June 2019 in Montauk NY. Brainstorm Finance will bring together “the established giants of Wall Street and the up-and-coming new guard of fintech, blockchain, and venture finance to explore–and shape–the future of finance.” More information on the new event may be found here.

Part of your Worldz: Fortune has also revealed that it will release its Future 50 companies list at Worldz Summit in October. The two-day summit is designed to connect, educate, and inspire tomorrow’s leaders in both their personal and professional lives. This year’s event will run from 17 – 18 October in Los Angeles and will feature speakers from VANs, Calvin Klein, GoogleX, Samsung, Mastercard, VICE and The Muse.

Be More Direct: In February, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) published research indicating that “growth in most consumer categories is shifting to brands centered on direct consumer relationships and agile supply chains flexible enough to serve consumer needs as they evolve.” In order to stay on the front lines of this trend, the IAB has launched a new annual event, the IAB Direct Brands Conference. The event will run from 30 – 31 October in New York City. In addition to delving further into this category growth, the trade organization will release a more refined version of the “IAB 250 Powered by Dun & Bradstreet,” at the show.

Speaking Opportunity: Game Developers Conference (GDC), taking place from 18 – 22 March in San Francisco, brings together 28,000 attendees who are programmers, artists, producers, game designers, audio professionals, business decision-makers and others involved in the development of interactive games and immersive experiences. The conference features 750 lectures, panels, tutorials and roundtable discussions on “a comprehensive selection of game development and VR/AR topics”. If you have an idea for the main GDC Conference programme, submit it following the guidelines here by 16 August.

Lunchtime Learning: The Aspen Institute’s Homeland Security Program just wrapped its ninth annual Aspen Security Forum last week. This is one of my favorite events to watch on my lunch break! Former and current government officials, leaders from national security-related companies and nationally recognized journalists take the stage to discuss key homeland and national security issues. The content sometimes frightening, but always enlightening. Hear from Frank Klotz, Former Administrator, National Nuclear Security Administration; Susan Thornton, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs; Teresa Carlson, Vice President, Worldwide Public Sector, Amazon Web Services; Paul Nakasone, Commander, US Cyber Command; Director, National Security Agency and more.

Coming up Next Week: What do a senior agency exec, the Philadelphia Eagles’ digital media manager, and the founder of The Onion all have in common? They are speaking at next week’s Digital Summit Philadelphia, which runs 31 July – 1 August in the City of Brotherly Love. The Digital Summit series is designed for brands, agencies, service providers, B2B providers, and non-profits. CompTIA ChannelCon kicks off 31 July in Washington, DC. More than 1,000 business technology professionals and vendors attend this annual event for best practices, certification, and networking. And on 30 July in Providence, RI sustainability managers from across industries gather at the National Association for Environmental Management’s (NAEM) Corporate Sustainability Management Conference. The program promises tools to “improve your company’s performance internally and more effectively manage your sustainability data at both ends of the supply chain.”