Mountains from the City · January 2027 · A REKONNEKT Experience with Tidal Cyber
In SEAL training, nobody finishes on their own: the crew carries the load together, or nobody makes it. This January 2027, in the City of London, your crew climbs the height of Ben Nevis, staircase by staircase, alongside a former US Navy SEAL. Then we talk about what it took.
Hosted by Tidal Cyber, who help security teams defend against how real adversaries actually operate.
Why this exists
A small group of leaders, a shared climb through the City's skyline, and the conversations you never get to have in a conference hall, about the problems that actually keep you up at night.
Climbing side by side does something a meeting room never will. Somewhere around floor thirty, job titles fall away and people start telling the truth. By the time we sit down, you're no longer strangers comparing logos. You're a crew comparing notes.
That is the REKONNEKT way: we move first, then we talk. And nobody pitches. Not even the hosts.
The challenge · Mountains from the City
Britain's highest mountain, climbed one stairwell at a time through London's skyline. Not alone, and not as a race. As a crew, the way SEAL candidates are trained to operate from day one.
your crew's shared summit: the height of Ben Nevis
climbers to a crew, the size of a BUD/S boat crew
each, if shared evenly: roughly a 40-storey tower. It won't be shared evenly. That's the point.
climbers left behind. The crew only summits when the last person does.
BUD/S → The City
In SEAL training, candidates are split into small boat crews who carry and paddle their boat together. Your crew of 6–8 owns one shared summit. Nobody gets a personal time. Tidal Cyber's team climbs too, inside the crews, as teammates, not hosts.
SEAL candidates carry telephone-pole logs as a team, and one person's worst moment is carried by the rest. Your crew decides how to split 1,345 metres. Unevenly, and on purpose.
No one goes in the water alone. No one climbs alone either. Pairs rotate at each stage, so you leave knowing your whole crew, not just the person you arrived with.
Before the first step, your crew briefs its plan: who climbs what, in what order, with a backup for every role. Then you commit to a predicted finish time.
Mid-climb, the plan breaks: a stairwell closes, a climber has to stop, the route changes. Your crew re-plans in real time, exactly like an incident at 3am.
In SEAL training, ringing the brass bell three times means you quit. Here, your crew rings it once: when the last climber reaches the summit.
They're ranked on how close they finish to the time they predicted. Honest planning beats raw fitness, just as it does in security. Your crew's plan-versus-reality becomes the raw material for the debrief.
Why the SEALs
SEALs aren't chosen for being the strongest or the loudest. They're chosen for whether the person beside them can count on them when everything goes wrong. That is exactly the problem every security leader is trying to solve.
of candidates don't make it through SEAL training. That's the average attrition rate since 1998.
days of Hell Week: continuous training, around the clock, in the fourth week of selection, on about four hours of sleep in total.
Candidates carry boats and logs together and are judged by how they keep each other going, not just themselves.
Instructors say the candidates who make it are often the quiet, unassuming ones with heart, not the loud "Rambo" types. Under pressure, character is the only thing left.
From day one of training, everything is done in pairs and crews. Your success is measured by your team's. Leave someone behind and you've failed, however fast you were.
The SEAL Ethos treats the Trident not as a status you hold, but as a privilege you have to earn again every single day. Reputation is never a substitute for performance.
SEALs don't advertise their work or seek recognition. They prepare obsessively, perform, and debrief. Like the best security teams, they're judged on what didn't happen.
We expect to lead and be led.From the US Navy SEAL Ethos
Sources: US Navy command investigation (2023) via Sandboxx · NBC News, "Navy SEALs' first task: Survive Hell Week" · Naval Special Warfare Command, SEAL Ethos
The opportunity
Not on a stage. Not behind a lectern with a clicker. In a stairwell, step for step, with time to ask the questions that matter to you.
Someone who has planned missions where being wrong was never an option. Who has made decisions on incomplete intelligence, with lives depending on them. Who has stood in a debrief and owned what went wrong in front of their whole team.
That conversation doesn't happen in a conference hall. It happens on floor thirty, when your legs are burning, the small talk has run out and people start telling the truth.
Borrowed from SEAL training, where no one goes in the water alone. Pairs rotate at each stage, so you leave knowing everyone, not just the person you arrived with.
Questions to ask on the way up
Guests & voices · Your teammates
“We expect to lead and be led.”
That line from the SEAL Ethos sets the tone for the day. Operators, leaders and peers who've been in the room when it mattered, climbing in the same crews as you. Full line-up announced to registered teammates.
Hosts the online Fireside Chat before the event, then climbs with the crews on the day. Planned and led missions where the cost of being wrong was absolute.
A former US Navy submarine officer: a world where you find an adversary you can't see by listening, not looking.
On deciding under pressure with incomplete information, and defending against attackers who never stop adapting.
Leaders who moved from reacting to anticipating, and won the board over along the way.
Designs the day and facilitates the connection, so the conversations you start here keep going.
The theme · Know your adversary
Special operations teams plan every mission from the adversary's point of view: how they think, how they move, how they react. They call the trap they avoid "mirror-imaging", assuming the enemy thinks like you do.
They don't win by carrying more equipment. They win by understanding behaviour better than the other side. Every security leader knows that logic. Very few get the space to step back and think it through with people who have lived it.
Assume the breach. Rehearse the failure. Own the outcome.
It's the same principle behind Tidal Cyber's work: understand the adversary first, then build the defence.
Why join · The playbook
Every conversation on the day maps a principle from special operations onto a pressure security leaders carry every week.
Before a mission, assume it has already failed. Then work backwards to find out why, while there's still time to fix it.
"Assume breach", taken seriously. What's the most likely way your organisation gets hit next quarter?
For high-stakes raids, teams have rehearsed on full-size mock-ups of the target, so the real thing feels like the hundredth time.
Incident response that's been practised, not just documented. When did your team last rehearse the bad day?
Every critical capability has a Primary, an Alternate, a Contingency and an Emergency plan. Any single point of failure is assumed to fail.
Resilience when the tool, the vendor or the person you rely on isn't there at 3am.
The full picture never arrives. Leaders commit with what they know, adjust as it changes, and keep the team moving.
Every incident you've ever led: deciding before the forensics are finished.
Explain the why, then trust people closest to the problem to make the call. The plan will break. The intent won't.
An analyst who can act decisively at 3am without waiting for sign-off, because they know what matters.
After every operation: what we expected, what happened, why, and what we'd do differently. Brutally honest, by design.
Learning from incidents openly, without blame, so the same thing doesn't happen twice.
Leaders own everything in their world, including what's outside their control. No excuses, no blame. Fix it.
You carry the risk but rarely control the budget. How to win the board, and own the outcome anyway.
Why this is different
The mission · Before & on the day
Like any mission, the work starts before you arrive. By the morning of the climb, you'll already know your crew, your role and your kit.
Meet our former SEAL live online, before you ever meet in person. Hear the stories behind the mission, and how the day will work.
A kit box delivered to your door the week before: everything you need for the climb, in your crew's colours.
You arrive briefed, kitted and part of a crew. No icebreakers, no name badges, no wasted time. Just the climb.
A week after the climb, every guest receives a personal debrief pack: your crew's plan-versus-reality, the key lessons from the day, and a short adversary profile for your sector, prepared by Tidal Cyber's threat research team.
The day · Mission timeline
Kit on, crews together. You already know your teammates from the online fireside, so we go straight to the safety brief and a handshake with the former SEAL climbing with you.
Crews arrive with their plan drafted. Fifteen minutes to lock it in: who climbs what, in what order, what happens if someone stops. Each crew commits to a predicted finish time.
Crews climb through the City's stairwells towards their shared summit. Somewhere on the way up, the plan breaks: a stairwell closes, a climber has to stop. Re-plan, adapt, keep moving.
The bell rings once for each crew, when its last climber arrives. Then a warm, unhurried breakfast with a view over the city you just climbed.
A fireside conversation with our former SEAL and Tidal Cyber's US Navy veterans: how missions are planned from the enemy's point of view, how teams decide under pressure with incomplete information, and what that teaches us about defending an organisation. Stories, not slides.
First, your own climb: what we planned, what happened, why, and what we'd do differently. Then the same SEAL-style after-action review on a real, anonymised incident or tough decision. Honest and ego-free, under the Chatham House Rule.
Fellow leaders share how they moved from reacting to anticipating attackers, and how they took ownership of risk they don't fully control, including winning board support and budget.
We close around the table. Each person names one thing they'll take back to their team on Monday, and leaves with a crew they'll actually want to call. Your debrief pack follows a week later.
Timings and route indicative · final programme shared with confirmed guests
Who it's for
What's shared on the day stays on the day.
No product presentations. Not even subtle ones.
Not Hell Week. Climb your share at your own pace, rest when you need to. Your crew has your back.
A crew, not a crowd. Places are limited so every voice is heard.
The 2027 Series
Cybersecurity is ultimately about people: how they perceive risk, recognise threats, build trust and decide when the stakes are high. Chapter One guests will be first to hear about what comes next.
Registration of interest
Places are by invitation and deliberately few. Register your interest for January 2027 and we'll be in touch personally with the exact date, your invitation to the online Fireside Chat, and the details of your kit.
Thank you. We'll be in touch personally with the date and your invitation to the online Fireside Chat.
Watch your door for your kit. No one summits alone.