Felix Addo is a Solutions Engineer at Akamai and a 18+ year veteran of the technology and communication sector. His role is defining solutions that meet the business and technical requirements of existing and prospective Akamai customers. His areas of coverage focus on Public Sector Customers, which include State, Local and Higher Education. As customer needs adjust part of his role is to work closely with Product Management and associated teams to develop future product direction and strategy.

Dr. Cedric Alexander has spent nearly four decades in search of a better way to police our nation. He’s the author of The New Guardians, and he has served as a law enforcement analyst on ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN. In 2015 he was appointed to the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. He has served at every level of government: as a Federal Security Director in the US Department of Homeland Security, as a Deputy Commissioner for Criminal Justice in New York State, as Public Safety Director in a major county, and as a City Chief of Police and Deputy Mayor.

David Allen leads GTA’s Office of Information Security, which unifies information security responsibilities for the state’s IT enterprise, the Georgia Enterprise Technology Services (GETS) program, and GTA.
Prior to joining GTA in 2019, David served as the Chief Technology Officer and Chief of Cybersecurity for the Georgia Army National Guard. As a Guardsman, he deployed to Afghanistan in 2012 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.
David has held numerous IT positions over his 20+ year career at companies, such as BellSouth Telecommunications, Accenture, and Wayne Farms LLC.
David holds a Master of Project Management from DeVry University and is a 1995 graduate of North Georgia College. He earned a Master of Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College in 2019. In addition, David holds several key management and cybersecurity certifications, including Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), GIAC Certified Enterprise Defender (GCED), and Certified Scrum Master (CSM).

Stu Davis is a Managing Director within the Sense Corp Public Sector Division. With over 25 years of Information Technology experience working in state and county government, including 10 years of experience in executive leadership positions, Stu brings extensive knowledge in Public Sector IT systems and procedures and innovative solutions focused on business outcomes. Stu is a nationally recognized IT leader who previously led the State of Ohio’s Information Technology community and functioned as the State CIO. As CIO, Stu led an IT optimization effort that realigned unfocused and duplicative spending, directing much needed funding toward making the state a better place in which to live and work.

Nikhil envisioned and led Georgia’s user centric digital transition to an enterprise open source web-publishing platform. Under his direction, Georgia became the first state in the nation to use open source at an enterprise scale and meet special needs of constituents with a range of disabilities affecting vision, hearing, motion and cognition making the platform Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 AA compliant.
Nikhil strongly advocated and set the framework for the use of social media for Georgia, back when using social media for government was not common. He established a presence for the state on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to quickly address citizens’ questions and concerns.
Prior to his career in digital government, Nikhil worked in advertising and digital media.
Nikhil has two master’s degrees in Visual Communications and Interaction Design from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai and the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). He served as adjunct faculty at the Atlanta campus of SCAD for ten years, where he taught graduate classes in Interaction Design and User Experience.
Nikhil has won several national and international awards and recognition for his work in digital government. He was recently honored with Atlanta’s 40 under 40; an award recognizing 40 accomplished individuals under the age of 40.

Analabha Dutta is a thought leader in Enterprise IT Strategy, IT Workforce Planning and Intelligent Automation Strategy. He leads IA Advisory Services at Avenade (an Accenture company) in North America and brings two decades of experience helping organizations reimagine the future of work and adopt technologies like RPA, AI, and machine learning to transform business functions and drive superior employee and constituent experiences.

Taegan is a Group Creative Director with Deloitte Digital who specializes in infusing human-centered design in government products and services. She has been working closely with state government agencies over the past 5 years helping to drive digital modernization and transformation in government portals, apps, and digital experiences.

Scott Hilton serves as Executive Director for the Georgians First Commission under the Office of the Governor. The Georgians First Commission is laser focused on streamlining government to make Georgia the most attractive state for small business.
Prior to this role, Scott spent a career in commercial banking at a regional financial institution and served as State Representative in the Georgia General Assembly.
Scott graduated from Georgetown University, with majors in finance and international business. Scott graduated from Emory University’s MBA program with a concentration in capital markets.
Scott is active in his community, having served in a variety of roles including President of the Peachtree Corners Civic Association and Fundraising Chair for the Fowler Family YMCA. Scott is a graduate of Leadership Georgia, Conservative Policy Leadership Institute, and LEAD Atlanta.

Rebecca Keefer, a planner with CPL, has 10 years of experience in the areas of community planning, design development, zoning administration, sustainability, and public outreach. She has a passion for working with the community to gain consensus and establish a shared vision for planning and design projects. She has extensive experience from visioning to implementation of master plans—from developing master plans, drafting and administering zoning and land development codes, and working with CPL designers on the built environment — she plays a role in each step for many communities. In Chamblee, Rebecca serves as the Special Projects Manager, focusing on implementation of master plan projects through grants, research, and project administration.
Rebecca, a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology, received her Master’s degree in City and Regional Planning, as well as a Bachelor’s in Architecture.

Mr. Kingberry has more than 25 years of experience in the field of information technology and has a diverse background in both federal government and corporate settings, with extensive experience in large-scale information technology transformation, big data analytics, and enterprise computing, as well as secure hybrid cloud implementations.
Prior to joining Unisys, Shawn served as director of cloud Solutions from Engility Corporation. In this role, he supported all sectors of the federal civilian government. As the chief information officer for the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board from 2009 – 2014, Shawn led the Recovery Board’s successful effort to host Recovery.gov site to provide transparency on stimulus spending related to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. He received the prestigious FED 100 Award for his leadership and persistence in implementing four information systems for the Recovery Board, including Federal Reporting.gov and Recovery.gov, which was the first government-wide information system to be fully migrated to a public cloud. 

Lavender is a U.S. Air Force Veteran with 38 years of experience in the field of information technology. Prior to joining Macon-Bibb County Government, Brett served as Director of Information Technology for the Clayton County Board of Commissioners. He has extensive experience in building and leading public sector technology teams.
Mr. Lavender holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Mercer University - Stetson School of Business and Economics. He is a Certified Public Manager® (CPM®), a Certified Government Chief Information Officer™ (CGCIO™) and has completed the Local Government Chief Information Officer (LGCIO) program through the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia. He has both ITIL® v3 Foundation and Lean Six Sigma Green Belt (LSSGB) Certifications.

Daniele Loffreda is Senior Advisor, Healthcare State/Local Government and Education (SLED) in Ciena’s Market Development organization. In this role he leads Ciena’s initiatives to apply next generation hardware, software and services networking technologies to help these sectors deliver better services to their constituents through digital transformation, optimized cloud strategies, virtualized infrastructure and improved data security.
Daniele has more than 20 years of experience helping customers leverage Information, Communications and Technology solutions provide greater value, improve their operations and generate higher returns on network investments. He has been involved in smart city projects since 2014, he has been a speaker at smart city events, and has published a number of articles and blog posts on network connectivity as a critical foundation of smart cities.

Dr. Kevin Mahoney is a 20-year veteran of the IT industry. He currently runs the Advanced Threat Protection Practice for a leading cybersecurity vendor. Kevin holds a PhD in IT Management from Capella University and a JD in Technology Law from Purdue University.

John Matelski is an Information Technology & Security executive with over thirty years of progressively responsible experience. He is currently the Chief Innovation and Information Officer for DeKalb County, Georgia, a position he has held since 2012. In his current position, John’s duties include executive management of all information technology and security resources and systems that support County operations, as well as driving innovation throughout the County enterprise.
Matelski graduated from Arizona State University with a B.S. in Computer Science and a M.B.A. with an emphasis in Computer Information Systems. Matelski has a proven track record of leadership in the public and private sectors utilizing innovation and resourcefulness with a proven ability to build a compelling vision, and move an organization toward it.
Matelski has been an active member in user groups since 1997, and has served on the Board of Directors of three technology user groups that have a global presence (Quest International Users Group, Independent Oracle Users Group & FUEL IT Security Users Group).
Matelski has been published in several industry trade journals including CIO Magazine, JD Edwards Quest magazine, Government Technology magazine, State Tech, DBTA and Oracle Profit magazine. He has conducted key notes, workshops and presentations at industry conferences across the globe, and also consults with numerous commercial and government entities to establish strategies that proactively deal with IT and security issues.

Jad Muntasser is Verizon’s Asymmetric Solutions Manager working in Product for Public Sector. Mr. Muntasser leverages his experiences as a combat veteran, Navy Seal and Special Operations medic, to provide Verizon the end user’s perspective as they look to partner with technology companies to bring the best technologies to first responders. With his knowledge of operational requirements in austere environments, he understands technology should be reliable, and make the first responders more effective, efficient, and most importantly, safer as they go into harm’s way.

James is a Senior Solutions Architect with Amazon Web Services (AWS), supporting State and Local Government (SLG) customers in the Southeast. Prior to joining AWS, he served as the Chief Information Security Officer for the University of South Carolina, and previously held IT leadership positions at the University of Tennessee System (UT), including Chief Information Officer, Executive Director of Systems, Associate CIO for Statewide Services, and Chief Information Security Officer. Before joining UT, Perry spent 13 years as an IT consultant with a focus on small- to medium-size businesses.
Perry holds an MBA from Tennessee Tech University and a B.S. in Business from Lee University. In addition, Perry has earned several industry certifications including the AWS Certified Solution Architect Professional, AWS Certified Security Specialty, Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP), Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), GIAC Certified Forensic Analyst (GCFA), and the Certified HIPAA Security Specialist (CHSS) among many others.

Sharon Stanley joined Cobb County Georgia in October 2014 as the Department Director of Information Services (IS) where she is responsible for leading the County’s technology strategy and managing overall IT operations and customer service. Ms. Stanley has over 25 years of IT experience in the government and private sectors including serving as Commanding Officer Naval Computer and Telecommunications Station, Puget Sound where she partnered with the Regional IT Center to implement the first Department of Defense Pacific Northwest Metropolitan Area Network. She served in various Senior Director positions with Sprint where she had responsibility for Wireless Network Operations, the International Control Center and Tier 2 Application implementation and support. Prior to moving into County government, she was responsible for 24X7 operations of McKesson’s Corporate IT network. Since joining the Cobb County leadership team, Stanley has focused on transforming the role of the IS organization to one of Strategic Partner with the various agencies in the County. Many of her team’s collaboration projects with the Cobb Departments have received recognition. CobbCommute, a traffic website providing mobile access to real-time information about congestion, travel speeds, road closures and construction projects on the county’s arterial roads was presented the Georgia Technology Innovation Showcase Award. Kennesaw State University recognized Cobb GIS for Outstanding GIS Community Engagement. Toggle Magazine featured Ms Stanley and Cobb County’s journey into “Big League Digital Government” in its Fall 2017 edition. Most recently Ms Stanley was presented the Info-Tech Research Group 2017/2018 CIO Award Winner at the Enterprise level.
Stanley holds a BA Degree from Wake Forest University, a MS in Information Systems from Naval Postgraduate School and a MA in National Security and Strategic Studies from Naval Command and Staff College.

Dr. Woodard has a broad range of leadership, managerial, business development skills and technology consulting experience both within the public and private sectors.
Dr. Woodard is Professor Emeritus of Management Information Systems at Georgia College & State University. He retired as Associate Chief Information Officer for Academic Technology in 2016. Previously he served as the Coordinator of the Graduate Logistic Program in the J. Whitney Bunting College of Business. Currently, Dr. Woodard serves on the Georgia College Retiree Council.
Formally, Dr. Woodard served on a special assignment as the Chief Information Officer for the Georgia Department of Education. Before his academic career, he served as president of a consulting company specializing in information systems in domestic and international banking.
Dr. Woodard holds a Certified Computing Professional certification, degrees from Georgia College (BBA, 1976 and MMIS, 1989), from Georgia State University, (MS, 1992), and from Georgia Southern University (Ed.D, 2002).

Tom Yeatts is an experienced IT executive with a proven track record of delivering results. Before joining ServiceNow as SLED CTO, Tom served as deputy CIO for Howard County, MD. His responsibilities included designing the architecture and delivering IT projects in support of the county’s vision to connect its citizens and workforce on a secure and stable environment. Tom graduated from Virginia Tech and resides in Maryland.