Tarek Tomes serves as the Commissioner of Minnesota IT Services (MNIT) and the State of Minnesota’s Chief Information Officer (CIO), leading state efforts to provide the best possible IT solutions and customer service to the people of Minnesota and our business partners.
As a recognized industry leader, Tomes brings over 25 years of experience in managing technology innovation across diverse industries, both in national, international, and public and private sector operations. Throughout his career, he has facilitated data-driven decision making, implemented many critical enterprise projects, and improved workforce diversity and inclusion.
Before becoming Commissioner, Tomes served as the Chief Innovation Officer and former Chief Information Officer at the City of St. Paul, where he was responsible for managing ongoing process improvements, supporting human-centered design, and increasing the overall effectiveness of city services and resources. While in St. Paul, Tomes facilitated a digital transformation at the city level, pioneering the use of mobile applications to improve resident opportunities. This work allowed the city to leverage deep data insights while promoting and supporting equitable service delivery. During his time as St. Paul’s Chief Information Officer, Tomes oversaw the launch of St. Paul’s Open Information Portal, which serves to promote and encourage innovative uses of data and transparency in government services.
Tomes’ prior work experience also includes six years as an Assistant Commissioner of Minnesota IT Services, where he created several nation-leading Information Technology sourcing agreements for 33,000+ user utility services statewide – including the first cloud-based public sector statewide service offering in the nation. While Tomes was serving in this role, Minnesota became the first state in the country to manage all Information Technology through service level agreements, a model that was recognized with a national award.
Tomes received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland and attended Graduate School for Business Management at Boston University.

Dan Thurmon is the founder and President of Motivation Works, a company that helps leaders and their organizations move confidently through change and transformation so that they achieve and contribute MORE. Dan is an expert speaker and performer. He has delivered thousands of presentations across six continents for audiences including world leaders, Fortune 500 companies, entrepreneurs, educators, and even troops on the front lines of battle. In 2011, he was inducted into the prestigious Speaker Hall of Fame. Dan recently served as the President of the National Speakers Association. During his tenure, he led the Board of Directors and the 3,000+ member organization through a critical transformation, which included new governance, a new mission, higher member value, and greater financial accountability. He’s authored two books: Success in Action and Off Balance On Purpose. Dan produces an ongoing weekly video coaching series and podcast in which he shares leadership principles and life-enhancement strategies in under three minutes. He is a health and fitness advocate. In his 50s, Dan continues to train and perform advanced acrobatics, and enjoys hobbies such as golf, mountain unicycling and the flying trapeze.

Teri Takai is the Co-Director of the Center for Digital Government, a national research and advisory institute on information technology policies and best practices in state and local government. She worked for Ford Motor Company for 30 years in global application development and information technology strategic planning. From Ford, she moved to EDS in support of General Motors. A long-time interest in public service led her to the government sector, first as CIO of the State of Michigan, then as CIO of the State of California, and subsequently the CIO of the U.S. Department of Defense, the first woman appointed to this role. She then served as the CIO for Meridian Health Plan. She is a member of several industry advisory boards. Teri has won numerous awards including Governing Magazine’s Public Official of the Year, CIO Magazine’s CIO Hall of Fame, Government Technology Magazine’s Top 25 Doers, Dreamers & Drivers, the Women in Defense Excellence in Leadership Award, and the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service.

Phil Bertolini is the Co-Director of the Center for Digital Government, a national research and advisory institute on information technology policies and best practices in state and local government. Previously, he served as deputy county executive and CIO for Oakland County, Michigan. During his 31-year tenure, Phil built a world-class IT organization in the second-largest county in Michigan, just north of Detroit. As Oakland County CIO, he oversaw more than 150 employees serving over 1.2 million residents. In 2005, he was also promoted to deputy county executive, holding dual positions until his retirement. Phil’s efforts earned the county national attention, winning numerous awards for technology innovation and excellence. He was named Governing Magazine’s Public Official of the Year and Government Technology Magazine’s Top 25 Doers, Dreamers & Drivers. He was also honored by the President Obama White House as a Champion of Change.

Dustin Haisler is the Chief Innovation Officer for e.Republic. As Chief Innovation Officer, he has a strategic role to help shape the company’s products, services, and future direction. Primarily, he leads e.Republic Labs, a market connector created as an ecosystem to educate, accelerate, and ultimately scale technology innovation within the public sector. Dustin began he career at a very young age as the finance director and later CIO for Manor, TX, a small city outside Austin. He quickly built a track record and national reputation as an early innovator in civic tech, for which he was named a Government Technology Top 25 Doer, Dreamer and Driver in 2009. A member of Code for America’s original steering committee, Dustin pioneered government use of commercial technologies not before used in the public sector – including Quick-Response (QR) barcodes, crowdsourcing, and gamification. Dustin went on to the private sector to help broaden the adoption of these and other civic innovations. His work has been featured in Wired, Fast Company, the Wall Street Journal, Inc., and the Today Show on NBC. An in-demand speaker, he has given two TEDx speeches – one on Disrupting Government (TEDxAustin) and the other on Disrupting Education (TEDxLivermore).

Anthony Huey is a highly popular international speaker and communications consultant who offers session attendees pragmatic communications tools, tips and techniques they can use immediately in their professional and personal lives. His career includes tenures as a news reporter, magazine senior editor, crisis management specialist, media relations consultant and executive speech coach. Anthony heads Reputation Management, LLC, one of the nation’s leading communications training and crisis consulting companies. He has presented nearly 2,700 keynote speeches, workshops and seminars. His direct client work includes a wide variety of advertising, public relations and communications initiatives for hundreds of trade associations, municipalities and companies.

Jon Eichten serves as MNIT’s Deputy Commissioner. In his role, Jon oversees state agency business partner and governmental relations and ensures overall operational alignment with MNIT’s mission, vision, and values.
Jon previously held the position of Legislative Director, where he oversaw MNIT policy and budget proposal development, legislative affairs, and special projects.
Prior to joining MNIT, Eichten worked for the Minnesota Senate. He received his degree in Political Science from Carleton College.

Jason oversees security functions and services for the Department of Revenue, Department of Employment and Economic Development, and Department of Commerce. Additionally, manage the Directory Services/Identity and Assessment Management and desktop management teams located at the Department of Revenue.

Corona Ngatuvai is the chief technical architect for Utah’s Department of Technology Services (DTS). Corona was introduced to public service at Utah’s Department of Health (DOH), where he implemented networks for various Utah health departments. Since joining DTS in 2006, he has led Utah’s migration to the cloud and assisted in developing/implementing enterprise initiatives.

Michael is new to government service and leverages his twenty years of experience in the private sector to help guide Olmsted County through reviewing, enhancing and maintaining a strong security posture in his role as Security Architect.

As the Minneapolis CIO for seven-plus years, Mr. Doll was responsible for all City IT services. Formerly South Dakota's CIO for 15 years with responsibility for all state government computing, telecommunications, state radio, and public broadcasting. While with IT research firms, Mr. Doll has advised Fortune 1000, Federal, State, and Local Government CIOs on information technology assessment and alignment to business needs. He has served as a Director with the United States General Services Administration, developing information technology strategic plans and oversight policy. Mr. Doll received his Computer Science degree from Virginia Tech and is a Senior Executive Fellow of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He is a past President of NASCIO — a national organization of state CIOs. He also is a past President of the Metropolitan Information Exchange (MIX) — a national organization of city and county CIOs. Mr. Doll was named to Government Technology's Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers.

David Egts is the Chief Technologist of Red Hat's North America Public Sector organization. As the intersection between public sector customers and Red Hat engineering and product management, his customer interactions and domain expertise blend customer needs with industry trends to help Red Hat define open source computing in the enterprise. He has achieved Red Hat's highest level of certification as a Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA), and has received Red Hat's highest employee honor as a Red Hat Chairman's Award recipient.

Shonte Eldridge currently serves as an Executive Government Advisor with Amazon Web Services (AWS). In this role she is responsible for engaging State and Local Government leaders to build cloud frameworks that reduce cost, improve service delivery, change customer experience and transform the enterprise into a modern, inclusive, equitable and innovative enterprise. Prior to joining AWS, Ms. Eldridge worked in the public sector for over 20 years and held various C-suite positions including the Deputy Chief of Operations for the City of Baltimore, Chief of Policy, Planning and External Affairs for the Office of the States Attorney for Baltimore City and Chief of Policy for Maryland’s Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention. During her time in government she was known for using technology to solve some of the largest operational and social challenges her state and local governments faced, as well as changing the culture to more readily accept and try new technologies. Ms. Eldridge’s work in the industry has appeared in numerous national publications and is often called upon to speak and conduct workshops on the importance of creating holistic digital transformation strategies and how to implement technology that improves operations and delivers a better customer experience.

Jon Goodwin is the Director of US Public Sector & Education at Mimecast. Jon has built a career in the Public Sector, from the early days of US Air Force active duty, to key IT industry leadership roles with RSA and McAfee, and now Mimecast. Jon is peculiarly focused on enabling Public Sector customers to achieve cyber resilience, business continuity and security awareness. Building key relationships across the spectrum of Public Sector industry leaders will play a vital role in Mimecast securing ownership of this critical market space.