Colin Ahern is the Deputy Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for the City of New York and leads Security Sciences for NYC Cyber Command, where he oversees citywide cyber defensive technology, cybersecurity architecture, software engineering, and data science. Colin is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs and a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations.
He started his career in the US Army and was awarded the Bronze Star (Meritorious) for his service in Afghanistan and ended his Army service as a company commander at the Army Cyber Brigade.
Colin holds degrees from Tulane University and New York University and lives with his wife and two children in Brooklyn.

Katherine Benjamin serves as the Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Digital Services, in the New York City Mayor’s Office of the CTO. She has worked in Canada, the UK and Malawi.
Previously, Katherine was the Vice President of Service Design at Ayogo, a company twice recognized globally as one of the top 100 most innovative digital health companies. Her experience in public sector digital transformation includes conceptualizing and launching the Ontario Digital Service’s rapid prototyping and user research labs, and working on the NHS.UK Alpha inception team, a small group tasked with setting the vision for modernizing Europe’s largest health care website. As an adjunct professor, Katherine leads curriculum development in government and healthcare service design, and teaches and supervises undergraduate and masters students at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, Canada.
Katherine has a Master of Science in Health, Community and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science (London, UK), and completed her undergraduate degree in Human Kinetics at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada). She was a Canadian National Millennium Scholarship laureate, and United States Collegiate Ski & Snowboard Association three-time All-American Athlete in alpine skiing.

Phil Bertolini is vice president 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.

Michael leads all technology operations supporting critical financial and operational functions for New York City. These functions include managing over $266 billion for the City’s pension fund assets, monitoring the City’s $99 billion budget, daily cash flows and short-term investments, reviewing all of the City’s contracts, processing all claims filed against the City, enforcing the City’s labor laws, conducting audits of all City Operations, issuing all City bonds, and publishing the City’s financial statements. He has provided leadership and input on key technology issues and projects impacting the digital transformation of New York City. Michael has over 40 years of experience in both the public and private sectors. Prior to joining the New York City Comptroller’s Office, Michael was Senior Vice President, Information Technology – Corporate Systems, at Verizon. He also held senior technology positions with National Westminster Bank, Sony Corporation of America, and KPMG Peat Marwick. Michael is a member of the New York City CIO Council, and serves on the Advisory Boards of the New York City Technology Forum and the New York City CIO Academy. Michael's academic credentials include earning an MBA in Finance and Quantitative Analysis, and a Bachelors degree in Accounting and Economics. He has participated in the Cambridge Forum of Executive Leadership at Harvard University and Managing for Competitive Advantage at Stanford University. In 2016, Michael was recognized by Government Technology magazine as one of the nation’s top 25 Doers, Dreamers, & Drivers, honoring innovators in the Public Sector.

Steve is the Sr. Solutions Marketing Manager at Okta. He is passionate about strengthening our nation’s security and economy through IT modernization, cyber best practices, and regulatory compliance. He is laser-focused on the vital role of secure identity in today’s digital-first world.
Before joining Okta, Steve worked to improve public and private sector security through roles in product marketing, product management, sales engineering, and solution architecture at Cisco, HP Enterprise Security, CA Technologies, UUNET Technologies, and Citigroup.
He earned a Master of Business Administration from Virginia Tech and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Penn State University. He is also a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).

Michelle was formerly the Director of Application Maintenance & Support, at NYC DoITT (Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications).She partners with Commissioners, Executive Directors, CIOs, Business Owners, and Technical teams to ensure an extraordinary level of customer service, with high quality, and professionalism.
Working for over twenty years in the IT field, Michelle has mastered the art of customer experience and service through the precise understanding of her customers. It’s how well you listen to the customers’ needs that you can communicate your understanding back to them. She has helped to plan and deliver both small and large scaled technical solutions to provide quality for her customers.
Michelle has been a resident of Brooklyn, New York since 1979, and feels connected to the City through her work at 311, providing ongoing services to the citizens of New York City.
Michelle has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Philosophy from Brooklyn College, as well as a Master of Science in Business Management & Leadership from CUNY School of Professional Studies.

Mr. Johnny Collins is a seasoned and effective cyber security leader with broad experience supporting various federal agencies, small companies, and large enterprises. With more than 15 years of experience in insider threat, information assurance, malware operations, penetration testing, forensics, and incident response, he has a track record of building security programs from inception to a successful operational setup. Mr. Collins currently serves as the Director for Insider Threat, Incident Response, Proactive Services and Intel at Mandiant.
Prior to his work at Mandiant, Mr. Collins supported various federal and commercial customers as chief information security officer for Phalanx Secure Solutions and as a senior consultant for companies like RBR-Technologies, Straitsys, Praxis Engineering, Minerva Engineering, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and Oceaneering International. He also served as a civilian engineer for the United States Army for two years, supporting various counterinsurgency and counter improvised- explosive device operations worldwide. His work was credited with saving hundreds of warfighters.

Alan is Executive Vice President of e.Republic and Publisher of Government Technology magazine and Techwire. In this role, Alan is involved in the annual production of dozens of events as well as the strategic direction for Governing, Government Technology, Emergency Management, the Center for Digital Government and the Center for Digital Education. Alan is also the senior executive that has overall charge of e.Republic’s research organization which includes, custom research, the Digital Government and Digital Education Navigator tool and the Content Studio (webinars and custom content).
Alan has been a guest lecturer at universities and a frequent speaker for key government and industry organizations. For over 35 years, Alan has worked with industry, education and government officials to help them better understand the importance and use of information technology. Alan received his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration at California State University, Sacramento.

Ian Cumming is an IAM Executive Advisor with Focal Point, helping midsize and enterprise business leaders design sustainable, successful, and secure identity management programs. He has more than 25 years of experience in security technology and is a respected thought leader in the IAM and IGA space.

David Egts is the Chief Technologist of Red Hat’s North America Public Sector organization where he directs a global team of technical experts and field product management to help government clients improve service delivery the open source way. The Office of Chief Technologist, which he leads, adds value to flagship Red Hat technologies such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, OpenShift, and Linux containers. His team helps Red Hat achieve ideal product-market fit by ensuring current and future government requirements are factored into existing products and R&D efforts with a focus on security, compliance, standards, efficiency, and technological improvements. The government readiness activities performed by his team positively impacts public and private sector organizations in the US and internationally with a particular focus on Australia, Canada, Japan, and the UK.
David’s dynamic outward-facing role as a coalition builder reinforces and expands Red Hat’s relations with key government and open source community stakeholders nationally and internationally. He is a trusted Red Hat media spokesperson whose deep technical dives, C-suite policy discussions, and keynote speaker abilities enhance Red Hat’s technical reputation and positioning.
David received industry-wide recognition as a FedScoop 50 Industry Leadership awardee and a finalist for WashingtonExec’s Chief Officer Awards. He is a Red Hat Chairman's Award recipient and has won multiple highest employee honors from previous employers Silicon Graphics and Concurrent Technologies Corporation. He is a past Co-Chair on the Board of Directors for the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) Software & Services Division (SSD) and is an active member of the Agile Government Leadership Association and the AFCEA DC Emerging Technologies Working Group. David is a Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA) and a three-time graduate from the University of Pittsburgh with a BS and MS in Computer Science and an Executive MBA (Katz Graduate School of Business).

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.

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).

Neal is a technologist with over 20 years of IT industry experience working in architecture, technical pre-sales, engineering, and sales. He presently serves as a Principal Architect in AT&T Public Sector business segment providing network and consultative support to strategic government clients.

Christopher L. Hills has more than 15 years’ experience as a Senior Security and Architecture Engineer operating in highly sensitive environments. Chris is a military veteran of the United States Navy and started with BeyondTrust after his most recent role leading a Privileged Access Management (PAM) team as a Technical Director within a Fortune 500 organization. In his current position, he has responsibilities as a Senior Solutions Architect consulting on PAM implementations and reports to the Office of the CTO as an acting Deputy CTO. In his free time, Chris enjoys spending time with his family on the water with their 32-foot speedboat in the summer and taking to the sand dunes and off-roading in the winter.

Jackson has overall responsibility for the agency business operations. Prior to his appointment as Chief Operating Officer, Jackson served as Deputy Commissioner for Technology and Strategic Resources. In that role, Jackson managed the Logistics Division, Information Technology and Support Services. Jackson also served as the Deputy Director for Administration at NYCEM from 1999 through 2002. In addition, from 1986-1997 Jackson served in various technical and support capacities in the NYC Office of the Mayor for Mayors, Koch, Dinkins and Giuliani. In September 2017 and again in January 2020, Jackson lead a team from NYC to Puerto Rico to respond the impacts of Hurricane Maria and the earthquakes of 2020. Jackson was chosen as the recipient of the Overall Excellence in Technology award by the Center for Digital Government in 2002 for his work to restore the NYC Emergency Operations Center after the attacks of September 11th. Additionally, he was selected by the Fund for the City of New York as the recipient of the Sloan Foundation Public Service Award in 2006. A graduate of Hobart College, Jackson also holds a master's degree in public administration from New York University.

As Deputy Chief Information Security Officer of New York City, Paul Kim oversees Threat Management for the largest municipality in the United States. He leads Incident Response, Cyber Threat Intelligence, Counter Threat Automation, and the 24x7 Security Operations Center for NYC Cyber Command. He also directs citywide cyber risk management initiatives.
Paul’s executive leadership draws from both private sector and government experience in cybersecurity, threat intelligence, and law. He was Global Information Security Risk Manager for Bloomberg, U.S. Threat Intelligence Leader for Deloitte advising diverse Fortune 500 commercial clients, and a team lead for Booz Allen serving national security agencies.
Paul is a former instructor at the Joint Military Intelligence Training Center, a member of the New York State Bar, and a Certified Information Security Systems Professional. He is a native of NYC, a volunteer and non-profit board member in his Brooklyn community, and a graduate of Wesleyan University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Boston University.

Jim Meehan is the Global Investigation Manager for Global Security Services where he coordinates the forensic investigations conducted by the investigative response unit worldwide. Prior to working at Verizon, Jim worked with the United States Secret Service. With 27+ years of law enforcement experience, his career spanned numerous disciplines within the United States Secret Service to include supervising technical security countermeasures and tactics. He served in a supervisory capacity on the Presidents Protective Detail during which he advanced to the principal assignment on the President’s Counter Assault Team. In his last assignment with the agency he was the Deputy Special Agent in Charge of Cyber Operations. In that position he supervised and engaged in historical transnational cybercrime investigations, oversaw the Critical Systems Protection Program and all of the Secret Service network intrusion and forensic examination programs.
He has a Master’s Degree in Strategic Studies (Counter Terrorism) from the National Defense University and has graduated from the Chief Information Security Officer Program at Carnegie Mellon University.

Rowan Miranda, Ph.D. leads public sector strategy at Workday. Prior to Workday, Rowan led Accenture’s Public Sector Finance & Administration practice. Rowan has served as a CFO in city/county government and in the higher education sectors. He has also served on the graduate faculty of several universities teaching public finance, information systems and public management.

Mr. Montgomery is a Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at Dell Technologies. Chris helps public sector organizations align their business objectives with a supporting IT Strategy that enables digital transformation.
Chris is a well-respected advisor, having held CIO, CTO and CISO positions within NYC and NJ government. As former CTO, Chris has developed cloud migration strategies and implemented multiple cloud solutions using in public, private, and hybrid architectures. Chris holds multiple security and risk management certifications, and as a former CISO, he built information security and risk management programs from the ground up in highly regulated environments. During his tenure in NYC Government, Chris led multiple smart city and digital transformation projects modernizing legacy technology, having a positive impact with the way that citizens and businesses interact with City government.
He is recognized in the industry as a thought leader for organizational change management associated with technology modernization.

John Osborne is a Chief Architect for Red Hat focusing on cloud adoption and modernization strategies. He’s been active in the DevOps, Kubernetes, and CNCF communities for the last six years speaking at events and recently starting the kfiles podcast. Before his arrival at Red Hat, he worked at a telco start-up and then spent 7 years with the U.S. Navy developing high-performance applications and deploying them to several mission-critical areas across the globe. He has his MS Software Engineering, MBA, and is also co-author of OpenShift In Action.

Chandrakant has led HP in delivering innovations in chips, systems, data centers, storage, networking, print engines and software platforms. He is a pioneer in thermal and energy management in data centers, and in the application of information technology to drive available energy management at the scale of cities.
Chandrakant is an ASME and an IEEE Fellow, has 153 patents and has published more than 150 technical papers. An advocate of return to fundamentals, he has served as an adjunct faculty in engineering at Chabot College, U.C. Berkeley Extension, San Jose State University and Santa Clara University. In 2014, Chandrakant was elected into the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame. In 2018, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
Chandrakant started his collegiate education in a community college and has immense passion for training and inclusion programs for under-served communities. He believes that companies architecting solutions for the 21st century cyber physical age should be socially responsible and lead with purpose, making life better for everyone, everywhere.

Nitin Patel is the Deputy Commissioner of Information Technology and DCAS’s Chief Information Officer. In that role, he is responsible for providing technological guidance for the agency and for establishing and directing the strategic and tactical goals, policies, and procedures for the information technology department. He collaborates with the agency's Commissioner and consults with all Lines of Services to present new approaches and discuss system changes.
Prior to joining DCAS, Patel worked at New York City’s Financial Information Services Agency (FISA) implementing Citywide Human Resources, payroll, and timekeeping systems. Previously, he worked in the consulting, media, and healthcare industries and has more than 22 years of experience working as an IT executive linking business strategies and technology solutions.
Patel has an electrical engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology.

Rick brings the Fortinet OT-CI team more than 37 years of cybersecurity and global partnering experience working across foreign, domestic, and commercial industry sectors at the National Security Agency (NSA). As Fortinet’s Operational Technology North American CISO, he delivers cybersecurity defense solutions and insights for the OT/ICS/SCADA critical infrastructure environments. Prior to Fortinet, Rick led development of cyber capability across Endpoint, Infrastructure, and Industrial Control System technologies at the agency. Previously, Rick also served as an executive leader supporting the Information Assurance Directorate at the NSA. Earlier in his career, he served in a broad range of leadership and Engineering roles including Chief of Staff for the NSA Cyber Task Force and a 5-year forward liaison charged with directing integration of cyber and cryptologic solutions for U.S. Air Force Europe, Ramstein AFB, Germany.

Deborah is an accomplished C-level influencer, with a broad range of experience in government, policy, cybersecurity, privacy and information technology. She is an experienced and highly respected thought leader who has held executive roles for over two decades. She recently retired from her position as New York state’s chief information security officer (CISO) after over 35 years of public service.
In that role, as part of New York state’s information technology transformation and consolidation initiative, she helped redesign how the state protects its data. As state CISO, she directed the state’s comprehensive cybersecurity governance, risk management and compliance program, providing strategic leadership and vision and assuring business-aligned, risk-based investments that maximized business opportunity and minimized cybersecurity risk. She also directed the NYS Cyber Command Center, hotline, procedures for reporting and response to cyberthreats and digital forensics.
She holds multiple industry certifications, including Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP); Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC); SANS Strategic Planning, Policy and Leadership (GSTRT) Global Information Assurance Certification; and Project Management Institute certified Project Management Professional (PMP).

Teri Takai is vice president 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.
Teri is a member of several industry advisory boards. She 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.

As Executive Editor at e.Republic, Steve is responsible for the coordination of editorial strategies and standards across all the firm’s media platforms. He directs the editorial teams that produce Government Technology, Emergency Management and Digital Communities and their respective Websites, in addition to developing and maintaining corporate policies and standards for editorial. Steve has over 20 years of writing and editing experience including more than 17 years covering technology in the state and local government market.
Steve joined e.Republic in 1996. During his tenure, e.Republic’s print and electronic media have received many awards for editorial excellence, including “Magazine of the Year” from ASBPE for Emergency Management in 2013, “Best New Web Site” from ASBPE for emergencymgmt.com in 2009, ”Best Overall Publication” at the Maggie awards for Government Technology in 2008 and “Magazine of the Year” from ASBPE for Public CIO in 2007.