Tony Allegrati has over 20 years’ experience as a Security Engineer. For the last 10 plus years he has focused on helping secure workloads and applications as they move to Public cloud.  He is knowledgeable in AWS, Azure And GCP and has most recently been a featured speaker at AWS NY Summit.

David is the author of numerous publications on health care topics and is one of the authors of Deloitte’s point of view on the trajectory of the health care ecosystem titled Forces of Change: The Future of Health. He brings this experience and thought leadership to the Public Health space to recover from the pandemic, restore confidence and trust in public health and to reimagine the future of public health.

Gary Buonacorsi has nearly two decades of experience in the IT industry as a transformational leader for Government agencies and Fortune 500 companies.  As Unisys’s Public Sector Chief Technology Officer, Gary is responsible for thought leadership in the public sector, State and Local business strategy, and guiding customer security and operations transformations.  Additionally, he will define long-term goals for the State and Local Government vertical, build key customer relationships, identify business opportunities, build capacity for Sales teams to convey Unisys’s Point of View, facilitate conversations with our customers, lead industry discussions, and conduct conference keynotes and seminars.
Gary comes to Unisys with a wide range of experience.  Most recently he served as the Field CTO and Enterprise Architect for ServiceNow SLED vertical.  He has also been the SLED CTO for Tanium and Dell Technologies.  Additionally, Gary’s career includes positions as CIO and CTO in the States of Nevada and Texas.

Julia Cherashore is Deputy Superintendent for Data Governance and Management at New York State Department of Financial Services. In her role, she’s leading DFS' data transformation and implementation of agency-wide data governance program, including leading data governance solutions, tools, processes and capabilities.  Prior to joining DFS last year, Julia spent 20 years working at top investment banks and financial services firms across Data, Risk Management, Compliance, Management Consulting, and Operations.  She received an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and dual undergraduate degrees in Music and Business Administration from Weber State University.
In addition to her professional responsibilities, Julia has been engaged with affinity networks and non-profits in a leadership role since 2014 and currently serves on several charitable Boards dedicated to advancing education and economic opportunity in New York State.

Trevor Collins currently leads the data governance and analytics function of DFS’s crypto regulatory framework that encompasses Virtual Currency and Limited Purpose Trust Companies. He is also the designated data steward for the Research & Innovation Division, responsible for implementing and documenting data processes and procedures. In these roles Trevor and his team are responsible for the systematic intake of regulatory data including financial statements, capitalization metrics, stablecoin issuance monitoring, consumer complaints, and exam findings. Under Trevor’s leadership, the virtual currency data governance team has expanded to meet the evolving needs of businesses conducting virtual currency business activity in New York State. Prior to joining DFS, Trevor was Global Head of Custom Index Development for benchmark calculator S&P.

Dirk deRoos is the Information Architect for IBM's AI education curriculum and leads IBM's watsonx certification program. Dirk joined IBM in 2000 after graduating from the University of New Brunswick with bachelor’s degrees in both Computer Science and English. Dirk began his IBM career with the Db2 development team at the IBM Toronto Software Lab. In 2010, Dirk joined IBM’s world-wide technical sales team, eventually leading the data science, data governance, and data management practices. Dirk is a frequent speaker on generative AI, data science, and data governance, and has authored a number of books in these areas, including Big Data Beyond the Hype and Hadoop for Dummies. In his spare time Dirk enjoys playing sports and music with his two (nearly adult) children.

Grace Dillon currently serves as the Executive Director of the Revenue Finance and Integrity Portfolio at the NYS Office for Information Technology Services. A Portfolio Executive Director ensures IT needs are met for client agencies with a similar lines for business. For Grace, this includes the NYS Department of Taxation and Finance, Division of Tax Appeals, Gaming Commission, Office of the Medicaid Inpector General, Division of Human Rights, and several others. In her role she assists in the planning, development, delivery and operation of IT services and initiatives consistent with the New York State IT Strategic Plan. She oversees IT project governance for her agencies, identifies risks to meeting project deliverables, escalates isses to mitigate those risks and collaborates with client agencies and ITS leadership to align IT investments, services and projects with agency business needs and priorities. In her nineteen years of service to NYS, Grace has always lived on the bridge between technology and the business, supporting various agencies and serving in roles related to Information Security, Project Management and Client Engagment. She comes from a long line of storytellers and prides herself on her ability to use that skill to educate and lead others. Grace holds an Associate Degree in Computer Information Systems from Hudson Valley Community College.

With over 20 years of experience, Adam has dedicated his career to ensuring that information systems and data are protected and available to meet the unique needs of government organizations. Currently serving as the Chief Technologist at Zscaler, a leading cybersecurity company, Adam plays a crucial role in helping state and local government organizations securely transform their systems. As a respected leader in the public sector market, his expertise and guidance are instrumental in ensuring that the systems that keep government running are not only efficient but also protected from cyber threats.
Prior to Zscaler, Adam served as Chief Information Security Officer for the State of Illinois.  In this role, he had responsibility for cybersecurity for various agencies, boards and commissions under the Governor. During his tenure the State of Illinois modernized and grew its security practice to protect systems and data that drive critical services to Illinois residents.
In addition to serving State Agencies, Adam oversaw State and Local security partnership and collaboration efforts including operation of the Illinois Election Cyber Navigator program in coordination with the Illinois State Board of Elections and the Illinois State Police.
Adam joined the Office of the CISO as Security Engineering Manager in 2017 and also served as Deputy CISO prior to becoming CISO.  Before coming to security, he spent more than 15 years in data center and wide area network engineering and architecture roles with the Illinois Department of Innovation and Technology and the Illinois State Police.
Adam was named the 2023 NASCIO Thomas M. Jarrett State Cybersecurity Leadership Award winner in 2023 and received a 2023 StateScoop 50 State Leadership of the Year Award. 
He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Illinois College and a Master of Science in Cybersecurity and Information Assurance from Western Governors University.

Scott Geer is the Technical Director of the eDiscovery team for the NYS Office of Information Technology Services. With over 20 years in both the private and public sector of the IT field, Scott brings a wide array of experience to his role of managing and implementing eDiscovery technical strategy in New York’s large and complex consolidated environment. Scott has been a member of the eDiscovery team since 2016, progressively moving up the ranks until taking the lead in 2020. Under Scott’s leadership, the NYS eDiscovery team, which consists of an Email and Collaboration suite unit, a Non-Email and Digital Forensics unit, and a newly created Platforms unit, has grown and scope to meet the evolving needs of the state enterprise.  
Scott holds a master’s in business administration from the State University of New York, and a Masters in Cybersecurity from Excelsior College. He also holds multiple vendor-neutral IT certifications. In his free time, Scott enjoys coaching his daughter’s softball teams and golfing with friends and family.

Robert Groat is the EVP of Technology and Strategy for SMX. He brings 30+ years of experience in designing, developing and delivering products and services, especially in financial services, healthcare, federal, and DOD sectors.
Under Rob’s leadership, SMX has developed large-scale cloud solutions for Treasury, DOJ, DOI, U.S. Navy, Fannie Mae, Siemens, Medtronic, and more. The first use of virtualization technologies in theater (for the forward-deployed Marine Expeditionary Forces) took place under his leadership, as did the first government-wide solution hosted in the AWS cloud.  
He has co-published numerous papers on advanced optimization mathematics, holds a patent in numerical analyses methods, and was the winner of the Northern Virginia Technology Council CTO Innovator of the Year award for his pioneering work in deploying cloud solutions for the federal government.
Rob holds a BS in Electrical Engineering, a BS in Computer Engineering, and several professional certifications across AWS, Google, and Microsoft.

Max Heintz is the lead for the Adversarial Matters Bureau within the Office of Information Technology Services’ Division of Legal Affairs.  Under his leadership, this team is responsible for litigation and administrative agency matters affecting ITS, providing policy and practical guidance in labor and employment matters, and supporting internal and external investigations.  Max’s 11 years of State government experience include litigation regarding accessibility of government websites, coordinating efforts, finding and remedying accessibility issues in existing web content, and leading proactive measures to ensure new web content is consistent with accessibility standards.  Therefore, Max’s experience gives him insight into both the legal and technical aspects of public sector web accessibility.  Prior to joining ITS in 2017, Max served as a Senior Attorney with the New York State Education Department.
Max earned a Juris Doctor from Albany Law School, and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Communications from Adelphi University.  He has been licensed as an attorney in New York State for over 11 years and is an active member of the New York State Bar Association.   He is also a past member of the Albany County Bar Association, through which he participated in pro bono legal projects.  In his free time, Max enjoys exploring the backroads of upstate New York on his motorcycle, as well as camping and hiking.

Mike is a results-driven, senior executive possessing 20 years of progressive success focused on aligning client's technology goals/initiatives to their desired business outcomes. Track record includes working with SMB to Global Enterprise customers and in various sectors that include SLED, Healthcare, Finance, and Manufacturing. Mike’s goal as leader of Local Govt / Higher Ed Research for NVIDIA is to ensure successful development of the “AI State” ecosystem by enabling groundbreaking research and AI education. A key focus area for Mike is guiding collaborations between universities and the private sector to help society embrace the next great evolution of our time.

Matt Jebaraj leads NYS ITS Program and Project Management Office (PPMO) as Executive Director. Prior to that, Matt was the Deputy Executive Director for ITS Workforce, Public Safety and Housing portfolios. Matt was the Deputy CIO reporting to NYS Education Department (NYSED) CIO, leading IT Business Solutions, and launched NYSED's PMO and BA Services units. Before that, he has led multiple teams at NYS ITS, and has successfully managed various large, complex programs and technical deliveries. Matt has 25+ years of public and private sector IT management experience, including at GE Energy and Ford Motor Company. He holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree and a Bachelor of Engineering degree. Matt has received various recognitions, including the 'IT Leader of the Year' Award as part of eRepublic / GovTech NY IT Leadership Forum. Matt has implemented multiple organizational effectiveness programs, in various organizations. He also formed and led local interest groups for the Project Management Institute (PMI) to mentor outstanding leaders, and served as PMI Upstate NY Chapter's Strategic Planning Director. Matt has been a panelist and moderator in previous NY IT Leadership Forums, and is passionate about bringing experts together to share ideas, and helping new and experienced IT leaders grow, and develop professionally.

Anton Keller has been NYSED employee for nearly 22 years, supporting customer's needs from desktop client development to enterprise Java application development, and various project management roles. During an audit in 2015, worked as NYSED's web accessibility coordinator and worked with US Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights to address necessary remediation efforts. Currently overseeing the agency's migration from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10.

Josh S. Klemm was appointed as the Chief Information Officer of the New York State Thruway Authority in October 2021. Prior to joining the Authority, Mr. Klemm served in a variety of positions in his 20 year Information Technology career, including 14 years of service in the State of New York. While with the State of New York, Mr. Klemm served as Chief Information Security Officer and Director of the Bureau of Systems and Informatics at the New York State Department of Health. Mr. Klemm received his Bachelor of Arts and his Masters of Science from the University at Albany, where he serves as an Adjunct Lecturer in Informatics with the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity.

Suzanne Lazar leads teams of Business Analysts who support projects for the ITS Chief Portfolio Office/PPMO/ Business Analysis Shared Services/Health and Human Services Portfolio (OMH/OASAS/OPWDD). 
Suzanne has been part of building and implementing new systems and applications, developing and managing teams of Business Analysts across agencies, overseeing Modernization and Optimization efforts for OMH and OASAS, and is currently acting as an advisor for business analysis on the Integrated Eligibility System (IES) Program.
Prior to that she acted as an Analyst for the Office of the Attorney General as part of the NY Matters Case Management development and as an Analyst for the NYMMIS (Medicaid Management Information System) project for NYS Department of Health.  Suzanne has 25+ years of public and private sector IT Analysis experience including LexisNexis.
Suzanne holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management and Economics and she is currently working on completing a M.A. in Learning with Emerging Technologies.
Suzanne is also an active member of the NYS Forum and has been a co-chair for the Business Analysis and Architecture Workgroup since 2019.
Suzanne has been a panelist in previous NY IT Leadership Forums and NY Digital Summit Forums and is dedicated to supporting and learning from fellow leaders and up and coming leaders.  Suzanne also has a vested interest in knowledge sharing and collaborating for process improvement.

With over 25 years of R&D experience, Dr. Malik has made significant contributions in AI/ML technologies, IT automation, software engineering, and microarchitecture design. His work includes research on optimized processor architectures for AI languages, leading to the design of superscalar microarchitectures for high-performance systems, and the development of formal verification techniques for weakly coherent multiprocessor systems. Dr. Malik has filed 111 patents with the US Patent Office and authored 29 papers presented at journals, conferences, or industry events. Additionally, he has held adjunct professor appointments at UT Austin, SUNY, and Cornell University, and served as a panelist for US government research programs and a founding member of IEEE conference steering committees.

Geoff Plante is a Partner at KPMG LLP, where he leads the firm’s State and Local Government Finance Transformation practice and serves as the Lead Partner for the State of New York. He has more than three decades of experience helping governments, universities, and not-for-profit organizations successfully transform their back-office operations to better serve their workers, constituents, and communities. He focuses on leveraging technology as an enabler, bringing deep functional and industry experience to strategy, program management, quality assurance, finance transformation, procurement, and organizational development initiatives.

Will Rauch was appointed Chief Data Officer of NYS ITS in August 2024 and brings two decades of leadership experience to the role. Prior to joining NYS ITS, Will worked as a senior advisor to help establish bureaus within the Office of Health Insurance Program’s IP Division of Data Services. He has also held multiple directorships of analytics and IT teams within the private healthcare sector, empowering organizations to leverage data to advance their operational mission.
Will serves on the board of directors for the Health Analytics Collaborative, is on the advisory council for the Industrial and Systems Engineering program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and is a veteran of the US Army.
Will holds a master’s degree in management, a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering and an associate degree in respiratory care.

Jim Richberg’s role as a Fortinet CISO leverages his 30+ years’ experience leading and driving innovation in cybersecurity, threat intelligence, and cyber strategy & policy for the US Government and international partners. Mr. Richberg’s broad operational experience –including his 20 years at CIA-- gives him practical insight into difficult cyber problems ranging from advanced threat capabilities to insider threat and supply chain integrity. He helped build the discipline of cyber threat intelligence analysis and has been an innovator in measuring cyber performance, risk, and return on investment (ROI). In his non-cyber moments, he builds and uses large telescopes and has run astronomy outreach programs for the Smithsonian Institute and the National Park Service.

Hector Rodriguez is a healthcare solution strategist, technologist, and prior Chief Information Security Officer.  He has worked for over 30 years in the health industry with provider, health plan, life sciences, and government organizations.  As a Healthcare security lead for AWS his work focuses on leveraging modern technology as an innovative and transformative catalyst to accelerate and support an organization’s ability to live their mission.  His work covers topics such as “Modern Disaster Recovery and Ransomware Mitigation”, “Cybersecurity and the Trusted Healthcare Cloud”, “Blockchain in Healthcare” and “Healthcare’s Digital Front Door and IoT/IoMT Devices”. Hector has an M.B.A. in Management Finance and Entrepreneurship and a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from Rutgers University.

Steven Spalten is currently DFS’ Executive Deputy Superintendent for Technology & Operations. Steven is leading DFS’ digital transformation and driving the adoption of cutting-edge technologies to enhance operational performance across all divisions.  Prior to joining the DFS, Steven served as Deputy Commissioner and Chief Strategic Officer at NYS Department of Labor.  Previously, Steven worked at NYS ITS in different leadership roles, including leading the migration into Office365, serving as the Deputy Chief Operations Officer, and as the Executive Director of the Tourism and Environment Portfolio.

Marcy S. Stevens has served as Chief General Counsel to NYS ITS since January 2020. In this role, she is the chief legal and policy officer for the agency and is responsible for all legal matters pertaining to and affecting NYS ITS, as well as in its capacity as a statewide service provider. Marcy has been with the agency since 2016, previously serving as ITS Deputy Counsel and Director of Litigation & eDiscovery.
Marcy has more than a decade of legal experience in the public and private sector. Prior to joining NYS, Marcy worked as a civil litigation attorney, most recently at a national law firm in the commercial and liability defense litigation practice, where she served as a member of the national eDiscovery triage team and represented corporate clients in high-exposure tort claims and employment matters.
Marcy is a key member of the NYS ITS leadership team, as well as a respected resource across the state for her ability to bridge the gap between complicated legal and policy matters and their intersection with technology tools, information security and data privacy issues.
Marcy holds a Juris Doctor (JD) and Master of Business Administration from Western New England University Schools of Law and Business, as well as a bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University.

Kevin Talbert is a dedicated Senior Solutions Engineer with Cloudera Government Solutions. He comes from an architecture background working with large, distributed data platforms, and designing customer-centric solutions for problems at scale. He provides technical expertise to customers looking to modernize their data stack and builds solutions to integrate Cloudera wherever they are on that journey.

Jennifer E. Walden is the Managing Director and New York account lead for Accenture’s Public Service sector, focusing on state and city agencies, higher education, and nonprofits. With over two decades of experience, she has led significant projects at state and federal levels, enhancing systems and citizen services. Notably, Jennifer has driven major improvements in New York State, modernizing critical systems to better serve its residents and increase agency transparency.
Her work includes leading large-scale public service projects and pioneering initiatives in GenAI, Federal Funds Management, Public Health, and Systems Integration. Throughout her career at Accenture, Jennifer has been a key voice in promoting employee engagement, mentorship, and diversity.
Recognized as one of City & State Magazine’s “40 under 40” in Albany, NY, Jennifer is dedicated to enhancing the citizen experience and connecting people with essential services. A Clarkson University alumna, she actively participates in its leadership boards and resides in Albany with her family.