New York IT Leadership Academy 2015

Rae is a New York State Office of Information Technology manager in the Transportation and Economic Development Cluster Enterprise Architecture group with over sixteen years of diverse IT experience.  She has supported the business needs of her customers in various roles including software development, business and data analysis, database administration and management as well as project management.  She successfully implemented the data governance program at NYSDOT and recently managed the ITS Lean Incident Resolution team.  The goal of this “lean” team is to improve the ITS customer’s experience by fixing IT problems faster and eliminating the reoccurrence of identified problems.

Joseph (Joe) Batista, Director & Chief Creatologist at Hewlett-Packard Company, is responsible for building new business realities by leveraging HP’s portfolio of assets, and driving new growth, strategy and implementation agendas, that create alignment of interest and deliver real business results.

Joe builds new ventures for both HP and his clients, building value by leveraging capital, human resources, technology and market assets. Working with many emerging companies and larger enterprises, Joe is a consultant, a business strategist, and a technologist with over 30 years of practical industry experience. Many large corporations seek his “creative application theory” of applying technology to real world business domain challenges.

Awards include “Who’s Who Among American Business Leaders”, “Who’s Who in Media &
Communication” and “Who’s Who in the Computer Industry”. Joe was awarded CIO Magazine’s TOP 50 Web Awards for building a leading edge Corporate Portal to leverage internal knowledge assets. He is often quoted in industry publications on the topics including Business Models, Innovation, Knowledge Management & PKM, Mobility and the application of technology for competitive advantage. Joe is also coauthor with the Gantry Group on a wireless research paper entitled, Searching for Wireless Signals, best practices and return on investment for mobility projects and most recently co-author of a HIMSS white paper Constructing IT Support for Personalized Medicine. Joe was featured in the Economist Intelligence white paper entitled, Designing Effective Collaborations, for his thought leadership in creating alignment of interest concepts. A contributor in a recent study entitled From Chaos to Collaboration a new research study commissioned by Amadeus, that challenges the travel industry. Joe is a frequent speaker and has presented to audiences in London, Boston, San Francisco, New York, Alexandria, Miami, Naples, France, Singapore and Sweden. Reaching over 15,000 business professionals over the last 12 years at major events, conferences and executive forums with his unique POV Point of View on "Business Physics" the intersection of technology and business value creation.

ITS Manager CRM, Transportation and Economic Development Cluster, New York State
 
Tom was born and raised in Albany, NY, and graduated with an A.A.S. degree from Paul Smith College and a B.S. degree from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.  He began his career in public service immediately after college.  Tom worked for the NYSDOT for 28½ years, and has worked for the NYS Office of ITS for 2 1/2 years.  Tom is currently the Director of the ITS-TED Cluster Customer Relationship Management Unit. 
While working in the public sector, Tom earned a Graduate Certificate in Geographic Information Systems from UAlbany, and has co-produced and presented at two distinct Leadership Training programs while at NYSDOT.  Design Squad Leader Training / Design Division Leadership Training, and the NYSDOT Executive Leadership Institute. Tom has been a member of Toastmasters International (TI) for a little over two years.  He has served as VP–Public Relations and President, and is the current VP–Education for his club, located at 50 Wolf Road.  While Tom served as President (2012-2013), the fledgling club earned Distinguished Club Status with TI.

Senior Manager of Solution Consulting – National Government Solutions, Adobe

Jeff Bell is the Senior Manager of Solution Consulting for Adobe’s National Government Solutions group. Jeff focuses on advising government organizations in the northeast and central United States on their transformations toward interactive web experiences. Jeff has been working with content management, document management, and process improvement for more than 15 years with organizations from Washington D.C. to Santiago, Chile. He began as an IT Manager in higher education and healthcare, then moved to Enterprise Software working for Plumtree, BEA, Oracle, and now Adobe.

CISSP, Security Strategist – U.S. Public Sector Cyber Team, HP

Bill brings over twenty five years of Information Assurance experience in both the public and private sectors as the Security Strategist for the U.S. Public Sector Cyber Group within the Enterprise Security Product (ESP) business unit at HP. In this role, Mr. Billings is responsible for driving strategic cyber initiatives for the U.S. Public Sector Cyber Group and providing thought leadership and operational insight regarding the ever changing global threat landscape for the ESP business unit.
Prior to HP, Bill was the Chief Information Security Officer accountable for defining and shaping BlackRidge Technology’s global Information Security program. He also served as Chief Information Security Officer at Microsoft U.S. Federal business for seven years.
Mr. Billings is a retired Naval Cryptologic Officer where during his Navy career he led all facets of Information Operations (exploit and defense), including traditional Cryptology, Command and Control, Enterprise Security Operations to ensure the U.S. Navy and U.S. government was prepared to meet the challenges of the worldwide explosion in technology.

Jerry Boone is the President of the New York State Civil Service Commission and Commissioner of the Department of Civil Service.  Commissioner Boone was appointed by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and confirmed by the New York State Senate in July 2012. 
As head of the Department, Commissioner Boone oversees an agency that functions as New York’s principal human resources agency for the Executive Branch of State Government, which employs some 150,000 people.  The agency administers the merit selection system and oversees the administration of the State’s more than 96 municipal civil service agencies, which covers approximately 390,000 local government employees.  The Department’s Employee Benefits Division administers the New York State Health Insurance Program, an $8 billion program, which covers some 1.2 million current and retired State and local government employees and their family members.
As President, Mr. Boone heads the three-member State Civil Service Commission. This Commission adopts and modifies rules governing a wide range of State civil service matters and hears and determines appeals on such matters as examination qualifications, pay grade determinations, and disciplinary actions.
Commissioner Boone has a broad and varied background both in government and the private sector.  He started his career as an honors attorney with the Federal Government and continued in the public interest as an Assistant Attorney General and Solicitor General of New York State.  He then worked as a corporate general counsel and as a senior business executive and chief human resources officer for a Fortune 500 gaming and hospitality company.  Commissioner Boone also has worked as a consultant integrating smaller companies into larger corporations and has a background in creating affordable housing for first- time home buyers and tenants.

Branch Director, Cybersecurity Division, CenturyLink

John Cassidy works extensively with Sr. Leadership at the Department of Homeland Security and other US Intelligence Agencies to develop innovative programs that provide government class intelligence on cyber threats to the private sector.  In 2010, Mr. Cassidy was a key contributor on the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) pilot between the DoD, interagency partners, and representatives of the private sector.  The DIB pilot was the first successful voluntary public/private cyber intelligence information sharing initiative of its kind.  Mr. Cassidy has played a key role in assisting the Federal government to transform this pilot to a fully operational program and system known as the DHS Enhanced Cybersecurity Service (ECS) Program.  The ECS Program now offers banks, hospitals, and other private US critical infrastructure entities with protections utilizing sensitive and classified government vetted cyber threat information.  The ECS program is a major component of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.

Joe Contrera is the president and founder of ALIVE @ WORK® LLC.  He helps companies achieve results by developing their leaders and helping their employees find more purpose.

As a speaker, Joe inspires his audiences to take 100% accountability and ownership for everything in their lives.  By disrupting their current mindset, he helps others to overcome their self-limiting beliefs. As an executive coach, Joe challenges leaders to lead from their strengths and go beyond their comfort zones. His “Five Critical Truths of Authentic Leaders” helps them to get clarity and focus on what it means to be an authentic leader.  Joe’s successful sales and sales leadership background gives him the unique ability to help leaders increase their interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence, therefore creating more authentic leaders. As a consultant, he helps companies align their cultural beliefs with the results they want and not the results they get.  He does this by showing them how to close the gaps and connect the employee to the customer and the marketplace.

Joe is the author of the book LIGHT ‘EM UP: How to Ignite the Fire in Your Sales Team in Just 21 Days.  He’s also written articles on the topics of leadership development, accountability, sales success and employee engagement.

For over 27 years, Joe has been training, managing and coaching people.  Before founding ALIVE @ WORK in 2000, Joe worked for a wholly owned subsidiary of Steelcase Inc.—the world’s largest manufacturer of office furniture.  While there, he grew the business from less than 2 million dollars to more than 11 million dollars in just five years, while delivering the highest gross profit margins in the company.  As a leader, more than 80% of his sales team received the coveted Presidents Club Award for Sales Excellence.

Joe is a professional member of the National Speakers Association (NSA), an international professional organization made up of 3,800 of the most successful speakers in the U.S.  He has served on the Illinois Board of Directors, where he was awarded the Wordsmith Award by his peers for excellence on the platform.  Joe has also served on the Phoenix Chapter Board of Directors.  He is a graduate of the Coaches Training Institute (CTI) in San Rafael, California, and a member of the International Coaches Federation (ICF).

Nate is a Principal Enterprise Architect for CA Technologies’ Public Sector. He brings 20 years of experience working with organizations to align IT with business. He specializes in providing solutions to help agencies transform their digital technologies to deliver superior customer service.
Nate joined CA Technologies in 2005, and works with State and Local governments to develop IT roadmaps, and architect enterprise solutions that enable agencies to meet their business goals. In 1999, as the CTO of BladeWorks Inc., he invented blade servers and coined the term “server provisioning.”

As a Senior Engagement Director of Professional Services for Adobe’s National Government Solutions group, John supports government agencies in transforming their organizations via automated document platforms and interactive web experiences. John has been with Adobe for over 7 years in both Germany and the US, focusing on the Adobe Experience Manager platform. Prior to joining Adobe, John held a variety of consulting and technical sales positions at IBM Germany and PwC.
John has presented at the CeBIT as well as multiple conferences for Adobe, IBM, and SAP. In addition to a variety of blog entries and white papers, John also co-authored an IBM Redbook.
John graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance and Operations and Information Management. He lives in Richmond, Virginia with his wife and three sons.

Executive Director, Global Security, Dell

Mike Dorsey is the Executive Director, Dell Global Security (DGS) leading federal security strategies, practices, and programs for all Dell’s federal business offerings and solutions. He is responsible for the integration of comprehensive security business practices to assure Dell’s compliance with the U.S. National Industrial Security Program (NISP), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) policies, and Intelligence Community Directives (ICD). Mike leads the development of security strategy across the Dell federal landscape globally, with a focus on insider threats, physical security, personnel security, global supply chain, information assurance, and information systems security supporting Dell sales, services, security solutions, and business operations. He leads Dell’s representation to the National Security Business Alliance Council (NSBAC), the Domestic Security Alliance Council (DSAC), and the National Counterintelligence Working Group (NCIWG) at the FBI.
Prior to joining Dell, Mike was a Senior Manager with Deloitte Consulting leading multiple strategic management projects for the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Justice (DOJ), U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), U.S. Postal Service (USPS), and the U.S. Department of State. He led strategic development and business process improvements for multiple federal law enforcement, intelligence agencies and foreign law enforcement organizations, resulting in improved organizational efficiencies and outcomes.

Mr. Gangnath has been with the Federal IBM Cybersecurity and Privacy practice since if formed in 2002.   He manages IBM IT security projects for the Federal Government. His primary client has been the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).  His certifications include Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT® (CGEIT) and Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC).

CISSP, Public Sector Cyber-Security Advisor, CA Technologies

William Harrod is a Public Sector Cyber-Security Advisor for CA Technologies.  As an Information Security Executive and Cyber-Security Professional, Mr. Harrod has over twenty years of experience in managing cyber-security risk,  evaluating and implementing FICAM/SICAM solutions, and providing advice for State and Federal Government Agencies, and Fortune 500 companies including the US Department of Veterans Affairs, the US Department of Agriculture, the US Department of Justice, the Federal Aviation Administration, American Express, WalMart, and other financial and retail clients.  Recent experiences include speaking engagements in Texas, California and Oregon, educational webinars including a joint FICAM presentation with Govenor Tom Ridge, Federal News Radio Executive Fourm on Mobility, BYOD, Identity Management, Multi-factor authentication, and derived credentials in an HSPD-12 environment.

Hamza Jahangir leads the Enterprise Architecture Practice for the North America Public Sector organization. As the leader of the Practice, Hamza sets direction and strategy for the Public Sector architecture and IT strategy market and oversees both sales and delivery across all key public sector accounts (including clients from U.S. Federal, State & Local and Canadian Governments). Hamza is a well-recognized and published Oracle author on the topics of Data Security, SOA, Cloud Computing and Enterprise Architecture. Hamza has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Northeastern University and an MBA from Georgetown University.

BYOD and Network Security Technical Solutions Architect, Cisco

Ken Kaminski is the BYOD and Network Security Technical Solutions Architect for the Northeastern United States specializing in BYOD implementation, Security in the Data Center, Identity Management Systems, and Cisco Security, Wireless, and Network Switching and Routing Products and Technologies for large enterprise and global accounts. He has been a member of the Security Field Advisory Board at Cisco that drives security training and programs for Cisco’s Security Systems Engineers and provides customer feature requirements to Cisco Engineering. He teaches and speaks often on security related topics including Cisco Networkers and other industry forums.
Prior positions include Security Architect for the Northeast US and Consulting Systems Engineer for Voice, Video, and WAN technologies at Cisco Systems.  He was one of the first Consulting Systems Engineers hired at Cisco. Prior to that, he was the Senior Systems Engineer for a startup company in the carrier ATM switching market.  He was also a Telecommunications Officer in the US Army leaving the service as a Forward Signals unit Company Commander. Ken has his CISSP, GCFA, GPEN, GAWN, GMOB, and GCIA along with a BA and MA from Boston University.

Dan Katz, Technical Director for Public Sector, is responsible for empowering forward thinking government organizations with Acquia’s game changing digital solutions. As a key member of the leadership team, Dan drives product strategy and innovation to help governments leverage best of breed technology for citizen engagement, mission support, and web operations. Dan articulates Acquia’s value to public sector as an enablement platform that provides governments a secure, resilient, agile toolbox enabling freedom to focus on the business of serving citizens.

Prior to joining Acquia, Dan led successful open source and digital platform initiatives for numerous public sector enterprises such as the District of Columbia, the American Battle Monuments Commission, and the Department of Homeland Security - including the design, execution and deployment into the public cloud of an Enterprise-wide open source Drupal solution for all of DHS's public-facing websites.

Earlier in his career, Dan led knowledge management efforts at the BlueCross BlueShield Federal Employee Program, ran a consulting company, and worked at Amazon.com. Dan received his MS in Technology Management from George Mason University, holds a Federal CIO Certification, and a BA from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Jeff Katzen is the Director of the Cloud Practice at CenturyLink. He has over 17 years of business and technology experience in the global IT marketplace.
Responsible for CenturyLink’s diversified cloud business across North America, Jeff and his team work with customers on the where, how and why cloud fits within their enterprise. He also tracks industry trends both from a technology and business perspective as they relate to cloud. Prior to joining CenturyLink, Jeff spent 12 years in a business development role at a global telecommunications company focusing on sales and product creation for amongst other things their "As a Service" or cloud portfolio.
Originally from South Africa, Jeff started his career working as an Electronic Engineer at a telecommunications infrastructure company that supplied products to the South African Defense Force and South African Department of Transportation. His role there encompassed hardware design as well as leading a team in the development of QA and manufacturing processes.

Yanek Korff is the Vice President of FireEye as a Service. Mr. Korff has over fifteen years of experience in security operations, infrastructure and development. Mr. Korff’s focus is to ensure FireEye’s customers have the world’s most effective threat detection and response capability available commercially through the operationalization of technology, intelligence, and expertise.
Mr. Korff joined Mandiant, now FireEye, in 2010 to establish and grow the managed services line of business now known as FireEye as a Service. Prior to joining Mandiant, Mr. Korff led Aol’s globally distributed Security Engineering teams providing security platforms and services to the Time Warner family of companies. In this role, he was responsible for rapidly increasing operational efficiency of the IT Security organization amidst an increase in organizational change and decline in available resources. He continuously improved security service levels facilitating organization-wide adherence to internal and external security standards and policies.
Prior to Aol, Mr. Korff served in IT operations roles focusing on security architecture design and implementation, performance monitoring, and systems infrastructure management at Bell Atlantic and Cigital.

Senior Solutions Architect, FireEye

Randy Lee, an IT systems and security veteran with 20 years of engineering experience, is currently a sr. Solutions architect and network, malware/security expert at security vendor FireEye, Inc. An expert in enhancing profitability; developing strategic and tactical technical solutions in complex environments, and delivering security strategy through in depth knowledge.Prior to FireEye, Randy was the engineering director for Fortinet Inc, leveraging systems and security knowledge to design and build global security solutions. Before Fortinet, Randy was the infrastructure manager at Foundry Networks leveraging deep technical knowledge to develop strategic architecture enabling an efficient business environment. Randy also held lead engineering positions at Covasoft, IBM/Tivoli and Applied Materials.

Jason Mellein is the Managing Director of the Washington, D.C. office of Pivotal Labs. Prior to Labs Jason spent seven years as a technologist and software innovator in Silicon Valley; served eight years active duty with the United States Air Force conducting astrophysical research, operating a satellite constellation and managing large acquisitions programs for the intelligence community; and worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Company across the Operations and High Tech practices.

Jason was a Fellow in MIT’s Leaders for Global Operations program, the world’s leading program for operations management. He received an MBA and an MS in Engineering Systems. While studying at Occidental College Jason earned a Bachelor’s in Physics.

Ganesh Padmanabhan is the Sr. Director of Emerging Technology Strategy at the Office of the CTO at Dell. He and his team work very closely with customers, industry partners and thought leaders to understand the emerging technology trends, evolving business models & customer behavior, and pioneer new business models & technology introductions for our customers, on behalf of Dell. He has been passionately engaged in the industry on conversations around Cloud, Converged & Software Defined and helped shape many of Dell’s initiatives on these topics.

He has spent the last 8 years at Dell in various leadership roles in Product Management, Marketing & Engineering functions. Prior to joining Dell, he held engineering leadership positions at Intel and Adaptec. Ganesh is currently focusing on the big themes in the industry around Big Data/Analytics, Cloud, Software Defined and Internet of Things (IoT).

Chief Information Officer, Health Cluster, New York State

Bob is the Chief Information Officer for the New York State Office of Information Technology Services Health Cluster, overseeing the planning, development, delivery and operation of IT services and initiatives for the NYS Department of Health, Office of Mental Health, Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services, and Office of the Medicaid Inspector General.  He collaborates with Deputy Secretaries, agency Commissioners and agency program directors to align IT investments, services and projects with cluster agency business needs and priorities. Bob has 32 years of experience in the Health Information Technology field. He has held various leadership positions including Deputy Health Cluster CIO, DOH Deputy CIO, Director of Applications Development, and Director of Project Management Office.

Marty Poniatowski is a Senior Director at Hewlett-Packard Company. He manages the presales technical experts in the U.S. east for networking, storage, and servers. His focus is on the strategic initiatives of cloud, security, big data, and mobility.

During his career Marty has written the 17 books listed on this amazon.com page, and 50 articles on various technical topics.

Marty holds graduate degrees in Information Technology (New York University) and Management, and an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering.

Kumar Rachuri has worked with the State of Ohio as a public servant for 18 plus years and held various leadership roles across five different agencies, including both central services agencies as well as line of business/mission focused agencies.
Most recently, Kumar worked as the CIO for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. As a triple combined agency, OH DJFS houses Medicaid; Welfare; Child Support; Children Services; Child Welfare; Unemployment Compensation and Workforce Development along with administrative and support areas. This agency’s operating budget was in excess of $20 billion dollars and the IT budget was over $275 million dollars per fiscal year, as such the agency’s technology organization was the largest IT organization in a state government agency in the country. Under Kumar’s leadership as CIO, their technology team was recognized for “Excellence in Human Services Technologies” in the category of “Collaboration across Boundaries” by APHSA – ISM 2013.
Prior to OH DJFS, Kumar served at the Ohio Office of Budget and Management (OBM) in a dual role capacity as the CIO and the Director – Strategy and Business Development, Ohio Shared Services Center (OSS). OSS calls for consolidation of state’s fiscal operations from 26 cabinet level agencies to one business center. This project received accolades from notable organizations i.e. Gartner and Harvard Business Review, leading them to write white papers of Ohio’s cutting edge implementation of business process re-engineering eventually. Towards his efforts on technology front, Kumar was recognized as one of the Nation’s Top 25 leaders by Government Technology Magazine in 2011, a distinction given to innovative and visionary leaders as the “Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers” in United States.

Rick is currently a member of the IBM Software Rational Tiger Team where he serves as an Enterprise Solution Architect helping clients design and modernize Enterprise Software Systems. He is certified as an IBM and Open Group Distinguished IT Specialist. Prior to this role, Rick led the IBM Rational World Wide Enterprise Modernization Community of Practice and worked with enterprise clients to develop enterprise software development and application modernization strategies.
Prior to joining IBM in 2007, Rick was a Hewlett Packard Distinguished Technologist and Strategist and served as the North America Program Manager for HP’s Software Modernization Services; bringing more than twenty-seven years of experience in business development, account management, project management and software development to the company. Rick’s responsibilities included Business Strategy Development and served as the company’s Chief Architect for Application Modernization and software re-engineering.