Phil Bertolini is senior 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.

Jillian has served as the Director of Workforce Development for the Office of General Services (OGS) since 2015. This unique role also includes serving as the training director for twelve additional state agencies including the NYS Office of Information Technology Services. With 23 years of New York State service and over 14 years dedicated to the professional development of the state workforce, she has extensive background creating and overseeing learning and development programs. Some of her key accomplishments include, the relaunch of two critical engagement programs, a new employee orientation and the OGS Commissioner’s Performance Award program, as well as a structured supervisory development program, and in 2022, a formal Mentoring program is underway. Jillian was a founding member and continues to serve on the NYS Learning Alliance Steering Committee which was formed to build and sustain a collaborative advisory body between the NYS Office of Employee Relations and the state agencies. She also served for four years on the Statewide Learning Management System Steering Committee. Jillian and her team successfully kept learning and development alive during the pandemic, by transitioning away from mainly instructor led classroom training to a more flexible hybrid approach that added virtual and blended learning opportunities to the workforce. Her most valued goals include ensuring workforce development remains an ongoing process and continuing to educate and empower staff throughout their NYS careers.

Karen Geduldig is the Deputy Commissioner for the Civil Enforcement Division at the NYS Department of Taxation and Finance. Under her leadership, the Civil Enforcement Division administers the fair enforcement and collection of approximately $2B in tax liabilities as well as regulatory oversight of nearly 40,000 NYS registered tax return preparers and facilitators. Karen is also a key part of the Department’s transformation program, which serves to leverage technology and data to optimize tax administration and improve the taxpayer experience.
Prior to her current role, Karen was the Associate Chief Information Officer for the State University System of New York (SUNY), a network of 64 regionally located colleges and universities with 91,000 faculty and administrators serving approximately 400,000 active students. Karen was recruited as a leader in SUNY’s digital transformation. During her tenure she directed the development of modern technologies to unite SUNY’s campuses to create a frictionless student experience; one that enables personalized learning and student success, supports development of a modern workforce, and optimizes SUNY's overall operations.
Karen has served in several other leadership roles throughout New York State. She has served as Executive Deputy Chief Information Officer for the New York State Office of Information Technology Services (ITS) where she was responsible for New York State's technology-enabled innovation agenda and aligning technology solutions to the policy objectives of ITS' 45+ agency clients. From 2011 to 2015, she was ITS’ first General Counsel and Ethics Officer and an essential member of the executive leadership team that formed this agency, the nation’s first consolidated, full-service governmental IT service delivery agency. From 2015-2017, Karen served as Director of the Office of Telecommunications in the New York State Department of Public Service, where she oversaw regulation of the telecommunications industry and was charged with establishing a framework that maintained high quality critical communications services for all New Yorkers while encouraging broadband and wireless deployment, innovation and investment in New York State. From 2005 through 2011 she was part of, and ultimately served as Bureau Chief for the Internet Bureau of the New York State Office of the Attorney General. Before joining New York State service, she was a litigation associate in the New York City office of the international law firm McDermott, Will & Emery.

Carla Grant-Pickens serves as the Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer for IBM, where she leads a global team dedicated to creating an inclusive culture and a workforce that reflects the world, while responding to societal issues that impact IBM employees and the communities they live and work in. Diversity and inclusion has been a pillar of IBM’s culture for over 100 years and under Carla’s leadership the company has been globally recognized as a leader in the space, named as a “Top 10 Working Mother Best Company,” a “Top 10 Company for Dads,” and a “Top Place to Work for LGBTQ Employees” by the Human Rights Campaign, among others.
During her 20+ year career at IBM, Carla has held roles in HR Leadership, Talent Strategy and Programs, and Executive Succession & Development across the company, and has worked and lived in both the U.S. and Asia. Carla holds an IBM patent and the prolific title of “IBM Inventor” for Workforce Retention and Compensation Analytics. Prior to IBM, she worked in Consulting at Oracle and Northup Grumman.
Raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, Carla is a graduate of the University of Maryland where she attained a B.S. in Economics and M.S. in Human Resources. Carla sits on the boards of the Federal City Council and Connected DMV and enjoys volunteering with youth in her area; most notably as a Mentor and the Executive Champion of the Carver High
School P-TECH program in Baltimore, Maryland.
When not at work, Carla can be found spending time with her husband, Eric, and her two sons, Eric, Jr., and Louis – most likely watching a College Basketball game… Go Terps!

Nancy Hernandez was appointed by Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli in April 2012 as Deputy Comptroller for the Division of Diversity Management. She oversees the Office of the State Comptroller's affirmative action, diversity management, and equal employment opportunity programs, including ensuring compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and human rights laws. Nancy is also responsible for outreach, recruitment and facilitating programs to establish a fair and fully inclusive workplace. She is a spokesperson and representative for the Comptroller at many functions and training events, promoting his initiatives and strategic priorities on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Prior to OSC, Nancy was an elected official who served as Councilwoman and Deputy Supervisor for the Town of Colonie in upstate New York. She held other EEO and M/WBE leadership positions at several New York State agencies and served one term as the M/WBE Chairperson for the NYS Affirmative Action Advisory Council.
Right after college, Nancy ran a real estate business and taught Spanish at a local Christian school. She received her Masters in Public Administration from Marist College and her Bachelor of Arts from the State University at Albany.
Nancy has four adult children, three grandsons and resides with her husband David, in Loudonville, New York.

Matt Jebaraj currently leads NYS ITS Project Management Office (PMO) and Business Analysis Services Team, as PMO Director. Most recently, Matt was the Deputy Executive Director for ITS Workforce, Public Safety and Housing portfolio. Prior to that, Matt reported to the CIO of NYS Education Department (NYSED) as Deputy CIO/Assistant Director, 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. Matt has 25+ years of public and private sector IT management experience. He holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree and a Bachelor of Engineering (BE) degree. 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 develop outstanding workforces, and served as PMI Upstate NY Chapter's Strategic Planning Director.

Jennifer Lorenz has more than 20 years’ experience as a leader and operational manager for IT. She now serves as the Deputy Chief Information Officer for Operations at ITS. In this role, Jenn is charged with overseeing the day-to-day operations of ITS. She is responsible for managing the Chief Portfolio, Chief Communications and Chief Finance Offices, establishing a standard framework for introducing new systems, programs, and technologies to NYS agencies, and ensuring alignment between IT, client business strategies and NYS IT financial objectives.
Before assuming the Deputy CIO role, she led the Continuous Service Improvement department of IT Service Delivery Management, responsible for developing the performance management framework and key performance data measures for the program and operationalizing the program across multiple functional areas of ITS. Prior to this role, Jenn’s experience included systems implementation management for small and large projects, data analysis, systems administration, identity and access management, project management and business process reengineering. She is a results-oriented leader who enjoys solving business problems and creating efficiencies in processes with simple technology solutions.
Jenn has been with ITS since its inception in 2012. She was an employee of the former Office for Technology (OFT) and prior to that served in the United States Air Force for six years. She holds a Bachelors’ degree in Business Management from Empire State College and ITIL Foundations certification.

For over a decade Charlie was as a Member of the New York State Assembly, where he served as the
Ranking Member of the Insurance Committee and a member of the Ways & Means, Banks and Social Services Committees.
He also was the elected Chairman of the Nassau County Board of Assessors and Nassau County Real Property Tax Director.
Charlie additionally served for almost a dozen years as Director of Government Relations & External Affairs for the New York State Department of Transportation’s New York City Region.
He was a lawyer/lobbyist in both Albany and New York City and then formed his own consulting firm.
He is a graduate of Duke University and Fordham University School of Law.

Joseph (Joe) Popcun is the Executive Deputy Commissioner of the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS). Prior to his appointment at DCJS, he served as Director of Policy and Practice at the Rockefeller Institute of Government and Executive Director of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium. At the same time, in partnership with the Department of State, Joe was the Executive Director of the New York State Council on Community Re-Entry and Reintegration. During 2020 and 2021, he advised the New York Governor's COVID-19 response and recovery operations, supporting intergovernmental affairs, aligning policies across State agencies, and developing reopening guidance for the public and private sectors. In 2019, Joe served as Deputy Commissioner for Policy and Planning at DCJS. In this role, he oversaw the agency’s strategic and policy initiatives, as well as administration and finance areas. Prior to being Deputy Commissioner, he served as Assistant Secretary and Policy Advisor for Public Safety in the New York Governor's Office where he developed policies, implemented programs, and oversaw operations for the State’s criminal justice, law enforcement, and homeland security agencies. Before state service, Joe was a research analyst and academic fellow with the federal government, as well as a research assistant with a nationally recognized security research institute.

Chandrodaya Prasad is Vice President, Product Management, Cloud and Network Security in Cisco’s Security Business Group (SBG). In this role he oversees product management, technical marketing, business development, and strategy for Cisco’s industry-leading Cloud Security, SASE, Network Security and Workload protection products. Via a SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) infrastructure, the Cloud and Network Security portfolio will enable every end user to access applications and data securely, with a great user experience, from anywhere.
Previously Prasad served as VP of Product Management driving Viptela’s SD-WAN strategy and adoption as well as integration into Cisco post acquisition. Prior to that, he was a Senior Director of Products for Cisco’s Enterprise Networking Group where he had P&L responsibility for Cisco’s $4B Integrated Services Router (ISR) portfolio and drove the strategy and vision for Cisco’s Next Generation Branch encompassing Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN), Network Function Virtualization (NFV), Security and IoT.
Throughout his product management career, he has honed the art of capturing trends early to drive innovation and holds multiple patents in the areas of WAN, IoT, Collaboration and Cloud architectures. Prasad’s early career in software engineering and technical marketing roles provided the foundation upon which he developed deep expertise across global Enterprises, Service & Cloud Providers.
Prasad has a Master’s degree in Computer Science (graduated with honors) from Western Michigan University and a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication from Bangalore University.

Leveraging his 35 years’ cybersecurity innovation experience, Jim Richberg has served as Fortinet’s Public Sector Field CISO since 2019. Prior to this, he served as the national intelligence manager for cyber, the senior federal executive focused on cyber intelligence in the U.S. intelligence community. Under Presidents Bush and Obama, he implemented the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative.

David has 18 years of experience in leadership roles supporting the public sector technology, with over 15 years spent in senior roles in the federal government.
David came to Adobe from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) where he served as the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Grants Systems and Policy Integration, the Agency’s first senior executive responsible for providing all FEMA grant programs with consistent guidance, processes, and systems for grants management. In this capacity, David oversaw the implementation of the Grants Management Modernization Program, one of the Department of Homeland Security’s largest information technology acquisition programs, which streamlined and simplified FEMA’s grants management processes creating better experiences for citizens and employees.
David also served in leadership roles at the Small Business Administration, where he led the transformation and modernization of the Agency’s disaster loan origination system, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, where he helped transform their financial, acquisition and assistance programs and systems.
David is passionate about the potential for digital technology to help the government better serve the public and create more fulfilling work environments for government workforces.