Cynthia Bowles is a Senior Account Executive leading the State and Local Government and Higher Education sectors in the Eastern U.S. With her Bachelor's degree in Education and over 18 years of experience in government technology, she is dedicated to connecting organizations with innovative collaboration and productivity solutions.  Cynthia provides tailored guidance to ensure the successful adoption of Atlassian solutions, empowering teams to align work to agency goals, unleash knowledge, and accelerate collaboration for faster more efficient outcomes.

Industry Executive Director, City and County Government, Oracle
Joel Golub is the Industry Executive Director for Local and County Strategy for Oracle North America. Joel has 30 years of experience as a CIO in California County Government, NYC Government and NJ State Public Transit.
He most recently served as CIO in Orange County, CA, the nation’s 6th largest county supporting 3.2 million constituents. Joel served on two Orange County Boards responsible for the oversight of Law and Justice Technology and Land Based Radio Communications. Joel served on the Board for California County Information Services Directors and worked as their President promoting technology sharing and collaboration among CA county IT organizations.
Joel served as the Deputy Fire Commissioner and Chief Information Officer for the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY).
Joel spent most of his career at NJ TRANSIT and remains one of the longest tenured CIOs in the public transit industry in the United States.

Lynn Hansen has worked for New York State for over 22 years in multiple roles on information technology projects. She has extensive experience across project management, business analysis, systems design, procurement, and managing teams. Lynn’s career started as developer/analyst at the Human Services Application Center on the BRIA BIN application.  She then transitioned to working on multiple projects including NYS e-Grants project, the State Comptroller’s Office Contract Management System, VendRep System, Contract Submission System, implementation of Contract Audit Module in SFS, and served as the lead on several other projects at NYS Office of State Comptroller. In 2014, Lynn moved into OSC’s CIO Division where she steadily moved up into management positions on the Lotus Notes and IT Business Management teams. In Lynn’s current role, she oversees all application development on over 100 applications, including the NYS Payroll System and NYS Retirement System.

Mark Jackson, a graduate of The College of Saint Rose, began his state career in 2001 as an intern at the New York State Education Department (NYSED). Over 12 years at NYSED, he advanced steadily before taking on leadership roles at the Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB), the Office of Information Technology Services (ITS), the New York State Attorney General’s Office (OAG), and the Office of the State Comptroller (OSC). Mark’s notable accomplishments include creating comprehensive training plans and leading several technological modernization initiatives for both hardware and software. His efforts were recognized with the “Outstanding IT Manager” award in 2017 and the “OAG Achievement” award in 2018. Currently, Mark serves as Assistant Director of PeopleSoft and Payment Applications at OSC.

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.

Mark is an Electrical Engineer and former software developer who has been focused in State and Local Government Sales for the past 20 plus years.

Suzanne recently joined the Product Development team within the NYS/ITS/DOH Dedicated Support team to manage business analysis activities for all efforts centered around the NYS Department of Health. 
Suzanne has supported other NYS agencies in efforts to build and implement new systems and applications, develop and manage teams of Business Analysts across NYS agencies, oversee Modernization and Cyber Remediation efforts, and acted as an advisor for business analysis activities 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 the 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 an 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 Business Architecture Workgroup since 2019.
Suzanne has moderated previous NY IT Leadership Forums and NY Digital Summit Forums and is dedicated to supporting NYS.

Angela Liotta is the Public Information Officer and Communications Director at the New York State Higher Education Services Corporation (HESC) where she develops and executes strategic communication and outreach initiatives for state-administered financial aid programs, directly supporting over 300,000 college students annually. While at HESC, Angela has also successfully spearheaded the launch of three impactful grant programs, including the NYS Vaccinate, Educate, Graduate Vaccine Incentive Scholarship, the Nurses for Our Future Scholarship, and the Healthcare Workers for Our Future program. Additionally, she oversees call center operations that assist more than 100,000 students each year.
Prior to her current role, Angela served in various leadership positions within the Office of Information Technology Services. As Client Engagement Director, she facilitated IT solutions for state agencies while managing communication related to IT changes and their organizational impact. Earlier, as Public Information Officer and Communications Director, she drove key marketing and communication initiatives, including the launch of a new website and the development of a comprehensive social media strategy.
Angela Liotta also served as the Deputy Director of the New York State Broadband Office, where she worked to advance New York State’s broadband agenda, including the Connect NY Broadband Grant Program. As Deputy Director, she worked closely with industry stakeholders, government officials, and community leaders to promote broadband access and awareness throughout the state.
Angela also held public relations consulting positions, as well as communication and marketing roles in the private sector. 

Dana McDonough is a Senior Sales Engineer at Snowflake, specializing in state/local government and higher education institutions. Based in Boston, MA, she has 13 years of experience as a technical consultant, primarily serving state government, higher education, and healthcare clients. Dana currently focuses on Artificial Intelligence and Collaboration workloads at Snowflake. She is passionate about empowering the public sector with modern technologies and building technical foundations that leverage Snowflake's collaboration features.

[LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/dwmowrey/

Darrick Mowrey has been a Cloud Architect for over a decade with a wide experience of applying data and AI to solve a diverse set of government issues.

Jeff accepted an appointment with NYS Information Technology Services (ITS) in January 2016. Jeff has served as an Executive Director for multiple Chief Portfolio Office (CPO) Portfolios since November 2020, most recently as Executive Director for the Public Safety Portfolio. Jeff previously served as Deputy CPO and Director of Project Management Shared Services.
Prior to NYS service, Jeff enjoyed a 28-year career as an IT Consultant, with over 20 years as a certified Project Management Institute (PMI) Project Management Professional (PMP) (7 times recertified). Jeff was part of NTT Data’s Project Office, providing direct oversight, management, supervision and auditing of upwards of 30 NTT Data (Keane) managed multi-year projects with a combined value of nearly $100 million.
In 2019 Jeff retired as a Sergeant Major assigned to Joint Force Headquarters – New York, NYS Division of Military and Naval Affairs, with 34 years of service in the US Army, US Army Reserves, and NY Army National Guard. Jeff deployed to Iraq as a First Sergeant with the 42nd Infantry Division, responsible for the preparation, training, credentialing, deployment, and redeployment of 200 soldiers and over $25 million of unit equipment.

Robert Piascik is the New York Power Authority’s Senior Vice President and Chief Information and Technology Officer. He leads the development and execution of the organization’s technology services and capabilities, while enabling NYPA and Canals digital ecosystem, serving both customers and employees. He held senior leadership roles in both the public and private sectors at the Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative (CMEEC), Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, and Prudential Financials.
Rob began his career in the electric power industry at CMEEC by developing software and providing technology services and served as Senior Director at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals to implement and manage global shared technology services. Prior to joining the Authority, he served as Vice President of Planning and Strategy of Annuities at Prudential where he led the IT transformation to evolve the enterprise digital and diversified product development and analytics capabilities.
Rob has a Master’s degree in Management with a concentration in finance from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a Bachelor’s degree in Technology with a concentration in engineering from the University of New Haven.

As an Executive Government Advisor, Morgan works with senior leaders from public sector organizations and their partners to share real-world examples of innovation in government, and develop strategies for modernizing citizen services with the cloud. Morgan helps organizations work backwards from the outcomes they hope to achieve, then optimize for the people and process parts of the change before diving deep on technology.
Prior to joining Amazon Web Services (AWS), Morgan served as the State CIO for the State of Arizona’s Strategic Enterprise Technology office where he implemented Arizona’s cloud-first policy, migrating applications off the state-owned mainframe, modernizing agency licensing and permitting systems into cloud hosted Customer Relationship Management, and consolidating 30 on-premise legacy email systems to a single cloud-based collaboration suite, enterprising cybersecurity tools and governance across 100+ state agencies, and helping craft legislation to make digital signatures legal for Arizona contracts.

James Sammons serves as the Associate Commissioner for Data Analytics. He is responsible for establishing a data strategy and providing advanced analytical solutions for data mining, reporting, analysis, and visual display services to each business unit within the Office of General Services (OGS).
Prior to joining OGS< James has spent nearly 20 years in State government focusing on enterprise application administration, data analysis, executive event management, public policy analysis, and enterprise-wide IT systems implementation. Over the last decade, he was instrumental in the development and deployment of two enterprise-wide applications for the Office of the Attorney General and the Office of Information Technology Services. He began his government career working for the University of Albany, in the government relations office.
James received his BS in Business Management from Stony Brook University and his Master of Public Administration from the University at Albany’s Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy.

Deborah Schussler is a professor in the Department of Educational Policy & Leadership. She joined the University at Albany faculty in 2023. Previously, she was on the faculty at Penn State University and Villanova University and worked as an English teacher in multiple districts in the state of Tennessee. Dr. Schussler uses an implementation science lens to investigate the development of educators’ social-emotional competencies and the impact of mindfulness-based interventions on the resilience and well-being of educators and students. She has partnered with educators and school districts across the country on grants totaling over $10 million, and she has presented her work nationally and internationally. She has published over 60 articles and book chapters in a wide variety of outlets including Mindfulness, Journal of School Psychology, School Mental Health, and Psychology in the Schools. She is currently working on a book that is a collaboration with educators, school leaders, mental health care professionals, and researchers to provide guidance about how to bring mindfulness into schools in ways that make sense for individual school communities.

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. Prior to joining NYS, Marcy worked as a civil litigation attorney 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 subject matter expertise at the intersection of law and technology, with a deep understanding of information security and data privacy principles.
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. Marcy is also a certified information privacy professional (CIPP/US) as accredited by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). 

Jim White leads the NYS Comptroller's Software Platform division. Before this role, he dedicated most of his career to Application Development. With over 20 years of IT leadership experience, Jim has managed diverse teams, including application developers, cloud engineers, system administrators, and project managers. He has overseen Civil Service staff and consultants, managed multi-million-dollar IT budgets, and led complex projects. Jim has spearheaded transformative initiatives, such as introducing Rapid Application Development to modernize outdated applications, transitioning critical infrastructure to the cloud, and replacing legacy systems with modern SaaS solutions. Jim has significantly enhanced team efficiency—reducing overdue work by over 90%—and saved agencies millions through cost-effective strategies. A strong advocate for modernization, operational excellence, and collaboration, Jim strives to foster collaboration across user groups and technical teams. He holds an MBA and a bachelor’s degree in information systems.