Yash is a business and systems modernization leader within KPMG’s Finance Transformation practice focused on State & Local governments. He has more than 19 years of experience in leading transformation initiatives at clients who are embarking on the various transformation initiatives such as legacy system and process modernizations, leveraging modern and disruptive cloud technologies, and more importantly preparing your organization to be future-ready. Yash is currently leading the KPMG team as the overall Program Director for the Ohio|Buys implementation.

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.

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.

Paul has devoted his career to helping local governments be on the forefront of using technology to increase value delivered to the public. He has over 30 years in various Information technology roles in both the public and private sectors including 20 years leading Information Technology departments. He now helps local governments get the most value from their significant investment in people, process, and technology.
Some of Paul’s accomplishments include leading two different IT organizations that earned Top-10 Digital Counties Survey awards for a combined 11 times. He has also earned an InformationWeek 500 Government Innovators award.
Paul holds Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Master of Science in Information Systems degrees as well as undergraduate degrees in Computer Science and Psychology.

Adam Frumkin is a results-driven leader with more than 25 years of experience in developing, directing, and executing business transformation and strategies in alignment with corporate objectives for both public and private sectors.
Mr. Frumkin was recently named as the Council Chair to the PTI Executive Committee of the City/County CIO Leadership Council and Vice President of the Ohio City/County Information Technology Association (OCITA). He is also a Certified Government Chief Information Officer (CGCIO). Previously he was a CIO for 9.5 years with an Ohio public entity and served on the board of Public Retirement Information Systems Management (PRISM). He has focused experience in strategic planning and implementation, cultural organizational development and emotional intelligence, process reengineering, enterprise system implementations and disaster recovery and business continuity planning.
Mr. Frumkin is an adjunct professor at The Ohio State University and teaches classes in Business Technology, Ethics, Project Management, and International Business.
In the past year, the Franklin County Data Center has received five awards: Nationally - Public Technology Institute / CompTIA 2020 Solutions Awards in Customer Service, Cybersecurity, and Collaboration Leads to Modern Data Analytics and Data Visualization. In Ohio - ComSpark Central Ohio Technology Power Player Awards, Winner of the Frontline Heros in Technology Award for Best Use of Technology by a Government Entity and Technology Executive of the Year.

Chuck Grindle, Ph.D. (Colonel, retired, U.S. Army) is an Information Scientist who joined Amazon Web Services in March of 2020 as an Executive Government Advisor and has since transitioned to lead the AWS Digital Government vertical. Chuck specializes in information security, policy and strategy. He previously served as Kentucky’s Chief Information Officer. Chuck graduated from Washington and Jefferson College and was commissioned into the Army as a Field Artillery Officer and then transitioned his career to Information Technology. In addition to holding key military positions in IT, he has taught academic courses on a variety of subjects including security issues and cyber operations. He earned his Masters and Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Information Science and holds a second Master’s Degree from the U.S. Army War College in Strategic Studies.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesgrindle

Kristina Hagberg is the Deputy State Chief Information Officer for the State of Ohio Department of Administrative Services (DAS) Office of Information Technology.
As a key member of the State’s IT leadership team, Hagberg supports the responsibilities of the State CIO, working collaboratively to streamline and modernize State IT with a focus on digital experience, data analytics, enterprise shared services, and on premise or in public clouds.
She previously served as Chief Transformation Officer for the State of Ohio within DAS and continues to fulfill many of the responsibilities of that role.
Leading the Investment Governance Division, she develops and manages best practices and standards to ensure consistency for on time, on budget, quality and goal-focused programming and project delivery necessary to operational success. Hagberg also manages the Ohio Benefits Program, which serves more than three million Ohioans eligible for assistance through Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Programs.
Prior to joining DAS in January 2019, she served as the Deputy Chief Information Officer for Strategy and Communications for the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.
Hagberg’s extensive private sector experience before joining State government included five years as a vice president for Huntington National Bank and a combined 17 years with the company. There, she served in multiple roles specializing in program and project management and leading business case development and program execution for high profile, multi-year strategic initiatives.

John serves as the field CISO for Fortinet. He isa self-published author and continues to be an avid consumer and participant in multiple technical blogs, podcasts and public speaking engagements. He recently completed his Master’s degree in Cybersecurity and Information Assurance and is a Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) certification.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnjacobs

Pete Johnson is a Field CTO at CDW’s Digital Velocity Solutions, which specializes in application modernization using Kubernetes-hosted microservices, data center automation through infrastructure-as-code, and continuous integration/continuous delivery systems. He previously served as a Principal Architect at Cisco and spent 20 years at Hewlett-Packard, notably as the HP.com Chief Architect.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nerdguru

Dipan is a Principal with KPMG based in Columbus, OH and leads their US Procurement Advisory practice. He has more than 20 years of industry and management consulting experience and has helped 50+ organizations across several industries undertake complex procurement optimization and technology enablement initiatives.

As Senior Director of Sales Engineering, Laura Kelly is a transformative leader that is well versed in the alignment of strategic organizational goals with technology. Laura is a student of differentiated thinking and benchmarks her success based on the “Infinite Game”. Laura views technology as a means for companies to segment and differentiate their market while extracting cost, risk and complexity.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-kelly-8463273

Stan was the first Certified PMI Project Management Professional (PMP) in Cuyahoga County government and worked as an Executive Board member for the Ohio City / County Information Technology Association (OCITA), Government Technology Advisory Board (Govtech) and Information Security Summit (ISS). His combination of public and private sector experience in management and building collaborative working relationships are key to leading successful organizational and technical change for businesses and government agencies. Stan’s experience included management of the Project Management Office (PMO) and multi-projects / multi-year delivery of county government projects.

Robert is currently the Sales Engineering Team Lead for Snowflake’s State, Local and Higher Education practice in the Eastern US. Robert has worked with SLED customers over 25 years helping develop enterprise solutions and applications. Robert’s background focuses on BI, Analytics, Warehousing and Cloud Solutions of all types.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-latham-1707268

Daniele Loffreda is marketing lead for Ciena’s Virtualized Edge Solution State/Local Government and Education (SLED) and Healthcare in Ciena’s Solutions Development organization. In this role, he leads Ciena’s initiatives applying next-generation networking technologies to help these sectors deliver higher quality experiences to their constituents through disruptive technologies, optimized cloud strategies, virtualized infrastructure and improved data security.
Daniele has more than 25 years of experience helping customers leverage information, communications and technology solutions to provide greater value, streamline their operations and generate higher returns on network investments. In addition to his role at Ciena, Daniele has worked in pioneering roles at AT&T, Sprint and Fujitsu. He has presented at numerous industry conferences and published articles and posts on next-generation network connectivity as a critical foundation of enterprise transformation.

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.

Patrick Moore has dedicated his career to improving government’s effectiveness. His experience includes four years as the State of Georgia’s CIO and executive roles in the government technology space. He has served as a senior fellow with the Center for Digital Government and his collaborations with NASCIO have helped shape the modern state CIO role. Patrick currently serves as the vice president for business development at Granicus, a solutions company dedicated to improving the customer experience with government.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-moore-b10159

Born in Columbus and raised in Central Ohio, Sam Orth has spent the last 39 years helping government and education use technology to create value for the citizens of Ohio. He joined Mayor Ginther’s team as Chief Technology Officer and Director of Technology on July 3, 2016.
His focus at the city has been helping the Mayor, Cabinet and city modernize how IT is used to serve the citizens of Columbus and the region. His first major initiative was partnering with Public Safety to adopt the city’s first body-warn camera program.
Other major projects have included creation of the city’s first Data Analytics and Integration program, modernization of the city’s data centers and infrastructure, adoption of a new 311 platform, and expanding technology access for city employees to enable telework during the pandemic.
He is currently working with the Public Safety to adopt the city’s next generation public safety video systems and is working with the Smart Columbus and the Digital Equity Coalition to address the Digital Divide in Columbus and the region.
Prior to serving as the CTO for Columbus he served as the CTO for the Management Council of the Ohio Education Computer Network, and State Chief Information Officer for the State of Ohio. While at State CIO he worked with IT leaders across government to modernize state IT operations by fostering inter-agency collaboration, IT consolidation and shared services. While at the state, he chaired the Ohio Broadband Council and Multi-Agency Radio Communication steering committee and served on the OARNet Governing Board.
From 1997 to 2004, Sam served as the Executive Director of the Ohio SchoolNet Commission where his team implemented nearly $1B in educational technology programs - including expanding the capacity of broadband connectivity for Ohio’s schools and placing over 600,000 computers in Ohio’s classrooms. While at SchoolNet, he was a founding partner with OARNet to fund and light what was then known as the Third Frontier Network. TFN grew to become what we know as the Broadband Ohio OarNet network today.
Before joining state government in 1996, he spent 14 years in the private sector IT where he owned his own consulting company, worked for central Ohio computer resellers and served as a Systems Engineer and Market Development Executive for Apple Computer. His private sector career was focused extensively on K-12 and government.
He is passionate about information technology’s role in serving government and education, and is well known for his collaborative, team-oriented, citizen-focused approach.

Zach Patton is the Chief Editor of the Content Studio at e.Republic and Government Technology. He has been covering the public sector for nearly 20 years. Until 2019, he was the Executive Editor of Governing magazine, where he also had served as a staff writer for more than a decade.

Mr. Sandeep Sinha is part of Insight’s Digital Innovation National Sales Team and leads Insight’s Smart City and IoT initiatives. He is responsible for driving strategy and execution of Genetec partnership along with other ecosystem partners to deliver business outcomes for our customers. Mr. Sinha has worked with both large companies and startups such as Microsoft, Motorola and Trustonic. He has a Masters in Computer Science and an MBA from University of Chicago.

Kelly M. Sanders serves as the Chief Procurement Officer of the State of Ohio, Department of Administrative Services and is responsible for creating and organizing a center-led procurement office to bring focus, leadership, structure and change to procurement across the state enterprise.

Eric Skomra leads State and Local Government customers in IT and business transformations by applying Dell Technologies solutions, 25+ years of public and private-sector IT experience, and a passion for excellent customer service. Eric served in the public sector as the CIO for the State of Ohio Medicaid Agency, CIO and CTO for two Ohio counties, and the CIO of an Ohio city. Eric built and ran three IT departments, two data centers, one disaster recovery center, and was recognized nationally as a "Broadband Hero" for his regional and statewide broadband expansion leadership. Eric has also led in Healthcare IT, supporting a physician's corporation, two hospitals and multiple clinics.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/eskomra

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).

Thomas Steegmann is a Principal Architect for AT&T Public Sector Solutions supporting the mid-Atlantic region. Tom has been in the telecommunications industry for 20+ years, focused on next generation, enterprise solutions encompassing data communications and complex integration across multiple environments. Tom is currently focused on helping his Government customers modernize their workforce and infrastructure via mobility and cloud technologies, including IOT, Smart Cities, and the Digital Divide.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-steegmann-752b8b2a/

Kristen Summers is a Distinguished Engineer in Cloud and Cognitive Expert Labs at IBM, focusing on Artificial Intelligence. She has been working in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, with a primary focus in government for over 20 years. She has led projects on question answering, entity recognition, entity co-reference, machine translation, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and other related topics. Before joining IBM, she was Technical Director in the Knowledge and Information Management Division Group at CACI. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from Cornell University and a BA in Computer Science and English from Amherst College.

Chief Information Officer, Department of Natural Resources, State of Ohio

As Chief Information Officer, Jeff Swan oversees ODNR’s information technology (IT) systems and security measures. Jeff has more than 20 years of experience in the field with previous positions including IT manager at the Ohio Department of Administrative Services and Network Services Supervisor at the Ohio Department of Health.
A native of Mount Sterling, Ohio Jeff holds a bachelor’s degree in business management from Franklin University. In his free time, he enjoys vacationing in warm places, camping, hunting, and spending time with family and friends.

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.

Eric is a Group Creative Director for Deloitte’s Government and Public Sector practice. He has 20 years of experience leading teams of researchers, strategists and designers to create delightful products and experiences. From detailed product strategies to comprehensive brand development, he creates new value streams through a commitment to crafting bold experiences and driving meaningful change for our public sector clients. His work has been featured in AdWeek, the New York Times, GQ, The Washington Post and Brand New.