Our Speakers are the recognized thought leaders that actively grow their communities by sharing the knowledge & experience they have with those who have a hand at change; the leaders of the organizations they serve

 

Meet the Thought Leaders of 2009

Mark Egan is a partner of the StrataFusion Group, Inc. and has over 25 years of experience in information technology. Prior to joining Strata Fusion, Mark was a CIO at Symantec Corporation for 6 years during the company’s rapid growth from a consumer software publisher with $600 million revenue to the market leader of security with $5 billion revenue. During his tenure with Symantec, he led the information technology integration through 28 acquisitions, including a $13 Billion acquisition of Veritas Software that formed the world’s 4th largest software company. Mark has held senior level positions with companies including Sun Microsystems, Price Waterhouse, Atlantic Richfield Corp., Martin Marietta Data Systems, Walden International Investment Group, and Wells Fargo Bank.

Mark is a board member of Sigue Corporation and the CIO Scholarship Foundation, and serves on the advisory boards for Code Green Networks, TriCipher, Inc, Golden Gate University, and San Francisco State University. He is a member of the American Management Association’s Information Systems and Technology Council and also co-chaired TechNet’s Cyber Security Practices Adoption Campaign. Mark founded the CIO Development Program that mentors aspiring CIO’s in the Bay Area.

Mark is author of "Executive Guide to Information Security: Threats, Challenges, and Solutions” from Addison Wesley and was a contributing author to "CIO Wisdom” and “CIO Perspectives”.

Bill Boni is one of the leading information risk management practitioners based in the USA, with broad experience in all aspects of creating, sustaining and transforming protection organizations. A visionary information security leader. Bill has direct experience with Federal/state governments, high technology, biotech, aerospace/defense and banking segments and operations in mainland China.

Bill currently leads the converged team of loss prevention, investigations and information protection professionals to safeguard Motorola's people, business operations and intellectual property.

Responsible for global policy, processes and operations at Motorola Inc. Bill develops solutions for internal and external customers to cost effectively manage risks that could adversely impact the company's brand, reputation and customer credibility.

Prior to joining Motorola Bill served in executive positions with the Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Price Waterhouse Coopers, & Amgen. He has also served on the Board of Brabeion Software.

Awards & Recognition: 2007 Info Security Executive of the Year | 2003 CSO Magazine Compass Award | CIO Magazine Top 100+1 Award 2008

William Farrow is Partner and CEO of FC Partners Group, LLC. FC Partners Group (FCPG) focuses on new ventures and advising on business turnarounds.

Before founding FCPG, Farrow was technology leader for the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). Technology innovation changed the CBOT business model which was unprofitable in 1999 and 2000. The impact was significant and translated to increased shareholder value. By July of 2007, membership value reached $7.1 million, compared to $280,000 in 2001. In 2005, Chicago Board of Trade had the second most successful IPO on the NYSE.

William Farrow also serves as Director and Risk Management Committee member of CoBank, Inc., Greenwood Village, Colorado. CoBank is a $62 billion member of the $197 billion Farm Credit System.

As a Lecturer of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences, Farrow teaches at Northwestern University’s J. L. Kellogg School of Management. His teaching emphasizes on Business Vision vs. Technology Delivery: Creating the Road Map for Profitability

Hardik Bhatt serves as Chief Information Officer for the City of Chicago. Hardik's was appointed as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) by Chicago's Mayor Richard M Daley in February 2006. He is also the Commissioner for the Department of Innovation & Technology (DoIT). As the CIO and the Commissioner of DoIT, Hardik's role is to protect City's existing investment in Information Technology while identifying and implementing new and innovative technology solutions that deliver efficiencies in serving constituents and visitors of the City of Chicago.

Prior to joining the public sector, Hardik worked as a consultant with Oracle corporation in the US and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in India.

Michael Lock runs Operations for Google Enterprise, a rapidly growing business unit focused on bringing Google technologies to corporations, governments and educational institutions. These technologies include Google Apps Messaging and Collaboration tools, Google's Enterprise Search solutions, and enterprise versions of Google Earth and Maps.

A 20-year veteran of the Enterprise Information Technology industry, Michael began his career at IBM. Later, he was a sales and marketing executive at Oracle Corporation and then worked for several Silicon Valley start-ups, including video search pioneer Virage.

Michael hold a bachelor's degree from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.

Steve Zoppi brings more than 25 years of technology leadership experience both as an executive-level technology practitioner and a recognized industry analyst. He also serves on numerous advisory boards for emerging technology companies, and is a partner for Stratafusion Group and founder and Managing Director of Collabri Group.

Steve's experience spans from executive IT Leadership positions as CIO for TiVo, VP Operations for Hotwire.com, CIO for Electronics for Imaging, Inc., VP for Meta Group, and Director of Technology Strategies for Adobe Systems, Inc.

Groups & Associations: CoFounder: CISE (Consortium of Information System Executives, Silicon Valley | CoFounder: CampusITSolutions

Surinder Kumar, Ph.D., MBA,  retired as the Chief Innovation Officer of the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company in Chicago, USA. Surinder has over 30 years of experience in innovation, serving Unilever, Quaker Oats, Mead Johnson, PepsiCo, Frito-Lay and Warner Lambert, where he served as President of Consumer Products R&D.

Surinder has 17 patents, published many scientific papers, and has served on several advisory boards. Organizational affiliations include; International Life Sciences Institute; Member; advisory board of Penn State University; Advisory Board Member, DePaul University; Member, The President’s Club, Ohio State University;   Retired member, scientific advisory board, Rutgers University; and Food Update.

Surinder recently co-authored 'Riding the Blue Train', an acclaimed book on orgainzation innovation.

Ashwin Rangan currently serves as the Chief Information Technology Officer (CITO) for MarketShare Partners (MSP). Prior to this assignment, he served as CIO for walmart.com. Before that, he was Senior Vice President and CIO of Conexant Systems Inc. He was a member of the founding team that spun-out Rockwell Semiconductor Systems in January 1999 and created Conexant. Before Rockwell, he served in various senior IT management positions at AST Computer (later, Samsung Electronics).

Ashwin serves as a board member with a handful of promising start-ups. He is a published author, having recently released a book entitled Tomorrow’s CIO: Strategic Conversations that align IT with the Board Room. Previously, Rangan was engaged as a strategy consultant with Bank of America’s Consumer Banking Sector, assisting the bank with defining and developing strategies in the Web 2.0 space.

Sunny Azadeh is an Information Technology/Operations Executive with over 24 years of industry experience in semi-conductor, manufacturing, software and medical devices.

Sunny Azadeh recently served as Vice President of Information Technology and CIO at Align Technology, where she has responsibility for strategy, design and implementation of information systems. Sunny has over 24 years of information technology experience, and has been an advisory board member for emerging technologies in the Bay Area for the past 10 years. Prior to her role as VP of IT & CIO at Align Technology, she held the position of SVP of Information Technology at Agile Software, and as CIO at ZiLOG. She is an active member of Consortium of Information Systems Executives, Open IT focused on open source collaboration, and a volunteer at San Jose School Unified District focusing on building future leaders and a mentor and alumni at Women's Unlimited.

Terry Wynn is currently serving as the Vice President of Finance for Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA – Playstation 3), a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.  SCEA is responsible for the Sony Playstation platforms, development of games, and the Playstation Network for North America.

Prior to joining SCEA, Terry was the CFO of CaseCentral, Inc., a ventured-back enterprise specializing in electronic discovery.   At Casecentral, Terry was instrumental in the strategic evolution of the company as a SAAS provider of evidence management solutions to the legal market, which grew about 30% annually.    

In the early part of his career, Terry was a CPA with KPMG and later as a partner and owner of Wynn, Mason, and Revak. He later served as the CFO of a privately-held, international telecommunications company (ViTel International), where he developed the financial organizations and international financial reporting systems for over 25 business units in nine countries around the world.  In 1994, he joined Miller Freeman, Inc. serving as its Vice President of Finance and Administration, where he led the strategic planning process as well as overseeing mergers and acquisitions, and completing an equity carve-out for 60 on-line business units.

Byron Acohido, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter has chronicled the rise of cybercrime in his award-winning book, Zero Day Threat, a eye-opening tale of how financial institutions, aided and abetted by tech vendors, made it all too easy from cyber crime to thrive as a fast-growth global industry. He is currently working on a sequel, Pandora's Web, a near real-time story about the mad scramble to shore up cyber security – before it’s too late.

Byron Acohido, joined USA Today in December 2000 and began focusing on the technology industry. In 27 years in journalism he has worked at The Herald, in Everett, Washington, the Dallas Times Herald and the Seattle Times, where he won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting, for stories linking a dangerous defect in the rudder controls of Boeing 737 jetliners to a string of crashes that killed hundreds of people.

USA TODAY tech reporters Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz have spent four years building the platform for Zero Day Threat:The Shocking Truth of How Banks and Credit Bureaus Help Cyber Crooks Steal Your Money and Identity. The New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants awarded them the 2008 Excellence in Financial Journalism Awards for their newspaper stories about data theft and identity fraud. In 2005, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers awarded their body of work covering Internet security and cyber crime the Best in Business Award for Projects by large newspapers; and they were named finalists in both 2005 and 2006 for the prestigious Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism.

Dean Lane, a Principal in The Office of the CIO, has almost 30 years of hands on experience in the IT industry, having been a CIO at four different companies: Allied-Signal, Morton-Thiokol, Plantronics, and Masters Institute of Technology. Additionally, he held the Senior IT Director position at Symantec, and was the Corporate Director of Materials for Allied-Signal. Mr. Lane has also been a consultant for Ernst & Young, AT&T and the Gartner Group. His experience is global and as found on the internet, he is considered an expert on outsourcing/offshoring. Mr. Lane has served as the CEO for VariTRAK Inc., a company that provides compliance software. He has completed many interim CIO and mentoring assignments.

Dean obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of California (UCLA) and his MBA from National University. He serves on the advisory boards for Search CIO, Tech Republic, and SFSU's Center for Electronic Business, was a co-founder of the Consortium of Information Systems Executives, a member of Executive World, the Project Management Institute, APICS, the CIO Collective, Silicon Valley's Community of Practice and is Past President of SIM's Silicon Valley Chapter. His first book, CIO Wisdom, is a Prentice Hall Best Seller and a sequel, CIO Perspectives was published by Kendall-Hunt. Mr. Lane speaks internationally, most recently the Keynote for the Adam Smith Society in Moscow, and during a Hi Tech Economic Mission to Israel, he consulted with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barach. Mr. Lane is a highly decorated US Naval Officer.

Ed Zeitler most recently served as the Executive Director of The International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium -- (ISC)2

Zeitler has 23 years of experience in developing, implementing and managing IT security programs for international organizations. He served as CISO for Volkswagen Credit, where he created and implemented the IT security program. He also served as CISO for Charles Schwab, Inc., Fidelity Investments, Bank of America and Security Pacific National Bank, where he developed and managed IT security programs. He began his career developing the operating system used on the Shuttle Orbiter at Rockwell International and radar system controls at ITT Gilfillan.

Zeitler participated in influential IT security committees throughout his career, including the Los Angeles County Computer Crime Task Force, Department of the Treasury's Financial Management Services Security Advisory Panel, ANSI, the U.S. Treasury's EFT Task Force Subcommittee on Interoperability, the American Bankers Association's Information Systems Security Committee, (ISC)2 Qualifications Review Committee, the National Computer System Security and Privacy Advisory Board, and the National Research Council's Panel for Information Technology.

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