Cloud Computing East 2014 – Speaking Faculty

Speaking opportunities for this event are filling up quickly. If you or your company would like to be represented on the executive speaking faculty for this event, please complete the JOIN OUR FACULTY questionnaire or contact the event organizer:

Marty Lafferty, CEO, Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA)
T: 410-476-7965 • E: marty@dcia.info

Stephen Agostini, Director of Solutions Marketing, Canon

Stephen Agostini is the Director of Solutions & Product Marketing for Canon USA’s Solutions Marketing Division. With more than 20 years’ experience in the office technology industry, including product planning, product marketing and solutions marketing, Stephen’s current role at Canon includes the management of the company’s Managed Document Services program and the marketing and product development for vertical markets, as well as security and environment solutions. Stephen’s focus during the past ten years at Canon has been on understanding needs within these industries and markets, as well as general office needs, for the development of solutions that improve efficiency and productivity. Since joining Canon in 1993, Stephen has launched multiple new technologies, including the successful lineup of large format printers and office color solutions.

Bruce Backa, CEO, NTP Software

Bruce Backa is CEO of NTP Software where he has served in that role leading product and market strategy since founding the company in 1993. NTP Software provides packaged software solutions that help organizations manage the file date on their networks. Its flagship product, NTP Software QFS is estimated to manage the storage of 20 million users every day. Previously, As Executive VP of Valinor, Bruce was responsible for many of the company’s senior relationships, working with 3Com and other suppliers to create solutions suites that integrated its offerings. Valinor was the largest domestic reseller of 3Com networking equipment with customers spanning from mid-market to the Global 100. Before that, Bruce was CTO at AIG, the third largest insurance company in the world. As CTO it was his job to set technology strategy and to supervise the installation of new technologies.

Mark Belk, National Government Chief Architect, Juniper Networks

Mark Belk is National Government Chief Architect at Juniper Networks. Mark joined Juniper in 2010 and was responsible for supporting strategic efforts within Juniper’s US Federal government business. As Juniper Networks continues to move to global industry focus, he has transitioned to global responsibilities. Mark developed a broad government history as a Navy Desert Storm Veteran and a systems integrator focused on Intelligence community systems. He then moved to the product industry supporting government as a DoD and Intelligence Systems Engineer at Microsoft. Mark served as architect at Treasury, was Microsoft’s first Architect for World Wide Homeland Security, CTO for Microsoft Federal Civilian Agencies, and served as Chief Architect and Director of Engineering for Motorola Public Safety Applications.

Allen Bintz, Principal Solutions Architect, Level 3

Allen Bintz is Principal Solutions Architect, Government Markets Group, at Level 3 Communications. In this role he serves the Department of Defense, Intelligence, and System Integrators, Civilian, Research & Education. As the Federal Solutions Architect, Allen develops technical solutions for large opportunities. Allan brings a multitude of experience and expertise to the solutions architecture group. Before his current role, he served as the Director of Sales Engineering for the Federal Markets Group. Allen has been at Level 3 for five years and has more than 37 years of telecom experience. Prior to joining Level 3, he gained VoIP, engineering, customer service, and operations management methodology experience in leadership positions at Segovia, Sprint International, Equant, Viewgate, and Global One.

Debbie Brodt-Giles, Digital Assets Supervisor, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

As Digital Assets Manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Debbie Brodt-Giles is helping develop a sound strategy for using the cloud for open data applications, moderate level data access, and cross-laboratory collaboration. Debbie has more than 18 years experience managing energy-related websites, applications, databases, and other information resources for the US Department of Energy and the NREL. She is an energy data innovator who leads a talented team of leading-edge software developers with the goals of enabling open energy data access, improving data connections and collaboration, and helping transform our energy economy through informed decisions and data analytics. Some of the platforms her team developed include a Semantic MediaWiki energy data exchange and collaboration platform called OpenEI.org, a website called Smartgrid.gov that shows progress from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Smart Grid Projects, and an open source DataBus solution for handling large-scale time series data.

Victor Brown, IBM Distinguished Engineer, IBM Federal Office of the CTO

Victor Brown is an IBM Distinguished Engineer with IBM Federal Office of the CTO. He is the CTO Chief Architect responsible for developing and supporting complex architectures within the US Navy, DoD, FAA as well as other customers in the Federal space. He has over 24 years of experience in information technology and architecture including hardware/software development, product management, analytics and government Cloud solutions. Victor works extensively with IBM teams on product futures and product certification to meet federal standards. He often speaks at national industry conferences such as the DISA Partnership conference and IBM Connect. Victor is a member of the prestigious IBM Academy of Technology. He is also the Chairman of the IBM Academy of Technology (AoT) affiliate - Washington Metropolitan Area (WMA) Technical Vitality Council. Externally he works hard as a member of Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC), Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) Net Centric Operations Working Group and he is an IBM University ambassador for Norfolk State / Hampton Universities. He is known throughout IBM as an expert in large scale collaboration systems, collaboration protocols and cloud solutions.

Andy Caldwell., VP IT Service Operations, Aspiryon

Andy Caldwell is VP, IT Service Operations, at Aspiryon. In this role, he is the acting security and compliance manager supporting HP enterprise services for a government agency enterprise data center. Andy also serves as security compliance lead in supporting the development and deployment of multiple private cloud systems for the agency. He also worked closely with the agency privacy and FISMA compliance offices to develop the privacy assessment and FISMA inventory methodology for its private cloud services. Prior to his involvement with the agency, Andy served as the Information Technology Director and Corporate Compliance Officer for a regional Health system in Mississippi. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Information Technology from the University of Phoenix and the ISC(2) CISSP and ISACA CRISC certifications.

Yung Chou, Technical Evangelist, Microsoft

Yung Chou is the Technical Evangelist for Microsoft’s US Developer and Platform Evangelism team. Within the company, he has had opportunities serving customers in the areas of support account management, technical support, technical sales, and evangelism. Prior to Microsoft, Yung had senior technology roles that demonstrated his capabilities in system programming, application development, consulting services, and IT management. His recent technical focuses have been in virtualization and cloud computing with strong interests in private cloud with service-based deployment and emerging enterprise computing architecture. He is a frequent speaker at Microsoft conferences.

James Clippinger, Sr. Tech. Dir., Global Technical Services, MarkLogic

James Clippinger is Senior Technical Director, Global Technical Services at MarkLogic. James uses his nearly two decades of high-performance computing experience to help customers build effective MarkLogic infrastructures and applications. As the leader of MarkLogic’s global performance team, he has worked with customers to define cost-efficient high-performance systems and to optimize software architectures and code for top performance. Prior to MarkLogic, James was a senior search architect at Verity and Autonomy and a consultant at Hamiltonian Solutions. As part of his graduate research at Dartmouth College, he designed algorithms for parallel disk systems, implemented code for optimal parallel fast Fourier transforms, and researched parallel software optimization with the Sun Microsystems HPC group.

Brian Crowley, Federal Solutions Architect, ASG Software

Brian Crowley is a Federal Solution Architect at ASG Software. Brian has been working in technology for 20+ years in engineering and business positions -- developing hardware & software products & solutions and bringing those solutions to market in a repeatable fashion. The focus of the last 10 years of Brian's career has been implementations in the mission and infrastructure support space for numerous Federal Customers (primarily DoD & IC). Brian uses his experience & global perspective to identify & implement real-world solutions to today's multi-faceted challenges.

Andrew Dietrich, Director, Managed Cloud Services , Oracle

Andrew Dietrich is the Director of Oracle Managed Cloud Services. For over three years, Drew has occupied the role of Director of Oracle Managed Cloud Services, responsible for new business development in the Mid-Atlantic Region. Prior to joining Oracle, Drew held a variety of cloud sales positions with USi (Acquired by ATT) and ATG (Acquired by Oracle). With his strong Health Care background, he has brought together ERP, HCM, EPM, Commerce, Engineered Systems, and Managed Services related solutions for leading care providers. Drew received his Bachelor of Science, Health Care Administration from Stonehill College.

Michael Elliott, Technology Evangelist, Dell

Michael Elliott is an Enterprise Cloud Evangelist at Dell with over 20 years of enterprise technology experience. In this capacity, he consults with companies throughout North America on their cloud architecture and represents Dell at industry conferences. Michael started his career as a mainframe programmer for General Electric and held the role of adjunct professor of marketing at the University of Akron. Michael has a mathematics degree from the University of Cincinnati and an MBA from Pennsylvania State University. View Michael’s blog at http://elliottmichael.com.

Bob Finocchioli, Dir. of Bus. Dev., Apptix

Bob Finocchioli serves as Director of Business Development at Apptix responsible for new business acquisition. He and his team pursue resellers who plan to or currently deploy cloud services. Bob has over 25 years of experience in sales, sales management and business development in high tech working for companies such as Silicon Graphics. He has managed sales teams or has been an individual contributor selling high performance computing systems, digital video security systems, video analytics, web load and stress testing software, and cloud services solutions.

Avi Freedman, CTO, ServerCentral

Avi Freedman is Chief Technology Officer at ServerCentral, where he leads the definition, sales, and engineering of the company’s cloud and VMware platforms. Most recently, Avi was recognized as Distinguished Engineer and Chief Network Scientist for Akamai, where he oversaw the development and evolution of its network and content delivery technologies to new applications. He also led the growth and management of Akamai's globally distributed network from 250 to 1000+ networks. Prior to joining ServerCentral, Avi served as Vice President of Engineering at AboveNet, and in 1992, founded the first ISP in Philadelphia. He held a number of roles at Akamai Technologies from 1999 to 2009, including Vice President of Network Architecture and Infrastructure and Chief Network Scientist. He is a frequent contributor to networking publications and conferences around the world.

Larry Freedman, Partner, Edwards Wildman Palmer

Lawrence Freedman is a Partner in the Washington D.C office of Edwards Wildman Palmer, a 625 attorney century-old international law firm with offices throughout the United States as well as England and Asia. Larry is a member of the Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Group, and leads the firm’s Cloud Computing Group. Edwards Wildman has an active technology and communications regulatory and transactional practice, and has represented companies and investors in numerous transactions and regulatory and dispute resolution issues in the communications, technology, and cloud computing areas. Edwards Wildman’s private equity and venture capital practice is among the world leaders in mid-market transactions, particularly in the technology, cloud, and communications space. Larry previously served as president and CEO of WorldNet Telecommunications.

Ross Freedman, Associate, DCIA

Ross Freedman is an Associate at the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA). He is a recent graduate from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. Ross graduated with degrees in Media Management and Psychology as well as receiving a minor in Marketing. He has experience in telecommunications through internships with MC Dean, Inc., as well as Fleischman and Harding, LLC. He is currently working as a communications intern for the DCIA while studying for the LSAT, and has plans to attend law school starting in 2014. For the DCIA, Ross has contributed to the trade association’s social media program during his tenure, authored the organization’s 2012 Year-in-Review, and led the trade group’s exhibition presence at the 2013 NAB Show Cloud Computing Pavilion on behalf of the DCIA and its Member companies. He also represents the DCIA at trade conventions, conferences, and meetings nationwide as a panel moderator.

Scott Gorcester, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, VirtualQube

Scott Gorcester is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of VirtualQube. He is an IT visionary and entrepreneur. Scott is a seasoned businessman, skilled IT architect, technician and trainer. He and his team designed and built the technology stacks in use by VirtualQube today. Scott’s former company, Moose Logic, received numerous accolades including three consecutive years on the list of “Fast Growing Companies in Washington State”. His company was the #1 reseller of Citrix Software in 1st quarter 1999, finishing the year trailing only Dell and CDW. Scott has worked with multiple hospitals and clinics across North America to bring advanced features of cloud computing to their working environments. His work includes providing Fault Tolerant computer systems for mission critical applications, providing secure “Hot” desktops with roaming and proximity-based logins, and leveraging cloud technology to lower costs while providing faster and more secure access to patient data.

Christopher Grady, President, Clear Government Solutions

Christopher Grady currently serves as President and head of Clear Government Solutions’ technical data center operations. He brings advanced technical knowledge of cloud computing as well as proven methodologies and skills related to procedures and documentation necessary to deliver and maintain a secure cloud computing environment. At his former company XaaS (Everything as a Service), Christopher worked on several cutting edge projects including one of the first DoD Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Drones for the US Marine Corps (Dragon Drone), NATO, the White House and State Department. XaaS customers included Time Warner Cable, the US Navy, SIEMENS, National Air Traffic Controllers Association, DISA, Stratos Global, Hosting.com, The National Archives, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Marriott, Harris Corporation and more. Prior to forming XaaS, Christopher’s most notable achievement was his ownership and management of IceWarp, a Unified Communications solution used by over 50,000 companies and tens of millions of users worldwide.

Chris Haddad, VP Technology Evangelism, WSO2

Chris Haddad currently leads Platform Evangelism at WSO2, and has been instrumental in describing platform-as-a-service (PaaS) Framework, DevOps PaaS, and Ecosystem PaaS value propositions. Chris has built highly scalable cloud services since the turn of the century. He has led teams developing the first multi-tenant software-as-a-service (SaaS) application and service infrastructure. He has advised multiple government agencies on technical reference models, platform strategy, and cloud adoption plans.

Stephen Halbrook, Sr. Mgr. & DC Area Practice Leader, BrightLine

Stephen Halbrook is a Senior Manager with BrightLine and its DC Area Practice Leader. He has more than 12 years of experience performing attestation and compliance examinations for SOC reports, ISO certification, HIPAA/HITECH, and PCI DSS. Stephen’s client experience spans organizations in the information technology and software services, financial services, manufacturing and distribution, healthcare, life sciences, and telecommunications industries. Stephen’s prior experience includes managed BrightLine’s New York offices and prior to BrightLine he was with Deloitte’s information risk group. He is a CISA, CISSP, PCI QSA, CIA, and ISO 27001 Lead Auditor.

Andy Heeren, Director Network IP, Cerner

Andy Heeren is Director, Network IP, at Cerner, where he is responsible for aligning market needs with current capabilities for the Cerner Network, a foundational component of a system which facilitates the coordination of care, incentives, and commerce across consumers, providers and payers. Andy oversees intellectual property strategy and business development for health care community interoperability, with current focus on Cerner's use of Direct Project standards (secure healthcare email). Since joining Cerner in 1998, Andy has served as a strategist for community interoperability; manager of the company’s Vision Center; senior project leader for the Choose and Book solution which provides the citizens of the United Kingdom a single, national software solution for electronic booking of outpatient services; business analyst for Health Information Management; and various roles within Cerner's Human Resources group.

Fred Holloway, VP, Channel Sales, CyrusOne

Fred Holloway is Vice President of Channel Sales at CyrusOne. Fred is charged with the development and growth of CyrusOne’s Partner Ecosystem. By enabling its partners‘ operations and exposing the world to these partners’ capabilities, CyrusOne is adding incremental value to all companies operating within its data centers. With nearly 30 years of professional experience, Fred most recently served as Director of the energy segment within Hewlett-Packard’s sales organization, managing the sales and support of all HP products and solutions to energy customers in the United States. Prior to joining HP, Fred worked at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in several sales leadership roles providing solutions to a broad array of customers.

Sean Jennings, SVP, Virtustream

Sean Jennings is VP, Solutions Architecture at Virtustream. Sean has over 20 years of experience enabling commercial and government enterprises of all sizes gain efficiencies and competitive advantage through the design and deployment of creative, forward looking IT solutions. At Virtustream, he is focused on initiatives around virtualization and cloud computing and the ongoing architecture of the xStream platform and the integrated suite of software tools and professional services associated with it, including the xStream Advisor and the xStream portal. Sean has been at the vanguard of the migration to x86 platforms throughout his career, designing solutions around and earning numerous certifications from industry leaders Novell, Microsoft, EMC, HP/Compaq/DEC, Checkpoint, and VMware long before they became fashionable.

Igor Kantor, Distinguished Member of Technical Staff, Verizon

Igor Kantor is Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at Verizon Communications, with responsibilities for large-scale, distributed system architecture, cloud-based, self-healing system engineering, SDN, and agile/continuous delivery software methodologies. His work entails globally replicated storage (Gluster/Ceph), linearly scalable NoSQL databases (Cassandra, Mongo, Couch), and transcoding optimization. Previously he served for five years in senior technical roles at Deloitte Consulting.

Kirk Kern, Chief Technology Officer, Netapp US Public Sector

Kirk Kern is Chief Technology Officer for Netapp US Public Sector. He is responsible for developing strategies and partner initiatives that form secure and scalable storage environments for cloud-based and traditional IT environments for public sector customers. He has deep technical knowledge of public sector infrastructures especially within the DoD and the Intelligence communities. Prior to this role, Kirk was a Technical Director in NetApp product operations division leading E series solutions and the NetApp flash portfolio. Kirk was originally a member of the IBM Federal Systems Division in the early 90s and rejoined IBM in 2004 where he became an IBM Senior Certified Executive IT Architect as well as an Open Group Mater Certified IT Architect. Kirk holds BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University.

David Kibbe, CEO & Pres., DirectTrust

David Kibbe, MD is known as an innovator and independent thought leader in the field of health IT in the United States. A co-developer of the ASTM Continuity of Care Record standard, CCR, and one of the developers of the Direct standard, he is an experienced clinician who practiced medicine in private and academic settings for more than 15 years before starting his first IT company. David has taught informatics at the School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and founded three health care IT companies. He is currently serving as founding President and CEO of DirectTrust, an independent non-profit trade association created by and for participants in the Direct community, with the common goal to establish and maintain a national Security and Trust Framework in support of Direct exchange. David received his BA from Harvard University, MD from Case-Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and his MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

Grant Kirkwood, Founder, Unitas Digital

Grant Kirkwood is the Founder of Unitas Global. He founded Unitas because he saw a need for managed end-to-end information technology (IT) outsourcing solutions that rely heavily on IT infrastructure, but don’t want to focus on it as a core function of their business. The company’s mission is to deliver high performance, highly-available IT infrastructure as a single, comprehensive service. Grant brings 15 years of senior management and entrepreneurial experience in technology companies in Unitas Global. Prior to founding Unitas Global, Grant served as CTO at PacketExchange, a global network service provider headquartered in London with operations throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. As CTO of PacketExchange, Grant oversaw all aspects of its technology vision and operations, driving towards the successful execution of the company’s business objectives and customer commitment. He remained with PacketExchange until its acquisition by Global Telecom & Technology. In 2002, Grant founded Mzima Networks, serving as its President & CTO. Created to serve the unique needs of media, entertainment, and online content providers, Mzima built a reputation as a performance leader in Internet bandwidth solutions.

Brian Kracik, Marketing Director, Cloud Solutions, Oracle

Brian Kracik is Director of Product Marketing Cloud Solutions of Oracle. In this role, he is responsible for establishing and executing a cross industry cloud strategy. Brian serves as the lead for strategic initiatives focused on public cloud delivery, enterprise collaboration, and subscription based cloud billing. With more than 21 years of technology experience, Brian has exhibited great business acumen in developing new products and solutions into multi-million dollar revenue streams. He has driven adoption of service delivery platforms, next-generation network technologies, public cloud deployments, and order management systems. Prior to joining Oracle, Brian held various lead positions focused on business development and marketing for BEA Systems and Sun Microsystems.

Viswa Kumar, Director & FedRAMP Cons., QinetiQ

Viswa Kumar is a Director and FedRAMP Consultant at QinetiQ. For this role, he serves as both a FedRAMP consultant and project manager for FedRAMP third party assessment organization (3PAO) accreditation. Viswa also serves as project lead for FedRAMP security assessment services for cloud service providers. He has more than twenty years’ experience in quality management system and process documentation, and has served as an internal audit manager for ISO 9001 and ISO 20000, where he also developed, implemented, and trained all personnel for quality management processes and ISO 9001 / ISO 20000 certification. Viswa was also responsible for registration and maintenance of the IT division’s ISO 9001 Quality Management System Certification.

Marty Lafferty, CEO, Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA)

Marty Lafferty is CEO of the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA). He is a new media industry leader and pioneer in the area of content distribution via advanced technologies. As President of FutureVision, Marty supervised the first switched-digital-network service offering and the company’s acquisition by Verizon. Previously, as CEO of NBC’s Olympics joint venture, he led multiple vendors to develop alternative security solutions for the first multi-channel delivery service of the Olympic Games. Finally, as VP of TDBS, he directed Turner Broadcasting’s deployment of the industry’s first signal-scrambling security technology for basic television programming services. Marty holds a Master’s Degree from Yale University and a Bachelor’s Degree from Williams College.

Sari Lafferty, Business Affairs, DCIA

Sari Lafferty leads Business Affairs for the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA). Sari holds an MBA in Marketing from Georgia State and a BA from Cornell University. She has previously served in management positions for enterprises ranging in size and business-focus from software developer E-Star Communications to sports and arts center Camp Lindenmere. In addition, she has held numerous national and regional volunteer positions promoting technology education in the US and abroad.

Justin Linenkohl, Solutions Architect, Cloud Services, VeriStor Systems

Justin Linenkohl is a Solutions Architect in the Cloud Services division of VeriStor Systems. He brings over 16 years of professional experience in IT Operations, Engineering and Architecture from his roles at organizations of various sizes, ranging from IT startups to large enterprise businesses including the University of Florida and AutoTrader.com. His professional focus areas are systems engineering, virtualization, storage, and automated administration. As a Solutions Architect at VeriStor, Justin is engaged daily to understand the requirements, business challenges and objectives of our customers and strives to exceed their expectations by aligning them with VeriStor's first class services and flexible, efficient and cost-effective hybrid cloud solutions.

Jeffrey Lush, Chief Technology Officer, Dell Services

Jeffrey Lush is Chief Technology Officer for Dell Services, Federal Government. Known widely as a passionate technologist with more than 29 years of IT experience (17 years in federal government and 12 years in industry), Jeff specializes in emerging technology. He recently served as the Executive Chief Technology Officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs OI&T. Jeff has authored over 80 functional requirements, hosting more than 5,000 specifications that are used for procurement packages within the VA, DoD and other Federal agencies. He is extensively knowledgeable with federal acquisition policies and practices, federal security requirements to include DIACAP, FISMA, FedRAMP, HIPAA and others. Jeff is known throughout the technology industry as a dynamic public speaker and often participates in speaking engagements, radio, video and news activities.

Allan McLennan, President & Chief Analyst, The PADEM Group

The PADEM Group, based in the San Francisco Bay Area is a global digital-media advisory, consulting and industry analyst service specializing in Corporate/business advancement and strategic marketing focusing on the media ecosystem with companies and organizations addressing both consumer and operators that interact with those sectors for over six years in advanced TV, cloud based video distribution, media/entertainment technology, data analytics/hyper tracking and advertising. McLennan has been identified as a pioneer in the development of next generation innovations in digital media and today’s OTT offerings and services worldwide and has contributed to and/or led the creation/innovation, packaged and/or sold multiple new offerings throughout the world in 17 countries with an estimated reach of close to a billion households. McLennan is a recognized category and management expert in advancement of IP-On-demand, Connected/SmartTV, Internet video, mobile App, cross/multiplatform digital entertainment service offerings enabling him to work with numerous media and technology companies currently such as Microsoft, and TIVO, COMCAST, APPLE, Universal, Disney and more on projects involving the advancement of IP/digital media distribution. He’s particularly proud currently exploring on a project in advanced media programming first hand as Co-Producer on Filmmaker/Journalist L.M. Kit Carson's radically shot mobile camera linear television docu-series: AFRICA DIARY for the US Cable channel SUNDANCE’s 2013 lineup.

Ramesh Menon, Cloud Technology Leader, IBM Software Group

Ramesh Menon is the Chief Architect and Cloud Technology Leader in IBM Software Group. He has been in leadership roles at healthcare companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield and Kaiser Permanente. Prior to joining IBM Ramesh was the CTO and Chief Architect at Johns Hopkins-APL driving innovation to help solve critical national challenges leveraging cloud computing and cyber defense solutions. He has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and an MBA in international business.

Kory Mertz, Challenge Director, ONC

Kory Mertz is the Challenge Grant Director in the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Information Technology's State Health Information Exchange Program. Prior to joining ONC, he was a Policy Associate at the National Conference of State Legislatures and served at the leader staffer for the Health Information Technology Champions Projects a public-private partnership that worked to increase state legislative leadership on health information technology. He holds a bachelor's degree from Iowa State University, where he focused on economics and political science.

David Mihalchik, US Government Solutions Leader, Google

David Mihalchik leads US Government Solutions for Google. Since joining Google in 2007, he has helped establish and rapidly expand Google’s cloud computing footprint in the public sector. David led the effort within Google to certify and accredit Google Apps under FISMA, and he was part of the team that launched Google Apps for Government in 2010. In 2011, Federal Computer Week named David to a list of the top 100 leaders who have played pivotal roles in the Federal government IT community. Prior to joining Google, David was a Senior Manager in Accenture's Federal Strategy practice. He holds a Master in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a Bachelor's degree in Government from Georgetown University

Tom Mountcastle, Director of Sales and Operations, CSC Leasing

Tom Mountcastle is the Sales and Administrative Officer for CSC Leasing Company in Richmond, Virginia. His career in the technology industry has spanned some 36 years, working in the government, healthcare, higher education and corporate sectors. Tom has founded two companies, and held senior management and executive positions in each of the organizations he has worked in. Over the past five years he has been a member of the management team at CSC Leasing working with early stage companies in numerous sectors, particularly data centers, cloud computing facilities, biomedical research facilities, schools and small to Fortune 500 companies, who are all looking for alternate sources of capital to fund technology infrastructures needed for growth, efficiency, and competitive advantage. As an independent leasing company, CSC prides itself in the flexibility of its programs, the speed at which it executes its underwriting and the long term relationships that it has established with its client base over its 25 years in business. Tom holds degrees in Information Systems and Finance, having attended the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University, and is an active participant in the numerous technology organizations, alumni functions, and is an active community volunteer with at-risk children organizations.

John Papadakis, SVP, Sales & Business Development, StoAmigo

John Papadakis is Senior Vice President, Sales and Business Development, at StoAmigo. With 35 years of experience in the field of IT and Telecommunications, John is charged with leading StoAmigo's sales and business development efforts. He brings a combination of corporate and entrepreneurial acumen and is an excellent relationship builder. Time and time again, John has demonstrated the ability to dramatically and quickly expand sales globally. Known as a persuasive communicator and experienced negotiator, John serves on numerous boards and has held many senior positions worldwide -- from Chief Operating Officer of AT&T Mediterranean to Vice Chairman of Telecommunication and IT companies. His impressive background includes advising major world figures and international organizations, including the Czech government and the Minister of Communication of Greece. John graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with an Electrical Engineering degree.

Roman Pavlyuk, Solutions Product Manager, SoftServe

Roman Pavlyuk is Solutions Product Manager at SoftServe. Roman has over ten years of experience implementing operations practices for major IT deployments. He is deeply familiar with integration of ITIL practices, open source, Agile, and SaaS operations automation. At SoftServe Roman leads teams which provide configuration and deployment management for thousands of production and stage instances, for several SaaS providers, across multiple IaaS platforms. He is also the product owner for an operations automation framework developed from open source tools. Roman is deeply familiar with all aspects of operationalizing SLAs for SaaS providers. He is intimately familiar with the best operational practices which can deliver on performance transparency for SaaS providers.

Bret Piatt, Senior Director of Corporate Strategy & Development, Rackspace

Bret Piatt is Senior Director of Corporate Strategy and Development at Rackspace, where he is responsible for identifying and pursuing new growth opportunities for the company's core business through M&A, strategic partnerships, and incubation efforts. Bret played a crucial role in the formation of OpenStack, the open source cloud software community, as well as in building the Cloud Tools ecosystem for the Rackspace Cloud. Previously, Bret was on the Product Management teams for both Rackspace and AT&T, where he was responsible for security and compliance product lines. His technical experience comes from his time at AT&T/SBC, where he designed carrier scale monitoring and management systems, optimized networks for enterprise customers, and performed lab testing on new products.

Chris Poelker, VP, Enterprise Solutions, FalconStor

Chris Poelker is Vice President of Enterprise Solutions at FalconStor Software. He is a highly regarded storage expert with over 30 years of experience, including positions as storage architect at HDS, Sun Microsystems, and lead storage architect at Compaq. Chris also worked as an engineer and VMS consultant at Digital Equipment Corporation. He is the author of “Storage Area Networks for Dummies” and a regular blogger for Computerworld. Recently, Poelker served as Deputy Commissioner of the TechAmerica Foundation Commission on the Leadership Opportunity in US Deployment of the Cloud (CLOUD²). A popular public speaker, Poelker is known both for his authority and ability to speak easily about storage virtualization, cloud computing, IT optimization, and data deduplication.

Tim Quigley, Executive Director of Healthcare and Life Sciences, Dell

Tim Quigley is Executive Director, Healthcare and Life Sciences, for the Services Infrastructure and Cloud Computing Group at Dell. He is responsible for IT-based outsourcing account operations, providing greater attention to some of Dell’s most valued customers and focusing on delivering outstanding IT Services to them. Most recently, Tim served as Executive Director of Dell’s Healthcare Group, responsible for business development. Using his broad healthcare expertise, Tim successfully created relationships with major healthcare organizations. Previously, Tim served as the Executive Director of Perot Systems Corporation’s healthcare provider and supply chain customers for the Eastern US Prior to that, he was client executive for the company’s Tufts Medical Center account.

Reza Rassool, CTO, Kwaai Oak

Reza Rassool is CTO at Kwaai Oak, where he has pioneered work on CTO-as-a-Service (CaaS), and projects with Gathr Films and Skymicro. Reza’s strong suits are technical consulting services in digital media applications leveraging a track record of award-winning products and services. He is an expert at business modeling: mission definition, value proposition, requirements analysis, and business plan development; technical due diligence: Independent technical review of companies, IP, and projects; security auditing: threat analysis, security rating, and planning; development process planning: agile project management, process establishment, metrics auditing; and architectural analysis: UML, data and behavioral modeling; and software development: application, cloud-based web services, and mobile. Previously, he worked at Music Mastermind and Widevine Technologies. Reza was educated at King's College London and the University of London.

Scott Rea, VP & Bd. Mem., DigiCert

Scott Rea is VP of Government/Education Relations & Sr. PKI Architect at DigiCert. Scott is an expert in public key infrastructure (PKI) implementations at all scales of implementation. He’s also one of the leading voices for establishing scalable, standards-based trust for healthcare exchange. Currently, Scott serves as a board member for DirectTrust and co-chair of its Certificate Policies & Practices Working Group. His contributions have been key to DirectTrust becoming the leading force in private-public collaboration to realize the federal government’s vision behind the Direct Project and make trusted federal healthcare exchange a reality. Rea is an innovative thought leader and sought-after public speaker who participates in, and influences the development of, emerging PKI policies, practices and applications. Rea’s leadership has played a key role in the emergence of DigiCert as one of the leading MPKI providers in the world, with many high-profile clients within the U.S. federal government, leading public and private higher education institutions and other key global industries.

Michelle Rudnicki, VP Cloud Computing & Growth Initiatives, IBM Federal

Michelle Rudnicki is Vice President, Cloud Computing and Growth Initiatives, at IBM Federal. Michelle has over 30 years of experience in the IT Industry. In her current role, she is responsible for leveraging IBM’s portfolio of cloud offerings to help clients optimize their infrastructures and better enable their businesses through the use of cloud computing. Prior to her current role, she was the VP of IBM Federal Smarter Planet Initiatives where she led the Growth Initiatives across IBM’s US Federal organization working with clients to implement solutions in the areas of Cloud Computing, Analytics, Security, and Green. She and her team leveraged IBM’s experience in these complex problem areas and applied it to the unique challenges of the Federal environment. Michelle has a deep background in implementing technology solutions with IBM clients. Prior to this assignment, she has held sales leadership positions as the VP of Systems Technology Sales for IBM Federal and as Business Unit Executive for Federal Storage Sales and xSeries Sales.

General Steve Spano, GM, Defense and National Security, Amazon Web Services

Brigadier General Steven J. Spano USAF, Retired, is the General Manager, Defense and National Security, for Amazon Web Service’s Global Public Sector. General Spano retired from the USAF in September 2011. He was formally the Director of Communications, Headquarters Air Combat Command, Langley Air Force Base, VA, responsible for IT vision, policy guidance, and resource allocation supporting the command's warfighting mission. Prior to that, General Spano served as the CJ6 for Multi-National Forces Iraq where he was responsible for all IT policy, interoperability and network operations supporting all joint and coalition forces. He also served as the principle advisor to the government of Iraq for Information and Communications Technology reconstruction. The general has commanded at the detachment, squadron and group levels. In addition, he served in key joint assignments at the National Security Agency, the Joint Staff, and US Forces Korea. He was the CIO for United States Air Forces in Europe as well as Air Combat Command.

Blake Sutherland, VP, Cloud and Data Center Solutions, Trend Micro

Blake Sutherland is VP of Cloud and Data Center Solutions at Trend Micro. Blake is responsible for creating solutions that fit the unique security and compliance challenges of strategic markets, like virtualization and cloud computing. He works closely with Trend customers, partners and industry representatives to understand their specific requirements, and incorporate them into the Trend Micro's offerings. Prior to joining Trend Micro, Blake was responsible for Products and Services for HITRUST, a healthcare industry alliance focused on aiding in the secure exchange of health information. Blake has held many senior management positions at leading software security organizations.

Rediet Tilahun, Cloud Architect, US Public Sector, NetApp

Rediet Tilahun serves as a Cloud Architect for NetApp’s US Public Sector. In this role, he builds “as-a-service” offerings with Service Provider partners and brings these offerings to market. Additionally, he is responsible for modernizing existing architecture in support of the customer’s mission. He also provides Service Providers with key concepts of data mobility to differentiate their services. Rediet has 10 years of engineering experience. Prior to his current role at NetApp, Rediet worked at Verizon for over six years in a variety of roles including Sales Engineer and IT Solutions Architect. After Verizon, he served as a Senior Solutions Architect for NTT America before joining NetApp. For the last decade Rediet has gained expertise in virtualization, storage, and private, public, and hybrid cloud architectures. Rediet holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the Virginia Commonwealth University. He also participated in additional training over his career, including the VMware VSphere 5 Design Workshop..

Sal Vella, VP, Rational Product Development and Customer Support, IBM Software Group - DevOps, IBM

Salvatore Vella is Vice President, Rational Product Development and Customer Support, at IBM. In this role he oversees worldwide product management, development, and support of the extensive IBM Rational Product portfolio. In Sal's previous position, he was CTO for IBM's Software Group, where he was responsible for the IBM Software Group Technical Architecture including architectural standards, support of industry standards, and setting standards and guidelines for IBM's large software development organization. Previously, Sal was IBM Vice President, Development, Distributed Data Servers and Data Warehousing – responsible for the worldwide development of DB2 for Linux, UNIX, Windows, and SolidDB. Sal joined IBM in 1987 as a software engineer in IBM's Toronto Development Laboratory, in Toronto, Canada

Jay Waggoner, Dir. of Sales & Bus. Dev., VeriStor Systems

Jay Waggoner serves as the Director of Sales and Business Development for VeriStor Systems’ Cloud Services division. As a 6 year veteran of VeriStor, Jay has held multiple roles within the company. As a Senior Account Executive and District Sales Manager, Jay was responsible for cultivating new territories for the growing company. In his current role, Jay is at the forefront of the expansion of the Cloud business both geographically and vertically via upmarket industry. Because of VeriStor's abundant technical resources, Jay and his team are able to engage in both business-related and technical discussions to help businesses achieve the best solutions in a data driven world.

Kaiser Wahab, Partner, Wahab & Medenica

Kaiser Wahab is a Partner at Wahab & Medenica, where he serves as a corporate / business attorney who recognizes his value proposition is dependent not only being able to advise, but to innovate. He has represented Fortune 500 to startup clients on the range of corporate transactional issues confronting businesses competing in technology, media, brand, and intellectual property driven environments. Beginning his career with Pryor Cashman, Sherman & Flynn, he later joined Day Pitney, where he handled licensing, trademark/copyright, and contractual issues for companies like Microsoft and UTC. In addition, he clerked at the US Court of International Trade and dealt with multibillion dollar anti-dumping claims involving importation of technology related goods. Kaiser negotiates cloud computing and other technology services arrangements on behalf of enterprise customers, and advises clients on privacy and data security. He also advises on corporate structuring, including partnership agreements, equity incentive plans, and investor agreements. Finally, he structures venture capital and investor rounds into early stage technology ventures, brand ventures, and film and media ventures.

Mark Wells, Chief Technology Officer, Data Solutions and Technology (DST)

Mark Wells is the Chief Technology Officer for Data Solutions and Technology (DST). He provides strategic direction to the company on matters dealing with Cloud Computing, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Desktop as a Service (DaaS), Future IT Architecture, Supply Chain Management, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Software Engineering. Mark is currently pursuing research into cloud architectures that use micro-scale server platforms and the economics of building cloud designs around the functional needs of the Software as a Service (SaaS) and application layer. He has been a public speaker at a number of industry conferences and symposiums dealing with Enterprise Content Management and SOA, and has published articles on Digital Asset Management for industry trade magazines. Mark has more than 25 years of experience in the IT industry with a Bachelor of Science degree in Management Information Systems from the University of South Carolina.

Damian Whitham, Sr. Dir., General Dynamics Information Technology

Damian Whitham is a Senior Director with General Dynamics Information Technology (IT) and part of the team focused on creating cloud computing solutions for the federal marketplace. He is a 25 year veteran of federal government contracting, primarily supporting telecommunications and IT and has spent the last eight years focusing on managed hosting and cloud computing. Prior to joining General Dynamics IT, he had leadership roles with Sprint, Terremark and Digital Realty Trust.

Dave Wiggins, CTO, Document Advantage Corporation

As Chief Technology Officer of Document Advantage Corporation (DocuVantage), Dave Wiggins leads the product design, development, and delivery of DocuVantage OnDemand solutions. Dave is a 25 plus year industry veteran in analysis, design, development, and delivery expertise in electronic document, content, and records management, business process workflow automation, and compliance technologies and services. He specializes in guiding organizations on how to successfully implement affordable and successful document management and workflow strategies with technology to improve efficiency, reduce costs, increase revenue, while maintaining compliance. From contract management, HR, policies and procedures, to patient records and more, he helps remove the internal friction that slows delivery of services due to inefficient collaboration and workflows within an organization or department. As a testament to success, clients have been able to increase their revenue up to 400% based upon efficiencies achieved by streamlining and automating their prior paper processes.

Vic Winkler, Author

Vic Winkler is the author of: "Securing the Cloud" (Elsevier/Syngress). Currently, the CTO of Covata and CDHL, Vic has over 30 years engineering and leadership experience in Information Security, Cyber and Cloud Security. Vic has developed cyber security products along with business and marketing strategies for several leading companies. In his career, he represented Planning Research Corp, Sun Microsystems, Booz Allen Hamilton and Covata as a speaker and panelist at numerous conferences and events. Vic has deep and broad expertise, he conceived and built systems that solved critical needs in US National Security spaces as well as for commercial Internet facing infrastructure. Throughout his career, he assembled and managed extraordinary teams of researchers, engineers, and developers. He has managed multi-million dollar budgets (and never needed a bailout). He is a published author, researcher in INFOSEC and a trail-blazing expert in intrusion/anomaly detection in complex systems.

Marlyn Zelkowitz, Director of Public Cloud Services, SAP America