At ONUG Spring 2021, we will reflect on the lessons learned during the tumultuous past year. We will digest the changes we experienced together and discuss the technologies and strategies critical to our digital transformation business models in 2021 and beyond.
Brands in all industry sectors need to become digital to survive and thrive
Join us as we explore the software building blocks required to create flexible, transformative IT business platforms
Join the ONUG Community of Global 2000 companies, enterprise architects, cloud providers and thought leaders on May 5th-6th.
“Join the ONUG Community for two days of education, networking and thought leadership surrounding the the critical software building blocks required to create flexible IT business platforms”
ONUG Spring 2021 is where enterprise architects, cloud providers and thought leaders engage in important discussions and build the relationships necessary to navigate their digital transformation journeys. Join us for the 100% digital live event.
Tsvi Gal
Be prepared for 2021 and beyond with the tools need to operationalize flexible IT business platforms at scale
View the event agenda and be sure to register.
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Hardik Modi is AVP, Threat and Mitigation Products at NETSCOUT. In this role, he oversees the teams responsible for mitigation products as well as the creation of security content for NETSCOUTs products, enabling best-in-class protection for users, as well as the continuous delivery and publication of impactful research across the DDoS and Intrusion landscapes.
Prior to joining NETSCOUT, Hardik was Vice President Threat Research at a network security vendor. He has nearly 20 years of experience in networks, product design and security research. He is a frequent author of blogs and speaker at security events.
Hardik holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Gujarat University, India.
Tim Van Herck is the Director of Technical Product Management at VeloCloud, now part of VMware. He has over 15 years of experience in networking, currently leading his team in strategy and development for training, content, and sales support. Prior to joining VMware, Tim held notable positions with Aryaka Networks, Cisco Systems, and Alcatel/Nokia. He has a Masters in Computer Science from Hogeschool Antwerpen.
Experienced technical leader providing thought leadership and technical expertise for NetBrain’s network automation solution.
Design technical collateral like white papers, reference architecture and technical assets for successful go-to-market and product launches working closely with the product team.
Establish data-driven business cases using internal and external data sources for product feature value.
Support internal business intelligence requests, including delivery of high-quality solutions to align business strategy and support key business decisions.
Develop product-based technical content collaborating with internal engineers and developers.
Deliver high-quality training material to internal technical audiences through events and webinars.
In this ONUG Academy session with Itential, we will discuss the importance of network compliance, the difficulties that are often encountered with achieving compliance in traditional networks, and the additional challenges with establishing compliance in an environment where networking has expanded into multiple clouds and cloud-based services. This session will explain why networking teams should use APIs for cloud networking services for compliance and demonstrate how Itential can combine Network Automation with Configuration, Remediation and Validation to deliver compliance across both traditional, CLI-based and modern, API-based network infrastructure.
Topics covered in this session:
Who should attend:
Network Practitioners and IT Managers in an Enterprise organization who are responsible for building and ensuring the most secure and resilient networks possible but need real solutions for delivering on that goal across both traditional networking and cloud-based networking services.
Larry Peterson is the Robert E. Kahn Professor of Computer Science, Emeritus at Princeton University, where he served as Chair from 2003-2009. He is a co-author of the best selling networking textbook Computer Networks: A Systems Approach (6e), which is now available as open source on GitHub. His research focuses on the design, implementation, and operation of Internet-scale distributed systems, including the widely used PlanetLab and MeasurementLab platforms. He is currently working on a pilot 5G-enabled edge cloud, called Aether, an open source project of the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), where he serves CTO.
Professor Peterson is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the ACM and the IEEE, the 2010 recipient of the IEEE Kobayashi Computer and Communication Award, and the 2013 recipient of the ACM SIGCOMM Award. He received his Ph.D. degree from Purdue University in 1985.
Dr. Douglas E. Comer is a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Purdue University. Formerly, he served as VP of Research at Cisco Systems. As a member of the original IAB, he participated in early work on the Internet, and is internationally recognized as an authority on TCP/IP protocols and Internet technologies.
Dr. Comer has written a series of best-selling technical books on Computer Networks, Internets, Operating Systems, and Computer Architecture. His 3-volume Internetworking series is cited as an authoritative work on Internet protocols and technologies. Dr. Comer’s books have been translated into 16 languages, and are used in industry and academia in many countries.
Dr. Comer consults for industry, and has lectured to thousands of professional engineers and students around the world. For twenty years he was editor-in-chief of the journal Software – Practice and Experience. He is a Fellow of the ACM and the recipient of numerous teaching awards.
I am a senior researcher at Microsoft Research in the Mobility and Networking group. I got my PhD in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2017 working with my advisors Prof. Boon Thau Loo and Prof. Roch Guerin. I completed my dual masters degree in computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in the same year. I completed my B. Sc. in Electrical Engineering at Sharif University of Technology in 2010. My work mainly focuses on automated network management and data center networking.
Dr. Douglas E. Comer is a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Purdue University. Formerly, he served as VP of Research at Cisco Systems. As a member of the original IAB, he participated in early work on the Internet, and is internationally recognized as an authority on TCP/IP protocols and Internet technologies.
Dr. Comer has written a series of best-selling technical books on Computer Networks, Internets, Operating Systems, and Computer Architecture. His 3-volume Internetworking series is cited as an authoritative work on Internet protocols and technologies. Dr. Comer’s books have been translated into 16 languages, and are used in industry and academia in many countries.
Dr. Comer consults for industry, and has lectured to thousands of professional engineers and students around the world. For twenty years he was editor-in-chief of the journal Software – Practice and Experience. He is a Fellow of the ACM and the recipient of numerous teaching awards.
I am a senior researcher at Microsoft Research in the Mobility and Networking group. I got my PhD in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2017 working with my advisors Prof. Boon Thau Loo and Prof. Roch Guerin. I completed my dual masters degree in computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in the same year. I completed my B. Sc. in Electrical Engineering at Sharif University of Technology in 2010. My work mainly focuses on automated network management and data center networking.
Jeff Mogul works on fast, cheap, reliable, and flexible networking infrastructure for Google. Until 2013, he was Fellow at HP Labs, doing research primarily on computer networks and operating systems issues for enterprise and cloud computer systems; previously, he worked at the DEC/Compaq Western Research Lab. He received his PhD from Stanford in 1986, an MS from Stanford in 1980, and an SB from MIT in 1979. He is an ACM Fellow. Jeff is the author or co-author of several Internet Standards; he contributed extensively to the HTTP/1.1 specification. He was an associate editor of Internetworking: Research and Experience, and has been the chair or co-chair of a variety of conferences and workshops, including SIGCOMM, OSDI, NSDI, USENIX, HotOS, and ANCS
Nick Feamster is Neubauer Professor of Computer Science and the Director of Center for Data and Computing (CDAC) at the University of Chicago. Previously, he was a full professor in the Computer Science Department at Princeton University, where he directed the Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP); prior to Princeton, he was a full professor in the School of Computer Science at Georgia Tech.
His research focuses on many aspects of computer networking and networked systems, with a focus on network operations, network security, and censorship-resistant communication systems. He received his Ph.D. in Computer science from MIT in 2005, and his S.B. and M.Eng. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2000 and 2001, respectively. He was an early-stage employee at Looksmart (acquired by AltaVista), where he wrote the company’s first web crawler; and at Damballa, where he helped design the company’s first botnet-detection algorithm.
Nick is an ACM Fellow. He received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) for his contributions to cybersecurity, notably spam filtering. His other honors include the Technology Review 35 “Top Young Innovators Under 35” award, the ACM SIGCOMM Rising Star Award, a Sloan Research Fellowship, the NSF CAREER award, the IBM Faculty Fellowship, the IRTF Applied Networking Research Prize, and award papers at ACM SIGCOMM (network-level behavior of spammers), the SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference (measuring Web performance bottlenecks), and award papers at USENIX Security (circumventing web censorship using Infranet, web cookie analysis) and USENIX Networked Systems Design and Implementation (fault detection in router configuration, software-defined networking). His seminal work on the Routing Control Platform won the USENIX Test of Time Award for its influence on Software Defined Networking.
Dr. Douglas E. Comer is a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Purdue University. Formerly, he served as VP of Research at Cisco Systems. As a member of the original IAB, he participated in early work on the Internet, and is internationally recognized as an authority on TCP/IP protocols and Internet technologies.
Dr. Comer has written a series of best-selling technical books on Computer Networks, Internets, Operating Systems, and Computer Architecture. His 3-volume Internetworking series is cited as an authoritative work on Internet protocols and technologies. Dr. Comer’s books have been translated into 16 languages, and are used in industry and academia in many countries.
Dr. Comer consults for industry, and has lectured to thousands of professional engineers and students around the world. For twenty years he was editor-in-chief of the journal Software – Practice and Experience. He is a Fellow of the ACM and the recipient of numerous teaching awards.
I am a senior researcher at Microsoft Research in the Mobility and Networking group. I got my PhD in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2017 working with my advisors Prof. Boon Thau Loo and Prof. Roch Guerin. I completed my dual masters degree in computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in the same year. I completed my B. Sc. in Electrical Engineering at Sharif University of Technology in 2010. My work mainly focuses on automated network management and data center networking.
Thomas Vachuska is the Chief Architect for ONOS and actively contributes to the ONOS codebase. He has a solid background in software architecture of distributed systems and modular object-oriented design. He was previously at HP where he architected, designed and helped develop distributed software systems for a variety of domains.
Dr. Douglas E. Comer is a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Purdue University. Formerly, he served as VP of Research at Cisco Systems. As a member of the original IAB, he participated in early work on the Internet, and is internationally recognized as an authority on TCP/IP protocols and Internet technologies.
Dr. Comer has written a series of best-selling technical books on Computer Networks, Internets, Operating Systems, and Computer Architecture. His 3-volume Internetworking series is cited as an authoritative work on Internet protocols and technologies. Dr. Comer’s books have been translated into 16 languages, and are used in industry and academia in many countries.
Dr. Comer consults for industry, and has lectured to thousands of professional engineers and students around the world. For twenty years he was editor-in-chief of the journal Software – Practice and Experience. He is a Fellow of the ACM and the recipient of numerous teaching awards.
I am a senior researcher at Microsoft Research in the Mobility and Networking group. I got my PhD in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2017 working with my advisors Prof. Boon Thau Loo and Prof. Roch Guerin. I completed my dual masters degree in computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in the same year. I completed my B. Sc. in Electrical Engineering at Sharif University of Technology in 2010. My work mainly focuses on automated network management and data center networking.
Ranveer Chandra is the CTO of Agri-Food, Managing Director of Research for Industry, and head of Networking Research at Microsoft. Ranveer’s research has shipped in multiple Microsoft products, including XBOX, Azure, Windows, and Visual Studio. He designed the wireless controller protocol for the XBOX, which is being used by over 50 million controllers. He started the FarmBeats project in 2015, which shipped as a Microsoft product in 2019, and has led to partnerships with multiple large agri-food companies. Bill Gates featured his work on FarmBeats on GatesNotes, and he has been invited to present on FarmBeats to the Secretary of Agriculture, and on TV White Spaces to the FCC Chairman. Ranveer has published over 100 research papers and has over 125 patents granted by the USPTO. He is an IEEE Fellow, and has won several awards, including best paper awards in computer science conferences and the MIT Technology Review’s Top Innovators Under 35 award in 2010. Ranveer has an undergraduate degree from IIT Kharagpur, India, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cornell University.
Nick Lippis is an authority on corporate computer networking. He has designed some for the largest computer networks in the world. He has advised many Global 2000 firms on network strategy, architecture, equipment, services and implementation including Hughes Aerospace, Barclays Bank, Kaiser Permanente, Eastman Kodak Company, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Liberty Mutual, Schering-Plough, Sprint, WorldCom, Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks and a wide range of other equipment suppliers and service providers.
Mr. Lippis is uniquely positioned to comment, analyze and observe computer networking industry trends and developments.
Ernest co-founded ONUG with Nick Lippis after realizing that the user community needed to take control of their own destiny and expedite the network transformation. At the time he was VP of the Internetwork Engineering organization at Fidelity Investments and under his leadership Fidelity hosted the first ONUG in Boston in February 2013.
A 12-year veteran of Fidelity, Ernest was responsible for leading the team that engineered world class network, security, and application delivery services driving value to the customer beyond infrastructure management. Ernest also managed the Network and Voice service portfolio as well as Global Network Operations LAN/WAN teams and has held various technical and leadership roles.
Ben is an award-winning entrepreneur whose insights have made an immeasurable impact on the emerging smart textiles market. Prior to Flex, Ben founded IoClothes, the first B2B industry platform providing tools, resources and key insights for the emerging area of smart textiles, apparel and footwear. Before that, Ben was a founding member of VF Corporation’s Global Innovation Center where he led research and testing initiatives for the North Face, Timberland and Vans.
Earlier in his career, Ben co-founded the “smart” infant monitoring start-up, Sensible Baby, which gained international recognition for its innovative approach to disrupting the juvenile product space. Prior to that, he was the Lead Footwear Project Engineer for the US Army and successfully led many fast-paced multi-million-dollar development efforts for the United States Department of Defense.
Ben received a B.S. in Biomedical Physics from Northeastern University and M.S. in Biomechanics with high distinction from Boise State University.
Suzan Mahboob enjoys everything Infrastructure Innovation. She is an active member of the technology community, speaking regularly at conferences, covering topics that are pushing boundaries and helping us transform the way we do things. She knows the challenges we face when working within monolithic, matrixed, large enterprises and hopes to bring her experiences detangling and decommissioning brownfield technologies while advancing greenfield initiatives. When she isn’t putting out production fires, she’s busy writing her blog, partnering and advocating for diversity in technology and exploring the great city of Toronto.
I’m the Co-Founder and Co-Host of The Tech Fugitives Show. The show covers IT news with a dash of science. Mix in some humor and it becomes… “Tech Talk that doesn’t Suck!”
Nick Lippis is an authority on corporate computer networking. He has designed some for the largest computer networks in the world. He has advised many Global 2000 firms on network strategy, architecture, equipment, services and implementation including Hughes Aerospace, Barclays Bank, Kaiser Permanente, Eastman Kodak Company, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Liberty Mutual, Schering-Plough, Sprint, WorldCom, Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks and a wide range of other equipment suppliers and service providers.
Mr. Lippis is uniquely positioned to comment, analyze and observe computer networking industry trends and developments.
Ernest co-founded ONUG with Nick Lippis after realizing that the user community needed to take control of their own destiny and expedite the network transformation. At the time he was VP of the Internetwork Engineering organization at Fidelity Investments and under his leadership Fidelity hosted the first ONUG in Boston in February 2013.
A 12-year veteran of Fidelity, Ernest was responsible for leading the team that engineered world class network, security, and application delivery services driving value to the customer beyond infrastructure management. Ernest also managed the Network and Voice service portfolio as well as Global Network Operations LAN/WAN teams and has held various technical and leadership roles.
Don is an accomplished leader in successfully developing and executing business and technology strategy.
Don is co-founder and CEO of Concourse, an emerging leader in public cloud management and governance services, as well as a Senior Advisor at McKinsey Corporation.
Don spent 28 years at Goldman Sachs, during which time he held senior leadership roles in Technology in New York, London, Hong Kong and Tokyo. Don led the global technology division for Goldman from 2012 to 2016 and was named a partner of the firm in 2006 and Managing Director in 2000. Don was the CIO for Asia Pacific from 2001 to 2006 and served on the Asia management committee. Since relocating to the US in 2006, Don co-chaired the IBD Technology Investment Committee and was a member of the firm’s Firmwide Risk, Market Risk and Business Standards committee.
Don played an integral role in creating Goldman’s business systems architecture, algorithmic trading and risk management platform as well as leading strategic firm wide investments in VDI, Data architecture, AI and Cloud / Software Defined Infrastructure. He also created and led the teams responsible for the development of Symphony and Orbit which were subsequently spun out of the firm as broader industry platforms.
Within the technology industry, Don has been an active and vocal proponent of Open Source and Open Standards communities including acting as a founding board member of the Open Compute Project.
Don and his family reside in New York City where he is actively engaged in education and arts, serving on the board of the New York Foundation for the Arts, Columbia University School of Professional Studies, Marist College board of trustees and Teaching Matters.
Ann Johnson is Corporate Vice President of SCI Business Development at Microsoft. She oversees the investment and strategic partner strategy roadmap for security, compliance, and identity for one of the largest tech companies on our planet to help organizations become operationally resilient on their digital transformation journey and unlock capabilities of Microsoft’s intelligent cloud and next generation AI. She is a member of the board of advisors for FS-ISAC (The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center), an advisory board member for EWF (Executive Women’s Forum on Information Security, Risk Management & Privacy), and an advisory board member for HYPR Corp. Ann recently joined the board of advisors for Cybersecurity Ventures. For more about Microsoft’s Cybersecurity Solutions, visit the Microsoft Security Site, or follow Microsoft Security on Twitter at Msft Security Twitter or Msft WDSecurity Twitter. You can also hear her talk with some of the biggest influencers in cybersecurity each week on Afternoon Cyber Tea with Ann Johnson.
Chief Technology Officer, Digital, at Raytheon Technologies (RTX), responsible for the technical interests of the company’s Enterprise Services including the implementation of RTX’s technology strategy and vision, and the integrity of the company’s infrastructure and resources.
Previously responsible for ensuring the confidentiality, availability, and integrity of the company’s assets and its customers’ assets globally.
Experienced keynote / public speaker at Information Security events, and contributor to Information Security publications, such as:
I am an experienced IT leader who is passionate about information security. My experience and work involve developing innovative programs to cost effectively address IT security risk for enterprises.
I am also the founder and co-host of the Defensive Security Podcast, intended to help information security professionals grow and learn from publicly disclosed security breaches in order to better defend their own organizations.
Sigal Zarmi is a Managing Director, International CIO and the global Head of
Transformation at Morgan Stanley. In this dual capacity, she is driving the firm’s
innovation agenda through emerging technologies, unlocking technology-fueled
sources of value across the business and modernizing the digital experience for our
clients and employees.
• As International CIO, she manages our diverse global Technology footprint including
the Technology teams in the Global In-house Centers (GICs). She leverages her
transformational capacity to optimize our organization, functions and platform to
thrive in a continually evolving economic and market climate.
• Sigal is a member of the Technology Operating Committee and the EMEA Operating
Committee.
• Sigal joined Morgan Stanley in 2018 from PwC where she led a global network
transformation as Vice Chairman and CIO. Before that, Sigal was the CIO of GE
Capital Americas, where she spent 18 years in various technology and operations
leadership positions. She began her career as a developer at Motorola.
• She holds an MBA from Columbia University in New York City and a B.S. in
Engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel.
• Sigal is a senior advisor to multiple technology and cyber companies, start-ups and
VCs. She is a passionate advocate for women in technology providing mentorship to
aspiring entrepreneurs and technologists, among other community commitments.
She was inducted into CIO Magazine’s Hall of Fame in 2021 for her contributions.
Tsvi has over 25 years of technology and operations experience mostly in financial services, media and telecom and is known across the industry for his technology leadership, innovation and business acumen.
As CTO of Morgan Stanley’s shared services (infrastructure & data) since early 2012, Tsvi has been responsible for transforming the bank into a modern, efficient and effective organization.
He is leading the divisional Agile & DevOps transformation and the changes to the ways of work in technology, workforce strategy and front-to-back initiative.
He also completed a hundreds of million net cost reduction initiative while productivity and satisfaction improved.
Working collaboratively with the leaders of business technology, Tsvi led the creation and implementation of Morgan Stanley’s multi-year strategy and target state architecture along with the standards, guidelines, blueprints and use patterns that made it actionable to the engineering and development communities, broke the silo mentality and aggressively reduced technology debt.
Tsvi’s work helped position the bank as a leader in algorithmic trading/ ultra-low latency, migration to public cloud and containers, AI & machine learning, cyber security, mainframe optimization, data center consolidation, modern client experience, global network and near-fault tolerant operations.
Tsvi also oversaw the governance and regulatory compliance work with internal and external auditors and examiners.
Tsvi is the winner of the Einstein Award for technology excellence and known as a provider of strategic thought leadership and excellence in execution and transformation.
His experience ranges from traditional (server, storage, networks, operations, mainframes) to modern (public and private cloud, containers, cyber security) infrastructure as well as application development and Agile/DevOps transformation, with the focus on creating business value.
Greatest achievements are rooted from understanding and enabling the business to deliver both existing and new offerings in a combination of efficiency (cost), delivery focus (execution) and future-proofing (innovation).
As a Managing Director in Accenture’s Boston Office, Theo helps to lead its Technology Strategy & Advisory Services across North America. Theo’s client work focuses on partnering with C-level executives on their digital transformation strategies including digital technology roadmaps for cloud migrations, re-imagining user experiences for the digital economy, architecting enterprise scale deployments of automation and machine learning solutions to drive operational excellence, and helping to lead disruptive management for blue chip companies. Theo works closely with clients to realize their bottom and topline goals through the strategic deployment of technology to drive new forms of economic and customer value.
Linda Tai reports to the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. In this role, Tai leads the development and execution of the Fannie Mae business architecture strategy and production processes that aligns with our enterprise mission and overall corporate strategy. Her work will ensure that our digital transformation plans, processes, and systems deliver the insights we need to be a more innovative organization, support our customers and partners, and drive digital transformation throughout housing finance.
Accomplished IT executive building/leading high-performance teams with a reputation of broad industry influence. Track record of leading cloud transformation, modernizing data analytics, implementing machine learning, tireless prompter of open source and executing scaled agile with significant P&L responsibility.
Matt has been with Koch for over 20 years serving in various technology related roles. In his role as an Enterprise Architect, he has overseen significant technology transformation efforts such as the global SD-WAN deployment, improvement of bandwidth and internet access for hundreds of locations around the world, and developing and executing strategies for cloud on-ramps to support the broad move to adopt cloud services, modernize applications, and develop digital products and services across the enterprise.
Bruce Pinsky is a Distinguished Engineer in the Product Infrastructure and Reliability Engineering team at Intuit, Inc. with over 25 years of network experience. Mr. Pinsky leads the development of vision and strategy for the network supporting Intuit’s SaaS platform for products such as TurboTax Online and QuickBooks Online.
Mr. Pinsky is a Cisco Certified Architect (CCAr) and is one of the earliest CCIEs (#1045) and CCDEs (#2007::0003).
Mr. Pinsky is co-author of the book Cisco Router Configuration: A Practical Introduction to Cisco IOS Configuration, 1st and 2nd edition and co-inventor of U.S. Patents 6,130,890, 6,870,851, 7,623,528, and 7,969,992, A Method and system for optimizing routing of data packets and U.S. Patent 7,733,798, Evaluation of network data aggregation.
Danielle Kramer heads the sales organization for Alkira, Inc. She has 26 years of sales and leadership experience in the networking industry with an emphasis on developing and executing sales strategies for disruptive technologies such as SD-WAN and Unified Communications, Danielle directed the West Region at Viptela and held myriad individual contributor roles at Cisco since1998, where she consistently ranked in the top 5% of sellers. Danielle earned her BA in History from William Smith College, is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and has been published in the NY Times.
Paul Silverstein is a managing director and senior research analyst and covers telecom & networking equipment. Prior to joining Cowen in 2013, Mr. Silverstein was a director in Credit Suisse’s equity research department, covering the communications infrastructure industry. Before that, he was a senior analyst in equity research at Robertson Stephens and at Needham & Co. Prior to becoming a securities analyst, Mr. Silverstein practiced corporate and securities law as an associate at Weil Gotshal & Manges and at Pryor Cashman Sherman & Flynn. He holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, an MBA from Columbia Business School, and a JD from Cornell Law School.
Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers – the round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently…”.
Guru loves these lines from that classic Apple Ad because he believes few things better describe those with the singular goal to create market-leading platforms with outsized impact.
After his last startup was acquired (Nuova Systems acquired by Cisco), Guru joined Lightspeed as an investor in 2012 working with the partnership on investments in Zscaler (IPO), Avere
Guru believed the core idea behind Avi Networks was so powerful that he joined the founding team as the 4th co-founder. In just a few years, they built out the business from an idea to a platform that served over 20% of Fortune 50 businesses, among hundreds of other customers. Avi Networks was acquired by VMware in 2019.
After his entrepreneurial journey, Guru decided to focus his time and energy back on venture and returned to his Lightspeed roots, using the lessons from his founding experience to help early-stage founders.
“I’ve been in startups through most of my career. My operational experience spans sitting in a room with my co-founders and not much else, to building billion dollar run rate products,” said Guru. “During this journey, I’ve run product management, marketing, strategy, and have even been the early stage sales rep cold-calling customers. I bring this experience to every interaction I have with founding teams – a deep understanding of technology and how to monetize it.”
Guru primarily invests in Enterprise sectors such as security, DevOps, observability/ops tools, cloud infrastructure and application development. “These areas are seeing extremely rapid innovation and offer significant value creation opportunities for both entrepreneurs and investors,” said Guru.
Natarajan ‘Subu’ Subrahmanyan, CFA is a Principal at AO Asset Management. Subu has over 15 years of equity research experience in the technology sector and focuses on hardware, semiconductor and security sectors at AO. Prior to joining AO, Subu spent 12 years at The Juda Group as an equity research analyst covering the communications equipment and network security and before that was lead analyst for networking at Goldman Sachs. Subu has been featured on the Wall Street Journal’s Best of the Street Analyst List, and ranked in the Institutional Investor polls. He holds an MBA from Vanderbilt University and a B.S in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Madras University in India.
Rod is the senior equity analyst for the Hardware and Communications Technology sector in Global Investment Research. He joined Goldman Sachs as a managing director in 2017. Prior to joining the firm, Rod was the senior analyst for IT Hardware and Networking Technology at JP Morgan in
North America. Previously, he covered Communications Technology stocks for JP Morgan based in London. Earlier in his career, Rod covered Telecom and Cable stocks in Europe at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, and prior to that, he was employed in both technical and managerial positions at AT&T in both the US and France. Rod earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from Kansas State University and an MBA with a focus in finance at INSEAD. He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
Ernest co-founded ONUG with Nick Lippis after realizing that the user community needed to take control of their own destiny and expedite the network transformation. At the time he was VP of the Internetwork Engineering organization at Fidelity Investments and under his leadership Fidelity hosted the first ONUG in Boston in February 2013.
A 12-year veteran of Fidelity, Ernest was responsible for leading the team that engineered world class network, security, and application delivery services driving value to the customer beyond infrastructure management. Ernest also managed the Network and Voice service portfolio as well as Global Network Operations LAN/WAN teams and has held various technical and leadership roles.
Preetha Vijayakumar is Vice President of Data Center, Network and Collaboration Services in FedEx Services. She joined FedEx in 2001 as a Technical Analyst, focusing on the management of all Internet facing systems. In 2013, she entered into management and assumed leadership roles including Manager and Managing Director responsible for the creation and management of platform architecture solutions for providing platform automation across the FedEx enterprise and spearheading FedEx’s cloud native migration journey.
Michael Parks is the Vice President for Distributed Infrastructure
Services and the Regional Vice President for all Dallas Campuses at
USAA. He is responsible for Data Center Management, Data Networks,
Servers, Storage, and Public Cloud infrastructure COE. Michael joined
USAA in 2019 and has over 25 years of experience in IT Enterprise
Infrastructure.
Currently he is leading the efforts to modernize USAA datacenters into a private cloud
capability, refresh campus-based infrastructure with automated controls for compliancy,
and to launch the infrastructure center of excellence for public cloud readiness through
automated safe landed coded services. He also spearheaded the expansion of the Velo
cloud platform, and associated internet circuit infrastructure that enabled the rapid
expansion of all USAA employees to WFH format.
Prior to USAA Michael led the AIG Fort Worth site campus of 750+ employees. Michael’s
specific role was VP of Data Network, Network Security, Collaboration, Call Center
Services, Data Center Services, and Workplace Services. Under his leadership at AIG, a
global enterprise wide re-architecture and re-platform of all the data network, security,
voice, and video platforms was completed. Prior to AIG, Michael lead similar large global
infrastructure transformations at General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell.
In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with his wife Jamye, his three daughters, and
two grandsons. Michael is an avid competitor in Ironman competitions. He has completed
five of the six events he has participated in!
Amir Khan is a computer networking visionary who founded and led Viptela’s market-leading, cloud-first, Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) business before the acquisition by Cisco. As prescient as he was in identifying the $8B opportunity for SD-WAN, Amir recognized that network hampered the cloud journey and founded Alkira in 2018 with Atif Khan to reinvent networking for the cloud era. Amir’s vision is to deliver the cloud network as a utility. As CEO/Founder, he has led Alkira’s delivery of the industry’s first on-demand, as-a-service, point and click, unified multi-cloud networking service that enables cloud architects to design, build, and deploy a global multi-cloud network in minutes. Alkira enables enterprises to implement 50% less firewall capacity, and reduce TCO by up to 40%. Before Viptela, Amir held leadership roles at Cisco, Juniper, and Nortel. He holds 4 patents. Amir earned an MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Mississippi.
There is a tragic mis-match between the hundreds of millions of dollars IT organizations spend to gather and store data versus minuscule investments by the business functions to monetize that data. And if data is the new oil - the source for economic growth in the 21st century - then both IT and business organizations must collaborate more closely to monetize the organization's bounty of untapped data; to uncover the customer, product, services, and operational insights buried in the data. Modern cloud-centric, digital organizations are in the unique position to leverage this wealth of data to enable organizations to optimize key business and operational processes, mitigate compliance and regulatory risk, uncover new revenue streams, and create a more compelling, differentiated customer experience.
This presentation will provide a roadmap for not only helping organizations to understand how they compare to industry best practices vis-a-vis data monetization, but also provide a guide with economics-based methods to help organizations to start mastering the art of data monetization today!
Bill is the former Chief Innovation Officer at Hitachi Vantara where he was responsible
for driving Hitachi Vantara’s Data Science and “co-creation” efforts. He was selected for
Hitachi Limited’s 2020 Solution Innovation Award for his ground-breaking work in data
science and Automated Machine Learning.
Bill also has served as CTO at Dell EMC where he formulated the company’s Big Data
Practice strategy, identified target markets, developed solution frameworks and led
Analytics client engagements with his Vision Workshop, a methodology that links an
organization’s strategic business initiatives with supporting data and analytics. As the VP
of Analytics at Yahoo, Bill delivered the analytics tools and applications that optimized
customers’ online marketing spend.
He is the author of “Big Data: Understanding How Data Powers Big Business” and “Big
Data MBA: Driving Business Strategies with Data Science;” and his most recent book
“The Economics of Data, Analytics, and Digital Transformation”. He is a University of San
Francisco School of Management (SOM) Executive Fellow, Honorary Professor at the
School of Business and Economics at the National University of Ireland-Galway, and
Adjunct Professor at Menlo College.
Bill holds a Masters of Business Administration from University of Iowa and a Bachelor
of Science degree in Mathematics, Computer Science and Business Administration from
Coe College.
Follow Bill on Twitter @ schmarzo and LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/schmarzo .
Nick Lippis is an authority on corporate computer networking. He has designed some for the largest computer networks in the world. He has advised many Global 2000 firms on network strategy, architecture, equipment, services and implementation including Hughes Aerospace, Barclays Bank, Kaiser Permanente, Eastman Kodak Company, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Liberty Mutual, Schering-Plough, Sprint, WorldCom, Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks and a wide range of other equipment suppliers and service providers.
Mr. Lippis is uniquely positioned to comment, analyze and observe computer networking industry trends and developments.
Ernest co-founded ONUG with Nick Lippis after realizing that the user community needed to take control of their own destiny and expedite the network transformation. At the time he was VP of the Internetwork Engineering organization at Fidelity Investments and under his leadership Fidelity hosted the first ONUG in Boston in February 2013.
A 12-year veteran of Fidelity, Ernest was responsible for leading the team that engineered world class network, security, and application delivery services driving value to the customer beyond infrastructure management. Ernest also managed the Network and Voice service portfolio as well as Global Network Operations LAN/WAN teams and has held various technical and leadership roles.
Suzan Mahboob enjoys everything Infrastructure Innovation. She is an active member of the technology community, speaking regularly at conferences, covering topics that are pushing boundaries and helping us transform the way we do things. She knows the challenges we face when working within monolithic, matrixed, large enterprises and hopes to bring her experiences detangling and decommissioning brownfield technologies while advancing greenfield initiatives. When she isn’t putting out production fires, she’s busy writing her blog, partnering and advocating for diversity in technology and exploring the great city of Toronto.
Ben is an award-winning entrepreneur whose insights have made an immeasurable impact on the emerging smart textiles market. Prior to Flex, Ben founded IoClothes, the first B2B industry platform providing tools, resources and key insights for the emerging area of smart textiles, apparel and footwear. Before that, Ben was a founding member of VF Corporation’s Global Innovation Center where he led research and testing initiatives for the North Face, Timberland and Vans.
Earlier in his career, Ben co-founded the “smart” infant monitoring start-up, Sensible Baby, which gained international recognition for its innovative approach to disrupting the juvenile product space. Prior to that, he was the Lead Footwear Project Engineer for the US Army and successfully led many fast-paced multi-million-dollar development efforts for the United States Department of Defense.
Ben received a B.S. in Biomedical Physics from Northeastern University and M.S. in Biomechanics with high distinction from Boise State University.
I’m the Co-Founder and Co-Host of The Tech Fugitives Show. The show covers IT news with a dash of science. Mix in some humor and it becomes… “Tech Talk that doesn’t Suck!”
Nick Lippis is an authority on corporate computer networking. He has designed some for the largest computer networks in the world. He has advised many Global 2000 firms on network strategy, architecture, equipment, services and implementation including Hughes Aerospace, Barclays Bank, Kaiser Permanente, Eastman Kodak Company, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Liberty Mutual, Schering-Plough, Sprint, WorldCom, Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks and a wide range of other equipment suppliers and service providers.
Mr. Lippis is uniquely positioned to comment, analyze and observe computer networking industry trends and developments.
Ernest co-founded ONUG with Nick Lippis after realizing that the user community needed to take control of their own destiny and expedite the network transformation. At the time he was VP of the Internetwork Engineering organization at Fidelity Investments and under his leadership Fidelity hosted the first ONUG in Boston in February 2013.
A 12-year veteran of Fidelity, Ernest was responsible for leading the team that engineered world class network, security, and application delivery services driving value to the customer beyond infrastructure management. Ernest also managed the Network and Voice service portfolio as well as Global Network Operations LAN/WAN teams and has held various technical and leadership roles.
Ben is an award-winning entrepreneur whose insights have made an immeasurable impact on the emerging smart textiles market. Prior to Flex, Ben founded IoClothes, the first B2B industry platform providing tools, resources and key insights for the emerging area of smart textiles, apparel and footwear. Before that, Ben was a founding member of VF Corporation’s Global Innovation Center where he led research and testing initiatives for the North Face, Timberland and Vans.
Earlier in his career, Ben co-founded the “smart” infant monitoring start-up, Sensible Baby, which gained international recognition for its innovative approach to disrupting the juvenile product space. Prior to that, he was the Lead Footwear Project Engineer for the US Army and successfully led many fast-paced multi-million-dollar development efforts for the United States Department of Defense.
Ben received a B.S. in Biomedical Physics from Northeastern University and M.S. in Biomechanics with high distinction from Boise State University.
Suzan Mahboob enjoys everything Infrastructure Innovation. She is an active member of the technology community, speaking regularly at conferences, covering topics that are pushing boundaries and helping us transform the way we do things. She knows the challenges we face when working within monolithic, matrixed, large enterprises and hopes to bring her experiences detangling and decommissioning brownfield technologies while advancing greenfield initiatives. When she isn’t putting out production fires, she’s busy writing her blog, partnering and advocating for diversity in technology and exploring the great city of Toronto.
I’m the Co-Founder and Co-Host of The Tech Fugitives Show. The show covers IT news with a dash of science. Mix in some humor and it becomes… “Tech Talk that doesn’t Suck!”
Yishay Yovel is Cato Networks’ Chief Marketing Officer. Yishay has over 25 years of experience in marketing and product management for enterprise software companies and cloud-based services in the areas of networking, security, and mobility.
According to the business press and industry industry buzz, advanced cloud services that use AI and ML have engendered a digital transformation that is elevating IT from a service organization into a central part of all business activity. It seems that every corporation is moving business processes to the cloud en masse. Business continuity planning forms a key use case. But is it really true? Detractors claim that many large corporations still only have 10-15% of their workloads in the public cloud, and argue that corporations do not have the controls in place needed to govern and secure workloads in the cloud they way they can in their private data centers. Which view is correct? In this great debate Johna Till Johnson will argue that migration to the public cloud is both rapid and inevitable, while Greg Ferro will argue that corporations should be cautious and move slowly. Dr. Douglas Comer, Distinguished Professor at Purdue University will moderate and help us navigate this industry debate.
Johna Till Johnson is CEO and Founder of Nemertes Research, where she sets research direction and works with strategic clients. Under her leadership, Nemertes has emerged as a leading trusted advisor to Fortune-50 and other world-class organizations. A widely regarded expert, Ms. Johnson currently serves as the content committee chair at the Wall St. Technology Association (WSTA), which provides technology guidance to some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated financial services firms. She regularly speaks at industry trade shows, conferences, and seminars, including Nemertes Navigator360, IDG’s FutureIT, ISC, and (WSTA). She writes regular columns on cybersecurity and IoT for TechTarget. Prior to founding Nemertes in 2002, Ms. Johnson served as chief technology officer (CTO) at Greenwich Technology Partners, a global consulting and engineering firm. Prior to that, she led the Global Networking Strategies Service business unit of META Group. Prior to that, as Senior Technology Editor she oversaw the lab-testing program at Data Communications magazine, providing testing and assessment of up to 16 emerging technologies per year. She also has designed and developed security, speech-synthesis, and free-space laser products at companies including Mosler Security Systems and Digitus Corp. Ms. Johnson holds a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering/computer science (BSEE/CS) from The Johns Hopkins University, has conducted graduate work in nuclear and particle physics at the University of Rochester, speaks three languages, and has published a science fiction novel. She is an avid urban kayaker and novice woodworker and candymaker.
Dr. Douglas E. Comer is a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Purdue University. Formerly, he served as VP of Research at Cisco Systems. As a member of the original IAB, he participated in early work on the Internet, and is internationally recognized as an authority on TCP/IP protocols and Internet technologies.
Dr. Comer has written a series of best-selling technical books on Computer Networks, Internets, Operating Systems, and Computer Architecture. His 3-volume Internetworking series is cited as an authoritative work on Internet protocols and technologies. Dr. Comer’s books have been translated into 16 languages, and are used in industry and academia in many countries.
Dr. Comer consults for industry, and has lectured to thousands of professional engineers and students around the world. For twenty years he was editor-in-chief of the journal Software – Practice and Experience. He is a Fellow of the ACM and the recipient of numerous teaching awards.
Nick Lippis is an authority on corporate computer networking. He has designed some for the largest computer networks in the world. He has advised many Global 2000 firms on network strategy, architecture, equipment, services and implementation including Hughes Aerospace, Barclays Bank, Kaiser Permanente, Eastman Kodak Company, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Liberty Mutual, Schering-Plough, Sprint, WorldCom, Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks and a wide range of other equipment suppliers and service providers.
Mr. Lippis is uniquely positioned to comment, analyze and observe computer networking industry trends and developments.
Geng Lin is Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at F5. He is responsible for leading
technology strategy, product evolution, and critical innovations for the company.
Lin joined F5 in 2019 from JPMorgan Chase & Co., where he was Managing Director, Chief Development
Officer and Head of Engineering for Consumer and Community Banking. Prior to JPMorgan Chase, Lin
worked at Google as CTO of Corporate Networks and later as Head of Service Engineering for Next
Billion Users. Previously, he served as CTO of Networking Group at Dell and CTO of the Cisco-IBM
Alliance at Cisco Systems. He was also an appointed Fellow at Dell and Distinguished Engineer at
JPMorgan Chase.
Lin is an industry-leading expert in distributed systems, software-defined infrastructure, and cloud
services. He is a contributing author of two books on cloud and data-intensive computing. He has
published many technical papers and holds nine U.S. patents.
Lin received B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in computer science from Peking University and a Ph.D. degree in
computer science from The University of British Columbia
Matt has been with Koch for over 20 years serving in various technology related roles. In his role as an Enterprise Architect, he has overseen significant technology transformation efforts such as the global SD-WAN deployment, improvement of bandwidth and internet access for hundreds of locations around the world, and developing and executing strategies for cloud on-ramps to support the broad move to adopt cloud services, modernize applications, and develop digital products and services across the enterprise.
Nick Lippis is an authority on corporate computer networking. He has designed some for the largest computer networks in the world. He has advised many Global 2000 firms on network strategy, architecture, equipment, services and implementation including Hughes Aerospace, Barclays Bank, Kaiser Permanente, Eastman Kodak Company, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Liberty Mutual, Schering-Plough, Sprint, WorldCom, Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks and a wide range of other equipment suppliers and service providers.
Mr. Lippis is uniquely positioned to comment, analyze and observe computer networking industry trends and developments.
Steve Mullaney brings 30 years of marketing, product management, and engineering experience in network infrastructure and security to Aviatrix. Most recently, Steve was the CEO of Nicira Inc., a network virtualization and software-defined networking company, from 2009 until it was acquired in 2012 by VMware for $1.26 billion. Nicira invented the concept of offering software-based services running on top of networking hardware. Mullaney became the senior vice president and general manager of VMware’s Networking and Security business unit following Nicira’s acquisition.
Prior to Nicira, he served as vice president, marketing, and interim CEO for Palo Alto Networks. During his tenure, Mullaney oversaw the company’s invention of the next-generation firewall market category, which helped cement Palo Alto Networks’ reputation as a thought leader and cybersecurity innovator.
Steve also held executive positions at Blue Coat, Force10, Cisco, Growth Networks, ShoreTel, Bay Networks and SynOptics, and began his career as a design engineer at GTE Government Systems. Steve holds a BSEE from the University of Rhode Island
John Willis is Senior Director of the Global Transformation Office at Red Hat. Prior to Red Hat, he was the Director of Ecosystem Development for Docker, which he joined after the company he co-founded (SocketPlane, which focused on SDN for containers) was acquired by Docker in February 2015. Previous to founding SocketPlane in Fall 2014, John was the Chief DevOps Evangelist at Dell, which he joined following the Enstratius acquisition in May 2013. He has also held past executive roles at Chef and Canonical. John was one of the earliest cloud evangelists and is considered one of the founders of the DevOps movement. John is the author of 7 IBM Redbooks. He is also the co-author of the “DevOps Handbook” and “Beyond the Phoenix Project” along with author Gene Kim.
I’m the Co-Founder and Co-Host of The Tech Fugitives Show. The show covers IT news with a dash of science. Mix in some humor and it becomes… “Tech Talk that doesn’t Suck!”
Brian is a Network and Cloud Architect at McKesson, one of the oldest and largest healthcare companies in the US and currently operating in 16 countries. He is responsible for linking the needs of their businesses with infrastructure technology so they may serve their customers. This includes architecting and designing networks for McKesson’s global backbone, regional WAN’s, distribution centers, offices, clinics, and pharmacies, in addition to our private and public cloud environments. Areas of recent focus include SD-WAN, multi-cloud public cloud enablement, security for McKesson’s Operational Technology environments, and planning and implementation of our global network organization.
Yishay Yovel is Cato Networks’ Chief Marketing Officer. Yishay has over 25 years of experience in marketing and product management for enterprise software companies and cloud-based services in the areas of networking, security, and mobility.
Anna co-founded Prolexic Technologies, which was later acquired by Akamai for $370 million. She previously served as Product Development Manager at Terremark, and VP of Engineering at 6connect.
Brian is a Network and Cloud Architect at McKesson, one of the oldest and largest healthcare companies in the US and currently operating in 16 countries. He is responsible for linking the needs of their businesses with infrastructure technology so they may serve their customers. This includes architecting and designing networks for McKesson’s global backbone, regional WAN’s, distribution centers, offices, clinics, and pharmacies, in addition to our private and public cloud environments. Areas of recent focus include SD-WAN, multi-cloud public cloud enablement, security for McKesson’s Operational Technology environments, and planning and implementation of our global network organization.
Over 13 years’ experience in scoping large scale projects and is a technical expert in SD-WAN technologies. He enjoys providing challenging solutions to NetCraftsmen customers. He currently holds CCIE’s in Routing & Switching, Service Provider and Data Center.
Leslie Rosenberg is Research Vice President for IDC’s Network Life Cycle and Infrastructure Services programs examining professional services trends and market dynamics for the enterprise. Ms. Rosenberg’s research coverage spans life cycle services portfolio development across network, server and storage infrastructure technologies encompassing the dynamics of software defined infrastructure, automation, service delivery platforms, new consumption models and the evolution of services impacting people, process, tools and methodologies around the globe. Ms. Rosenberg’s research evaluates services delivered by technology manufacturers, global systems integrators and telcos as they look to compete more effectively in the enterprise market.
Mick Currey is an Enterprise Cloud Architect championing resilient “anti-fragile” applications, cloud topologies, observability, automated governance, and automated security controls. When he learned the cloud was becoming an option for use at Fidelity, he worked with his CTO to create a new role to start working on the cloud. He has been working as an Enterprise Cloud Architect since then.
Mick’s career started as an Industrial Engineer doing computer simulations and programming robots. Programming robots was fun. However, he felt he was too technical, so he wanted to blend technical knowledge with more business and management concepts. He went back to school for an MBA in Information System. After grad school, his initial roles were in software development, AI development, and R&D architecture. Leading projects from a technical perspective led to project management and then development management. A few management roles mixed several different categories: ALM, Infrastructure (Servers, Storage and Network), Architecture, Governance, and Regulatory Compliance. Later roles included a product line manager with team members on several continents enabling development progress round the clock.
His experiences leading two drastically different hyper performing teams shaped his thinking regarding opportunities for teams to excel. (One team was a performance testing team with detailed root cause results for each two-week cycle. The second was an agile development team doing weekly iterations, 4-6 week releases to production while enjoying a less than 0.001% production bug rate per release.)
He works with several consortiums to understand, share cloud technical information and document the best practices available in the cloud.
Tom Behnke is the Chief Enterprise Architect for Kellogg Company. He has a proven track record of pushing past the status quo to deliver outstanding business outcomes by reshaping what is possible with both his direct and indirect teams. Currently, Mr. Behnke is accountable for Kellogg’s Enterprise Architecture function along with ownership of strategic IT platform and technology. As part of this, Tom is leading the work around the future ERP platform strategy that meets diverse global needs to overseeing Kellogg’s approach to next generation infrastructure and collaboration capabilities. Previously, Mr. Behnke lead the company’s infrastructure and service management functions that span global network/data communications, IT service management solutions, IT financial governance and software asset management. Mr. Behnke is helping set the vision and lead thinking around how to transform legacy infrastructure services to the cloud, while deploying next generation technology solutions along the way. Tom joined the Kellogg Company in 2015 with over 15 years of IT leadership experience in both consumer packaged goods and pharmaceutical sectors. Prior to joining the Kellogg Company, Mr. Behnke served as the associate director IT for Kraft Heinz, overseeing all aspects of information technology, including network and communications infrastructure. In addition, Mr. Behnke serves as a board member for the Chicago chapter of the Society of Information Management.
I’m the Co-Founder and Co-Host of The Tech Fugitives Show. The show covers IT news with a dash of science. Mix in some humor and it becomes… “Tech Talk that doesn’t Suck!”
Tim Van Herck is the Director of Technical Product Management at VeloCloud, now part of VMware. He has over 15 years of experience in networking, currently leading his team in strategy and development for training, content, and sales support. Prior to joining VMware, Tim held notable positions with Aryaka Networks, Cisco Systems, and Alcatel/Nokia. He has a Masters in Computer Science from Hogeschool Antwerpen.
Bob started his career in wireless at Metricom (Ricochet wireless network) developing and deploying wireless mesh networks across the country to connect the first generation of Internet browsers. Following Metricom, Bob co-founded Airespace, a start-up focused on helping enterprises manage the flood of employees bringing unlicensed Wi-Fi technology into their businesses. Following Cisco’s acquisition of Airespace in 2005, Bob became the VP/CTO of Cisco enterprise mobility and drove mobility strategy and investments in the wireless business (e.g. Navini, Cognio, ThinkSmart, Phunware, Wilocity, Meraki). He also drove industry standards such as Hot Spot 2.0 and market efforts such as Cisco’s Connected Mobile Experience. He holds more than 15 patents.
John Willis is Senior Director of the Global Transformation Office at Red Hat. Prior to Red Hat, he was the Director of Ecosystem Development for Docker, which he joined after the company he co-founded (SocketPlane, which focused on SDN for containers) was acquired by Docker in February 2015. Previous to founding SocketPlane in Fall 2014, John was the Chief DevOps Evangelist at Dell, which he joined following the Enstratius acquisition in May 2013. He has also held past executive roles at Chef and Canonical. John was one of the earliest cloud evangelists and is considered one of the founders of the DevOps movement. John is the author of 7 IBM Redbooks. He is also the co-author of the “DevOps Handbook” and “Beyond the Phoenix Project” along with author Gene Kim.
Suzan Mahboob enjoys everything Infrastructure Innovation. She is an active member of the technology community, speaking regularly at conferences, covering topics that are pushing boundaries and helping us transform the way we do things. She knows the challenges we face when working within monolithic, matrixed, large enterprises and hopes to bring her experiences detangling and decommissioning brownfield technologies while advancing greenfield initiatives. When she isn’t putting out production fires, she’s busy writing her blog, partnering and advocating for diversity in technology and exploring the great city of Toronto.
Michael Clark has worked in large enterprise computing for over 25 years, first in operations and engineering, and for the past decade in architecture and strategy. He began his career in network and server platform engineering at Bausch & Lomb, where he was instrumental in developing B&L’s global network infrastructure and in launching their first website.
Mike then moved on to Fidelity Investments, where he ultimately took on management of desktop and server operations for Fidelity’s Retail Operations group, merged 19 technology support organizations across the U.S. into 1, and ran network and telecom operations for the Boston region. He spent his final 5 years at Fidelity in the Enterprise Architecture group focused on various platform infrastructure initiatives, including leading the effort to develop a unified server strategy for the firm.
Mike has spent the last 5 years engaged in global professional services activities. He recently became a Partner at Exceptional Leaders International, where his focus is on working with mid-market companies, many of them private-equity owned, to synchronize their business imperatives and technology strategies. He has deep experience in global networking and cloud implementations.
Mike is currently the Technology Industry and IT Consulting Executive at Renaissance Tech & Media. He has been with the company since 2010.
Now Boston-based, Mike hails from Canada, where he received his undergraduate education at The University of Western Ontario. He has since done graduate work at both Brandeis and Harvard.
In his spare time Mike enjoys photography, traveling, and digital audio recording.
Ernest co-founded ONUG with Nick Lippis after realizing that the user community needed to take control of their own destiny and expedite the network transformation. At the time he was VP of the Internetwork Engineering organization at Fidelity Investments and under his leadership Fidelity hosted the first ONUG in Boston in February 2013.
A 12-year veteran of Fidelity, Ernest was responsible for leading the team that engineered world class network, security, and application delivery services driving value to the customer beyond infrastructure management. Ernest also managed the Network and Voice service portfolio as well as Global Network Operations LAN/WAN teams and has held various technical and leadership roles.
Mark has over 30 years of technical sales and account management experience in the software and semiconductor industries. For the past decade, his entire focus has been on bringing the benefits of cloud computing to the enterprise. Most recently his cloud vision has expanded to include microservices and DevOps. He passionately believes that the current wave of technology innovation can significantly improve the state of the art in enterprise software application delivery.
Prior to turning to the dark side Mark had 10 years of experience as an embedded software developer. He prides himself on having kept current on the technology front while still being able to find his way around a debugger.
Mark holds a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from George Washington University.
Alex Brown is a Partner at Epilogue Ventures, focused on mentoring, advising, and investing in early stage technology companies. Alex is also a member of Hyde Park Angels, the Midwest’s largest angel investment group, where he is a deal lead on enterprise technology investments. Previously Alex was the Founder and CEO of 10th Magnitude, the leading Microsoft Azure digital transformation consultancy in the US and a 4-time Global Partner of the Year award winner. 10th Magnitude was sold to Cognizant in 2020. Prior to this Alex was a Managing Director at Plural, a leading software consultancy which was sold to Dell in 2002. Alex spent 6 years at Dell during which time he led Dell’s Asia-Pacific professional services business (based in Singapore) and led the global solution development organization. He is a regular speaker at technology industry events where he focuses on channel and partnering strategy and the economics of cloud businesses. Alex holds a BA in Economics with honors from Oberlin College, and an MBA from Yale University’s School of Management. He lives outside Chicago with his family.
Michael Clark has worked in large enterprise computing for over 25 years, first in operations and engineering, and for the past decade in architecture and strategy. He began his career in network and server platform engineering at Bausch & Lomb, where he was instrumental in developing B&L’s global network infrastructure and in launching their first website.
Mike then moved on to Fidelity Investments, where he ultimately took on management of desktop and server operations for Fidelity’s Retail Operations group, merged 19 technology support organizations across the U.S. into 1, and ran network and telecom operations for the Boston region. He spent his final 5 years at Fidelity in the Enterprise Architecture group focused on various platform infrastructure initiatives, including leading the effort to develop a unified server strategy for the firm.
Mike has spent the last 5 years engaged in global professional services activities. He recently became a Partner at Exceptional Leaders International, where his focus is on working with mid-market companies, many of them private-equity owned, to synchronize their business imperatives and technology strategies. He has deep experience in global networking and cloud implementations.
Mike is currently the Technology Industry and IT Consulting Executive at Renaissance Tech & Media. He has been with the company since 2010.
Now Boston-based, Mike hails from Canada, where he received his undergraduate education at The University of Western Ontario. He has since done graduate work at both Brandeis and Harvard.
In his spare time Mike enjoys photography, traveling, and digital audio recording.
Don Luchini is a Boston-based DevOps engineer specializing in infrastructure management and deployment automation pipelines. Over the past ten years, he has acted in the corporate IT, quality assurance, software development, and release engineering spaces, encompassing a number of roles that now fall under the term DevOps. He currently works at SimpliSafe, a Boston-based manufacturer of connected home security systems. In his spare time, he is a martial artist, radio enthusiast, and hobby photographer.
Nick Lippis is an authority on corporate computer networking. He has designed some for the largest computer networks in the world. He has advised many Global 2000 firms on network strategy, architecture, equipment, services and implementation including Hughes Aerospace, Barclays Bank, Kaiser Permanente, Eastman Kodak Company, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Liberty Mutual, Schering-Plough, Sprint, WorldCom, Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks and a wide range of other equipment suppliers and service providers.
Mr. Lippis is uniquely positioned to comment, analyze and observe computer networking industry trends and developments.
Ernest co-founded ONUG with Nick Lippis after realizing that the user community needed to take control of their own destiny and expedite the network transformation. At the time he was VP of the Internetwork Engineering organization at Fidelity Investments and under his leadership Fidelity hosted the first ONUG in Boston in February 2013.
A 12-year veteran of Fidelity, Ernest was responsible for leading the team that engineered world class network, security, and application delivery services driving value to the customer beyond infrastructure management. Ernest also managed the Network and Voice service portfolio as well as Global Network Operations LAN/WAN teams and has held various technical and leadership roles.
Ben is an award-winning entrepreneur whose insights have made an immeasurable impact on the emerging smart textiles market. Prior to Flex, Ben founded IoClothes, the first B2B industry platform providing tools, resources and key insights for the emerging area of smart textiles, apparel and footwear. Before that, Ben was a founding member of VF Corporation’s Global Innovation Center where he led research and testing initiatives for the North Face, Timberland and Vans.
Earlier in his career, Ben co-founded the “smart” infant monitoring start-up, Sensible Baby, which gained international recognition for its innovative approach to disrupting the juvenile product space. Prior to that, he was the Lead Footwear Project Engineer for the US Army and successfully led many fast-paced multi-million-dollar development efforts for the United States Department of Defense.
Ben received a B.S. in Biomedical Physics from Northeastern University and M.S. in Biomechanics with high distinction from Boise State University.
Suzan Mahboob enjoys everything Infrastructure Innovation. She is an active member of the technology community, speaking regularly at conferences, covering topics that are pushing boundaries and helping us transform the way we do things. She knows the challenges we face when working within monolithic, matrixed, large enterprises and hopes to bring her experiences detangling and decommissioning brownfield technologies while advancing greenfield initiatives. When she isn’t putting out production fires, she’s busy writing her blog, partnering and advocating for diversity in technology and exploring the great city of Toronto.
I’m the Co-Founder and Co-Host of The Tech Fugitives Show. The show covers IT news with a dash of science. Mix in some humor and it becomes… “Tech Talk that doesn’t Suck!”
