Session Speakers

Yuri Aguiar, Senior Partner, CTO, Ogilvy Worldwide, New York
Allan Alterman, Executive Director, ITS Infrastructure Services, KPMG
Chris DiFiglia, Managing Director Principal, Bear Stearns & Companies
Tsvi Gal, General Partner, EC Private Equity & until recently CTO, Deutsche Bank
Michael Israel, SVP-CIO, Six Flags Theme Parks
Julia King, Executive Editor, Events & National Correspondent, Computerworld
David S. Koosis, Deputy Commissioner & CIO, New York City Department of Correction
Jeanette M. Matesic, Director, HRIS, Englewood Hospital & Medical Center
Monique McKeon, Program Manager, Chubb Specialty Insurance
Adam Noble, CIO, GAF Materials Corporation
Glenn Noga, CIO, Polycom, Inc.
Jim Onalfo, Deputy Commissioner & CIO, NYPD
Sam Peterson, SVP, Technology, Overstock.com
Stephen C. Savage, SVP & CIO, CA, Inc.
Don Tennant, VP & Editorial Director, Computerworld and InfoWorld
John M. Walker, Executive Director, IT, Verizon Wireless
Gary R. Wilhelm, Sr. , Business & Financial Systems Manager, Englewood Hospital & Medical Center


Biographies

Yuri Aguiar
Senior Partner, CTO, Ogilvy Worldwide, New York

Over the past 16 years, Yuri Aguiar has had the responsibility of handling various roles in technology, ranging from Applications, Messaging, Security, Application Frameworks, Data Center operations to global networking.

In 1998, Yuri Aguiar joined Ogilvy Worldwide as the director of Data Center Operations and two years later moved to the role of the chief technology officer. This challenging position called on all his experience for diverse thinking and harnessing the right talent to deliver solutions across an organization with 490 offices in 106 countries.

One of his responsibilities as the Worldwide CTO is to look for new technologies as they apply to the business and perfect them for a large-scale production environment. Brainstorming sessions and 'out-of-the-box' thinking are part of everyday life for the Worldwide IT group. Over the last five years, Mr. Aguiar's team has been responsible for delivering various aspects of the Worldwide Technology strategy and has won many awards for innovative delivery of solutions.

Allan Alterman, Executive Director, Information Technology Services US of KPMG LLP has been an executive director since 2002 and with KPMG since 1979. Allan currently leads the Infrastructure Services organization with over 550 staff members throughout the United States. Allan directs all technology infrastructure operations including: data center operations, 24/7 national support call center, on-site end user support services, quality assurance, database management, messaging, telecom operations, identity management operations, software distribution, and desktop management. He is also responsible for the US technology infrastructure vision and strategies and has previously served as the US representative on KPMG's International Technology Leadership Team.

During his 29-year tenure with the Firm, he has been in a variety of positions with increasing responsibilities. He started as part of the KPMG Consulting organization where he was responsible for developing and selling business applications to external clients. After 11 years in KPMG consulting, he transferred to internal technology operations.

Chris is an industry veteran with 25 years of technology experience with the last 14 focused on the conferencing and collaboration sector. Between 1994-2000, Chris designed and installed over 100 multi-media conference rooms globally for Colgate Palmolive. In 2000, he join the investment banking firm Bear Stearns as the audio visual project manager responsible for the design and implementation of all Audio visual and multi-media services at the firm's new world headquarters in NYC. He currently manages the Broadcast Media Group which is focused on network broadcasts, corporate events and conference services. He is responsible for establishing the multi-media corporate standards and providing strategic direction which includes the evaluation, recommendation and purchase of media systems and services.

Tsvi Gal until recently was the CTO for Deutsche Bank Investment Banking and Asset Management.

Tsvi served as CIO & CTO at Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo, ABN AMRO Bank and Bank of America and as president of AT&T.COM, a subsidiary of AT&T which he built to become a $400M company. From 1996 to 2001, Tsvi served on the USA technology delegation to the G7. He developed the first Internet bank at Wells Fargo Bank. In 2001, he received the Einstein Award from the State of Israel President. Tsvi is a Computer Science graduate of Rutgers University and holds an MBA from Golden Gate University. He serves on the Board of Directors at Cardean University and Dati, as an advisor to Rutgers University president and as president of the New York Metro SIM chapter.

Michael Israel, Six Flags SVP-CIO, Information Services, brings over 18 years experience in the IT industry, with particular expertise in the planning and design of storage area networks, IT operations, standards and migration planning.

Mr. Israel manages a staff of over 80 full time IS professionals and 60 seasonal employees at 29 theme parks nationwide. He has been responsible for large scale system migrations in which he has designed and implemented system and storage rollouts for clients with system populations from 100-10,000 units. With a prime focus on reducing operating expenses he has focused on delivering solutions geared towards the specific business requirements of each client. He holds a Master's in Business Administration from Saint John's University in New York.

Julia King is an award-winning business and technology journalist with more than 20 years experience covering a wide range of key topics, from enterprise software development, technology management and IT skills and career issues to return on investment, business intelligence and next-gen IT leadership. Ms. King was the founding executive editor of the award-winning ComputerworldROI magazine and spearheaded Computerworld's coverage of information economics.

Prior to joining Computerworld in 1994, Ms. King worked for nearly a decade as a reporter and writer for national business and technology magazines. She also worked for five years as a daily newspaper reporter and later, as a features writer and editor. Her IT reporting has earned her several awards form the American Society of Business Press Editors. She is editor of a book titled Executives' Guide to the Wireless Workforce, published by John Wiley & Sons. She holds a Master's Degree in International Relations and a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science, both from University of Pittsburgh.

Commissioner Koosis has worked for New York City government during the Bloomberg Administration, presently as Deputy Commissioner and CIO for the New York City Department of Correction and Department of Probation. Prior to working for government, Mr. Koosis was principal of a "SaaS" software company which performed schedule optimization for call center agents. Prior to that, he was principal of a software consulting company which developed internet and corporate applications for many Wall Street, technology and media firms.

As a freelance programmer, Mr. Koosis developed language and GUI translators, an 8087 simulator used for teaching floating point math to computer science grad student, PC Magazine benchmark programs, and a system used by Rockefeller University to track the weight and nutritional choices of rats. Mr. Koosis has published various technical articles and he wrote one of the first primers on Java, Java Programming For Dummies.

Jeanette manages a $10+ million benefits budget and is responsible for continually improving automation of human capital management systems. She administers a comprehensive benefits program including a full suite of voluntary benefits for 2,300 employees. She also administers PeopleSoft (a program that tracks employee data of all kinds) which includes managing upgrades/updates, implementing new modules and training and tracking more than 100 users.

With over 15 years of Human Resources experience, Jeanette holds a Bachelor of Science degree as well as the Professional in Human Resources (PHR) designation from the Society for Human Resource Management.

Monique McKeon is an assistant vice president in Chubb's Specialty Insurance Strategic Business Unit. She is currently the program manager for a multi-year program to leverage multiple technologies to provide strategic business capabilities. Prior to this role, Monique was with Chubb's Commercial Insurance Strategic Business Unit with primary responsibility for Chubb's Commercial Underwriting Workstation, a mission critical application with 5000 users in the US and Canada. She also was the project leader on a project to implement Business Process Management capability in support of a Centralized Processing Initiative. She is the chair of the Chubb Partnership of Women, an employee resource group with over 600 members. Monique has been with Chubb for six years. Prior to joining Chubb, Monique spent two years at IBM in their Business Consulting practice, and 11 years with Accenture. She lives in Branchburg, New Jersey with her husband Peter and two children, Connor and Kendall.

As the CIO for GAF Materials Corporation, Adam Noble provides vision and leadership by partnering with the business to deliver innovative solutions to his constituents. Adam is a Project Management Professional (PMP), a member of the Society for Information Management (SIM) and a member of the Manufacturing Alliance (MAPI).

Adam has over 22 years of experience in delivering business solutions to global organizations. His experience covers areas such as Data Warehouse Technology, Mergers and Acquisitions, Global Outsourcing and a wide array of technology solutions for the business. Adam has experience in the Pharmaceutical, Banking, Manufacturing, Telecommunications, Package Delivery, Consulting and Chemical Industries. Prior to GAF, Adam worked at JPMorgan Chase, Mars Incorporated, AlliedSignal Corporation, UPS, AT&T and Bristol Myers Squibb. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science from Binghamton University and a Master's Degree in Management Systems Analysis from Kean University.

Glenn Noga is CIO of Polycom, Inc. responsible for overseeing all aspects of the global organization's IT infrastructure and IT management processes, including creating and managing a converged, global IP network for high-quality voice, video and data communications.

Prior to joining Polycom, Noga served in CIO/CTO capacities for leading companies including Knight-Ridder Digital, PalmSource, Handspring, Miadora.com, and Robert Half International. Noga also spent 16 years with Andersen Consulting, rising to partner within the global consulting organization. While at Andersen, Noga worked with a range of global companies in a variety of industries, including computer software, shipping, and manufacturing. Noga has a Master's Degree in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University.

Jim has been the CIO and deputy commissioner of NYPD reporting directly to the NYPD Police Commissioner since May of 2003. The NYPD IT Division is 2,000 people, including all law Enforcement and Homeland Security IT Responsibilities. A Strategic IT Plan has been developed to move NYPD systems into the 21st century and implementation began in 2003. In 2006, Jim received six awards for the Real Time Crime Center, including the Top Government Global award for the Real Time Crime Center. Jim accepted the 2006 Computerworld Honors Program's 21st Century Achievement Award for the NYPD's "Crime Data Warehouse" project, and was recently recognized as one of Computerworld's Premier 100 IT Leaders for 2007.

Jim's most important prior experience is with two major corporations. The first is with Kraft where he worked his way up to CIO from systems analyst. After Jim retired from Kraft, he was hired as VP and CIO by the Chairman and CEO of Stanley Works.

Sam Peterson, senior vice president, Technology, is responsible for IT infrastructure, development and website design at Overstock. Sam served as the vice president, Software Development from early 2005, and was appointed as director, Network and Systems Engineering in 2003, where he managed several development teams. During that time, he directed the technology team that built the Overstock.com Auctions website. Prior to joining Overstock in 1999, Sam was involved in creating several start-up internet ventures, including Fitnesoft, Inc.

Stephen Savage is senior vice president and chief information officer at CA, responsible for the company's global IT strategy, IT compliance, international IT organization and infrastructure. Additionally, he manages the implementation of a global ERP system and oversees the internal adoption and implementation of CA solutions based on the company's Enterprise IT Management (EITM) vision.

Stephen has built his career primarily overseas in sales, consulting and operations. Prior to his current role, he was responsible for the business planning cycle and the significant corporate transformation that redefined the company's business processes. Stephen has also been responsible for corporate strategy and SOX compliance and has held international roles within CA, which included running the Application Products Group in Europe as well as European professional services. Before joining CA, he was responsible for international operations of a consulting services company that was purchased by CA in 1998.

As Editorial Director of Computerworld and InfoWorld, Don is responsible for the editorial operations of the two IDG media outlets. Since joining Computerworld in 2000, Don has held several positions, including Editor-in-Chief. He previously spent eight years as Editor-in-Chief of the Hong Kong edition of Computerworld.

Don was presented with the 2007 Timothy White Award for Editorial Integrity by American Business Media, and he is a recipient of the prestigious Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for editorial excellence in news coverage. His weekly editorial column won national gold awards from the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) in 2006 and 2007, and a national gold award from Trade, Association and Business Publications International (TABPI) in 2006. Under his leadership, Computerworld has won dozens of editorial awards, including ASBPE's Magazine of the Year Award in 2004 and 2006. He holds a B.S. in Language degree (cum laude) from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

John M. Walker is the executive director of Information Technology of Verizon Wireless. Prior to serving in his current role, Mr. Walker was the program director of strategic planning at which point he contributed to the creation of both mid and long-term strategic visions for the wireless enterprise. In this role and since, Walker has been able to apply knowledge from a wide range of previous assignments in Information Technology and as a network engineer and manager on both landline and wireless networks in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania prior to arriving in Bedminster, New Jersey. Some examples of those assignments include the setup and operation of the first Remote Cluster Controlled ISDN switch from Nortel to leading the team and providing direction for the creation of a Data Rating application that accepted and managed the data records for early wireless data technologies in the Verizon Wireless footprint.

Gary Wilhelm is Englewood Hospital and Medical Center's manager of business and financial systems, responsible for selection, acquisition, implementation and development of solutions for the organization's Intranet/Internet, Manager and Employee Self Service, SQL Servers, and Business and Financial Management Systems.

Gary joined Englewood Hospital and Medical Center in 1986 and has spent over 12 years in Information Technology and 10 years in Financial Administration. Gary completed the survey for Computerworld's top 100 places to work in 2007 and enrolled the medical center in Microsoft's Windows Vista and Office 2007 early adaptor programs and oversaw the implementation. Gary was also nominated for Computerworld's Premier 100 IT Leaders. Gary holds a Bachelor of Science degree from William Paterson University.