Andrew Wilson

"The role of CIO has never been more critical, given how deeply technology is now embedded into the fabric of the enterprise.  Technology impact is exponentially greater now than in any previous era. Today’s CIOs are orchestrators and integrators in the ecosystem of platforms. They are leveraging an ever expanding set of digital capabilities and a more liquid workforce. We are embracing innovation and disruption. Successful brands seize the opportunity and create a an agile digital posture for their marketplace, consumers and employees.  Leading CIOs are at the heart of this digital revolution and a power house for successful change in their enterprises."

Ben Fried

“IT sits in middle of some hard realities. On the one hand, people are creatures of habit. On the other hand, computing is arguably the fastest moving discipline in the history of the enterprise. Realizing the advantages that come from computing’s rate of innovation means we have to force people out of their technology habits. Plan on making changes every year, and on building an end-to-end technology team that flourishes in change. For example, if you think of the help desk as being about reading FAQs and recipes, that’s a cognitive dissonance — you’re acting as if change is bad.”

Diana McKenzie

"The digital transformation that is happening across all industries today not only represents a great opportunity for growth, but it also presents new challenges that IT leaders must address. For one, it puts CIOs at the forefront of this change and places much of the responsibility on them to determine how to successfully leverage the influx of new technologies to help their companies more effectively engage their workforce, run more efficiently, and gain a competitive advantage. It’s also impacting talent as CIOs have to rethink the skills and capabilities required within their teams in order to keep pace with this change and successfully pivot as needed. And through all of this, CIOs must find the delicate balance that still enables them to drive forward on the day-to-day IT operations that are so critical to maintaining a company’s customer and revenue base."

Georgette Kiser

Ms. Kiser is responsible for leading the firm’s Global Technology and Solutions (GTS) organizaiton, developing and driving the IT strategy across the global enterprise, which includes the firm’s application development, data, digital, infrastructure, and program management and outsourcing activities. Prior she was a Vice President of T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. where she headed the Enterprise Solutions and Capabilities within the Services and Technology Organization. Georgette lead and managed teams that provided creative solutions and technological leverage for Investment Front Office, Trading, and Back office operations. Prior to T. Rowe Price Georgette worked for General Electric within their Aerospace Unit. She earned a B.S. in Mathematics / minor Computer Science from the University of Maryland, College Park, an M.S. in Mathematics from Villanova University, and an M.B.A from the University of Baltimore. Georgette has served on various non-profit boards including The Boys’ Latin School of Maryland, the T. Rowe Price Foundation Board, Maryland Business Roundtable STEMnet Advisory Board, University of Baltimore Foundation, and the Kennesaw State University Brian Jordan Center for Excellence and Professional Development at Lakepoint.

Jim Dubois

"Historically, IT did what the business wanted to do. But with analytics tools, and especially with big data, IT now sees end-to-end across the company more cleanly than most departments, so we are able to say, 'I understand that you want to make this technology investment to make a process better, but this investment actually won't help because of bottlenecks that are happening elsewhere in the company.'

Because IT can see so much, it is our responsibility to influence investment priorities, not just execute on priorities set by our internal business partners. We used to reward IT employees based on whether they delivered a project on time and whether the business was happy with what IT did. But we found that making business partners happy did not always mean that we were doing the right thing at the company level. "

Jonathan Chow

Jonathan has been deliberate in determining how various technologies will benefit Live Nation Entertainment and currently leads his team in improving existing business processes, and integrating systems that help realize significant benefits and improvements. Mr. Chow has continuously displayed his devotion to uplifting others by his active involvement in Live Nation’s Employee Resource Group called AZN Nation. Not only is Jonathan passionately involved in AZN Nation, he makes time to attend other ERG events as well in order to show his support to other diverse groups within our organization. In addition to his contributions within Live Nation, he is also involved in ASCEND, a non-profit professional association that enables its members, corporate partners and the community to realize the leadership potential of Pan-Asians in global corporations.

Kimberly Anstett

"We live in a world of big data - diverse data sets that are growing exponentially. Within Nielsen, our strategy has centered on digital transformation.  As part of this transformation, my CIO organization is: 1. Transforming our global Infrastructure footprint to support cloud-based platforms that deliver scalable, real-time solutions for our clients.   2. Driving automation in our business processes to enable large scale, global growth to serve our clients in over 100 markets. 3. Continuing to mature our cybersecurity posture. 4. Recruiting and focused on retaining top technology talent that is both ethnically and gender diverse."

Mark Sunday

Mark Sunday is responsible for providing the global communications, computing, and security infrastructure that enable Oracle's internal business operations. Sunday is also responsible for a variety of hosting and education services for Oracle customers. Additionally, he and his team strive to be the first adopter, biggest influencer, and best promoter of relevant Oracle technologies. Sunday routinely shares his insights in optimizing business results through the use of technology, developing world-class global teams, fueling innovation, and enabling IT operational excellence.

Prior to joining Oracle in 2006, Sunday was senior vice president and chief information officer of Siebel Systems. With more than 30 years in the high tech industry, he has also served in various IT leadership positions at Motorola, ST Microelectronics, and Texas Instruments. Sunday holds a BSE from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Southern Methodist University.

Sunday supports the innovation, technology, and science community, and serves as vice chair of the Utah Technology Council and as a board member of The Leonardo, a museum dedicated to the intersection of art, science, and technology.

Mike Benson

Mike is responsible for creating and maintaining information technology solutions for DIRECTV’s business operations nationwide and oversees reporting, analysis and infrastructure requirements, customer billing and payment systems, as well as customer care systems and financial, marketing, sales and decision support.

Before joining DIRECTV, Benson held a variety of executive level positions at AT&T Wireless where he had crossenterprise responsibility for the company’s information technology and national real-estate organizations. Most recently, as executive vice president and CIO, he directed a worldwide reengineering of AT&T Wireless’ internal service-based IT organization from 2000 to 2003. In 2000, as vice president of IT Infrastructure and Operations, Benson established technical direction for the company’s IT infrastructure team to support business growth through major acquisitions by initiating service quality programs and crisis management frameworks.

Benson worked for McCaw Cellular Communications from 1987 until 1995 when the company was acquired by AT&T Wireless. As vice president of Information Services, he led the development of the region’s information systems organization supporting significant business. During his service as director of development for McCaw’s cellular division, Benson translated customer and organizational objectives into technology strategies and reduced billing expenses by 50% division-wide.

Naresh Shanker

Shanker started his career at Hewlett-Packard in the Medical Products Group. From there, he moved to Agilent Technologies, where he held various leadership positions. Shanker then served as CIO at Palm Inc. When Palm was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2012, he returned to the company as CIO of Printing and Personal Systems.

Throughout the separation, Shanker worked alongside Scott Spradley, now CIO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and other IT executives to untangle decades’ worth of legacy architecture, applications, and other IT assets in preparation for the split. The pair, with their teams, codified the “24/48 rule” to escalate any material issues with the project within 24 hours of discovery, and then resolve those issues within 48 hours of escalation. As the teams worked intensely through ultrafast sprints, issues were resolved rapidly, which kept the project on time and on budget.

Roger Gurnani

Mr. Gurnani is responsible for developing and guiding Verizon’s technology strategy and investments. His role includes network and technology planning, development of architecture and roadmaps, continued evolution of digital platforms and oversight and direction for the CIO and CTO teams across Verizon. Before being named to his current position in January 2015, Gurnani was executive vice president and chief information officer for Verizon Communications.

Prior to 2010, Gurnani was senior vice president of new product development for Verizon Wireless and was responsible for the innovation, development and commercialization of consumer and business products.  Gurnani also served as the president of the West area for Verizon Wireless, responsible for the company's operations throughout the western United States.

Gurnani was one of the founding officers of Verizon Wireless. Until 2005, he served as vice president and chief information officer, helping to oversee the integration of the domestic wireless operations of Bell Atlantic, Vodafone AirTouch and GTE at the company's inception in 2000. He had previously served as vice president and chief information officer at Bell Atlantic Mobile.

Sigal Zarmi

Ms. Zarmi is responsible for developing and implementing PwC's IT transformation strategy; leading the delivery of IT services to the PwC network; and creating the technology roadmap for PwC's global portfolio of IT projects, initiatives and enterprise-wide systems.

Prior to joining PwC, Sigal was CIO for GE Capital, Americas, where she led technology efforts to drive business growth and enhance the customer experience for a $105B portfolio of commercial loans and leases. While in this role, she guided the business in effectively leveraging information technology in originations, risk management and operations, with a focus on simplification, productivity and compliance. She also spearheaded targeted analytics and mobile technology initiatives.

Sigal held numerous leadership roles with GE including CIO and Chief Quality Officer for GE Corporate Financial Services, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer of GE Energy Financial Services, CIO for GE's Financial Guarantee Insurance Company and CIO of GE Corporate Treasury. Prior to GE, she held leadership positions at two financial services firms and began her career as a programmer at Motorola.

Sondra L. Barbour

Under Sondra Barbour's leadership, Lockheed Martin’s Information Systems & Global Solutions (IS&GS) business area employs 26,000 experienced professionals, who provide advanced information systems, security and services supporting the critical, complex missions of customers worldwide. One of five business areas within Lockheed Martin, IS&GS is headquartered in Gaithersburg, Md., and operates in all 50 U.S. states and 20 countries around the world. It generated $8.4 billion in sales in 2013.

Ms. Barbour spent more than 20 years working at a predecessor of IS&GS, including serving as Chief Information Officer and Vice President of Operations for Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems & Solutions. In this role, she was responsible for the Information Technology, Facilities, Supply Chain, Technical Publications, and Environment, Health & Safety operations.  Her career includes extensive leadership and technology experience, notably in the design and development of large-scale information systems.

She currently serves on the Board of Directors for 3M and was selected by Fortune magazine as one of the “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” in 2014.  

Andy Crowder

Crowder has nearly 30 years of IT experience.

In addition to his previous work at MaineHealth, a not-for-profit integrated healthcare delivery network with 11 hospitals and 17,000 employees, Crowder served as CIO for Florida Hospital and Adventist Health System. He has deep implementation experience, including leading the successful Epic implementation at MaineHealth.

Scripps is working with Epic now on system design of its integrated enterprise electronic health record system, with implementation planned to begin in mid-2017. The new system will replace Scripps' existing ambulatory and inpatient EHRs and revenue cycle management system.

Cheryl Thomas

Serving Valero and its predecessor since 1984, Ms. Thomas has responsibility over the information services network and related technology at Valero. She has previously served as Senior Vice President of Information Services at Valero, managing the Information Systems Development, Support & Infrastructure teams and as Vice President of Retail Operations Support and Vice President of Retail Information Systems at Valero. She has played a key role in restructuring Valero’s Information Services Department and integrating all acquired assets into Valero’s complex systems. Ms. Thomas earned a business administration degree in Quantitative Analysis from California State University-Fresno in 1983, graduating Magna Cum Laude.

Dick Daniels

Daniels has been a technology professional for many years, and has held key technology leadership roles in the financial services industry. After accepting his first role with Kaiser Permanente in 2008, Daniels successfully managed various teams leading to increased consistency and lower costs for the organizations. In this role, he was accountable for strategy development and ensuring the delivery of innovative, leading-edge capabilities that drive Kaiser Permanente’s technology agenda. Daniels continues to prove his leadership capabilities in his current role as Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer. With more than 30 years of experience, he is responsible for 6,000 IT employees and the vision, strategy and execution of Kaiser Permanente’s information technology.

Guillermo Diaz

Guillermo Diaz, Jr., is responsible for Cisco’s global Information Technology organization and services. The focus is on transforming the overall IT experience by strengthening foundational business capabilities; enabling new business models such as service, software, and SaaS; and accelerating innovative business outcomes for Cisco customers, partners, and employees.

Since joining the company in 2000, Guillermo has been a major driver of the development of Cisco’s world-class IT organization by leading initiatives to build and manage significant business foundations. These include the Cisco IT infrastructure, network and management systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP), large-scale platforms, and Cisco’s Internet and intranet network foundations: Cisco.com and Cisco Employee Connection. Additionally, he has led primary business IT application areas such as Cisco’s $45B+ electronic commerce, technical services, professional services, service sales and marketing, customer service, Cisco Capital, and cloud/SaaS platforms.

Guillermo is a primary leader of the Cisco Diversity Council and the executive sponsor of Conexión, Cisco’s Hispanic/Latino employee resource network. Guillermo is the recipient of the 2015 Hispanic IT Executive Council (HITEC) “Estrella of the Year” award for outstanding individual leadership in the information technology field. 

Jim Fowler

"Our strategy around the digital and industrial is this recognition that machines are going to be more connected than ever. Those machines are generating data at exponentially greater rates than humans are, in human cloud environments. Companies that can figure out a way to combine all that data and information off of that hardware with how they run their companies are going to be more profitable. Bringing that back inside GE, how I think about that inside the company, as the IT leader, is that I need to make GE the best example of a digital industrial company in the world. How can I take information that is coming off of equipment in our four hundred manufacturing facilities around the world and use that to make those plants more productive?"

Karenann Terrell

"The thing I underestimated was the speed at which customers are changing in the retail business, the expectation of the customer to simplify the shopping experience, and especially the speeding up of the mobile experience. A primary motivator for us is the need for us to win, compete, and serve at the intersection of the digital and physical. Consumers want a frictionless experience.” Karenann joined Walmart in 2010. Previously, she was chief information officer of Baxter International, Inc. and chief information officer of the Chrysler Group and Mercedes-Benz North America. She began her career at General Motors where her responsibilities included automotive manufacturing and engineering as well as brand development at Cadillac. In 2013, Karenann was named CIO of the Year by the National Association of Software & Services Companies. She has been recognized as one of the 100 Most Influential Women in the Automotive Business by Automotive News.

Linda Clement-Holmes

“We are moving pretty aggressively towards the cloud. I think the cloud gives us a lot of capability and avenues that we have not yet been able to take advantage of at scale. We have shared services and this is scale at the next level. It has been the case that you can do a lot of things quickly that, before, would take us a long time to do.” Ms. Clement-Holmes is a 27-year P&G veteran, and maintains global business services responsibilities. Ms. Clement-Holmes joined P&G as a systems analyst and has since moved up the ladder in its information technology and business services units.  She has been an Independent Director of Cincinnati Financial Corp. since February 1, 2010.

Martin Chavez

Every 20 years in the software business, we get a paradigm shift. Cloud is the dominant paradigm of our time. Coming with that shift, we have another powerful thing that is happening at almost exactly the same time. The amount of money you had to invest to create a enterprise software company has plummeted, from $50 million to something like $5 million. Along with the proliferation of great, free open source software, all this has allowed the amount you have to invest to take a business software company and bring it to profitability to become a tiny fraction of what is used to be. The biggest question we ask ourselves is what these trends mean for us and, more importantly, what does it mean for our clients. We're in the early days."

Mike Crowe

Norm Fjeldheim

Fjeldheim oversees all aspects of Qualcomm’s information technology for all of the Company’s diverse business units. In addition to his IT responsibilities, Fjeldheim is also responsible for Corporate Procurement, and the Technical Publications and Configuration Management organizations. 

Since joining Qualcomm in 1987, he has served as manager, director and vice president of information technology. He has been instrumental in the creation and implementation of systems to support Qualcomm’s growing and diverse corporate needs. In addition, his tenure has seen the development and support of many of Qualcomm’s growing domestic and international business systems. Fjeldheim and the IT department have guided the selection and implementation of technology to link Qualcomm’s corporate sites across six continents.  
Under his leadership, Qualcomm IT has received a variety of honors. The department has been honored by Computerworld Magazine as one of the 100 Best Places to Work in IT for the last 8 years.   

Ross Meyercord

Ross is responsible for all internal applications, infrastructure and associated services at Salesforce.com. Salesforce IT continues to push the envelope on extending enterprise applications to the cloud, leveraging its own Force.com platform as well as third-party providers. Mr. Meyercord is focused on building the architecture, processes and organization to support a $10 billion startup. Prior to Salesforce, he spent 22 years at Accenture in a variety of IT delivery and leadership roles for high technology clients. While at Accenture, he was the Accenture partner at Cisco responsible for a large portfolio of IT programs and application support and led major multi-year transformation programs at EMC Corporation and Sun Microsystems. Mr. Meyercord holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California. He started his career as an intern at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View while in high school.

Sheila Jordan

Sheila is responsible for driving the company's information technology strategy and operations with a focus on building and supporting the global information technology effort.

Prior to joining Symantec, Jordan spent nine years at Cisco, where she served as senior vice president of IT, communication and collaboration. She was responsible for delivering and integrating key IT services for Cisco's global workforce, including the development of the company’s WebEx Social Collaboration platform, as well as the deployment of all emerging technologies. She also led mobility services and desktop strategy, in addition to launching an eStore for mobile that provides transactional applications.

Previously, Jordan held leadership roles at Grand Circle Corporation, as chief information officer and executive vice president, where she was responsible for developing the company’s technical strategy, and at The Walt Disney Company, where she was a senior vice president for Destination Disney and vice president of marketing and sales finance. She was also a senior financial analyst at Martin Marietta, a construction supplies aggregate company.

Outside of work, she is a frequent speaker on topics addressing collaboration, mobility, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) issues, and women's leadership. She also serves as a director for NextSpace, a provider of innovative physical and virtual infrastructure for entrepreneurs, and sits on the CIO Advisory Board for SnapLogic.

Susan O'Day

Susan leads Disney Technology Solutions and Services, delivering technology capabilities that enable business segment strategies while achieving enterprise efficiency and promoting cross-company collaborative innovation.

Susan joined Disney in 2008 from the global biopharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb, where she served as Chief Information Officer and Vice President of Global Shared Services. In that role, she oversaw the company’s information management, global technology strategy, which included enterprise programs that significantly improved and streamlined operations and processes.

Susan began her career at Florida-based transportation company CSX Corporation where she spent 11 years, ultimately becoming Assistant Vice President of Telecommunications. At CSX Corporation, she led the railroad division in telecommunications and computer operations, research and application development.

Susan holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from The College of William and Mary and a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from St. Lawrence University.  She is also a proud graduate and serves as President of the Board of Trustees for Miss Hall’s School in Pittsfield, MA.

Tony Scott

Mr. Scott is the third Chief Information Officer of the United States, appointed by President Obama on February 5th, 2015. Prior to his position in the White House, Mr. Scott led the global information technology group at VMware Inc., a position he had held since 2013. Prior to joining VMware Inc., Mr. Scott served as Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Microsoft from 2008 to 2013. Previously, he was the CIO at The Walt Disney Company from 2005 to 2008. From 1999 to 2005, Mr. Scott served as the Chief Technology Officer of Information Systems & Services at General Motors Corporation. He received a B.A. from the University of San Francisco and a J.D. from Santa Clara University.

Bask Iyer

I have often remarked that CIOs should be like surfers who are constantly inspired and interested in riding the waves of technology in front of them effectively every day.  We are firmly in the midst of two giant waves: Cloud and Mobile.  Enterprises have to take advantage of this and put some distance between their competition and themselves. CIOs’ leadership skills have to continue to scale and evolve as well. They must be universal enablers to all functions within the company and highly collaborative. Talent is the biggest differentiator for IT and the leader must be able to inspire the best to come and work his/her team including the millennials. The next waves are already forming: The Internet of All Things, machines building machines, and automation of every form of work including knowledge work. These are very much on the horizon.  Be excited not afraid….

Dan Morales

"Security is top of mind and will continue to challenge businesses and end users.  Technology will and is being leveraged in the form of Network Segmentation, encryption, multi-factor authentication and the use of advanced analytics to secure companies and end-users.  All this creates friction for end-users so leveraging technology to simplify the way employees are authenticated in a frictionless method will be key to maintaining a productive work force."

Ellen Barker

Ellen Barker leads TI’s Information Technology Services organization where she is responsible for IT strategies and operational management of IT applications and infrastructure worldwide that enable TI’s changing business needs. For the past three years, Ellen led the successful integration of TI’s acquisition of National Semiconductor and was also the Controller of TI’s Silicon Valley Analog business where her responsibilities included the operational and financial success of this $1B organization.

A 30-year TI veteran, Ellen joined TI as a new college hire. She has held a number of management positions within the company’s Analog, Embedded Processing, manufacturing and former defense divisions, including vice president over High Performance Analog Finance and Operations. She held leadership roles on  the integration teams for TI’s acquisitions of Burr Brown and Chipcon, contributing to TI’s growing Analog presence, and has also contributed her operational, financial and management expertise to diverse operations and functions across TI. Ellen believes in giving back and helping inspire the next generation of technology professionals. She is a stanch supporter of mentoring and during her tenure at TI, she has served as a recruiter for the University of Texas and the University of Dallas.

Jay Kerley

“In today’s world of cloud-based services, every employee with a credit card is their own CIO. It’s more important than ever that IT remain engaged with the business, stay in front of emerging trends and find ways to say ‘yes’ to new capabilities.” Mr. Kerley has more than 20 years of industry experience across business verticals including pharmaceutical R&D, global logistics and high-tech, leading IT transformation and globalization.  Under his executive leadership, he and his teams have been recognized for IT leadership in Computerworld’s “100 Best Places to Work in IT” (five years running) and “Premier 100 IT Leaders,” the “InformationWeek 500” and CIO’s “100 Business Technology Leaders.” 

John Tonnison

“Striking an effective and tolerable balance between the strategic IT bookends of innovation and regulation will, in my opinion, be the biggest issue facing CIOs in the near future. With digital disruption at the forefront of mind and opportunity, the expectation and alternate paths for innovation are at an unprecedented high. The challenge is to ensure that ideation and enablement of such valued creation is given enough fuel, while still meeting the duties of governance, cybersafety and architecturally-led reliability, efficiency and economics.”

Kim Stevenson

“This is a really unique time for IT. We have major trends impacting all of us: cloud, consumerization, business intelligence and social computing. Underlying those four major trends are significant security implications. Those five things are what we are focused on at Intel. My role is to help our IT employees understand those priorities and make sure that our IT plans not just align to those priorities, but enable the successful execution of those priorities. The skills needed to be successful in this new computing era by and large don’t exist. So we have to invest and develop those skills and take our workforce forward. Things like data curator; that’s a skill that’s needed in big data. We didn’t even know of that a few years ago.”

Marcy Klevorn

Klevorn has spent her entire career in IT with Ford, serving in a variety of positions in The Americas, Ford of Europe and Ford Credit.

She began her career at Ford in 1983 in Telecommunications Services and worked at various positions within Ford IT and Ford Credit through August 2003. In late 2003, as consulting program manager for the purchasing business systems initiative eVEREST, Klevorn led the analysis and decision to migrate back to legacy systems.

In 2005, she was appointed Product Lifecycle Management global director and implemented process changes in data and information management across product creation. In 2006, as Enterprise Defragmentation director, Klevorn led the strategy and implementation of infrastructure defragmentation, data center consolidation and overall systems management at Ford. From May 2006 through September 2011, she led Ford's IT Infrastructure organization. From September 2011 through September 2013, Klevorn served as IT Director for Ford of Europe, and was a member of the Ford of Europe Operating Committee (EOC).   In her role as CIO, Ms. Klevorn oversees the information technology services for all of the company’s operations globally

Michael Hedges

Mike oversees the Global IT function and provides strategic IT leadership for the company. Mike has spent the last 15 years of his career at Medtronic and is respected across the organization for his pragmatic leadership and vision. Under his leadership, the company has been successful in implementing a global IT organization, including enterprise-wide systems such as SAP. Before being named CIO in 2008, Mike held positions as international information technology director and vice president for enterprise applications.

During his tenure as CIO, Medtronic has received many industry awards and honors, including Computerworld Top 100 Best Places to Work in IT, InformationWeek 500, and PilotHouse Best Overall IT Innovator. Mike was named a Top 10 CIO Breakaway Leader by the CIO Leadership Network in 2014 and 2010.  He is also a champion for STEM-related education opportunities, partnering with Genesys Works to provide IT internships for underprivileged high school students. 

Mary Krakaeur

Ms. Krakaeur leads EMC’s Information Technology, Global Business Services, and Global Centers of Excellence organizations. Together, these teams deliver world-class services to EMC, enabling everything from innovation to revenue generation to service and support and more. This includes leading EMC’s own IT organization, with its award-winning IT Proven program for customers.

A 30-year industry veteran, ML has worked with many customers to transform their IT infrastructures and deliver business value. She joined EMC in 2008 to lead EMC’s Technology Services & Solutions business, focused on designing, implementing, and integrating EMC technology and solutions into customers’ IT environments, as well as EMC’s Managed Services business, focused on operating customers’ IT environments at best-in-class levels.

Prior to her current role, Krakauer was Executive Vice President, Business Development for Global Enterprise Services. Before that she led EMC's global Human Resources organization for three years, during which time EMC was recognized as a Top 25 Multinational Great Place to Work in 2014 and 2015, a Noteworthy Company by Diversity Inc. in 2015, and a Top 100 HR organization by Workforce Magazine in 2014.

Ramesh Nair

"IT is dead. Long live IT!

In the old days, the computer folks in organizations knew what they were dealing with: computers. Not any longer.

Those computers resided, very visibly, somewhere on the company premises. Now the IT people deal with technology that at once is more pervasive and (ironically) less visible. We saw that for the first time when smartphones became popular and organizations brought in BYOD policies allowing employees to use their personal technology in the workplace. Floating above all this is the cloud, allowing access to a vast range of technology to anyone anywhere with an internet connection.

The challenge for CIOs is how to make meaningful sense of the technological power available in traditional computers, devices, and the cloud, and to use it for business advantage. The opportunity for the CIOs is huge, but so is the risk of getting it wrong. In this scenario, CIOs need to let go of some of the past conceptions about how technology is managed in the organization. In the past, all the technology used to be run, controlled and made available by the IT organization under the CIO. We need to be more open in terms of where the technology comes from and who runs and controls it, while making sure that the basic tenets of technology management are intact.

CIOs need to be able to embrace the fact that technology will come in different forms from different sources, including traditionally non-technology products like appliances, vehicles and machines. Much of the technology will also come from the ‘tap’ through a consumption model. Tomorrow’s CIO needs to see his or her role more in terms of looking at the components of ready-made, available technology and integrating them seamlessly and securely to deliver business needs. For example, a self-driving car could become an automated component of an organization’s technology framework for delivery and logistics.

This also means CIOs should be more wary of larger investments that will tie them to longer payback schedules. We need to be able to leverage investments faster and flex the technology landscape as the ecosystem changes.  That also means that CIOs will need to work on greater speed to market for technology changes, and more flexible and service based architecture.

Some aspects like connectivity and computing power, which used to drive technological change and decisions in the past, have become universally-available commodities. CIOs will perforce need to spend less time in implementing and sustaining these.

We are moving into an ‘everything is IT’ paradigm where everything is a computer in the old sense, or nothing is a computer in the old sense, depending upon the way you want to look at it.

So, again I say, IT is dead. Long live IT! "

Ryan Neading

Ryan Neading leads the Rackspace IT team as Chief Information Officer, a role in which he steers the decisions that shape the company’s information technology strategies and policies. His responsibilities include: internal IT systems and tools, technology operations, global billing systems, operational metrics, and consulting with external suppliers, providers, and customers on their journey to the cloud.

Ryan is passionate about technology. He joined Rackspace after more than a decade in various leadership roles at eBay Inc.—most recently as co-leader of the eBay Inc. development site in Austin.

Ryan is active within the Teravista Elementary School community, serving in and donating technology equipment to The Leader in Me—an innovative, school-wide program that emphasizes a culture of student empowerment and helps children reach their full potential. He also participates in GirlStart, an initiative that encourages girls in science, technology, engineering, and math.

Sherry Neubert

Neubert joined Goodyear in 2002. She has held various leadership roles in the company’s information technology operations, and since November 2010 has been vice president of the Global Project Management Office at Goodyear. As CIO, Neubert holds responsibility over Goodyear's TireTrac program. Tire Trac is a cloud-based tire-performance tracking tool with a centralized database and Web user interface. Tire Trac records detailed tire performance data and then processes that data into easy-to-understand reports on tire and maintenance program performance. Commercial tire dealers use Tire Trac to help trucking fleets understand how tires and maintenance programs are performing and identify opportunities for commercial fleets to save money and operate more efficiently.

Neubert holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial management from the University of Akron and an MBA from Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management. She serves on the board of trustees for Leadership Akron and is a graduate of the program. Neubert also is a community advisory board member for the LeBron James Family Foundation.

Timothy Campos

"Growing our workforce effectively is the No. 1 determinant of our ability to continue to be successful as a corporation. We take it very, very seriously and we put a ton of tools around the recruiting process.

We found that tweaking off-the-shelf software would force us to adapt our process to the tools. We want to do the opposite: make our process better, more efficient, faster. Our tools are very purpose-built. It tells me all of the people I have to interview today. I submit my opinion on whether someone should be hired or not, and the report goes on its merry way. When recruiters schedule interviews, they have a pipeline of candidates, roles and interview panelists. All of that is in a database. All of the complexity of detail here is managed by the tools. The tool makes the scheduling decisions. It says, 'Here is the link to the feedback form,' and it makes sure that the right resume gets there. It is all taken care of.

The effect is that we can interview thousands of people with much less effort than if we tried to do all of this stuff manually or with off-the-shelf tools. The best way to make a business process efficient is to completely automate it."

     Santa Monica, California

The gaming industry has had a clamorous time dealing with the fact that girls game too. Activision Blizzard has made strides to be at the forefront of appealing to women gamers, including the major billion dollar purchase of Candy Crush developer King Digital whose consumers are mostly female.

San Jose, California

Adobe Systems President and CEO Shantanu Narayen says success can be attributed to a corporate culture that believes, “Great ideas come from everywhere in the company. In today’s ultra-competitive environment, it’s critical to cultivate a strong, diverse workforce who brings their best ideas to work every day. We are committed to making Adobe a great place to work, where everyone can contribute and succeed.”

     San Francisco, California

Airbnb has a unique problem in that they not only worry about the diversity of their workforce, but also the ability for minorities to use the product in the same way as their white peers. This is why the company's diversity lead, David King, is titled Head of Diversity and Belonging. As a Peace Corps official, Mr. King traveled the world over: “The work I did at the Peace Corps involved the support of employees in 65 different countries. There might be an LGBT volunteer in Uganda, or an African-American volunteer in the Ukraine, which could be tough. Or a woman in Jordan. My job was to make sure that people felt like they belonged.” He continues that work at Airbnb.

     Mountain View, California

Google made waves when it released its initial diversity report in 2014, confirming that Silicon Valley had a severe lack of women and minorities. They were willing to take the press hit, however, as part of an effort to shake up those poor foundations. Yolanda Mangolini, Director of Diversity & Inclusion explained, "what was most important to us was changing the face of technology and driving the change in the industry. So we were willing to take that risk if it meant that more people were going to be brought into the conversation and that we could unite this dialogue around diversity in the tech industry."

     Seattle, Washington

     Cupertino, California

CEO Tim Cook has been very visible in supporting not only diversity in Apple's workforce, but the acceptance of diversity in the community at large. He believes our collective task is to reach out to all people who feel limited due to their differences and recognize that “creativity and innovation can only flourish when you embrace people’s differences.” His support for the LGBT community has served as an inspiration for many, leading to his Visibility Award from the Human Rights Campaign.

     Bedminster, New Jersey

Rick Gomez, Executive Director of Workforce Inclusion & Diversity, says it is important to tackle the talent pipeline by allying with student organizations like the Career Opportunities for Students with Disabilities to “fill the needs of the organization, and at the same time, build our brand and recruit top campus talent – creating a win for the organization and a win for AT&T.”

     Irvine, California

Broadcom is using its women's ERG (BWN) to accelerate the advancement of women at Broadcom and cultivate a community of empowered leaders. With chapters in North America, India, Singapore and UK, BWN has more than 650 members. And with connections to groups like the Society for Women Engineers, Anita Borg Institute, Girls Who Code and IEEE Women in Engineering, members gain access to mentors, development opportunities and a range of leadership engagement activities.

     San Jose, California

Cisco is tackling the diversity question from the top down - promoting women and minorities into senior positions - and the bottom up - confronting the pipeline problem. The company is a founding member of US2020, a platform that helps connect STEM professionals with girls and underrepresented minorities from kindergarten through college age. Cisco has pledged that by 2020, 20% of its U.S. staff will volunteer at least 20 hours each year to inspire students in STEM education.

     Round Rock, Texas

Marie Moynihan, Chief Diversity Officer and Vice President of Talent, explains that diversity "forces a more challenging conversation and ultimately better decisions." There is vast evidence indicating that a "more diverse team can result in a better return on equity." Dell hopes that flexible work options will allow more women to grow into leadership positions without forgoing the benefits of growing a family.

     Redwood City, California

Electronic Arts is actively fighting the stereotype that the gaming industry doesn't accept women. Peter Moore, COO, stated, “We’ve gone from the personification of what we believe women should look like in a video game, to actually involving women in making video games, to today where at Electronic Arts we have some of our most powerful franchises overseen by women who manage hundreds of men,” including franchises like The Sims and Star Wars.

     San Jose, California

Though there is still more work to do, especially when it comes to technical jobs, ebay has continued to outpace its peer in the tech industry on its employment figures of women and minorities, all the way up to leadership levels. eBay General Counsel Mari Oh Huber talks about the importance in encouraging and promoting talented women from entry-level to corporate boardrooms. “Make it about the business imperative and have men, in addition to women, drive closing the gap,” she says.

     Menlo Park, California

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, and Sheryl Sandberg, COO, have been highly visible when it comes to diversity in tech. Diversity lead Maxine Williams says this is important; having "leaders that actually lead and not just talk about it. We lead by being open, being honest. We encourage people to have frank conversations about difficult topics all the time. We say, 'Just because you don't know exactly what to say, the worst thing is being paralyzed by your discomfort and we don't get through it.' So we invite the same openness that we want to see in the world and we spend a lot of time fostering internally as well."

Palo Alto, California

HP has the most diverse Board of Directors of any technology company in the US and plans to continue to grow its diverse representation at all levels of the company.  Chief Diversity Officer, Lesley Slaton Brown, adds, "we’re also in the process of appointing business and site-based diversity leads across the company to provide guidance and sponsorship" with the firm belief that "diversity and inclusion helps drive new business, fuel innovation, and attract and attain the best employees. "

     Armonk, New York

     Santa Clara, California

Danielle Brown, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Intel, told Tech Diversity Magazine that diversity & inclusion are "key to Intel’s evolution and driving forces for our continued relevancy and growth. That is why in January 2015, Intel set an ambitious goal to be the first high technology company to reach full representation of women and underrepresented minorities in its U.S. workforce by 2020. Intel invested $300M in the Diversity in Technology Initiative to support this goal and our broader goal of improving diversity in the entire technology industry." Already there's been progress with a 5.8% increase in technical females year over year.

     Bethesda, Maryland

Lockheed Martin has successfully partnered with the US Department of Energy to encourage more Americans in underrepresented communities to pursue careers in STEM fields. CEO Marilyn Hewson remarked, "at Lockheed Martin, we know firsthand that it's critically important and that we are at our best when we bring together talented people with diverse capabilities, perspectives and experiences to solve tough problems."

     Minneapolis, Minnesota

“As a world leader in medical technology, services and solutions, Medtronic is committed to global diversity and inclusion in our workplace. This focus is consistent with our Mission – to recognize the personal worth of employees – enabling us to better serve our patients, partners, and customers," says Carol Surface, Chief Human Resources Officer.

     Redmond, Washington

CEO Satya Nadella admits the tech giant is not near where it wants to be when it comes to diversity in its workforce, but states that they remain committed to the effort: "When we sort of say everything at Microsoft starts with our mission, and we want to talk about empowering the world and empowering every person on the planet, it has to start with diversity and inclusion right here at Microsoft, and us, representing the world internally."

Falls Church, Virginia

The Northrop Grumman Foundation and the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) have launched a three-year, $2-million program designed to expand the nation’s engineering workforce through a partnership with Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The Northrop Grumman Corporation/NSBE Integrated Pipeline Program, funded by the Northrop Grumman Foundation, will provide 72 engineering students with $8,000 scholarship grants, internships with Northrop Grumman and year-round academic and professional development support. The program’s three HBCU partners — Florida A&M University, Howard University and North Carolina A&T State University — will receive grants, technical assistance and a package of programs researched and managed by NSBE, to increase their already high capacity to recruit, retain and graduate engineers.

     Santa Clara, California

Senior Director of Corporate Responsibility, Tonie Hansen, says of Nvidia's progress, "In addition to enhancing our parental leave policy, we’ve upgraded our Mother’s Rooms, and our efforts on behalf of LGBT employees has brought us a 100% score in the Corporate Equality Index. We’ll soon be introducing unconscious bias awareness training, and we’ve launched a mentoring program that’s being piloted with over 400 women in technical roles. We’re working on improving the number of underrepresented employees we hire, and have made progress in the past few years. Last year, we tripled the number of diversity events that we attended and reached 30,000 diverse candidates."

     Redwood City, California

Oracle partners with professional associations and nonprofit organizations to increase their success in recruiting top diverse talent. Fostering strong relationships with many organizations across the US to ensure that no talent is left behind, their partners include: National Society for Hispanic Professionals, Women in Technology, Recruit Military, and Black Data Processing Associates.

     Palo Alto, California

     Norwalk, Connecticut

The Priceline board of trustees is holding its annual meeting today, June 2, already sent on the mission by the company’s nominating and corporate governance committee to include race and gender criteria when it considers nominating board members. In its pursuit of board diversity, Priceline seeks to leverage the diversity of thought that comes from unique backgrounds to enable greater business growth.

     San Diego, California

Central to Qualcomm's efforts are Qualcomm Women in Science and Engineering (QWISE) and Qualcomm Females Influencing Information Technology (QFINITY), two of their employee networks. QWISE’s mission is to promote the personal and professional growth of women in technology at Qualcomm and in the community. The group provides female employees with a platform for sharing ideas, seeking guidance, discussing challenges and supporting our recruitment and retention programs. More than 1,600 Qualcomm employees belong to 12 QWISE chapters in Brazil, Canada, Europe, India, Singapore and the United States. QWISE programs have provided one-on-one mentoring for hundreds of Qualcomm employees and interns, along with networking opportunities, community outreach, a popular bimonthly speaker series and more.

     San Francisco, California

Executive Vice President of Global Employee Success, Cindy Robbins, explained, "On the hiring front, we are addressing unconscious bias through more awareness training and by instituting more competencies-based interviewing processes. We’ve also put in place a process where we interview at least one female candidate or underrepresented minority for executive positions. We are on the path to increasing diversity and inclusion at all levels at Salesforce." Over the past year, Salesforce has experienced a 5% increase in women and minority hires in the U.S. along  with a 27% increase in females in leadership positions globally. Ms. Robbins continued, "We recognize we have a long way to go, but when we rally around a goal and work together as a team, we believe we can accomplish anything."

     Mountain View, California

Ruha Devanesan, Manager of Diversity & Inclusion, says, "Symantec is committed to workplace equality and strives to create an environment where all employees are valued and respected for their individual differences and unique perspectives" which earned the company a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign's 'Corporate Equality Index.' Ms. Devanesan explained, "While our LGBT employee resource group, Sympride, provides community for our LGBT employees worldwide through a virtual network of global chapters, it is also a major way in which Symantec gauges what the needs of our LGBT employees are, in terms of workplace resources and policies. We’ve worked with SymPride to draft and publish our first set of guidelines for transgender employees looking to undergo gender transition in the workplace.  We also rolled out our first all-gender bathrooms at some campuses late last year and are working to make all single-stall bathrooms at our campuses similarly inclusive."

     Dallas, Texas

Chairman, President and CEO Rich Templeton remarks that "An inclusive environment is essential at TI. It enables our global workforce to contribute openly and without barriers. In this environment, diversity thrives and every employee – no matter where they are and what job they hold – has the opportunity to take part in the company’s success. We believe our rich diversity improves thought processes, encourages collaboration, and ignites creative solutions."

     Waltham, Massachusetts

Thermo Fisher Scientific has partnered with the Veteran Jobs Mission to improve employment prospects for U.S. military veterans. Alan K. Nevel, Director of Global Diversity & Inclusion, explains, “The unique skills and experiences that veterans bring to Thermo Fisher Scientific result in a competitive advantage for us in the marketplace. By partnering with the Veteran Jobs Mission and its member companies, we are not only strengthening our position as an employer of choice, but also making a real difference in the lives of Veterans and their families."

     San Francisco, California

A Pew poll found that Twitter is the social media platform used more often by minorities than Caucasians, signifying the importance for the company to speak to the desires of diverse groups. As part of that effort, Twitter appointed Debra Lee, chairman and chief executive of BET Networks, to the Board of Directors - which had been all-male until 2013 and all-Caucasian until 2015. Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO, has promised to continue the board's diversification.

San Francisco, California

Uber has been a wonderful tool for people of color who otherwise might be unable to hail a ride from traditional taxi services due to racial discrimination. Uber pledges to do more, partnering with the White House, Kapor Center and others in a commitment to ensure all Oakland students have access to computer science education and career pathways. “We are excited to do our part to empower the community we will call home,” said Damien Hooper-Campbell, Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion. “Uber is committed to developing and mentoring Oakland youth so they become future innovators and leaders.”

     New York, New York

Verizon Wireless has shown a commitment to furthering the development of working women leaders in order to help close the representation gap of women in leadership positions. Verizon has been proactive in providing high potential women the opportunity to participate in personal and professional developmental activities, earning the honor of being named one of the Best Companies for Multicultural Women from Working Mother.

Sunnyvale, California

Yahoo has recently introduced a new cryopreservation benefit that covers the freezing, storage and thawing of oocytes (egg cells), sperm and embryos (when not undergoing covered active infertility treatment). Carolyn Clark, Director of Yahoo Communications explains, "Cryopreservation is part of a suite of family benefits that Yahoo offers including generous parental leave program, infertility benefits, adoption assistance and more." The sum total will greatly benefit working women who also want to be mothers.