03-17-2011 TechExecs Atlanta Technology Expo & IT Leadership Forums

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PANELISTS INFORMATION

Panelist & Presenter Bios

Cindy Tierney
CIO 
Beazer Homes

Cindy Tierney’s career encompasses more than 20 years of experience in leading and energizing the key strategic and operational facets of organizations to higher levels of performance. Her executive business vision and strategy paired with Cindy’s knowledge of technology and operations all contribute to make her a unique and valuable executive for today’s organization.  

Cindy is currently the CIO and SVP of Beazer Homes headquartered here in Atlanta.  She is responsible for assessing the relative impact of emerging technology to strategic business needs and interprets their meaning to the organization’s senior leadership team.  In her current role, she participates in overall business technology planning, bringing a current knowledge and future vision of technology and systems as related to the company’s year over year double digit growth or to a downturn industry position.   She provides key strategic, people and crisis management while continuing to deliver day-to-day operation execution.

Cindy has served in a number of executive positions.  At NSI, she was the CIO responsible for strategic planning, systems and technology.  At Comdisco (once the largest disaster recovery company in the world), Cindy was the SVP of Global Strategic Advisory Services.   As the Senior Executive Director for Business Systems and Planning at Office Depot, Cindy was instrumental in the growth of the company from 200 stores to over 500 stores.  Her leadership as the Chairperson of the Mergers & Acquisitions team resulted in the successful integration of 21 companies and the growth of the successful corporate sales organization.  Cindy was instrumental in creating and implementing a successful shift to and integration of the web as a strategic differentiator as well as for the   Contact and Delivery Center technology for Office Depot.   

Cindy has a Bachelor of Science from Georgia Southern University and is a native of Atlanta, GA.  Cindy has two wonderful daughters, Chase and Reese.

Highlights:

-    Woman of the Year in Technology Enterprise Business Nominee, 2006
-    Georgia CIO of the Year Awards Enterprise Finalist, 2006/2008
-    Atlanta CIO Executive Summit Best in Practice Speaker, 2006
-    Georgia Southern University College 2007 Alumni of the Year 
-    Georgia State Bergeron Mentor Advisor
-    Pathbuilders Mentor Program
-    Digital Ball Co-Chair 2009/2010

Memberships
-    Builders Homesite Inc. Board Advisory Council
-    GCLA Advisory Board Member, Georgia CIO Leadership Association
-    TechBridge Board, Vice-Chair 
-    Georgia Southern University College of IT, Board Member

Jay Ferro
VP & CIO
Chartis Aerospace

Jay Ferro is a proven Senior Information Technology Executive with expertise in revitalizing organizations, building high performing teams,and enabling business strategies through successful delivery of technology. As a respected leader with a clear, focused vision, he has seen notable results throughout his career. He has been instrumental in IT reorganization efforts and has restored business confidence by consistently delivering products, services, and programs to maximize profits.

Jay is currently Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Chartis Aerospace (formerly AIG Aviation), a leading global aerospace insurer.  He is responsible for the IT strategy, operations, processes and people of the worldwide IT organization and is responsible for supporting the growth of Chartis Aerospace’s business through collaboration with the business units on all IT related programs. Under his leadership, the IT organization has shown tremendous growth in its ability to successfully deliver revenue generating and expense saving projects. 

Starting in Information Technology in technical support, project management and application development roles, his career escalated rapidly. He gained invaluable experience as Director of Information Technology at Mariner Health Care; one of the largest providers of short-term and long-term health care services in the United States. Over the last 6+ years with AIG/Chartis Insurance, Jay has implemented numerous improvements that have delivered tremendous value to his organization while managing significant organizational change in a turbulent market environment. In addition to his role as AVP of Information Technology with AIG Personal Lines, Jay was selected as CFO for Operations and Systems in 2006 and led multiple global IT Finance and Governance Standards initiatives that resulted in millions of dollars in savings for the organization. Jay continues to be a thought leader in the Information Technology arena, specifically in the areas of Program Management, Governance, IT Finance, and Strategic Planning and is a frequent guest speaker and panelist in the Metro Atlanta area. In recognition of his accomplishments, Jay was selected as a finalist for Georgia CIO of the Year in 2010 and is currently serving as Vice President of Membership for the Georgia CIO Leadership Association. 

His commitment and dedication to community involvement is evidenced by the time and energy he contributes. He has founded the non-profit group, Priscilla’s Promise, which raises funds for cervical cancer education and research, and currently serves as its Executive Director. He is also actively involved with TechBridge, an Atlanta-based nonprofit organization which helps other nonprofits use technology to improve their capability to serve others. 

Jay earned both his Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and his Master’s of Business Administration from The University of Georgia. Jay continues to be involved with his alma mater, serving in leadership roles with the UGA Alumni Association and the Terry College of Business. Jay resides in the Metro Atlanta Area with his 3 amazing sons, Trey, Connor and Alex.

Robert A. DeVita
Director, Telx
Community: TechExecs Network Dallas Chapter Vice Chair

Robert currently heads Telx's South Western team including sales (direct and channel), marketing, and business development. He was instrumental in leading business development teams for some of Telx's largest enterprise clients, including, 7-Eleven and Myspace. His teams have successfully managed and grown revenue for Telx's largest clients throughout the Texas and Arizona Markets.Robert comes to Telx from RightNow Technologies, Robert was instrumental is starting RightNow (RNT) Interactive Voice Service Division as the Director of IVR Service, leading the sales and development effort for the Central U.S. Prior to RightNow, Robert spent 8 years working with AT&T's largest Media and Internet Companies. His leadership and success has been recognized by AT&T, Gartner Group and Ziff Davis Media. Robert was a 2 time Gold Club winner with AT&T, given to AT&T's Top 5% of Account Managers. Robert has been instrumental in building AT&T's Managed Services Business; he has lead Sales Teams that have been awarded over $200m in Gross Revenue for AT&T. Some of these offerings include, AT&T Managed Hosting, AT&T Managed Cable IP Service and VoIP Contact Center MigrationsRobert specializes in the following areas and was recognized by AT&T as a SME in these fields, Enterprise Hosting (Managed and Collocation), Partnership Marketing and Alliances, MPLS Networking, VoIP Next Generation Contact Centers. Robert is a graduate of Long Island University, C.W. Post Campus, with a Bachelors Degree. He was recognized as the most outstanding Junior at C.W. Post during is tenure. Robert, a native of New York, now resides in Dallas, TX with his wife Kara and their daughters Angelina & Mia.

TechExecs Network - Chapter Chairs -Bio

Chapter Chair
Sandra Hofmann,
CIO-in-residence for the Advanced Technology
Development Center (ATDC) at Georgia Tech

Sandra Hofmann is an innovative and inspiring executive who understands and drives the value of alignment across the enterprise and has successfully provided leadership to technology and manufacturing professionals for over 25 years. Sandy's broad management experience, including 14 years with IBM, has enabled her to effectively guide teams to realize goals and deliver desired results. Particularly adept at addressing issues associated with acquired and merged businesses, Sandy has frequently been recruited to address the most difficult and challenging environments.Sandy has repeatedly demonstrated her exceptional strength of character and leadership, as well as her ability to serve as a change agent. She led the transition activities for one of the first application spin-offs from IBM. She faced the unique challenge of breaking the gender barrier at Simplex, while concurrently transforming the way service was delivered. She joined MAPICS, their first woman to be a member of the executive team, as the Vice President and General Manager for a newly acquired business unit and was then a lead participant in the company's re-engineering as a functional organization. She then stepped into the unique dual role of CIO and Chief People Officer and established the company's organizational model for the "virtual office” which provided extraordinary results in enterprise efficiency and expense benefits. Her introduction of information liberation, a project management office and portfolio management allowed the company to rapidly assimilate acquisitions (doubling in size) and then obtain full integration in less than six months.

Sandy's management philosophy, leadership characteristics and business results have been acknowledged by numerous industry recognitions: Georgia CIO Leadership Association (GCLA) selected Sandy as the Georgia CIO of the Year in the 2003 regional category. The award honors individuals who have demonstrated outstanding technology leadership in Georgia and excellence in managing their organization's enterprise wide information systems. In 2003 she was selected as one of five finalists for Woman of the Year in Technology by Georgia Technology Association and again in 2004 she was one of seven finalists. Articles highlighting Sandy's results have been published in CIO and CFO Magazine, CIO Insight, CIO Quarterly, Workforce Management, Human Resource Executive, and PINK Magazine. Able to present and discuss information and strategies in a way that establishes rapport, persuades others, and gains commitment, Sandy is an often requested speaker and panelist for technology and community events.

Sandy's influence reaches beyond her professional undertakings and she is very engaged in her community with the promotion of technology and ethical leadership. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for AAA Auto Club South, TechBridge, Women in Technology, and is the past chairman for the Board of Directors for Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM-Atlanta chapter). A member of GCLA and the Board of Directors Network, Sandy participates on numerous advisory boards including Turknett Leadership Group.

Sandy graduated from Georgia State University with a bachelor of science in education, has completed an intensive program for executive management at Stanford University and received Corporate Directors certification from University of Georgia Terry College of Business. A self-proclaimed "biblioholic”, Sandy has an extensive personal library, enjoys herb gardening, weaving, entertaining, and target pistol shooting.

Currently Sandy is serving as "CIO-in-Residence” with the Advanced Technology Development Center. Headquartered at Georgia Tech, ATDC is a nationally recognized science and technology incubator that helps Georgia entrepreneurs launch and build successful companies. Most recently she was Chief Operating Officer at Closets and More, the Southeast's largest custom closet design, installation, and manufacturer. Prior to that, Sandy served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Turknett Leadership Group. Turknett Leadership Group is a character-based management and consulting firm that focuses on aligning strategy, leadership and culture by providing services in the areas of Executive Development, Selection & Integration; Succession Planning; Team Assessment and Development; Ethics, Retention and Culture Consulting.

Dr. Kambiz Khadem
Executive Managing Director
Strategic Sphere

Dr. Kambiz Khadem is the founding partner and Senior Executive Director of Strategic Sphere Corporation in Atlanta, Georgia. He has more than 16 years of experience in Enterprise Strategic Management, Strategic Alignment, Enterprise Software Development, Information Technology solutions, and Enterprise Portfolio and Program Management.During his corporate courier companies such as UPS, Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques (SITA), and AT&T have benefited from his solutions, experience and expertise. As the direct result of his extensive research and real-world experience, Dr. Khadem created the performance Continuum Framework which is a comprehensive strategic management discovery, planning, implementation, execution and measurement system that drives sets of realistic and relevant performance equilibrium factors supporting the organization's vision, mission and strategic objectives to a comprehensive range of organizational performance indicators, to provide an top-down end-to-end business and operational continuity.Additionally, Dr. Khadem has been teaching corporate and college courses as a professor, mostly in Strategic Management, Information Technology, Project and Program Management, e-commerce and computer science. Dr. Khadem is holding Bachelors of Science in Computer Science, a masters degree in Global Technology Management and a doctorate degree in Strategic Management. He currently continues his post-doctoral education at Harvard University. He has extensive research in the area of Strategic planning and Strategic Alignment in conjunction with his dissertation.

Diane Young
TechExecs TV Host
Atlanta Social Coordinator

TechExecs Network - National Bio

Anthony Huang
Founder & CEO
TechExecs Network | Senior IT Executives Network
Tony@TechExecs.Net | 866.661.0258

A well known industry icon, Anthony Huang has been a successful entrepreneur with a solid track record of having started and sold four profitable business ventures along with serving as the CIO for two venture backed healthcare corporations. Presently, Anthony serves as the CEO of TechExecs Network overseeing national growth activities, maintaining national CIO relationships, serving as the Chief Strategist for TechExecs Social Applications Team, an Angel Investor and Venture Strategist. Anthony Huang founded Techxans and TechExecs Network back in 2000. Techxans and TechExecs Network received its worldwide recognition for helping to launch EnronX.org which was the largest Ex-Enron social networking site. The entity was mentioned on the front page of The Wall Street Journal, CIO Magazine along with over 33 global TV, Radio and News Agencies. Prior to TechExecs Network, Anthony Huang was the CEO of Rexton InterActive, a Premium IBM Business Partner, that led the market in providing strategic web advisory for over 100 major clients across 23 different industries. Anthony began his career with Apple Computers and Ernst & Young and was a recipient of the Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 1998 by The Greater Houston Partnership. He has been a speaker at numerous conferences including InformationWeek, Gartner Midsize Enterprise Summit, TiE Venture Forums and Red Herring Venture Forums. Anthony graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a BBA in Management Information Systems, Pursued Innovations Management Training with MIT, and lives in Houston with his wife and two children.

Rick Kinnard
Events & Sponsorship Manager
TechExecs Network | Senior IT Executives Network
Rick@TechExecs.Net | 866.497.4070

Prior to working full time at TechExecs National, Rick served as the Dallas TechExecs Chapter Vice Chair for two years. He is presently responsible for managing all national forum and social events along with cultivating relationships with TechExecs Coprorate Sponsors.

Rick begin his technology career at the young age of 16 when he created dithering in 1980 to create millions of colors on an Apple II which was "limited” to only 8 colors 5 years before it came to regular use in software. His early telecom career allowed him the pleasure of working with American Airlines, ATT, Sprint, US Postal Service, several Republican Party campaigns, various religious organizations and Non-Profits such as Special Olympics. At one point he was managing the accounts for 9 different companies including several insurance companies, US Postal Service and the Nielson Rating surveys. In 1990 Rick bought out his employer and re-launched the business as Trans-Tech Services Inc. He quit college to dedicate more time to the business, and applied his knowledge of systems analysis and design to transform the internal processes; from sales to shipping. He mirrored a Xenix system to Windows and created a CRM program from scratch. He developed "Collision Vision”; a computerized automotive estimating system. Within 3 years Trans-Tech had tripled in size to over 17,000 business customers nationwide selling software and systems, and other specialty items. In 1995 finished 8 years with the United States Navy Reserves

In 1998 he started a web design consultancy RKDIA providing dynamic web design for various web based retailers and web based auction sites. Since 2000 he has provided his telecommunications expertise through Time Warner, Cypress, Birch Telecom, Centric Voice, and XO Communications. He has helped hundreds of businesses position their telecommunications resources for efficient and profitable results. He is proud to have helped Dallas Food Bank and Make-a-Wish Foundation as part of his many successful strategies to increase productivity and profitability. Rick has built a personal network of several hundred business contacts. Rick has three boys, two are well on their way to becoming Eagle Scouts and one is a Bear Cub scout. They enjoy weekend adventures throughout Texas.

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