Speakers

Amitesh Madhur is Senior Director of SaaS Engineering at Nutanix, and leads multiple engineering teams building critical cloud based services. This includes Identity & Access Management, X-Ray (HCI performance benchmark) and Test Drive (‘Try before you buy’ experience). He has extensive experience in the Security and Identity domain, and holds two patents related to web security. He is an industry thought leader and speaks at global conferences like Kafka Summit, W3C India, and WebRTC events. He is passionate about topics such as Big Data, Network, Event Streaming and Video/Audio Streaming. Amitesh is a geek to the core and loves to hack. He has won top honors like “Most Innovative App” and “Most Original Concept” at hackathon events organized by Tata Communications, Google and Twitter. He is shaping the future of IAM at Nutanix and loves collaborating with industry peers to drive innovation and excellence in this industry.

André is an accomplished Hospitality and Gaming IT Executive with over 20 years of experience spearheading transformative initiatives for major enterprises. As Vice President of Enterprise Architecture, Software Engineering, and Data/Analytics at Hard Rock, he drives innovation and strategic vision, optimizing technology ecosystems for maximum efficiency, performance, customer experience and driving down cost. With a passion for leveraging cutting-edge solutions, André excels in aligning technology initiatives with business objectives, empowering organizations to thrive in dynamic landscapes.

Ashirwad Soholkar is a platform architect & DevOps product owner at ICRC with a strong passion for DevSecOps Practices. He strongly advocates for sustainable and secure ways of developing and managing applications and integrations. He works to bridge the gap between platform and application teams, focusing on strengthening Dev platform offerings, improving the developer experience, and maximizing productivity. As product owner, he is responsible for developing tooling and practices that make building apps easier and managing the application lifecycle.

Bennett M. Reddin is Founder and Chief Technology Officer at VisualizeHR, focused on Data Management across the plethora of Human Resource Management Systems. His HRIS expertise extends over 35 years from early PC-based HR systems to current Cloud Native architectures. Alternating between development and implementation, he has designed several HR and Payroll architectures for service bureaus and ERP vendors, then deployed those systems, improving toolsets and practices for implementation in the process. As enterprises large and small are evolving to 21st century business climates, Bennie has architected the AI-driven cloud data platform that allows agile Human Resources responsiveness to these climate changes.

With over 25 years of experience, Britto Arul is a distinguished leader in healthcare information technology, specializing in EMR, population health management, and interoperability. Proficient in Microsoft, Java, and open source technologies, he drives innovation, enhancing patient care and operational efficiency. His visionary approach empowers healthcare providers with actionable insights and tools for proactive population health management. Britto Arul excels in implementing and optimizing Healthcare systems, advocating for interoperability standards, and leveraging API management platforms like WSO2 and others for seamless data exchange. A dynamic leader, he continues to shape the future of healthcare IT, driving towards better health outcomes and collaboration across healthcare networks.

Christopher is the Director of Identity and Integrations Management at DeVry University. He has more than 25 years of experience working with technology. Christopher started as an application developer but has worked in disciplines ranging from application architecture and data management to technical delivery and relationship management. Christopher has more than 10 years of experience working with higher education technology. Christopher spent five years at Microsoft managing technology delivery for Global 100 customers and 3 years working with companies in the security, data encryption, and IaaS area. He earned his BS in Business Administration w/ concentration in Information Technology from Colorado Technical University.

Collin Babirukamu is a seasoned digital enthusiast and transformation leader with an impressive 24- year track record in the IT industry across East Africa. His career highlights include spearheading significant projects in Uganda, notably playing a crucial role in establishing and implementing the Integrated Financial Management System for the Ministry of Finance and entire government. This initiative significantly advanced government digitalization and accountability efforts in the country.

In addition, Collin successfully led the transformation of Uganda's largest financial institution, the National Social Security Fund, as its CIO. Under his guidance, the organization transitioned from a semi-manual operation to a highly digitalized entity, setting new standards in efficiency and innovation within the sector.

Collin's expertise extends to advising government leaders on cloud and application implementations during his tenure at Oracle Corporation in East Africa. Currently serving as the Director of E government Services at the National Information Technology Authority (NITA), he functions as the de facto government CIO, driving the adoption and deployment of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) across strategic government pillars.

Passionate about positioning Uganda as a hub of DPI excellence in Africa, Collin advocates for inclusive digital government practices to ensure that no citizen is left behind in the nation's digital transformation journey.

Damian Bridges joined AAA Club Alliance in 2015, and serves as the organization’s senior vice president and chief information officer. In this role, he has responsibility for the Club’s Information Technology Strategy and Operations. Prior to joining AAA Club Alliance, Mr. Bridges had an extensive IT leadership background spanning numerous industries, including retail, insurance, financial services, telecommunications, travel and hospitality, e-business, and scientific research and development. Most recently, Mr. Bridges led the transformation of the IT function within DuPont Pioneer as a strategic consultant. He has also held chief information officer positions at ARAMARK and Gaylord Entertainment, leading the IT functions within those organizations. Mr. Bridges graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a Bachelor of Science in Systems Engineering. After which, he proudly served his country as an officer in the U.S. Navy’s nuclear engineering program.

With a solid foundation in Engineering and Business Administration, and over two decades of experience in technology and innovation, my career journey has been diverse and dynamic. I started out in technological consultancies before diving into the startup scene. One of the highlights of my career was leading a groundbreaking digitization initiative at Fluidra. Steering the architectural design and implementation, we successfully deployed an integration platform, an ecommerce hub, and multiple websites serving the EMEA region. Currently, I’m at the helm of the global integration architecture and platform team, where I continue to drive innovation and spearhead transformative projects on a global scale.

Dr. Gautham Pallapa is an industry veteran with over 25 years of experience in enterprise transformations, application modernization, and technology innovation. He is currently the SVP of Enterprise Transformations at Innominds, helping organizations engineer their digital future with an AI-first, platform-led transformation approach. Previously, he worked as an Executive Advisor at VMware and as the Head of Engineering at West Corporation. At VMware, he has worked with C-suite and executives at Global 1000 enterprises to transform their processes, technologies, and culture to achieve business outcomes. At West Corporation, he led large global teams through cloud transformations and refactoring efforts of mission-critical systems such as Enhanced 911, Wall Street conferencing, school, healthcare, and essential notifications, in addition to most voice applications. He is recognized as an industry thought leader and featured in various panels and conferences on DevOps, Agility, Cloud-Native Technologies, AI/ML, and Business Value. Gautham is also the founder of Transformity, a thought leadership group that intertwines empathic leadership with strategic disruption, and the award-winning author of "Leading with Empathy: Understanding the Needs of Today's Workforce." He is an ambassador for various organizations and has been recognized for his work on transformation, helping underprivileged people, and giving back to the community.

Glenn is an influential and result-oriented technology leader with 30+ years of achievement in leveraging technology, championing innovation, evolving vision, and engaging partners/stakeholders to drive operational excellence, constituent satisfaction and strive for competitive edge in the Higher Education IT domain. Glenn is a change agent for enterprise architecture, development, integration and data enablement, staff development, usage of innovative and emerging technologies. Glenn has held various technical/leadership roles in his 30 full-time years at Ohio State where he has led or participated in some of the university's most impactful efforts.

VP Application Development with 20+ years of IT and eCommerce experience. Primarily focused on working with financial institutions including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, U.S. Bank Corp, Capital One, TD Bank, and BB&T. Additional responsibilities include building and developing solutions for Walmart, Office Depot, Costco, Sams, and MaryKay.

Hushan Padayachee is the Chief Information Officer for Vitality Global, a division of Discovery Limited, a leading international financial services institution founded on the principles of consumer engagement and wellness. Hushan also serves on the Discovery Group IT Risk sub[1]Committee. Previously, Hushan served as the Head of IT Operations and Information Security for Vitality Global, building out the various capabilities that support the V1 Platform. Prior to that, Hushan served as the Head of IT Operations in the Discovery Health business servicing the Discovery Health, Vitality and Card businesses. Hushan holds a Masters in Business Administration from the Gordon Institute of Business Science.

Inacio is a lover of technology and his vision is to use technology as a means to carry out digital transformation in companies, and generate value for customers through consumer-centric solutions. As Head of Technology and Data Science at Neoenergia, he is responsible for leading the customer service area through digital transformation. With more than 15 years of experience in electric utilities, participating in innovation projects for operation and customer service, using technologies to deliver solutions.

Isabelle is co-founder and founder CTO of 42Crunch, an API security company. She specializes in API Security, API-first architectures and is passionate about Developer Experience (DevX). She held a variety of technical roles at IBM working with the world's largest organizations as a solutions architect and services professional. She then led Product Management at Vordel (acquired by Axway) before joining WSO2 as VP Product Strategy.

Johan Brelet has 15 years of experience in the fields of integration strategy and solution architecture, and specializes in designing and building integration platforms and toolings. He joined Sacem in 2017 and now serves as product manager of a transverse and hybrid integration platform. Current focuses are on optimizing platform efficiency and promoting a self-service approach.

José Luis is currently the CTOO for Invex Financial Group. He has 30 years in banking experience mainly in the credit card arena where he has worked for banking institutions and 10 years for TSYS, a global US card processor. Oversees the architecture, operations and system development at INVEX, a non-branch bank. Responsible for systems strategy with a leading role in the digital transformation of the bank. He holds an Engineering Degree from Universidad Anáhuac in Mexico City and an MBA from Troy University in the US and has been 13 years at Invex.

Kuntal is an accomplished Technology and People Leader with more than 21 years of expertise in IT. He currently holds the position of Head of API and Middleware at Resolution Life Australasia (RLA), where he is responsible for providing strategic direction, managing the team, platform, and budget, and developing and implementing Integration platform standards, procedures, and capabilities. Kuntal is known for his resilient, strategic, and engaging leadership style, and he is passionate about leading highly skilled technical teams, resolving complex issues, and advising senior technology leaders. He has worked with renowned organizations across different countries, such as RLA (Australia), The Warehouse Group, Spark NZ, Fisher and Paykel, BNZ (New Zealand), UBS (Singapore), Fidelity Investment, and IBM (India).

Manish Ritwik, with over 24 years of extensive experience in Information Technology, has traversed a dynamic career path. From Fortune 50 companies to founding his own IT solutions venture, he's left an indelible mark. With a background spanning solution architecture, enterprise architecture, and a penchant for WSO2 products, Manish has spearheaded numerous projects across seven countries. Notably, his passion lies in digitizing the public sector, where he's dedicated over a decade to modernizing government systems. A seasoned speaker, Manish brings invaluable insights into the intersection of technology and public service, making him a sought-after expert in IT transformation.

Marco Boero has over 20 years of IT experience, having worked as a programmer, data architect, and platform engineer in public administration. He is currently the head of data and integration platform at CSI Piemonte, where he designs platforms that provide innovative services to the users of the Italian public administration.

Mathias Joschika is a Technical Product Lead with over 10 years of experience at Gebrüder Weiss CIT. His expertise spans two critical areas: API Management and Development Workcycle Tools. The products in his responsibility enable and accelerate agile development and integration processes. He collaborates closely with development teams, ensuring APIs are well-designed, secure, and optimized for performance. Mathias champions tools that enhance collaboration, automate repetitive tasks and improve service quality.

I joined the University in 2008 and have worked on most software applications for our major systems. From 2019 - 2022 I was involved, with a team, to move the University's HR, Payroll and Finance systems to the cloud, also ensuring they still integrated well with our on-premise applications. This project also utilized WSO2 to implement an API first strategy and we are currently invested in migrating all of those integrations to Choreo. Outside of work I enjoy spending time with my wonderful daughters, playing in a Symphony Orchestra, swimming, cooking and enjoying wine.

Nabil is a seasoned solution architect with over 20 years’ experience and has a strong focus on digital technologies and initiatives. As a SAFe certified Agilest, he passionately advocates for the use of modern cloud native solutions to accelerate time-to-market. With a keen interest in cybersecurity, he specializes in identity and access management, leveraging cutting-edge technologies to ensure robust protection. Nabil’s expertise extends beyond technical expertise, he is also a public speaker and has shared his knowledge on various contemporary topics at numerous public forums.

Nuwan Bandara is a Senior Solutions Architecture leader working closely with AWS Financial Services Customers. He has been at AWS for over 3 years and is based in New York City. Nuwan is a passionate technologist, and is excited in helping people and businesses to realize value out of technology. Starting his career as a Software Engineer in distributed systems, over the years Nuwan had played engineering leadership, product leadership, and architecture roles in multiple technology organizations. Prior to joining AWS, Nuwan has spent close to 12 years, playing a leadership role at WSO2 contributing to its growth.

I began my professional career in the early 1990s as the Technical Manager for Europe at a chart analysis company, followed by serving as the IT Manager for trading rooms. In 1999, I founded Consors, the first online brokerage firm in Europe. In 2000, I sold the company to the French bank BNP Paribas. Subsequently, I worked as a consultant on various projects, notably the government-initiated project for implementing the patient medical record system. In 2007, I joined Cegedim, and in 2015, I moved to IQVIA where I spent several years as a Solution and Enterprise Architect. Currently, I lead the Security Architecture department within the realm of Identity and Access Management.

Richard is a successful Chief Technology Officer with over 25 years experience in Software Engineering, Team Building and C-Suite reporting. Richard has spent many years building enterprise solutions for blue chip organizations in Public Sector, Financial Services, Agrotechnology, Transport and Logistics and more recently Telecoms. Richard is an avid Start-up mentor having successfully built and raised investment for a number of high profile companies.

Sarah Knowles has been in software development and working in the event ticketing industry at TicketNetwork for over 15 years. She graduated with a BA in Computer Science from Smith College in 2008 and joined TicketNetwork's engineering team as a software developer shortly thereafter. Sarah is currently the technical lead of TicketNetwork's e-commerce product space, and has also been the technical co-owner of TicketNetwork's on-premise WSO2 API Manager integration for the past 8 years.

Shanil is a visionary technology leader with nearly 3 decades of global experience, known for his expertise in nurturing and expanding technology startups. His most recent ten years have been dedicated to the intersection of food, restaurants, and technology.

His career began as a founding software engineer at the IT consulting firm Virtusa (NASDAQ: VRTU), where he played a pivotal role in the company's growth including being its CTO. Ultimately leading to its listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange. During this tenure, he provided consulting services to prominent clients such as JP Morgan Chase, British Telecom, Aetna Insurance, and Thomson Reuters.

After his tenure at Virtusa, Shanil co-founded CAKE, a restaurant technology startup, CAKE was later acquired by Sysco (SYY). Within Sysco, Shanil spearheaded the establishment and expansion of Sysco Labs, the company's innovation arm and led the engineering organization with over 1000 professionals globally. Sysco Labs played a critical role in driving technological transformation throughout this $80 billion organization.

In his current role at Cut+Dry, Shanil serves as the Chief Technology and AI Officer, leveraging his extensive experience and expertise to drive technological advancements within the foodservice industry.

Steven J. Weiskircher, is currently serving as the sr. technology executive for Liquidity Services, Inc. A multi-brand global auction marketplace operator for surplus assets. He brings over two decades of technology leadership in developing and deploying custom ecommerce technology platforms at scale for some of the most well-known consumer retail brands. A US Army veteran, he’s the former Vice President of Omnichannel, Marketing, and Digital Delivery at GameStop and has held the top technology roles at Geeknet/ThinkGeek, Fanatics, and Crutchfield Corporation. Steve earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech and an MS in Management Information Systems from UVA. His professional interests include: agile application development, user experience, cyber security, and is passionate about team development.

Vaughn Vernon is a software ecologist, architect, modeler, programmer, trainer, and consultant. He works with technical leaders, such as CIOs, CTOs, chief architects, as well as with whole teams, to optimize delivery, while applying Domain-Driven Design for systems transformation and modernization. He's the author of four books and editor of his Addison-Wesley signature series.

Vivek is a seasoned professional with a Master's in Telecommunication and Software Engineering, boasting over 18 years of diverse experience across various business domains and technologies. His forte lies in solution architecture and integration technologies such as SOA, API, and messaging. Vivek also holds certifications in Cloud Transformation, AI Cloud Solutions, TOGAF and ArchiMate, alongside Oracle and IBM accreditations in SOA and cloud architecture. Vivek is currently working as a Solution Architect at BC Ferries.