2019 CIO Next

When

Dec 12, 2019

Where

New York, NY

Social

#ForbesCIO

About The Event

What is your AI strategy?

This is among the most common questions senior technology leaders receive from their executive stakeholders. It’s not an easy one to answer. Unpack that one query and several others fall out. What’s our data strategy? How do we identify proofs of concept and scale them? How do we reimagine our entire business model?
Join us as we hear from the world’s foremost experts about real and inspiring examples of AI at work and how companies across a variety of industries overcame obstacles to making their aspirations a reality.

This invitation only event will gather VCs and leaders of technology companies including Vice Presidents, Chief Information, Digital and Data Officers, and Chief Executive Officers for an inspiring day in which we will go beyond the buzz and craft AI strategy their firm needs to thrive in this new era.

Get Involved

Speakers

Frida Polli

Cofounder & CEO

Pymetrics

Frida Polli

Cofounder & CEO

Pymetrics

Dr. Frida Polli is an award-winning Harvard and MIT trained neuroscientist turned CEO, and a global thought leader on both the future of work and ethical AI, including how the latter will play a critical role in shaping this future.
She is the founder and CEO of pymetrics, a talent matching platform that uses behavioral data and audited AI to help companies like Unilever, LinkedIn, and Accenture better understand their workforce as well as make fairer and more predictive people decisions.
Frida was a pre-doctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, a postdoctoral fellow at MIT, as well as a Life Science Fellow at HBS. She has appeared on CNN, BBC, MSNBC, BloombergTV, and NPR, as well as presented as a WEF Tech Pioneer at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the President’s Circle at the National Academy of Sciences, and other major scientific and world conferences.
Jay Vijayan

Former CIO, Tesla; Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Tekion Corp

Jay Vijayan

Former CIO, Tesla; Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Tekion Corp

Jay Vijayan is the Founder and CEO of Tekion Corp, a hyper-growth technology company disrupting the status quo in the automotive retail software industry. Its Automotive Retail Cloud platform is powered by Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Internet of Things. Prior to Tekion, Jay was the Chief Information Officer of Tesla Inc. for four years where he and his team built and scaled Tesla’s digital and information platform, fueling the company’s hyper-growth phase. Before joining Tesla, Jay led the Business Applications Development group for VMware during its significant accelerated growth phase. Preceding VMware, Jay led product development teams at Oracle for over seven years. Jay is known for building simple and highly scalable technology platforms and solutions that transform, scale businesses and enable operational efficiency. Jay is an investor and mentor to many innovative startups globally. He also serves on the boards of NIC Inc. and HyreCar Inc.
Jillian D’Onfro

Staff Writer

Forbes

Jillian D’Onfro

Staff Writer

Forbes

Jillian is a San Francisco-based staff writer for Forbes reporting on Google and the rest of the Alphabet universe, as well as artificial intelligence more broadly. Previously, she worked at CNBC.com and Business Insider, covering Google, Facebook, ecommerce, and Silicon Valley culture. She’s an East Coast native and studied journalism and information management and technology at Syracuse University.
Mike McNamara

Chief Information Officer

Target

Mike McNamara

Chief Information Officer

Target

Mike McNamara is executive vice president, chief information officer for Target and a member of its executive leadership team. He is responsible for the strategic direction and management of the enterprise technology systems that elevate the shopping experience for Target’s guests and team members. Mike also leads Target’s technology roadmap and enterprise data analytics and business intelligence strategy. Prior to joining Target in 2015, Mike spent more than 17 years at European-based retailer Tesco, where he most recently served as the chief information officer. During his tenure, Mike steered the strategic direction and management of Tesco’s technology; led the multi-country rollout of Tesco.com; and was instrumental to the development and implementation of the company’s operating model in Europe and Asia. Mike is a member of the board of directors for Minnesota Opera and Genesys Works Twin Cities, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing pathways to career success for high school students in underserved communities through skills training, meaningful work experience and impactful relationships. He has a bachelor of engineering degree from University College Dublin.
Mojgan Lefebvre

Chief Technology & Operations Officer

Travelers

Mojgan Lefebvre

Chief Technology & Operations Officer

Travelers

Mojgan Lefebvre is Executive Vice President, Chief Technology & Operations Officer for Travelers. She joined Travelers in October 2018 with over two decades of experience successfully leading both employee- and customer-facing technologies.
Prior to Travelers, Mojgan spent eight years at Liberty Mutual, where she was most recently Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for the Global Risk Solutions business. Previously, she held leadership positions across a variety of industries, from medical device company bioMérieux to strategy consulting firm Bain.
Mojgan earned her undergraduate degree in computer science from the Georgia Institute of Technology and her MBA from Harvard Business School. In 2017, she was honored by Digital Insurance with a “Women in Insurance Leadership” award, and in 2015, she was named a “Woman to Watch in Science and Technology” by the Boston Business Journal. She has lived in six countries and speaks three languages.
Mojgan and her husband, Xavier, reside in Belmont, Massachusetts with their wonderful daughters, Sophie and Isabelle.
Pawan Verma

Global Chief Information & Customer Experience Officer

Foot Looker, Inc.

Pawan Verma

Global Chief Information & Customer Experience Officer

Foot Looker, Inc.

Pawan Verma is Global Chief Information and Customer Experience Officer at Foot Locker, Inc. In his role, he leads all aspects of Technology, Marketing (Digital Marketing, Loyalty & CRM, Mobile, Product Management & Content), AI, Data & Analytics, Supply Chain and Omni-Channel Customer Experience. Prior to Foot Locker, he served as VP of Digital & Marketing Technology at Target Corp., leading Mobility, CartWheel, Guest Data, Cloud Engineering and API Platforms. Outside retail, Pawan has held technology leadership roles with Verizon Wireless and other networking, media and life sciences companies. He received his MBA from Kent State (Ohio) University, and his Master’s in Software Engineering in his native India. He is a strong advocate for open source technologies and is extremely passionate about Big Data and AI. His teams strive to create business value through the use of Data, Cloud and DevOps, with a spirit of continuous integration, delivery and improvement.
Ihab Ilyas

Cofounder

Tamr

Ihab Ilyas

Cofounder

Tamr

Ihab Ilyas is a professor and the Thomson Reuters-NSERC research chair in data quality in the Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, where his research focuses on the areas of big data and database systems, with special interest in data quality and integration, managing uncertain data, machine learning for data curation, and information extraction. Ihab is also a cofounder of Tamr, the Cambridge, MA company focused on large-scale data integration and cleaning. He is a recipient of the Ontario Early Researcher Award (2009), a Cheriton faculty fellowship (2013), an NSERC Discovery Accelerator Award (2014), and a Google Faculty Award (2014), and he is an ACM Distinguished Scientist. Ihab is an elected member of the VLDB Endowment Board of Trustees and an associate editor of ACM Transactions of Database Systems (TODS). He holds a PhD in computer science from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.
Kyle Nel

Executive Vice President

Uncommon Partners at Singularity University

Kyle Nel

Executive Vice President

Uncommon Partners at Singularity University

Kyle Nel is the EVP of Uncommon Partners Lab at Singularity University and former CEO and co-founder of Uncommon Partners (acquired by Singularity University in 2019), a transformation company. He is the co-author of Leading Transformation, a best-selling Harvard Business Review Press title from fall 2018. His passion for changing human behavior led him to create the multi-disciplinary behavioral transformation approach, which uses tools like narrative and applied neuroscience to help organizations break out of incrementalism.
Kyle also founded and previously served as Executive Director for Lowe’s Innovation Labs (LIL), the disruptive innovation hub for the Fortune 40 home improvement company. He created and led a team responsible for driving the company’s innovation vision, strategy and growth.
Under his leadership, Lowe’s Innovation Labs built a proprietary 3D content creation and asset management platform; augmented and virtual reality stores; virtual reality DIY skills clinics; the first autonomous retail service robots; soft robotic exosuits to deliver lift assistance for store employees; and 3D scanning and printing services at retail – and in space, where the first commercially-manufactured object off of the planet was a Lowe’s wrench that was modified for astronauts. He also built a disruptive technology lab and incubator in Bangalore, India.
Kyle sits on the boards of emerging tech companies, is a faculty member at Singularity University and a former member of the XPRIZE Foundation Innovation Board. He was recognized on the 2015 Advertising Age “40 under 40” list, and received the 2016 “People Shaping Retail’s Future” award from the National Retail Federation.
He previously held positions in market research with Lowe’s and the Walmart Global Insights Group. He holds an MBA from the AC Nielsen Center for Marketing Research at the University of Wisconsin and a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management from Brigham Young University-Idaho.
Peter High

President

Metis Strategy

Peter High

President

Metis Strategy

Peter High is President of CIO advisory firm, Metis Strategy, author of two books, including Implementing World Class IT Strategy, author of the Forbes Technovation column, and moderator of the Forum on World Class IT podcast series. He serves on the boards of multiple technology companies. Peter has been the keynote speaker at a wide array of corporate conferences in the US, Canada, Mexico, China, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, the Czech Republic, Spain, and Australia.
Gary Hallgren

President

Arity

Gary Hallgren

President

Arity

Gary Hallgren is president at Arity, where he leads the development and implementation of Arity’s strategy and operations.
Prior to joining Arity in 2015, Gary served as senior vice president of Corporate Strategy at Telogis, where he negotiated four strategic acquisitions related to fleet management, insurance telematics, routing and logistics and commercial navigation. Previously, he was CEO of Remote Dynamics Inc., where he led a turnaround and positioned the company as a leading telematics supplier to the construction industry.
Oleg Rogynskyy

Founder & CEO

People.ai

Oleg Rogynskyy

Founder & CEO

People.ai

Oleg is the CEO and founder of People.ai, an AI platform that drives intelligence and optimization across all revenue creation activities for sales, marketing and customer success teams. He is a native of the Ukraine and moved to the US in the early 2000s where he studied Business Administration, Political Science and International Relations at Boston University.
After graduating, he moved to Montreal, Canada to join Nstein Technologies followed by Lexalytics. In 2011 Oleg started his own company, Semantria and after 3 years of rapid growth, successfully sold the company and moved to Silicon Valley. In 2015 Oleg joined H2O.ai as VP Marketing & Growth.
In early 2016 Oleg founded People.ai. Within 30 days of launching the company, they were accepted to Y Combinator, followed by fundraises led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and ICONIQ Capital.
Juan Perez

Chief Information & Engineering Offcier

UPS

Juan Perez

Chief Information & Engineering Offcier

UPS

Juan Perez is the Chief Information and Engineering Officer for UPS and a member of the UPS Management Committee, responsible for all technology and engineering functions. He was appointed to his current role in 2017 after having served as Chief Information Officer since 2016.
Previously, Juan was Vice President of Technology. Through different rotations in that role, he was responsible for technology systems supporting the company’s billing, financial, accounting, human resources, package operations, driver dispatch and operational planning, scanning, logistics, customer service and sales.
Juan holds a BS in Industrial and Systems Engineering and an MS in Computer and Manufacturing Engineering, from the University of Southern California. He is a senior member of the Institute of Industrial Engineers and the American Society for Quality and holds several certificates in project management, business administration and IT management. He also serves as a program evaluator for the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET). He was a lecturer at USC for seven years and taught courses in engineering economy, quality control, industrial engineering and operations management.
Juan is the executive advisor for the UPS Latino Business Resource Group, which supports diversity across the enterprise, and he is a trustee of the Southeast Region’s Boys and Girls Club. He is an active member of his church and community.
Martin Giles

Editor, CIO Network

Forbes

Martin Giles

Editor, CIO Network

Forbes

Martin is the editor of the CIO Network at Forbes, leading coverage of the rapidly evolving role of senior technology leaders. He also develops topics and programming for Forbes CIO events. Previously, he covered frontier technologies such as AI-driven cybersecurity and quantum computing for MIT Technology Review. Before that, he was a partner at a Silicon Valley VC firm that invests in enterprise tech, which he joined after covering the Valley for The Economist Newspaper for many years.
Mike O’Rourke

Senior Vice President, Head of Artificial Intelligence and Global Information Services Technology

Nasdaq

Mike O’Rourke

Senior Vice President, Head of Artificial Intelligence and Global Information Services Technology

Nasdaq

Mike O’Rourke serves as Senior Vice President and is Head of Artificial Intelligence and Global Information Services technology. He oversees the development of Nasdaq’s data and index business technology, as well as the advancement of using machine learning throughout Nasdaq.
Mike’s team combines proprietary data with advanced analytics and machine learning to produce sophisticated solutions for Nasdaq’s global customers. These efforts have resulted in several technology breakthroughs and patents for the use of machine learning in areas of market surveillance, advisory, and new data products—including Trading Insights and the Nasdaq Analytics Hub.
Mike is also responsible for the data technology that powers Nasdaq’s U.S. and global market data feeds, global index offerings (including the Nasdaq 100 and Nasdaq Composite), and critical market infrastructure, such as the UTP SIP.
Mike joining Nasdaq in 1999 as Director, Global Access Services. Previously, he held a professorship at Fairfield University and management roles within the Global Technology Services division at IBM.
Mike attended Fairfield University, where he earned a master’s degree in Software Engineering and a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science.
Vinod Valloppillil

Head of Product

Google Cloud Language AI

Vinod Valloppillil

Head of Product

Google Cloud Language AI

Vinod Valloppillil is the Head of Product for Google Cloud Language AI. This product area brings Google’s world class research and infrastructure in Natural Language, Document Understanding, Translation, Knowledge Graphs & more and packages them into powerful, easy-to-use, and products for enterprise. In this role, he has first hand experience working with many of Google Cloud’s key customers as they embark on AI-powered transformational journeys.
Vinod started his career at Microsoft in the early days of IIS and Windows NT. From there, he worked at and cofounded several startups in Enterprise and the early mobile industry. His most recent startup was acquired by Dropbox where he was most recently Group Product Manager for Machine Intelligence covering Search and Content Understanding.
Chris Nardecchia

Chief Information & Digital Officer

Rockwell Automation

Chris Nardecchia

Chief Information & Digital Officer

Rockwell Automation

Chris Nardecchia is senior vice president, Information Technology and Chief Information Officer at Rockwell Automation. Chris is responsible for strategic vision, operational excellence and change leadership for the development and implementation of information technology initiatives and architecture across our company. Chris drives our corporate information technology strategy and internal transformation, creating digital solutions that enhance our Rockwell Automation capabilities internally and externally.
Chris began his career at Rockwell Automation in 2017. Prior to joining the company, Chris was vice president and CIO, Global Operations and Supply Chain, at Amgen, Inc. He also held leadership roles at Pfizer and Warner Lambert, which was acquired by Pfizer. At these companies he led IT-enabled business and digital strategy and accelerated growth through technology and data analytics. He drove business innovations that improved profitability, globalization, restructuring and mergers. He has an extensive background with portfolio management, engineering, operations, mergers and acquisitions, IT risk management, analytics and using technology to drive business insights. He was also the Rockwell Automation executive sponsor at Amgen. Earlier in his career, Chris also held process, and production engineering roles in the pharmaceutical, chemical and nuclear industries.
Chris holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from State University of New York at Buffalo in Buffalo, New York, and an MBA from Michigan State in East Lansing, Michigan.