SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Sufel Barkat, Global Enterprise Leader, VP HRIS, Arthur J. Gallagher

Accomplished and innovative Senior-Level Executive, with diverse expertise in establishing and operating global IT organizations and processes in a multitude of industries. Information Systems inclusive of strategic direction, selection, implementation, and on-going optimization. I am a critical thinker who can devise and execute on strategy, optimize systems, processes and tools, and ensure optimal technology in support of the functional/organization strategy – all while embodying strong people leadership skills that motivate their organization to success. I understand the impact of effective change management when building the transformation effort.

Abdullah Bushnaq, Lead Consultant, Liferay

Abdullah is an experienced software consultant. For almost three years, he has worked with Liferay’s global services team as a lead consultant. Liferay is an open source software company which builds portals, intranets and integration platforms.

Marcin Budzik, North America IT Service Director, Signode Industrial Group, LLC

Marcin Budzik has over 20 years of IT industry experience holding various leadership roles across multiple verticals. Presently, Marcin is a Director of Infrastructure and Service Delivery at Signode Industrial Group, a global manufacturer of industrial packaging and application equipment. Marcin is responsible for promoting, delivering and enhancing shared Infrastructure Services while executing IaaS and PaaS cloud-first strategy. Marcin believes in leveraging Cloud to enable IT can focus its efforts less on delivering commodity services and more on initiatives that can drive business growth.

Prior to this role, Marcin was an IT Director with Fort Dearborn Company where he led design and implementation of Enterprise Security Program, Disaster Recovery Solution, Business Intelligence Platform, Salesforce CRM, Post-Acquisition System and ERP integration.

Marcin Budzik holds a MS in Information Technology management from Roosevelt University and CISSP Certification. 

Pat Cannon, Vice President, Technical Solutions, US Signal

Pat Cannon is currently the Vice President of Technical Sales at US Signal and brings over 15 years of IT Consulting and Leadership experience to the US Signal team. A seasoned professional, Pat has extensive experience architecting scalable, secure and resilient solutions for customers within a wide variety of industries. Pat’s experience as an IT consultant allows him to look at business objectives and technology options producing solutions that have a meaningful impact for customer operation.

Chip Crawford, Solutions Engineer, DataStax

Chip Crawford is a Solutions Engineer at DataStax covering the Chicago/Midwest region. After starting his career as an entry-level consultant at Oracle in 1988, at the dawn of the relational database and client-server era, Chip has worked at several major technology providers, including Oracle, Informatica, and HPE, where he engaged many customers in various industries, across technology paradigms – from green-screen to cloud-native – in their journey to create, evolve, and transform their most important business applications. In his current role at DataStax, Chip is helping customers modernize their operational data platforms, on which they are building and deploying their latest, mission-critical applications and API’s using highly performant, distributed databases, such as Cassandra, running in hybrid cloud.

Phil Ferrante, Business Value Consultant, DataStax

Phil Ferrante is a Business Value Consultant at DataStax based out of the Bay area.

Over his 20+ year career he has partnered with Fortune 500 companies across a number of industry verticals including Healthcare, Insurance, Retail and more as a change agent and trusted advisor in an increasingly dynamic and competitive environment.

Phil spent the first half of his career working with Global Systems Integrators (GSIs) as an application infrastructure architect collaborating with his developer colleagues to design and implement multi-tier & multi-datacenter applications that would support transformational initiatives. Phil also worked at several technology providers including Citrix Systems and LinkedIn in multiple capacities.

In his current role at DataStax as a Business Value Consultant he has a front row seat to some of the most vexing challenges faced today by organizations transitioning to a hybrid and multi cloud word, and the drivers behind these key initiatives.

Chip Freund, Head of Data Center Services Product Marketing, Cyxtera Technologies

Chip has been in IT related businesses for over 25 years. Chip joined Cyxtera Technologies through its acquisition of the CenturyLink data center business having joined Savvis in 2013 as the Director of Colocation Product Marketing. He leads the global product marketing efforts for Cyxtera’s data center colocation business.

Sanil Mooken, Director of Information Technology, Focal Point Lighting

Full biography coming soon!

Chittu Muthiyan, Director/Principal, Information Architecture, Kellogg’s

Creative visionary technology professional with leadership experience in Business IT Transformation, Technology Product Development help improve significant top line and bottom line growth by positioning technology as a key enabler.

Broad experience with large scale global enterprises, transformation situations, run-rate reductions, portfolio rationalization, and business growth opportunities. Significant experience in creating enterprise technology strategies that touch and improve the organization end to end.

Very strong understanding of Information Technology, Software Engineering environment with experience/expertise in strategy, planning, and delivery. Excellent reputation and track record in inspiring and motivating teams and individuals to consistently achieve lasting results.