Andrea Bach, Sr. Sales Engineer, LeanIX
Andrea has been designing and implementing SaaS software solutions for the last 23 years. She has worked with customers in many industries including construction, telecommunications, energy utilities, oil & gas, pest control, building management, and armoured transport. At LeanIX, Andrea works with prospective and existing clients to understand their business requirements and design a solution that meets the customers unique needs.
John Bartucci, VP, Connected Products, Master Lock
John Bartucci is an accomplished technology industry executive with 30+ years’ experience driving and delivering technology solutions all over the world. As the Vice President of Connected Products at The Master Lock Company John has been a servant leader relentlessly driving this now 101 year old manufacturing company into digital transformation with a series of successful electronic access control product launches over the past several years.
As a leader with deep roots in technology, John is passionate about connecting customer needs with innovative and intuitive technology solutions and is responsible for serving markets and industries including real estate, facilities management and operations, telecommunications and education institutions. Over his tenure at Master Lock John has instilled a cultural DNA of rapid customer first support and fail fast but succeed faster to create a nimble and highly responsive team. This leadership style encourages his team members to think big to develop elegant and innovative designs that delight customers.
Prior to this role, John held engineering and product management positions at Motorola and 3Com, delivering global intelligent network services and enabling wireless network data solutions to global customers.
John earned an MBA in Marketing and Entrepreneurship from The Kellogg School of Management – Northwestern University, a Master of Science degree in Computer Engineering from Walden University, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from The Ohio State University.
Away from work, John is happiest hanging out with his wife and kids watching movies, weightlifting, reading and writing.
Zach Bastarache, Enterprise Consultant, Truewind
Experienced Strategic Enterprise Account Executive with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology, HR, and services industry. Proven track record of obtaining quota, and strategically building out a territory. Skilled in Negotiation, Sales, Software Industry, and Management. Strong sales professional with a Bachelor’s Degree focused in Business from Babson College.
Faisal Ghauri, Vice President Information Technology, National Association of REALTORS
Faisal Ghauri is a seasoned technologist with a career spanning two plus decades. He is a well-rounded leader and technology expert having honed his skills in multiple industries namely manufacturing, CPG, finance, consulting services, retail and ecommerce, and now non-profit. Faisal is serving as the Vice President of Information Technology for the National Association of Realtors®, which is the largest trade nonprofit organization in the world with over 1.6 million members.
Faisal is currently leading a transformation program for NAR taking the company’s aging legacy systems and modernizing them onto cutting edge best of breed technologies. The program is in year 3 of its journey and multiple systems have already been delivered to NAR’s customers and partners.
Faisal is passionate about enabling customers to focus on their core business with technology being a major driver rather than a hinderance. He leads his teams with the vision of employing exciting yet pragmatic solutions that have the effect of significantly improving productivity for his customers.
Mani Gunasekaran, VP of Product Engineering, KeHE Distributors
Mani is the Vice President of Product Engineering at KeHE Distributors leading the strategy and execution of digital transformation. He has 20+ years of real life experience in implementing packaged solutions, building custom software and integrating systems in the distribution, retail and supply chain space. Mani Gunasekaran is a pragmatic and passionate technology executive with strong expertise in building high-performing teams by instilling a culture focused on civility, trust, and accountability.
Prior to KeHE, Mani held several Supply Chain consulting positions at IBM and Blue Yonder. His preference is to build functional, no-frills, cost-effective and simple solutions to business problems.
Outside work, Mani has a passion for fine arts, public speaking and stage acting. He served in the board of Chicago Tamil Sangam, a cultural non-profit organization for more a decade. He co-led the 10th World Tamil Conference in 2019 when he served as the President of Chicago Tamil Sangam.
Karthik Kandamuri, Enterprise Architecture Director, AbbVie
Leader in Information Management covering Cloud Computing, Digital Transformation, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Advanced Analytics.
Patrick Kinard, Senior Server Enterprise Operations Manager, Chicago Public Schools
Patrick Kinard is a Senior Server Enterprise Operations Manager at the Chicago Public Schools. He has more than 30 years of information technology management experience in the private and public sectors.
Today, Patrick has a senior role in managing the data service centers for one of the world’s third-largest school districts. He is responsible for all central data center, cloud, and on premise school-based server operations.
Patrick’s previous experience is as an Associate Vice President at J.P Morgan Chase as the leader of the virtualization engineering group, managing technical staff and private cloud environments around the globe for five years. He also served as an engineering manager at HP directing teams that supported brands like General Motors, American Airlines, and BP.
Committed to service and developing others, Patrick has more than 20 years of experience as an information technology instructor supporting underrepresented groups, which is easily one of the highlights of his career. He operates as a mentor and coach to some of Chicago’s most promising information technology students, leaders, and entrepreneurs.
He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Southern Illinois University and has earned multiple information technology management certifications.
Pratik Kulkarni, Director of Information Systems, CSI 3000
Pratik Kulkarni is currently the Director Of Information Systems and Technology at CSI 3000 Inc., a construction company based in Illinois.
Pratik provides leadership for the continued development of an innovative, robust, and secure information systems environment as well as business strategy execution, process engineering and financial management for the organization. Recent highlights include re-engineering process and data strategies of a business function to adapt quickly to changing market needs, improved data integrity and increased profitability while lowering costs.
Outside of work, Pratik loves to play basketball, read books, and explore different restaurants. He also coaches few students and young professionals with their career goals and personal development.
Justin McDermott, VP of IT Strategy and Special Projects, Wintrust Financial
There is no better feeling than the “Ah-ha” moment when you solve a puzzle. Strategy has drawn me into a remarkable career path. What better job than to have the opportunity to solve puzzles every day, leading into progressively larger puzzles for the grand finale “Ah ha” moment. My friends would say, and I would agree, that I am an inquisitive person. I’ve taken those skills and used them in my professional life to do root cause and critical path analysis, helping me shape and develop solutions that are flexible and agile but have continuity and a north star to follow. At the same time, I love learning new things, how things work, and history. I take what I’ve learned and continuously apply that to situations, asking, “What if?”. This is all great in theory, but if you cannot communicate it, it’s just idea’s in one person’s head. I’ve spent a great deal of time refining my soft skills to help share in plain language and helping people understand topics using the target audience’s language. The Rosetta Stone of IT language to Business language.
I spent most of my early career in the United States Army stationed in Germany. I deployed to support US Central Command doing network administration and satellite communications. Afterward, I moved on to finishing out School at DePaul and spent some time advocating on the Illinois Board of Higher Education. After school, I entered the corporate world focusing on Network Security and expanded out into Security Architecture and then into IT management, culminating in IT Strategy and thought leadership.
Claude Scher, Program Manager, Veolia North America
Claude has been a repeat presenter at the CAMP IT PPM conference. He is currently the Chief Project Officer at Senta Technologies. Previously, he was PMO manager for Charter Manufacturing, a family-owned lead producer of steel and iron headquartered in Mequon, WI. Claude has over 20 years of experience leading large IT programs and managing diverse portfolio of projects for various size businesses and industries. Over the last 10 years, he has been a very active volunteer with the PMI organization acting as president and board member of the PMI Milwaukee Chapter as well as an active member of the US delegation for TC258, a global ISO initiative focused on standardization in the field of project, program and portfolio management.
Phil Smith, Sales Director, Puppet by Perforce
As a sales leader, I have set myself apart by achieving both immediate and long-term sales growth across multiple verticals. I have 20+ years of sales leadership experience selling Enterprise Software, Search, Big Data, IoT, Supply Chain, low code platforms, Cybersecurity, Business Intelligence and Analytics utilizing CRM such as Salesforce and Hubspot for Account Management.
My record of exceeding sales goals speaks for itself and I have won numerous sales awards, captured muli-milllion dollar contracts with Fortune 500 companies and outperformed top competitors. My ability to penetrate new markets and inspire employees has led to exponential revenue growth. Well versed in sales methodologies such as MEDDPICC.
I develop strong relationships as a “Connector” with C-level executives and decision makers, delivering outstanding sales. As a confident, aggressive sales leader and a true rainmaker, I am known for my sales success in numerous industries and verticals which include Manufacturing, Healthcare, Life Sciences, Retail, CPG, Government – SLED, Utilities, Financial, Insurance, Communications, Higher Ed, Media and Entertainment.
David Swierzynski, Vice President of Business Solutions Architecture, Gallagher Bassett Services
David Swierzynski is an accomplished Senior IT Executive with 28+ years of Insurance expertise in the areas of Finance, Managed Care, Banking, and E-commerce Portfolios.
David is currently the Vice President of Business Solutions Architecture at Gallagher Bassett Services in Rolling Meadows, IL. He has held several key Leadership roles throughout his career and has been responsible and accountable for several Organizations within Gallagher Bassett. Some key positions include the Vice President of Application Development and Maintenance, where Dave guided and lead several Development Teams that primarily focused on Claim payments, Banking, International Banking, Managed Care, E-bill processing, and dotcom development. David also held the position of Vice President of Business Analysis where he guided and lead the Business Analysts to create an environment that standardized Business Requirements documents, created requirements traceability matrixes, and created a Business Analysis Center of Excellence for the Organization. David later took over the Quality Assurance Organization as well as the Vice President of Quality Assurance and Testing. David’s leadership created an environment that cultivated comprehensive testing solutions along with modernized automated testing scripts and the development of regression test case scenario libraries. These key items directly contributed to a reduction in defect density and an increase in defect free software deployment.
After establishing the foundation for these Organizations, David became the Vice President of IT Portfolio Management. Under David’s direction and guidance, he established partnerships with the Business Organizations that were previously nonexistent. David assisted individuals and Organizations define and scope their IT Initiatives and Business Priorities by asking insightful questions, scoring intake requests, understanding requirements, and coaching Corporate alignment while building and strengthening Partnerships and Alliances throughout the Organization. David felt that this role awarded his Team and himself to be responsible and accountable for the direction of the Strategic and Tactical Initiatives while ensuring capacity bandwidth and demand constraints were aligned in the most optimal and efficient manner. David’s current role as the Vice President of Business Solutions Architecture has allowed him to have oversight on several key initiatives that allow him to draw from his vast knowledge and expertise and provide proven guidance in the implementation solutions of these Strategic goals.
David feels the three pillars of any successful Team can be defined and supported by Attitude, Communication, and Trust. If you demonstrate these traits in a positive way, your Team will take you above and beyond your wildest expectations! David was recently quoted in an article, “It’s not what you ask a person to do for you, it’s how you ask it! I have been so very fortunate and blessed to have had the opportunity to work with such amazingly dedicated professional individuals who I am honored to have as friends! ”