Speakers

An entrepreneur in every sense of the word, Daymond John has come a long way from taking out a $100,000 mortgage on his mother’s house and moving his business operation into its basement. John is CEO and Founder of FUBU, a much-celebrated global lifestyle brand, and a pioneer in the fashion industry with billions in product sales world-wide. 

As the global CISO Ali has accountable for Amway's global Information Security & Risk. In addition, he is leading the program assurance function for our global commerce modernization. 

C3 started as a telecom consulting and brokerage firm. As we grew and technology shifted, we took that unbiased model and took on more product sets – IaaS, UCaaS, collocation, SD WAN, cybersecurity, cloud contact center, and more. We continue to make small pivots to similar technologies and continue to evaluate companies for introduction into our portfolio.

Ben Rapin is the Associate Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Technology Officer for Grand Valley State University. In this senior-leadership role, Ben oversees the areas of Enterprise Applications, Enterprise Architecture and Academic Research and Computing — providing exceptional services, innovative solutions, and resources to facilitate learning, teaching and research in support of GVSU’s educational mission and strategic priorities.

As a visionary technology leader, Grace is responsible for leading the Digital Transformation at Stellantis globally. Throughout her career, Grace has held several leadership positions in the IT areas of Digital Transformation, Network Architecture, Identity Management, Data Center Operations, and Systems Integration. She is passionate about digital and creating thoughtfully planned customer experiences that are engaging and drive adoption. As a global leader, Grace is known for building and growing successful teams with an emphasis on transforming the organization and accelerating digital adoption. Grace believes that success comes from creating an ecosystem of partners that collaborate and inspire each other to innovate.

Amy Slater has more than 30 years of leadership and global sales experience, with an unyielding focus on customer value and expertise in business and marketing transformation through technology. She has held sales leadership roles at companies such as Palo Alto Networks where she most recently led Global GTM strategy for a $1.7B portfolio. Amy has worked in sales leadership for other technology innovators such as TiVo, Acxiom, Salesforce.com, Cisco and AT&T before joining Genesys.

Maria Haight is currently the Chief Operations & Technology Officer at TGI Direct, a direct communications and fulfillment company. Her IT background spans multiple industries: Manufacturing, Telcom, CPG, Finance/Banking and Marketing. Maria has been involved in localization/translation work, digital transformation, CRM & Loyalty programs, PLM and EDI programs, financial core and online solutions, as well as preproduction technology solutions for print. In the last 5 years, she has also worn the title of CISO and became more invested in cybersecurity with emphasis on PII, PHI and financial data of customers and employees. This also includes experience with HITRUST, SOC 2, NIST, GBLM and other auditing and compliance methodologies.

With over 30+ years of experience in the technology industry, Susan is driving cultural and technology transformations in her organization. Susan joined RDV Corporation in 2019 and now oversees the overall technology strategy and team, including Cloud Computing, Cybersecurity and Business Information Services. Before joining RDV Corporation, she was a partner and owner of C/D/H, a Michigan based technology consulting company.  In her consulting work at C/D/H, Susan acted as a virtual CIO and technology advisor to clients across the country.

Kathy brings over 30 years of IT and operational experience to her role as Vice President, IT&Security for KellyConnect where she is responsible for setting the technical direction (apps, infrastructure, desktop, cloud) and driving innovation across the account. She has a strong background in leading virtual IT teams, program and project management, strategic planning and business enablement through tech. A process advocate with automotive, healthcare and service industry experience, she has a track record for implementing change management, promoting data driven decision making and deploying program governance processes on a global scale. 

Miloš Topić is Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Digital Officer at Grand Valley State University. As vice president, Topić is the senior technology leader for the university and is responsible for the entire IT portfolio ranging from digital capabilities, infrastructure, security and application management across all of Grand Valley's academic and administrative areas.

Gary Sorrentino serves as Zoom’s Global CIO, after spending over two years as our Global Deputy CIO. A former Managing Director for J.P. Morgan Asset & Wealth Management, Gary was the Global Head of Client Cyber Awareness and Education.With over 40 years of experience in Information Technology, Gary has served in various other IT leadership positions in firms across the financial services industry.

Join Ram Viswanathan, CTO of AI at Rackspace, for an insightful session on moving beyond the AI hype cycle to deliver tangible business value. This presentation will delve into real-world AI adoption through client implementations and showcase live demos of AI solutions in action. Discover successful approaches for integrating AI into your operations to drive significant business outcomes and stay ahead in the competitive landscape.

Mandi joins us today with over 10 years of sales experience in telecom, contact center and AI. It's been so exciting watching the industry trends and tech solutions change year-over-year; never a dull moment in this space! Before jumping into the tech space, Mandi taught ESL in Shijiazhuang, China for a year and loves to travel! 

Richard Schuman is a seasoned technology executive with over two decades of experience in channel sales and partnership strategies. Currently serving as the Director of Channel Sales at Level AI, Richard has a proven track record of developing and executing AI sales strategies across North America, the UK, and EMEA regions. He has a keen ability to drive market share growth, foster strategic relationships, and lead high-performing teams.

As a channel champion, Eric focuses on expanding Deft, a Summit company's reach through sales partnerships. He’s a practicing technologist who fuses engineering savvy with business acuity.

Matt Douglass is the Senior Director of Solution Engineering at CBTS. He specializes in complex customer requests, multi-location networks, and mission-critical SD-WAN, SASE, and Cloud Security solutions. Matt leads a team of Solution Engineers focused on UCaaS, SD-WAN, Cloud Networking, and Cybersecurity in the Channel. Matt has been in the Voice and IT Service Industry for over 30 years, including 16 years at CBTS. Matt’s previous roles at CBTS have included product management, enterprise sales, and channel management. In 2000, Matt founded the first independent ADSL Internet Service Provider in Indianapolis, which CBTS purchased in 2008.

Chris DeBrunner is a distinguished professional with an impressive 25-year tenure in the realm of Information Technology. With a steadfast dedication to the field of Cybersecurity, Chris has accumulated an exceptional 16+ years of experience, establishing himself as a trusted guardian of digital assets. As the Director of Security Operations & Compliance at CBTS, Chris DeBrunner is at the forefront of safeguarding organizations against ever-evolving cyber threats. His leadership and expertise have been instrumental in building and fortifying enterprise-level applications and platforms. Chris's remarkable skill set is underscored by his track record of providing unwavering support to numerous Forbes 100 companies, contributing to their resilience in the face of cyber challenges.

As the VP of Cybersecurity Services for Flexential Professional Services, Will leads the cybersecurity practice, which provides security, risk, and compliance assessments, incident response, penetration testing, disaster recovery, and cybersecurity program development to customers across various industries. Will holds numerous certifications, including CISSP, CISA, QSA, CISM, CDPSE, and PMP, and has over 25 years of enterprise IT experience in cybersecurity, architecture, consulting, and infrastructure. Will can be found on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/willbass/) and Twitter @WB_IT.

Brian Dutton, CRO, Americas started his tech career at DS3 DataVaulting, selling backup and DRaaS in 2006. He evolved as a leader in the channel space, focusing on multi-billion dollar global partners through the Terramark acquisition. Brian was promoted to focus on Client Success once Verizon acquired Terremark in 2009.  In 2016 Brian spent 2 years consulting for Colocation providers in Ashburn, VA building both sales and client services organizations.  He joined the Assured Data Protection team in July 2018 to help build the Assured selling machine.  As CRO for the US, Canada and LatAm, he manages the Channel Partner, Sales and Client Services organizations.

Austin focuses on helping organizations in the Indianapolis area – specializing in customer experience solutions like Contact Center, Unified Communications, Workforce Management, and AI for medium-large enterprises.

Professionally, my passion is learning and embracing the ever-changing technology marketplace and challenging myself to think critically about how each solution can improve customer processes. I love solving complex business problems and thinking outside the box to find the solution that is best for my customers.

Experienced channel leader with a proven track record of building successful channel programs and leading high performance channel organizations that exceed targets. Seasoned and tenacious executive with long-time relationships with the eco-channel system of Technology Service Distributors (TSD) and their respective Advisors & Partners

Erin Stewart introduced us to Conversational AI and is now focused on helping organizations turn implementations into transformations. In 2019, Erin completed coursework at the M.I.T Sloan School of Management concentrating on Artificial Intelligence- Implications for Business Strategy and she was named “Best Woman in Software and Technology Sales” by Women in Sales - North America

While I have been in the Information Technology space for over 15 years, the last 8 have been primarily focused in the Information Security field. During the day I am a Lead InfoSec Analyst for Corewell Health where my primary job in working with the business to ensure that both business and security goals are met. In my spare time I am the co-found of Cloud Con, a local IT conference in West Michigan, and a run a security podcast called #RealTalk with Aaron Bregg.

As Dataprise's Vice President, Channel & Strategic Partnerships, Chaz Chalkley leverages his 20+ years of technical consulting and customer service expertise to ensure Dataprise’s strategic partnerships receive the engagement necessary to help empower sales teams and grow revenue share across their customer base.

Pamela Diaz is CEO and President of Entara, a security-first eXtended Service Provider (XSP). Under her leadership, Entara has been recognized for several awards due to its forward-thinking and strategic security solutions by CRN, MSSP Alert, and Channel Partners. Pam is also the Co-Founder of Forecheck, an automated incident management, remediation, and resilience platform built for ingesting incidents from security providers.  

Chris began his technology career as a software developer with US West soon after transitioning to the Professional Services team at NetApp, creating solutions, leading teams, and collaborating with partners to address customer business challenges. In 2022, Chris joined Ntirety as a Solutions Architect dedicated to the Channel, leveraging his expertise and collaborating with partners to identify and capitalize on partner opportunities.

Michael Roche is an Operations and Solution Consulting Expert with practical experience in the customer service industry, focusing on leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to improve the customer experience while optimizing operations. 

CEO and Founder of 360 SOC (www.360SOC.com). 360 SOC was found in 2015 and is an Award Winning Cybersecurity Company. We offer services focused around cybersecurity and cybersecurity management.

We specialize in Managed Detection and Response, SOC as a Service and Cybersecurity Services and Sourcing. Chris designed the the methodology that has developed into 360 SOC, a leading cybersecurity services company.

Prior to 360 SOC, Chris held various roles in technology services and telecommunications sales and consulting. Chris's hobbies include golf and travel. 

Ray Watson is the Vice President of Technology at Comcast Business, a global solutions provider focusing on cybersecurity solutions for multinational corporations. In addition to a degree from Purdue University and numerous industry certifications, he also has 22 years of frontline experience in the prevention and mitigation of attacks from cybercriminals, hacktivist groups, and nation-state actors.  

Ray frequently teaches advanced security for global corporations, as well as federal and international law enforcement agencies. Ray has spoken at InfoSec conferences such as Black Hat and Shmoocon, as well as teaching classes on operational security (OPSEC) at cryptocurrency conferences globally. Ray is the host of the "Tribe of Hackers" podcast, and is featured in the Tribe of Hackers Security Leaders book. You can follow Ray on Twitter by going to RayRedacted.com 

Jim Lynch is an accomplished Sr. Executive with over 20 years of experience in driving innovation and growth across various roles in operations and product management. He is deeply passionate about leveraging AI to optimize sales workflows, enhance business growth, and develop scalable strategies that unlock key insights for organizations.

At Dialpad, as Sr. Product Manager for Ai Sales, Jim focuses on integrating AI-driven solutions that empower sales teams to perform at their best by streamlining processes and improving customer engagement. His expertise lies in crafting AI products that not only boost performance but also provide actionable insights that propel organizations forward.

Dr. Paul Isely is the Associate Dean and Professor of Economics for the Seidman College of Business at Grand Valley State University, which he joined in 1995 after earning his Ph.D. in Economics from Purdue University. He also holds an M.S. in Economics from Purdue University and a dual B.S. in Physics and Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Isely’s research interests have led to many local articles and reports.

Scott has been with NICE for 4 years as a Senior Partner Executive.  He is passionate about emerging technology and how NICE is leveraging it to enhance customer experience.  Scott embraces opportunities to learn about business challenges and enjoys introducing tools and resources that can help organizations achieve desired business outcomes. 

Jerry has served as the Director of Sales Engineering for Midwest team at Cato Networks for the last year, as a director of Sales Engineering Jerry runs a team of engineers who support and design SASE solutions throughout the Central US. Prior to Cato he was the Principle Solution Architect for a MSP/CLEC designing a wide variety of network and security solutions. He has over 20 years of experience working with a variety of networking and security products. He has focused the last 6 years specifically specializing in the SD-WAN/SASE space and even help build a managed service offering around majority of the market leaders. 

Michael Pitts has over 25 years in IT and Security and has been focused on infrastructure, networking, and security. He most recently celebrated his tenth anniversary at Trustwave. He is the SME for Trustwave's mail security solution and Consulting and Professional Services (CPS) practice.

Executive leader with deep experience in applying technology to solve business challenges. Results oriented with a proven record of success. Fosters close working relationships with executive decision makers to achieve corporate objectives. Possesses strong leadership and communications skills and maintains deep technical competencies.