Angela Yochem

2018 Keynote Speaker, Executive Vice President Chief Digital and Technology Officer at Novant Health

Angela is the Executive Vice President Chief Digital and Technology Officer at Novant Health. In this new role, she is developing the strategic vision for how Novant Health can engage with patients through technology and improve their healthcare experience.

Prior to Novant, she was the chief information officer and executive vice president of digital channels at Rent-A-Center in Plano, Texas. Before Rent-A-Center, Angela served as the global chief information officer at BDP International. She also served as AstraZeneca’s first global chief technology officer in Wilmington, Delaware.

Angela received her bachelor’s degree in music from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana and her master’s degree in computer science from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. She currently holds several advisory positions, serving as the independent director for Rocana, an advanced analytics software firm recently acquired by Splunk; an entrepreneur-in-residence with Vonzos Partners, a Colorado-based investment firm; as well as a mentor for SK Telecom Americas Innopartners, the business development and venture capital arm of SK Telecom. Yochem has served on several boards, including the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh, the Youth Works Foundation of the Union League of Philadelphia and the University of Tennessee’s electrical engineering and computer science department.

Patrick Turner

CTO at Small Footprint

Patrick doesn’t like technology, he loves it. He discovered this passion at the age of ten on a trip to Radio Shack with his brother. Since then, Patrick has turned his love of technology into a thriving career, amassing over 20 years of experience producing software solutions for a broad range of business needs. Technical skills aside, he’s also known for being one who does the right things for the right reasons, even if it’s not the easiest. But this approach has led to the translation of business needs into viable software solutions. In layman’s terms, he’s a problem solver who’s not afraid to provide the right solution while showing the work it took to get there.

James Guido

VP of Business Development at North State Technology Solutions

Jim Guido is a veteran consultant with over 25 years of relevant industry experience. Due to his extensive background in cybersecurity, networking, datacenter, Unified Communications and disaster recovery, Mr. Guido supplies critical insights into the design, operation and response processes. He has successfully leveraged his depth of experience to benefit clients in a number of ways, including the following:
– Security Assessments and Monitoring: Developed a comprehensive cybersecurity assessment program along with an event and log file management/reporting solution for a North Carolina-based manufacturing organization.
– Secure Unified Communication & Network Design & Implementation: Provided leadership for a team of consultants and engineers in designing, deploying and documenting a new datacenter and Unified Communications infrastructure solution for a large North Carolina-based financial organization.
– Cybersecurity and Advanced Persistent Threat Assessment: Provided design and execution plans for conducting a multi year cybersecurity assessment of a nation-wide fortune 500 company.

Richard Starets

CEO at Small Footprint

Richard is CEO of Small Footprint. He worked for several start-up companies before starting Small Footprint. He spent 15 years working and living in Eastern Europe, during which time he built and managed operations across 5 countries for start-up telecoms provider eTel Group (later purchased by Telecom Austria), and also served as an early Sr. Manager for Hungarian telco Novacom, forging strategic international partnerships and new product development. In 2003 he saw the opportunity to leverage the exceptional software engineering talent of the region to provide global IT services and established Small Footprint. Small Footprint is celebrating its 15 year anniversary this year, having established an exceptional company culture envied by many.

Paul Mazzucco

Chief Security Officer at TierPoint

Paul Mazzucco is responsible for all TierPoint corporate standards regarding physical, information, and network security; and he leads the charge in acquiring and maintaining all industry-specific compliance certifications, including PCI DSS, FISMA, and the FedRAMP/NIST Cloud Security standards. Paul is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE), and Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) working with the FBI, the United States Secret Service, Pennsylvania Electronic Crimes Task Force (PAECT), and the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (U.S. CERT).

Michael Brady

CIO at Market America | Shop.com

Michael Brady is the Chief Information Officer of Market America | SHOP.COM. Market America was founded in 1992, and operates globally in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom. Michael is responsible for establishing and executing the technology strategy and solutions that support Market America’s more than six million customers and 180,000 UnFranchise Owners worldwide. Prior to joining Market America, Michael was the Chief Information officer at LendingTree.com, which is the nation’s leading online lender exchange. Michael Brady is a technology evangelist starting his career teaching, accountable for developing school district computer curriculum as well as teaching college courses in programming. He has been a teacher, developer, architect, and has led technology teams over 20 years.

Greg Kerr

Executive Vice President And Chief Technology and Product Officer at Inmar

Greg Kerr serves as Inmar’s Chief Product and Technology Officer. In this role, he manages our solution development teams, and defines and leads Inmar’s technology strategy. He is responsible for strengthening our existing commerce networks, while integrating mobile and emerging technologies to enhance our value proposition. Greg joined Inmar in December 2013, bringing a unique skillset combining mobile, big data and product development with strong business acumen and a keen awareness of the value of user experience in software. He has extensive technical and leadership experience building and directing engineering organizations; planning, staffing and leading complex projects to successful conclusions, maintaining strong customer relationships; and facilitating tight business and engineering alignment.
Prior to joining Inmar Greg served as Vice President, Software Development, for AuthenTec, where he was responsible for defining software strategy and leading the company’s technical Mergers and Acquisition teams. While with AuthenTec, he was involved in the development of the technology that enables the iPhone’s Touch ID fingerprint identity and played a key role in the company’s sale to Apple Inc. Prior to AuthenTec, he was Vice President of Engineering, Sonic Solutions, where he led the integration of engineers located across six countries in Europe, Asia and the U.S. Greg also founded several successful software development companies.
He holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with Honors in Physical Chemistry. He is fluent in English and German and academic Spanish and Russian.

Karl Hightower

Rent-A-Center

Karl has worked in the Information Management and Information Technology field for the past 20 years. He started his career in the telecommunications industry building experience in project management, business analysis and information compilation. He spent many years in consulting driving large, complex global Information Management implementations where his roles consisted of development, analysis, project management, delivery owner and various levels of enterprise architecture. Throughout his career, he gained the opportunity through acquisitions and mergers to architect and lead multiple system consolidations. He has experience in the following industries: Apparel, Manufacturing, Warehouse Distribution, Sales & Marketing, Retail Channel Management, Energy Trading, Insurance, Government, Banking & Finance, Food & Beverage, Telecommunications, Retail, & Rent to Own.

In his current position he is leading a digital transformation of the application and information spaces. His multiple teams cover areas encompassing Point of Sale, Ecommerce,  Mobile, MDM, the Enterprise Data Warehouse, Data Quality, Data Services, Architecture & Governance, and Project Delivery. The teams and the processes that Karl builds follow a formula of always looking for continuous improvement and an innovative, out of the box means of delivering business objectives. Karl continues to be a mentor and thought leader in how businesses can best leverage what information they have to drive the competitive advantages they need.

Karl graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in Political Science. He has a certification in Enterprise Architecture from Carnegie-Mellon ISRI. He currently resides in Dallas with his wife and 2 children.

Brian Platz

Co-CEO of Fluree, PBC

Brian pioneered as a creator, evangelizer, and executive throughout the early internet and SaaS boom, and is now helping companies navigate the complexity of the blockchain enterprise movement. Prior to establishing FlureeDB — a blockchain database for decentralized applications — Brian co-founded SilkRoad Technology which grew to over 2,000 customers and 500 employees in 12 global offices.

Andy Santacroce

Vice President of Technology Development for Tokio Marine NA Services

Andy is Vice President of Technology Development for TMNA Services (TMNAS), LLC. Established in 2012 as the shared services company to Tokio Marine North America, Inc. (TMNA). He joined the high-growth company in 2016 to drive customer focused, consistent, coordinated delivery across digital technologies, applications, business intelligence and quality management.

Prior to TMNAS, Andy was Vice President of Global Applications & Digital Products for BDP International, the world’s largest privately held non-asset based global transportation and logistics management firm. He has also held key technology leadership roles with the Verizon companies for 11 years, where he led teams in the Enterprise, Consumer and Wireless divisions, delivering technology solutions to the marketplace, and with Cable & Wireless, SmithKline Beecham, The PMA Group, PECO Energy and Prudential Insurance Company throughout his career.

Andy has been recognized as a 2016 Premier 100 IT Leader by Computerworld Magazine and was named an Alumni Fellow by the Pennsylvania State University.

Edson Yanaga

Director of Developer Experience at Red Hat

Java Champion & Microsoft MVP. Software Craftsman. Empowering developers all around the world with Red Hat tools & expertise to allow better software delivered faster and safely.

Andrea Rice

Vice President of Engineering Services for TDArx, Inc.

Melissa Wittner

Vice President, Information Technology at Inmar

Mellisa is an experienced Information Technology Executive, skilled at implementing technology solutions for a wide variety of businesses. Specialize in setting and obtaining strategic corporate goals, retaining technology professionals, and adherence to corporate budgets. Adept at project, program and portfolio management of software for corporations. Can work across all aspects of a company to obtain desired results in terms of bringing software development projects to market.

Gabriel Schon

Business Intelligence Architect at Volvo Group

Gabriel gladly leads a BI team on the IT side with the following responsibilities:

Multicultural Leadership, leading a team that is currently divided in two countries (Brazil and USA) supporting the information management and business intelligence operation from Volvo Truck Sales in North America.

Recruiting, responsible to recruit and interview resources that are necessary to provide continuity and consistency to the BI operation.

Advising business, what are the ideal business intelligence solutions to support their needs consolidating cost, return over investment and user requirements.

Drive Innovation, leading initiatives to embrace predictive analysis, applying new technologies using advanced statistics and mathematical methods to support data driven decision in the operational management.

Jeff Dalton

Enterprise Architect at MACK Trucks / Volvo Trucks NA

Jeff is an Enterprise Architect for MACK Trucks / Volvo Trucks NA. Jeff has been working with software development since the mid 80s when his Dad brought home a PC and asked for a way to manage the business inventory. Jeff finally started getting paid to write software (Dad was cheapo) in the early 90s. Jeffs 25+ year career has taken him on many adventures and into almost every business domain. Jeff loves rocketry, solving problems, data analysis and the outdoors.

Anand Acharya

IT Architect at Volvo Group North America

Sachin Solkhan

Director, Software Engineering at Fidelity Investments

Sachin Solkhan is a Digital Technologist with several year’s experience developing software solutions and leading teams for the enterprise. He is passionate about Agile practices, Software Engineering and application of Artificial Intelligence technologies.

Paul Dumas

Public API Platforms and Innovation at marketamerica | shop.com

Technologist, Product Innovator/Manager with strong business acumen, people skills and communication abilities. Excellent leader for startups, innovation, new products and organizational change.

Damond VanWeerdhuizen

TEKsystems

Damond VanWeerdhuizen joined TEKsystems in 2010 supporting the Network, Infrastructure and Security space. He has helped many organizations here in the Triad solve business problems by supporting Services and Staffing solutions. As the market has evolved and clients buying needs have changed, Damond has been chartered to develop a division specifically focused on Risk and Compliance.

Michael Goff

Director, Agile Transformation Strategies at Small Footprint

Michael is the Director of Agile Strategies with Small Footprint, where he leads Agile software development projects and agile transformations.  The goal of his projects is for businesses to deliver high value to customers and stakeholders through adopting agile across the entire organization, not just the development teams. He has 15+ years of new product development experience, ranging from software engineering to product line management. Michael is a certified Product Manager, Product Owner, and Scrum Master.

Liz Carruthers

Engagement Manager at Small Footprint

Liz is an Engagement Manager at Small Footprint, where she leads Agile software development teams. She has 10+ years of experience developing technology and marketing strategies to deliver business value.

Liz is a Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Project Management Professional (PMP), and holds a master’s certificate in Project Management from the University of Pittsburgh / PM Centers USA. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Psychology at the University of Rochester.

James Gledhill

Senior Digital Strategist at Small Footprint

Starting his career as a digital producer and serving in a variety of roles, including Director of Digital Experience for a leading Ad agency and interim CEO of a startup, James Gledhill has built a track record of leading talented teams to create breakthrough products. He utilizes blue-sky thinking, a passionate empathy for the user, and an appreciation for data to identify unexpected opportunities to solve human problems with digital tools. His nearly 20 years of experience includes working with major brands such as Unilever/Tresemme, GoArmy.com, CSX, PepBoys, HondaJet, SunTrust and Volunteers of America.

Brian White

Senior Solutions Architect at Small Footprint

With a background in business and as a weekend studio potter, Brian White’s unique experiences fuse his creative passion with technical problem solving, bringing software solutions into form. As a senior solutions architect, he questions the status quo and asks if there’s a better way to do something. Brian is a self-taught developer who has worked on projects across many industries and technologies since 2001. He has juggled many roles as a full stack developer – having a hand in everything from requirements to architecture, testing to deployment. Since moving to Small Footprint in 2012, Brian has blended his attention to detail from the developer-side with a keen understanding of the business and technology needs of his clients.

Steve Vest

UX Architect at Small Footprint

After 16 years and several roles within the website and application business, Steve claims to know a thing or two about UI design, UX and working with clients and dev teams to build and evolve quality interactive products. He is passionate about delighting end users and enjoys working with teams to provide user experiences that evoke the “I really like how this thing works” rating.

TJ Koines

UX Specialist at Small Footprint

When thinking of technology, you may not first think of studying people, but TJ does. The former Psychology/Philosophy major turned his interest in what makes his fellow humans tick into a career in UX. After studying people in clinical settings, he discovered the fields of Human Factors and Ergonomics and was fascinated by the opportunity to conduct research and apply it through the design of technology. He pursued this new interest at the University of Washington while earning his M.S. in Human Centered Design and Engineering. Today, he seeks to see the world through other people’s eyes and enjoys complaining about bad UX all in the name of making lives easier.

Jeff Clouse

Director, Data Science at Inmar

Jeff Clouse, who holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science/Machine Learning, is Director of Data Science at Inmar. With over two decades of corporate and academic experience, Jeff brings together advanced analytics and modeling with extensive software design and development experience to create powerful data-driven solutions. Jeff is excited about the advances in machine learning brought on by work in Big Data and Distributed Computing, and is using Hadoop, Hive, Scalding, R, Python, and other Big Data and open source technologies to build models and products that provide insights into shopper and patient behavior.

My current interests are in “Big Data,” primarily from a data analytics perspective. Working in this space is bringing me full circle back to my graduate studies in Machine Learning.

Brett Wallis

Lead Product Designer at Arch Mortgage Insurance Company

Brett has been involved in building end-user solutions for over 25 years, as  developer, solution & business architect, development manager, and currently as a UX product designer. He has several certifications in human factors; studied systems analysis, cognitive psychology, and took just enough philosophy to keep him thoroughly confused. Through all this he has become confident that if we can strive to understand our actual customer we can better meet their needs, and help the companies we work for be successful.

Tom Norman

Database Architect / DBA at KPA

In 1998, Tom changed his career focus to begin working with Sql Server. He has worked in all aspects of Sql Server including Administration, Database Development, BI and Reporting Services. He has worked in the Finance and Compliance industry. His experience has included International deployments. Tom is the Leader of the PASS Virtualization chapter and the past President of the Denver Sql Server User Group.

Zack Kirchin

CTO at Tech Talent South

Zack Kirchin is the CTO for Tech Talent South, a startup dedicated to raising the technical talent throughout the US. Through TTS he gets to play developer, teacher, and mentor all while meeting the best people in the tech/startup community in North Carolina and the rest of the US.

Leslie Alvarado

Tech Talent South

Leslie was born and raised in the alligator-filled far away land of Florida. The oldest (and best) of three, she took her energetic personality on the road and moved to Davidson, NC to pursue a degree in mathematics. While pursuing the status of mathematician she was named the inaugural Tech Impact Fellow of Davidson College and created multiple Virtual Reality experiences. She is currently a member of the Tech Talent South team and is based out of Charlotte.

Bobby Davis

Coder Foundry

Bobby is the Co-Founder and CTO of Coder Foundry. He brings an extensive background of technical knowledge to the team. A serial entrepreneur, he has been involved in multiple start-ups. With his custom technology development consulting group he is a Microsoft Gold Partner. As a consultant he leads efforts to design, build, and deploy applications for companies. Also, through his consulting practice, he has been providing IT job placement in the region for the past fifteen years. He has extensive experience in training, mentoring and developing IT talent. Bobby earned a Bachelor of Science degree from UNCG.

Antonio Raynor

Coder Foundry

Antonio is Director of Education at Coder Foundry. He  holds a computer science degree from East Carolina University. He has over a decade of real world development experience with Microsoft-related projects for medium- and large-sized organizations. His background work includes consulting, development lead, and project management, and he has worked on all aspects of enterprise-level project deployments. He brings his passion for development and instruction to Coder Foundry.

Hannah Ashford

Leading Role

Hannah is a co-founder and Creative Director at Leading Role an XR studio pushing boundaries at the intersection of story and technology. At Leading Role we embrace the inherent powers of immersive content – empathy and wonder – to create solutions in marketing, education and gaming. With over two decades of experience in the entertainment business Hannah brings a deep knowledge of the creative process and logistical expertise to this technical enterprise. For many years Hannah worked as a costumer for the School of Dance at UNCSA and was the costume designer for several regional independent feature films.