SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Taras Bachynskyi, Director of Big Data & Analytics, SoftServe

Taras has more than 15 years of experience in consulting, R&D, design and implementation of enterprise-scale solutions for large range of companies from startups to enterprises, including Fortune 100 companies. Together with his team of Senior Architects and top-notch Experts in Big Data, BI, Analytics, IoT and other technology areas, he drives innovations, architecture design, and adoption of cutting-edge technologies and approaches for organizations from various business domains.

Dilip Balachandran, Director – Analytics and Applications, USG

I am a seasoned executive with a solid track record of enabling business growth through digital transformation, data analytics and innovative applications. I have broad technology expertise and I am known for incubating new capabilities to drive business value through strategic use of technology. I am a gifted communicator with the ability to define and share vision/strategy, develop roadmaps, champion new concepts and gain executive support.

At USG, I lead digital innovation, ERP/CRM applications, analytics & integration, and enterprise architecture teams to envisions and implement industry leading solutions that deliver sustainable business value and competitive advantage. I provide vision, direction and executive leadership in defining digital and analytics strategy, and strive to inspire innovation to enable next generation digital/analytics capabilities. I maintain strong relationships with senior business leaders across and outside the organization.

I have demonstrated success incubating new capabilities, and initiating and directing company-wide projects crafted to add business value. I relish being a trusted advisor to senior business leaders and enjoy collaborating with their teams to discover and implement strategic and emerging technology solutions that enable business growth.

Specialties: Business Technology Strategy, Executive Alignment, Business Intelligence, Advanced Analytics, SAS, R, Data Quality, Data Governance, Enterprise Data Warehouse, Cloud (AWS), Digital Innovation, Enterprise Architecture, Program & Project Management, Team Building, Oracle ERP, CRM Solutions, Price Management & Analytics, Web &Mobile Apps, Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), Demand Planning & Forecasting, Business Case Development, Strategic Planning, Business Relationship Management, Business Technology Roadmaps, Multi-Site Technologies, Business Continuity, Information Security Management, Contract Negotiations, Vendor Selection, Risk Management, Change Management

Lee Corning, AE, ThoughtSpot

Lee Corning started his career in the CBOT Bond trading pits in 2007. Since then he has founded 2 successfully exited tech startups that continue to operate under their new entities. Lee has spent time at IBM, Tableau, and Amazon. Today he works at ThoughtSpot. 

Jimmy DeBlasio, Manager, Analytics, Central States Health & Welfare and Pension Funds

Jimmy DeBlasio is an experienced entrepreneur and business leader. Jimmy was a founding member of The Black Sheep, a hyper-local marketing and social media company serving the collegiate marketplace. He is also the third generation of leaders building his family’s commercial printing company. Currently, he is developing the strategy and analytics capability for both a $6B managed care health insurer serving 500,000 members and its partnered pension fund. Jimmy is a leader on the team tasked to modernize and digitize company operations, improve fraud detection and build the predictive analytics capability to improve health outcomes for the membership. Throughout his career, Jimmy has focused on promoting change and growth by cultivating a data driven culture, building and optimizing processes, and structuring operations to scale.

Jim Ingle, Executive Vice President, Messina Group

Jim is an Executive Vice President leading the Consulting division of the Messina Group. Jim brings over 30 years of thought leadership and consulting experience to Messina Group. A proven entrepreneur, thought leader, and “data wrangler” with a proven record of client business transformation and management of 100 million dollar plus project portfolios. Jim is an accomplished thought leader and possesses a unique blend of management, business, and technical analysis skills.

The consulting division at Messina Group specializes in helping clients through their digital journey with advisory services, and digital transformation services. Accomplished through cloud data and application platforms such as Microsoft, Salesforce and proprietary data platform as a service Analytics Hub. These services have been applied cross industry with specializations in Airlines, Financial Services, Life Sciences and professional services industries.

Prior to this role at Messina Group Jim managed and lead the business intelligence practice of 2000+ global resources, and expanded the practice into Big Data and advanced analytics. Jim is fluent in the latest data architectures and practices as well as the intricacies of a global delivery model. In addition, Jim was formerly a founding partner of The Revere Group, a 600+ employee, Chicagoland consultancy, with a role as Chief Solution Officer he established and managed many of the firm’s delivery practices.

James Jackson, Director ESA Business Administration, Assistant Director Data Analysis & Systems Integration, University of Chicago

James has over 30 years of data analysis experience dating back to his time in the US Navy. James has worked on projects for the US Government, Panamanian Government and several private organizations. Currently, he works for Enrollment & Career Advancement (ESA) at the University of Chicago as a full time data analyst and systems integration specialist managing their Salesforce CRM, Handshake Student Information System, creating Alteryx workflows, and maintains a few projects using R and Python.

Kevin McGinley, Field CTO, Snowflake Computing

Kevin is currently a Field CTO at Snowflake Computing, focused on advising customers on the best way to integrate Snowflake into their Analytics architecture. He has designed and developed Data Warehouses and Business Intelligence systems for Fortune 500 companies since the mid-1990’s. Kevin also speaks at popular conferences, hosted a data-centric podcast, authored a vlog, wrote many blog posts, and was recognized in the Oracle space with the ACE Director distinction.

Edward Marchewka, Director of Information & Technology Services, Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network

Edward Marchewka is the Director of Information Technology for Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network. In his role, Edward is responsible for maintaining and securing the infrastructure for 24/7/365 operations, supporting the IT customer environment, and delivering and supporting the enterprise applications that run Gift of Hope. His teams work with Gift of Hope’s internal and external customers to deliver high quality information and technology services. Edward is also the Founder and Creator of CHICAGO Metrics™, a platform to a program to help manage your company’s key IT and Information Security risks enabling you to have a better conversation with business leadership in terms that they understand.

Tyler Roesler, Business Intelligence Analyst, Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network

Tyler Roesler is the Business Intelligence Analyst for Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network. In this role, Tyler administers and develops Gift of Hope’s data visualization and analysis tool (Qlik Sense), performs regular data collection and analysis for strategic planning, and designs predictive models for improving operational efficiency. Tyler also assists in process design and project implementation in addition to generally improving data literacy across Gift of Hope. Prior to his work with Gift of Hope, Tyler was completing his BS in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He has recently finished a Certificate in Nonprofit Management from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and is actively pursuing a Masters of Accountancy from Northern Illinois University.

Sree Pillai, Senior Global Director, Regal Beloit

Sree Pillai is a International Award winning IT Executive, who leverages technology to transform business cultures, build value, drive growth and create an environment of continuous improvement. Exceeds all measurable parameters for quality, customer satisfaction and ROI by visualizing full strategic picture and aligning IT initiatives with corporate vision, mission and goals. Strong driver of end to end business transformation with impact spanning multiple businesses globally. Present deep and broad experience with in IT, manufacturing, banking, insurance, auto industry, consumer products, merger & acquisitions and professional services environments in more than 90 countries from North America to the Far East.

Sree has more than 20 years experience in Information Technology specializing in ERP(Oracle EBS, SAP), Business Intelligence, Advanced Analytics, IoT, Artificial Intelligence, (Microsoft Azure, Oracle Big Data Cloud), Enterprise Performance Management (Hyperion), CRM, IT Management and IT infrastructure. Sree has managed numerous ERP, Business Intelligence, CRM, EPM implementations and upgrades. He assumed his current position in July 2007. Prior to this role Sree served multiple roles at General Electric (GE) and Oracle Corp with global responsibility.

Sree has a masters degree in computer science and Executive MBA from University of Wisconsin.

Annur Sumar, Chief Technical Officer, MaeTech

Annur Sumar is a Microsoft Cloud and Datacenter MVP and technology consultant in the areas of Infrastructure Design, Enterprise Content Management, CRM, Microsoft Azure, System Center and Cloud Technologies. Annur is an industry recognized leader and independent speaker around strategic service automation, technology driven process improvements, IT service alignment, engineering best practices and operations management. All of which are targeted in his presentations to helping businesses with complex IT environments lower Total Cost of Ownership and raising Return On Investments.

Prior to joining a Microsoft Partner Consulting firm, Annur served as a Vice President of Technology for Duff & Phelps. One of the world’s leading independent financial advisory firms serving client needs in the areas of valuation, investment banking, transaction advice, and dispute consulting. During his tenure at Duff & Phelps, Annur worked closely with Microsoft product teams and case study managers in providing invaluable feedback around how businesses such as his were able to benefit from cloud technologies that were molded into business solutions. As a Microsoft MVP and industry expert, Annur brings 10 years of experience to work actively with other MVPs and Microsoft Partners to provide industry insight and strategic direction.

Aureo Zanon, Senior Manager – Predictive Data Analytics, Corporate Safety, United Airlines

Aureo Zanon, Senior Manager – Predictive Data Analytics, Corporate Safety, United AirlinesAureo is a Senior Manager of Predictive Data Analytics working for the United Airlines Corporate Safety division. He joined United Airlines headquarters in Chicago as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and later worked for the Technical Operations division leading teams working on aircraft spare parts ownership and allocation optimization and the Airport Operations division on Resource Planning under Finance. Before joining the airline industry Aureo had multiple technical and leadership roles at Motorola in Brazil working on Quality Engineering, Corporate Research (Motorola Labs), Industrial Engineering and Factory Capacity Optimization. He started his professional career at General Electric in Brazil as a member of the Technical Leadership Program. He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering with majors in Computational Mechanics and Manufacturing Engineering and graduate degrees in Optimization, Quality, Industrial Engineering, Project Management and Data Analytics. He is also a certified Six Sigma Black Belt from the American Society for Quality. At United Airlines his team is currently working on multiple analytics applications ranging from Data Visualization, Text Analytics, Computer Vision and Predictive Safety modeling as a way to improve Safety and Productivity for the airline.