SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Dave Braner, CIO, City of Joliet

With the future always on his mind, Dave is constantly challenging the status quo and is never comfortable staying in neutral. He understands that with technology, being complacent can be the death of an organization. He has had over a decade of experience in the insurance vertical, another decade in the telecom vertical, and now is focused on the government space. His roots were in IT development and has owned several technology-based companies during his career. His strengths center around building productive teams and really works on understanding what the business needs to be successful.

Currently he is spending his time bringing new technologies to critical areas within the City of Joliet. Often governments are far followers. With his experience in the private sector, Dave is pushing Joliet to become a leader in innovation and is bringing new ideas and technology into production.

Dave lives with this wife Cathy and two sons in the Naperville area. He holds a BS and MIS in Computer Science, in addition to his PMP and Scrum Master certifications. Dave has a huge soft spot for kids and as a result, is a member of the board of directors for the Boys and Girls Club of Joliet.

Tom Drez, CIO/CPO/CSO/Managing Director CIPP, Christian Brothers Services

Tom Drez is the managing director of Christian Brothers Services’ Information & Technology division. He is also the chief information officer, chief privacy officer and chief security officer for Christian Brothers Services. As the leader of the Information & Technology Services division for the last 31 years, his responsibility has been to manage the portfolio of business and technology initiatives across all business units and all systems to continually improve services, efficiency and effectiveness. In addition, he is responsible for information protection, including privacy and security, for the entire organization.

Mr. Drez holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Lewis University, Romeoville, Illinois, and the designation of Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) from the International Association of Privacy Professionals.

He is chairman of the Church Benefits Association’s Information Technology Group, a member of the Diocesan Information Systems Conference (DISC) and a member of the Lewis University Computer Science Advisory Board.

An active member in his community, Mr. Drez volunteers his time with the Lions Club, where he was a past president of the Lemont Lions, cabinet secretary for the District 1-BK Lions and the information technology chairman for the Lions of Illinois.

Dave Dyson, CEO, Eclipse Telecom

Dave is passionate in his belief that communication is the most important thing that any business does and that communication technology can be transformed from a necessary cost to a competitive advantage for organizations of all sizes.

Dave is an expert in telecommunications business process improvement, technology transformation, and cloud adoption. Dave and the Eclipse team have a deep understanding of how to leverage technology to drive business outcomes that deliver measurable technical, financial, and operational gains for their clients.

Dave is an Emeritus member of CompTIA’s Partner Advisory Council, and currently sits on the editorial panel for Channel Partners. Dave is also a member of the Board of Trustees for St. Joe’s Collegiate Institute in Buffalo, NY. In his spare time, Dave is also Director of Hockey and Head Varsity Coach for the Oak Park River Forest high school hockey team.

Neil Goodrich, Director, IT, Acting CIO, M. Holland Company

As the technology leader at the M. Holland Company, Neil is responsible for driving and establishing information technology strategies, digital organization change, and company software, mobility, and applications development. His multi-disciplinary background includes previous experience in accounting, project management, and investigation while his recent work has focused on building IT teams around cultures of creativity. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a Master of Business Administration in Operations Management from the UIC Liautaud Graduate School of Business. He continues to have strong ties to the UIC campus, where he mentors a cohort of high performing students as part of the Business Scholars program.

Eric Groene, VP Sales Engineering & Tech Ops, Mitel

Eric Groene is Vice President of Sales Engineering & Tech Ops at Mitel. He has been consulting, designing and selling complex IT and unified communication solutions for business clients for more than two decades. Groene is currently responsible for leading a series of programs with direct accountability for technical sales and go-to-market productivity including sales engineering, demo programs, strategic virtual teams and technical enablement. Eric joined Mitel over 11 years ago and has moved up the ranks from Sales to Technology leadership roles. Eric holds an MBA degree from Edgewood College and a BS degree from the University of Wisconsin.

Manish Haria, VP, CISO and CIO, Johnson & Quin, Inc. 

Manish has been with J&Q since 2000 working in various positions in the company’s IT department. A graduate of Mumbai University in India, Manish has a strong technical background that includes an IBM certification in DB2 Database Administration, Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute and Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) security certification from ISACA. As CIO for J&Q, Manish is responsible for the strategy, implementation, operations and maintenance of all technology-related systems for the organization. As CISO, he manages the information security program including strategy, planning, implementation, and compliance to insure security of physical and electronic organizational assets. When not focused on IT matters, Manish enjoys reading, traveling and activities with his family.

Aaron King, RSM, US Signal

As Director of Data Center Strategies at US Signal, Aaron King helps clients design and implement business continuity strategies built on best practices. After 20 years of experience in business continuity and disaster recovery engineering and operations, Aaron now works in the business development side not only implementing business continuity strategies but also helping clients with IT Transformation and Cloud Migration.

Tim Linsenmeyer, Chief Technology Officer, Clover Technologies Group

As the Chief Technology Officer at Clover Imaging Group for 11 years, Tim Linsenmeyer has been at the forefront of leveraging AI/ML to accelerate Clover’s digital transformation and improve Clover’s business operations. Under his guidance, Clover partnered with Microsoft to build an artificial intelligence/machine learning based supply chain management system. The implementation of this system has led to incredible efficiencies in Clover’s inventory, transportation, financial, manufacturing and distribution operations, which translate directly into improved customer product availability and delivery times. 

Jim P. MacLennan, SVP & Chief Information Officer, IDEX Corporation 

James P. MacLennan (Jim) is Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at IDEX Corporation, an applied solutions business that sells highly engineered products to customers in a variety of markets worldwide. MacLennan has responsibility for Corporate IT service offerings for IDEX’ portfolio of business units, and drives innovative thinking through strategic initiatives that leverage Information and Technology as growth drivers for the industrial manufacturing space.

Stephen A. Miller, Brand Ambassador, Lenovo

Stephen grew up in North Carolina & attended N.C. State University and has owned a PC almost every day of his life since the Apple IIe was new. Now, a technologist at heart, Stephen leads discussions in the multifaceted world that is modern IT.

Jim Mirochnik, Senior Partner, HALOCK Security Labs

Jim Mirochnik is a Senior Partner at HALOCK. He is an innovative business leader with over 25 years of technology and management consulting experience. He has been a Founder and Partner at multiple companies and has been with HALOCK for over nine years. Jim holds a double-concentration MBA in Finance and Marketing from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He has architected and been accountable for large-scale technology programs exceeding $100 Million in budget. Jim is a hands-on practitioner and proven business leader.

Patrick Moroney, CIO, Managed Care Health Insurance Organization

Mr. Moroney is currently Chief Information Officer (CIO) at a $7B Managed Care Health Insurer based in Chicago. Mr. Moroney has 23 years experience in CIO roles including the Nutrition and Consumer Products Sector of Monsanto, ServiceMaster and HCSC (Health Care Service Corporation – Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma), and Kantar, a global market research conglomerate. He also served as President of The Barnier Group where he served five years as senior technology advisor for private equity firm New Mountain Capital supporting CIO-level work across twenty portfolio companies.

Mr. Moroney is President and Founder of Technology Leaders Association (TLA) (www.techleaders.net) a 18-year old collegial networking organization for senior technology executives. He is a BOD member of i.c.stars (www.icstars.org) which helps train young adults from challenged environments for leadership opportunities in technology, business and the community.

David G. Rettig, Independant Consultant/Author, Former Director, Group Services IT, Nucor Building Group

David Rettig is an independent business consultant and author of two books on business-IT alignment. He has over 20 years of hands-on and leadership experience with IT in manufacturing, tier-1 automotive, supply chain, higher education, engineering, and nonprofits. He holds two masters degrees and will complete his doctorate in business in 2020, researching effective leadership development in the U.S. Federal Government.

M. Mohan Shukla, PMP, Vice President, IT Governance, Business Technology Services & Support, IRI

Mohan leads organizational transformation initiatives with a focus on aligning the technical objectives with the company’s goals and capabilities. He leads global efforts to change software platforms, migrate technology solutions, infrastructure sourcing or IT services management. He integrates the processes and methodology adopted for change efforts with the governance framework to ensure effective management of finances, resources and fiduciary obligations. One of his key interests is to progressively reduce uncertainty in the cost-benefit outcomes of large initiatives when dealing with unknown factors and increase IT cost transparency.

Mohan establishes structures and systems to govern technology implementation and deployment including outsourcing and interoperability, leading the financial, legal, contractual and staffing activities with internal and external business partners. Mohan has a passion for organizational and self-development; speaking, writing and conducting workshops on Self-Aware Leadership.

Fred Tsai, VP, Global Customer Success, Liferay

Fred is a Salesforce and Dell Veteran and for over 10 years has been successful investing in his teams to provide the best customer support and service. At Liferay, Fred is passionate about driving world-class SaaS adoption and retention for enterprise organizations. Liferay is an open source software organization, which delivers personalized experiences for the entire customer journey. As a digital experience platform, Liferay builds intranets, portals, websites and personalized digital solutions.