SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Lalit Arora, Senior Director of Engineering, Northwestern Mutual

Lalit Arora is the Senior Director of Enterprise Disaster Recovery (EDR), at Northwestern Mutual (NM). Lalit joined NM in January of 2015 and assumed responsibility for the disaster recovery program in 2019.

In this role, Lalit introduced business process functional exercises (BPFEs) at NM that exercise the recoverability of NM’s critical business processes. These industry-leading exercises allow the business to process real-time business transactions from the secondary data center and validate the coordination amongst various teams (technology and business). Lalit is a strong advocate of maturing traditional BC/DR program into modern day operationally resilient program through an iterative and effective risk identification, monitoring and testing process.

When Lalit joined NM as a leader in the software engineering function, he worked closely with various regulatory agencies, such as FINRA and SEC. Before joining NM, he worked in various technology roles in global organizations. He is a firm believer in continuous learning and improvement.

Patrick Benson, Senior Systems Engineer – North Central, Veeam

For over two decades I’ve been involved in the IT industry starting with desktop support. I have steadily moved upwards, having been a network administrator, manager of the IT staff, network supervisor for an ASP division with data centers around the globe, a senior systems engineer designing new components and refining the existing infrastructure for a global organization, and a solutions architect for a VAR advising clients and designing complex infrastructures as a pre-sales resource.

In my current role, I am a Systems Engineer with Veeam Software. I help my customers prepare for and overcome the worst-case scenarios that could threaten their organizations. I consider it a privilege to be entrusted with designing their disaster recovery and business continuity solutions, and I humbly do my best to make sure they are protected when a disaster strikes.”

Steve Bloom, Director, Infrastructure & Operations, CSC Generation

High energy Information Technology professional with extensive large and mid-sized IT organizational and technical expertise. A customer focused career that spans Executive Leadership, hands-on Infrastructure Operations and Application Development. A track record of achieving results through team building and enhancing business relationships in changing environments where measurable business results are critical to success.

Specialties: Organizational Improvements and Change, Technology Related Assessments, Reliable Operations, Strategic Planning, Compliance, Standards, Audits, Vendor Contracting and Management, Software Development Life Cycle, Disaster Recover / BIA, Efficiency and Consolidation, Technical Hiring and Team Building

Michael Bova, Senior Cyber Protection Advisor, Acronis

Michael is an Enterprise Account Executive with a focus on cybersecurity and OT at Acronis. For more than 6 years he has work with 1000 companies across all industries to help them implement backup and cybersecurity plans for their most mission critical machines and infrastructure. His focus is to make sure to enable you the right tools to keep your OT environments up and running.

Adam Cole, Director of Security Operations, LifeOmic, LLC

Adam Cole is the Director of Cybersecurity at LifeOmic, Inc., where he has been for the past 3 years. On the side, he provides consulting services to customers who want to improve their security posture, implement good quality practices, and make sure they’re prepared for breaches.

He has spent over 10 years working in the cybersecurity industry. He has managed multiple small teams at start-ups and global organizations, as well as led companies through FedRAMP authorization, cloud migrations, and building security programs from scratch.

Mouncef Elalamy, Director, Infrastructure & Cloud Engineering, HUB International Limited

Mouncef has over 20 years of experience in IT Infrastructure, Engineering, Security and Operation at high growth companies such as Sidley Austin, Winston & Strawn, Blue Cross & Blue Shield, OfficeMax/Office Depot and is currently the Director of Cloud and Data Centers at HUB International leading 5 teams including Cloud & Infrastructure Engineering and Operation teams, M365 Services and Messaging, Database Services, and Backup and Disaster Recovery team. Mouncef has led many initiatives such as business process re-design, building and securing complex network infrastructures, migrating data centers, moving systems to the cloud, and more recently led efforts to modernize the Backup and DR for HUB International, a leading full-service global insurance broker providing property and casualty, life and health, employee benefits, investment and risk management products and services.

Doug McConnell, SVP, Infrastructure Architect, Robert W. Baird & Co.

Doug is currently with Baird, based in Milwaukee. Over a 30+ year career, Doug has worked in Food Manufacturing, Managed Services, Healthcare, and Financial Services. He started his career working on Shop floor systems in Canada and moved into the Data Networking space when he transferred to the US with Kraft Foods. Moving up through the ranks of Technician, Engineer, and eventually on to managing a team of Network Engineers, infrastructure has always been in his blood. Seeing a need at Baird, Doug stepped out of a management role and into the newly created Infrastructure Architect role and helped oversee the creation and implementation of Baird’s Data Center Strategy. Along with this and other duties, he is the primary liaison between the Business Continuity team and the IT Operations function.

In his spare time Doug is an avid wood worker although he is still learning the craft. He is married with 3 grown children in the Chicago/Milwaukee area.

Raymond Sue, Senior Solutions Engineer, Acronis

Raymond Sue is a Senior Solutions Engineer at Acronis. Sue has over 20 years of experience in backup, disaster recovery and data center management. He has specialized in cloud and disaster for over eight years, and previously managed four global data centers for a mid-sized business.

Annur Sumar, Chief Technology Officer, Cloud Unity

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.

Boris Voltchenko, Chief Information Security Officer and VP of IT Infrastructure, Reynolds Consumer Products

Global enterprise technology leader with broad industry experience including manufacturing, CPG, telecom, life sciences and IT services sectors. Successful in building and leading globally distributed teams, assuring stable and secure operations, planning and executing transformations. Looking for an opportunity to energize the business through technology by joining a winning executive team.