Nishant Budhiraja, Director, Data Services, United Airlines
Nishant is currently working as Director, DE Solutions and Delivery at United Airlines, responsible for strategy, transformational program execution, change management and building high performing teams.
He has over twenty years’ experience building and supporting database platforms. Successful track record of creating value through forward looking strategies, integration, standardization and exemplary IT vision.
He has worked in Aviation, Education, Oil & Gas, Finance and IT consulting verticals.
David Fields, Principal, Solve
David is a Principal with Solve, and has offices in Illinois, Wisconsin, Arkansas and North Carolina. David is based in Northwest Arkansas. A former math teacher, David has a passion for how numbers can be used to communicate information in powerful ways. David’s career in business has included experience in supply chain, financial services, retail, IT and more. Now a principal of Solve, David leads the creation of Custom Applications and Business Intelligence solutions across a wide range of industries. Solve loves to partner with organizations striving to take action with their data, and use it to make a difference.
David Hoffenberg, Senior Director of Platform Analytics, Epsilon
IT professional with over 20 years of experience. I have worn different hats, with roles in the Web, Financial, and Government space.
I am currently a Senior Director of Analytics for the ad-tech firm, Conversant. I lead a team of analyst, where we build data centric solutions to provide key internal KPIs to help improve our platform and product offerings.
I’m also an adjunct professor for DePaul University, primarily teaching courses in Intro and Advanced SQL.
Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with my wife and three kids, and learning the ropes with our new family member, Bailey, a mix of a Cavalier and Poodle.
Deanna Jacob, Enterprise Data Management Director, Alight Solutions
Deanna Jacob is the Director of Data Strategy & Insights at Alight Solutions. She leads the team responsible for Alight’s Enterprise Data Management program and delivers advanced analytics supporting Alight colleagues and clients. With over 20 years of experience building and accelerating data and analytics teams through organizational change and ongoing delivery. Deanna is a Certified Data Professional (CDP), Certified Data Governance and Stewardship professional (DGSP), and Project Management Professional (PMP). She has worked with data across retail, financial, and healthcare industries. She also has a passion for leading virtual teams across the globe and is an active leader cultivating the virtual culture at Alight.
Karthik Kandamuri, Enterprise Architecture, AbbVie
Karthik Kandamuri works for Corporate IT group at AbbVie, providing thought leadership in information management and strategy, impacting entire organization. Over the years, Karthik led multiple initiatives covering Master Data, Internet enabled B2B/B2C strategy, Cloud, Big Data, Information/Data Catalogs. Currently he is leading initiatives in Digital Transformation and Artificial Intelligence area.
Paige Roberts, Open Source Relations Manager, Vertica
In 23 years in the data management industry, I’ve worked as an engineer, a trainer, a support technician, a technical writer, a marketer, a product manager, and a consultant. I’ve built data engineering pipelines and architectures, documented and tested open source analytics implementations, spun up Hadoop clusters, picked the brains of stars in data analytics and engineering, worked with a lot of different industries, and questioned a lot of assumptions.
Now, I promote understanding of Vertica, distributed data processing, open source, high scale data engineering, and how the analytics revolution is changing the world.
Steve Shelton, RSM, Vertica
Steve Shelton has over 15 years of IT sales experience helping organizations protect their people, processes and data. Steve brings a variety of knowledge to his customers, which he developed from his tenures at CDW, Verizon, Symantec, RSA and Proofpoint. He believes the best working relationships come out of integrity, trust and care. Steve’s main goal is to make the lives of those around him better in any way he can.
Steve has a variety of interests outside of work, including Tai Chi, yoga, nutrition, parent coaching and staring at goats.
Sam Tawfik, Data Engineering & Analytics, 2nd Watch
Experienced data and analytics marketing and consulting professional with emphases on data warehousing and cloud data management.
Rob Whelan, Head of Data Engineering, 2nd Watch
US Naval Submarine Officer turned Cloud Leader. Rob Whelan leads the Data and Analytics Practice at 2ndWatch, a long-standing premier partner for major cloud service providers, offering professional services for migration, application modernization, and data and machine learning. Rob spent ten years after the Navy working in data-intensive startups, building and deploying machine learning models and features in chatbots, games, and healthcare technology.