HMG Strategy Live Webinar Panel: Leading Courageously Through a Crisis

Nellson Burns

VP IT & CIO, Daltile Mohawk Industries

Nellson Burns moved to Dallas in 2007 from Houston to become Holly Corporation’s Vice President of Information Technology. Holly Corporation is an independent petroleum refiner and marketer producing high-value products such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel as well as specialty lubricants, oil and waxes. Holly has major refinery operations New Mexico, Utah and Oklahoma that drive revenues above 8 billion dollars per year. Nellson, a rising star in the Metroplex IT community, was recruited by Holly for this role at the age of 32. Nellson helped complete the successful implementation of a comprehensive SAP software suite in 2007. When Holly acquired two significant refineries within seven months in 2009 and doubled its refining capacity, Nellson successfully spearheaded the rapid business and technology integration efforts, including integrating the new refineries into SAP with a 4 week period.

Chris Gates

CTO, Allstate

Chris Gates is the SVP, Chief Technology Officer for Allstate, the largest publicly held personal lines property and casualty insurer in America, serving more than 16 million households nationwide. Founded in 1931, Allstate has been dedicated to protecting our customers from life's uncertainties and preparing them for the future for more than 85 years.

Gates’ technology career spans more than 20 years with Fortune 100 companies in
industries including insurance, manufacturing, packaged goods, energy, aerospace and retail. Most recently, he served as CTO and Global Head of Compute Hosting Services for AIG, where he ran technology with a focus on self-service, automation, scalability, reliability, platform modernization and performance. Prior to that, Chris held a variety of Chief Information Officer roles at Under Armour and GE.

Rusty Kennington

CIO, Corsicana Mattress Company

Rusty Kennington is a technology executive with a career spanning more than 25 years and multiple industries. He has worked in Fortune 500, private, and startup organizations. He has been responsible for global technology teams spanning North and South America, Europe and Asia.

Rusty was recently recruited to be the CIO for Corsicana Mattress Company, to help fuel significant business growth and transformation. He brings with him a track record of game-changing results most recently at Commercial Metals, where he led the Americas IT organization. While there, his team deployed the industry-leading e-commerce platform, global analytics capabilities, and integrated operational platforms across vertical business units. His team also had responsibility for leading all technology aspects of M&A activity.

Moderator: Hunter Muller

President & CEO, HMG Strategy

Hunter Muller is a charismatic industry pioneer and a modern-day Renaissance Man. As a global C-suite advisor and coach for the past 30 years, Hunter’s insights and concepts have been successfully applied by Fortune 1000 organizations worldwide to accelerate executive performance, propel the career ascent of C-level executives, and to drive transformative innovation and create new waves of value.

HMG Strategy is the provider of thought leadership and networking events for CIOs, CISOs, and senior technology executives. HMG Strategy offers a unique, integrated model for enabling C-level executives and their companies to draw upon courageous leadership to reimagine, reinvent, and rebuild their business models to attain the genius-level thinking required in today’s dynamic business landscape to achieve competitive advantage in the digital frontier.

During periods of crisis, such as the current coronavirus outbreak and its impact on supply chains and business, CIOs and technology executives need to step up and demonstrate their leadership mettle. This includes clearly communicating to the executive team and the staff the nature of the predicament and how it can be successfully dealt with along with inspirational messaging that can reassure employees that their safety and interests are the top priority.

In this session, top technology executives will share their advice on how to lead effectively during a crisis, including the common characteristics of courageous leaders.

1:00 – 1:15 PM (ET): Hunter Muller, President and CEO, HMG Strategy & Gary Sorrentino, CIO Advisor, Office of the Global CIO, ZOOM

The New Norm for Global Communications: Hunter and Gary will begin with a discussion around adjusting to the new world through Zoom – best practices and emotional aspects of maintaining global communications for educational organizations, healthcare and all industries around the world.

1:15 – 1:25 PM (ET): Wendy Pfeiffer, CIO, Nutanix

1:25 – 1:35 PM (ET): Snehal Antani, Former CTO, United States Department of Defense

Leading with Technology - Lessons Learned While Driving Change: CIO’s are playing an instrumental role in transforming the technical DNA of their organizations. In this session, Snehal Antani will talk about the lessons learned while driving change during his time as a senior executive in financial services, enterprise software, and now the Department of Defense.

1:35 – 2:15 PM (ET): EXECUTIVE PANEL: Leading Courageously Through a Crisis

2:15 – 2:30 PM (ET): Q&A for All Speakers

Gary Sorrentino

CIO Advisor, Office of the Global CIO, Zoom

Gary Sorrentino currently serves as CIO Advisor in the Global CIO Office at Zoom Video Communications. A former Managing Director for J.P. Morgan Asset & Wealth Management, Gary was the Global Head of Client Cyber Awareness and Education.

For over 12 years, Gary was the Chief Technology Officer for J.P. Morgan AWM’s global technology infrastructure initiatives, where he managed its Data Privacy program and was responsible for Infrastructure, Application and End User Technology Production Support. In 2014, he assumed a new role as the lead for their Cybersecurity efforts and developed a firm-wide “Protect the Client” Cyber program designed to raise cybersecurity awareness among employees and clients.

With almost 40 years of experience in Information Technology, Gary has served in various other IT leadership positions in firms across the financial services industry. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan in 2005, Gary was Head of Global Infrastructure and Head of Technology Efficiencies at Citi Private Bank, where he was responsible for Global Infrastructure Support and strategic technology initiatives. Other roles he has held include Global Technology CFO at Credit Suisse and North America IT Controller at UBS.

Wendy Pfeiffer

CIO, Nutanix

Currently CIO at Nutanix, Wendy has led technical functions for GoPro, Yahoo! and Cisco, and proudly serves on the board of Girls in Tech. Dedicated to excellence in operations and delivery while maintaining a focus on innovation, Wendy has had a key role in envisioning and delivering digital technologies around the world. In 2018, Wendy was honored to be named one of the National Diversity Council’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Tech, one of the Silicon Valley Business Journal’s Women of Influence, and #1 on the list of Top 10 CIOs Who Inspire and Influence Us by Enterprise Management 360° (EM360°)!

Snehal Antani

Former CTO, United States Department of Defense

Snehal Antani is co-founder & CEO of Horizon3.ai, a cyber security startup focused on AI-enabled red teaming. Prior to starting Horizon3, Snehal served as CTO for the US Department of Defense, responsible for transforming the technology capabilities of the command to include cyber security, advanced R&D, AI, and data analytics. Snehal was formerly the CTO of Splunk, and before that, a CIO at GE Capital. Snehal started his career at IBM as a software engineer, where he earned 16 patents for his work in cloud, distributed computing, and large-scale data processing. Snehal earned in BS in Computer Science from Purdue, where as a freshman he watched Tom Brady play Drew Brees. He earned is MS in Computer Science from RPI, where he never attended an RPI football game.

A Complimentary Invitation to an HMG Live! Dallas CIO Virtual Meeting

Leading Courageously Through a Crisis

Thursday, April 2nd

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