As founder, CEO, and editor-in-chief of Techstrong Group, Alan manages a broad array of businesses and brands including Techstrong Media, Techstrong Live, Techstrong Research, Devops.com, Security Boulevard, Techstrong TV, and Techstrong Learning. To do so and succeed, Alan has to be attuned to the world of technology, particularly DevOps, cybersecurity, cloud-native and digital transformation.
With almost 30 years of entrepreneurial experience, Alan has been instrumental in the success of several organizations.
Shimel is an often-cited personality in the security and technology community and is a sought-after speaker at conferences and events. In addition to his writing, his DevOps Chat podcast, TechStrong TV and Digital Anarchist audio and video appearances are widely followed.
Alan attributes his success to the combination of a strong business background and a deep knowledge of technology. His legal background, long experience in the field and New York street smarts combine to form a unique personality.
Mr. Shimel is a graduate of St. John's University with a Bachelor of Arts in Government and Politics, and holds a JD degree from NY Law School.
Mike Vizard is a seasoned IT journalist with over 25 years of experience. He also contributed to IT Business Edge, Channel Insider, Baseline and a variety of other IT titles. Previously, Vizard was the editorial director at Ziff-Davis Enterprise as well as editor-in-chief at CRN and InfoWorld.
Ori brings more than 17 years of senior-level experience to his role as VP of product management at Checkmarx where he oversees the entire product portfolio and strategy, serving thousands of customers worldwide. He is an experienced product leader combining his strong technical and go-to-marketing skills. Ori also managed Checkmarx SAST, a Gartner and Forrester market-leading solution used by thousands of customers worldwide. Checkmarx SAST has been instrumental in spearheading the flagship Checkmarx One platform which is gaining ground with hundreds of global customers adopting the cloud-based platform. Prior to Checkmarx, he held leadership and engineering positions at Time To Know, HPE, PicApp and Bezeq.
Raghu Ravinutala is the CEO and Co-Founder of Yellow.ai, a global leader in Conversational AI that delivers autonomous, human-like experiences for customers and employees to accelerate enterprise growth. Since its inception, Raghu and his team have successfully expanded Yellow.ai’s presence across the U.S., Southeast Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Japan, Australia and Latin America with 1000+ customers in 85+ countries. Previously, Raghu worked for 16 years with leading tech companies such as Texas Instruments, and Broadcom across leadership roles in Engineering, Product Management, and Business Development both in the Bay Area and India. He is also an elected member of the NASSCOM Executive Council 2021-23. Raghu has been recently recognized as the CX Leader of the Year at the CX Awards 2022, organized by CX Today.
Dineshwar Sahni is the director of global product security, at Visa, Inc. He has over 15+ years of experience delivering high visibility initiatives that span business, engineering and product security areas in FinTech. He is passionate about enabling and empowering people by ingraining security into their mindset through training and automation. He is a shift left pioneer currently focused on supporting developers to start left through SecDevOps. In his current role at Visa, he oversees a global product security team and is responsible for ensuring all Visa products are free from vulnerabilities before release and are built better based on the feedback that is received from production.
With over 15 years of experience as a professional writer, editor and project coordinator, Amanda’s work can be found in magazines, newspapers, books, blogs and podcasts around the world. She has been recognized as a Top 20 Under 40 Professional and is regularly invited to tech conferences to report on the latest tech announcements. Amanda draws her inspiration from constant learning, reading, volunteering and networking. She is a proud wife and momma, and Angelo State University graduate who currently resides in Texas.
Kent Keirsey is the founder and CEO at Invoke AI. He attended Auburn University.
Dheeraj Nayal is a globally recognized technology and business leader with a proven track record in scaling OEMs, SaaS, professional EdTech and Business Consulting ventures. He is currently working as the global head of corporate development at Practical DevSecOps headquartered in San Francisco, which is the world's most loved AI-enabled learning platform led by top industry experts focused on product security domains.
As a chief evangelist and strategic partner, Dheeraj supports a global community of enterprises, channel partners, vendors and professionals in their digital transformation and upskilling and reskilling journey encompassing AI, DevSecOps, product security, AIOps, DevOps, cybersecurity, cloud, SRE and emerging technologies and standards.
Dheeraj holds distinguished credentials, including the title of MLE℠ – Member of Leaders Excellence and certifications as a Business Relationship Management Professional (BRMP®) and a certified DevOps Enterprise Coach™, Generative AI for Business Leaders, DevOps Leader (DOL)®, SRE Practitioner℠, DevSecOps Practitioner℠, Certified Chaos Engineering Practitioner, SRE Foundation℠, AIOps Foundation℠, DevOps Foundation®, Observability Foundation℠, Project Management Skills for Business Leaders, Value Stream Management Foundation℠ and many more. He also possesses an MBA in Entrepreneurship & International Marketing and a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science & Engineering.
Dheeraj has built sustainable strategic partnership with Fortune 500 Enterprises globally and has built massive online, social global tech communities while evangelizing and launching several successful global initiatives with thousands of members, industry leaders, partners and practitioners. He has been a frequent keynote speaker in various International events and forums.
Caroline Wong is the chief strategy officer at Cobalt. As CSO, Caroline leads the security, community and delivery teams at Cobalt. She brings a proven background in communications, cybersecurity and experience delivering global programs to the role. Caroline’s close and practical information security knowledge stems from her broad experience as a Cigital consultant, a Symantec product manager and day-to-day leadership roles at eBay and Zynga. Caroline also hosts the Humans of InfoSec podcast, teaches cybersecurity courses on LinkedIn Learning and has authored the popular textbook, Security Metrics, A Beginner's Guide. Caroline holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and computer sciences from UC Berkeley and a certificate in finance and accounting from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Adam Lundqvist is director of engineering at Cobalt.io, where he leads engineering teams covering product-led growth, pentesting as-a-service (PtaaS), data and AI and cloud infrastructure. He spearheads initiatives across these diverse areas, contributing significantly to the company's mission of delivering robust, innovative security solutions.
Currently, his role is centered on strategic leadership, primarily within the realms of data and AI and cloud infrastructure. He is dedicated to building and implementing an AI strategy focused on harnessing advanced AI technologies for the automation of offensive security, aimed at significantly enhancing the efficacy and reach of Cobalt's security offerings. Lundqvist maintains a hands-on approach, working closely with teams to ensure Cobalt's PtaaS platform remains at the forefront of combating cyber threats, all while providing a user-centric experience.
John Willis has worked in the IT management industry for more than 35 years. Previously he was an evangelist at Docker Inc., VP of solutions for Socketplane (sold to Docker) and Enstratius (sold to Dell), and VP of training & services at Opscode where he formalized the training, evangelism and professional services functions at the firm. Willis also founded Gulf Breeze Software, an award-winning IBM business partner, which specializes in deploying Tivoli technology for the enterprise. Willis has authored six IBM Redbooks for IBM on enterprise systems management and was the founder and chief architect at Chain Bridge Systems.
https://itrevolution.com/author/john-willis/
Mark R. Hinkle is a seasoned technology executive with over 25 years of experience, prominently recognized for his strategic leadership and advocacy for open source software. Presently, he concentrates on marrying AI with enterprise needs through his roles at Peripety Labs, an artificial intelligence consultancy, and his thought leadership in 'The Artificially Intelligent Enterprise' newsletter. Hinkle's deep expertise in driving AI innovation establishes him as a key influencer, empowering businesses to harness AI for a competitive edge.
Jaime is the CEO and co-founder of Codacy, a leading code quality platform trusted by over 600,000 developers around the world. He’s been working in the code quality and software engineering tools industry for over 10 years and holds an M.Sc. in Software Engineering from IST. He also worked as a researcher in natural language in INESC-Id. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with his family, surfing, BJJ, making good coffee and some modest reading and writing.
Joseph Enochs serves as the Managing Director of Emerging Technologies at EVT, where his expertise in Generative AI fuels his passion for developing user-friendly, low-code AI/ML frameworks. His dedication to democratizing technology is evident through his contributions to the Tech community. With a disciplined and innovative approach, Joseph is spearheading the development of an AI/ML and Generative AI learning curriculum, aiming to demystify these complex concepts, and making them accessible to a wider audience.
Mitchell Ashley is a renowned strategist, speaker, advisor and technology executive. Mitch has led successful IT, SaaS and cybersecurity transformations. He’s led multiple teams in developing and bringing to market successful online services, cybersecurity, software and networking products and services.
Mitch serves as principal at Techstrong Research where he is part of a team of preeminent experts in digital transformation, DevOps, cloud-native, cybersecurity, data and AI/ML. In this role, he works with companies to align digital transformation and technology strategies to achieve disruptive goals and high-impact outcomes. Mitch also serves as Techstrong Group CTO, is in demand as a speaker and is widely followed online on his podcasts, Analyst Corner commentary and interviews on the highly popular Techstrong TV streaming video program where he engages with top digital and tech leaders from across the industry.
Contact Mitch: mitchell@techstronggroup.com
Shivam (Shiv) Trivedi is currently a Sales Engineer at Glean, focusing on all things technical, customer interactions, and pre-sales activities. Previously he was an IT Engineer at Samsara, where he worked on Infrastructure, Security, log-analytics, and automation. Shiv is passionate about technology and customers, which shines through his ability to seamlessly blend technical expertise with customer interaction.
Dr. Evans comes to the field of IT leadership from a novel angle, through research focused on computational methods for authorship attribution of medieval Latin texts. Dr. Evans holds a PhD from the Center for Medieval and Byzantine Studies at The Catholic University of America and an MAR in the History of Christianity from Yale Divinity School. He was the first Keck Postgraduate Fellow in Digital Humanities at the USD Humanities Center.
Dr. Evans combines his twenty years of experience from his technical and management career in IT with eight years of teaching experience in the English, History and Computer Science departments.
Colin S. Levy, named to the prestigious Fastcase 50 list of legal innovators in 2022, is a well-known legal tech expert and corporate lawyer. Colin’s name is frequently on lists of people to follow for learning about legal tech online and his blog was named to 90 most followed legal tech blogs of 2023. Colin is the editor of the Handbook of Legal Tech, published by Globe Law and Business in 2023, and is frequently asked to contribute articles and to participate on podcasts speaking about legal tech. He is also one of the most widely followed legal tech voices on LinkedIn and on Twitter.
In addition, he contributed to the legal industry’s first comprehensive guide to best practices for creating effective legal documents in Microsoft Word. Colin also has served as a judge for the American Legal Technology Awards and for Modern Counsel’s 35 under 35 lawyers. Colin currently is Director of Legal for Malbek, a leading contract management company, and has served in numerous prominent legal roles for companies in technology industry for over a decade. Colin holds a Certificate in Legal Innovation and Technology from Suffolk University Law School, a J.D. from Boston College Law School and a B.A. in Public Policy and Law with honors from Trinity College, Hartford, CT.
With over 25 years of professional experience, my journey has been anything but linear. I've pivoted my focus roughly every 2-4 years, collecting an arsenal of tools and perspectives that arm me to tackle complex business challenges head-on. From building global cloud networks for tech giants like Oracle to serving as a firefighter in the USMC, each chapter of my life has ingrained me with unique skills and a holistic view of systems—whether they're data centers or supply chains.
In my role at Always Cool Brands, I've melded my expertise in technology with a deep commitment to sustainability and consumer welfare. Here, I have revolutionized private labeling and supply chain engineering by applying cutting-edge tools like LLMs and LangChain. These advances not only streamline supplier sourcing but also enhance the transparency and quality of FDA-regulated products. This work epitomizes my belief in leveraging technology to create socially and environmentally responsible solutions.
Operational excellence is another cornerstone of my professional approach. At Oracle, I led a Network Reliability Engineering team, a specialized SRE unit, to a remarkable 58% YoY reduction in customer outage minutes. This was achieved by harmoniously integrating Google's SRE model, DevOps principles, Marine Corps leadership, and proven engineering practices into a cohesive strategy for success.
My leadership style is deeply influenced by my time in the Marine Corps. The concept of 'servant leadership' underpins every team I lead, every project I undertake, and every challenge I confront. This philosophy is further enriched by a perpetual beginner's mindset, which helps me stay agile and receptive to change, thus facilitating my regular shifts in technological focus.
In my free time, the balance I seek is found in kiteboarding around the globe, tending to my thriving garden, and immersing myself in the vibrant food and music scenes in Austin. These activities not only refresh me but also offer a tangible connection to the sustainability and community values I advocate for professionally. - https://www.colinmcnamara.com/
Karim Lalani, a seasoned software engineer with over 16 years of expertise, has recently delved into the realms of AI/ML and large language models (LLMs). Karim holds a Bachelor's in Computer Science, and has excelled in roles at The Office of the Governor of Texas, Intrivo Diagnostics, Sertainty Corporation and Wipro Gallagher Solutions.
His career is marked by providing hands-on engineering support, impactful contributions and leadership for diverse projects. Karim's recent transition into AI/ML reflects a commitment to staying at the forefront of technology.
📧 Email: karim.lalani@gmx.com 📱 GitHub: github.com/lalanikarim/ 📝 Medium: medium.com/@klcoder
Riccardo Pirruccio is a Manufacturing Engineer at Applied Materials, holding a Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Tyler. His expertise lies in developing manufacturing intelligence applications in the semiconductor supply chain sector.
