Alan Shimel
Founder, CEO & Editor-in-Chief
Techstrong Group
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 Nelson
Global VP of Digital Trust
DigiCert
Mike Nelson is the VP of Digital Trust at DigiCert. In this role, he oversees strategic market development and champions digital trust across organizations to protect servers, users, devices, documents, software and more. Mike frequently consults with organizations, contributes to media reports and speaks at industry conferences about the risks of connected technology, and what can be done to improve the security of these systems.
Before DigiCert, Mike spent his career in health care IT, including time at the US Department of Health and Human Services, GE Healthcare and Leavitt Partners. Mike’s passion for the industry stems from his personal experience as a type 1 diabetic and his use of connected technology in his treatment.
Before DigiCert, Mike spent his career in health care IT, including time at the US Department of Health and Human Services, GE Healthcare and Leavitt Partners. Mike’s passion for the industry stems from his personal experience as a type 1 diabetic and his use of connected technology in his treatment.
Bonnie Schneider
Sustainability, Climate Contributor & Author
Techstrong Group
Bonnie Schneider is a Sustainability and Climate Contributor for Techstrong.tv, Bonnie is the author of the new book, Taking the Heat: How Climate Change is Affecting Your Mind, Body & Spirit, and What You Can Do About It, (Simon & Schuster ) and Weather & Wellness©, successfully launching its original video content focusing on climate change and health. Bonnie has shared her insight and expertise on everything from hurricanes to snowstorms as an on-camera meteorologist for MSNBC, CNN, HLN, Bloomberg TV, and The Weather Channel. Bonnie has over 260k followers on her social platforms.
Mitch Ashley
VP and Practice Manager, DevOps and Application Development
The Futurum Group
Mitch Ashley is VP and Practice Lead of DevOps and Application Development for The Futurum Group. Mitch has over 30+ years of experience as an entrepreneur, industry analyst, product development and IT leader, with expertise in software engineering, cybersecurity, DevOps, DevSecOps, cloud, and AI. Mitch comes to The Futurum Group through the acquisition of Techstrong Group (devops.com, securityboulevard.com, and techstrong.tv), where he serves as CTO and founder of Techstrong Research.
As a Chief Technology Advisor, CTO, CIO, and head of engineering, Mitch led the creation of award-winning cybersecurity products utilized in the private and public sectors, including the U.S. Department of Defense and all military branches. Mitch also led managed PKI services for broadband, Wi-Fi, IoT, energy management and 5G industries, product certification test labs, an online SaaS (93m transactions annually), the development of video-on-demand and Internet cable services, and a national broadband network. He began his career creating large banking and telecom applications and building AI expert systems.
Having led his first of three introductions of DevOps in 2014 and the modernization of three IT organizations, Mitch shares his experiences as an analyst, keynote and conference speaker, panelist, host, moderator, and expert interviewer. His talks cover some of the most in-demand topics, including CIO/CTO leadership, product and software development, DevOps, DevSecOps, containerization, container orchestration, AI/ML/GenAI, platform engineering, SRE, and cybersecurity. He publishes his research on FuturumGroup.com/ and TechstrongResearch.com/resources. He hosts multiple award-winning video and podcast series, including DevOps Unbound, CISO Talk, and Techstrong Gang.
Mike Vizard
Chief Content Officer
Techstrong Group
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.
