As President & Chief Executive Officer of the Project Management Institute (PMI), SunilPrashara is the lead advocate for PMI’s global organization, serving more than three million professionals working in nearly every country of the world. His primary responsibility is to implement PMI’s global strategic plan with a priority on strategic focus, customer centricity and organizational agility. This includes expanding the PMI footprint globally, as well as digitizing PMI’s offerings and platforms to benefit its members and a variety of other stakeholders. The plan will also continue to enhance and advocate for the profession of project management.

Sunil was named CEO of PMI in March of 2019. He brings more than three decades of valuable global leadership to PMI, with a solid track record of setting and delivering strategy, managing large scale transformation agendas, and meeting growth targets for international organizations.

Prior to joining PMI, he served as CEO of i1too Ltd in the U.K., a sales accelerator for digital start-ups, which he founded in 2016 and grew internationally. He previously served as CEO of Expereo International, and also held numerous executive leadership positions throughout the information and communications technology and telecommunications industries. His extensive multi-functional, multi-cultural, multi-geography experience includes managing sales, operations and digital transformation for companies such as Vodafone, Nokia, Accenture and Perot Systems (NTT). As a business executive, he has developed an appreciation for project management expertise, and understands from an “outside-in” perspective how PMI can expand its reach globally.

Sunil speaks Punjabi and Hindi. He is a graduate of the University of London and resides in the U.K. with his wife Kavita and two sons Kamran and Raghav. He enjoys golf, boxing, martial arts and traveling.

Welcome to Ivy Podcast! On this Executive Leadership Podcast we interview top executives from Fortune 500 with a focus on strategy, innovation, negotiation and everything about leadership.Our Podcast for Executives features Thought Leaders who share practical insights for effective leadership, continuous innovation and strategy execution.Ivy Podcast is a rapidly growing Executive Podcast, which covers topics like Hiring and Retention Strategies, Talent Acquisition, Innovation, Digital Transformation and much more.On this Leadership Podcast, you will find conversations with the most accomplished executives from Fortune 100 companies. We aim to cover a broad range of industries and create a learning platform for the most ambitious and high potential professionals who are looking to learn from the most accomplished Executives on this Business Leadership Podcast.

Arun DeSouza is currently Chief Information Security & Privacy Officer at Nexteer Automotive Corporation. He has extensive global IT and security leadership and organizational transformation experience including as CISO and CIO. Arun’s areas of expertise include strategic planning, risk management, identity management, cloud computing and privacy. His current interests include the Internet of Things (IoT), Blockchain, Zero Trust, Software Defined Perimeter & Self-Sovereign Identity. 

Arun earned Master’s and PhD degrees from Vanderbilt University. He is a Certified Information Systems Security professional (CISSP) and has earned the Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge (CCSK) certification. He was honored by the 1st Global Cyber Observatory by induction into the CISO Hall of Fame in September 2019. He has won multiple other industry honors including CISO of the Week, CSO50 Award, Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leaders Award, CIO Ones to Watch Award and the Network World Enterprise All Star Award. He is a member of the Society for Information Management and the International Association of Privacy Professionals.

Episode transcription:

Can you please tell us about yourself and your role within the organization?

I am the Chief Information Security & Privacy Officer (CISO & CPO in common parlance). I pioneered an integrated global InfoSec & Privacy program, developed a long-range strategic roadmap linked to business objectives and built a strong team from the ground-up. I am responsible for delivery of a wide variety of services including but not limited to:

Strategic PlanningIdentity & Access ManagementIncident ManagementPrivacy ManagementRisk ManagementGovernance & StandardsSecurity OperationsTraining & Awareness

AI, ML, RPA and other advanced technologies are reinventing Information Technology as a whole. How do you think these trends will impact your industry from innovation standpoint and what are your thoughts on best strategies to adopt such technologies securely?

These technologies can help enhance efficiency and productivity by reengineering and automating business processes on the manufacturing floor. For example, on factory floor in support of the digital factory, they can help reduce cycle time and deliver predictive analytics to enhance equipment reliability. In the cybersecurity arena, AI & ML can help strengthen cybersecurity defenses by adding a new embedded layer to the security architecture, which can enact real time adaptive, control strategies.

The following guiding principles can help CISOs balance security and innovation resultant from these game changing technologies:

Business Partnership: Work with the business and the CIO to pro-actively align priorities, assess risk and implement appropriate administrative, physical and technical safeguards.Convergence: Deploy a layered security architecture integrating data and applications. Unify data management with identity and access management to foster innovation and protect security and privacy.Change Management: Drive and manage change in concert with IT and business leaders to leverage synergy and avoid gaps in stakeholder expectation. Adopt a proactive approach to IT change to foster innovation while balancing security and privacy.Strategic Planning: Build a cybersecurity strategic plan with clear targets and strategic goals supporting business objectives.

What initiatives/strategies that you have implemented that contribute to building and fostering a culture of federation at your company?

Focus on relationship managementEstablish an Information Security & Privacy Council with business executivesBuild out a federation / network of cross-functional agents across IT and the businessMeet bi-weekly to review key initiatives, progress to plan and resolve issuesServe as an ambassador and attend business departmental meetings to share priorities

What ideas and trends that excite you th

Doug Leeby is the CEO of Beeline, a global SaaS technology company and solution provider for sourcing and managing the extended workforce. With offices in the US, UK, Australia, and the Philippines, Beeline serves the world’s largest and most respected brands by managing over $40B in contingent workforce spend. Recognized as an industry innovator and customer champion, Doug has led Beeline to become the largest independent provider of solutions for managing all categories of non-fulltime talent, including temporary staff, professional contractors, service workers, consultants, project-based workers, and independent contractors. 

Doug is in his 18th year at Beeline and is based at the company’s headquarters in Jacksonville, FL. He has been included on Staffing Industry Analyst’s list of the “100 Most Influential People in Staffing” every year since 2012. Doug believes strongly in culture and through his servant-minded leadership has created a corporate culture built on trust and diversity. Doug attended Vanderbilt University where he earned his BA in History and his M.Ed. in Human Resources. He enjoys learning, interacting with interesting people, the outdoors, and any and all time with his family.

Episode transcription:

D: Hi, it's Doug Leeby, CEO of beeline.

J: Doug, thanks so much for finding time to join us on the Ivy Podcast today. You are my first episode of 2021. All right, cool. No pressure on you.

D: Yeah, no worries. I’ve got to set the right tone for the new year.

J: Can you tell us a little bit more about your background, where you come from, your career path, and then I want to spend a couple of minutes talking about your current organization.

D: Okay, sure. I've been at Beeline for 20 years, I just celebrated my 20th year with the company a couple of weeks ago. Before that, I got out of school and I went into consumer products, so Pillsbury and then Agora. So I spent 10 years there, and then I made the move over to this industry and have been in there ever since.

J: That's exciting. So tell us a little bit more about Beeline. What problem are you guys solving through products and services?

D: Go back to when I started, which was basically 2000, you'll recall, you may not, you're young, but Y2K was a big problem. And everybody was concerned with the fact that the ball was going to drop and all IT systems were going to crash.

And so what that did is it afforded the staffing companies a great opportunity, because there was such demand and very little supply. So obviously staffing firms made a lot of money in that timeframe. And then Y2K happened in the big nothing, so they had a lot of, let's say disenfranchised procurement departments realizing they paid a lot of money that maybe it was out of market rate.

So enter what we call VMs vendor management software, which in essence leveled the playing field and put job descriptions electronically to a preferred supply base and then made them compete. So in essence, it was a cost savings play. At least it started that way back in the early two thousands. And if you think about an applicant tracking system, which in essence sits at the enterprise or the company level and helps people go find candidates to hire that's in essence, what VMs is vendor management software sits in between the large enterprise and the staffing firms, and basically just relays the requisition over to those staffing firms and they submit those candidates. And it's an opportunity for large companies to, to find talent, always non full-time talent though, whether that be a contractor or a 10 99, or even project based work. So our solution in essence, connects talent with large companies, but that talent is always on a temporary basis.

J: Oh, that's exciting. And I personally, you know, dealt with different, different types of VMs systems.

When I was incorporated, where organizations were actually, you know, we would start a project management office for example, and we would have

Dr. Taiwo Raphael Alabi is multilingual with an education spanning 3 continents at some of the best engineering schools in the world.He has spent his entire career in electronic and software engineering at Intel and DocuSign. With multiple highly cited publications in the field as well as 3 pending US patents, he currently drives narrow artificial intelligence initiatives at DocuSign. Some of his primary focuses in the field of AI are natural language processing, computer vision, recommender systems, and reinforcement learning. His interest also spans meta-learning and machine learning systems design. He enjoys traveling, hiking, obstacle racing, playing the guitar, and chasing after new challenges in his limited free time.

Episode transcription:

F: Thank you for joining us today, Taiwo.

T: Thank you for having me, Fred.

F: Awesome. First question. What was it that drove you to get involved in the machine learning field and for the sake of our listeners who may be unfamiliar with machine learning, you mind describing that as well?

T: Yeah, definitely. I will go to the last question for our, so what is machine learning? I like to define machine learning as the art of finding information. From data and it could be any kind of data. It could be massive data, small data, but just finding that information or that insight from that data and being able to use that insight to benefit an organization, a country or a course that to me is meshing.

F: And what drove you to machine learning?

T: Actually, that's a very interesting question for me. I think what drove you to Michelle learning. Taking a couple of years, years back now, which is probably like five years back. I used to work at Intel and while I was at Intel, I was one of the lead engineers that drove a concept then five years ago, which was kind of new, then internet of things. We started that project. And when I started a project, one of the pinpoints of that project was that. This was going to be the next revolution. And it was going to drive degeneration of massive amount of data on a scale that nobody else has ever seen. And that once this happened or happens, then there's going to be a need for ways to harness that data and the fact that it was going to be that explosion, that was what drove me to. Understand, even more about what IoT was going to curse. And because of that, I started looking at so many journal articles and lo and behold, I found FMLA that machine learning and artificial intelligence, narrow AI, strong AI. We're going to be the eventual solution to data explosion, and that curiosity drove me to multiple different universities. I eventually went back to school, Berkeley, and even now Stanford, just to try to understand ways whereby we can harness that data. And the curiosity obviously is what has driven me to become much more of a bit. Well, I'm an expert in this field, just because I want to understand how we can harness East sites from data major trends in artificial intelligence that you foresee dominating the industry within the next five years. That's actually a very interesting question. I think in the next five years, taking a look at where we're at today and you can probably already foresee what will be experiencing the next five years. So I expect that, since I started five years ago from IoT out, IoT is going to eventually explode within the next five years. And I expect that it's going to be a lot of information out there, information from edge computing, devices, information from even cars, et cetera. I think there's going to be, we'll probably be generating as much information, which is happening today as we've generated within the past, probably 10, 20 years probably generating those in two years. Within the next five years. And then we'll also see the scene. We're going to be getting slowly to the age of basically strong AI. So right now what we have is mainly narrow AI. So narrow AI in this sense is basically aspects of AI t

Clay Davis is a Vice President at Tech Data, a technology distributor based in Clearwater, Florida. His responsibilities include leading Tech Data’s Artificial Intelligence, Analytics, and Internet of Things practice. Clay has a global scope, spanning North America, Europe and Asia.

Clay works across the Data, AI and IoT landscape, partnering with Microsoft, IBM, AWS, Cisco, Cloudera, among many others. He combines his servant leadership style with his embrace failure mentality to lead the organization into the next generation of technology. 

Prior to Tech Data, Clay spent 8 years at IBM, where he held numerous leadership and sales positions in their Data & AI practice. His last role held him responsible for helping lead IBM into the hybrid cloud market at the time of IBM’s Red Hat acquisition in 2019.

Clay resides in Raleigh, NC with his family. He has a love of playing sports including, but not limited to golf, basketball, flag football, and most recently, pickleball. 

His other hobbies and interests include reading, watching the Tar Heels, personal finance, connecting with friends and spending quality time with family. 

Episode transcription:

C: I am Clay Davis. I'm the global Vice President of data and IOT at TechData.

J: Thanks so much for joining us on the Ivy Podcast. I know it's the holiday season and you took some time to talk to us today, lend your expertise. Much appreciate it. Tell us a little bit more about your backgrounds, where you come from in your career path, and then we'll spend a little bit of time talking about your current role.

C: Yeah, sure. Happy to do it, Jahn, and really, really happy to be here. I appreciate you inviting me on the pod. I guess I'll start from a college standpoint. So I live in Raleigh, North Carolina. I went to school in Chapel Hill, graduated from the business school at Chapel Hill and a lifelong target.

My first job was selling medical equipment. So I was in a very small company, basically reporting to the CEO, going door to door, to anything to national hospitals, down to, you know, vets and chiropractors. You are in your sales jobs doing that. There's no doubt about it. So after about a year of doing that, I had an opportunity to join IBM.

As a seller, I was able to go through a training program there, they call it a summit program. And, you know, Jahn, that was one of the best experiences I've ever had because there's not many companies in the world that will invest six to nine months into you just to train you right and learn the skills so you can be successful at a big company like IBM.

I exited that program and kind of went through a sales journey, sales career path within IBM for eight years, where, you know, I started as a seller and I jumped around from accounts and different types of technology, but it was all within analytics, AI, you know, that realm, within technology, but I basically from day one, I think this is just ingrained in me in a way I was brought up.

I always wanted to get into leadership. And, so I'm a huge on mentorship, leadership and coaching. And so it just felt like it was something that was going to be natural to me. And so I really wanted to get into that. So I got into that within IBM and was lucky enough to land some management spots, and learned a ton there.

I loved the teams that I had over the course of my career at IBM. And about a year ago, I got approached to move to a company called TechData where they needed someone to lead their data, IOT analytics, no kind of organization globally, someone that never been in that role before to work with the vendors and the business partners in that world.

And, you know, ended up being a great fit for me personally, and my growth and what I wanted to do. And so that's where I am today. And I lead a team of about a hundred people globally, where all we concentrate on every day is kind of bringing data in IOT to cu

Dalia Burack is an inspirational, servant leader focused on guiding others to seek out their full potential. Motivated by optimism, results, and making impactful decisions, a subject matter expert and thought leader on all things talent. A natural project manager, a mover of initiatives and a creative thinker who’s not afraid to disrupt the status-quo.  With a proven track record of over 25 years in Talent Management, a robust business acumen, and an earned reputation for integrity, consistent performance and commitment to excellence.A motivational champion of change and possibilities, recognized for expertise in talent attraction and acquisition, sourcing strategies, assessment & selection, and on-boarding. An active senior leader and HR technology disruptor, laser focused on employer reputation/value proposition, business process improvement, and winning the applicant experience. 

Episode transcription:

D: My name is Dalia Burack and I head Talent Acquisition at Bluegreen Vacation, a vacation ownership company. And I've been with the company for about 13 years.

J: Dalia, thanks so much for finding time to join us on the podcast today, especially during the holidays really appreciate you finding time.

Can you tell us a little bit more about your background? Where do you come from? Career-wise, career path. What's the kind of world did you start? And then I'd like to spend some time talking to me a little bit about your work.

D: Sure. Thank you. So I started out my career quite early in a recruitment office for a third party service provider contact center solution.

Then this was back in the late nineties where we were faxing, you know, background checks to Wells Fargo at the time and seeing 300 people a day and it was insanity, but I started out without really knowing anything about positions or human resources, but that monitor was related to a 10 goal.

I mean, I got kind of thrown into the craziness really. And from there, I had an opportunity to really stay with that company for a long time, develop. I had great mentors. People helped me learn about all things, talent acquisition, but I feel like I grew up at a time in my career where talent acquisition was heavily evolving.

And so even though we were already in the information age, it was very early. Everything that has transpired over the last 10 to 15 years has been just a complete change from where things started. But once I was already in my role, I decided to go to get my undergrad and focus on human resource management.

J: Well, that's, that's exciting. And, you know, you mentioned something around faxing, the background checks and the resume, something that the CEO of our company, Cesar, he talks a lot about those days where I think he had to like fax resumes to the hiring managers or something. I mean, many people I work with don't know what a fax machine is. So it definitely beats me, but I feel like it definitely builds character in my evolution as an IT professional, for sure. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. If you were able to succeed then, you know, knowledge you would have these days, I think walking apart is a cake. So tell us a little bit more about your current role, what falls under your purview and maybe a little bit about the organization?

D: Sure. So, as I said, I worked for blue-green vacations and I had uptown acquisition. So my scope of responsibilities is overseeing, and developing and executing on strategy on all things, talent acquisition for the entire organization. So our company is a travel and hospitality company. More specifically, we have over 60 resorts and 230 plus thousand owners that own property with us.

And we put people on vacation is really what we do. And we really, our entire product offering is very experiential based. So what my role entails is really all of our talent acquisition needs throughout the organization. And that encompasses everything that we do on the national sales and marketing sid

Brian Carmenatty is an information technology executive & strategist with over 15 years’ experience in diverse disciplines including system infrastructure, security, compliance vendor management, and Service management. He combines deep technical expertise with a strong service management focus. This allows him to work with technical and customer teams to deliver valuable outcomes.

Brian currently leads the IT department for one of the largest MSO’s in the state of Florida which consists of over 300 practices. He has built the foundation for a robust multi-location decentralized IT environment, led standardization post-M&A activities, coordinated compliance and security projects which included encryption, MFA, EDR, and MSSP rollout for the whole organization.

Episode transcription:

F: Thank you for being with us today, Brian. Pleasure to have you here.

B: Thank you.

F: All right. Just to get us started. Just tell us a little bit about yourself and what falls under your oversight within your organization.

B: So I currently work in a healthcare organization, a managed service organization here in Miami area. I oversee currently about 300 plus offices throughout the state of Florida. I handle everything from the IT operations, data center security, a little bit of a mix of different IT aspects. I also oversee all of the vendors from our multiple MSPs. I deal with over 20 different MSPs throughout the state.

And I also manage them and direct them through our different needs in the organization.

F: What are some of the ways in which you can measure the level of maturity and success of a cybersecurity program? Do you have any examples you can share?

B: Yeah. So, you know, there's a few different frameworks out there.

One of the ones we like to look at is the NIST CSF, which is, you know, it's one of the big ones out there. There's a few other ones, depending on what industry you're in, but a lot of this kind of falls into the five key areas, which kind of goes into the identify, protect, detect, respond, and recovery.

And these areas are more or less, you're going to run a baseline across your organization, and then see where you fall within these categories. Okay. You know, it's very hard nowadays to kind of say, hello, how well are you doing in the cyber security realm, especially with all the current threats and different exploits happening out there.

So, that NIST CSF, which is, you know, everybody can look at it up. You can go to nist.gov and see it and download their own spreadsheets and answer the questions. And it does give you a strong high level. So one of the things you do see a lot different when you start answering these things.

You're going to notice quickly that most companies are pretty good on that out of the five elements that you identify, you don't notice. You're pretty good. Most people are doing asset management. Nowadays most people are meeting a lot of the initial scope of, I guess, like the first element of the NIST CSF.

Then you'll start noticing when you get to protect a lot of companies investing heavily there too. For years, that's where we were all putting all of our money, right? Antivirus firewalls, you know, that's where a lot of the protect, then you start getting into detect and respond falls back on your scale a little bit.

You start noticing you've got some weak spots there. In the last few years, that's where our focus has been. Right? Many organizations are starting to try to invest heavily in detect and respond solutions. Then your next gen, EDR is in different things there. And then you get into the recovery phase, which is, more or less, you know, on business continuity and disaster recovery.

So, you know, when you look at these, you want to kind of lay these out. These are great for your board levels. Now I always tell people, you can fill these out and you don't want to say, Hey, we hit a level four. We're good. We're walking away. No. You know, you still want to go

Raul Vega is the CEO of Auxis and an executive consultant focused on helping organizations develop scalable and flexible operating platforms to support profitable growth.  Throughout his 30-year career, he has worked with hundreds of clients across 30+ countries and successfully led business transformation initiatives in multiple industries, including consumer goods, industrial manufacturing, retail, transportation, telecommunications, among many others.   His clients have ranged from Fortune 100 multi-nationals to private equity-backed held middle-market organizations.  His areas of expertise include Shared Services Strategy, Finance & IT Transformation, and Nearshore Outsourcing.Raul is a frequent public speaker at various professional associations on business performance topics.  Recent organizations include National Association of Corporate Directors, Association for Corporate Growth, Turnaround Management Association, CFO Leadership Council, Shared Service & Outsourcing Network and CFO Magazine.Prior to co-founding Auxis, Raul worked with PepsiCo International and Price Waterhouse.  He is a graduate of the University of Florida where he earned both a Bachelor and Master of Science degree in Accounting.

Manish Hirapara is the CEO of PeakActivity–a technology and marketing consultancy that helps enterprises achieve long-term, scalable growth through better insights, superior talent, and game-changing technology. Over the past five years, Manish has built and led an organization that has become one of the fastest-growing marketing and technology companies in the United States.

Motivated by his core values of hard work, innovation, and dedication, Manish has shaped a team of dreamers, thinkers, marketers, designers, and technologists who deliver exceptional and transformative services that drive success. Manish, with his strong knowledge of technology and marketing, inspires the strong business results that the blend of marketing and technology can facilitate. Today, PeakActivity employs a team of more than 150 industry experts who embrace the culture of innovation and growth that ensures enterprises are equipped to thrive in a digital economy.

His desire to elevate those around him extends to his community. In 2018, Manish established PeakCares, the community involvement and philanthropic arm of PeakActivity. Every quarter, Manish and PeakActivity get involved with a community charity to assist in fundraising and in-kind efforts. Never one to forget who helped him along the way, he sits on the Alumni Board of Directors at the University of Central Florida to assist the development of future generations of leaders.

Prior to founding and leading PeakActivity, Manish was an executive eCommerce leader for Office Depot, overseeing an eCommerce platform that transacted over $7 billion in revenue worldwide.

Mr. Lipparelli currently serves as the Managing Member and Chief Executive Officer of GVII, LLC, a Nevada gaming licensee that manages the Westgate Resort Las Vegas; Chairman of the Board of Galaxy Gaming, Inc., a table game and technology company; Managing Member and CAMS, LLC, a technology services company to the online gaming industry; Managing Member of SBOpco, LLC, a sportsbook company operating as SuperBook. Additionally, he serves as an advisor to limited number of operating and investment entities through GVIII, LLC where he is the Managing Member. Mr. Lipparelli has served as a member of the Board of Directors of Golden Entertainment, Inc. since 2015.

Mr. Lipparelli also formerly represented State Senate District 6 in the Nevada Legislature, having been appointed to the post in December 2014, and served on a number of Senate committees. Mr. Lipparelli has also been an appointee to the Nevada Gaming Policy Committee. Between 2009 and 2012, he served as a Board Member and Chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board. Between 2002 and 2007, Mr. Lipparelli served in various executive management positions at Bally Technologies, Inc., a gaming technology supply company listed on the NYSE, including as Executive Vice President of Operations.

Prior to joining Bally, Mr. Lipparelli served as Executive Vice President and then President of Shuffle Master, Inc., a publicly traded gaming supply company, from 2001 to 2003; as Chief Financial Officer of Camco, Inc., a retail chain holding company, from 2000 to 2001; as Senior Vice President of Entertainment Systems for Bally Gaming, Inc. (a subsidiary of publicly traded Alliance Gaming Corporation), from 1998 to 2000; and various management positions including Vice President of Finance for publicly traded Casino Data Systems from 1993 to 1998.

Mr. Lipparelli is a Board Trustee Emeritus of the University of Nevada Foundation, Board Member of the International Center for Responsible Gaming, member of the International Association of Gaming Advisors and a member of the International Masters of Gaming Law. He holds a bachelor’s degree in finance and a master’s degree in economics from the University of Nevada, Reno. Among other qualifications, Mr. Lipparelli brings over 25 years of experience in the gaming industry, including his service as Chief Executive Officer of a strategic advisory and product development firm, various executive management positions at companies serving the gaming industry, his legislative experience with the State Senate and past roles with the Nevada Gaming Control Board.