CONFERENCE CO- CHAIRS:
Craigg Ballance - Craigg Ballance is an executive advisor, author and management educator whose work focuses on developing greater understanding and value delivery between business clients and technology resources. He is the Designer, Faculty Manager and Program Director for the IT Executive Leadership program delivered through University partnerships and The CIO Summit. This program has graduated over 300 IT professionals since 2003. He is the author of three books on leveraging technology for business innovation.
Over the past three decades, Craigg has led and managed advanced technology-enabled business initiatives across a wide range of competitive sectors, countries and areas of innovation. These build on his experience as manager of electronic commerce in one of the world’s path-setting banks in the field, beginning in the 1980s, and on his extensive work in finance, logistics, international business and government.
Craigg has a pragmatic, collaborative and intensely practical style and commitment that has ensured his projects achieve desired goals and, more importantly, client satisfaction. He is a frequent speaker at major business, professional and academic conferences and a regular contributor to radio programs and the trade press. He is very active in helping developing nations modernize their banking, business and technology infrastructures, including Bangladesh, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and Curacao (N.A.).
Mary Anne Ballantyne - Mary Anne Ballantyne is Assistant Head, Technology and Innovation with The Bishop Strachan School (BSS) in Toronto.
With 25 years experience in the technology industry as programmer, analyst, manager and senior leader, her passion today lies in the fusion of technology within the continuum of learning. As well as being founder and co-chair of the board for the CIS eLearning Consortium, Mary Anne also serves as President of the Toronto Chapter, CIO Association of Canada, the largest association in Canada for CIOs.
A firm advocate of the holistic leadership the CIO role plays in any organization, Mary Anne recognizes building innovative capacity is a challenge and currently leads the BSS effort in a formal IT Shared Services initiative with other Independent Schools.
Registration Program information CIO Peer Forum Main Page
SPEAKERS:
Tony Chapman - Tony Chapman is a frequent contributor to the mainstream press and one of the youngest individuals to be inducted into the Marketing Hall of Legends, a testament to his cumulative contributions to the industry throughout the past three decades. He has founded two internationally renowned communications agencies that have garnered a steady stream of award winning campaigns including, in 2007, recognition as Marketing’s Agency of the Year. A true visionary and serial entrepreneur he is also the Founding Partner of Fresh Intelligence which is revolutionizing intelligence gathering for corporations around the world, and Propeller Media which is creating branded content for prime time television networks and their digital ecosystems.
Mark Decyk - Mark Decyk is the Canadian leader of the Advanced Analytics and Optimization practice within the Business Analytics and Optimization (BAO) Service line of IBM Global Business Services. As an Associate Partner in the BAO practice, he is responsible for identifying, selling and delivering Advanced Analytics and Optimization solutions, and for the development of a team with skills in data mining, optimization and predictive analytics. Over the course of his 21 years of experience in consulting, he has worked with numerous clients across many industries, including Consumer Products, Retail, Telco, Energy and Utilities, Government (Municipal, Provincial and Federal), Manufacturing, Banking and Insurance.
David Foot - David K. Foot, Professor, Department of Economics at the University of Toronto, is co-author of the best-selling books Boom Bust & Echo: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Shift and Boom Bust & Echo: Profiting from the Demographic Shift in the 21st Century. These books reflect his research on the relationships between economics and demographics and on the resulting implications for both private and public policies.
In addition to academic writings and contributions to professional journals and to the popular media, Professor Foot’s work in the area of public policy has included research and submissions to many provincial and federal government commissions and numerous consulting and conference assignments for both private and public organizations.
He is a recipient of one of the national 3M Awards for Teaching Excellence and is a two-time winner of the University of Toronto undergraduate teaching award.
Lars Goransson - Lars Goransson is responsible for IDC's Canadian operation as General Manager and Group Vice President. IDC Canada's product and services offerings provide the Canadian IT community with market based research across the value continuum of budgeting & planning, marketing awareness and lead generation, and measurement and performance management.
Lars also manages IDC Canada's Consulting Group and Practices Research groups. IDC Canada's Consulting Group is responsible for managing large custom research projects and proprietary consulting activities with IDC's clients.
Prior to his role as General Manager, Lars held a number of senior analyst and management roles including VP, IDC Canada Consulting and Practices and manager of IDC Canada's Services Research Group.
Mr. Goransson is a graduate of the Gothenburg School of Economics in Sweden. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and a member of the Canadian Association of Management Consultants (CAMC).
Ken Grant - Ken Grant is a professor in the Ted Rogers School of Information Technology Management, teaching in the areas of Business and IT Strategy, Process and Performance Improvement and Electronic Commerce. He also conducts research and consulting work in these areas, with a particular focus on the realization of benefits from IT investments and on business success in eCommerce. He is the Coordinator of Ryerson’s new multi-disciplinary program in eBusiness.
Prior to becoming part of the Ryerson community, Ken spent over 30 years in industry, mainly as a management consultant. He has held senior partner/vice president positions in major consulting firms, where he was responsible for the leadership of IT strategy practices. Earlier in his career, he also held IT management positions with the Royal Navy, BMW (U.K.) and British Oxygen (Canada). Ken is a frequent author and speaker on business and IT topics. He holds a BA (from The Open University, U.K.) in Systems Engineering and an MBA (from York University, Toronto) in Strategy and Entrepreneurship.
Steve Heck - Steve Heck has oversight of all Information Technology activities within Microsoft Canada. This includes both the traditional business facing infrastructure and applications but also ensuring that Microsoft IT understands and responds to the priorities of Microsoft Canada. By running IT like a business, Steve has evolved MS IT into an enabler of Microsoft Canada's business aspirations.
In addition to internally facing responsibilities, Steve is an ambassador of Microsoft IT to Microsoft Customers and Partners who are interested to learn how Microsoft manages its own IT infrastructure and related IT challenges. Steve joined Microsoft Canada to run the Database Marketing and Customer Analytics program. He has been able to strengthen the brand of MS IT within Microsoft Canada to become a trusted business advisor and innovative, business-centric partner.
Steve holds Honours Bachelor and Master Degrees in Economics and an MBA. Steve has been a member of the CIO Association Toronto Chapter Board since 2010.
Ken Kawall - Ken Kawall has been the Chief Information Officer of the Labour and Transportation I&IT Cluster in the Ontario Government for the past four years. Ken is a strong advocate for IT as a Strategic Enabler with a unique combination of having run a number of private sector customer facing service organizations, as well as being a CIO in both the private and public sector.
Ken represents the IT Executive Council at the Operations Assistant Deputy Ministers Committee, and led the IT enablement of the recent cross-cutting Open for Business initiative to make it easier for Ontario’s businesses to interact and transact with the Ontario government.
Ken also has practical experience with a large-scale technology enable change, having been the Co-Executive Sponsor of two of the largest technology projects in the Ontario government, the PRESTO farecard system and the Road User Safety Modernization initiative.
Ken holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration and an Honours Bachelor of Mathematics in Computer Science, both from the University of Western Ontario. Ken is also a Certified Management Accountant.
John Mealia - John Mealia is a Senior Client Partner in Korn/Ferry International’s Toronto office and Canadian leader for the Firm’s Global Technology Market.
Mr. Mealia is also a member of the Firm’s Financial Officers Centre of Expertise and Global Financial Market, placing chief financial officers and senior executives in audit, compliance and tax. He has conducted numerous search assignments throughout Canada, the U.S., Europe and Asia.
Prior to joining Korn/Ferry in 2000, Mr. Mealia worked for a boutique search firm, with the mandate to start a systems and technology practice. He became a partner and helped grow that practice significantly over a seven-year period.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Mealia enjoyed a successful career with IBM, where he held senior sales and marketing positions of increasing responsibility in both the U.S. and Canada.
Mr. Mealia holds a bachelor of science degree in marketing and advertising from Indiana University.
Renah Persofsky - Renah has been directly involved in more than 23 start-up companies in Canada. She was the CEO of Cebra, Bank of Montreal's ecommerce company, where under her direction Epost and Merx were founded. She was the founder and CEO of Dexit (now HDX), and is currently CEO of Strajectory Corp and Executive Consultant, New Business Ventures, at CIBC.
Renah is presently an advisor to Outside Intelligence, Voice on the Go, Pharma Trust, Gaggleup, Leaders Beyond, Canadian Tire Corp, and Tim Hortons, and is a board member of Medworxx Corp and Vice-chair of Jazz FM91.
Walter Puschner - Vice President Walter Puschner leads User Experience IT, a division of Microsoft IT. His charter is simple: Ensure a great user experience for anyone who is a part of Microsoft, worldwide. To do so, his organization offers data, operations, infrastructure, application deployment, help-desk support, and IT-business relationship management services.
Prior to joining Microsoft in 2004, Puschner served as CIO for HP in EMEA. In 1998, Puschner introduced a new European supply chain at Dell Inc. as their Director of Customer Experience and Quality. In 1994, he turned around AT&T Inc.’s PC business as their European Director of PC Product Development and Marketing. Puschner had similar success at Compaq Computer Corporation in 1992 when he introduced two business product families and a consumer product family that returned Compaq to the top of the PC market in Europe.
Puschner is a German national but has lived and worked around the world. He holds a master’s degree in political science from the University of Freiburg, Germany.
Kyle Reid - Kyle has been part of the evolution of digital marketing for over 10 years in multiple roles: Financial Marketing Consultant to chartered banks including BMO and TD Canada Trust, CEO of Deep Caliber Interactive, and full time with Home Trust Company where he led the publically traded lender’s national digital marketing strategy.
His current objective at Broker Focus Digital is driving the agency to deliver fresh and powerful methods of broker channel engagement to lenders, insurers, and broker service providers.
Kyle is also a partner of Open Ocean Apps, a mobile strategy and production collective. His industry speaking experience includes: CIO Association of Canada, Toronto Tech Week, Ryerson Business Forum and the University of Toronto.
Shane Schick - Shane Schick is the Vice-President, Content and Community, of IT World Canada. With a BAA from Ryerson University, Shane joined the IT Business Group in 1997 as a staff writer. In 2000, he was appointed the company’s first full-time online editor, launching ITBusiness.ca in 2001. Shane later edited Computing Canada and oversaw its integration and redesign as part of ComputerWorld Canada, following the merger of the IT Business Group and IT World in 2007.
Shane is in charge of editorial strategy for all of IT World Canada’s print publications, web-sites and events including CIO Canada, Network World Canada and CDN. Shane has made a number of appearances on TV and radio, including CBC Newsworld, discussing Canadian technology trends. He writes a column about technology for the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business. In 2006, Shane received the Innovation Award for Excellence in Science and Technology Reporting from the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance.
Duncan Stewart - Duncan Stewart is the Director of Deloitte Canada Research in the areas of Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT). He is a member of Deloitte’s national TMT executive team, a part of the Corporate Strategy Consulting practice, a co-author of Deloitte Research’s annual Predictions report on trends in TMT, and one of Canada’s most sought-after keynote speakers on the future of TMT.
Duncan has two decades of experience in the TMT industry. As an analyst and portfolio manager, he has provided research or made investments in the entire Canadian technology and telecommunications sector. He has written research on names such as Nortel and Celestica, and been a venture capital investor in Research in Motion and OpenText, among others.
Duncan was a co-founder of Tera Capital, Canada’s first high tech and biotech money manager, where he was responsible for managing both mutual funds and VC funds and was the Canadian Technology Fund Manager of the Year in 2003. In the mid 1990s, Duncan managed a $150 million small cap high tech/biotech fund at a large Canadian pension fund manager. In his years as an investor he deployed a cumulative $2 billion of capital into global TMT markets.
Duncan has a high profile media presence and is frequently interviewed on technology, media and telecommunications issues. He has been a technology columnist for the Globe and Mail, CBC Radio and the National Post.
Ilse Treurnicht - Ilse Treurnicht is CEO of MaRS Discovery Centre, a leading innovation centre located in Toronto. Ilse oversees both the development and operations of the MaRS Centre, and its broad suite of entrepreneurship and innovation programs. Ilse has worked closely with the leadership of Toronto’s academic institutions and teaching hospitals to create MaRS Innovation, an integrated commercialization platform for 14 Toronto Institutions, and served as the Interim Managing Director for a year following its formal launch in early 2008.
Prior to joining MaRS in early 2005 Ilse was President and CEO of Primaxis Technology Ventures, a start-up stage venture capital fund focused on the advanced technologies sector. She is an active member of Canada’s innovation community and has served on the boards of private companies, industry associations and research organizations, and several government advisory panels.
Ilse holds a DPhil in chemistry from Oxford University. She was honoured with the prestigious Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award™ in 2009 and again in 2011.
Jay Woo - Jay Woo is the Chief Operating Officer for the CAA Group of Companies, an organization delivering services to over 1.8 million Members. Along with being the industry leader in emergency roadside services, CAA is also a full travel services company and a full property & casualty insurance company, providing Canadians with home and auto insurance throughout Ontario and the Atlantic Provinces.
Prior to his appointment as COO, Jay was the CIO for CAA where he pioneered the development of advanced technologies which are enabling CAA to leverage business intelligence to improve Member services and optimize risk segmentation in its insurance operations. Included in these advancements are a series of SOA-based technologies that have maximized business integration and which are underpinned by a solid data centre infrastructure.