Programs

Get involved, learn and contribute

CIOCAN programs are multifaceted and present opportunities to learn, get involved and give back to the profession. Here is a summary of our current programs:

Impact Awards

CIOCAN’s Impact Awards recognize excellence in our technology leaders across Canada. It is together that we tackle the complex issues of our profession and we’re proud of our members who are leading the way.

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Innovation Drivers Podcast Episodes

We are pleased to present CIOCAN’s Innovation Drivers Podcast. CIOCAN in partnership with the Business Leadership Podcast we speak with Canada’s top technology leaders to discuss ideas, successes, and challenges that are creating a better future.

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Mentorship Program

CIOCAN’s Mentorship program, free to all CIOCAN members and their direct reports, demonstrates our dedication to growing and supporting current and emerging IT leaders.

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Thought Leadership Councils

Our Thought Leadership Councils bring together members from coast to coast in a virtual thought leadership “brain trust” to problem-solve the challenges we all share in our roles every day.

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Technology Leadership Program

The CIOCAN Leadership Development Program is offered by Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business, in partnership with the CIO Association of Canada.

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DX / Blockchain Certification

Brought to you by TransformationWorx is a learning opportunity to get certified in one of the most promising technologies, Blockchain. Discover a technology that can revolutionize the world economy.

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Jacqui Guichelaar
Speaker

Group Chief Information Officer and senior vice president at Cisco

Jacqui Guichelaar is the Group Chief Information Officer and senior vice president at Cisco. She is responsible for the company’s global technology infrastructure and application development and is passionate about driving the Digital Strategy for Cisco and its customers.

Throughout a career characterised by focused self-determination and a refusal to rest on laurels, Jacqui has gained extensive commercial, management and leadership experience in the Technology industry. Previously, she was the Group Chief Information Officer at Thomson Reuter’s where she built and led a Technology Transformation program in support of the companies Digital Strategy. She has also held roles in Lloyds Bank, Deutsche Bank, National Australia Bank, IBM and CSC gaining experience across industries such as Financial Services, Utilities, Telecommunications, Media and Retail.

Informed by 28 years of IT experience that has allowed her to witness developments in the sector from every angle and to spearhead the introduction of significant new technologies, Jacqui has a sustained track record of delivering large scale transformation programmes through a structured framework of plans and strict governance. She is passionate about developing talent and supporting individuals to realise their potential.

Jacqui was born in Uruguay, South America. She has worked in many countries around the world including Sydney, Frankfurt, London and New York, which plays into her passion for exploring new cultures and fostering diversity of thought. She is actively involved in many non-profit organizations and is currently a Board member of the Center for Anti-Violence Education (CAE). She was the Chair of 2012 Women on Wall Street Conference.

Jonathan Bowness
Speaker

Solutions Consultant, Enterprise Workflow at Ricoh Canada

As a Solution Consultant with a specialty in content management and workflow, Jonathan thrives on having unique business challenges to tackle each day. Jonathan uses his 10+ years’ experience to consult and design solutions alongside his clients to drive organizational efficiency, accuracy, accountability, and cost-savings.

Having worked with IT leaders from organizations of all sizes and industries to digitally transform their business, Jonathan’s unwavering commitment to his clients ensures the success of each project.

When he isn’t helping clients, Jonathan can be found on the links or in his backyard, spending time with his wife, their son and the dogs.

Brian Robison
Speaker

Senior Director, Product Marketing and Chief Evangelist at BlackBerry

Brian Robison is the Senior Director, Product Marketing and Chief Evangelist at BlackBerry, where he educates the world that preventing cybersecurity threats is actually possible and a much better approach than detecting and responding after the attack. Prior to joining Cylance, Robison spent five years helping secure corporate data on mobile devices—three years at Citrix as Director of Technical Marketing and two years driving enterprise product strategy at Good Technology. Before moving into the mobile security space, Robison’s career focused on endpoint security and risk and compliance. At McAfee, he led the effort to bring ePolicy Orchestrator into the modern age as well as managing the vulnerability management and policy compliance solutions. Prior to McAfee, Robison held many roles over his seven-year career at Tripwire, Inc.

Brian on LinkedIn

Jason Lang
Speaker

Senior Solutions Engineer at Shape Security (part of F5)

Jason Lang is a Senior Solutions Engineer for Shape Security (part of F5) in Canada. In his role, he has worked as a trusted advisor to numerous large Financial Institutions, Service Providers, large retailers and travel/hospitality organizations throughout Canada. Prior to joining Shape in 2019, Jason spent 10 years at Arbor Networks, and 8 years at Bell Canada.

Jason on LinkedIn

Gary Miller
Speaker

Vice President, Cybersecurity at CGI

Gary Miller is Vice President, Canada Cybersecurity for CGI, accountable for strategy, service innovation and evolution, and revenue growth. For more than 20 years Gary has been assisting governments and industry organizations around the world shape appropriate and practical cyber security strategies and programs to support their changing business. Gary has held senior executive positions within international businesses leading corporate security functions and cyber security business units.

His unique balance of strategy, business and cybersecurity domain expertise combined with his diverse situational experience allows him to work with senior leaders to plot the most effective way forward in today’s complex environment. Gary has successfully launched new cyber security products and businesses, consulted with governments on national cyber security strategy and policy, advised on transformative market opportunities, supported numerous mergers and acquisitions, and speaks often on strategic cyber security issues.

Gary on LinkedIn

Stan Sims
Speaker

Senior Vice-President and Chief Security Officer
at CGI

Stanley Sims joined CGI in January 2016 as Chief Security Officer. He is responsible for overseeing the company’s global enterprise security strategy and establishing global security policies, standards and practices across the full spectrum of security areas, including personnel, information, physical security, and cybersecurity. In addition, Mr. Sims is responsible for the company’s business continuity programs and supporting activities. Mr. Sims also is a member of CGI’s Executive Management Committee, which includes corporate and operations leaders who set enterprise-wide strategy, approve enterprise policies, and provide operations oversight, ensuring tight collaboration and alignment in executing CGI’s strategic goals and priorities across the company’s global footprint. Prior to joining CGI,

Mr. Sims served as Director of the Defense Security Service (DSS), the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) agency responsible for securing the DoD’s technological base and overseeing the protection of classified information residing within the DoD’s ecosystem of industry partners. In this role, he provided oversight of more than 10,000 industry partners’ security programs, providing products and services to more than 31 separate U.S. federal agencies in addition to the DoD. Mr. Sims was credited with transforming the DSS culture and operations, bringing together government and industry partners to operate as a national security team and improving the overall execution of the National Industrial Security Program.

Michael Hartmann
Speaker

Principal of The Directors College and Executive Director, EMBA in Digital Transformation at The Directors College, DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University

Michael Hartmann is a jointly appointed Professor of Medicine and Management at McMaster University, Co-Director of the University’s Health Leadership Academy and Principal of The Directors College - Canada’s founding professional development program for board directors (2003-2019). He also serves as founding Executive Director of an EMBA program in Digital Transformation teaching courses on Corporate Innovation and Digital Entrepreneurship. Dr. Hartmann has held senior leadership roles with universities in the UK and Canada. He previously served as Deputy Dean and CXO, Manchester Business School (2007-2012), and Assistant Dean, Rotman School of Management (1998-2007) where he established a globally ranked executive education business (Top 20 Business Week and Top 50 Financial Times).

Dr. Hartmann has over 25 years experience as an educational consultant, facilitator and trainer to organizations around the world. A sample of his consulting assignments include work for Novartis (Switzerland), Ziraat Bank (Turkey), Thales Group (France), JCB (USA), Omantel (Oman), Al-Futtaim Group (Dubai), Manchester Airport Groups, British Sky Broadcasting, NBCUniversal (UK), Dentsu Aegis Network (Singapore, New York, London), BDO, SOCAN and OMERS (Canada). His current research interests focus on the topics of disruptive innovation and governance. He leads an annual course on innovation for board directors and is a member of Stanford's Digital Cities Consortium and the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) Technology, Governance and Innovation Panel. Dr. Hartmann holds graduate degrees from the University of Toronto and York University and a doctoral degree from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. He also holds professional accreditation with The Directors College (C.Dir.) and le Collège des administrateurs de sociétés (ASC). His work on corporate governance and executive and directors education has been published in academic journals as well as the professional press. He also hosts a regular governance and innovation webinar and podcast series called The Collaboratorium.

Michael on LinkedIn

Ryan Beckwith
Speaker

National Manager, Pre-Sales Engineering at Ricoh Canada

An accomplished executive with 15 years at Ricoh, Ryan consults with global clients to identify and remediate inefficient business processes. Ryan has led the Ricoh team from discovery and solution development through implementation for some of Ricoh’s largest business process automation (BPA) engagements.

Ryan also contributes to Ricoh’s own Digital Transformation Strategy and shares his expertise in expanding Ricoh’s BPA offering to continue delivering exceptional value across our clients’ organisations.

With his big heart & fun-loving nature, Ryan is a devoted husband and dad who loves hitting the slopes in Tremblant with his family & strapping on the blades at the rink.

Ryan on LinkedIn

Jim Richberg
Speaker

Field CISO for the Public Sector at Fortinet

Jim Richberg’s role as a Fortinet CISO leverages his 35 years’ experience driving innovation in cybersecurity, threat intelligence, and cyber strategy & policy. He currently focuses on cyber metrics, election security, and helping organizations maximize IT efficiency and security post-COVID. Mr. Richberg served as the National Intelligence Manager for Cyber, the senior Federal Executive focused on cyber intelligence within the $80B+/100,000 employee US Intelligence Community (IC). He led cyber strategy for the 17 departments and agencies of the IC, set integrated priorities on cyber threats, and served as Senior Advisor to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on cyber issues.

Jim on LinkedIn

Chris Hallenbeck
Speaker

CISO for the Americas at Tanium

Chris Hallenbeck is CISO for the Americas at Tanium. Chris provides security leadership and operational insight gained from over 20 years in both the public and private sectors. Chris came to Tanium after almost 7 years of government service at the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT). At US-CERT he designed and built their incident response capabilities, and restructured the team's focus toward strategic remediation with a goal of building more resilient organizations. Over countless IR engagements both with government and private sector victims a common theme emerged: a lack of emphasis on IT security hygiene. Prior to joining US-CERT, Chris worked for RSA Security/EMC as a security engineer and with AOL/Time Warner on their global incident response team. He started his career as a Unix sys-admin at Binghamton University. When not chasing electrons he prefers to be 20-30 meters under the sea.

Chris on LinkedIn

Mike Schoenberger
Speaker

CEO at Sunco Communication and Installation Ltd.

Hi! I’m Mike Schoenberger and CEO of Sunco Communication and Installation Ltd. My passion is to make business communication easier for our clients. In today's world, there is so much information available, it is hard to know what will fill your business's needs. I use my knowledge and experience I’ve gained over the past 30+ years to ensure that Sunco has the best products and services, designed specifically using our personal touch. We deliver a quality solution with simple access to support and the friendliness of the Sunco family.

Mike on LinkedIn

Julia Armstrong
Speaker

Donation Manager at Electronic Recycling Association

Julia Armstrong joined the Electronic Recycling Association team in 2018 and has gained experience in many different facets of the organization, now primarily focused on donation activities and marketing.

She started off her career as a production accountant for a mid-sized oil and gas company. Obviously knowing the importance of reliable technology to ensure work deadlines were met, she didn't give much thought to what the company did with the computers when it was time for an upgrade. Working with the ERA has exposed Julia to the fact that perfectly usable IT equipment gets recycled all the time instead of being reused and it has also highlighted the point that there is an immeasurable need for free or low-cost options for charitable organizations and less fortunate individuals.

Julia enjoys volunteering with seniors and appreciates that she can work for an organization like ERA which consistently provides vulnerable citizens with the devices they need to stay connected to friends and family.

Julia on LinkedIn