Northeast IT & Security Leaders Forum 2023

With many economists anticipating a recession in 2023, the impact on IT departments is unclear. One would expect companies to pull back across the board and for those cuts to include IT. But the big surprise is that spending on IT is expected to increase.

Moderator: Info-Tech Research Group

The SEC is proposing new rules to improve and standardize cybersecurity disclosures by public companies. The proposals include reporting on material cybersecurity incidents and periodic disclosures on policies and procedures for identifying and managing risks, management’s role in implementing cybersecurity, and board of director’s expertise and oversight.

In this session we will speak to a Panel of your Peers to better understand this new proposed policy change and how it affect you.

Moderator: Keith Donnelly, VP, Global Head of Risk Managment, Broadridge Financial

Circle back with your Peers on the content so far while grabbing a coffee and a snack

How do you create alignment between Tech and Business Leaders in your organization to develop a digital transformation strategy that includes analytics modernization, cloud migration, or data democratization to enable innovation and transformation in your organization? In this session, Steve discusses why, despite the strategic and competitive advantages of a data-centric approach, it may take a lot of effort to get others to see that it is the right thing to do for the corporation.

• Understand the perceived gap between business, leadership, and IT.
• Discover methods to become business-centric in your approach to IT.
• Evaluate case studies where companies have benefited from taking a different approach to communicating value.
• Learn from others’ mistakes and successes in the best ways to work with business and IT

Speaker: Steve Sarsfield, Director of Product Marketing, Vertica

Presented by: Vertica

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Presented by: Cymulate

The current “shift-left” mindset to assess, assert, and evidence compliance and to harden the software supply chain are a DevOps antipattern. The impact goes well beyond over-burdening developers with toil that distracts them from innovation, unplanned audits are highly disruptive, and management is left to make decisions without defensible data. We will discuss this impact as a tax and suggest attributes of solutions to do Shift-Left right.

Presented by: Cloudbees

It is no secret that technology is changing the fabric of business operations and outcomes, and collaboration between IT and the business is more important than ever before. The conversation is no longer about how to align IT with the business, however in many cases technology is still viewed as a commodity rather than an enabler. So what can we do to successfully change this mindset both within our own organizations and across the industry as a whole? During this session, we will discuss the various challenges IT and digital leaders face when undergoing this cultural shift.

Panelist: Gennaro Palumbo, Head of IT, Leonardo Helicopters

Open seating, Buffet-style lunch. Serving food for all tastes, pallets, and preferences. Vegan, vegetarian, and halal options available

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Presented by: Lacework

This session will explore the benefits and challenges of cloud computing, including the use of containers and the growing need for scalable and secure storage solutions. With a focus on practical applications and modern day use cases, this session will provide a comprehensive overview of the cloud landscape and equip you with the knowledge to navigate the ever-evolving cloud ecosystem.

By 2025, 45% of organizations worldwide will have experienced attacks on their software supply chains (Gartner) which are only becoming increasingly complex due to the changes in how modern software is built. These trends, together with new federal regulations, require organizations to take action to ensure the security and integrity of their software. But this is easier said than done.

In this session, we’ll explore the software supply chain as an attack vector – by identifying risks and mitigation strategies throughout the software development processes and environment. Join us to learn how you can meet new requirements and protect your software from these attacks.

Presented by: Snyk

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Presented by: Cyberhaven

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Presented by: Binalyze

Circle back with your Peers on the content so far while grabbing a coffee and a snack

Value Stream Management may be the next big thing but seems like a lot to swallow. Even organizations with mature Agile and DevOps processes are unsure how to capitalize on this proven method of process improvement.  To front-load success and reduce risk, you’ll need to see value quickly and then build on that success. Properly implemented, VSM can boost time-to-market and a company’s ability to compete and win in the marketplace by maximizing ROI and unifying your organization’s business and technology objectives.

In this session, you’ll learn how OpenText simplifies Value Stream Management by helping organizations track, analyze, and predict resourcing, reduce risk, and identify waste to help you increase value as a product flows from “strategy to delivery” to achieve superior business outcomes:

• Maximize Business Value and Effectiveness:  Discover, visualize and manage flow of value from “strategy to delivery” powered by AI and analytics that is easy to deploy
• Accelerate Delivery and Efficiency: Integrates with your existing toolchains to improve productivity and remove friction in the value stream with smart automation
• Gain Competitive Advantage: Differentiate customer experience with high quality value stream insights to manage risk and streamline delivery. Empower continuous feedback, learning and improvement.

Join OpenText for this discussion, including why the time for VSM is now and how to capitalize on it the easy way.

Presented by: Micro Focus 

In most markets, there is an abundance of open IT jobs with fewer people able to fill them – and the positions are getting more expensive. Working remotely is the norm, but not optimal (usually). There is less off-shoring and more resources are focused locally or within the same hemisphere.

Additionally, we are still not recruiting enough women and minorities into the rank and file, especially senior IT roles, and we’re losing talent to major tech hubs.

Join us at the roundtable with your peers as we dive into solutions to tackle the following challenges:

• How do you scale staff/team without losing them to major tech hubs?
• How do you create more diversity – not only among race and gender – but diversity of thought Old vs New Thinking?
• How do we mentor universities to implement actionable steps for supplying more IT talent?

Panelist: Shayn Spingler, SVP Global Information Technology, Hill International

The definition of work-life balance has changed, and the nature of work has changed. Life, family, and work are all integrated, we need software solutions that allow us the flexibility to live our lives and attract a diverse talent. Solutions that improve experience locally while allowing us to operate globally removing the friction, increasing productivity improving employee experience and in turn positively impacting the customer experience. Focused on retention and customer satisfaction.

Presented by: RingCentral

Topics addressed will include:

• Cloud Security Checklist
• 7 Critical Cloud Security Controls
• Common mistakes Open for discussion and sharing ideas

Speaker: Nish Majmudar, Director Of Information Security Engineering & Operations, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield

The result of digital transformation: It’s easier to do business with your customers and partners. But with new architectures, web apps and APIs now deployed from on-prem servers to the cloud, it is harder than ever to get a holistic view of all of these potentially vulnerable assets – never mind defend them.

What are your biggest challenges today in defending these diverse assets? What are the known gaps in your current defenses? What are you seeking in the future to defend your apps and APIs?

Topics covered will include:

• How are adversaries preying upon unprotected web apps and APIs?
• How are traditional web application firewalls deployed, and what are they missing?
• What does the future look like with unified web app and API security solutions?

Circle back with your Peers on the content so far while grabbing a coffee and a snack

Highly distributed increasingly complex IT environments are forcing a new wave of network evolution. Traditional network infrastructures were not designed for data growth, connected devices, and edge computing. The time has come for a new approach.

• Automate. Streamline the transition from operations to outcomes, so you can improve your network and the experience of the people it connects.
• Connect. Unify remote, branch, campus and data center connectivity by converging the management of wired, wireless, and WAN networking on a unified cloud-native platform.
• Protect. In a highly distributed environment, the network has become a valuable source of information to help identify and prevent or limit the impact of cyberattacks

You’ve just stepped into your new IT leadership role. Your first 90 days in a new IT leadership role should be focused on learning. Investing this time will help you understand the current state, appreciate the culture and inform your strategy. Prioritize these steps to kickstart improvement:

• Understand your job. Learn the organization and industry you are in
• Define and revise measurements for success
• Articulate your vision and strategy
• Organize people for success
• Build culture
• Revise processes for success & delivery, and suitable for the environment and the times
• Upgrade technologies