A Tech Team that Understands the Business Execution Lifecycle

If 10,000 hours practicing your craft makes you an expert, what do you call a team with 500,000?

Dave BurrillManaging Director

Almost 3/4ths of IT project failures start with the business. Dave is an expert at helping executives understand the business execution lifecycle and the critical role that they must play when preparing tech initiatives to automate, track and improve organizational performance.

He is a senior executive (President, COO, CIO), entrepreneur, author, speaker, board director and advisor. He’s been part of three successful tech companies taking each from co-founding or early stage to exit (1 IPO, 2 acquisitions) that have earned national recognition for innovation and growth. Dave is a trusted C-Suite advisor and peer with the expertise to cross disciplines from finance, operations and IT to sales and marketing. He has over 30 years of technology project management experience leading successful teams for clients ranging from start-ups to Fortune 50.

A former PWC Consultant and CPA, PMP & CSM. Dave has received awards for his ground-breaking work in SaaS, advanced analytics and AI, and has been selected to Who’s Who in American Executives & Professionals. He pursued his doctorate in Organization and Systems Design at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business where he earned his MBA. He holds bachelor’s degrees in Economics and Psychology from the University of California, Irvine. He hikes, surfs and plays guitar (badly) in Irvine, California. You can reach him directly at 949.235.6283.

Kathy UherDirector

Some systems, customers and missions are more critical than others. Some errors are a minor inconvenience—others are lethal. Realizing the difference, understanding the impact of each, and knowing what to do to ensure that “mission critical” never fails is Kathy’s domain. She’s spent a career making sure that first responder and emergency systems work first time, every time. When it’s your company’s life—or your job—on the line, she’s the one to talk to.

Kathy is a technology executive with three-plus decades of hands-on experience in the design, development, marketing, sales, implementation, operation and maintenance of large-scale, mission critical systems. As the Director of Information Systems and Software Quality for Motorola, she was responsible for global project management, customer success and implementation of IEEE software development processes. Her efforts allowed Motorola to win the first ever company-wide Malcolm Baldridge Award.

Kathy is an ASQ Six Sigma Black Belt and a Software Engineering Institute Certified Systems Appraiser. She holds certifications in Customer Success Management, Customer Service Specialist and as a Predictive Index Analyst. She holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a MBA from the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. She’s on the tennis court when not throwing a ball to her dog in suburban San Diego.

Alberto (Al) RamirezDirector

Building and growing companies within budgetary, time, competitive and resource constraints is a constant challenge for every business. Identifying profitable technologies and processes, integrating them into business operations and successfully bringing them to market with only the resources on-hand is essential. Al shines at finding creative solutions under the most challenging conditions.

Al is a senior executive (President, COO, entrepreneur and founder) with technology companies ranging from Fortune 50 to start-ups. At IBM Al led an international team of over 400 with annual revenues of $800 million for the enterprise storage solutions group. As VP of IT Services at IFS he oversaw the implementation of ERP software at over 130 sites worldwide. He later founded, grew then sold two tech companies. He played a key role in drastically improving patient mortality rates in northern Mexico (20 more premature babies out of every 100 lived because of these efforts). The model required extensive collaboration and coordination, and was so successful it was replicated throughout the US-Mexico border.

Al has over 35 years of experience delivering projects on-time and on-budget. He’s received awards in R&D, leadership, sales and humanitarian projects. He holds a BS in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the University of Arizona and holds two patents. He lives in Point Loma, California. You can reach him at 619.987.2109.

John Fisher

Business is all about people. We’ve all heard it, but few companies actually embody that ideal. Too often the next shiny object gets more attention than the people charged with executing the mission. When helping companies transform—whether negotiating sustainable agreements or developing next-gen leaders—John excels at getting the right people engaged, aligned, informed and empowered.

John is a nationally recognized senior IT executive with global experience who has successfully led IT operations in Fortune 500 and SMB organizations. He’s managed P&L’s for multiple departments including IT within a professional services BPO organization. He has decades of experience as a CIO for three CEO’s and four sets of owners. He’s worked in banking, insurance, professional services, non-profit, manufacturing, distribution, healthcare and education.

His track record includes financial and performance turnarounds of failing IT departments, significant reduction in run rates, improvements in the relationship and success factors with strategic suppliers, facilitation of the decision process for technology selection, development of high-performing teams and bridging the gap between technology and business units. He has a Master’s in Computer Science from DePaul University where he is an adjunct faculty member. He teaches graduate courses in IT, social media, leadership, negotiation and project management, and lives on a farm outside of Chicago.

Alynne Douglass

There’s a big difference between efficiently executing a tech initiative in a confined environment and executing efficiently on a national or global scale. Alynne excels at finding and removing impediments and optimizing the efficiencies of software solutions to accelerate their rollout and successful adoption across large, distributed audiences.

Alynne is a senior executive who began her career at Rockwell International becoming the youngest person ever to run the General Aviation Division, heading worldwide service operations. She moved into software in 1990 and has held senior leadership roles in marketing, sales, and strategic alliances. She was part of the leadership team that grew revenues for Lawson Software from $35 to $350 million in five years and has grown other multi-million dollar consulting practices since. Her most recent business consulting firm, Trendspotters, specialized in helping Fortune 100 clients identify and execute on strategic opportunities to expand markets and fix operational issues to increase profits and efficiencies. Using her methodology, one of the largest US banks and financial services company saved over $21 million in less than 18 months.

She holds a BA in International Studies from Southern Nazarene University. She serves on the board of an international non-profit organization and lives on the south coast of Spain overlooking Gibraltar and the Mediterranean with her husband and two adorable dogs.

Matt Rockwell

The flight-deck of an aircraft carrier is one of the most complex work environments on earth—a place where seemingly trivial communication errors can be fatal. Matt credits his decade in Naval aviation as the foundation for his tenacious Systems Thinking, Human Factors, and deep appreciation for just how complex and challenging ‘simple’ is to achieve.

Evolving from an electronics engineer to systems programmer, to process engineer Matt has led multiple IT departments within the Fortune 50—including the team responsible for building the nation’s largest healthcare data network serving over 400 hospitals, care centers, and offices. He has led multiple, high-profile IT project turnarounds and understands first-hand how projects impact and change an organization at every level. His unique ability to work effectively—side-by-side—across the layers of an organization, from the C-Suite to deep inside IT Operations and software development, allows him to create trust, open communications, and organizational alignment. Matt’s mantra is, “Alignment is a force multiplier.”

Matt has worked in the Finance, Marketing, Banking, Healthcare Delivery, and Health Insurance industries. He has an Industrial Engineering degree from Southern Illinois University, is an active member of the IEEE, and the IoT and Distributed Systems Initiatives. He’s a pilot, yoga and meditation instructor and lives in Boulder, Colorado.
matt@itsaboutwhat.com

Joyce Hunter

Joyce is one creative and gifted innovator—who also knows how to execute. She’s a tech exec with the rare skill of knowing how to select, assemble and lead the right people, technology and resources to successfully take an initiative from whiteboard to go-live in either the private, public or philanthropic sector. She’s served as both the Interim CIO and Deputy CIO of the US Department of Agriculture and held other senior leadership roles within the federal government, Lotus Development Corp, Lawson Software, and Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). She’s managed multi-billion dollar IT budgets and established or led several data governance and PMO initiatives. She understands how to communicate with and across diverse communities and how to forge relationships that enable those stakeholders to succeed. She regularly uses these skills in both her TEDx talks and publications.

Joyce has a BA from Villanova University and an MBA in Marketing from the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business. She holds certificates in Emotional Intelligence, Design Thinking, Technology Business Management (TBM) and Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). She sits on multiple industry boards and is active in several philanthropies focused on advancing STEM and Data Science education for underserved and underrepresented youth. When she’s not working she’s cheering for her hometown (Philly) teams. She lives in Germantown, Maryland.

Piero P. Bonissone

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a disrupting technology that combines a high potential payoff with a very challenging implementation. Many AI projects are over-sold and under-deliver, but Piero has spent 40 years developing and delivering AI successfully.

Piero specializes in machine learning (ML), covering AI project definition, risk abatement, project evaluation and transitioning from development to deployment. He’s advised Parkland, Stanley, Black and Decker, Baker Hughes and Schlumberger—playing a key role in their Digital Transformations. A former Chief Scientist at GE for 34 years, he’s led a variety of projects in analytics, ML and Industrial AI, ranging from healthcare to aviation, aerospace, consumer electronics, and insurance.

Piero has a PhD from UC Berkeley in Control and AI Applications. He’s a Life Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, the International Fuzzy Systems Association, and was a Coolidge Fellow at GE Global Research. He served as Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Approximate Reasoning for 13 years. He’s on the editorial board of five technical journals and is Editor at Large of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine. He’s co-edited six books, has over 150 publications and lives in San Diego.

Guido Solares

Guido is an experienced information security strategist with proficiency across the full spectrum of security risk management, compliance, operations, technology, and architecture. An expert in structuring security programs and solutions, He can build, execute, and sell a coherent security strategic vision balancing pragmatism and vigilance. He excels at linking technology to company initiatives with strong business acumen, big-picture leadership, communicating in plain terms, and collaborative “outside the box” cost management.

He is a senior consultant, C-level executive, board advisor, academic, entrepreneur, author, speaker with experience across several industries such as finance, healthcare, education, hospitality, retail, distribution, professional services, and IT digital transformation. He has held leadership roles providing companies and clients with strategic direction for using technology and information intelligence to enhance corporate profitability, efficiency, and security.

Guido is a Fulbright scholar and holds three advanced degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), including a Doctorate in Physics. He was a faculty member at both MIT and Harvard University.

Guido resides in Southern California. He is an avid reader, traveler, lifelong learner, and has an insatiably curious mind.