Asif Ahmad, Vice President, Diagnostic Services and Chief Information Officer, Duke University Health System & Medical Center

Asif Ahmad is vice president for diagnostic services and chief information officer for Duke University Health System and Duke University Medical Center. He provides leadership, direction, and strategic planning for the information technology staff and functions in support of the health system.

Through his leadership, the health system's diverse technology resources have been united in name and spirit under the moniker Duke Health Technology Solutions (DHTS). As the vice president for diagnostic services, he is responsible for developing the overall strategy of diagnostic support for DUHS, including radiology and clinical labs/pathology. Ahmad also provides leadership and direction over medical technology and clinical engineering. Additionally, Ahmad is responsible for overseeing the Health Information Management group for the health system.

Ahmad earned a dual bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and telecommunications at the University of Engineering and Technology of Lahore, Pakistan, and earned an MS degree in biomedical engineering and an MBA at the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University. He came to Duke by way of The Ohio State University Health System where he received the highest national award for excellence in computerization of the patient record -- The Nicholas E. Davies Award. He and DUHS were profiled by InformationWeek magazine in their September 2005 issue as 500 top innovators in the IT Industry (1 of 42 in Health Care). He also received the 2001, 2002, and 2005 Most Wired Health System Award, which awards the top 100 hospitals nationally, and the 2002 Innovator Award, American Hospitals Association for excellence in wireless and online patient care workflow. He is a board member of the National Alliance Health Information Technology.

Bill Armstrong, Manager, IT Enterprise Applications Support, International Truck and Engine/Navistar Corporation

Bill Armstrong is the manager of enterprise applications support for International Truck and Engine / Navistar Corporation. He has been in the IT industry for 36 years and has first hand experience implementing the numerous changes in technology, applications, and processes that have occurred in that time.

With Navistar, Bill played a key role in the implementation of the Baan ERP system at a new truck plant in Mexico. In 1998, the first Baan ERP system at Navistar was implemented in a year time frame, a major accomplishment at the time. In today's business environment of mergers and acquisitions, IT must often choose a product and implement a solution in just 3 to 4 months. Bill's most recent project was to lead a project team in the engineering of a new "Baan Lite" product that could be implemented in a 2 month time frame at minimal cost. In 2002, he led the effort to implement a global IT support organization at Navistar, significantly reducing the cost of applications support. He is now actively involved with ITIL best practices in order to bring world class production support services to the Navistar IT organization.

Prior to joining Navistar, Bill was with the United States Army Security Agency where he was involved in creating a new generation of inventory and supply chain systems. He has a BS degree in Math from Southern Illinois University and a MS degree in Computer Science from DePaul University.

Rick Becker, Vice President, Dell Software and Solutions

Rick Becker is Sr. Vice President of the Software & Solutions Group at Dell. He is responsible for determining the company's vision for Enterprise software solutions including servers, storage, software and services and accelerating the adoption of Dell Enterprise solutions.    His responsibilities include software product marketing as well as software engineering, advanced planning and test and validation of operating systems and applications. 
 
Prior to joining Dell in November 2006, Mr. Becker was vice president and general manager of the HP BladeSystem business at HP.   Previously, Becker served as vice president of Operating and System Marketing and Business Development for Industry Standard Servers at Compaq.
 
Mr. Becker studied computer science at the University of North Texas at Denton. 

Tom Bishop, Chief Technology Officer, BMC Software, Inc.

Tom Bishop is the Chief Technology Officer of BMC Software, Inc. (NYSE: BMC), a leading provider of enterprise management solutions that empower companies to manage IT from a business perspective.

Bishop joined BMC in 2005 from VIEO, Inc., in Austin, Texas, where he served as Chief Technology Officer and was named one of the top 25 CTOs by InfoWorld magazine in 2004. While at VIEO, Bishop pioneered the architecture and design of an applications-focused, quality of service-oriented enterprise systems management solution.

For more than 20 years, he has served in senior technology and strategy roles at leading organizations including UNIX International, Tandem Computers and CompuCare Management Systems. Bishop was an early employee of Tivoli Systems and rose quickly through the organization, serving first in key development roles before being named Chief Technology Officer and General Manager for IBM Tivoli's Embedded Solutions business unit.

A well-known technology innovator, Bishop holds nine patents in fault tolerant computing and in leading the development of industry standards such as the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) and POSIX.

Lorie Buckingham, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Avaya

Lorie Buckingham is Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer for Avaya. Avaya is a leading global provider of business communications applications, systems and services.

In this role, Lorie's accountabilities include the execution of Avaya SAP requirements, designing and implementing business process improvements, and enhancing productivity through IT applications development and deployment. Lorie also plays a vital role in driving simplicity in our technology-based processes.

Before joining Avaya, Lorie held senior executive positions at Visteon Corporation, where she was most recently Chief Information Officer and senior vice president, Global Services Group. Before joining Visteon, Lorie was CIO at Zonetrader.com and, previously, Senior Director of Enterprise Information Technology Solutions at Union Carbide Corporation. Earlier in her career, she held positions in applications development, information systems and business operations at firms from small start-ups to global leaders including Citibank, General Electric and IBM.

She earned a B.A. degree in chemistry and mathematics from the State University of New York.

Michael Carlson, Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Xcel Energy

Mr. Carlson is the Chief Information Officer and Vice President for Xcel Energy. He is responsible for increasing the value Business Systems delivers to the organization by leveraging Xcel Energy's I/T portfolio, including both technology and process, across the company. Prior to his current position, Mike was the Vice President for Business Transformation & Customer within Business Systems, after originally starting with the company in June of 2002 as the Director of the Program Management Office. Mike has more than 20 years of experience in finance and technology, focusing his expertise in the application and delivery of technology to drive business value.

He joined Xcel Energy in 2002 from Arthur Andersen, LLP, where he was a practice director in the areas of technology integration and financial operations. In addition to his consulting experience, his background includes a number of financial and management positions within the medical industry, serving as CEO of a large medical practice and the CFO of a public laboratory services group. Mike holds a Bachelor's degree in Accounting and Management Systems from Union College and an MBA degree in finance from Pepperdine University.

Cora Carmody, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, SAIC

As the Chief Information Officer of SAIC, Cora Carmody provides leadership for information technology (IT) initiatives centering around the consolidation and improvement of SAIC's mission-critical IT Systems including Enterprise Resources systems such as HR, Financial, Contracts, and Procurement Systems, as well as infrastructure systems and services such as networks, servers, desktops, web, etc. Cora was with Litton/PRC from 1978 – 2001 (and CIO there from 1996-2001), and Invensys plc from 2001-2003; additionally she taught at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan part-time from 1981-1984.

• Named one of Computerworld's "Premier 100", Top IT Leaders of 2002
• IT group recognized in Computerworld's "Top 100 Places to Work in IT", 2000, 2005
• Led Litton/PRC to CMM Level 3; then supported maturity increase to CMM Level 5, crystallizing PRC's culture of continuous improvement
• Architected an Information Highway solution as the first implementation of the Invensys Real Time Enterprise strategy

Cora has an M.S. degree in computer science from Fairleigh Dickinson University (1985) and B.A. and M.A. degrees in Mathematics from the Johns Hopkins University (1978). She is a life-time member of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America, and in 2002 founded the Technology Goddesses, a program of technology mentorship for junior high and high school Girl Scouts. She and her husband, Colonel Kevin O. Carmody USMCR, live in San Diego and have 4 children.

Brian Cobb, Senior Vice President – Technology Infrastructure and Operations, Fannie Mae

Current Responsibilities Brian Cobb is Fannie Mae's Senior Vice President –Technology Infrastructure and Operations. Cobb is responsible for the operational as well as the strategic direction of the technology infrastructure, including engineering and architecture. He supports the company's critical technology platforms—including the engineering and operations of Fannie M