Pittsburgh CIO Forum

Premier Connects Inc. has put together a focused agenda, bringing together experts, visionaries, and professionals from the IT industry.

Featured Sessions
How to Survive, Reset and Thrive

Host
Dr. Rebecca Homkes, Lecturer, Director, London Business School, Strategic Management Centre

In times of unprecedented change and extreme uncertainty, organizations must act, but traditional responses will be less effective. Instead, CIOs must help their organizations stop planning and start preparing. Homkes will kick off our conversation by introducing her framework for growing out of the downturn including how to Survive (stabilize the business with a growth mindset); Reset (revisit and reset the existing strategic plan and set an updated direction and priorities), and thrive (dramatically grow and prosper on the other inside including identifying and taking advantage of strategic insights through disciplined flexibility). She will challenge us to up our learning velocity throughout this process to build a robust organization for ongoing growth.

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How CIOs Can Navigate the Road Ahead
Moderator
Brian Watson, Principal, CIO Clarity Advisors, LLC

Panelist
Ram Rayapureddy, CIO, Mylan

Panelist
Vlad Rak, EVP & CTO, DICK’S Sporting Goods

Panelist
Richard Smith, VP & CIO, Wabtec Corporation

IT organizations have been one of the few bright spots of the COVID pandemic, enabling their organizations to work from anywhere and keeping operations moving in the most dire of situations.

But what comes next? There’s no playbook for a crisis of this kind, but collectively, we can all learn valuable lessons. Join CIO advisor and author Brian Watson and a panel of elite IT leaders to discuss their priorities and concerns for the near- and long term — and to share your perspectives and predictions to help broaden all of our thinking.

Building an IT Organization for the 2020s
Moderator
Mark Settle, 7X CIO, Author, Truth from the Valley, A Practical Primer on IT Management for the Next Decade

Panelist
James Chilton, CIO, Cengage

Panelist
Dave Coughanour, Senior Director of Cybersecurity, ANSYS, Inc.
During this session, you’ll get a forward-looking view of the ways in which talent, operations and technology will be managed in the future based on the experience of high-growth cloud-native firms in Silicon Valley. IT leaders need to survey key trends in operational processes and technology practices and selectively invest in those capabilities that can be a source of competitive advantage within their industries.

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Opportunities for Technology during Covid

Paul Liu, Principal Economist, Google

Using both external and internal data, we will give a brief update of the current economy and point out how Covid accelerated the growth of the online economy and created great opportunities for technology to improve people’s lives during the crisis.

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Closing Remarks
Host
Dr. Rebecca Homkes, Lecturer, Director, London Business School, Strategic Management Centre

We will pull together key insights and end with a call to action with guidance on how CIOs can lead their organizations, accelerate learning, and thrive coming out of 2020 and into 2021.
Topic Driven Breakouts