Outthinker Chief Strategy Officer Summit & Networking
CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER SUMMIT OVERVIEW
Join the Outthinker Strategy Network for a day of in-person learning and networking with fellow chief strategy officers. Held at the extraordinary Graduate Hotel on Roosevelt Island in New York City. The event will feature:
- Small-group breakout sessions where CSO’s discuss today’s most pressing trends and how to solve their challenges.
- A roundtable presentation on “Creating Value with Ecosystems” with special guest Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Harvard Business School professor and author of Better, Simpler Strategy.
- Cocktail, hors d’oeuvres, and networking reception at the spectacular Panorama Room with unrivaled views of the Manhattan skyline.
- 1:1 individual introductions, arranged by the OSN Connections Concierge, based on your needs, challenges, and interests.
Expand your network of personal and professional relationships with other strategy executives. Explore the latest thought leadership on the evolution of the strategy office and the new rules of ecosystem-based competition. Learn actionable best practices from your peers that you can take back and implement with your team and organization.
Agenda
| 8:30am-9:30am | Sign-in and continental breakfast |
| 9:30am-10:30am | OSNÂ Challenge Forums |
| 10:30am-11:00am | Break |
| 11:00am-12:00pm | Top Question and breakout discussions and problem solving* |
| 12:00pm-1:30pm | Networking, lunch, and afternoon arrivals check-in |
| 1:30pm-1:45pm | Announcements & Future of OSN with Claudio Garcia, Outthinker Strategy Network President |
| 1:45pm-3:45pm | Creating Value through Ecosystems” Roundtable with Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Harvard Business School |
| 3:45pm-4:00pm | Summary & Closing thoughts with Rob Wolcott, TWIN Global |
| 4:15pm-6:15pm | Â Panorama Room Networking Reception |
Creating Value Through Ecosystems with Felix Oberholzer-Gee
Developing your company’s strategic plan and objectives that keep your company ahead of the competition is challenging. CSOs and their leadership teams must balance global strategy, technological strategy, innovation strategy, marketing strategy—among others—just to stay competitive. This often puts strain on the company because pursuing too many initiatives results in a complex strategy that lacks clarity, and limits what kind of value they can offer.
In this Roundtable, Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Harvard Business School professor, shares his Value-Based Strategy Framework, which has helped many companies create powerful strategic plans that deliver value to all stakeholders. He’ll also show how to leverage the power of ecosystems to tap into resources and benefits that can maximize the value you’re delivering. In this Roundtable, Felix will cover:
- Focusing on value over profit to maximize success
- Identifying the highest value-drivers to pursue using the Value-Based Strategy framework
- Using ecosystems to find complements to your product offering and business that increases value for your stakeholders
- How to deliver value not just to customers, but employees and suppliers simultaneously using the concepts of willingness to pay from the customer side and willingness to sell from the supplier and employee sides
Attendees
Adam Zalisk
Adam Zalisk leads Amplify’s corporate strategy team. Before taking on his current role, Adam led non-profit partnerships, operations, implementation, and product teams at Amplify, including serving as chief operating officer for Amplify’s K–5 literacy portfolio. Before joining Amplify, Adam served as senior advisor and led innovation at the Harlem Children’s Zone, and was a founding member of Booz & Company’s North American education practice.
Al Caesar
Previously Caesar was the chief strategy officer for Individual Solutions Group, where he was responsible for strategy, market intelligence, and business intelligence for Prudential’s Annuities and Individual Life Insurance businesses.Â
Prior to joining Prudential in 2012, Caesar’s experience includes managing investments in the energy sector at AllianceBernstein L.P., consulting for clients on strategic issues at McKinsey and Company, and serving as a Cryptologic Intelligence Officer with the U.S. Navy.Â
Amy Downey
Amy Downey is an Executive Vice President and head of Corporate Strategic Planning and Management. In this role, she leads a team that continually works across Wells Fargo to ensure the company's businesses and enterprise functions are aligned with the strategic pillars of Wells Fargo. In partnership with line of business and enterprise function strategy leaders, Amy also oversees the strategic plan and related governance and regulatory requirements, market & competitive intelligence, investment prioritization alignment to strategic initiatives, strategic technology partnerships, innovation governance, and an internal strategic consulting function. Â
Amy joined Wells Fargo from Bank of America, where she was a managing director held a chair position in the women's network New York City chapter. She previously held strategy, COO and management roles at Bank of America in the Private Bank, Business Bank, and Global Transaction Services, as well as at JP Morgan Chase in various business-aligned strategy and program management roles. She has a bachelor's degree in economics and math and holds a master's degree in applied economics from New York University. Amy resides in New York City with her husband and two sons, where she is an avid runner, an advocate for the advancement of women’s career group as a member of Chief, and a supporter of the American Songbook cabaret community
Ben Clark
Ben Clark became the SVP and CSO of Expeditors in January 2020. Prior to that, he served as Expeditor’s SVP, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, since joining Expeditors in February, 2015. Before Expeditors, he was the EVP and General Counsel of the Dematic Group, a materials automation company, and the Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Celanese Corp, a chemicals and engineered materials manufacturer. Before Celanese Ben held a variety of positions within the Honeywell Aerospace division, culminating as their Vice President and General Counsel of Global Operations.
Ben is a Six Sigma black belt and a life-long learner. His current hobbies include skiing, diving, math, and learning how to boat and play piano.
Chris Huff
In his role as Chief Strategy & Growth Officer, Chris defines the company’s Vision, Growth Goals and Execution Strategies that drive cross functional alignment. He has responsibility for Corporate Strategy, Technology Innovation, Customer Experience, Ecosystem Alliances and Marketing. Prior to Kofax, Chris spent five years at Deloitte Consulting leading the U.S. Public Sector Robotics and Cognitive Automation practice, seven years as a CEO of a B2C start-up and twenty years in the U.S. Marine Corps as a Finance Officer.
Claudio Garcia
Claudio is President of Outthinker Strategy Networks, a global network of strategy executives from large organizations the are committed to staying ahead of the pace of change.
Before joining Outthinker, Claudio was Executive Vice Presidency for Strategy and Corporate Development at Lee Hecht Harrison, where he was responsible for the expansion and innovation of the company with operations in more than 60 countries. Prior to this role, he was LHH’s President of Latin America where he helped solve critical business challenges and personally supported dozens of complex transformation projects for large client organizations. During his tenure leading strategy LHH, Claudio was a member of the Outthinker Strategy Network.
Claudio has experience across a variety of industries, including food and beverage, entertainment, and media and communications. In addition to his role at Outthinker, Claudio is a board member and teaches Global Management and International Human Resources Management at New York University’s School of Professional Studies.
Claus Jensen
Claus is a transformational change agent with a track record of driving multi-year transitional agendas in large organizations, bringing together ideas, people and technology.Â
A native of Denmark, Dr. Jensen has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a PhD in computer science from Aarhus University. Earlier this year, he received an IDG CIO 100 Award, and in 2016, he received an InfoWorld and Forrester Enterprise Architecture Award. He has authored numerous publications and holds 14 patents around integration, APIs, and transformation.
David Duncan
David is a senior partner at Innosight, Huron’s strategy and innovation business. He is a trusted adviser to top leaders at many of the world’s most successful companies, helping them to navigate disruptive change, create sustainable growth and transform their organizations to thrive for the long term.
David leads Innosight’s financial services business, as well as its business area focused on organizational capabilities for innovation and growth.
In his decade with Innosight, David has worked with a diverse set of clients to help senior executives develop and execute long-term growth strategies, often with an emphasis on transformation in the face of industry disruption. He has deep expertise in helping companies strengthen their capabilities for innovation and growth, create a culture of innovation, improve customer-centricity and develop future innovation leaders. He has also played a central role in developing Innosight’s “jobs to be done” methodology and toolkit, applying it to a wide range of strategy and innovation client problems.
Prior to joining Innosight, David was a consultant for McKinsey & Company.
David graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Duke University and earned a doctorate in physics from Harvard University.
Donald Butts
Ed Knapp
Ed Knapp is Chief Technology Officer for American Tower. Prior to joining American Tower in 2017, Mr. Knapp served as Senior Vice President of Engineering at Qualcomm, where was responsible for their New Jersey Corporate Research Center. Mr. Knapp has more than 40 years of communications technology experience and has spent more than 30 years invested in the development of the global wireless industry. He joined Qualcomm after its acquisition of Flarion Technologies. Prior to that he served as the Chief Technology Officer of PacketVideo Corporation, co-founded NextWave Telecom, Inc. and served as its Chief Technology Officer, and was Executive Director of Technical Services for Bell Atlantic/NYNEX Mobile (Verizon Wireless).
Mr. Knapp serves on the Board of Directors of AST SpaceMobile and the Center for Automotive Research, as well as the Rutgers University Industry Advisory Board. He is also a member of the Outthinker Strategy Network. Mr. Knapp currently has five granted U.S. patents and one pending application. He earned an M.B.A. from Columbia University, a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Polytechnic University (NYU) in New York and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Stony Brook University.
Elizabeth Haas
Elizabeth Haas Edersheim is an adjunct professor and Lee Igel is a professor at New York University’s Tisch Institute for Global Sport. They lead an NYU initiative with the United States Conference of Mayors Professional Sports Alliance that produces new knowledge on sports in cities. A former partner with McKinsey & Company, she later founded New York Consulting Partners. She currently works with senior executives as their enterprises’ growth exceeds their capacities, and with clients ranging from fast-moving young firms and the largest global non-profits to Fortune 100 companies. Author of “McKinsey’s Marvin Bower” and “The Definitive Drucker,” she holds a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management. When she is not working there is nothing she enjoys more than being in the outdoors, away from organizations.
Felix Felix Oberholzer-Gee
Felix Oberholzer-Gee is the Andreas Andresen Professor of Business Administration in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School. A member of the faculty since 2003, Professor Oberholzer-Gee received his Masters degree, summa cum laude, and his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Zurich. His first faculty position was at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He currently teaches competitive strategy in executive education programs such as the Program for Leadership Development, the Senior Executive Program for China, and in a program for media executives titled Effective Strategies for Media Companies. His course Strategies Beyond the Market is a popular elective class for second-year MBA students. Professor Oberholzer-Gee won numerous awards for excellence in teaching, including the Harvard Business School Class of 2006 Faculty Teaching Award for best teacher in the core curriculum, and the 2002 Helen Kardon Moss Anvil Award for best teacher in the Wharton MBA program. Prior to his academic career, Professor Oberholzer-Gee served as managing director of Symo Electronics, a Swiss-based process control company.
Greg Johnson
Greg is an experienced healthcare leader with experience across the continuum. In his most recent role with Cancer Treatment Centers of America, he was responsible for the development and execution of growth strategies for facilities in six different markets as well as three de novo companies – a value-based care company, a data aggregation company and a platform company. Additionally, Greg helped turnaround the revenue cycle, normalize expenses and had operational responsibility for all clinical assets in Dallas/Fort Worth. At his current company, Tandem Ventures, Greg is working with private equity firms in the acceleration of the growth of their portfolio companies.
James Malick
James Malick is Global Head of Corporate Development & Strategy for Millennium Management and is responsible for driving new growth initiatives across the firm from a business development lens. He previously built and ran several functions in a deputy COO capacity including enterprise data analytics, Project Execution, Trading Services, Operational Risk and Branding & Communications. He chairs the Firm’s Operational Risk Committee and Co-Chairs the Business Continuity Management Committee.
Jason Ginsberg
Jason Ginsberg joins OSN, having recently come on board at Zoetis as the Head of Global Strategy. His career up to this point has been in strategy / management consulting, starting at Capgemini and then spending the last ~6.5 years at BCG, all focused on healthcare (biopharma and MedTech) and spanning Manufacturing & supply to Commercial. Jason brings a passion challenging the status quo and thinking outside the box. In his spare time, Jason is an avid reader, a big New York sports fan, and a middling golfer. Jason is based in New York, has a BSE in Materials Science from UPenn and an MBA from Chicago Booth.
Joanne Sheppard
Joanne Sheppard is Senior Vice-President for Strategy and Investments at Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. She works for the majority shareholder of Springer Nature and the owner of Digital Science. Sheppard provides CEO-level strategy support globally in the areas of science and technology. In practice, this means working closely with tech startups, gaming out strategic options to challenges facing scientists, and providing both formal and informal advice to our CEOs. Prior to this, Sheppard was the Vice-President of Strategy for Cell Press. Joanne is an American currently living in London.
Julia Houston
Julia Houston is the Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer with responsibility for overseeing the company’s Marketing, Strategy, Communications, Risk & Compliance and Privacy efforts to create end-to-end growth solutions.
Houston joined Equifax in October 2013 and previously served as the Senior Vice President, U.S. legal, where she led the legal team supporting the three U.S. businesses. Before joining Equifax, she was Senior Vice President, general counsel and corporate secretary at Convergys Corporation, as well as Senior Vice President, general Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer and corporate secretary at Mirant Corporation.  Â
Houston holds a juris doctor degree summa cum laude from the University of Georgia School of Law and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia.Â
Kaihan Krippendorff
Dr. Kaihan Krippendorff is the founder of Outthinker, a former McKinsey & Co. consultant and author of five business strategy books, most recently Driving Innovation from Within. A sought-after keynote speaker, recognized expert and popular blogger on the topics of business strategy, innovation, growth, and transformation, Kaihan is helping a growing cadre of leading companies and corporations such as Microsoft, Oracle, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg’s, TIAA-CREF and BNY Mellon prepare themselves to compete in a digital, agile, purpose-driven future.
Kaihan is a member of the prestigious Thinkers50 radar group – A global selection of the top 30 management thinkers in the world to follow. He was also shortlisted by Thinkers50 for a Distinguished Achievement Award in Innovation – awarded to the person in the world that has contributed the most to the world’s understanding of innovation in the past two years. Kaihan is currently ranked the Thinkers360 #1 Global Innovation Thought Leader and the Thinkers360 #1 Global Business Strategy Thought Leader.
Amidst his dizzying schedule of keynote speeches, consulting projects, ongoing research and writing, Kaihan still finds time to teach at business schools throughout the US and internationally. Regularly featured in major business media outlets Kaihan is an advisory board member for a blockchain-powered transportation platform, an international food processing/exporting company, and a B-corporation focused on sustainable products and lifestyle.
A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Management & Technology Program, Kaihan has spent more than a decade studying the intersection of language, technology, and innovation to drive competitive advantage. He earned his BS in finance from Wharton Business School, BS in mechanical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, MBA from Columbia Business School, and Doctorate of Science in Economics from Abo Akademi.
Kalina Nikolova
Our world is experiencing an unprecedented magnitude and pace of change. People and organizations are stressed and fearful, but also empowered by new technologies and looking to reinvent for the future.
Kalina Nikolova believes that the future brings exponential growth. Increasing returns are unlocked when people and organizations are enabled to work with passion and purpose - while leveraging the new technologies to reinvent business models. For over two decades Kalina has been working as a navigator plotting the course for companies to work better today, and prepare for the future: from Saatchi & Saatchi where she led Zenith Media in Eastern Europe to Deloitte where she consulted clients like S&P, McGraw-Hill, Meredith Publishing, and Cablevision, as EVP of Strategy at Viacom Ad Sales and now as VP of Business Operations and Strategy at Yahoo.
Kalina's approach to strategy and transformation is centered on human potential and building collaborations across internal silos, and among unlikely partners in ecosystems. It is informed by deep understanding of technological, business and societal changes. Igniting innovation and energizing culture and diversity, Kalina creates the playbooks that empower people and organizations to unlock potential with purpose.
Ken Eng
Ken Eng is the Senior Vice President, Group Strategy and M&A for Macmillan and Holtbrinck. Since 2007 he has led strategic planning, mergers & acquisitions, investments, alliances and incubation initially in its North American division and in recent years as a member of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group (Macmillan’s holding company). Prior to Macmillan and Holtbrinck, Ken held various leadership roles in business development, product development, marketing, and operations at prominent media companies including McGraw-Hill/BusinessWeek, Nielsen Business Media, and Universal Media.  Throughout his career, Ken has been instrumental in helping organizations to navigate market turbulence and to innovate digitally. In his free time, Ken mentors digital entrepreneurs in education, publishing, and media.
Kevin Ilcisin
As Senior Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development, Kevin is responsible for ensuring cross-functional alignment of NI's strategy planning and execution activities including the use of partnerships and acquisitions.Â
Prior to joining NI in 2015, Kevin served as the Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Tektronix, where he was responsible for the core technology development, R&D strategy, and portfolio processes governing R&D investments. He has held leadership roles at Novellus (LAM Research) and a number of start-ups including Zight and Technical Visions.Â
Kevin holds a Ph.D. and M.A degrees in plasma physics from Princeton University and B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering with Distinction from the University of Alberta.
Matthew Gaylord
Matt serves as Abiomed’s Director of Business Development. In this role, Matt operates as a corporate venture capitalist and is responsible for growing, managing, and establishing the enterprise’s strategic investment portfolio. Matt has held this position for several years now and has successfully completed a multitude of transactions, including: priced seed, A, B, C, and D rounds; convertible financings; concurrent IPO placements; and outright business acquisitions. Matt’s career began as a biomedical engineer, having graduated from Tufts University with Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering degrees. Matt was a ground-floor employee of Serica Technologies, which was acquired by Allergan Medical in 2010. After several years of continued product development and a successful commercial launch within Allergan, Matt left to attend Business School at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business where he graduated with a MBA, receiving a certificate in Healthcare Sector Management and a concentration in Financial Analyses. Following business school and before rejoining the MedTech industry, Matt worked in a strategic consulting role for PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Healthcare Industry Advisory group, focusing primarily on big pharma operational efficiencies, M&A, post-merger integrations, and market expansion/entry.
Prasad Padman
Prasad Padman has twenty plus years of experience in energy, industrial, aerospace, defense, and medical end markets. He is experienced in leading strategic planning, business development, and business transformation for large global corporations.
He has been exposed to diverse work cultures, having lived and worked in several countries, including India, China, Singapore, and the USA.
He currently acts as the chief advisor to the CEO in making critical business choices, including Organization Design, Business Portfolio, M&A, and Resource Allocation decisions. He also works closely with the executive management and the board of directors in communicating and driving key strategic change initiatives:
- Digital Transformation
- Growth beyond the core (Innovation, Lean Startup and New Ventures)
- Profit from the core (simplify matured complex businesses to drive market share growth and improved profitability).
Priya Jain
Ms. Priya Jain serves as Atlas’ Chief Growth Officer where she is responsible for driving Atlas’ growth strategy and implementation through targeted initiatives in emerging markets, major accounts, and upcoming opportunities. Prior to joining Atlas, Ms. Jain has served as Global Director of Sales, Senior Vice President of Business Development & Strategy, Chief of Staff for the Chairman and CEO, among other leadership positions at Atkins, Inc and CH2M Hill. With proven experience in strategically building and growing an organization from the ground up, she has driven sales targets of over $1+ billion in North America and managed highly successful teams. Ms. Jain is a graduate of State University of New York at Buffalo with a MS in Environmental Engineering, and she holds a MS in Physics and a BE in Civil Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, India.
Rich Haas
Rich Haas is the Global Leader for Business Model Innovation at Kyndryl. In this capacity, he leads a team focused on developing and launching innovative business models that drive value for customers, partners, and Kyndryl through new value propositions and operating modes – working across the Kyndryl organization and ecosystem.
Prior to this role, Rich served as Vice President of Strategy and Transformation for Global Technology Services (GTS) at IBM. He supported the creation and evolution of GTS’ strategic direction and business model – shaped by market and competitive dynamics, impacts of new technologies, and business capabilities. His activities covered both Infrastructure Services and Technology Support Services.
Rich joined IBM in 2003 in Global Business Services. He started as a consultant to Financial Services clients, helping them with their business and product strategies, as part of the Strategy & Change practice. He eventually moved to a role as a Strategy advisor for the North America Financial Services Sector, where he helped formulate both near- and long-term strategic actions to address emerging areas of competition, support execution of operational initiatives, and align unit strategy to overall IBM strategy.
Robert Wu
Rob is currently Chief Operating Officer at CDS Global, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hearst (a global diversified media, information, and services company with more than 360 businesses). As COO, Rob oversees long term strategy and day-to-day operations of a 1,000-person fulfillment organization spanning 8 sites across 6 diverse business units – Lettershop, Lockbox, Contact Center, Distribution Center, Procurement, and Data Studio. Prior to joining CDS Global, Rob led global revenue operations and strategy at Fareportal, a $5B e-commerce travel company. Additionally, as a management consultant, Rob spent time at Bain working on some of the most complex strategic, financial, and operational challenges facing Fortune 500 companies across a variety of industries.
Rob Wolcott
Rob Wolcott is an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth, and Adjunct Professor in Executive Education at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern. Â
A managing partner with innovation strategy consultancy Clareo, he is a regular contributor to Forbes regarding the impact of technology change on business, leadership and society. Â
Co-author of the book Grow From Within: Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation, his work has appeared in prestigious global outlets including MIT Sloan Management Review (where two of his articles have ranked as among the most downloaded of all time), strategy+business, Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times among many others. Â
Co-founder and Chairman of The World Innovation Network (TWIN), a network of senior executives dedicated to driving sustainable innovation, Rob brings together and embraces the value of learning and collaboration across industries. Â
Roopa Unnikrishnan
Roopa is SVP of Strategy and Corporate Development for IDEX. She is responsible for leading enterprise strategy and the corporate development (M&A) function. In this role, she helps to build strategy and business development capabilities for IDEX. Roopa has more than 20 years of corporate strategy experience across a variety of industries, through a mix of consulting roles and corporate leadership positions. Most recently, she served as Chief Strategy Officer for Vontier, a global industrial manufacturing company focused on smarter transportation and mobility. Previous strategy positions have included roles with Harman International, Citi, BlackRock, and Katzenbach Partners – which was formed by past members of McKinsey & Co. consulting. At Pfizer she also stepped outside her traditional strategy and innovation roles to lead the Talent and Organization capability for the pharmaceutical division. She often serves as a professional coach and is the author of the book, “The Career Catapult.”
Sean Gupta
Sukumar Pillai
Sukumar Pillai has over 20 years of business and transactional experience in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific across several industries including Consumer packaged Goods, Aviation, Fuels Marketing, Sustainable Energy, Financial Technology, and Software.
Sukumar currently heads M&A and Strategic Investments at World Fuel Services and over the last decade has led the organization through multiple transformational acquisitions that expanded the scope and scale of the company’s participation in various end markets, strategically evolving the customer value proposition from commodity fuel sales to becoming a broad solutions provider well beyond fuel. Sukumar’s core leadership principle revolves around driving mission clarity, consensus, and alignment through teams large and small, and empowering leaders within the team to have accountability to deliver clear and precise results that align with that mission. He has consistently used these principles to deliver success in integrating several dozen strategic acquisitions and standing up numerous strategic investments.
Prior to World Fuel Services, Sukumar led the corporate development and financial planning functions at several private equity investments in the consumer products industry including Freshpet and The Meow Mix Company. Sukumar started his career in banking at BNY Mellon.
Sukumar earned his MBA from Baruch College, where he was in the Honors program, and a Bachelor of Science from Madras Christian College of the University of Madras.
Tess Caputo
 Tess Caputo joined Zoetis in 2020 and is currently VP US Strategy, Digital and Analytics. In this role, Tess oversees several strategic insights functions, including strategic pricing, business analytics, market research, digital products, and strategy. Tess was previously the Head of Corporate Strategy at Zoetis. Prior to Zoetis, Tess spent seven years at the Boston Consulting Group. As a core member of BCG’s team serving biopharma and biotech clients, Tess gained experience in corporate strategy, transaction, brand strategy and transformation topics. Prior to BCG, Tess worked for Capgemini Consulting. Tess has an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Duke University.
Tom Gallo
Tom Sholes
Ying McPherson
Ying has over 15 years of experience in financial analysis and commercial analytics and oversees the strategy development and execution activities for the company.  Ying also leads our analytics, resource planning, and corporate marketing functions. Previously Ying was Vice President of Operational Finance and responsible for strategic pricing and planning.  Prior to Unifi, Ying held several leadership positions at WestRock, including mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, supply chain optimization and commercial analytics.  Ying started her career at Price Waterhouse Coopers in audit and spent the next 7 years in investment banking with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey (now Truist) and a boutique M&A shop (now Citizens M&A Advisory).  Â
Ying was elected winner of Atlanta Business Chronicle’s 40 Under 40 Class of 2021 and earned a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Finance from Goizueta Business School at Emory University.Â
OSN Future CSO Program Attendees
Adam Field
Adam is currently SVP, Technology Strategy and Experience at Kofax where he is responsible for leading product strategy which drives innovation, vision, market analysis, forecasting, and overall success of four different go-to-market areas, focusing on artificial intelligence, cloud, and customer experience. He has previously held roles in engineering, sales, marketing, product development, and client experience at organizations such as Pegasystems, Staples, Sapient, and Fidelity Investments. He holds a BS in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University.Â
Darcy Dement
Darcy Dement is Senior Director of Technologies Platform Management at NI. She has held several positions in general management, business leadership, and product management and has experience in starting up, scaling up, and turning around organizations. She applies her passion for resolving our global challenges through science and technology as an advisor to B2B startups. She is multilingual with experience working and living in the US and Europe
Laura Devoni
My name is Laura Devoni. I am Director, Business Analytics and Government Affairs for Algoma Steel Inc. I have worked with Algoma since 2004 and am currently responsible for Algoma’sÂ
 government affairs activities, marketing and market development activites and trade matters. Since joining Algoma I have represented the company’s trade and public policy interests as a member of the Trade and Public Policy Committee and Climate Committee of the Canadian Steel Producers Association, and through participation in other select committees and organizations with focus on international trade, manufacturing and the global steel industry.Â
Liz Benson
Liz Benson is the Vice President of Strategy for Kofax, managing the corporate and product strategy, customer experience and strategic alliances. She previously led the Conversational Artificial Intelligence practice for Deloitte across the federal, state, and local government and higher education markets, which encompassed delivery and sales. Ms. Benson spent many years solving clients’ complex business issues using automation technology, such as intelligent automation, intelligent chatbot, analytics and machine learning, and systems integration. Additionally, she serves on the Executive Board of the Ascend Greater Washington Chapter to advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace. She is a graduate of West Virginia University.Â
Travis White
Travis White is the Sr. Director of Corporate Strategy and Corporate Development at NI. Prior to corporate strategy, he’s held key leadership positions in NI’s semiconductor business unit and product management organization as well as management positions in engineering, applications, and technical marketing. He holds a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from Rice University.Â
