About

Peter brings more than 25 years’ experience in engineering and design of power systems as applied to data centers, trading floors, command and control centers, and telecommunication and broadcasting facilities.He co-founded the Critical Power Coalition (CPC). He Founded EYP Mission Critical and served as its Leader. He served as the President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer of EYP Mission Critical Facilities, Inc. He served as Vice President and Managing Partner of HP Global Technology Consulting at Hewlett Packard. He served as the Chief Engineer at Teledyne Technologies Inc. He served in devising and safeguarding facilities of clients such as Stock Exchange, IRS, Merrill Lynch and Bell Atlantic. He serves as a Member of Advisory Board for RampRate, Inc. He has been a Director of Active Power Inc. since February 13, 2015. He serves as a Director of Asetek A/S, EYP Mission Critical Facilities Inc. and International Battery Inc. He served as a Director of Secured Digital Storage Corp., from December 10, 2007 to August 5, 2008. He is an Engineering Design and Implementation Professional, and was the recipient of 2010 Data Center Dynamics “Outstanding Contribution to the Industry” award. Mr. Gross holds an MSEE from Polytechnic Institute in Bucharest, Romania and an MBA from Cal State.

In his role as executive vice president and chief technology officer, Rubinow is responsible for continuously strengthening Catalina’s global enterprise architecture through technology development, implementation and operation.Steve Rubinow brings 25+ years of technology leadership to his role as EVP and Chief Technology Officer. He is responsible for leading Catalina’s global technology function, driving improvements to Catalina’s global enterprise architecture through technology development, implementation, and operation to deliver personalized digital media. Widely recognized as an innovative and transformational technology leader, Rubinow served as CIO for Thomson Reuters’ Marketplaces Division prior to joining Catalina. He previously served as Chief Information Officer for the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Euronext for over a decade.

Steve has authored several books on CIO/CTO leadership, and has been the recipient of numerous accolades. He was named one of the top 30 socially-savvy US CIOs in 2013 by Aternity for his use of social media, inducted into the CIO Hall of Fame in 2012, was named one of Computerworld magazine’s Premier 100 IT Leaders for 2012, was recognized as one of the top 10 CIOs on Wall Street in 2010 by Securities Technology Monitor magazine, and named one of the top CIOs on Wall Street in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 by Wall Street & Technology magazine. For many years, Rubinow served as an adjunct faculty member at DePaul University, where he earned an M.S. in Computer Science. His academic accomplishments also include four degrees from the University of Illinois, including a Ph.D. in Chemistry; an MBA in Marketing & Finance; an M.S. in Chemistry, and; a B.S. in Biological Sciences and Chemistry.

Scott Offermann offers technical guidance, strategic insight, and support for client teams with data centers, call centers, high-tech facilities, and manufacturing facilities.

He joined C&W in 2006 as the Critical Operations Manager Americas for a major software client with service in 36 countries.  He oversaw a delivery team of over 450 employees and dedicated service providers. Mr. Offermann has key critical operations experience, including managing nearly 500,000 sf of data center space, distribution, manufacturing, lab environments, emergency power plants, primary substations, building infrastructure, and business critical operations (such as call center and customer facing areas). He created and oversaw development of Critical Operations Policy and Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) and Methods of Procedures (MOP) for coordinating global maintenance actives minimizing the risk of interruptions due to maintenance. Mr. Offermann focused on delivery, ensuring consistency and optimal uptime within operations.

Mr. Offermann has over 25 years of facilities management and critical operations experience. Prior to joining C&W, he held positions with international distribution, high tech, recreation, manufacturing and retail organizations, call center environments, and national health care organizations. As a published author, his works include the book, Creating a Strategic Energy Reduction Plan (Fairmont Press), and several articles.

Kevin Leahy is Group General Manager, Data Centre Solutions for Dimension Data Holdings. The $6 billion company is a specialist IT services and solution provider that helps clients plan, build, support & manage their IT infrastructures. 

Dimension Data Date Centre Business Unit brings together for clients all the critical components needed for a next generation data centre; industry recognized cloud leadership, industry recognized network leadership, expertise inside the data centre spanning virtualization, storage, backup and disaster recovery and facilities along with unique consulting capabilities to plan, build and enable clients on an optimal data centre journey for their business.

Prior to taking on this role, Kevin joined Dimension Data in October 2011 as Chief Architect Virtualization and Cloud for the data centre solutions (DCS) across Dimension Data group. Where he was responsible for defining the tools and architecture Dimension Data implements to solve client business challenges using virtualization and cloud. He was also responsible for the data centre solution roadmaps in these areas spanning server, storage and desktop virtualization as well as private cloud and professional services to help clients exploit public and hybrid cloud solutions. He worked with Dimension Data global accounts to define strategic approaches to address their unique IT requirements.

An industry veteran based in New York, Kevin joined Dimension Data after a 32 year career with IBM where career highlights included leading development of the IBM high end networking and fibre optic advanced technology, the mainframe channel and I/O subsystem and power systems development for the corporation. He launched the IBM WebSphere platform and introduced storage virtualization into the market. From there he led the IBM virtualization strategy followed by the IT Optimization strategy. His last role at IBM was leading the cloud sales strategy for services.

He is a graduate of The Cooper Union in NYC with a degree in Electrical Engineering and lives with his wife in Saugerties, NY.

Dustin Haisler is the Chief Innovation Officer for e.Republic. As the finance director and later CIO for Manor, TX, a small city outside Austin, Haisler quickly built a track record and reputation as an early innovator in civic tech.

A member of Code for America’s original steering committee, Haisler pioneered government use of commercial technologies not before used in the public sector – including Quick-Response (QR) barcodes, crowdsourcing and gamification. In 2010 Haisler launched Manor Labs, a website that let residents submit their own ideas and vote other peoples’ ideas up or down. The most popular suggestions went to city officials for review and possible implementation. Haisler looked to the private sector to help broaden the adoption of these and other civic innovations, joining California-based Spigit as director of government innovation. While at Spigit, a company that makes crowd-sourcing and innovation management software, Hailser helped design and deploy innovation programs for New York City; Bogota, Columbia; and even part of the space program (through NASA’s Langley Research Center).

Notably, Haisler helped design and launch one of the first government open innovation programs in the United States in 2010, which received global recognition as a new model of citizen engagement and innovation. Among other first-in-nation innovations, Haisler architected a Crowdsourcing Master Land Use Plan (Harford County, MD) and patented a crowd-based business process (Crowd-as-a-Service). Named a Government Technology Top 25 Doer, Dreamer and Driver in 2009, his work has been featured in Wired, Fast Company, the Wall Street Journal, Inc. and the Today Show on NBC. An in-demand speaker, he has given two TEDx speeches – one on Disrupting Government (TEDxAustin) and the other on Disrupting Education (TEDxLivermore).

As Chief Innovation Officer, Haisler has a strategic role to help shape the company’s products, services, and future direction. Primarily, he leads e.Republic Labs, a market connector created as an ecosystem to educate, accelerate and ultimately scale technology innovation within the public sector.

Antoine serves as the Chief Information Officer at Eurostar, the only high speed train that directly links the UK to France and Belgium via the Channel Tunnel. They have been taking travellers from city center to city center since 1994.Antoine joined Eurostar in December 2013, bringing with him a combination of IS expertise and travel industry experience. He came to Eurostar from Corsair International, the second largest French airline and part of the TUI Travel group, where he was CIO.
Prior to his role at Corsair, Antoine was director of quality and information systems for the Swiss airline, Baboo, and founder and CEO of Air Turquoise, a start-up, low-cost regional airline. Before that, he was head of e-commerce for Air France. Antoine has also founded several companies, served on the board of a web agency and as a mentor to entrepreneurs.

Cary Sylvester makes geek look chique and in the process has turned Keller Williams Realty into a technology company masquerading as a realty company.

As Chief Software Architect, John ensures Scientific Games’ software solution is well engineered and operable while actively collaborating with strategic partners and investors in achieving business and technical objectives.With two billion in revenues, Scientific Games is a leading innovator in the global lottery and regulated gaming industries. The company acquired WMS gaming in 2013 and announced plans to acquire Bally Technologies in 2014.

With a 33 year tenure in the pharmaceutical, food service, and specialty retail industries, Vijay’s experience has been with Pfizer, ARAMARK, Sodexo, and GNC.

He started with Sodexo USA 28 years ago and has served in various roles such a VP, Information Systems and Technology for Sodexo USA’s Education Markets and then as the Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer for the Education Markets of Sodexo USA. In that role, he also chaired the Sodexo USA Culinary Council. In 2009 he was appointed to the role of CIO for Sodexo UK & Ireland and the Board for Sodexo UK Limited. He currently serves as the CIO-Remote Sires, Asia and Australia or Sodexo Global Information Systems & Technology, based in Singapore.

Vijay served as the Executive Advisor and founding chairperson of Sodexo’s Pan Asian Network Group. In addition, he served on the Ally Advisory Board of Sodexo’s GLBT Employee Business Resource Group and as a member of the Board of Directors and then the Advisory Board of Asian Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund. He was also instrumental in starting Women Work- Sodexo UK & Ireland’s Women’s Network Group as an Executive Advisor.

Vijay is sought as a speaker at Fortune 500 company events; industry and non-profit conferences and at university campuses; in the areas of entrepreneurship, aligning IT with business strategy, student insights, customer segmentation, mentoring, diversity and inclusion. In the past, Vijay also owned and operated several GNC (General Nutrition Centre) franchises in the Chicago-land area- an endeavor that he was involved in for over 15 years. During that time, he was elected by the franchise community to serve a two year term on GNC’s National Franchisee Advisory Board in 2005.

Vijay has a B.Sc. in Agricultural Sciences from India, M.S. in Human Nutrition & Food Services Management from University of Nebraska-Lincoln and an M.B.A. from the Keller Graduate School of Management of Chicago. 

David is the Chief Information Officer at Tourism Australia, the Australian Government agency responsible for attracting international visitors to Australia, both for leisure and business events.