Speakers

As the Associate Commissioner for Digital Transformation at the Social Security Administration (SSA), David is the executive responsible for collaborating with agency business components and software engineering components within the Office of Systems and is responsible for supporting the practical resolution of business needs through technology. David’s teams develop and operate the public-facing online services that allow the American public to interact with the SSA to plan and manage their retirement and disability benefits across all life phases.

David previously served as Product Development Director at IRS’s Office of Online Services, where he led omni-channel rollout. Before Federal service, David worked at AOL where he was responsible for integrating new online products with contact center support. David recently retired as as a Commander in the U.S. Navy, where his career centered on the Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance disciplines, exercised through airborne and on-orbit platforms.

David holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and London Business School, and certificates from the U.S. Naval War College and National Defense University.

As Chief Administrative Officer of the Texas County & District Retirement System, Karen Correa leads the organization’s IT and Finance teams. TCDRS has been a model for providing responsibly funded benefits for more than 50 years. TCDRS is a $37 billion trust that partners with more than 800 employers to provide retirement, disability and survivor benefits to more than 330,000 Texans. 

Karen has more than 20 years’ experience in technology enterprise optimization, digital transformation, business process improvement, management consulting and operations management. Karen has worked in other technology and financial capacities at Dell and throughout the financial services industry. Karen earned a Master of Business Administration from Boston College.

David Holly is retired from the U.S. Army and currently serves as the Senior Real Property Accountable Officer for the Army, Installation Management Command.  He began his civilian service career as a Realty Specialist at White Sands Missile Range where primary duties included development of the Installations Facility Reduction Program and Physical Inventory responsibility for all up-range locations.  He transferred to Ft. Benning GA to take the position as the installation Space Management Manager.  He also supported the development effort of Ft. Benning’s FRP development.

He accepted a developmental assignment at the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, Installation Management in 2014, which eventually resulted in a permanent position at OACSIM where he served as one of two senior level Realty Specialist until November 2017 when he relocated to his current position with the IMCOM.

His real property/real estate knowledge gained at all levels, Garrison, IMCOM, and HQDA have been instrumental in his development as an Army SME for all things real property.

Mike Madsen is the Deputy Director and Director of Strategic Engagement at the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU).

Before joining DIU, Mike was the Executive Director for the Section 809 Congressional Advisory Panel on Streamlining Acquisition. The Panel provided the intellectual underpinnings for acquisition reform language in defense authorization statutes. Prior to this, Mike served for 22 years in the U.S. Air Force where he led at the group and squadron levels and is a decorated combat pilot. Mike retired from the Air Force while he was the Senior Air Force Advisor to the Director, Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Mike also served as Division Chief in Legislative Liaison in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, directly advising the Secretary of the Air Force and Chief of Staff of the Air Force on issues before the congressional defense committees.

He holds a degree in Meteorology from the University of Nebraska and Master’s degrees from Troy University, the Naval Postgraduate School, and the National War College.

Stephanie Woerner is a Research Scientist at the MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research. She studies how companies manage organizational change caused by the digitization of the economy.  Her research centers on enterprise digitization and the associated governance and strategy implications. Three current studies include i. the amount, allocation, and impact of enterprise-wide digital investments, ii. how digitization is influencing the next-generation enterprise, and iii. the impact of the Internet of Things on company business models and the competitive landscape. In previous National Science Foundation-funded work, she studied distributed work teams and their use of multiple media, electronic communication technologies, and coordination mechanisms to get work done; she was also project manager for the 5-year grant.

Denise Turner Roth is the first woman, and the first African American woman, to lead a business line at WSP USA. She directs the firm’s strategic advisory services across all market sectors. Denise is responsible for integrating the firm’s technical expertise in planning, engineering, program/construction management and operations with the strategic thinking needed by owners, developers and operators to successfully deliver infrastructure programs and projects.

Denise has extensive experience in building services, technology transformation for the federal government, community relations, public private partnerships, and policy work in economic development. She also has extensive and successful public sector executive service in real estate development, procurement oversight, and property operations and management, enabling her to offer enhanced strategic advisory capabilities to the public-sector development domain.

Throughout her 20 years of public service, Denise has held various leadership positions at the federal and local government levels. She served as administrator for the General Services Administration from March 2015 to January 2017, leading a workforce of 12,000 full-time employees with responsibility for a $27 billion budget that supported the agency’s public buildings, federal acquisition and technology services programs.

Denise is a graduate of George Mason University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and government and received an honorary Doctorate of Letters in recognition of her distinguished public service. She is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Milad Bahrami is a seasoned Federal IT industry expert with over 20 years of experience in the public and private sectors of the federal government. He currently serves as the Senior Vice President of the Government Health & Safety Solutions operation within the Leidos Health Group where he is responsible for leading a team of 1800 health IT professionals providing solutions and services to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Social Security Administration, and a life sciences portfolio that spans across multiple federal health agencies. His focus areas include healthcare IT, advanced data analytics, life sciences, call and data center operations, and IT modernization. Prior roles include Vice President for General Dynamics Information Technologies (GDIT) HHS Business Area and HHS Senior Account Executive for Pegasystems. Mr. Bahrami also spent several years as a Division Director with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Food and Drug Administration.

Mr. Bahrami ensures Leidos is helping improve IT effectiveness and enterprise-level results by working with executive leaders across government health agencies. Additionally, Mr. Bahrami has been recognized for his expertise by being selected as one of the FedHealthIT 100 in 2018, 2019, and 2020. In 2021 Mr. Bahrami was included in the FedHealthIT 100 Hall of Fame. He also received the NIH Director’s Award in 2017 for his contributions to federal health.

As a thought leader, he is a regular contributor to FedHealthIT. Below are a few examples of recent contributions:
o Why Low-Code Platforms Should be at the Top of Every CIOs List
o Three Key Takeaways To Work Smarter and Deliver On Critical Health Missions
o 3 Approaches To Better Align Federal Health Systems Integrators and Product Vendors
o 3 Questions Microservices Contracts Must Consider

Mr. Bahrami holds a Master of Science degree in Engineering Management from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Information Systems from Purdue University. Mr. Bahrami is also a graduate of the Lockheed Martin Engineering Leadership Program and the GDIT Leadership Catalyst Program.

Recently, Mr. Bahrami was appointed the Leidos corporate executive sponsor for the NIH for the Children’s Inn.

Dennis Licari is a Sales and Customer Success leader at EvonSys – a Pega Authorized and Specialized Partner for Customer Service, Delivery, Intelligent Automation, and Robotic Process Automation. EvonSys strives to drive service excellence by solving complex business problems through innovative design and quality services for its clients, such as TCDRS, across the globe.

William Martinez is the principal and founder of WestMart Solutions, and has extensive knowledge and experience of Government IT solutions.  Prior to establishing WestMart Solutions, William served as a Senior Executive at the Social Security Administration including as the Associate Commissioner for the Office of Disability Information Systems.  William led several high-priority IT initiatives including as the IT Executive Lead for the Agency’s Disability IT Modernization Effort.  In this capacity, he successfully led the implementation of several innovative technology solutions including usage of the Pega Platform that support over 10 million disability beneficiaries and their families.   As part of his responsibilities, William led the development and deployment of products to receive medical records (Health IT) through electronic channels as structured data to enable advanced decision support and data analytics. William retired in August 2021 with over 34 years of government and executive leader experience.

Jim Menard is an EY Principal focused on technology consulting with 25 years of experience working within US Federal Government technology programs.  Mr. Menard started his career working in technology implementation roles with development, testing and deployment responsibilities.  After a decade of this work, Mr. Menard moved into a variety of technology leadership and client account lead positions with focus on driving enterprise technology transformations.  Most recently, Jim spent over 3 years leading the EY Government and Public Sector Technology Consulting Practice before moving into his current role as Lead for Technology Programs for the EY US Army Account.  Jim lives in Arlington, VA with his wife and three children.

As sector president, Tarik has full executive responsibility for the Global Health and Financial Solutions sector and delivers advanced, mission-specific technology solutions for financial and human services agencies, as well as military, public, and global health customers covering critical areas such as COVID-19, Medicare, and citizen-centric services. These advanced solutions include digital modernization systems, claims, integrity and benefits solutions using advanced fraud and data analytics, data interoperability, disease management and surveillance, and medical and public safety command, control and communication systems while ensuring the protection of sensitive information.

Tarik has 30 years of experience leading organizations and outperforming target markets in defense, intelligence, civil, health, and commercial sectors. Prior to joining Peraton, Tarik was the division vice president of Civil & Health at Northrop Grumman with a portfolio of over 240 programs and nearly $2B in sales. Over the course of his 16-year tenure with Northrop Grumman, Tarik served in several other executive roles. Tarik served as the vice president of the Combat Systems and Mission Readiness division focused Strategic and Tactical C4ISR. Prior to this, Tarik served as the vice president for the Mission Systems International division delivering US Defense solutions and services to our nation and its global allies.

Finally, Tarik served as vice president of the Missile Defense and Protective Systems division delivering integrated air and missile defense battle management and C4I solutions globally. Tarik joined Northrop Grumman from Microsoft Corporation where he served as a services executive within its consulting practice. He has also held senior leadership positions with Visalign Corp and Bechtel Corporation, where his work focused on consulting with commercial nuclear and fossil power companies around the globe. Tarik earned his bachelor’s degree in nuclear engineering and mechanical engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. Tarik also has executive certifications from University of Virginia Darden School of Business and University of Chicago Booth School of Business in Strategy and Finance, respectively. He was inducted into the Order of the Engineers in 1994 and in 2015 inducted into the Honorable Order of Saint Barbara Air Defense Artillery (ADA) Association and awarded the Saint Barbara Medal.

Tarik also serves on a number boards and diversity, equity, and inclusion organizations and councils.

Tara Teaford is a career consultant whose 22 year career includes management roles in hospitality, retail, pharma, healthcare, and technology, most recently as a Program Manager at srcLogic. She has led global projects, managed teams and organizations, and is passionate about business and technology’s intersection as a force for social impact. At srcLogic, Tara supports all teams to ensure client and internal projects are professionally managed and successful. Tara has a Master’s of Business Administration in Economics and Social Innovation from New York University Stern School of Business, a bachelor’s degree in Management and Entrepreneurship from James Madison University, and is a Project Management Professional (PMP(R)), Professional Scrum Master, and a Pega Certified Business Architect (PCBA). She lives in Arlington, VA, with her two wonderful children and is very involved in her community.

Joe began his career at srcLogic in 2018 after graduating from the University of Maryland with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and a minor in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from the Robert H. Smith School of Business. Joe has been instrumental in modernization efforts across the federal government, bringing half-century old technology into the digital age. Diversity, Equity & Inclusion are particularly important for Joe, who is a member of the DE&I Committee at srcLogic and the lead developer for Congruence, an application leveraging Pega to guide organizations on how to improve their DE&I posture.

Carola Cazenave is Vice President of Pega’s Global Partner Ecosystem, responsible for accelerating Pega’s engagement partners and driving more focus to leveraging Pega’s ecosystem as a strategic asset. For more than 20 years, Carola has held executive leadership roles in sales, cybersecurity, digital, marketing, go-to-market development, and service centers. Her passion for building strong teams, developing talented people, and growing high potential business partners has made her a well-respected figure globally within the industry. Prior to Pega, Ms. Cazenave was at IBM where she was vice president, NA business partner ecosystem.

Rosetta Carrington Lue, Industry Principal, Director for State and Local Gov at Pega

Rosetta has over 15 years of practitioner operational and strategic leadership  in government customer experience transformation and technology modernization initiatives.

Before joining Pega, Lue was appointed as a  White House Presidential Executive Fellow and worked as a Senior Executive Service (SES) assigned to the Veterans Administration in Washington, DC.  There she was responsible for leading the VA Secretary’s efforts to modernize and transform the VA enterprise contact centers to improve the Veterans’ experience targeting 1,800 contact centers, processing 140M annual calls from 9M Veterans, their Families, Survivors, and Caregivers.  

Prior to her federal government appointment, Lue served as the Deputy Managing Director and Chief Customer Experience Officer for the City of Philadelphia where she responsible for launching and overseeing the nationally awarded Philly311 Contact Center Operations.