2021 Forbes CIO Summit Series – Episode 1

Jeff Immelt

Former CEO, General Electric & Venture Partner, NEA

Jeff Immelt is the former ninth chairman of General Electric and served as CEO for sixteen years. He has been named one of the “World’s Best CEOs” three times by Barron’s. During Immelt’s tenure as CEO, GE was named “America’s Most Admired Company” by Fortune magazine and one of “The World’s Most Respected Companies” in polls by Barron’s and the Financial Times. Immelt has received fifteen honorary degrees and numerous awards for business leadership and chaired the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness under the Obama administration. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a lecturer at Stanford University. Immelt earned a BA in applied mathematics from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Harvard University. He and his wife have one daughter.

Esther Krofah

Executive Director

FasterCures, a center of the Milken Institute

Esther Krofah is the executive director of FasterCures, a center of the Milken Institute. She has deep experience in the government, nonprofit, and for-profit sectors, where she has led efforts to bring together diverse stakeholder groups to solve critical issues and achieve shared goals that improve the lives of patients. Most recently, Krofah was the director of public policy leading GlaxoSmithKline's engagement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and relevant Executive Branch agencies on broad health-care policy issues, including leadership in improving vaccinations and care for people living with HIV. Prior to GSK, Krofah served as the deputy director of HHS' Office of Health Reform, where she led the development of policy positions for significant regulatory priorities, including the health insurance marketplaces. Prior to HHS, Krofah served as a program director at the National Governors Association (NGA) health-care division, working directly with governors' health policy advisors, state Medicaid directors, and state health commissioners on health insurance, health workforce, and Medicaid coverage issues. Before joining the NGA, Krofah worked in consulting at Deloitte Consulting LLP, where she worked with public sector and commercial clients, including assisting states in developing state-based exchanges. Krofah received a B.A. from Duke University and a Masters of Public Policy from the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Cathy Bessant

Chief Operations & Technology Officer

Bank of America

Cathy Bessant is chief operations and technology officer at Bank of America, and is a member of the company’s executive management team. Since 2010, Bessant has led Global Technology and Operations, delivering end-to-end technology and operating services across the company through a team of 95,000 people in over 35 countries. She also oversees the company’s business continuity and information security efforts.

Since joining the bank in 1982, Bessant has held a number of senior leadership roles. She was president, Global Corporate Banking; president, Global Product Solutions and Global Treasury Services; chief marketing officer; president, Consumer Real Estate and Community Development Banking; national Small Business Segment executive; and president of the Florida market.

Bessant serves as executive sponsor for the company’s Disability Advisory Council. She was formerly the executive sponsor for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Pride executive board and led the creation of the LGBT Ally program. She was previously named No. 1 among OUTstanding LGBT+ Ally Executives, presented by the Financial Times.

After ranking No. 1 for three consecutive years, Bessant was inducted into the “25 Most Powerful Women in Banking” Hall of Fame by American Banker in 2020. Bessant was named to Barron’s “100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance” and she received WatersTechnology’s 2019 Women in Technology and Data Trailblazer Award. She has also appeared on Working Mother magazine’s “50 Most Powerful Working Moms” list.

Active in the community and region, Bessant received the Distinguished Service Award from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In addition, she was awarded the North Carolina Order of the Long Leaf Pine, was recognized by the Charlotte Business Journal with the Women in Business Lifetime Achievement Award, and was named to Business NC’s Power 100. She chairs the North Tryon Vision Plan Advisory Committee.

Bessant led the formation of the Council on the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to address ethical and policy issues related to this rapidly evolving technology. In addition, she is a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).

Bessant serves on the board of directors of Zurich Insurance Group, is an independent member of the USA Field Hockey board of directors, is on the board of trustees for the Urban Institute, and is on the advisory board for the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. As part of a leadership course at Ross, she summited Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro, the world’s tallest freestanding mountain, in August 2018.

Prakash Kota

SVP & CIO

Autodesk

Prakash Kota is Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Autodesk. Prakash oversees Autodesk’s global information technology, including the Autodesk employee technology experience, enterprise data platforms, vendor management, enterprise product management, cloud engineering, and reliability. Prakash also leads the digital transformation of Autodesk technology stacks, cloud transformation, systems support, global customer operations, product operations, and infrastructure.
Prakash was named a BayArea CIO “Global” Orbie award winner, a Forbes innovative technology leader on the “CIO Next” list, and a “Top 100 CIO” by the National Diversity Council.

Prakash has an 18+ year career at Autodesk and has served as CIO for five years. Prakash was previously Vice President of IT and held many technology leadership roles accelerating Autodesk’s business transformation. He holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Oklahoma State University, and a bachelor’s degree in electronics and communication from the University of Madras.

Shobhana Ahluwalia

CIO

Peloton

Shobhana Ahluwalia is the CIO at Peloton where she is responsible for driving global Information Technology and Security strategy and operations. Her team is responsible for building and running systems and infrastructure which helps Peloton scale its products and platforms globally.

Prior to Peloton, Shobhana served as the CIO at Uber Technologies where she scaled and led a global IT strategy and operations team to support the exploding business growth. Her team was responsible for the Uber worldwide corporate infrastructure, enterprise applications, and 24/7 tech support. Prior to Uber, Shobhana held technology leadership roles at RocketFuel, CNET and CBS.

Shobhana serves as the External Expert Advisor for University of San Francisco’s Board of Trustees, Committee on Information Technology Strategy (CITS), and is on the Board of Consortium of Information Systems Executives (CISE), a not-for-profit technology organization. Additionally, she is an advisory board member of Zoom Video Communications and Dell Inc. Shobhana is a founding circle member of Neytri, a non-profit focused on fostering, engaging and advancing the global community of South Asian professional women. Shobhana holds an MBA with a double major in Strategy and Finance from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and a Bachelor of Computer Science in Engineering.

During her downtime, she is an avid Peloton biker, and enjoys reading.

Harry Moseley

Global CIO

Zoom

Harry D. Moseley brings to Zoom a blend of transformational leadership,disruptive innovation, and corporate growth strategies. As the former
CIO & Managing Director for KPMG, Harry was responsible for technology and innovation to support the firm's competitive growth. Over
five years he identified and replaced legacy technology to dramatically improve productivity, security, and reliability. Before joining
KPMG, Harry served as CIO & Senior Managing Director - Partner for Blackstone, where he led the company's transformation to the world's
best digital alternative asset manager. Prior to Blackstone, Harry was a Managing Director for Credit Suisse, where he served as the CIO of
Global Investment Banking, and Global Co-Head of Application Development / Co-CIO of the firm. Before Credit Suisse, Harry served
as CTO & Managing Director for UBS Americas.

Harry has been inducted into CIO Magazine's Hall of Fame, recognized as one of the world's top 100 CIOs by Computerworld, and honored by Irish Magazine (twice) as one of its Annual Wall Street 50. Harry is an Advisory Board Member of BioDental Sciences, a Board Member of Rewards Network, was a National Board member of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and is a member of the Advisory Board of the New York City Chapter of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and a sponsor of nPower. He is a former Board Member of Bi-Sam (since acquired by Factset), a former Advisor to Aquiline Capital Partners, a former Board Member of iLevel Solutions (since acquired by Ipreo), and led Blackstone's investment in Watchdox (since acquired by Blackberry).

Edward Wagoner

CIO, Digital

JLL Technologies

Edward Wagoner is a CIO at JLL Technologies, which is the division of the global real estate firm JLL, that focuses on delivering technology to accelerate innovation in commercial real estate. He leverages 35 years of industry experience, including more than 15 years as CIO at JLL to help some of the world’s largest organizations understand opportunities and create their workplace digital strategies.

Sunny Gupta

Cofounder & CEO

Apptio

Sunny Gupta is the Co-founder and CEO of Apptio. He is a market and product innovator with a customer obsession that led him to uncover significant untapped demand for an analytics-based business management system for CIOs. Since founding Apptio in 2007, he pioneered a market category (Technology Business Management or TBM) and drove the company to become the market leader in a disruptive industry with significant scale. Gupta led Apptio to an Initial Public Offering in September 2016 (NASDAQ: APTI) as well as its acquisition by Vista Equity Partners in January 2019 for $1.94B.

Martin Giles

Senior Editor, CIO Network

Forbes

Martin is the editor of the CIO Network at Forbes, leading coverage of the rapidly evolving role of senior technology leaders. He also develops topics and programming for Forbes CIO events. Previously, he covered frontier technologies such as AI-driven cybersecurity and quantum computing for MIT Technology Review. Before that, he was a partner at a Silicon Valley VC firm that invests in enterprise tech, which he joined after covering the Valley for The Economist Newspaper for many years.

Kristin Stoller

Senior Editor, Under 30

Forbes

Kristin is the senior editor of Under 30, editing the Forbes 30 Under 30 North America and Europe lists. Previously, she was the deputy editor for the Forbes Business/Consumer section. She also covered all things related to careers and the workplace, as well as the world’s richest people as a member of the wealth team. Before joining Forbes, she reported for the Hartford Courant and the New Haven Register, covering breaking and local news. A Connecticut native, she studied journalism at Penn State University.

Alex Konrad

Senior Editor

Forbes

Alex is a Senior Editor at Forbes covering venture capital, cloud and enterprise software out of New York. He edits the Midas List, Midas List Europe, Cloud 100 list and 30 Under 30 for VC. Alex is a Fortune Magazine and WNYC alum. He studied medieval history and archaeology at Harvard University.