The IDCA Board of Directors (“Board”) is responsible for articulating and upholding the vision, values and mission of the organization. The Board provides the data center community a direct voice into IDCA’s activities and fosters bi-directional interaction with data center experts, designers, developers, managers, owners, operators, and data center solution providers. The Board also acts as the steering committee, hence one key endeavor of the Board is to provide supervision, guidance and direction to the IDCA committee and sub-committees. IDCA Board of Directors consists of multiple research committees, representing IDCA’s research and development body, and makes research and recommendations on programmatic issues of interest to IDCA. The Board makes strategic decisions about the direction and faith of data center industry as viewed by IDCA. The Board is ultimately responsible for the management and monitoring of long-term data center industry goals at the strategic level, verifying soundness with established objectives, and keeping established frameworks accordingly. The Board composition includes carefully elected professionals from diverse backgrounds and perspectives as follows:

Mehdi Paryavi

Chairman
Richard Bowie

Programs Development Council
Carlos Tavares

Strategy Council
Ashley Pidemore

Legal Counsel
Brian K. Branson

Member of the Board
Christine Hoerbinger

Secretary of the Board

Mehdi Paryavi

Chairman

International Data Center Authority

Chairman

Mehdi is the President of TechXact Group and Chairman of International Data Center Authority (IDCA). He is first individual to realize the urge, pioneer the concept and advocate for “application-centric” data centers. He actively promotes data center specialization across industry verticals suited to the application needs. He is a futurist living in the present, a thought leader in true Cloud “not just Virtualized, but Realized” (as he puts it), expert strategist and transitionist between the logical abstraction layers of cloud to its physical merits and possibilities. His in-depth understanding of the “data center” and its inherited comprehensive unity of IT and Facilities merged with his sensible and realistic approach towards energy efficiency and environmentally conscious designs and implementations sheds light into the clouded ambiguities of “big data” and caters harmony to the world at large.

He has led the campaign to bring knowledge, standardization, compliance, best practices, and technological developments as well as effective data center expertise to the data center industry, both nationally and internationally specially for mission-critical environments effectively for national security projects, securities and exchange projects, aviation and transport, military and defense, oil and gas, telecommunication, healthcare, etc. Mehdi is known for his immense experience, thought leadership, visionary strategies, comprehensive expertise, effective methods and systematic, yet fluid approach.

Aside from his speeches in conferences, symposiums, lectures, sessions with top officials and discussions at expert assemblies, his advice and strategies are typically used as benchmarks at many government and private institutions. Thus, organizations typically seek his recommendations for best practices and approach towards their short-term and long-term planning of data center and data management.

Contact Mehdi at chairman@idc-a.org.

Visit Chairman's Notes: mehdiparyavi.com.

Richard Bowie

Programs Development Council

International Data Center Authority

Member of the Board, Program Development

Richard worked thirty years for the Federal Government designing and teaching management and executive training courses and providing internal management consulting services. Received numerous letters of commendations from top executives, including the Secretary of Energy and the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Also received numerous Performance Awards including the Career Achievement Award.

Contact Richard at richard.b@idc-a.org.

Carlos Tavares

Strategy Council

International Data Center Authority

Strategy Counsel

Carlos started his career as a respected political advisor who represented many successful candidates. His negotiation techniques and strategies have helped many high level authorities get elected to positions of Governors and Members of Congress by leading their campaign to successfully become elected officials. Those officials have gone ahead and made a huge impact not just in their own country but throughout the globe. Carlos also served as an advisor to the Department of State where he negotiated the export and import legislative feat where no one believed it could be possible in a divided government while establishing partnership with Private and Public Institutions aiming to engage at the United Nations Conferences.

Carlos is the Vice President of Strategic Alliances for TechXact Group. He is in charge of mega projects at the Group, high delegate accounts as well as handles an elite team of experts to handle TechXact’s advance data center and infrastructure services for TechXact globally. Carlos is a unique professional with stiff discipline, yet friendly attitude that can drive teams and get things done! His diverse experience in Data Center Project Management, Data Center Lifecycle Management, Data Center Financial Modeling, Data Center and Business Planning, Data Center Performance Matrix Management, Data Center Personnel, Staff and Operations Management as well as his 20+ years of in-depth knowledge and know-how of the realities of political atmospheres, international relations, and strategic business/organizational development worldwide and specifically in the Americas.

Carlos is situated in Washington DC and is based at TechXact Headquarters along side TechXact’s top executives. Carlos is also a Member of Board of Directors, as Strategy Council, at the International Data Center Authority (IDCA).

Contact Carlos at carlos.t@idc-a.org.

Christine Hoerbinger

Secretary of the Board

International Data Center Authority

Secretary of the Board of Directors

Christine Hoerbinger is the Secretary of the Board of Directors at the International Data Center Authority (IDCA). Christine comes from 30+ years of experience working with some of the world’s most reputable institutions. She has edited Regional Economic Outlooks (REO), coached, supported and organized writing course for MCD economists, planned and organized Washington-based outreach events for management and policymakers and drafted commentaries for international press, blogs, books, articles and surveys.

She is an expert writer and editor who has served in the capacity of Chief Editor, Analyst, Researcher, Consultant, Project Evaluation Officer, Public Affairs Officer and Assistant Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

Contact Christine at christine.h@idc-a.org.

Ashley Pidemore

Legal Counsel

International Data Center Authority

Legal Counsel

Ashley Pidemore is a business and financial law specialist, securities and due diligence attorney who is expert in range of securities transactions including: (i) real estate investment trusts (REITs); (ii) business development companies (BDCs) investing in middle market companies; (iii) private equity offerings; and (iv) programs structured to qualify as like-kind exchanges under Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code. Ashley is a graduate of the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, where she graduated cum laude. She was a member of the National Trial Team, an articles editor of the Journal of Business and Technology Law, litigation and advocacy award recipient and a member of the business law society. Ashley has firm grip over information technology industry and the legal frameworks, codes and norms around the industry. Up until January 2016, Ashley has served as Vice President at SK Research, a division of RCS Capital Corporation (NYSE:RCAP).

Contact Ashley at ashley.s@idc-a.org.

Brian K. Branson

Member of the Board

International Data Center Authority

Member of the Board

Brian Branson is a veteran and seasoned executive who has served Corporate America for decades. He has served in Global Knowledge Training for 11 years, as the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) since April 2009 after being the organization’s Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for four years. During this period Brian has lead his organization in training, educating and providing certifications to information technology professionals not only the Fortune 500s, the Federal Government but globally as the largest professional training company. Prior to joining Global Knowledge, his roles included: Vice President/General Manager of DoubleClick, Inc.’s Enterprise Marketing Services Division, CFO of SmartPath, Inc., before its acquisition by DoubleClick, CFO/Treasurer position at BTI Telecom, a $250+ million local exchange carrier, and Ernst & Young.

Contact Brian at brian.b@idc-a.org.

Technical Standards Committee

IDCA Technical Standards Committee represents IDCA’s interest in matters pertaining to standards. Technical Standards Committee is composed of elite members from diverse yet premier data center-run organizations who are engaged with in-depth issues of data center industry at hand. Committee’s core mission is to provide remedy to the current data center industry gaps via developing the next-generation data center standards necessary to address and provide resolution to those gaps. All Technical Standards Committee’s effort is fundamentally rooted in the Application Ecosystem (AE)℠ and within the framework of the Infinity Paradigm®. In addition, the Committee further identifies potential new standards needed by the data center community and takes the necessary steps to initiate development of such needed standards with the appropriate organizations. Committee Members are also responsible to conduct unremitting interactions with the key industry stakeholders such as operators, providers, investors and end-users to ensure proper data center foundations, standardization and compliance are rooted within the diverse data center industry segments. Technical Standards Committee’s composition includes carefully elected technical data center experts from diverse industries, backgrounds and perspectives as follows:

Mark Thiele

Apcera
Rick Collins

AIG
Ben Calvert

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Eric Wendorf

Linkedin
Carlos Limon

NBC Universal
Sami Smeirat

Orange
Dikran Kechichian

TechXact Group
Boris Privalikhin

Time Warner Cable
Marchelle Adams

U.S. Courts
Anil Reddy

LaSai Technologies
Shawn Zandi

Linkedin
Everett Thompson

Colliers International
DeWayne Moore

VISA
Dr. Bob Sullivan

Independent Consultant
Christopher Neil

Microsoft
Lance Shinall

McAfee
David Shaw

Callosum Partners
Richard Zanatta

IDCA
John Ayoh

Central Bank of Nigeria
Timothy Grant

MLB Advance Media
Dr. Shiyghan Navti

Vodafone Group
Riccardo Effetti

Sky
Denis Nwanshi

ConverseLink
Dan Cooper

Comcast
Charles Schilke

Johns Hopkins University
Kevin Luong

LinkedIn
Dave Ferrise

Rodan + Fields
Lance Walker

CHRISTUS Health

Carlos Limon

Member of Technical Standards Committee

NBC Universal

Data Center Director

Carlos Limon is the Data Center Director of NBC Universal. He has over 20 years of experience in the IT field. During his tenure, he has held different roles that position him as a strong leader and someone who can be depended on to deliver results. In his current Data Center Director role in NBC Universal, Limon has lead diverse projects. From large scale facilities design and construction, to migrations, MEP upgrades and maintenance coordination. He is also responsible for the day to day operations of the data centers and manages a team across the US. Limon has also successfully deployed DCIM solutions to enhance the operations of the data center team. These implementations include multiple data feeds to and from the DCIM solution to enable workflows, monitoring, inventory and reporting.

Ben Calvert

Member of Technical Standards Committee

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Chief Information Security Officer

Ben Calvert is a seasoned IT leader with years of global experience at Fortune 500 companies. He is a leading cyber-security expert with key focus on information security that enables managing risks to critical business processes. He is currently the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, operating out of Stanford University. Previously, he has served in key positions such as Senior Manager at HP IT Security, Information Security Officer at Integrated Device Technology Inc. and Information Security Officer at Mercury Interactive.

Ben is passionate about enabling business initiatives using security risk management methods. He is an MBA and creator of partnerships with business units and IT functions resulting in competitive advantage. His cyber-security expertise has earned him numerous achievements in the Information Technology industry.

DeWayne Moore

Member of Technical Standards Committee

VISA

Lead System Architect

Moore is an industry veteran with over 30 years of experience in data center technology and operations. He currently serves as a Lead System Architect with Visa, where he leads large scale data center migrations globally. His broad and well rounded expertise is the result of the variety of experience he has had, ranging from mainframe support to relational database management, technical support to data center capacity planning, systems engineering to space and power planning, and beyond. Moore holds a Bachelor of Science, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Devry University and numerous industry certifications, including the DCIS and DCOS credentials from International Data Center Authority.

Eric Wendorf

Member of Technical Standards Committee

Global Critical Infrastructure Engineer

Eric Wendorf is a Global Critical Infrastructure Engineer for Linkedin. His technical expertise in data center space, power, and cooling planning and deployment help him advance Linkedin's platform delivery to higher densities, ultimately reducing the cost-to-serve. He is responsible for the health and viability of the critical data center facilities operating Linkedin's website, world's most credible professional network. Eric and his peers have brought new waves of infrastructure and operations innovation and effectiveness as a leading cloud operator through the diverse data centers they concurrently run and maintain.

Eric holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a minor in International Business Management from the Smeal College of Business at The Pennsylvania State University. Before working at Linkedin, Eric was the IT site lead at a strategic customer account data center for HP (Hewlett Packard). He managed the daily service and installation of the IT hardware within two 4MW computer rooms, and in very close coordination with the site facility infrastructure vendor, ensured routine PM of the facility. He also was responsible for completing monthly SOx compliance audits and was the main point of contact for the annual ISO27001 audits.

Contact Eric at eric.w@idc-a.org.

Shawn Zandi

Member of Technical Standards Committee

Principal Staff Architect, Global Infrastructure Architecture and Strategy

Shawn Zandi is Leading LinkedIn's Global Infrastructure Architecture, including Production Data Centers, Backbone, Edge Networks, DC Interconnects, Compute, and Storage Infrastructure.

Zandi is the product owner of the Falco and OpenFabric projects at LinkedIn, and is a board member on the OpenSwitch project steering committee. Zandi's role at LinkedIn is to economically grow and scale data center, backbone, IP, and optical networks with correct architecture, long-term strategy, and clear roadmaps in place. He holds multiple patents and is an advisor to multiple technology startups in Silicon Valley.

Kevin Luong

Member of Technical Standards Committee

Regional Manager, Data Center Engineering

Kevin Luong is the Regional Manager for LinkedIn's Data Center Engineering team. Previously, Kevin was a Data Center Decomissioning Manager at Amazon Web Services where he was involved in managing operations support for AWS data centers.

Kevin is an articulate and innovative manager with over 6 years proven success overseeing Information Technology (IT) globally. Highly organized and analytical, with an extensive background in Datacenter installation, configuration, and support of multi-platform systems. Kevin is skilled in applying best practices in project management, including those used to initiate, plan, control, monitor and report upon all phases of project activity. Furthremore, Kevin has a proven track record in increasing team productivity worldwide in multiple Data Centers, quality, and customer satisfaction.

Contact Kevin at kevin.l@idc-a.org.

Dave Ferrise

Member of Technical Standards Committee

Rodan + Fields

Enterprise Architect

Dave Ferrise is the Enterprise Architect - Architecture COE Lead at Rodan + Fields. In his role Dave leads the Enterprise Architecture Center of Excellence with responsibility for developing & maintaining architecture standards in support of emerging business imperatives, while also providing oversight and architecture guidance during solution design and delivery phases of Software Development Life Cycle.

Dave has 30+ years of experience in IT ranging from the Software Industry to IT Services and the CPG industry and beyond. Dave has the ability to assess and understand emerging technologies and recognize their place in an enterprise architectural landscape. Furthremore, envisioning and implementing integrative architecture that enables business capabilities and anticipates the business, industry and technology changes in advance.

Contact Dave at dave.f@idc-a.org.

Dikran Kechichian

Member of Technical Standards Committee

TechXact Group

Chief Consultant

Dikran is Chief Consultant, Auditor and Lecturer at TechXact Group and Member of Technical Standards Committee at IDCA. Dikran has over 23 years of solid design, development and implementation of data centers and mission-critical infrastructures. His knowledge and knowhow in data center facilities, specially energy and power components is next to none. He has served as the technical heart of the workgroups he has worked with in the past.

Dikran has traveled to every country in the world and provided his expertise locally to institutions. He is well versed to the local norms and international implications of policies and technical implementations. Dikran is an expert designing renewable & hybrid energy systems, integrated efficient telecom power solutions, electro-mechanical design of large data centers, designing complete panel boards, switchgear and control systems, auditing and designing telecom sites and data center facility infrastructures, managing data center construction, defining and optimizing data center needs. Dikran comes from a history of designing alternative energy and on-site power generation design and development. He has designed and validated DC powered generators, UPS systems, STS/ATS, solar systems, and other complex power systems he is the technical spine to meeting data centers’ requirements.

Contact Dikran at dikran.k@idc-a.org.

Sami Smeirat

Member of Technical Standards Committee

Orange

VP Jordan Telecom Group-CEO Jordan Data Communications Ltd (Orange Internet)

Sami Smeirat is the Vice President of Jordan Telecom Group for Business Services (Orange), CEO of Jordan Data Communications Ltd (Orange Internet), CEO of Wanado and Deputy CEO & Chief Commercial Officer of Cyberia Jordan. Sami is a result-driven top executive with 18 years of senior management experience that encapsulates commercial, technical and operational excellence at the highest levels of management.

Sami’s innovation & transformation skills have delivered major contributions to all key stakeholders including Shareholders, Employees and Customers.

Sami’s skill set is comprehensive & includes Strategic Planning, Change Management, Efficient Resource Management, Cost Optimization, Financial Management as well as excellent Communication & Negotiation skills.

Sami is well-versed with the latest management best practices and is an experienced practitioner of Management-By-Objectives/Benchmarking/Dynamic Voice of Customer/Customer Journey/Balanced Scorecard/Quality of Service, Transformation, Agility etc.

Sami’s expertise and value-add has been recognized by several high-profile organizations, who have requested his representation; these include Board Member of ARISPA, Board Member, Zara Holdings ( Jordan Largest Hotels Owner), Board of Trustees of Princess Sumaya University, Board Member of Light Speed Communications, Member of the ‘Elite’ Leaders’, France Telecom, and Member of Private/Public partnership, Ministry of Public Development.

Zouhir Almai

Member of Technical Standards Committee

TechXact Group

Regional Director

Zouhir Almai is an active member of the Technical Standards Committee. A data center trainer, Lead Security Auditor and DCA, and one of highest ranked certified DC trainer by IDCA. Zouhir is an expert in the area of data center safety and security as well as one of the world’s best ICT and Network engineers. Zouhir is an expert in the area of Cloud Security and Governance, ICT Platforms for Virtualization and Cloud Methodologies.

Zouhir Almai has assisted for almost 20 years a hundreds of top organization such as federal and state government, ministries, central banks, telecoms and Fortune 500 companies in improving their IT use by developing clear, aligned and monitored strategies, including governance and management, cloud-computing, both physical as well as IP security, BCP & DRP, IT infrastructure, etc.

His career spans many industries: telecom carriers, bank and finances, government, offshoring, manufacturing, distribution, real-estate, etc. Conscious of the importance of knowledge sharing, Zouhir Almai gives numerous lectures at a local and international scale related to IT issues, next generation network engineering, technologies trends and data centers.

Contact Zouhir at zouhir.a@idc-a.org.

Dan Cooper

Member of Technical Standards Committee

Comcast

Executive Director for Critical Infrastructure

Dan Cooper is the Executive Director for Critical Infrastructure at Comcast, responsible for the development of the company’s long-range plan for ~1,600 mission critical sites. In his role, Dan is defining the full framework for the US national critical infrastructure program, providing strategic, efficient solutions for successful execution.

Dan's area of focus inculdes Strategic Planning, Site Evaluations, Data Center Expansion, Infrastructure Operations, Project & Vendor Management, Contract Negotiations, ITIL Processes, Program Management, Risk Management, Team Development, Quality Management

Initially joining Comcast as a Critical Infrastructure Consultant, Dan drove efforts to establish the framework for a five-year national data center expansion and improvement initiative. Areas of concentration included but were not limited to site evaluation, solutions planning, team development, and leadership in the area of critical infrastructure. He over the Data Center Expansion Strategies including the implementation of a Basis of Design program for standardization and comprehensive criteria development for future builds. Furthremore, he led a team to identify resources, defining roles & job family, and establishing the training curriculum to support the 2018 launch of Comcast’s internal engineering team. He had provided leadership in the piloting & development of a quick-alert national monitoring and alarm program — to reduce instances of down-time and increase visibility of site health.

Dr. Bob Sullivan

Member of Technical Standards Committee

Independent Consultant

Robert Sullivan, commonly known as "Dr Bob" in the industry, retired in 2000 after a 32 year carrier with IBM’s Storage Systems Division in San Jose, CA. He then worked as a consultant to the Uptime Institute of 10 years, retiring for a second time in 2010. He is now an independent consultant in the Data Processing industry, concentrating on education and training in the areas high density computing and energy efficient and effective data center infrastructures.

Prior to joining IBM, Bob received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Northwestern University and an MS and PhD in Applied Mechanics from Stanford University. In his 32 year carrier at IBM he did technology, component and new product development work, installation planning and consulting work in computer room environment and hardware installation issues. Key projects in his IBM career included working on the team that developed the Winchester disk technology, creating the Hot Aisle/Cold Aisle equipment layout concept, plus identified the need to eliminate Bypass Airflow and Recirculation in the computer room and have all air flowing in one direction. These and other critical concepts he identified are now generally accepted and employed throughout the data processing industry. Along these lines he contributed a great deal of the original research on raised floor and non-raised floor cooling technology.

In addition Dr. Sullivan is an internationally recognized expert, who has been involved in diagnosing and resolving critical cooling problems in hundreds of data centers over the last twenty seven years. He is also a recognized expert in the areas of computer room environments, environmental controls, hardware installation, computer room layout, power and power distribution, grounding, cooling and air flow, plus contamination identification and remediation.

He speaks regularly at national and international conferences, develops educational material and teaches courses, and presents seminars on various aspects of the efficient and effective data center, as well as, leading edge technologies in the data processing field.

Dr. Sullivan has been honored to be named one of “five people who changed the data center” by TechTarget in August 2010.

Anil Reddy

Member of Technical Standards Committee

LaSai Technologies

CEO & Founder

Anil Reddy, is the former Microsoft's Head of Cloud Infrastructure Strategy and Global Data Center Capacity Acquisition & Management where he was responsible for delivering over 200 Microsoft web portals, Live and Online Services around the world including infrastructure, security and compliance, operations, globalization, and manageability. He was also the Chief Strategy Officer for Microsoft India. He is currently the acting CEO and Founder at LaSai Technologies where he runs his successful consulting practice.

Anil is proven executive with 28 years of creating successful businesses, products, regions and winning teams. Born in the Cloud-Incubation to maturity. Strong hands on experience in building products, solutions, GTM strategies and execution. Focus on data driven decision making, with a strong penchant for execution. Anil Reddy has successfully managed data center project delivery strategy and long-term road maps for multiple assignments, driving capacity across the Globe and building Subject Matter expertise across the company and industry.

Lance Shinall

Member of Technical Standards Committee

McAfee

Director of Data Center Operations

Lance Shinall is the Director of Data Center Operations at McAfee. He was formerly a Director of Operations at Intel Corporation.

Lance is a results driven IT executive providing cost-effective, high-performance and strategic information technology initiatives in the IT Infrastructure area. Lance's experience coupled with computer sciences, excellent verbal and written communication skills, and strong negotiating skills. Lance has maintained a career priority in being results oriented with a sense of urgency to meet business objectives, schedules and satisfy customer needs. He is a skilled business analyst and problem solver with the ability to improve Information Technology and Facilities Management operational efficiency by using my comprehensive knowledge of a wide array of mechanical equipment, hardware and software.

Lance Shinall has extensive qualifications in all facets of technology project life cycle, from conceptual design and feasibility through development, implementation, and continued support. Strong technology and infrastructure background with a proven ability to create pragmatic IT strategies and implementation plans/roadmaps designed for maximum return at lowest possible costs.

David Shaw

Member of Technical Standards Committee

Callosum Partners

Senior Advisor - Data Centers

David Shaw is the former SVP & COO at IO Data Centers, Global Direct at Perot System, Director of IT System at HonorHealth and Managing Director of North America at Uptime Institute.

David Shaw is an industry veteran, a highly accomplished, industry recognized IT Executive, specializing in Operations & Data Centers including the development & management of IT Services, Managed Service Providers throughout the US, Europe and Asia/Pac. Possessing an exceptional track record delivering services to the Financial, Healthcare, Retail /Manufacturing and Government verticals.

David has 16 years of ITIL service management, plus the delivery of secure mission critical services. Forward-thinking, key contributor and innovator to strategy planning and long-range success.

His specialties are, Leadership, Data Center, design, build, engineering, Operational Readiness, migrations. 24 x 7 IT Operations, NOC/SOC DCIM. Automation and Autonomics. Cloud, Data Security, SSAE16, ISO 27000, Service Management, ITIL Incident/Problem/Change Management, MSP management, Outsourcing, RFI/RFP.

David Shaw was recognized as the “Data Center Manager of the Year”, awarded at Data Center World / AFCOM 2013 and a member of the International Data Center Authority (IDCA) Technical Standards Committee.

Christopher Neil

Member of Technical Standards Committee

Microsoft

Senior Program Manager

Christopher is the Senior Program Manager at Microsoft. His role involves working with the Microsoft Azure team as a partner service evaluating data centers for opportunities.

Prior to his current role he was the Director of Data Center Services at Expedia, responsible for infrastructure support delivery to all Expedia brands including Expedia, Travelocity, trivago, Orbitz, Mobidata, Wotif.com, Traveldoo, Ebookers, CheapTickets, Hotwire.com, Hotels.com, etc.

Mr. Neil started his career 28 years ago as Electronic Technician at the US Navy, he worked nearly a decade at MAJIQ, before he took on the role of GIS – Infrastructure Platform Services Manger at Expedia where he succeeded for 6 years. He then became promoted to Manager, GIS – Infrastructure Capacity Management, Service Delivery Sr. Manager and now Director Data Center Services for Expedia Inc. With nearly three decades of solid track record, serving some of the most mission critical applications.

Mr. Neil brings valuable expertise to IDCA’s Technical Standards Committee. His expertise and duties include but are not limited to managing data center operations ensuring 99.999% availability for all critical infrastructure, data center space planning, capacity and forecast modeling, developing and maintaining a 5 year Expedia data center strategy supporting trending and capacity management modeling, strategy planning and development of roadmaps for data center strategy, establishing operational standards, processes, intake and auditing programs in support of data center operations, selection, development and evaluation data center staff, and more.

Rick Collins

Member of Technical Standards Committee

AIG Group

Sr. Director of Global Data Center Operations

Rick Collins carries decades of experience in IT transformation and data center infrastructure. He is the Sr. Director of Global Data Center Operations at AIG who manages over 200 data center sites and locations globally. He has experience in managing data center people, sites, data center facilities and technology across several industries. Rick has been successful in developing strategic and operational plans, establishing and operating data centers, directing budgeting, mergers and acquisitions.

Rick is an expert in designing application migration plans, BCPs, project management, transition and relocation management, data center operations, planning, etc. He has a proven ability to solve problems and make decisive cost effective decisions that impact the bottom line. Experience being and working with C-level executives across all markets to negotiate contracts, close deals and win the confidence and support at all levels of the organization.

Contact Rick at rick.c@idc-a.org.

Boris Privalikhin

Member of Technical Standards Committee

Time Warner Cable

New York Data Center Manager at Time Warner Cable Inc. | Business Class Data Center Manager

Boris Privalikhin is a New York City Business Class Data Center Manager at Charter Communications, formerly Time Warner Cable, the second nation’s largest cable operator. He is an expert in data center services and space, power and cooling planning and deployment.

Boris has more than fourteen years of experience in building, relocating and managing Mission Critical Data Centers for Navisite / Time Warner Cable / Charter Communication. His previous assignment was with Legg Mason – asset management firm with offices and data centers in New York, Maryland and Connecticut.

Currently Boris managing 35,000 SF Business Class Data Center in Downtown Manhattan. He leads the team of data center technicians, providing Data Center Services and IT/Critical Infrastructure lifecycle support, including planning, installation, commissioning, on-site management and maintenance, monitoring, troubleshooting and de-installation, following operational policies and industry standards and developing and implementing best practices - operating and maintenance strategies - to ensure continuous availability of CI systems. Boris is a certified PMP and ITIL Certified in IT Service Management.

Contact Boris at boris.p@idc-a.org.

Lance Walker

Member of Technical Standards Committee

CHRISTUS Health

Enterprise Data Center Engineer

Joseph Lance Walker is an Enterprise Data Center Engineer II at CHRISTUS Health, one of the nation’s largest Catholic healthcare delivery systems. He is responsible for the operational maintenance, availability, capacity planning and monitoring of the Enterprise Healthcare Data Center and related environmental and facilities concerns.

Lance has extensive technical knowledge and experience in Enterprise Data Center Facilities in the areas of power, cooling and space planning. Day-to-day responsibilities include overseeing data center facilities operations, active monitoring of all CHRISTUS data centers, monitoring detection systems, managing relationships with facilities & technology based vendors, and ensuring the capacity and availability of all the data centers across the environment. Responsible for the Electrical distribution systems design and evaluation, Mobile Electric Power (MEP) hardware/software products, Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS), building controls and automation, HVAC cooling systems, airflow balance and analysis, cooling towers, chillers, load calculations and space planning.

Lance comes from 21 years of experience from the U.S. Air Force. He has worked in the capacities of Implementation Planning Chief, Electrical Team Leader, 28th Civil Engineer Squadron, NCOIC Electric Systems, Deployment Cell, HQ U.S. Special Operations Command, etc. at United States Air Force and United States Special Operations Command.

Lance works as part of a cross-functional team that deals with the full spectrum of technology and will fulfill the role of third level support for data center operations, providing training and direction to other technical staff that perform the bulk of the first and second level support tasks.

Contact Lance at lance.w@idc-a.org.

Technical Standards Committee Advisory Council

Cynthia Stoddard

CIO of Adobe Systems
Rebecca S. Wanta

Former CIO/CTO, PepsiCo, Wellsfargo and MGM
Stewart H. Gibson

USI Holdings
Michelle S. Walker

SIO Director of State Department
Eric Johnson

CIO of DocuSign

Mark Thiele

Chair of Technical Standards Committee

Apcera

Chief Strategy Officer

Mark serves as the Chairman of IDCA Technical Standards Committee. His successful career in IT spans 25 years and has focused on both operating roles and on driving cloud adoption across enterprises of all sizes. Thiele has deep industry experience and extensive knowledge of the requirements of policy-driven cloud computing and drives cross-functional strategic initiatives as Chief Strategy Officer for Apcera.

Prior to joining Apcera, Thiele was the Executive Vice President of ecosystem development at Switch SUPERNAP, builders of the world’s highest-rated data centers. He is also the President and Founder of Data Center Pulse, an organization created to promote best practices in the data center industry. Thiele has held executive roles at HP, Gilead, VMware and Brocade and is a member of nonprofit groups including The Green Grid and Infrastructure 2.0, where he advocates for data center and cloud industry evolution.

A globally recognized speaker at leading industry events on a wide range of topics including cloud, IoT, data center, DevOps, and IT leadership, Thiele is a regular content contributor to InformationWeek, GigaOm, Data Center Knowledge and other publications. Thiele also serves on the technical advisory board of several startups.

Contact Mark at mark.t@idc-a.org.

Timothy Grant

Member of Technical Standards Committee

Major League Baseball Advance Media

Vice President, Technical Facilities

Timothy Grant is the Vice President of the Technical Facilities at MLBAM (Major League Baseball Advance Media). MLB, WWE Network, WatchESPN, HBO Now, NHL, PGA Tour Live, CBS Sportsline's Madness on Demand service are all being streamed by the data center infrastructure that Tim provides to the broadcasting industry. Tim leads a topology of data centers extending to 18 facilities just in the United States with an extremely talented team of directors, management, integration and operations staff to design, build, operate and maintain our technical office and broadcast data center facilities.

The team that Tim leads over primary services of MLB which are to deliver live video content to customers in multiple formats via 24x7 environment and backbone infrastructure for OTT and VOD to major partners such as Sony and HBO. MLBAM is probably the fastest growing live streaming and video broadcasting network for whom the responsibility of supporting all infrastructures falls under Tim’s team. Tim is an expert in adhering media and IT layers with data center facilities and infrastructural possibilities.

Contact Tim at timothy.g@idc-a.org.

Michelle Sparrow-Walker

Member of Technical Standards Committee

United States Department of State

Director of Systems & Integration Office

Ms. Sparrow-Walker served in the Department of State since September 2007 after serving over 25 years with Department of Army supporting both Military and Civilian Personnel Systems and Data Centers. She is currently the Department Director of the Information Resource Management Bureau’s, Systems and Integration Office.

Ms. Sparrow-Walker has a wide variety of experience in IT Financial Planning and Budgeting, Contracting, and IT Systems Development, Operations and Maintenance. Her significant accomplishments include the centralization of a distributed Army Civilian Recruitment System, supporting over 300,000 worldwide internal users, as well as the general public; the deployment of the State Department’s first Enterprise Intranet SharePoint environment, one of the largest implementations of SharePoint in the world – second only to Microsoft itself, the implementation of the State Department’s Enterprise Data Warehouse, and the Department’s first implementation of a Modular Data Center, which provides the ability to expand and contract IT resources based upon the needs of the Department.

As SIO Director, Michelle is responsible for operating the U.S. State Department’s core data centers, providing enterprise collaboration services, and delivering integrated software solutions. Michelle’s goal is to meet the Department’s information technology strategic mission by driving efficiencies in the Department’s core Data Centers through increased virtualization, reduced operational costs, and private cloud computing.

Contact Michelle at michelle.w@idc-a.org.

Eric Johnson

Member of TSC Advisory Council

DocuSign

Chief Information Officer

Eric brings over twenty years of global leadership experience in information technology with a proven track record delivering complex, high value solutions across a wide range of industries. With success in building and leading highly effective global teams while supporting largely distributed workforces, Eric has developed, driven and delivered strategic IT architectures and cloud solutions to support rapidly growing global businesses.

Eric began his career with Deloitte Consulting where he specialized in supply chain and manufacturing solutions across high tech, consumer, oil and gas, and other industries. Eric went on to hold the SVP, CIO role at Informatica where he supported the growth of the company into a $1B global market leader. Eric is currently the SVP, CIO at DocuSign, where he has built a successful IT strategic vision and organization to scale in a hyper growth environment.

Everett Thompson

Member of TSC Advisory Council

Colliers International

Head of Data Center Consulting, Americas

Everett Thompson heads Colliers' data center practice in the Americas. Everett Thompson is a 25 year, multi-disciplinary (Technical, Financial, Commercial) veteran of large-scale infrastructure and technology businesses. As CEO of Wired Real Estate Group Inc., Everett Thompson worked in the US, Asia, and EMEA markets advising investors, lenders and enterprises on cloud, colocation and data center investments up to $100 million. Everett Thompson has worked with some of the largest investors in the space, including Iron Mountain, AT&T, Amazon, Adobe, Verizon, Goldman, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Machine Zone, Shiseido, US Dept of Energy, and others.

During Everett Thompson's previous role at Equinix he has worked with numerous large cloud, tech, and telecom firms, including Google, Yahoo!, Electronic Arts, Sprint, Internap and others.

Richard Zanatta

Member of Technical Standards Committee

Rich Zanatta is the former Director of Networking and Facilities at the United States House of Representatives. His in-depth knowledge in both technology and data center infrastructure help him drive and manage organization-wide transformations and ensure alignment with business strategies. Zanatta was responsible for ensuring the House has viable voice and data communications, sustainable data centers and supports various Business Continuity elements supporting the the U.S. House.

Zanatta has a unique combination of military, private and public sector experience. Before joining the House in 2001, Zanatta worked for Lucent Technologies / International Network Services as a project manager and Managing Consultant and served in the United States Navy for 24 years. He served as a Presidential Communications Officer and Chief of Information Technology at the White House Communications Agency and Chief Integration Officer at U.S. Space Command/NORAD.

Contact Richard at richard.z@idc-a.org.

John Ayoh

Member of Technical Standards Committee

Central Bank of Nigeria

Director of Information Technology

John Ayoh is the Director of Information Technology at the Central Bank of Nigeria, the financial sector regulator with the overall control and administration of the monetary policy of the largest economy in Africa.

Under John Ayoh's leadership, the Bank attained and has maintained the ISO27001 certification for Information Security practice over the past four years. A Delivery versus Payment (DVP) settlement system has also been successfully implemented, thereby eliminating the credit and liquidity risks associated with the processing of government securities. Most importantly, a consolidation of all government agencies’ cash balances has greatly improved cash and resource management by the Federal Government of Nigeria. John has recently established a Cyber Security Working Group that will oversee an industry-wide effort to effectively manage cyber threats.

Mr. Ayoh was the founder and CEO of Hightower Technology Partners (HTTP), a technology consulting firm before joining the Central Bank. He formerly held the positions of Chief Information Officer, Chief Operations Officer and Chief Technical Officer at Airtel Nigeria, one of Nigeria’s leading telecommunications companies, until June 2008 to focus on developing HTTP. He was a member of the team that established Airtel, which previously traded under the Celtel, Vmobile and Econet Wireless brands, in 2001. Prior to joining Airtel, John held CIO positions in three banks, including the United Bank for Africa, currently one of Nigeria’s largest.

Mr. Ayoh is one of the most respected and reputed information technology executives and visionary experts across the continent of Africa.

Dr. Shiyghan Navti

Member of Technical Standards Committee

Vodafone Group

Head of Cloud Advisory Group

Dr. Shiyghan Navti heads the Vodafone Group's Cloud Advisory Group. Based in London, he leads a key project to develop Vodafone's ISV cloud strategy across UK, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Dr. Shiyaghan Navti is a Certified Cloud Trainer for CloudSchool, a leading vendor neutral cloud Canadian educational services provider, and ITPreneur, Europe's leading training provider for the Cloud Credential Council. He has solid grasp and deep understanding of core cloud architecture, service management, security and risk management best practices that underpin the IBM Bluemix, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform.

Furthemore, Dr. Navti has developed first hand knowledge and experience of running a cloud platform and mobile payments start-up using agile development best practices and public cloud services from IBM Bluemix and Google Cloud Platform.

At IBM, Dr. Navti led a team of senior pre-sales consulting IT specialists across Europe, responsible for driving adoption of one of the first hosted private cloud platforms in the industry. He has led the development of IBM's Africa Expansion strategy for key countries in Sub-saharan Africa. The strategy was used to secure a $1bn investment in Africa.

Dr. Shiyghan Navti is a deeply technical engineer who has degrees in Structural Engineering, Architecture, Numerical Modeling in Engineering Mechanics, and PhD in Computational Modeling combined with sound business and commercial awareness acquired from a variety of business leadership roles.

Denis Nwanshi

Member of Technical Standards Committee

ConverseLink

Senior Vice President, Technology Innovation

Denis is a senior IT architect and digital transformation strategist with a proven track record providing a wide range of consulting services to blue chip organizations across Europe and North America. He specializes in helping organizations shift to next generation enterprise architecture frameworks and implement data-driven business platforms based on blockchain, cloud, virtualization, microservices, RESTful web services, APIs, big data, machine learning, end-to-end security, omnichannel, payment systems, STP, IoT, software-defined networks, DevOps, BOTS, and other key technologies.

Denis is also a co-founder and executive at B2B digital skills development venture ConverseLink where he heads technology innovation and works with a talented cross-functional team dedicated to creating high impact, experiential virtual learning solutions for dynamic organizations.

A demonstrable leader who places a strong emphasis on governance, integrity, risk management, regulatory compliance, and sound financial management, Denis develops strategic IT road maps, business cases, and project plans that resonate with peers and executive management. A methodical problem solver and researcher, he has been fortunate to gain valuable vertical experience including insurance, banking, retail, e-learning, government, high tech, and energy. He has extensive experience assembling and mentoring high performing teams, establishing IT and business Centers of Excellence, and helping to drive business change using LEAN and agile techniques.

Denis sits on the Sheridan College Professional Advisory Council of the Faculty of Applied Science and Technology. He also organizes stimulating tech talks for the highly popular Analytics & Technology meetup group which he founded in 2014.

Riccardo Degli Effetti

Member of Technical Standards Committee

Sky

Head of Data Center Operations

Riccardo is the Head of Data Center Operations at Sky. He has years of experience in the data center and IT infrastructure space and has been very involved in the EU/UK Data Center community.

Previously he was DC Operations Manager at Rackspace Hosting, responsible for the management of Rackspace Managed Hosting's Data Centers in the EMEA, overseeing DC Support Techs, Security, Production Techs, Inventory and M&E Engineers providing Fanatical Support 24/7/365 to Rackspace Customer base. He has shouldered responsibility on capex and opex budgets, Customer life-cycle, PPM and expansion plans, energy efficiency initiatives, H&S and ISO standards among others.

Charles Schilke

Member of Technical Standards Committee

Johns Hopkins Carey Business School

Director and Senior Lecturer

Charles Schilke is a Director and Senior Lecturer at The Edward St. John Real Estate Program, Johns Hopkins Carey Business School.

Charles directs the 25-year-old Edward St. John Real Estate program, the longest established such program in the Washington DC-Baltimore region, conferring the Master of Science in Real Estate and Infrastructure (MSREI) degree. He teach courses in Real Estate Law; Real Estate Development I and II; and Infrastructure Finance, organizes annual MSREI Career Fairs.

Charles represents MSREI program at real estate academic conferences, including Harvard Real Estate Conference and Cornell Baker Program in Real Estate Conference; He serves on Board of Harvard Real Estate Academic Initiative and is a member of Harvard Real Estate Alumni Organization, a member of Cornell Real Estate Council and an affiliate member of Cornell Hotel Society

Prior to this, Charles found and directed the Georgetown Master of Professional Studies in Real Estate program, and grew program to 300 students, 100 practitioner faculty, and 50 commercial real estate courses.

Rebecca S. Wanta

Member of TSC Advisory Council

RSW1C

CEO & President

Rebecca (Becky) S. Wanta was ranked 4th in the Top 50 Female CIOs and 12th in the top 200 CIOs by Exec Ranking. Over her remarkable career, Rebecca Wanta’s experience includes the roles of SVP/CIO of MGM Resorts International, Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President for the largest worker’s compensation insurance company in California, State Compensation Insurance Company; Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Best Buy, Global Chief Technology Officer for PepsiCo, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Wells Fargo, and Chief Technology Officer and Deputy Chief Information Officer for The Money Store/First Union.

Prior to returning to her successful consulting practice, she was Executive Vice President/Chief Information Officer & Chief Technology Officer (EVP/CIO & CTO) for Pacific Compensation Insurance Company where she led the transformation of Business and Technology which resulted in the company’s positive net operating results and market-share expansion; improved customer stickiness and reduced customer churn. Prior to joining Pacific Compensation Insurance Company, Rebecca Wanta was Senior Vice President/Chief Innovation and Information Officer for MGM Resorts International where she implemented MLifewhich revolutionized the Gaming and Hospitality Industry, and transformed the technology team from its “keeping the lights on” focus to driving and delivering business value.

She is currently the CEO & President of RSW1C. As a seasoned executive with more than 30 years transforming business and technology she helps deliver business value and increased competitive advantage. Rebecca Wanta continues to partner with Fortune 50+ companies as either their Senior IT Executive/CIO or retained consultant and is a highly-regarded agent of change who has successfully turned around business and technology organizations across multiple industries and company cultures to improve profitability and market share. She establishes strong business partnerships and develops high performing teams to continue the revenue driven transformation & market expansion.

She also focuses on business incubation, executive-in-resident, and technical advisor to businesses hastening their go-to-market entrance. Rebecca sits on several advisory boards and holds two intellectual capital patents in Apparatus and Method for Standardized Banking Data System Interfaces and Method & Apparatus for a Broker Entity.

Stewart H. Gibson

Member of TSC Advisory Council

USI Holdings

Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer of USI

Stewart H. Gibson is the Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for USI. He has been with USI since 2006 and has over 25 years of experience managing technology organizations from start-ups to Fortune 500 businesses. USI’s technology team has been named three times to the Information Week 500 which lists the 500 top users of innovative business technology.

 Before joining USI, Mr. Gibson held several positions within Pitney Bowes Inc. In his five years with Pitney Bowes, he was responsible for the technology behind pb.com and the My Account extranet serving over 850 thousand registered customers. He also managed applications in 130 countries which processed more than $15 Billion in postal funds annually.

Mr. Gibson also served as the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of eFacility.com, which specialized in providing products and services to the property management industry. His background includes 15 years in various positions with General Electric, including CIO of GE Support Services. While at GE, he earned his Six Sigma Black Belt certification and graduated from GE's Information Systems Management Program.

 Mr. Gibson received a degree in Information Systems from Carnegie Mellon University with a minor in Ergonomics. Mr. Gibson is based in Valhalla, New York and lives in Connecticut with his wife and 3 children.

Marchelle Adams

Member of Technical Standards Committee

Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts

Program Analyst

Marchelle is a member of the Technical Standards Committee Advisory Council. Marchelle is the Program Analyst for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. She is the Architecture Branch Chief for the Cloud Technology and Hosting Office. Marchelle deals with one of the world's most sensitive mission-critical infrastructure, which is unique in nature and critical from the aspects of national security, integrity, availability and privacy. She is an engineer by background, with people skills bridging the communication gap between technical staff and business execs. Marchelle has solid background as an experienced systems engineer who understands complex architectures and frameworks and has lead and managed teams throughout her career. She has more than a decade experience in supporting commercial and government sectors has is fully capable of interfacing and managing such institutions.

Being a program manager for the High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR) planning team, Marchelle has facilitated and coordinated the identification of a plan of action to address HA/DR within the data centers. She has solid grasp over Data Center Operations, having developed Data Center Operations Strategic Planning and Charters. She now leads the Cloud Technology and Hosting Office of the United States Courts as the Architecture Branch Chief.

Contact Marchelle at marchelle.a@idc-a.org.

Cynthia Stoddard

Member of IDCA TSC Advisory Council

Adobe Systems

Senior VP and Chief Information Officer

Cynthia Stoddard is the Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Adobe Systems Incorporated. As senior vice president and chief information officer of Adobe, Cynthia Stoddard oversees Adobe’s global Information Technology team. In her leadership role, Cynthia spearheads a global strategy for delivering services that form the mission-critical backbone for the company. This includes providing always-on systems and enterprise applications that enable us to run Adobe’s business; delivering productivity to employees everywhere; and providing the information and data services for real-time decision making and personalized customer experiences.

Cynthia is an IT industry veteran, with more than 25 years of business experience and IT expertise leading large global organizations in supply chain, retail, and technology development. Before joining Adobe in 2016, she was chief information officer and senior vice president at data storage and management company NetApp, where she led the company’s traditional IT functions while also expanding focus on innovation, customer-facing programs, and strategic partnerships. She previously held a number of information technology and technical leadership positions at supply chain, retail, and technology companies including Safeway Inc. and APL Limited.

Cynthia is a recipient of the CIO 100 Award in 2017 for Adobe IT’s innovative ways to deliver business value. Additionally, she is the recipient of Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leaders Award, was named among the top Women of Influence in 2016 by Silicon Valley Business Journal, and was recognized as one of Huffington Post’s Top 100 Most Social CIOs in 2015 and 2016.