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Bold leaders. Tech visionaries. Ambitious IT professionals. Hitachi Social Innovation Forum is for those who want to use the power of data to create a better society, environment, and economy.
See leaders turn data into a better world. Transforming industries, predicting the future, and safeguarding society and the environment with data-driven strategies.
CEO
Hitachi Vantara
Chief Executive Officer
Hitachi Vantara
Gajen Kandiah became chief executive officer of Hitachi Vantara in July 2020. As CEO, Gajen leads Hitachi Vantara's 11,000 employees with a focus on empowering client-facing teams to leverage the company's digital infrastructure, software and services capabilities to meet the industry-specific transformational needs of clients worldwide.
Prior to joining Hitachi Vantara, Gajen built winning IT businesses within multinational corporations and startups for more than two decades. During 15 years with Cognizant, he helped grow the company from $368 million in annual revenues to more than $16 billion. From 2015 to 2019, he was president of Cognizant's multi-billion-dollar Digital Business, a role in which he led the acquisitions of software engineering company Softvision, marketing solutions provider Netcentric, and Idea Couture, a digital innovation and technology services company. He also led a Cognizant-wide initiative to transform company capabilities and services into an integrated, industry- and client-focused suite of offerings and solutions.
Gajen previously served as senior vice president and general manager of Cognizant's Information, Media and Entertainment; Manufacturing Logistics; Consumer Goods; and Communications industry practices. Before joining Cognizant, he co-founded NerveWire, Inc., a venture capital-backed management consulting and systems integration firm, which was later acquired by Wipro.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer,
Hitachi America, Ltd.
Chief Executive of Global Social
Innovation Business, Hitachi, Ltd.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer,
Hitachi America, Ltd.
Chief Executive of Global Social
Innovation Business, Hitachi, Ltd.
Hicham Abdessamad is a transformational leader and a global business visionary with 20+ years of senior leadership experience. Prior to his current roles, he held multiple executive roles within Hitachi, including CEO of Hitachi Global Digital Holdings and President & CEO of Hitachi Consulting.
Skilled at delivering industry-leading results in growth, profitability, and innovation, Hicham’s current role allows him to utilize the breadth of his experience to drive Hitachi’s Global Social Innovation Business (SIB), to execute on a mission of powering good while establishing new markets and next-generation digital business models that create environmental, social, and economic value.
Executive Vice President and
Executive Officer and
Chief Environmental Officer
Hitachi, Ltd.
Executive Vice President and Executive Officer and
Chief Environmental Officer, Hitachi, Ltd.
As of April 2021, as Chief Environmental Officer, Alistair Dormer is in charge of Environmental Strategy for Hitachi on a global level. He was appointed Representative Executive Officer in Hitachi, Ltd. leading the Mobility Sector in April 2019.
Alistair joined Hitachi in 2003 to establish Hitachi’s Rail business in Europe. He was promoted to CEO of Hitachi Rail Europe Ltd. in 2007 and having built a successful business in Europe was promoted to Senior Vice President and Executive Officer Group CEO, Rail Systems Business Unit Hitachi, Ltd. in April 2014, responsible for Hitachi’s global rail business. Under Dormer’s leadership, the Hitachi’s rail business has globalized and grown by more than 300%.
SVP International Facilities and
Operations Services, Worldwide
Safety and Health, and Engineering
The Walt Disney Company
Senior Vice President of Worldwide Safety, Health, Engineering &
Sourcing for the Disney Company
Rachel is a licensed Professional Engineer and Certified Safety Professional. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in Electrical Engineering and a minor in Theater, the perfect background for a Disney engineer.
Her early career included a wide diversity of roles such as: medical research with the Veteran’s Administration, Facilities and Construction Management at General Motors, Controls Engineering at General Mills and Technical Support for Allen-Bradley.
Rachel joined Walt Disney World in 1997. She has worked in many different roles including: being part of the team that built and then opened Disney’s Animal Kingdom; leading Technical Services for Walt Disney World; starting Attractions Engineering Services and Quality Assurance, leading a team focused on Maintenance Consistency for Disney theme parks worldwide, leading Engineering Services for Disney’s Animal Kingdom Region, leading the teams responsible for ensuring the safety, operability and maintainability of new Disney resorts around the world and leading safety and health efforts at Disney Parks & Resorts worldwide.
Rachel is currently the Senior Vice President of Worldwide Safety, Health, Engineering & Sourcing. In addition to her global Safety and Health responsibilities, Rachel leads the maintenance, project management, and horticulture teams at Disneyland Resort Paris, Hong Kong Disneyland, and Shanghai Disneyland. She also leads the engineering and safety teams at those resorts as well as at Walt Disney World and Disneyland. Rachel and her teams are responsible for the safety and health of the hundreds of thousands of Cast Members around the world and the millions of Guests who visit Disney each year.
Rachel holds US and European patents for a ride safety system she created in 2003.
Rachel has been married for 28 years to Larry, a jazz musician and stay at home dad to their two children, Lawson (20) and Danielle (17). Lawson is following in his mom’s footsteps studying Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is at the University of Florida and hopes to work in the private space exploration field. Rachel is committed to wellness and has set a goal to run a half marathon in every state.
Chief, Data Science, Co-Director,
Institute for Precision
Cardiovascular Medicine
American Heart Association
Chief, Data Science, Co-Director, Institute for Precision Cardiovascular Medicine
American Heart Association
Dr. Jennifer Hall’s laboratory has been a leader in genomics and human heart failure over the past ten years, identifying genes and signaling pathways that are modified in response to reversal of heart failure or left ventricular remodeling.
Dr. Hall is a past Chair of the Functional Genomics and Translational Biology Council of the American Heart Association and has served on many national and international committees. She holds adjunct professor positions at the University of Minnesota and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School.
Dr. Hall has a Ph.D. in physiology from the University of California Berkeley. She completed postdoctoral fellowships at Stanford and Harvard Schools of Medicine.
CEO
Workhorse
CEO
Workhorse
Duane Hughes is a senior-level executive with operational expertise and more than 20 years’ experience including direct business relationships in the automotive, advertising, and technology segments. Mr. Hughes has served as Chief Executive Officer and as a director since November 2019.
Previously, he served as Chief Operating Officer and President of Workhorse from August 2016 to January 2019. Prior to joining Workhorse, Mr. Hughes was the Chief Operating Officer for Cumulus Interactive Technologies Group where he managed the company’s day-to-day sales and operations of the business unit. Mr. Hughes spent nearly fifteen years in senior management positions with Gannett Co., Inc.
SVP Brand Experience & Innovation
Tavistock Group
SVP Brand Experience and Innovation
Tavistock Group
With more than 20 years of experience creating experiences, Juan Santos has been involved in award-winning, transformational work. Milestones include the first worldwide webcast for Earth Day, Coca-Cola’s loyalty program MyCokeRewards, Mattel’s shift from toys to play through the creation of BarbieGirls.com, and the implementation of the largest autonomous public transit network in Lake Nona.
In his current position as the Senior Vice President of Brand Experience and Innovation at Tavistock, Juan’s focus is to transform Tavistock’s companies and properties through a mix of storytelling and technology. Areas of expertise include “storydoing,” experience design, and smart and responsive cities.
CEO
Rainforest Connection
CEO
Rainforest Connection
Topher has experience building systems for large and small startups and international science projects, including four years working on nuclear fusion at ITER in France. He was named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, a Draper-Richards-Kaplan (DRK) Fellow, and an “Engineering Hero” by the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
With a background in physics, software development and communication, Topher has worked for SLAC Natl Accelerator Lab (High Energy Physics) and the ITER Organization (Nuclear Fusion) and served as CTO for two U.S. startups, where he obtained industry-level experience in software development—the foundation of the Rainforest Connection platform.
SVP, Imagineering R&D, Show,
Ride & Technology
The Walt Disney Company
SVP, Imagineering R&D, Show, Ride & Technology
The Walt Disney Company
Jon Snoddy has lived on the leading edge of entertainment technology his entire career. Prior to heading up Research & Development for Walt Disney Imagineering, Jon worked at NPR and Lucasfilm, started his own companies, and pulled a previous stint at Imagineering developing ride concepts such as the Indiana Jones™ Adventure and founding the original Disney VR Studio.
Today, Jon leads multiple studios within Walt Disney Imagineering: R&D, Ride, Technology, and Show Systems, in the development of new immersive special effects, interactive living characters, Audio-Animatronics® figures, sustainable design practices, collaborative tools, and the next generation of theme parks and resorts.
Board Member, Investor,
former CDO & Software CEO
Board Member, Investor, former CDO & Software CEO
Ganesh Bell is a board member, advisor, and investor living in Silicon Valley. Most recently, he ran Uptake, a leader in industrial AI and fast-growing Enterprise AI worth greater than $2B. Prior to Uptake, he was GE’s first-ever Chief Digital Officer, a position he helped create. As a Corporate Officer of GE, he created the blueprint for digital business, products, platform solutions, new business models, led the largest digital business across energy as business CEO, and helped create GE Digital.
A proven entrepreneur, Bell has held executive positions across a rare mix of global giants, industry leaders, startups, and hyper-growth companies - including enterprise tech leaders like SAP, Peoplesoft, & JDEdwards. His interest and breadth of expertise span platforms, analytics, enterprise applications, industrial tech, digital business, and AI.
He is a frequent keynoter and sought-after thought leader on AI, Future of Work, SaaS & Digital Transformation by CxOs and Boards. He has been featured in business books, leading media, and recognized for his work - Fast Company named him in its list of 100 Most Creative People in Business World.
Founder
Lopez Research
Founder
Lopez Research
Maribel is the founder of Lopez Research, a market research and strategy consulting firm. She’s also the co-founder of the Emerging Technology Research Council, a community of business and technical leaders in Fortune 1000 companies focused on driving innovation and business value by leveraging emerging technologies. Her firm researches mobility, IoT, and AI. Her clients range from start-ups to global firms, including 10 of the Fortune 30.
Maribel is a contributor to Forbes, host of the podcast “Reimagine Hybrid Work,” and author of “Right-Time Experiences.”
Maribel runs Data for Betterment, a non-profit that helps people prepare for job changes as companies embrace the future of work technologies.
Director of Center for
Digital Transformation at
Paul Merage School of Business
UCI
Director of Center for Digital Transformation at Paul Merage School of Business
UCI
Founding Director
Center for Digital Transformation
Taco Bell Endowed Professor of Business and Computer Science
University of California, Irvine
Vijay Gurbaxani is the Founding Director of the Center for Digital Transformation and Taco Bell Endowed Professor of Business and Computer Science at the Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine. His research, teaching, and consulting interests intersect business strategy and digital innovation. His approach is distinctive in its use of economic principles as the lens with which to analyze strategic management questions.
Vijay has extensive experience in management education and advisory services. He has lectured worldwide, taught in degree and executive programs, and provided research expertise to Fortune 500 companies, technology service providers, and consulting firms.
CEO
Constellation Research
CEO
Constellation Research
R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Founder, Chairman, and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast, and authors a business strategy and technology blog that receives millions of page views per month. Wang also serves as a non-resident Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center.
As one of the top technology analysts in the world, Ray has delivered thousands of legendary live and virtual keynotes and spoken at almost every major tech conference. He is the author of the groundbreaking bestselling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business and the upcoming Everybody Wants to Rule The World.
Vice President,
Principal Researcher
Forrester
Vice President, Principal Researcher
Forrester
Michele Goetz serves enterprise architects, chief data officers, and business analysts trying to navigate the complexities of data while running an insight-driven business. Her research covers artificial intelligence technologies and consultancies, semantic technology, data management strategy, data governance, and data integration.
Previous Work Experience
Michele has over 20 years of experience in data management, business intelligence, and analytics. Prior to joining Forrester, she was the VP of marketing at Trillium Software, launching data governance and quality solutions to global enterprises across a variety of industries, including banking, insurance, pharmaceutical, consumer, and energy. At PTC, Michele led customer data management and analytics and established the global data quality and governance program. In addition to Trillium Software and PTC, Michele held various roles in enterprise firms and management consulting, leading research and analytics to identify and forecast market trends, guide go-to-market strategies, gain insight into digital marketing and commerce effectiveness, and support healthcare and pharmaceutical research studies. Michele has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc., Cybertrend, Information Week, Analytics Week, and ITWorld.
Education
Michele holds an undergraduate degree in mathematics, with a minor in computer science, from Framingham State College.
Board Member and
Stanford University Cloud Lecturer
Stanford University
Board Member and Stanford University Cloud Lecturer
Stanford University
Dr. Timothy Chou has been a leader in enterprise cloud computing since returning to Oracle in 1999 to become the President of Oracle On Demand. In that capacity he was one of the early leaders in moving enterprise applications to the cloud. While at Oracle he authored his first landmark book, The End of Software, which foretold the rise of SaaS applications and featured three early stage startups Salesforce, Netsuite and VMWare.
Dr. Chou has been a public company board director since 2000. In 2007 he joined the board of Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB), which provides application cloud services to the nonprofit vertical. And in 2017 he joined the board of Teradata (NYSE: TDC), a leader in enterprise data warehousing and analytics.
More recently he published Precision - Principles, Practices and Solutions for the Internet of Things. The book was recently published in Korea; is in its 3rd printing in Chinese, and the Vietnamese version has been called a guidebook to the future of the economy by the prime minister.
In parallel with his commercial career he has also taught at Stanford University for over thirty years. For fifteen years he taught core computer architecture and only took a break because he had to fly to Bali for a sales kickoff meeting and get back within 36 hours to teach class. After leaving Oracle he went back to Stanford and started the first class on cloud computing anywhere in the world, CS309A (cs309a.stanford.edu).
Dr. Chou has been an advisor, mentor and investor in a number of startup companies, some successful (e.g. Webex) and some not so successful. In 2013 he became the Chairman of Alchemist, a leading enterprise software accelerator. Today he is focused the Pediatric Cloud project, a project to connect all 1,000,000 healthcare machines in all the children’s hospitals in the world and through software and data transform children’s healthcare globally.
Research Affiliate
MIT Sloan Center for Information
Systems Research (CISR)
Research Affiliate
MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research (CISR)
Professor of Information Systems
ESB Business School, Reutlingen University
Research Affiliate
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Martin Mocker is a professor of information systems at ESB Business School, Reutlingen University, Germany and a Research Affiliate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
His teaching and research focus on the digital transformations of large, traditional companies aiming to stay competitive in an increasingly digital economy.
Martin has co-authored the book “Designed for Digital: How to Architect Your Business for Sustained Success.”
Bold leaders. Tech visionaries. Ambitious IT professionals. Hitachi Social Innovation Forum is for those who want to use the power of data to create a better society, environment, and economy.
All the insights, advice, and perspectives you can use today to innovate a better tomorrow. We’ll talk industry leadership, lifting up society, and putting data at the core of your business.
Hear how some of the biggest organizations are revolutionizing data to reshape society, create a more sustainable environment, and protect our future.
