CIO Think Tank

Arun is an accomplished Enterprise Architecture and Digital Transformation executive with over 20 years of experience as an Enterprise Architect, Design Thinker, Futurist, and Solution Engineer. As a people leader, Arun’s core values of empathy, integrity, equality, trust, and continuous learning form the foundation for his leadership philosophy and approach. Arun joined Salesforce ohana in 2016, since then has played a key role in elevating Salesforce's digital transformation motion to the office of customer CxOs. Arun is the founding member of Salesforce Enterprise Architecture, illuminate, and Dreamforce illuminate track. Prior to Salesforce, Arun worked for two early-stage startups - MongoDB and MuleSoft in various Engineering, Sales, and Marketing roles.

I am an experienced executive IT leader, with over two decades of experience in the healthcare IT sector, with a keen focus on strategic, operational, and growth initiatives. My journey showcases consistent growth, moving from hands-on technical roles to leading Information Technology divisions. I have had the privilege of constructing and directing highly efficient teams to execute projects and initiatives of varying scales. This has included tasks as diverse as implementing Electronic Medical Record systems to launching new hospitals and clinics. My accomplishments as a healthcare technology leader include the successful implementation of tech solutions that enhance operational efficiency and curtail costs. I am recognized by customers, peers, and team members as a kind, compassionate, and inspiring leader who cultivates consensus and delivers outstanding results across all domains of a healthcare system.

Over 20 years of proven track record in IT & Business, executing various leadership roles as Technology CTO (Cloud), Head of Enterprise Architecture & Cloud Technologies, Director of IT Infrastructure Shared Services, Solutions Architect, and Business Development Manager. Constructively contributed to the ever growing analytical and technical Business scenarios conceptualizing, implementing and delivering complex Global IT Digital Transformation Programs across NORTAM, EMEA, LATAM and ASPAC with my Technical and Business Management expertise in Business Architecture, Infrastructure Systems Architecture, Data & Application Architecture and Information Security around Cloud Computing. Strategic and delivery focused Senior Technology Leader with deep subject matter expertise. Build cross functional teams by hiring, mentoring several team members and assisting with developing personnel career-paths. Drives alignment of resources, processes and systems to seamlessly support and advance the business strategy of the organization through technology. Adept at planning, leveraging, researching and implementing technologies and effective IT service delivery models to continuously improve all aspects of business. With experience in diverse lines of business across Financial, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Retail, Telecom & Technology, highly effective in understanding business requirements and translating them to Architectural Design Requirements which helps in resolving complex technical issues during implementation, quickly and effectively.

San Jose State University is a public university. It offers higher education, teaching, learning and research. The company was formed in 1857 and is headquartered in San Jose, California.

Danielle Glassner is a highly accomplished representative of UK and Irish government with over 10 years of experience assessing various global policy initiatives. Danielle has played a key role in fostering strong economic ties between the US, UK and Ireland through her work promoting foreign direct investment and trade opportunities for economic growth. She has a strong track record of understanding the needs and interests of the US, UK and European markets resulting in successful business strategies and policy solutions. Danielle formerly served as Deputy Chief of Staff to the British Ambassador to the US during Brexit and Political Advisor to a number of US and UK elected officials. Danielle currently sits on the board of the British American Business Council and GBx.

Aaron Wurthmann is a seasoned CIO and CISO with a diverse background in both IT and cybersecurity, spanning over 25 years. His journey includes the founding of a security startup, working with more than 10 startups, and holding leadership positions in two Fortune 50 enterprises. Aaron’s expertise lies in enhancing capabilities, driving growth, and aligning technology spending with business needs. His strategic and tactical knowledge allows him to build executable visions and run lean organizations. Aaron demonstrates a keen understanding of business maturity levels.

Gopal Bhat is an award-winning technology leader with experience in leading four startups through product and technology build, with successful exits through IPO and unicorn acquisition exits. Gopal’s recent success was building a Marketplace for Sports Card collectibles and leading it through successful acquisition by Fanatics. Gopal’s prior success involves starting a Gartner recognized technology transformation methodology and selling that to IBM, CTO at startups, and CIO at Rakuten. Prior to Rakuten, Gopal held similar leadership roles at Ebates (acquired by Rakuten) and AVG (IPO exit) – an antivirus company where he helped start-up level companies grow their technology teams and evolve application platforms to scale for hundreds of millions of customers. He held senior technology architecture leadership roles at Electronic Arts and Ebay in the past and holds MBA from San Jose State University.

Impossible Foods Inc. is a company that develops plant-based substitutes for meat products. The company was founded in 2011, and headquartered in Redwood City, California.

Zameer leads product marketing for Acrobat for business customers. Success for Zameer is in helping customers transform their business workflows and collaborating on projects to accelerate employee productivity. Having worked across multiple business functions in engineering, sales, consulting and business development, Zameer has a distinct take on customer needs and how to drive impact for businesses. Zameer lives in the Bay area, with his wife, 2 boys and a golden doodle.

Innovative thought leader and influential IT executive with over 20 years experience in the SMB, Midsize and Enterprise markets. Extremely effective communicator, delivering CIO/CTO level leadership, with the ability to build and manage high functioning teams. Excellent relationships manager, with a keen instinct for leveraging technology to generate revenue and new lines of business. Product and project manager, with an impeccable track record of successful deployments across multiple business types. Wide breadth of experience and skill in software and hardware solutions; capable and consistent in delivering the solutions that fit needs and future growth. Strategic planner with a clear understanding of the cloud, managing the digital transformation of data and traditional infrastructure transitions to IaaS, SaaS and PaaS solutions.

Vilas has spent his past work life at Comcast, Netflix, Walmart and Bill building high performance teams that focus their attention on automation, chaos engineering, CI/CD at scale and improving developer productivity across the enterprise by enabling engineers to do more with tools. He recently joined Truckstop to help drive engineering innovations to benefit the transportation and logistics industry.