FSVCA 2005 CIO Panel

"Customers Speak"

Working in a world where the pace of change constantly accelerates, today's IT leaders are expected to protect production, increase development and delivery capacity, and optimize across projects, platforms, people and processes-all the while continuing to innovate. For start ups selling to enterprise clients this is both an opportunity and a challenge.

The financial services sector is incredibly dynamic.  The industry defines its competitive advantage through IT.  In our discussion we will find out exactly where some of the nation's leading and most active IT customers are looking to build out their infrastructure and how they're incorporating start-ups in their plans.

	Where the pain points are in today's corporate IT organizations
	Where CIOs are most likely to try something new
	What differentiates solutions providers and what would likely disqualify a provider
	How to overcome the disadvantages of being a start-up in the face of consolidation and fewer providers
	What mechanisms are effective in opening CIO doors and closing deals

Guest Speakers 

Moderator:

Doron J. Cohen
Vice President, Research Director 
Gartner Group 

Doron Cohen is Vice President and Research Director, Financial Services, at Gartner Group. Previously he was senior vice president and chief information officer of Canada Life. He has developed and implemented successive generations of innovative, enterprise wide organizational and technology strategies. Prior to joining Canada Life, Dr. Cohen was a Research Director of Marketing and IT Business Management with the Research and Advisory Services division of Gartner Group. His research focused on the strategic business value expectations from IT investments in the fast evolving eBusiness marketplace. Prior to joining Gartner Group in 1999, he served as the CIO of the TransCanada group of companies, where he directed the integration of diverse IT organizations across international borders, contributing to the success of the corporation's growth-by-acquisition strategy. Before joining TransCanada, Dr. Cohen served as CIO of the Kidd Creek mining company and as the Director of Computing Services for the University of Toronto. In addition to his work experience, he has served on the faculties of the Universities of Waterloo and Toronto, McGill University and the Technion. 

Panellsts:

Asiff Hirji
Chief Operating Officer 
Ameritrade Holding Corporation 

Asiff Hirji oversees the technology, operations, and business development functions at Ameritrade. Hirji is also one of three members of the executive management team serving in the Office of the Chief Executive. Joining Ameritrade in April 2003, Hirji has nearly twenty years experience at the nexus of financial services and technology. Previously he served as Ameritrade's Chief Information Officer and led the technology integration through the Datek merger. He joined Ameritrade from Bain & Company where he was a leader of their IT Strategy practice. Prior to that, Hirji was President and Chief Technology Officer for Netfolio, Inc., an online investment advisor that he took through the entire lifecycle from initial inception to growth and sale. He was also a founding member and Partner of the Mitchell Madison Group, which he helped grow into the second largest financial services strategic consultancy in the world before its sale for a then record sum. 

Hirji received an M.B.A with Honors from The University of Western Ontario and a B.Sc. in Computer Science from The University of Calgary. 

R. Corey Booth 
Chief Information Officer 
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission 

Corey Booth oversees the agency wide information technology program at the Securities and Exchange Commission. He has been at the SEC since January 2004, and since then has undertaken a large-scale effort to reorganize the IT function and recruit additional staff. The SEC is undergoing significant change in the wake of the past several years of financial scandals, and has substantially expanded its enforcement and examination programs, while also introducing significant regulatory changes affecting participants in the securities markets. Within the IT function, Mr. Booth's strategic priorities include improving the agency's ability to conduct legal discovery and examinations; automate internal business processes through workflow management, document management and related tools; enhance the data provided to investors through the EDGAR system; and improve IT management processes such as information security and project management. 

Prior to joining the SEC, Mr. Booth was a consultant with McKinsey and Company, a global strategic consulting firm, where he was a leader in the banking and securities and information technology practices. He has an MBA from Stanford University and a bachelor's degree in economics and English literature from Washington University in St. Louis. 

Mark Sanders
CTO, John A. Levin & Co. 

Mr. Sanders is CTO of John A. Levin & Co., and the current President of the Wall Street Technology Association. He is past Chairman of the Securities Industry Associations (SIA) Technology Management Committee, and served on the Committee & Securities Industry Root Certificate Authority (SIRCA). In addition, Mark spent seven years as a Senior Director and Chief Technologist for Merrill Lynch and Company based in New York in charge of the technology products and services that reached the end-users in Fixed Income, Equities, Investment Banking, Middle Markets and Retail banking. This included Merrill Lynch Online, internal web and client server-based applications, database design and development, systems integration, QA, Internet services and disaster recovery. Mark also spent four years as Chief Network Architect of Salomon Brothers where he directed the planning, implementation and operations of the firm's global Internet network and before that developed Sun Microsystems' network services business. Mr. Sanders holds a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and an executive MBA in management. He also attended the MIT Sloan School of Management's CISR Summer Session for Management as well as graduating from The United States Navy's Engineering Training and Submarine Warfare School. Mr. Sanders serves as a technical advisor to Chess Ventures.