Conversations With Dez

I caught up with Zee Hussain, Senior Vice President Global Business - Finance, Healthcare and Industry Solutions, at AT&T Business, to learn about an AT&T Business initiative focused on the connected future of air travel, to discover how innovative, networked technologies are revolutionising the passenger experience, and what airports can do to solve traditional passenger pain points with connected solutions. Key areas of focus for this initiative include: ● Transforming air travel ● Staying on schedule ● Checking in ● Lost baggage ● Streamlining security ● Passenger confidence ● Better boarding In this conversation Zee and I discuss a range work being doing around “the connected future of air travel” and everything around Transforming Air Travel, from Staying on Schedule, Checking in, Lost Baggage, Streamlining Security, challenges around Passenger Confidence, Better Boarding and more. ● Transforming air travel We kick off with Zee sharing insights into what in particular gave rise to the opportunity to

I caught up with Sarita Rao, President of Integrated & Partner Solutions at AT&T Business, to talk about her new role, and the always-changing, ever-evolving technology ecosystem. Last time I spoke with Sarita back in April 2019 at the RSA security conference in San Francisco, she was in a very different role, so we kicked off with Sarita giving us a brief outline of her current role, one she’s held for over a year now as President, Integrated & Partner Solutions for AT&T Business, and some of the key focus areas the role entails. We then discuss 5G and the amazing applications it has and will bring us, and in particular how 5G is just part of the bigger picture. Sarita shares her thoughts around why business leaders need to be looking at the whole ecosystem of Devices, IoT sensors, cloud-based solutions, all the way through to edge computing, and how all of these components are part of the “tech ecosystem” puzzle. We delve into what the phrase “tech ecosystem” means in Saritas’ world, and what the essent

I caught up with Alicia Dietsch, Senior Vice President of Business Marketing for AT&T Business, to talk about her role, the topic of Business of Human marketing, and a look back at the impact of the year that was 2021. We kick off with Alicia sharing a brief outline of what a “day in the life of Alicia Dietsch” is like in her role as Senior Vice President of Business Marketing for AT&T Business and the key focus areas her role entails. The key topics we cover in this discussion include: - Business to Human marketing, what it means, and why it matters - A short “2021 year in review” & looking at lessons learned - How 2021 caused “Shifts in customer expectations” We wrap up this conversation with a view of what do Alicia thinks is coming over the horizon in the next 12 to 18 months, and in particular what decision makers should be considering as they look to the short to medium term future. Tune in now for all of these amazing topics and more. This podcast was made in partnership with AT&T Business. Fo

I caught up with Bernard Yee, who is the Region President for both Asia Pacific & Canada, at AT&T Global Services, on my podcast, to discuss his role, how Industry 4.0 is gaining very real momentum and why, where 5G is transforming manufacturing across Asia Pacific, how & why 5G is consistently powering intelligent Industry 4.0 infrastructure needs, and how SASE enables secure remote access to cloud-based applications for manufacturers. We kick off with Bernard sharing what a day in the life is like currently for him and his role, a brief look at the various impacts of the last two years of the SARS-CoV2 pandemic have bene, key insights into his role as Region President, for both the Asia Pacific and Canada markets for AT&T Business, and what some of the key focus areas his role entails. The key topics we cover in this amazing discussion include: 1 - How Industry 4.0 on 5G will transform manufacturing across Asia Pacific in the next few years 2 - Where 5G is providing the power and consistency that intel

As online shopping rates remain high due to the impacts of COVID-19, sustainability is more important to Australian consumers than ever before. I caught up with Daniel Osborne, Marketing Director APAC at Manhattan Associates, Tom Ferrier, Founder, Greener, and Rob Hango-Zada, Co-Founder & Joint CEO, Shippit to get the inside scoop on a new research report ‘Sustainability in the Australian Retail Supply Chain’ commissioned by Manhattan Associates, Shippit and Greener. This research was run in partnership with both the National Retail Association (NRA) and National Online Retail Association (NORA). Manhattan Associates, Shippit and Greener undertook this exciting research study with the broad goal of looking at the key challenges Australian retailers and their customers face, when it comes to sustainability, and to investigate the associated invisible costs on the environment due to increasing efforts by retailers to get orders out the door faster. Challenges & issues across the industry included: + Split

I caught up with Rupesh Chokshi, Vice President of AT&T Cybersecurity at AT&T Business, to get a preview of his two presentations for the upcoming 2021 AT&T Business “Business Summit” titled “Reinventing Reality”. AT&T Business are hosting their annual Business Summit in a virtual format this year, on October 27th & 28th, 2021 in American Central Time (CT) time zone. Registration is free! There’s a link below to register. Featured speakers this year include: + Anne Chow, Chief Executive Officer of AT&T Business + Indra Nooyi, former Chairman & CEO of PepsiCo + Shaquille O’Neal, American basketball star & philanthropist + Over 60 sessions across the two days. Rupesh is actually presenting two talks this year, which are titled: 1. The Age of Cybersecurity: + Connecting and protecting your business in a digital world + scheduled for October 28 at 11am CT 2. Cybersecurity and Edge Networking: + Delivering the next level of enterprise protection + scheduled for October 28 at 2pm CT Without giving away to

I caught up with Stacey Marx, President, National Business & Channels, AT&T Business on my podcast, to discuss the recent success stories around how AT&T Business have worked with and supported their customers through the last 12 to 18 months now leading up to, and during the global #COVID19 pandemic. In her role as president of National Business & Channels, Stacey leads a team of over six thousand professionals, dedicated to partnering with over three million small and medium business customers, to help them achieve growth and maximise their potential with technology innovation by leveraging the broad range of products & services AT&T Business can offer. In this fireside chat we cover some of the latest trends, business & technology challenges and opportunities small business operators should be considering as they look at the road forward coming out of a pandemic. We kicked off with my usual "get to know you", Stacey shares insights into her role, the remit and challenges of "a day in the life of Stacey

I had the pleasure of catching up with Aashu Virmani, Vice President & Client Partner, Communications, at Cyient. In this episode we discuss a range of topics such as 5G, industry 4.0, private networks, next generation network technology, and how leading organisations and Cyient customers, are leveraging Next Generation Networks and 5G to build private networks and drive Business Operations Transformation by leveraging new and innovative Use Cases and gain real and immediate Return On Investment opportunities, esp. in Utilities, Port & Rail, and Energy market segments. We kicked off with insights from Aashu around: - What 5G is all about and what it means for enterprise transformation. - Industry 4.0 being enabled by 5G - Key capabilities 5G offers Enterprises. Aashu then outlined how Next Generation Networks offer a broad range of different architectures enterprises can consider when implementing private networks with a plethora of design patterns enterprises can consider in this space, for example: -

I had the pleasure of catching up with Alex MacPherson, Director of Solution Consulting & Account Management at Manhattan Associates. In this episode we discuss a range of topics around supply chain, and in particular “micro-fulfilment”, the latest news around these topics, some amazing success stories Manhattan Associates have been able to support customers achieve through the COVID19 journey thus far, and how micro-fulfilment can offer significant benefits to organisations who are able to leverage this approach. #1 - Alex’s role and what a “day in the life” of Alex MacPherson entails We kick off with a brief introduction from Alex, the remit of his role as both Director of Solution Consulting & Account Management, the types of challenges he and his team at Manhattan Associates help customers address, and what “a day in the life of Alex MacPherson” entails. #2 - What is Micro-fulfilment and why is it a “game changer” Alex then gives us an overview of what Micro-Fulfilment means in the world of Supply Ch

I had the pleasure of catching up with Val Bercovici, Founder & CEO at Chainkit, a Software-as-a-Service company that builds cyber security solutions, with a corporate mission to eliminate blind spots in cyber security and data privacy. Today we discuss Chainkit & Data Protection, Chains of Custody, and Blockchains - topics CXOs are unlikely to have ever faced in their careers thus far, but now have no option. #1 - Cyber attacks & Ransomware incidents continue at eye watering levels We discuss the significant increase in Cyber attacks & Ransomware incidents - we kickoff with Val sharing his take on the current state of what appears to be a tsunami of new incidents of cybersecurity challenges and resulting ransomware incidents, particularly focused on the healthcare industry which understandably was set to occur in light of the fact that the world is dealing with a global pandemic with COVID19, cyber criminals are never slow to take advantage of any opportunity where chinks in the armour appear in any plac

I caught up with with with Ken Grohe, President & Chief Revenue Officer at WekaIO, to talk about Weka the company, their WekaFS "file system", the Weka journey to date, news trends, challenges & opportunities for Weka and their ecosystem of partners, integrators, resellers and customers, and how 2020 has impacted life around WekaIO. We kick off with a quick introduction by Ken of his role, both pre and post #COVID19, as well as a high level overview of the company, with some interesting key insights into successes Weka have had in their journey to date as a startup ( as Ken describes it ). In this show our conversation focuses on the following key topics: 1 - WekaIO the company, the WekaFS filesystem, and the Weka journey so far I ask Ken to start us off with a high level introduction to WekaIO the company, your WekaFS filesystem, and some of the key highlights of the journey so far to get to where you are today. We discuss the attention on emerging high growth markets around Machine Learning, Artifici

I caught up with with Jim Dworkin, Sr. Director of Cloud Business Unit at Intel PSG, to talk about the latest news, trends, insights and offerings around Field Programable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) from Intel and surrounding areas from Data Centres, Infrastructure from Servers to Networks, to the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Edge networking and compute and much more. In this show we have a fantastic combination of business and technology insights into how key CXO and Senior Business & Technology decision makers can gain real world immediate gains by leveraging the amazing technology and supporting ecosystem or partners, resellers, integrators et al and the Intel teams around the world - this is not a show to miss, just push play now. Our conversation covers the following and much much more: 1. Current macro trends driving development/adoption of FPGAs/eASICs We kick off with Jim sharing insights around what Jim and his team at Intel are currently seeing currently around the world as far as cur

I caught up with Jason Inskeep, Director of the 5G Center of Excellence at AT&T Business, to discuss the latest trends, business & technology challenges and opportunities organisations should be talking about from within their board rooms down, both strategically and operationally. We kicked off with my usual "get to know you", Jason shared some amazing anecdotes and background from his early life, influences and key things which shaped his life, peers, mentors, and wonderful insights into his life growing up in a rural farm environment, and the solid foundations his parents and in particular his father gave him - all of which has clearly held him in good stead through his life so far, all of which I can relate to from my own life - we had a lot more in common than I had anticipated in fact, a very pleasant surprise. Our conversation then delved into three key focus areas which I've been keen to discuss with Jason for a while - including: #1 - What does “Mobility” mean inside the AT&T Business 5G Center o

I caught up with George DeCandio, Chief Technology Officer - Mainframe Software Division, Broadcom, and Peter Wassel, Director of Product Management & Strategy - Mainframe Software Division, Broadcom, to talk about the latest in Mainframe DevOps and what Broadcom are doing to help their Mainframe clients unlock the value of their Mainframe applications with modern tooling and processes, such as DevOps, and via open interfaces. We kick off with an overview from both George and Peter of the Challenges and opportunities on the mainframe from a DevOps perspective, with some great insights into what is happening within the world inside Broadcom as well as throughout their ecosystem of partners and customers. We then look at the various impacts and potential for opening up the mainframe, the general opportunities of Mainframe DevOps into the opportunities in opening up the mainframe - we discuss Broadcom’s open-first message, and why being low-opinion & non-prescriptive is valuable and why that approach matters f

I recently caught up with Martha Delehanty, Chief People Officer at Commvault to talk about her role, the amazing journey she and the company have had through in year 2020, and what it has been like to start a exciting new role with an amazing company like Commvault, right at the point where the #COVID19 global pandemic hit, and be faced with the broad array of challenges which came with such an extraordinary event. Having just joined Commvault right around the time COVID19 hit North America, a time when the company was already going through significant transformation starting in 2019 – with a new CEO and other leadership changes, the acquisition of Hedvig, the launch of a startup inside the company called Metallic, driving continued innovation, etc. - Martha shares what the journey was like bearing in mind she came in to help with people transformation while honouring 20-year heritage. Martha also shares insights around how her initial focus when joining the company was to advance the companies Inclusion &

I recently caught up with Per Kroll, Senior Director of R&D, Broadcom Mainframe Division, to talk about #AI Ops, Mainframes and connecting Mainframes to the Cloud, the latest news and trends within the Mainframe and related tech and business markets, and what's new inside the Mainframe Division of Broadcom, in particular, the world of Research and Development which Per heads up. We kick off the conversation by getting to know Per as he shares some amazing anecdotes around his early years in life and work, from his academic and working career, and what drove him to get into AI Ops and the Mainframe world. We then discuss key topics around how the Mainframe creates a better Hybrid Cloud - and the shifts enabling it. Per has spent most of his career on distributed side, and over the last 6 years, he led the evolution of DevOps and AIOps solutions for the Mainframe - with all of that in mind, Per shares what he sees are the key trends that you have observed on the mainframe over the last few years. Per also sh

I recently caught up with Rupesh Chokshi, Assistant Vice President, Edge Solutions Product Marketing Management at AT&T Business, to discuss the latest news, trends and offerings from AT&T Business around Edge, Software Defined Infrastructure ( SDI ), Software Defined Networking ( SDN ), network function virtualisation (NFV) and SD-WAN technologies and much more. Rupesh leads the Enterprise Edge product marketing team for AT&T Business which focuses on product management, strategy and business development. He manages a significant global portfolio of market-leading, innovative technology solutions. We look at how the AT&T Business "Enterprise Edge" team are transforming services and networks using software-defined networking (SDN), network function virtualisation (NFV) and SD-WAN technologies. Rupesh shares with us insights around work AT&T has done as they have invested in the development of world leading software-based solutions at the edge to create value for customers that are agile and scalable. Thes

I caught up with with Alexis Crowell, IOT Marketing Global Lead for Data Platforms Group at Intel Corporation, to talk about the latest news, trends, insights and offerings from Intel in the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and Edge market sectors globally. Our conversation kicks off with Alexis sharing some fun anecdotes and insights into her early life, her academic and working career path, and how she came to be with Intel and her amazing role. Alexis then gives us an amazing 30,000 foot view outline of what Intel is seeing regarding current macro trends around AI at the Edge, with some of the current macro trends regarding AI at the Edge. In particular we delve into some of the challenges Alexis sees as being the next frontier of enterprise transformation, how Data-driven experiences – AI from data centers, to software, to outer edges of the networks, and how Data and compute closest to the point of interaction will transform data driven decision making, and some of the challenges around br

I had the opportunity to catch up with Sebastian LeFebure, Managing Director for France & Southern Europe, Manhattan Associates, to discuss the shifting world of retail in a post-pandemic world. In this fireside chat podcast conversation we discuss a range of key business & technology topics around the current state of the rapid evolution & innovation taking place in and around supply chains - and the challenges of meeting shifting consumer demands & expectations across the global retail industry, and the technology Manhattan Associates make available to their customers to meet these challenges and more. Sebastian heads up Manhattan’s French & Southern Europe business with a team of over 150 world leading supply chain, logistics & technology experts. We kicked off with a great view into Sebastian's life, his early years and inspirations, and what set him on the amazing path of business, technology and the amazing world of supply chains. Sebastian delves into one of the biggest questions being tabled in bo

I caught up with Vikas Sinha, Vice President, Global Customer Experience & Strategic Alliances for Broadcom’s Mainframe Software Division to talk about the latest news and trends, his role, and business unit, and the exciting new offering from Broadcom's Mainframe Software Division called "Win No Fee". We start out with a 30,000 food "point of view" outline of what the Win No Fee offering is, where it fits within Broadcom's overall strategy and products & services, and how customers have been taking it up to drive successful outcomes. Vikas also shares the latest news around what Broadcom is doing with their Digital Badges programme, and other skill-building/enhancing initiatives such as their Vitality programme, and other Education and Community building efforts. Also discussed is the broad topic of events and how 2020 has impacted that space, and what Vikas and his team and Broadcom Mainframe Division have been doing in response to the need to pivot and address the challenges brought about by the #COVID1