Kevin Bloch is Chief Technology Officer at Cisco. He provides leadership of technology vision as well as leadership of people within Cisco to communicate and execute on that vision. Kevin is a member of the global Cisco CTO Forum, Cisco's most senior technology leadership board, representing APAC, Japan and China.

Kevin joined Cisco 12 years ago. Previously, he held positions with other telecommunications equipment manufacturers and service providers. He has held several roles in the information and communications industry including management, strategic planning, marketing, sales, systems engineering and technology development. His expertise covers the fields of architecture, online services, internet technologies, broadband and telecommunications.

Kevin holds a B.Sc (Computer Science) and a B.E. (Engineering Hons) from the University of New South Wales and is the author of several publications and technical reference books.

Richard Dodsworth
Chief Technology Officer, Unified Communications and Collaboration, Asia Pacific
Cisco

Richard Dodsworth joined Cisco Systems in the UK in 1996 before transferring to Singapore in 2001 and most recently moving to Adelaide, Australia in 2010. His 20+ years of experience in the telecommunications industry has included time with UB Networks and as a civil servant in the Australian Government. As the CTO for Unified Communications and Collaboration in Asia-Pacific he provides guidance and technology direction to Cisco's sales teams and customers in the region. He certified as a CCIE in 1995, and is the holder of a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Adelaide, Australia. When not travelling for work, or more commonly nowadays meeting people on a TelePresence call, he enjoys going to the theatre and movies with his wife and being challenged to the latest online game one of his 3 children has discovered on the Internet.

Mark Krischer
Chief Technology Officer, Borderless Networks – Asia Pacific and Japan
Cisco

Mark Krischer is the CTO for Borderless Networks - Asia Pacific and Japan. Mark has over 15 years experience across Mobility and Security technologies, and joined Cisco as part of the Radiata acquisition in 2001 where he was the Director of Software Engineering. As part of Cisco's Wireless Networking Business Unit he was involved in the initial design work responsible for such technologies as EAP-FAST (IETF RFC 4851) and Management Frame Protection (802.11w). Prior to his involvement in wireless, Mark worked as part of BBN Technologies' Network Security group where he focused on Intrusion Detection and the application of PKI to secure networking protocols and applications. Through his engineering work, Mark holds 11 patents related to wireless and security. Mark received his Masters of Engineering Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of NSW in Sydney, Australia, and a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, where he graduated magna cum laude.

John Manville
Vice President of the IT Network and Data Centre Services
Cisco

John Manville is Vice President of the IT Network and Data Centre Services team at Cisco. In this role, Manville leads the strategy and operations for the networks and Data Centres that provide technology infrastructure services for Cisco's global workforce of more than 65,000 people. His focus is on addressing critical business requirements while maintaining a balance of operational excellence and innovation. Among other achievements, Manville successfully led the transformation of his group to a lifecycle-based model, which improved a variety of operational metrics, increased service availability, and improved user experience. Manville joined Cisco in 2007. Prior to Cisco, he held a variety of positions in IT with several Wall Street financial companies. He began his career as a network engineer designing packet switching networks for cable and wireless customers in the UK. Manville holds an electrical and electronic engineering degree from University College, London University, and an executive master's degree in technology management from the University of Pennsylvania.

Technology trends come and go, so it's important to recognise the hallmarks of change that can indicate an evolutionary phase in our industry which will affect many business models. Listen to software and networking experts discuss the considerations of improving the relationship between applications and infrastructure – from API to ASIC. How can SDN optimise business agility? Use-cases for SDN? How does an existing network migrate to SDN?

Everyone wants greater extensibility and flexibility in leveraging their network, but how quickly will new technologies be adopted and how soon can you realise the benefits implied by software-defined networking solutions? Join us in this pragmatic, interactive and invigorating conversation!

The 'dynamic networked organisation' is rapidly becoming a business imperative. Technology continues to rise as a key external factor for CEOs globally and it is having a pervasive impact on business operations beyond IT - on staff, partners, customers and brand. As a result, CIOs will likely assume more prominence in the executive team. The question for the CIO is how to respond and be prepared?

Here is your opportunity to hear directly from some of Australia's leading CIOs. How will they address challenges such as complexity and agility? Obtain insight into the type of people and skills they will look for in their teams such that they can address these challenges. Attend this panel to obtain senior IT management input on options for your future career.

Jay Joiner is the IT Vice President for the Asia Pacific Region. This includes the APAC, China and Japan Theatres, where he is responsible for developing the local relationship with executives and business stakeholders. He also serves as the IT Leader for the region representing all IT functions.

Jay comes to Cisco as a Business and Information Technology executive with broad experience in Engineering, Construction Management, Manufacturing and Consulting Services. Over his 35 year career, Jay has had extensive global experience in IT infrastructure deployments, offshore programs, strategic outsourcing, ERP implementation, technology strategies, shared services and program management.

Prior to joining Cisco, Jay was with Fluor Corporation based in Shanghai, China, where he was responsible for managing the Business Office functions (Finance, Human Resources, Administration, IT and Prime Contract Management) associated with a $6.0 Billion USD Copper and Gold Mine Project located in the Southern Gobi Desert region of Mongolia. Prior to this operational assignment he was the Fluor IT Executive responsible for Global IT Service Delivery and IT Shared Services.

V C Gopalratnam: As the leader of IT Globalisation, V. C. Gopalratnam (Gopal) is responsible for providing key IT enablers to help Cisco connect emerging and mature markets and thereby equalise its interactions with employees, partners, and customers around the world. His team focuses on unifying core business and technology architectures to deliver innovation, operational excellence, and improved client experience through its IT Centers of Excellence (CoEs), regional teams, and global programs. In his role as the IT leader for Cisco's Asia Pacific and emerging markets countries, Gopal manages a group of regional executives who are chartered to establish Cisco IT as a trusted advisor, with internal business leaders and Cisco's customers and partners. He is also a core member of Cisco's executive leadership team in India.

Gopal has worked in the hi-tech industry for over 20 years in consulting, re-engineering, management, and leadership capacities for multinational corporations. He has extensive skills in areas of information technology; risk management; supply chain services; compliance and auditing; and business process re-engineering. Over this career, Gopal has always maintained focus on metrics-driven success and growth for global businesses.

Marcus Keane
Principal Network Engineer
Microsoft

Marcus has been working in the networking industry for 15 years, almost all of which at Microsoft. He started as an implementation engineer in Microsoft Dublin and moved to Tokyo to manage network implementation for Microsoft Asia. After two and half years, he moved with Microsoft to Sydney where he has been working since. He currently works as a member of the core backbone group and main responsibility is IPv6, MPLS and managing global routing for the Microsoft corporate network.

Ben Kelly
Member of Technical Staff
Cisco

Ben has been working in the networking industry for 18 years. He started his time at Cisco in 1997 as a TAC customer support engineer. Ben has worked in several technical roles at Cisco, specialising in routing and switching. He has worked in Cisco Internal IT since 2003 and focused on Data Centre for the past 5 years. He is currently a Member of Technical Staff. Ben has held his CCIE in routing and switching for more than 10 years.

The concept of Bringing Your Own Device (BYOD) into the workplace environment is in full swing, creating an entire new set of issues for CIO's and IT departments, as both "mobility" and "IT consumerisation" invades the enterprise. How does an IT department cope with the proliferation of smart devices, dealing with issues such as access, security and management? Theft, device insecurity, poorly developed apps, corporate data accessibility – these are but a few of the realities that IT departments will have to face when traveling down the BYOD road. Hear from our panel of experts and how they are managing with this growing phenomenon.

Mark Krischer is the CTO for Borderless Networks - Asia Pacific and Japan.

Mark has over 15 years' experience across Mobility and Security technologies, and joined Cisco as part of the Radiata acquisition in 2001 where he was the Director of Software Engineering.

As part of Cisco's Wireless Networking Business Unit he was involved in the initial design work responsible for such technologies as EAP-FAST (IETF RFC 4851) and Management Frame Protection (802.11w).

Prior to his involvement in wireless, Mark worked as part of BBN Technologies' Network Security group where he focused on Intrusion Detection and the application of PKI to secure networking protocols and applications.

Through his engineering work, Mark holds 11 patents related to wireless and security.

Mark received his Masters of Engineering Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of NSW in Sydney, Australia, and a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, where he graduated magna cum laude.

Justin Cooke
Architect
Cisco

Justin has spent the last 21 years in the Computer Networking industry from implementation to design. For the last 11 years Justin has worked at Cisco as a Systems Engineer. The first 5 years in Cisco Justin worked in the Asia Pacific region supporting Cisco's largest global customers. More recently he has worked in Australia and New Zealand. Justin specialises in Data Centre technologies and was one of the technical reviews for the Cisco press book on Cisco Unified Computing System.

Brad Engstrom
Product Sales Specialist
Cisco

Brad Engstrom currently works in the Cisco Australia Data Centre Group focusing on development of cloud architecture. This includes market introduction of products and protocols to support private, public and hybrid cloud environments. He has worked in the field of IP communications for over 20 years in the US, Europe and Australia focusing on IP network architectures and security. Brad has a Masters degree in Computer Science from the University of California and has achieved CCIE, APC-DCU, and CISSP certifications.

Dylan Morison
Director, Sales Operation APAC – Data Centre & Cloud
Cisco

Dylan Morison is the APAC Data Centre & Cloud Director of Sales operation. In his role Dylan is responsible for leading the BDM sales teams helping customers transform their Data Centre environment. This includes the next-generation Cisco Unified Computing System, Nexus Series Switches and key programs building a highly optimised platform for virtualisation and cloud services.

Key to Dylan's role is the management of Cisco’s Data Centre ecosystem of partners, which include VMware, EMC, HDS, Microsoft, Citrix & Emmerson.

Dylan has been with Cisco for more than 13 years and has played a number of key roles in switching and storage hardware, software and systems architecture development across Cisco. The past five years have been as the Data Centre GM for Australia and New Zealand.

Prior to joining Cisco, Dylan was business development manager at Ninemsn and account executive at Techpacific.

Dylan has held positions on the SNIA board helping to promote the storage networking and information management industries.

The explosion of Mobile devices, the internet of things and richness of telemetry information that is being generated is resulting in a deluge of information that traditional structured database technology cannot handle. The volume, variety and velocity of data has reached a point that new approaches are required. These "Big data" techniques have the potential to turn data into information and insight, providing unique business perspectives into operations, customers and the business environment. This panel session will assemble experts to share their insights and experiences in this dynamic data–centric landscape.

Adam has spent the last twenty three years in the Computer Networking industry in a variety of roles, from research, implementation, design and architecture. For the last twelve years he has been with Cisco firstly as a Systems Engineer, then as a Consulting Systems Engineer.

Five years ago, he was appointed to the role of Consulting Systems Architect, working with Cisco's largest customers across the ANZ region on strategy and direction. Adam has a breadth and depth of technology interests and enjoys staying abreast of Cisco's rapid technology expansion.

Adam is no stranger to public presentations, having presented at many Cisco and industry events for the past twelve years. In addition, he was the technology lead for both Cisco Networkers and Technology Solutions Roadshow for the past four years. In his limited spare time, Adam enjoys both coaching and participating in triathlon.

Paul Gillis
Senior Domain Architect
Commonwealth Bank

Paul Gillis is a Senior Domain Architect with over 30 years of experience in the Higher Education and Banking and Finance industries.

Currently working within CBA's ICT Strategy team, Paul collaborates with the Bank's Architecture and Engineering teams to insure the alignment of strategy with execution.

John Mann
Network Architect
Monash University

Over the last 25 years, John has worked on re-creating, expanding and improving the Monash network in order to provide a highly-capable platform for education and research.

John has been creating and managing IPv6 services at Monash since 2001. He is responsible for Monash's DNS, IP addressing and routing, and is currently involved hands-on with various higher-level network management, security, and e-Research projects.

David Robertson
Director Transport & Routing Engineering Network & Access Technologies, Telstra Operations
Telstra

David is responsible for strategy, budget, delivery, lifecycle and planning management of Telstra's transport and routing network infrastructure. This includes design of all technology platforms in Telstra's IP/MPLS Core, Aggregation/Edge, Control, Next IP, Corporate and Transport including Optical, SDH, PDH, DWDM, Satellite and Fixed Radio environments.

David has accountability for the management of the implementation of Telstra's IPv4 to IPv6 transition strategy across all technology domains. Additionally, David leads the design and delivery of an ASP network for interworking into the Next Broadband Network within Australia and the evolution of Ethernet Service compliant to MEF Standards.

With a career spanning over 25 years with Telstra, David brings a strong operational management style from working in many roles within Network Operations across various technologies such as PSTN, IN, Messaging, Access, IP and Routing. During the initial stages of Telstra's wireline transformation, David moved across in to engineering to help deliver Telstra's IP/MPLS Core, consolidation of the PE layer, multi service edge to replace the passport network and the subsequent successful migration of all Telstra's ATM / frame relay services. This included the responsibility for the final execution of Telstra's wireline transformation program and system integration.