Patrick Conroy

Principal Architect

With over 30 years in software development, Patrick Conroy has held positions in pharmaceuticals, medical diagnostic instrumentation, telecommunications and consumer goods. His current role is that of principal architect at a Colorado-based consumer electronics organization. He still enjoys all things software-related, with a special fondness for exploring home automation, IoT technologies and event-driven architectures. When not in front of a monitor, he enjoys spending time with his wife and three sons in the Rocky Mountains.

“Gartner Peer Connect has been useful and enjoyable. I feel that I have consumed far more information from others than I’ve shared. Several online threads have culminated in phone conversations; getting to meet my peers, albeit virtually, is a pleasure. Meeting others with shared experience, building upon that common platform, finding new paths forward, has been a tremendous benefit for me and my organization.”

Paul Devalier

CIO

Paul Devalier is the CIO of a European Union agency, where he finished a complete transformation and modernization of IT into a digital platform. He has served as CIO of a leading multinational enterprise, deploying a very broad range of corporate solutions, both customer-facing and involving real-time engineering. With 30 years of experience in finance, technology and business process management, he advises management boards and seniors leaders on digital transformation and cultural change.

“Peer Connect is my go-to daily portal for solving real-world problems together with real-world practice with fellow CIOs. The general research is great for a midterm forecast or midterm synthesis of what is happening in the world of technology, but when I need an answer now from someone in my shoes, I go to Peer Connect.”

Jeremy Gibbons

Enterprise Architect

With a strong passion for forms of technology, Jeremy Gibbons has been involved in IT infrastructure for over 15 years, first as an enterprise networking consultant, then as head of a network engineering team during a major IT transformation program. In his current role over the past four years, he has been heavily involved in the group’s digital transformation across a wide variety of topics, including its shift to the public cloud, data and analytics programs, IoT platforms, security roadmaps and more.

“I have been an avid user and contributor to Peer Connect for three years now. Having near-immediate access to a constantly active community of people who are in similar roles and facing similar problems as I am is invaluable to me, particularly because community members feel they can really debate openly about the topics at hand.”

Ivan Kahn

President

Ivan Kahn is a former commercial pilot, technical editor, in-flight video director, marketing manager, and head of IT technology and strategy. As president of his organization, he looks for opportunities to form, acquire and invest in companies with solid growth and profit potential over the long term. He also holds an Airline Transport Pilot license, is a master scuba diver, and a volunteer diver at the Georgia Aquarium and at the Coral Restoration Foundation in Key Largo, Florida.

Sunil Rananavare

Sr. Enterprise Architect

Sunil Rananavare has been an independent consultant for almost five years, providing enterprise-architecture-related consulting. Prior to that, he managed enterprise architecture, software development and infrastructure teams in various organizations. With a solid foundation as a software/system developer, he served as a solution architect in various sectors (finance, insurance, telecom, software engineering, automotive and government), and also was a consultant with various business consulting firms. He has had the good fortune to work on three continents during his career.

“I have been a Gartner user for almost a decade now under various roles, and have been supported by Gartner with their in-depth and timely research and guidance on numerous areas of information and technology. I find Peer Connect a very useful forum where you can connect with your peers in the IT industry to understand current trends in technologies and challenges as they come. On many occasions I have received kind support and very good advice from peers on various tactical and strategic issues. I love to share my perspective and facts whenever I can on topics that I have good knowledge and experience in, and contribute to the Peer Connect community, which in my view is one of the most ‘real’ forums where you get honest answers from people who have firsthand experience in the area of the topic.”

Abdullah Al Rashdi

IM&T Chief Architect

Abdullah Al Rashdi has more than 20 years of experience in IT project management, IT risk management, IT infrastructure optimization, data center design and implementations, IT strategy and strategic roadmap development and enterprise architecture. His focus has always been on ensuring alignment by achieving corporate objectives through IT strategy, and his career has been marked by responsibilities in both business and IT domains.

“If Gartner research provides strategic direction and market intelligence, I find Peer Connect to be the practical side where Gartner customers share their expertise. Gartner Peer Connect truly enriched my experience and provided a practical insight into what other organizations are doing.”

David Rogers

IT Asset Manager

David Rogers has spent 38 years in IT, ranging from punchcards, Fortran and Assembler (in the real old days) to data warehouse management to IT management. His current position is that of IT asset manager. He began this effort to fill a need in his own company. His specialty these days is in licensing audits and compliance. He is also part of the IT procurement effort, where he mostly negotiates purchases and contract terms.

“The Peer Connect forums put me in touch with other real-world practitioners living with the same issues. Working with peers, I can discuss options and fears with those who may be a page ahead of me. Don’t be intimidated: We all have something to share.”

Darrell Sandefur

Office of the CISO

In a 30-plus-year IT career focused on people, process and technology, Darrell Sandefur has worked in a wide variety of roles for several large corporations where his responsibilities ranged from hardware and software support to systems analysis and server administration. For the last 15 years, he has focused on mobile and web architecture and engineering. After spending several years as the director of digital innovation and R&D for a large multinational retailer, six years ago he transitioned into a cybersecurity role for a large enterprise.

“Gartner Peer Connect has become my primary source for sharing my experiences and receiving expert feedback for a variety of topics. Gartner Peer Connect provides a solid trifecta when combined with Gartner research and Gartner Peer Insights reviews.”

Lance Smith

Director of IT

Lance Smith has 20-plus years of enterprise IT experience within healthcare and life sciences, more than half of which have been in the cloud. As a technical leader, he has led a diverse range of projects, including high-performance computing (HPC), data warehousing, cloud migrations, transactional web systems and organizational realignment. Past roles have included engineering, architecture, development, support and project management, almost always in business-facing functions.

Thomas Stumpp

Business Architect

Thomas Stumpp works in an architectural practice role that is a cross section between consulting, advisory and governance. He has a passion for innovative thinking, rapid experimentation, and believes in continuous business improvement through a relentless pursuit of the next frontier: digital transformation of the food industry.

“Gartner Peer Connect is an indispensable resource for me, where I regularly find contemporary topics to discuss and gain access to a high-caliber pool of peer experts.”

Murali Vasudevan

IT Architect

Murali Vasudevan has over 30 years of experience in IT as software developer, business analyst, technical lead and transformation architect. He believes in forging strong partnerships with business and IT to ensure IT priorities are aligned to enable business priorities. He is a strong advocate of architecture and believes in earning the trust of his colleagues by demonstrating its value. He also spends a lot of time mentoring business users to write SMART requirements, modeling business processes, and facilitating workshops to craft technical requirements. He also believes in IT philanthropy, using his technical skills to help nonprofits in his community. He was recognized by his assembly member recently. His favorite quote is: “A fool with a tool is still a fool!”

“Peer Connect is a great platform to collaborate with IT and business professionals and decision makers around the globe. It helps me stay current in today’s fast-changing digital age and helps me to learn from others’ experiences and avoid reinventing the wheel. Peer Connect is a great value from the GTP license and I strongly suggest all professionals with Gartner subscription to check it out!”

Sven Vermeulen

Enterprise Architect

Sven Vermeulen is currently employed as an enterprise architect with responsibility in the infrastructure domain (strategy, evolution and standardization within both on-premises and cloud). A heavy proponent of the free software movement, he is an active Gentoo Linux user (a Linux metadistribution) and has published a few books about SELinux. Most of his hobbies are computing-related: security (mathematical approaches and conceptual); system-level programming; and processes and automation development. He likes to be a “know-it-all,” checking out how stuff works — and why it sometimes doesn’t.

“I truly enjoy the community. It is a very good resource to have alongside Gartner publications themselves also, because it covers some topics that my account doesn’t have access to. I am also very positive about it because it does not have vendors or other providers as part of the community, so we can be very open and honest in communication toward our peers. The community is also more than just the forums: I have regular calls with a few peers that I met over Gartner Peer Connect to discuss events in the world (so to speak) and the impact they have on the organizations.”

Kelly Brown

Director of Global Talent Management

Kelly Brown’s experience includes over 15 years working in human resources/organizational development functions. In the past, she owned and operated a theatrical production company. Her affiliations include the Association for Talent Development, the Society of Human Resources Management and the American Psychological Association. She is a board member of the Linkage Women in Leadership Institute and has participated in Harvard’s Learning and Innovation Lab (LILA) for over 10 years.

Tarang Tuli

Director Workforce Planning

Tarang Tuli is a seasoned strategy professional specializing in conceptualization, design and implementation of strategic workforce planning solutions to support global business and talent strategies. He is passionate about solving for the future of work using a fact-based approach and advanced data analytics.

“I have been using Gartner Peer Connect for almost a year, and only wish I had started doing so sooner! I have not come across any other industry platform that provides such an enriching and confidential environment for professionals to exchange thoughts/ideas on a multitude of topics. I consider this a very important source for myself to gather insights from industry peers and expand my professional network with like-minded individuals. I am particularly impressed by the team of community managers that 24/7 oversee the breadth and depth of topics being discussed across its multiple forums.”

Pam Bullock

Employee Communications Manager

Pam Bullock is an accomplished communications professional with more than 10 years of experience partnering with and providing counsel to senior-level leaders as they roll out key strategy and change initiatives, helping to ensure those initiatives are understood by everyone in their organization and embedded as part of their team culture. She brings a breadth of professional capability, knowledge and experience stemming from her work as a communications professional as well as past roles that have given her exposure to leadership, strategy develop and change management.

“In my current role as employee communications manager, I am a ‘team of one.’ Gartner resources have been invaluable to me, and I have taken every opportunity to participate in webinars, access case studies, metrics and benchmark reports, and more. I especially appreciate having the opportunity to seek and get advice directly from my peers as part of Gartner Peer Connect. I’ve been able to take learnings from those I have connected with on the Peer Connect platform and incorporate some of their best practices into my own communications strategies. This has been especially important during the time of COVID, as we are all trying to come up with innovative ways to keep our employees engaged.”

Heather Gillbanks

Director of Customer Experience Manager

A coach for startups, a published technical author in collaboration technologies, a recipient of the GE Chairman’s Leadership Award and a cofounding member of General Electric’s IT Corporate Audit Staff, Heather Gillbank has a broad background that includes two decades leading large-scale implementations (much of that time supporting in shared services such as HR, across a variety of industries), sales and process improvement/quality (Six Sigma and Lean). In addition, she has led some of the largest process improvement and team combination/synergy projects ever undertaken by GE. She has a reputation as a driver of positive change in diverse organizations ranging from Fortune 10 to boutique firms in the services, manufacturing and financial sectors.

“Of the platforms where I am a contributor, I have found the Gartner platform to be lower-volume and higher-quality than most. I appreciate the lower volume, because it is never a waste of my time. The questions and responses people do post tend to be thoughtful and helpful.”

Aleks Gorgievski

Manager, Internal Communications

Aleks Gorgievski is creative, enthusiastic and hard-working. He has a passion for learning and tinkering. Most times you’ll find him figuring out how something works.

“Peer Connect helps connect professionals to solve and ideate. It’s a wealth of knowledge for any level of communications professional.”

Rachel Tolhurst

Head of Corporate Communications

Rachel Tolhurst has nearly 25 years of communications experience and is passionate about the value of data to drive insight and action. She currently works at a B2B infrastructure services company and heads up internal communications, engagement, brand, creative, digital and social media.

“The more ideas and experience you share, the more you’ll receive. Even if you can only spare 15 minutes a week, it’s still great value. I find Peer Connect a great way to benchmark and gather ideas. It’s been particularly helpful during the pandemic, when we often don’t have as much time to think or reflect as we’d like but still want to converse and sense-check our thinking with others in the profession.”

Sabine Bieschke

Director, Procurement

Sabine Bieschke has worked in procurement her whole career, starting in procuring electronics and furniture for a retailer, where she also learned about importing goods, inventory management, and advertising and marketing. From there, she moved to manufacturing, e-commerce, insurance and technology. Mastering the skills needed in purchasing, procurement, sourcing, category management, negotiations and contract management, she also excelled on the procurement process and procurement systems side, designing processes, implementing systems and transforming procurement departments. Along the way, she became a people manager. Her approach consists in analyzing the current state, understanding the history, establishing processes and policies, communicating and managing change, implementing systems, hiring talent, optimizing spend and reducing risk. Her mission is to serve the team and business partners while enabling the company to reach its goals.

“Gartner Peer Connect is an excellent opportunity to meet other procurement practitioners and learn from each other. I regularly post questions about procurement topics I am working on, and solicit inputs and feedback. The community is very responsive and shares their perspectives and their templates. It is the perfect addition to the research-based information Gartner analysts provide as part of my subscription.”

Bill Selles

Senior Director, Procurement, Supply Chain Services

Bill Selles is senior director of procurement, supply chain services, at a not-for-profit integrated health system based in West Michigan. He is an experienced leader in system-level thinking who aligns people and strategy with organizational efforts in large, complex organizations.

“I’ve engaged regularly in the Peer Connect community for the past 12 to 18 months, and have really found value in hearing from others and also enjoy sharing my expertise. Procurement is incredibly multifaceted, so getting to learn in areas where I’m weak, or share my strengths, is really rewarding. I’ve taken a number of discussions offline from the forum for deeper dialogue as well, which has allowed members of my team to engage in the conversations.”

Phil Ye

Senior Sourcing Manager

Phil Ye has been driving strategic sourcing value for 15 years by building stakeholder relationships, creating deals with market leaders and advocating best practices as a strategic sourcing panelist and writer. Phil has worked at reputable companies in fintech, healthcare and IT industries. He has saved millions of dollars in large deals with high-profile companies. A nature lover and world traveler, he is among the top 1% TripAdvisor reviewers from San Francisco. His travel photos on Google Map have more than six million views. He has completed two 10K races and looks forward to the next 10-mile challenge.

“Gartner Peer Connect provides a great platform for procurement professionals to learn from each other’s experiences and follow the latest trends in the industries. In addition to the traditional best practices, members get to ask and exchange views on handling the new challenges brought up by the pandemic and subsequent work-from-home practices. I look forward to more participation from our members.”