Bio

Tom is a current WSTA Board member and has been since 2011. He is also a Vice President in the Markets Group at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. His teams provide support for business applications used by the domestic and foreign trading desks, Treasury auction operations and services provided to foreign central banks and international organizations. Tom shares his enthusiasm for the WSTA by highlighting the dual opportunity it provides for those in the financial services industry to learn about new and evolving technologies being deployed in firms, while networking with those in similar roles who likely face the same day-to-day as well as strategic challenges. He often observes that those who have participated in WSTA events invariably extol the benefits drawn from their experience without a big investment of time and comments, “We want to keep sharing this tool with others in the financial services community so they too can leverage these benefits while broadening the network of participants the WSTA is built on.”

The views expressed by Thomas Piderit are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System.

Bio

Johna Till Johnson is the CEO & Founder of Nemertes Research, an 18-year old research-advisory firm specializing in the business impact of emerging technologies. Ms. Johnson spearheads Nemertes’ security and risk management practice, where she works with Fortune 200 financial services, manufacturing, utility, and other leading organizations.

Ms. Johnson’s career in information security began more than 25 years ago when, as a young engineer, she developed security products for Mosler Security Systems. In the early 1990s, she ran the lab-testing program at Data Communications Magazine, which uncovered vulnerabilities in the then-novel RSA two-factor authentication system. In the mid-1990s, Ms. Johnson ran the Global Networking Strategies Service at the META Group, which included META’s security and risk management offering. Subsequently, she served as the Chief Technology Officer overseeing the security practice for Greenwich Technology Corp., a global consulting and engineering firm that developed and implemented leading-edge security architectures for financial services firms and other global organizations.

Bio

Paul Nicholson brings 25 years of experience working with Internet and security companies in the U.S. and U.K. In his current position, Nicholson is responsible for global product marketing, technical marketing, and analyst relations at San Jose, Calif.-based security, cloud and application services leader A10 Networks. Prior to A10 Networks, Nicholson held various technical and management positions at Intel, Pandesic (the Internet company from Intel and SAP), Secure Computing, and various security start-ups.

Bio

Guy Mettrick is Appian’s Industry Manager for Financial Services and is responsible for driving Appian’s go to market strategy for Financial Services, especially focused on EMEA and APAC. The role includes working with customers, partners and industry associations to ensure Appian delivers solutions that help drive growth, manage risk and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their business processes.

Prior to Appian, he was Head of European Fund Business at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank. He has also held management positions at BNP Paribas and RBC. Mettrick has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Studies (Finance & Marketing) from the University of Portsmouth.

Bio

Andrew Akers is a Senior Marketing Manager, Solutions at Auth0. He is focused on Anomaly Detection and other security capabilities. Before Auth0, Andrew worked on a variety of security analytics products at Cisco. He loves learning about technology, information security, and identity, and turning that knowledge into positive outcomes for Auth0 customers.

Bio

Michael Riemer has over 36 years of IT and IT Security experience. He is a Certified Instructor on Firewall/Virtual Private Networking, Intrusion Detection/Prevention, SSL/VPN and Network Access Control disciplines. Michael’s IT experiences include, Remote Access Security, Network Access Control, Security Assessments, Penetration Testing, Security Awareness Program Development, Desktop Support Services, Project Management, Computer Operations Instruction, Directory Services Management, Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning, HIPPA, FDIC, Sarbanes-Oxley, and PCI-DSS compliance, as well as thousands of hours of hands-on implementation and trouble-shooting experience.

Bio

Isaac has been a Telstra Employee For 15 years on Wall Street. Isaac achieved FISD/FIA certification in July 2019. He has built global financial trading networks over the past 10 years for tier 1 banks, financial exchanges and buy side sell side firms. Isaac created The Telstra Octagon multi asset direct market access platform in November 2019.

Bio

Johna Till Johnson is the CEO & Founder of Nemertes Research, an 18-year old research-advisory firm specializing in the business impact of emerging technologies. Ms. Johnson spearheads Nemertes’ security and risk management practice, where she works with Fortune 200 financial services, manufacturing, utility, and other leading organizations.

Ms. Johnson’s career in information security began more than 25 years ago when, as a young engineer, she developed security products for Mosler Security Systems. In the early 1990s, she ran the lab-testing program at Data Communications Magazine, which uncovered vulnerabilities in the then-novel RSA two-factor authentication system. In the mid-1990s, Ms. Johnson ran the Global Networking Strategies Service at the META Group, which included META’s security and risk management offering. Subsequently, she served as the Chief Technology Officer overseeing the security practice for Greenwich Technology Corp., a global consulting and engineering firm that developed and implemented leading-edge security architectures for financial services firms and other global organizations.

Bio

Glenn Crouch is an Engineering Director at American Express, where he has held a variety of technical roles during his 15 years with the company. Glenn currently leads Cloud Solutions Engineering, focused on enabling scalable, resilient applications on Cloud platforms and implementing cloud native design patterns for a wide variety of application workloads. Glenn previously worked as an engineer and leader within Web Engineering at American Express where he helped to build, solution and deliver many critical web-based experiences for Card Members – specializing in Java, front end and test automation technologies. Glenn holds a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Kent and a MSc in IT for eCommerce from the University of Sussex. Educated and raised in the UK, Glenn has called sunny Phoenix, Arizona home since 2010.

Bio

Eric Kedrosky joined the cloud security software company in February 2020 after 16 years working in the industry. Highlights from his career include working as Director of Security & IT at Verafin, Directory of Information Services & Security at RigNet, and Enterprise Global Xpress (GX) Manager at Inmarsat.

Kedrosky graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada with a Bachelor of Engineering with a focus on Computer Systems. He stood out from his fellow students so much that he immediately got hired as a Security Analyst at Nortel. He rose quickly through the company’s ranks and left to pursue an interest in business solutions development with Bluedrop Performance Learning, the first online learning network.

Over the last 16 years, Kedrosky has honed his knowledge of Security Program Development, Security Strategy, Security Assessment, Research & Policy Development, and Leadership Development. Kedrosky’s passion for collaborating with customers and executives has made him a crucial member of the Sonrai Security team. Few people have the combination of technical and communication skills that has pushed him to the forefront of cloud security assessment and development.

Bio

Kevin Lash is a career financial services technologist and the Director of Global Financial Services Strategy and Solutions for Nutanix. He has over 25 years of experience driving the successful adoption of emerging enterprise technology and next generation core systems across banking, capital markets and insurance. At Nutanix, he is dedicated to accelerating financial services digital innovation through advancements in software defined infrastructure and enterprise cloud computing. His focus areas include: Financial Services Cloud Adoption, FinTech, InsurTech, Blockchain, Application and Infrastructure Modernization, DevOps, Big Data Analytics and Open Source Software.

Lash began his career as an applications engineer for what is now Bank of America and Wells Fargo and as a Vice President of Software Development for Fidelity Investments before transitioning to Microsoft to help form their financial services vertical. More recently, he has worked with enterprise technology companies, including Nutanix and Red Hat, to expand their financial services value proposition and grow their global business. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts and served as a US Army Captain of Mountain Infantry.

Bio

Zak is the CIO of CRISIL, and is responsible for driving the company’s global technology road map, product development, technology infrastructure and alliances. He is driving the implementation of micro-services, cloud and digitally-led technology models while also focusing on digitalization of content and enhancing CRISIL’s automation journey by harnessing machine learning and natural language processing. He is also leading innovation in risk management solutions, AI/ML and Cloud to help CRISIL clients accelerate their digital transformations.

An acknowledged expert in managing large scale technology transformations, he also leads the Technology Lab set-up that aims to partner with external fintechs and technology firms to ccollaborate with businesses on innovation.

Zak has held executive level leadership roles within technology across application engineering, DevOps, Blockchain, technology support/architecture/engineering. Zak maintains a deep background across compute, databases, automation, cloud technology, service management and applications at some of the largest financial institutions.

Before joining CRISIL, Zak was the Global Head of IT Infrastructure and Operations at S&P Global Ratings. Prior to that he was with BNYMellon where he was leading Data Platforms, Distributed Compute / Cloud and Information Life Cycle Management services. Prior to BNYMellon, his experience spans working at large financial institutions such as Barclays, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers leading Infrastructure Engineering and various operation services.

Bio

Ravi Trivedi is an Assistant Vice President within Nuveen Technology Innovation and Decision Sciences group responsible for the design and development of Nuveen’s Data Science Platform and Innovation Center of Excellence. He works closely with business partners to help them leverage cost effective open source data science platform on Cloud. He has significant experience implementing Application Development, Data Science and Business Process Improvement solutions at Nuveen, TIAA, TCS, AT&T and Hess. In the past, he has designed and developed custom Machine Learning Algorithm to identify unknown prospects using clickstream data and managed research teams of college students to work on innovative projects and tools. He holds BS in Computer Science and MBA concentrated in Business Analytics from New Jersey Institute of Technology.