About Asim Syed: Asim Syed is a result-oriented leader with +19 years of experience for defining, building, implementing and optimizing best-in-class IT strategies, operations and business solutions. He offers expertise in Digital transformation, Process improvement, strategic decision making and Consulting. Asim has helped many global customers in Manufacturing, Retail, Life sciences and other industries for successful business transformation program. Asim is part of advisory board at UTD and UTA and he is often invited as a guest speaker at large professional events, universities and conferences.

About Brian White: Currently serving as Head of Customer Support for the Ericsson North America Market, Brian is a thirty-year veteran managing the development and delivery of complex network and software solutions primarily for telecommunications service providers. As an evangelist for the innovation driven by analytics and transformative digital solutions Brian has led the creation of strategies for migration to next generation technologies, evolving businesses to new business models and optimizing business operations to maximize quality and velocity of product delivery/deployment.

About Vidhya Balakrishnan: Vidhya is a Senior Director of Software Engineering at Sabre which is a Travel Technology company. She has over 25 years of experience in the technology industry and grew in ranks from a developer to Senior Leadership roles. She manages a global team of 100+ technology team members including data scientists, architects and developers. Her technology domain expertise revolves around Data Analytics, Customer experience and Personalization. She has wide experience in a variety of industries including Travel, Auto Finance, and Telecom where she was responsible to define and execute enterprise Data Strategy. Vidhya is a certified Brain-Based Coach. The Quiet Leadership approach that this coaching adopts is firmly rooted in Neuroscience and teaches leaders how to effectively bring out the best in their team by understanding brain’s physiological properties that lead to an energized ‘toward state’ to solve dilemmas at workplace. Vidhya is active in the DFW Data circles and is a member of multiple professional groups. She speaks at various industry events on a wide range of Data Analytics topics.

About Gavin Berry: Currently serving as the Insights and Data lead for the Texas Division of Capgemini/Sogeti, Gavin is a results-oriented leader with 30+ years of industry experience defining, collaborating, architecting, and implementing innovated solutions across Retail, Healthcare, Finance, Transportation and Logistics verticals. He has led many large strategic initiatives from business process optimization, application/cloud development, and insights and data. His cross disciplined/cross industry background enables him to take a holistic approach to implementing highly complicated solutions that optimize business value across domains.

About Eric Haney: Eric Haney is the Chief Technology Officer for Lone Star Analytics. He has been in this role since 2018 and his previous positions include Deputy CTO Eric Haney is the Chief Technology Officer for Lone Star Analytics and previously served as Deputy CTO and Lead Analyst at the company. In his current role, Eric is responsible for guiding the technical direction of the company. He manages the development and roll-out Lone Star’s core software applications, TruNavigatorTM, AnalyticsOSTM, and TruPredictTM. His principal goal is to connect individuals with the information required to make pragmatic, objective decisions. Eric completed his doctorate in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington culminating in his dissertation, Data Engineering in Aerospace Systems Design & Forecasting. His academic research team’s collaborations with DARPA and NASA have been published in The Aeronautical Journal.

Ashok Nayak: Accenture Digital, Managing Director, Applied Intelligence

About Dennis Tkach: I am a seasoned executive leader with over 15 years of experience in management consulting, healthcare, biotechnology, neurotechnology and life sciences industries. As the Head of Innovation at Neuro-Insight, I lead a diverse and talented team of scientists, analysts, and consultants who deliver unique and unparalleled insights to some of the world's largest brands across all industries. My core strengths include operations, strategy, strategy, research and analytics. I have a deep passion for excellence, integrity, and client success, and I focus the organization on leveraging the collective combination of scientific rigor and deep business acumen to unearth vital information, give it meaning, and create actionable recommendations. I am a pragmatic servant leader who is adept at leading organizations in a remote, hybrid, or on-site setting, with an emphasis on empathy, humility, and being 'in the trenches' with my teams. I also have a strong track record of driving innovation, growth, and quality in various domains, such as myoelectric prosthesis control, comparative analytics, and powered lower limb prostheses.

Nathaniel Richmond: Nathaniel Richmond is a Staff Data Scientist at Shopify, where he currently leads the Orders data science team and serves on the Machine Learning Ethics Committee. Before joining Shopify in 2021, he worked at Keurig Dr Pepper and BNSF Railway. He holds a M.S. in Mathematics and Ph.D. in Applied Mathematical & Computational Sciences from the University of Iowa. The unifying thread throughout Nathaniel’s graduate studies and cross-industry career has been the application of mathematical tools to solve complex logistics problems. Although Nathaniel’s academic background is in Operations Research, recently he has branched out into machine learning and product analytics. His favorite projects involve collaboration with colleagues from different disciplines. Over the past several years, Nathaniel has worked on applications like demand forecasting, inventory replenishment, next best product recommender systems, agent-based simulations, and various optimization algorithms. He holds a patent for a locomotive-based computer vision system. Nathaniel spent several years volunteering as a pro-bono IT consultant for Meals on Wheels of Tarrant County, where among other projects he created an automated form-scanning software that reduced manual data entry. Nathaniel is heavily involved with INFORMS, where he previously chaired the Railway Applications Section and served on the Professional Recognition Committee. In his free time, Nathaniel roasts his own coffee, plays soccer and ultimate frisbee, enjoys board games, and spends time with his partner and his Portuguese Water Dog. He loves to travel and experience different cultures, especially the food.

About Sanjiva Srivastava: Sanjiva is the Director of Compensation Insights & Analytics and Market Intelligence at Walmart. His teams are responsible for supporting the optimization of wage investments in Walmart store, Sam’s Club, supply chain and campus office locations across the US using both internal and external data driven insights. The work involves market prediction, survey data analysis, economic data insights, employee turnover and retention, return on investment analysis, research and analysis using emerging technologies such as NLP, image processing, geospatial and other machine learning use cases. Sanjiva has over 25 years of industry experience in leveraging emerging technology to solve complex business problems and to create new business opportunities within Total Rewards, HR, Finance and Information Technology. Sanjiva holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Computer Science from Utkal University (India) where he was the topper and an Executive MBA from Sam Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. Sanjiva moved to the DFW area in 2019 and enjoys running marathons, music, photography and traveling to new places.

About Tony Scanio: Tony Scanio is currently the Director of Data Management and Business Intelligence for the International Supply Chain at CHRISTUS Health.  His focus is on improving reporting capabilities for faster, more accurate decision making for the department.  He joined CHRISTUS Health in early 2015 after several years as an International Regional Sales Manager for a Fortune 300 company.  He has conducted business in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and English and has specific experience in analytics, data visualization, process improvement, international sales, and international management.   In addition to his career at CHRISTUS Health, Tony currently serves as the 1st Vice Chair for the North Texas District Export Council, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting exports from North Texas through education and collaboration.  As part of the District Export Council, Tony has had the opportunity to work with UTA students during the annual Exporting with the Experts program.   Tony earned BBAs in International Business and Marketing and minors in Spanish and Music from Texas Tech University, and a Professional MBA from Texas Christian University.  In his free time, he enjoys spending time with his family, traveling, and music.

About Daniel Windle: Daniel Windle is the Director of Sales Operations for Trinity Industries. His current role includes responsibility for maintaining and improving relevant economic and industry data, forecasting sales and industry activity, and improving sales processes. He has been with Trinity Industries since 2013 serving as a Marketing Analyst for Energy Markets, a Data Scientist, and a Principal of Market Intelligence. Daniel has a BA in Economics and Political Science from Trinity University and an MS in Predictive Analytics from Northwestern University. He has been a speaker at both the Annual Meeting and Business Analytics Conference hosted by the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS) and has served as a Roundtable and Cluster Chair for the INFORMS Railway Applications Section.

About Vino Kingston: Vino Kingston is a recognized Data, Digital & Decision Intelligence leader with 27 years working in Fortune 10 companies leading and managing decision intelligence and automation practices. As Lean-Agile Data Management & Decision Intelligence Leader with strategic and tactical experience led and managed large corporate wide data and analytics initiatives in prestigious companies (Ford, HP, Lockheed Martin). Contributed and led various Business/IT transformation efforts that included Process Re-engineering, Business and Enterprise Process Optimization aided by modern data management and analytics activities such as Enterprise Data Lake, Business Data Hubs, Advanced BI & Purpose Driven Analytics.   His background in Instrumentation & Control Engineering provided him early on exposure to Industrial Internet in the form of Process Control & Automation. Working in real time systems and enabling decision making for plant operations made Vino passionate about workflow automation in business operations. He is well versed with data and its criticality for business success. He has established business success-oriented data strategy to bring data, business processes, applications together and implemented the strategy using lean and agile processes, best fit technologies, high performing teams to provide data integration, data management, data governance, self-service analytics, data science capabilities.   As analytics expert transitioned from process control & automation engineer with hands on industrial automation experience effectively applying that knowledge to transform business decision making capabilities with embedded & distributed micro analytics services that support proliferation of next generation Robotic Process Automation (RPA). To summarize Vino’s 25+ years of career in one simple phrase, it is, "Distributed Control Systems to Distributed Computing Systems". Started in continuous process industry doing industrial automation with SCADA, PLC, DCS systems enabling real time decision making for plant operators. It was an IoT environment for industries. In the new world of IoT & Big Data Analytics, Vino enables decision makers to operate large businesses using distributed computing & analytics to get to real time decision making.

About Robert Hinojosa: As the Chief AI Officer at Ashley Furniture Industries, I am responsible for leading the Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategy, plan, and transformation across the organization. By combining AI with organizational change management and first principles, I have helped create a fostering environment for a future of AI helping the organization achieve greater business value and efficiencies. My career is marked by a commitment to innovation and excellence in technology landscapes across many organizations and architectures, where I have been instrumental in building seamless experiences that deliver on promises, transform business, and upskill the workforce. I enjoy collaborating with industry, research, and educators to bridge the gap between theory and practice in the field of the potential in Technology, Data, Machine Learning and AI. In addition to my role at Ashley Furniture Industries, I also serve as an industry advisor for other academic and business institutions, including University of Texas at Arlington (College of Business, ISOM), Texas Christian University (College of Science and Engineering, Computer Science), Wisconsin Cooperative Educational Service Agency (CESA) for AI in K-12 education, Adeptmind AI and other retail focused and executive groups.