Allen Starr has 30 years of business and technology experience and has held senior-level leadership positions for large and small global companies in multiple industries, specifically retail, hospitality, manufacturing and software services. Allen currently serves as Chief Information Officer (CIO) for Goodwill Industries Suncoast, leading all technology initiatives and support for the organization. Allen holds a Bachelors degree in Business & Information Systems from Ferris State University and an MBA from Michigan State University.
Scott Ford has been in the IT industry for close to twenty years. He has held positions such as Operations Manager, VCIO, and Director of Operations for IT Consulting Groups. He has consulted with hundreds of businesses in dozens of industries and has helped companies leverage the most out of technology they can.
Kishen Sridharan is the Cybersecurity Partnership & Outreach Executive, on the leadership team for the Chief Information Security Officer of Raymond James. In this strategic role, he focuses on strengthening and growing Raymond James’ network of relationships with outside organizations like industry associations (e.g. FS-ISAC, FSI and SIFMA), peers, government/law enforcement entities, universities, potential new strategic suppliers, and community. He determines level of engagement, assesses ROI to Raymond James, and makes sure Raymond James is a valuable contributing partner in return, particularly when it comes to cyber threat intelligence.
In prior roles at Raymond James, Kishen helped established a Product Management mindset, framework, and governance structure to deliver highly valuable business outcomes, particularly those which support the Strategic Roadmap. This is the stepping stone to formally convert the InfraSec organization to an “as a Service” model. Before that, he stood up a Project Management Office within InfraSec. Kishen has almost 17 years of experience in various facets of technology, project implementation and business process improvement. His experience ranges from compliance, risk management and information assurance to strategic information security consulting. He earned his Bachelor of Science from the Pennsylvania State University in Management Science, Information Systems and International Business and an MBA from the University of Maryland. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and a Scrum Master (CSM).
Lauren is an established leader within the Cybersecurity community. She has worked in the IT field for over 17 years and over half of that time has been spent creating and/or leading Cybersecurity teams such as, Security Engineering, Security Operations, Vulnerability Management, IAM (Identity and Access Management), and GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) both domestically and internationally. She currently leads the BISO (Business Information Security Office) team covering the US, European, and Canadian subsidiaries of Raymond James Financial. Lauren and her team focus on infusing business strategies with cybersecurity strategies and best practices, which helps enable the business to reach objectives. She is also active in the security community, including speaking at events across the US and working with Universities to help strengthen the Cybersecurity community and raise security awareness.
