MOMENTUM

Catherine P. Bessant

Chief Operations and Technology Officer, Bank of America

Catherine P. Bessant is chief operations and technology officer at Bank of America, and is a member of the company’s executive management team. Since 2010, Bessant has led Global Technology and Operations (GT&O), delivering end-to-end technology and operating services across the company while also overseeing the company’s business continuity and information security through nearly 910,000 employees and contractors in more than 35 countries.

Since joining the bank in 1982, Bessant has held a number of senior leadership roles for the company. She was president, Global Corporate Banking; president, Global Product Solutions and Global Treasury Services; chief marketing officer; president, Consumer Real Estate and Community Development Banking; national Small Business Segment executive; and president of the Florida market.

Bessant serves as executive sponsor for the company’s Disability Advisory Council. She was formerly the executive sponsor for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Pride executive board and led the creation of the LGBT Ally program. She was previously named No. 1 among OUTstanding LGBT+ Ally Executives, presented by the Financial Times.

For the third consecutive year, she ranked No. 1 among the “25 Most Powerful Women in Banking” by American Banker. Bessant was named to Barron’s “100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance” and she received WaterTechnology’s 2019 Women in Technology and Data Trailblazer Award. She has also appeared on Working Mother magazine’s “50 Most Powerful Working Moms” list.

Active in the community and region, Bessant received the Distinguished Service Award from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In addition, she was awarded the North Carolina Order of the Long Leaf Pine, was recognized by the Charlotte Business Journal with the Women in Business Lifetime Achievement Award, and was named to Business NC’s Power 100. She chairs the North Tryon Vision Plan Advisory Committee.

Bessant led the formation of the Council on the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to address ethical and policy issues related to this rapidly evolving technology. In addition, she is a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).

Bessant serves on the board of directors of Zurich Insurance Group, is an independent member of the USA Field Hockey board of directors, and is on the advisory board for the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. As part of a leadership course at Ross, she summited Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro, the world’s tallest freestanding mountain, in August 2018.

Will Grannis

Founder and Leader of the CTO Office, Google

Will Grannis is the founder and leader of Google’s CTO Office, a team of senior engineers whose mission is to foster collaborative innovation between Google and its largest customers.

Prior to joining Google five years ago, Will spent the last two decades as an entrepreneur, enterprise technology executive, and investor, building and scaling technical platforms that today power commerce, transportation, and the public sector. He’s been a developer, product manager, CTO, SVP of Engineering and CEO, building a wide variety of platforms and teams along the way.

Ken Washington

Chief Technology Officer, Ford

Dr. Ken Washington is chief technology officer, Ford Motor Company, and part of the enterprise leadership team reporting to Hau Thai-Tang, Ford’s chief product platform and operations officer. In this role, Washington leads Ford’s global research organization, overseeing the development and implementation of the company’s technology strategy. His responsibilities include Ford’s next generation vehicle electrical architectures; sensing and computing stacks; energy, propulsion, and sustainability; advanced materials and manufacturing; and controls and automated systems. He also leads Ford’s STEM and University research programs.

Prior to joining Ford, he was vice president of the Advanced Technology Center at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, and was responsible for leading a team of scientists and engineers in performing research and development in space science and related R&D.

Previously, he served as Lockheed Martin Corporation’s first chief privacy officer, a role in which he built the company’s privacy program, set the privacy strategy direction and established a team of privacy professionals to execute the strategy.

Washington also previously served as the vice president and chief technology officer for the Lockheed Martin IT organization, where he was responsible for shaping the future of the corporation’s information technology enterprise.

Prior to joining Lockheed Martin in February 2007, Washington served as chief information officer for Sandia National Laboratories, where he previously held various other technical leadership and engineering positions.

He has a bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degree in Nuclear Engineering from Texas A&M University, serves on the board of directors for McKesson Corporation, and is a fellow of the MIT Seminar XXI program on International Relations. Washington was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2020.

Harry Moseley

Global Chief Information Officer, Zoom

Harry D. Moseley brings to Zoom a blend of transformational leadership, disruptive innovation, and corporate growth strategies. As the former CIO & Managing Director for KPMG, Harry was responsible for technology and innovation to support the firm's competitive growth. Over five years he identified and replaced legacy technology to dramatically improve productivity, security, and reliability. Before joining KPMG, Harry served as CIO & Senior Managing Director - Partner for Blackstone, where he led the company's transformation to the world's best digital alternative asset manager. Prior to Blackstone, Harry was a Managing Director for Credit Suisse, where he served as the CIO of Global Investment Banking, and Global Co-Head of Application Development / Co-CIO of the firm. Before Credit Suisse, Harry served as CTO & Managing Director for UBS Americas.

Harry has been inducted into CIO Magazine's Hall of Fame, recognized as one of the world's top 100 CIOs by Computerworld, and honored by Irish Magazine as one of its Annual Wall Street 50. Harry is an Advisory Board Member of the New York Center for Dental Restorative Services, a Board Member of Rewards Network, a member of the Advisory Board of the New York City Chapter of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and a sponsor of nPower. He is a former Board Member of Bi-Sam (since acquired by Factset), a former Advisor to Aquiline Capital Partners, and a former Board Member of iLevel Solutions (since acquired by Ipreo). He also led Blackstone's investment in Watchdox (since acquired by Blackberry).

Lauren Gardner

• Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Systems Engineering
• Co-director, Center for Systems Science and Engineering
• Affiliated Faculty, Infectious Disease Dynamics Group – Bloomberg School of Public Health
• CSIRO Visiting Scientist

Bio Coming Soon

Florian Schattenmann

Chief Technology Officer and VP, Innovation and R&D, Cargill

Bio coming soon

Stewart Butterfield

Stewart Butterfield, CEO, Slack

Stewart Butterfield is the CEO and co-founder of Slack. For more than 20 years, he has been an entrepreneur, designer and technology leader, usually all at once.

In 2013, Stewart and his team launched Slack, which has transformed business communication. Today, Slack is the leading channel-based messaging platform, used by millions to align their teams, unify their systems and drive their businesses forward.

In 2003, Stewart co-founded Flickr, one of the pioneers of image sharing and the social web. As CEO, he built Flickr into one of the largest web services in the world.

Stewart has been regularly recognised for the foresight and innovation that has helped him build two companies that have reimagined the way we use technology to communicate, collaborate, share and store information. He was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by Time Magazine, and one of the Top 50 Leaders by BusinessWeek; he has been included on Vanity Fair’s New Establishment List, the Recode 100, Advertising Age’s Creativity 50, and the Technology Innovator of the Year by the Wall Street Journal.

Stewart has a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Victoria and a Master of Philosophy from the University of Cambridge.

Bret Arsenault

Bret Arsenault is Corporate Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer at Microsoft, the world’s largest software company. In the CISO role since 2009, Bret is charged with keeping all Microsoft data secure from the 21st century’s ever- growing cyber-threats, while ensuring compliance with evolving regulations. With the global team of information security professionals that he leads, he successfully developed and implemented the company’s robust corporate incidence response strategy, as well as sophisticated companywide defenses that combine threat monitoring, vulnerability analysis and control tools.

In addition to his responsibilities as CISO, Bret serves as Chairman of Microsoft’s Information Risk Management Council, convening teams from across the company that focus on data protection. He frequently takes his expertise directly to enterprise customers as the host of Microsoft’s Security Council, a forum that drives product direction and operational best practices. Bret serves as an outside cyber-risk advisor to executives and boards at numerous Fortune 100 companies, and has served on the Advisory Boards of several enterprises and numerous government agencies. He is a founding member of Security 50 and the Executive Security Action Forum (ESAF), an association of senior information security and risk executives from governments and Global 1000 companies. Bret is frequently asked to speak on cyber security strategy, at events that include HP Discover, Security50, the Pacific Enterprise Risk Forum and Gartner’s Security and Risk Management Summit.

Noopur Davis

Noopur Davis, Senior Vice President & Global Chief Innovation Officer, Walgreens Boots Alliance

Bio soming soon

Bernardo Mariano

Chief Information Officer and Director of Department of Digital health and Innovation, World Health Organization

bio coming soon