Everything Channel Events

Dawn Dillon
Senior Vice President – Division Head
Technology and Bank Operations
Salem Five

In May of 2000, Dawn Dillon joined Salem Five from Alltel Information Services, where she was the On-site Account and Enterprise Network Services Manager for Citizens Financial Group. She had direct managerial responsibility for a staff of over 100 with direct responsibility for the distributed computing environment and integration services. While there, Dawn assumed management responsibility for the Distributed Systems Y2K remediation project and all acquisition integration initiatives, performing nearly a dozen acquisition conversions. On a day-to-day basis, she was responsible for the health and development of the entire distributed computing environment – which covered New England and the East Coast offices.

Prior to working at Alltel, Dawn was the Senior Vice President, Distributed Systems and Self-Service Banking for Bank of Ireland, First Holdings, Inc. Dawn has been in banking since 1985 when she joined BankEast. Prior to that she worked within the technical & programming departments of companies in several industries, including insurance, non-profit and defense.

Bill Benz
Vice President MIS
J. & W. Seligman & Co. Incorporated

Bill joined Seligman in May of 1997 as the systems manager responsible for Financial Accounting systems at the firm. Over the last 10 years Bill has worked with business managers to define solutions to meet a changing marketplace. He is currently responsible for the technology needs of the Sales and Marketing company within Seligman as well as several corporate strategic products.

Prior to Seligman, Bill spent several years at Merrill Lynch & Co. as a Senior Manager in Financial Systems. Prior to that, Bill worked as a technology consultant for over 13 years for a number of Fortune 100 companies.

Ellen Christy
Director of Information Technology
Harbour Vest Partners, LLC.

Ellen joined HarbourVest in June 2000 as Director of Information Technology and provides management and strategic oversight of information systems and technology for U.S. and non-U.S. operations.   Ellen has over 16 years of experience working within the information technology space.  Prior to joining HarbourVest, Ellen was Assistant Director of Information Technology for a large Boston law firm.

In April 2001, Ellen founded the Private Equity CTO Network (PECTO), an international peer support group of 100+ members focused on the technological challenges that face private equity organizations today. The PECTO Network is comprised exclusively of technology professionals on staff at venture capital, private equity, and leveraged buyout firms. The members manage their firm’s information technology, infrastructure, and telecommunications initiatives. Three chapters have been formed: Boston, the founding chapter; New York; and West Coast, represented by the Venture Capital Information Technology (VCIT) group, as well as additional members throughout the U.S. and Europe.

Ed Eskew
Vice President of Information Technology
Bernard Chaus, Inc.

Ed Eskew joined Bernard Chaus, Inc. in May 1999 as Director of Information Technology and today is the Chief Information Officer

Ed has over 36 years of experience in the information technology field and has worked with such companies as Chanel Inc., Swiss Bank Corporation, and Garan Inc. all based in the New York area.

Ed has been a featured speaker at the “Check Point Experience” “Material World” and our own “Vision Events” and has been quoted in many trade magazines and newspapers such as “InfoWorld”, “Crain’s New York”, and “The Wall Street Journal”, as well as a contributing author for Aspitore Books as part of the “In the Minds” series.

In 2005 Ed was awarded the “Information Technology Executive of the Year” award from Gartner Vision Events, and in 2007 was selected the winner of Apparel Magazines “All Star Award” for excellence in management, track record of growth, Innovation, and corporate goodwill reflecting positively on the industry.

Ed received his MBA from the Nyack Graduate School of Business in Nyack, New York and is a proud member of the Advisory Board for Everything Channel Vision Events.
 

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William D. Danuloff (Bill)
Vice President & Chief Information Officer
Gorman-Rupp Company

36+ years with Gorman-Rupp, all in the information technology field. Responsible for all information technology strategy, including development, deployment and support of hardware and software, voice and data communications, data management, networks and Internet strategy for the Corporation.

Earl Monsour
Director, Strategic Information Technologies
Maricopa Community College District

Earl is the Director, Strategic Information Technologies for the Maricopa Community College District. Prior to his current position, he served as Associate Dean of Technology and Chief Information Officer for Chandler-Gilbert Community College. Before that he spent more than 25 years in industry serving in various technological leadership, planning, engineering, quality control and customer service roles with companies such as Honeywell International, AlliedSignal Inc., The Bendix Corporation and DataGraphix Inc. His college-level teaching experiences include courses in Management Information Systems, Management, Leadership and General Business.

Earl began his career in technology leadership as a Supervisor in the U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command Automated Command Control System. He held a professional certification of Registered Communications Distribution Designer (RCDD) from the Building Industry Consulting Services International (BICSI) and was a Registered Technical Coordinator with IBM Corp. He is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the CIO Executive Council, the Computer Society, the Communications Society, and the Association for Computing Machinery. He is a recipient of the Ariston Award from Avila University for leadership and scholarly example, the AlliedSignal Outstanding Performance Award, a CIO100 Award in 2002, a Gartner MES IT Executive of the Year in 2004, Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leaders in 2006 and has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Energy for Significant Achievements.
 
B.S.B.A., M.B.A., Avila University, Kansas City, Missouri Certificate, Computer Systems Technology, Community College of the Air Force, Biloxi, Mississippi.

Jim Murphy
Director of Information Technology/Security
City of Quincy

Jim Murphy is the Director of Information Technology/Security for the City of Quincy. He is responsible for managing all aspects of the City of Quincy's Information Systems, Telecommunications, city-wide Institutional Network, Access Control Systems and development of security polices and standards.

Jim has over 15 years experience in the Information Technology arena, serves on the State of Illinois Wireless Data Interoperability panel, and is a member of the International and Illinois GMIS. He attended Illinois State University's Undergraduate and Master’s program in Applied Computer Science.

Tom Dunnigan
Chief Information Officer
South Carolina Student Loan Corporation

In April 2007, Tom Dunnigan joined South Carolina Student Loan as its Chief Information Officer. With over twenty years experience in software engineering, project management, operations, and executive management roles, Tom has assumed responsibilities for both business operations and information technology management.

Previously, Tom has performed in leadership roles with several companies and on large-scale development programs at Verizon, NCR, BlueCross BlueShield, HP/Knightsbridge, Amerada Hess, and MBNA Information Services among others, where challenges involving data quality, system performance, time to market, business process improvement, and international business partnerships were effectively addressed.

Niel Nickolaisen
CIO and Director of Strategic Planning
Headwaters Inc.

Niel Nickolaisen is the CIO and Director of Strategic Planning at Headwaters, Inc. He has held technology executive and operations executive positions; typically in turnaround roles. He has developed a strategic and tactical alignment model that significantly improves returns on technology and business initiatives (by both improving the benefits and reducing the costs and risks). He holds a MS in Engineering from MIT and a BS in Physics from Utah State University. He writes the "Practical CIO" column for the CIO Leadership Network and a "how to" column for Search CIO. He is the author of an Addison Wesley book on Agile Leadership scheduled for release in 2009. He is one of the founders of Accelinnova, a think tank focused on improving organizational and IT agility.

Jim Williams
Director, Information Services
A&W Food Services of Canada Inc.

For the past 13 years, Jim has been directing the Information Services group for A&W Food Services of Canada Inc. A&W has been viewed by the Canadian Franchise community as a leader in the profitable use of technology.

Prior to joining A&W, Jim directed the Information Systems group for a North American packaging and paperboard producer with over 25 facilities. In its day, the company was the largest folding carton manufacturer in Canada, supplying all major Canadian consumer good companies.
 
A founding Board member of the CIO Association of Vancouver in 1997, Jim was President from 2001 to 2005, guiding the association in membership growth, strategic alliances and establishing a positive financial position. A founding Board member of the newly established CIO Association of Canada, Jim brings his experience to the task of building a national association of senior information technology executives.