Tammy Moskites, CIO & CISO, Venafi

You only have to look at recent headlines to confirm that cybersecurity is a critical concern that touches every industry and every individual, and threats are only continuing to increase. Yet in a recent study conducted by ISACA and RSA, 52 percent of global cybersecurity and IT managers and practitioners said “that less than a quarter of applicants for cybersecurity positions have the necessary skills for the open position. As a result, 53 percent said it can take three to six months just to find a qualified candidate.” Then it takes another three to get them on board. This is a pressing issue within this field of work that needs to be addressed. So how did this shortage or “talent gap” happen in the first place?Despite the growing breadth/depth of security threats in the everyday organization, it is typical to find an unstructured security team that is not providing professional growth or continued education opportunities. Furthermore, the few professionals who are qualified are spread too thin and tend to burn out quickly. This has also had a profound impact on the security industry, which is now seeing 1 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs in 2016 alone, and that number is expected to increase to 6 million global job openings by 2019.While the task of closing this gap seems daunting, it is important for enterprises to shift their focus to their internal teams to cultivate the talent that already exists within their organizations, even if it’s minimal to start. They need to provide an environment that encourages career growth and constant training to ensure security professionals are armed with the knowledge and skills to defend their organizations. If this becomes the practiced behavior, it is my belief that the skills gap will start to close.To do this you must understand what skills you already have and then determine what you need within your security team when hiring. There is a range of talent that is required to keep an enterprise secure so you must know your must haves when doing so. In addition, it’s important to understand the soft-skills needed which include creative problem-solving, the ability to foster collaboration and a drive to challenge conventional thinking to stay ahead of hackers. It is no longer easy to find that 100-percent candidate or even the 80/20 rule doesn’t work any more! You have to accept, at times, you may have to hire the must have(s) and train the rest – maybe a 50/50 rule?

Companies can be slow to increase cybersecurity spending because it’s been historically hard to measure the bottom line impact of the investment. That’s where the CISO can play a key role and provide answers that resonate… Only once you get a good understanding of what you need, you need to make sure you are finding the right people and making a concerted effort to retain the talent within your organization. Though this is a long-¬term process, which requires continued effort, below are some quick tips to point you in the right direction:

Tamara StClaire, Digital Health Advisor,
BaseHealth

If you follow technology in healthcare, you have likely heard of blockchain. But even if you are aware of the platform, it may not have truly hit your radar as possibly having near term impact. In fact Gartner puts blockchain at the peak of inflated expectations – speculating it will be another 5 to 10 years before it reaches mainstream adoption. However, there are a number of stakeholders that are working to defy Gartner’s predictions by attempting to put blockchain into commercial use within the year.For those of you new to blockchain or wanting an update, blockchain is a shared, immutable ledger of online exchanges. It creates a log of events that are unchangeable – preserving data integrity and security throughout the transaction. Blockchain relies on established cryptographic techniques to allow each participant in a network to interact without preexisting trust between the parties. It emerged in 2009 as the foundational trading platform for bitcoin. (Here’s a video from a recent talk at Google explaining blockchain further.)

One possible reason that some parts of the healthcare industry are ignoring the blockchain clamor is that there’s lots of talk about the platform and perhaps not enough talk about the problems it can solve. Most experts agree the following healthcare challenges can be addressed via blockchain:

•Master Patient Identifier – the very nature of blockchain incorporates the equivalent of an MPI. It uses private and public identifiers to create a singular, secure method for ensuring and protecting a patient’s digital identity.•Autonomous Automatic Adjudication – using what is sometimes described as the killer app of the blockchain, smart contracts will have the necessary logic embedded in them to automate the provider, health plan and member agreements so that claims can be processed automatically and in real time

•Interoperability – data stored on the blockchain could be universally available to specific individuals or organizations. It offers a means to interoperate since all users of a network can access that network and all pieces of information are both verified and show the history of transactions.

Kan Tang, Worldwide CTO – HPE Software
Services, Hewlett Packard Enterprise

People today have already stopped talking about DevOps and are now doing DevOps. We have seen a growing number of our customers implementing Enterprise Agility and DevOps practice. So what are the top questions that enterprise customers – especially those enterprises with higher maturity in their DevOps practice, are for more than two years. We adopted Agile and deployed a lot of automation. We have some KPIs to measure service quality, such as requirement coverage ratio and successful deployment rate; and to measure service velocity, such as speed and frequency of deployment. Now, even though we can deliver our features in an agile way with great quality, the question remains: How do we know if we have actually created business value? The system can be perfect, but no one buys our products. We need to know why!”At the London DevOps Summit 2016, one customer asked an interesting question: “We keep telling our developers to improve their design and implementation as we’ve received a lot of complaints from customer support and the help desk. But our developers really haven’t improved much, as the comments were generic and not actionable. It would be really nice to leverage social media to understand user sentiment about the features we’ve implemented, making the data actionable!”

We frequently ask our customers what percentage of features is being used by the users in production. Most of time, the answer is: “We don’t really know.” A comparison by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) between the tests it ran and what users were doing with its Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) product revealed some interesting stats. The August 2016 Forrester Research report by Kurt Bittner, Diego Lo Giudice, and Robert Stroud, Build The Right Software Better And Faster With Agile And DevOps Metrics, reported that when HPE compared user tests it ran on its ALM product, there was only a 35% overlap (see Figure 1) between features tested and features used. This meant that the product team didn’t understand 65% of what users did with the tool, and it was testing a lot of behavior that didn’t reflect what users did. This insight became the impetus for a major push to better understand customers, which has in turn resulted in significant shifts in how and where HPE makes its investments. Knowing what features users are actually using and whether that functionality is actually useful—helps organizations form a more complete picture of the customer’s experience. This information helps us fine-tune our investment decisions, reducing waste and shifting resources to capabilities that drive greater business value and better customer experience.

Figure 1: Low Overlap Between Features Tested And Features Used Means Devs Need Better Customer Insight (Authorized use by Forrester for this post)

Several customers believed that business lead time is one of the most important metrics in DevOps practice. Lead time measures how long it takes for a first set of features to be developed and delivered into production after the request has been entered into the portfolio management system. It directly impacts business and business planning. For example, if the lead time is a month, then organizations would have a much greater sense of urgency to handle new requests. Knowing the lead time will help organizations with much better planning and efficiency.
In my previous post, I shared with you our Release 2 KPIs. In this new release, we are moving to more advanced KPI metrics related to customer and business values using big data, as well as social media with both structured and unstructured data. Here are a few KPIs to consider:

Feature Usage

The HPE Software Advantage app includes a web app, a mobile app, and backend services. We automated our DevOps pipeline tool-chain to build this app from planning, design, coding, security scanning, build, deploy, testing, and monitoring—all the way to production. We continuously improve this application by understanding user insight using big data engines and social media feedback.

Figure 2: HPE Advantage app for DevOps DemonstrationThis KPI dashboard (Figure 3) shows how often a feature is being used and the overall percentage of usage in each release.

Figure 3: An example of an HPE Software solution dashboard for Feature Usage

Feature Sentiment

Feature usage measures the frequency of the usage of the features; a lower overall usage shows less efficiency in the requirement management process. Feature sentiment shows positive, negative, mixed, or neutral expression by the users about the features and applications. It provides direct feedback from users to the business requirement, design, and development teams.
In this release, we use Twitter as our social media input channel. The tweets are being collected in real time by our HPE big data engine IDOL server through the Twitter connector. The data are then analyzed through IDOL’s sentiment analysis module to output sentiment expression. Data can be further cleansed and categorized. We applied fuzzy match for the data correlation.

Figure 4: An example of an HPE Software solution dashboard for Feature Sentiment

Lead time/Cycle time

There are several lead times including order lead time, production lead time, cycle time, and deployment lead time, as illustrated in Figure 5.

Lead time is important because it predicts:•Effectiveness of your automated testing in the deployment pipeline•Ability to quickly deploy into production without causing chaos and disruption•Ability to detect and correct problems through monitoring•Effectiveness of Dev and Ops to work together•How quickly developers can get feedback on their work

Figure 6: An example of an HPE Software solution dashboard for Lead Time

What’s next?

If you’re still not sure about the importance of DevOps KPI metrics, here are some recommendations from Gartner (Authorized use by Gartner for this post):Seven Steps to Start Your DevOps Initiative by David Paul Williams and George Spafford, February 2016: In a DevOps initiative, the objectives must be at the team level and aligned to the end goal — business enablement via faster production release. Metrics must be aligned accordingly based on the objectives set for the team.How to Scale DevOps Beyond the Pilot Stage by Cameron Haight, March 2015, Foundational September 2016: Do not forget about metrics. DevOps organizations are data-driven organizations. While code is the source of truth in that it tells you whatDevOps is doing, metrics tells you how DevOps is doing.When DevOps is integrated with Big Data and social media, it becomes very powerful as it creates actionable insights to improve customer and business values. If you want to learn more about our advanced KPIs, please join us at Discover 2016 London and visit the DevOps demo booth #DEMO624 or reach out to one of our experts from Software Services Strategy & Solutions.

Suja Chandrasekaran, CIO, Kimberly-Clark

I recently sat down with an Indian magazine that wanted to interview me – some excerpts from the conversation shared in a Q&A mode. It spans a broad set of topics such as communication in business, digital disruption, women in tech development.

1.How important is ‘communication’ for business? And what kind of communication is needed in today’s businesses?

Communication is everything – and you must be conscientious about how you communicate – from the simple transactional communications, to the inspiring “move the crowd” kind of communications. An approach to communications can be outlined around six “I”s – intimate, inclusive, interactive, intentional, iterative and informative. I use different tactics for different outcomes, but face-to-face interaction between individuals is the ultimate form of communication and it is the toughest to scale across organizations, geographies and time – yet it must be done.And then there are different techniques and tactics for communicating to the outside world – partners, customers, media, universities, potential talent etc. Plenty of technologies that enable communication, 1:1, 1:m, 1:M – different techniques for different sizes of audiences, different messages and contexts.

Best leaders are those who are the most authentic communicators. I recall one of my mentors, who was leading a huge change program, communicated consistently and iteratively – I learnt a lot from her style. There were plenty of myths and rumors floating around the massive transformation and she hit them head on, stating that if there are any questions, to bring them directly to her. She started an “open questions” box where anyone could post questions and she actively and personally responded to them. She was able to galvanize the organization towards the larger purpose while addressing concerns and keeping us all focused.

2. What is the need of the hour for developing women leaders in technology?

Developing both men and women leaders in technology is an absolute passion for me. This question is about women, therefore I will focus on women. Technology is a tough world, and women often stay away from embarking on a career in technology or drop off from the field early in their career. We have both a pipeline issue and a retention issue. We can discuss quite a bit around why – and more importantly focus on what needs to be done to address the situation.1.As women, we need to develop other women – having shared similar situations, we can be great teachers and developers to each other.2.I find that women are quite methodical in their problem solving approaches. We have interesting sets of odds; thus we must double down on tenacity. I wish this could be progressed so women wouldn’t have to hustle all the time.3.Stay ahead and stay current – this is crucial. When you land a role, you must continue to invest adequate time and energy in tech currency.4.Technology is as much a people business as it is a bits and bytes business. Leading tech savvy experts takes its own leadership savvy. Build, practice, illustrate and hone this skill all the time. Technology also needs plenty of connections in order to understand the evolution of ideas – this needs plenty of people connections.5.In general, women are terrible in self-branding. This gets in the way of their exposure. One of the things I do is advocate for other women. By promoting their great achievements, I help them build their brand.6.I would like to see more movements like “#ilooklikeanengineer” that was started by a woman who was not seen as an engineer at work.I get inspired from women such as Sheryl Sandberg & others and the altruism with which they encourage other women. In my career, it has become my mission to develop other women. I draw inspiration during moments of duress – for me it is my ability to help and develop other women that keeps me going.3. Much of all retail businesses in all major markets have been digitized. Where do you see the current trend leading us? Digital is about creating value, by enabling frictionless human to human interactions that are rendered digitally. The pure-electron economy digital models are higher in maturity curves of disruption – books, media, hospitality, commerce, with Fintech, fast moving there. Retail has more than its fair share of the digital disruption. I was in China a few weeks back and lectured at a leading University in Beijing to a class of MBA students on digital disruption. We dialoged extensively around the idea of “no physical store front” and how traditional brick and mortar retailers are competing with the pure play eCommerce retailers. We discussed the decoupling of inventory from the store, the store as digital content delivery, customer centricity, implications on profitability, the context of extraordinary pricing transparency, customer reviews becoming a brand proxy and distributed/social commerce. For me the excitement was to dialog this with future business leaders, not just those studying technology to become technologists. Business leaders that are digital and technology minded are changing the game – start with what the customer needs, define how far the business can go with technology, scenario play financials and then set business models around that. In spite of where this is going, still there are some businesses where technology is an afterthought – “Oh by the way, have you checked with the CIO or CTO?”4. How healthy is this digitization for consumers? What are the probable pitfalls? Digitization, is enabling a new economy and thus far it has been customer-empowering and it will continue to be customer centric. Sam Walton’s principle, “Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.” Many of these firms swim upstream in enabling these economies. They challenge the rules; they challenge everything – which is the fundamental law of capital markets. So what seems like simple digitization, has led to fundamental changes in business models. Network effect has been unleashed beyond anyone’s imagination.There will be winners and losers. There will be new compliance laws, security vulnerabilities, privacy concerns, platforms that integrate the eco-system and cross-border economies. There will be a ton of work, dialog and negotiations to plow through this. Fun stuff!I had an epiphany when observing the different attitudes towards technology in what is becoming a tale of two attitudes. I was in a session with senior business and industry leaders, in an industry event, in a certain geography and the question was asked, “who here is a technologist?” A couple of hands were timidly raised, and some even thought it beneath them to be called a “technologist.” Fly across the country to the west coast and everyone is a techie – the taxi driver is taking evening courses in coding, the business exec calls herself a “half-techie,” everything and everyone has something to do with technology – irrespective of the industry they are in! This is going to be the future and the sooner we come to the realization and adapt, the better !5. What keeps you motivated in a dynamic, competitive industry? My entire career has been different nodes of the supply chain – between product design, manufacturing retail and consumer package goods. I’ve always been in the business of creating, engineering, manufacturing, warehouse managing, transporting and wholesaling/retailing to consumers. Throughout the whole chain, end-to-end, customers are the kings and queens.Mega trends and the massive shifts in supply chain manufacturing and re-shifts back, globalization, shifts from selling products to engaging through understanding needs, wants and desires, tech-based engagement interconnected with physical engagement, enormous efficiencies in manufacturing, advancement in research and development – these are all things that I find fun! And there’s never a dull moment.It is exciting to lead the disruptions, create the seed of an idea, incubate, scale and pave the way. All of the companies I have been a part of led disruptions in some way, shape or form and it has been exciting to lead in these prominent companies.Technology needs no mention whatsoever on how dynamic it is – driving shifts, or fast followership of shifts, or skipping some shifts all together and leapfrogging technology – these are all valid techniques. In our businesses, we are mindful about where we apply each technique. Enjoying the dynamism is crucial to being in any industry. I’m not sure there is anything that has not been, or will not be, disrupted at some point in time – embrace it and enjoy it!

6. What is the most important thing you learnt through your experience spanning years and continents? I was going to say “adaptability,” but I feel it is really the “power of people.” There is no bigger capital than human capital. For a leader, this is investing time in developing people and creating a multiplier effect through people and cultures.

Comprising of a global team including scientists, engineers, artists, data enthusiasts and more, Katharos Labs is not an everyday technology company customers come across. Their core expertise lies in the fact that they are a transparent and collaborative group of product and customer experience experts that listen. No matter where a client is in their project journey, Katharos can drop in and make something delightful. “Another unique factor about us is we embrace projects that solve problems, projects with a deep layer of complexity, projects with a minimal footprint and projects that allow us to implement,” says Tiffany Burtt. “We always have a project in process that we are funding because of community impact is a much greater need than our pockets.”

Katharos has gained a name for itself in the market as they create fast scalable solutions and experiences that are light years ahead of the traditional methods by proactively identifying and removing major risks and embracing the most cutting-edge technology on the market. Katharos is a young technology company founded just over 4 years ago with a core team occupying the US, UK, India, Belarus, Pakistan, Russia and Spain and have been together since day one. Working towards their mission, Katharos develops original, secure and scalable tech solutions with a design that delivers an intuitive and delightful customer experience. “Our greatest weapon is the way we built our technology infrastructure to support continuous improvement, automated testing and flawless deployments,” adds Tiffany Burtt. “We are quietly leading in technology because we work with integrity and transparency, listen and ideate with the client, follow due diligence before accepting a project, have stellar design, speed and security and to top it all up we have sheer excellence.”

” As the whole world is playing in blockchain, so are we, but that project has to stay confidential for the moment. You can count on seeing the Katharos name in international distribution of coffee and hemp along with significant platform feature additions. “

The company has developed a platform currently supporting communities and businesses across multiple industries and its features include eCommerce, custom CRM, inventory, payment processing (even in high-risk), pickup/delivery app, dashboard and reporting suite. Katharos has a unique methodology for managing API repository which allows them to reuse stellar tech and pass some of the development savings onto the client. However, it is pertinent to mention that Katharos is not limited to any one solution and their work spans multiple industries. The platform is a comprehensive business solution that centralizes all data into one place, increases the bottom line with increased sales via a simply designed webstore or a full blown specialized marketplace and automated internal processes as a result of the platform integration.

Katharos developed FixdRepair.com, while ideating a concept on technology solutions for other challenges. The client needed a solution for processing warranty claims and the challenge got much bigger as discussions ensured. After 2 years of in-house design and development, Katharos released the beta in Dallas, Texas with 4 native apps supporting consumers scheduling of claim repairs and on-demand non-warranty repairs. Consumers have visibility to their contractors and can track them. They have insight into the repair photos, all work done, all costs associated. The consumer apps includes features like direct one-to-one messaging with their contractor, all history, push notifications and alerts for maintenance, purchase a home warranty, manage payments, approval of all work before and after its completed. The contractor app have many of the same features but also includes parts inventory visibility and ordering, scheduling and rescheduling, complete background checked on-boarding process, ratings and reviews, push notifications and alerts and more.

With so much accomplished, Katharos is surging ahead as a powerhouse of integrity and technology innovation, no different than today. “As the whole world is playing in blockchain, so are we, but that project has to stay confidential for the moment. You can count on seeing the Katharos name in international distribution of coffee and hemp along with significant platform feature additions,” says Tiffany Burtt.

Dr. Jan Lee, CEO of Delaware Health Information Network (DHIN) has been spearheading the use of aggregated healthcare data in enhancing healthcare. DHIN began delivering results and reports on behalf of its first participating hospitals and laboratories in 2007. Each year, additional “data senders” have joined the network, and today, over 240 organizations contribute health data, a number that continues to grow. Not only does this rich data repository support a longitudinal “Community Health Record” and point-of-care treatment decisions, it has enabled DHIN to develop other services to “make the data useful.” For example, DHIN offers a Personal Health Record (PHR) that enables consumers (patients) to view the same data their doctor sees in the Community Health Record, but through a user interface designed for laymen. DHIN also provides analytics services that enable a subscriber, such as an Accountable Care Organization, to gain insights that enable them to be more efficient.

” DHIN provides alerts to primary care providers when their patients are discharged from a participating facility. “

DHIN strictly enforces technical and administrative safeguards to ensure access to this data is restricted to appropriate users with a “need to know.” It is notable that DHIN was one of the first HIEs to become certified under the HITRUST CSF, the gold standard in security best practices. DHIN provides frequent, ongoing training to its staff, ensuring security is top-of-mind. The frequency and sophistication of phishing attempts is definitely on the rise, requiring constant vigilance to recognize and avoid them.

Unlike many other healthcare markets, Delaware has a predominance of small (three providers or less), independent practices that are not affiliated with a hospital or health system. These practices are extremely cost sensitive, and that has been a barrier to adoption of the full range of DHIN’s data services. In an effort to help these smaller practices prepare for newer value-based payment models, the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services is making a one-time grant opportunity available to encourage practices to adopt the full suite of DHIN services, with special emphasis on sending data to DHIN as well as using the data already held by DHIN.

According to Dr. Jan Lee, in a balanced ecosystem, a participant who takes something from the ecosystem also puts something back in which is used, in turn, by other participants of the ecosystem. It has always been a guiding principle that those who receive value from DHIN should contribute to DHIN’s sustainability proportional to the value they receive., The value of DHIN as a “one-stop-shop” for access to a patient’s complete medical history has grown as DHIN has attracted more data sending participants. Conversely, as more providers rely on DHIN as that single source for all the health data they need, the more they insist that the labs, imaging centers, and hospitals they do business with must commit to sending their data through DHIN.

Every major EHR vendor is offering data exchange services and tools to query other organizations for data they may not have themselves. DHIN has an advantage of over a decade of becoming increasingly embedded into the workflow of the Delaware healthcare community. People tend to support what they help to create, and DHIN and its services are very much the co-creation of the board, staff, leadership, and participating organizations that make up the DHIN. “Our strategy is to stay “sticky” by wrapping services around the data and bundling those services into value-added packages that the EHR vendors cannot replicate,” adds Dr. Lee. “My executive team and I have regular, frequent face-to-face contact with the leadership of all health care organizations in the state. Hence, we are seen as the trusted, neutral, “Switzerland” of health data exchange in Delaware.”

DHIN

Management

Dr.Jan Lee
CEO

Description

DHIN creates efficiencies for doctors, patients, practices, and those who send them clinical information.

In February 2013, Tina Powell spoke at a National Conference and predicted the rapid adoption of social media in financial services and urged financial advisors to pay attention. Facebook wasn’t a fad, but rather it was the future. Early on, advisors struggled with social media, and rightly so. Compliance wasn’t buying into the idea; most importantly, neither was the CEO. Yet whenever Tina gave a talk or spoke to a CEO one-on-one about how social media could be used for growth and client retention, lightbulbs went off like fireworks on the 4th of July. Those same sparks led her to leave a nine-year legacy at Beacon Wealth Management (acquired by Mercer Advisors) to form C-Suite Social Media in May of 2017.

“C-Suite empowers its clients with their most popular service called the 30-60-90 Sprint, a tailored integrated marketing plan for businesses looking to get marketing results as quickly as possible.”

Tina, CEO of C-Suite Social Media, possesses several qualities that have helped transform her agency and clientele. The first is Tina’s ability to adapt to new forms of media that show promise and traction. She also believes in experimentation with new digital tools. As a marketing agency leader in financial services, she realizes the importance of using all media formats to create connections that build a brand and form a bond. As Tina says, “Every touchpoint matters.” The second is the mindset. Tina is relentless and passionate in her pursuit to grow a successful company that creates employment opportunities for women and fosters their professional development through coaching, mentoring, and training her team.

C-Suite empowers its clients with their most popular service called the 30-60-90 Sprint, a tailored integrated marketing plan for businesses looking to get marketing results as quickly as possible. C-Suite serves as a trusted partner throughout those 90 days, leading businesses through auditing, goal setting, marketing rollout and execution, and analytics and measurement.

The plan is broken down into three phases:

· Goals and Groundwork: In the first 30 days, identifying where the business is, including working and what requires improvement.

· Customize and Build: The next 30 days are dedicated to customizing the marketing plan based on the client’s goals.

· Measure and Handoff: In the final 30 days, marketing activities are beginning to show results. While C-Suite understands that it takes more than 90 days to build a lifetime customer, they start to measure how far the client has come. They evaluate KPIs, progress, and milestones with a 30-60-90 Day Performance Report and share with clients.

“We believe in the great work our clients do and we work tirelessly to help them tell their story on social media and digital channels,” says Tina. “We know we’ve done our job when clients grow, build equity and increase relevance among their target audience. That is, when we help them create and communicate their value.”

For instance, a hybrid-RIA with a national footprint lacked marketing know-how and team support to orchestrate an integrated marketing plan that leveraged social media for brand awareness and advisor growth/engagement. They had digital properties in place – website, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube – but no strategy and no process. They asked C-Suite to help them design a 30-60-90 Day marketing sprint to build brand awareness and create a regular cadence on social media by utilizing a repeatable process and a framework for success. As a result, the client witnessed growth in AUM and the number of advisors joining and enhanced social media engagements.

C-Suite Social Media is growing in size each year, and the company doubled its business in 2020, amid Coronavirus. New team members are planned for the first quarter of January 2021 to help cater to an expanding clientele’s digital marketing and social media needs. In terms of services, C-Suite’s 30-60-90 Day Sprint is their most popular product, while the full-service Social Media Marketing is the 2nd most requested service. “In 2020, we added Podcast Production to C-Suite’s list of marketing services as we believe it is a must-have digital property for both B2B and B2C businesses that want to remain relevant and meet the baseline requirements of a rapidly evolving, digital landscape where VOICE takes center stage,” says Tina.IE

C-Suite Social Media

Management

Tina Powell
CEO of C-Suite Social Media

Description

C-Suite Social Media is a social media and digital marketing consultancy for the financial services industry. We help financial advisory firms build strong brands and achieve their most important business objectives using social media and digital marketing strategies. Our work helps leaders in the financial services industry to differentiate, raise their visibility, and attract attention from the people who matter most.

Aziza Abed, Founder and CEO of Pure Health Dental Partners’ ambition and hard work over a two-year period acquired 9 dental practices into 6 locations and continues to grow incrementally. Pure Health Dental Partners is a Dental Service Organization (DSO) serving over 7500 patients. Pure Health Dental provide general dentistry and specialty services to patients of all demographics. PHD’s practices accept a wide variety of insurance plans and also provides an in-house savings plan for those patients with no insurance. PHD’s goal is to provide their patients with an affordable, safe, personalized care, clean and advanced technological environment. They know how important their patient’s overall health is, so they have created the highest standard of care platforms that are ADA, AAP, CDC, OSHA and Ohio State Dental Board recommended.

“Pure Health Dental has become a leading dental group practice in Ohio”

Aziza started her career as a dental hygienist. She was fortunate to work for a DSO (DentalOne Partners) that believed in her ability to pioneer a new clinical management role to help grow the organization. At DentalOne Aziza was able to implement clinical and operational guidelines to ensure regulatory compliance protocols were being followed. Aziza and her happy dedicated teams were able to sustain positive year over year EBITDA growth. Aziza is known in the industry for being people orientated, creating everlasting relationships and most of all, always treating everyone with the utmost respect and gratitude. After 14 years of serving DentalOne, she was recruited by another DSO -North American Dental Group which at the time only had 36 locations. Her positions at NADG were Senior Director of Operations and Clinical Director of Operations. She helped create and implement clinical and operational platforms that were scalable to allow for the company’s vision of multi-unit group growth as well as year over year incremental EBITDA growth. As you can see, between her passion for dentistry, her past experiences, her supportive influencers, her drive and motivation all led her to be the first female dental hygienist to start a DSO. She also serves on the editorial board for Group Dentistry Now, lectures for dental residency programs and does public speaking engagements. Advising the future women entrepreneurs, Aziza says, “Find your passion, set goals, surround yourself with positive people, learn from those that are willing to teach you, never think you know it all, respect people, show compassion, create your own core values and don’t stray from them no matter the circumstance and always revisit your goals. Dreams do come true as long as you put the work into it and stay focused!” Aziza is blessed to work alongside two of her five sons, Kamal (Director of Operations) and Jamal (Director of Business Development), both of which share the same passion.

Dentistry is a health care service industry, so it is vital that the focus be on the patient’s overall health and wellness needs. It is also critical to ensure the team members have standard operating procedures to ensure they are following all regulatory compliance rules and regulations to keep them safe. In dentistry infection control and OSHA have always been at the forefront of normal standards but with the current unprecedented times of the Covid-19 pandemic it is even more crucial that these rules are followed to perfection. There is no room for error. At PHD, they also focus on clinical quality assurance and hire in top-notch talent to serve their patients. PHD takes the health and safety of their patients and teams very seriously.

PHD is owned and managed by partners that are dedicated to providing the highest standard of care to their patients and teams. The “people” team culture concept of the business is truly their number one priority. Their vision is to have a presence in over 20 cities across the state of Ohio. IE

Pure Health Dental

Management

Aziza Abed
Founder and CEO of Pure Health Dental

Description

PURE Health Dental Partners is a new company that was founded to create an industry leading group of dental offices. We will be concentrating on both acquisitions and denovos. Regardless of the model, the practices will be equipped with state of the art technology and will operate within the hours most convenient for our patients. Our providers will be partnering with the patient’s physicians and focusing on our patient’s overall “ dental / health” wellness. PURE Health Dental provides world class care to their patients as well as their teams. The foundation of PURE Health Dental will be built on their core values of Trust, Honesty, Integrity, Clinical Quality, Growth Orientated, Determination and Synergy.

Today, many major pharmaceutical and bioscience companies, as well as dynamic start-ups, are focused on gene therapy, along with venture capital firms and investment banks who are eager to take part in the sector. Gene therapy has advanced to a point where curative and life-changing possibilities are in sight, not to mention the tremendous financial rewards that can come with successful new genetic medicines and technology. Sheila Mikhail, CEO and co-founder of AskBio, saw the transformative potential of gene therapy long before it was an accepted form of business and medicine. She saw the people behind the science differently than most – not as players in a financial transaction, but rather as important figures in medical advances that could create hope for underserved patient populations with rare and incurable diseases. She also applied her business and legal acumen to form innovative collaborations and obtain non-dilutive financing against the headwinds of a skeptical investment community.

“Making history with every genetic advancement “

Sheila began her career as a lawyer and leveraged her knowledge of life sciences intellectual property into a vision for gene therapy to save and change lives. That same vision was shared by AskBio’s scientific co-founders, Jude Samulski, PhD, and Xiao Xiao, PhD. “Millions of children and adults who suffer from severely altered or shortened lives due to genetic disorders may now have a chance to enjoy life to the fullest – without wheelchairs, respirators and millions of dollars spent on the cost of care,” says Sheila.

Jude led the pioneering discoveries for cloning adeno-associated virus (AAV) and how a virus can be used to successfully deliver therapeutic payloads to cells. His work formed the foundation for AAV gene therapy today. Since that time, AskBio’s focus has not only been on developing therapeutics but also the technology and science to ensure safety, efficacy and accessibility. Recombinant AAV (rAAV), while important, is only one part of the picture. “Additional technologies such as self-complementary AAV (scAAV), which we out-licensed for use in recently FDA-approved Zolgensma, and the development of novel capsids, inducible promoters, redosing potential, and high-yield manufacturing processes are also part of the equation,” adds Sheila. “For these reasons, we are a sought-after partner and seen as an industry leader.”

AskBio’s founders also helped create Columbus Children’s Foundation in 2017 to accelerate access to gene therapy for children with ultra-rare diseases. “While there is no true commercial opportunity for these diseases, treatments must be advanced urgently. Barriers to access need to be met head-on to ensure that cures are available and affordable for those who need them most,” explains Sheila.

The strategies that advanced AskBio to a stronger position than many others in the industry are reflected in its wholistic view of gene therapy and enabling technologies. Now almost 20 years in business, its fully-integrated approach that encompasses therapeutic discovery and clinical translation programs, AAV manufacturing, and the broad development of genetic material is proving its value. AskBio has a robust clinical development program and currently licenses its technology and manufacturing methodologies to many of the world’s leading and most innovative pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

The key technology that will transform 2020, at least for AskBio, will be the advancement of synthetic inducible promoters to provide precise on/off gene control and flexibility for gene regulation. The company has identified how to control gene expression using natural processes to make AAV gene therapy safer and more effective – essentials to moving gene therapy forward.

AskBio is at the forefront of all the necessary components, which will not only support its own pipeline of gene therapies but also stands to advance an entire industry working to bring potential treatments and cures to those with rare diseases and other genetic disorders. Sheila further noted, “In many respects, gene therapy is in its infancy with the possibilities only beginning to be realized. For that reason, we continue to invest in technologies and expansion that keep us several steps ahead of our peers, but at the same time, we want to see success for every player in the industry who can change the lives of those with genetic diseases.”

AskBio

Management

Sheila Mikhail
CEO and Co-Founder

Description

At Asklepios BioPharmaceutical (AskBio), we are making history with every clinical advancement and aspire to turn hope into cures by unraveling new possibilities for genetic medicine. We are headquartered in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, a thriving biotechnology hub with over 600 life science companies, and have research and development facilities in Edinburgh, Scotland, and manufacturing in San Sebastian, Spain.

Apex Logistics International Inc., was founded 2001 in Shanghai, China. The start focused on filling a void in needed airfreight capacity, from China to the USA, which was attractive to other freight forwarders who wanted to service its customers through a trusted co-load arrangement. This allowed Apex to expand across of China and connect to the USA, which then opened its American Headquarter in Los Angeles 2003. Over 15 year period, from 2003 to 2018, Apex launched its Ocean, Customs Brokerage, Domestic Trucking, Warehouse Distribution and Trade Services. In addition, Apex invested in Perishable Foods and e-Commerce business. Its charter division increased its operations to well over 500 flights per year. “We pride ourselves on attracting the best & brightest logistics talent in a global market in every facet of our technologically innovative client solutions.” says Elsie Qian, CEO Americas at Apex.

” Apex gained a leading position within the international transportation management of perishable commodities from the U.S. to Asia. “

Unlike many freight forwarders who simply rely on commercial flights as their air freight solution, Apex specializes in value creation by inserting specific and regularly scheduled charters so that its clients can have a stable year round solution. Apex operates over 500 air charters annually, including multiple weekly round trip flights between Wuhan and Chicago, Hong Kong and Chicago and just inaugurated weekly flights between Wuhan and Columbus OH (LCK). The Wuhan-Columbus charter is the first and only direct China to Columbus scheduled service that will increase speed and efficiency for its Asia customers. Apex is a market leader for transportation & Customs clearance of low value e-commerce packages. “We have perfected Customs clearance of low value e-commerce packages providing an end to end solution for e-commerce merchants and e-retailers.” adds Elsie.

The other unique offering from Apex is its specialty in Perishable Shipping. Apex gained a leading position within the international transportation management of perishable commodities from the U.S. to Asia. It is one of only few freight forwarders who has cold chain facilities in all US West Coast, including Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The 24×7 operations manage the export of approximately 25,000 air freight metric tons and 500 ocean TEUs per year. All its temperature controlled facilities are TSA Certified Cargo Screening Facility (CCSF) with a high-quality x-ray machine.

An example of Apex’s value creation occurred when a client, in the consumer electronics industry, introduced a new product during high peak season shipping. During October – November, traditional retail peak, the shipper found it hard to transport big volume in a short period out of Hong Kong, its regular export hub. Apex was able to ground transfer all cargo to its major gateway in Wuhan and utilized its dedicated charter solutions to successfully export most cargo to the final destination on time. As a young accelerating company, its system is built using cloud technology, allowing Apex to be nimble in aligning with each clients’ technology. Apex Group is heavily focused on how proposed trade regulations are developed & implemented by government agencies via their participation and membership in the CBP Trade Support Network (TSN), various Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) sub committees and international trade organizations.

As E-commerce has exploded for a revolutionary new way of customer fulfillment, Apex is perfectly positioned to maximize the transportation services and this new form of Customs clearance for low value merchandise direct to e-consumers. Next for the company is a focus on expanding in emerging markets and enhancing their trade lines. “When you service the top 25 largest companies in the world, you have confidence in your service and vision. We can’t wait for the next 10 years. Stay tuned.” says Elsie.