Speakers

Gundeep Ahluwalia is a tech leader with a unique vision for innovation and strategy. Since assuming the role of Chief Information Officer (CIO) in October 2016, Ahluwalia has led Information Technology growth and transformation at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). He provides strategic leadership for IT capital planning, project initiatives, talent acquisition and enterprise-wide services—ultimately advancing the Department’s mission-critical work. Prior to serving as the CIO, Ahluwalia served as DOL’s Deputy CIO. 

Under his leadership, Ahluwalia directs IT modernization projects, reinforces cybersecurity, promotes accessibility, and fosters information exchange between DOL’s 27 agencies. He collaborates with Department leadership, the Office of Management and Budget, and other key stakeholders to formulate governance policy, budgets, and other strategic investment processes. His flagship program, the award-winning DOL IT Platform, integrates mission critical applications and brings together a variety of services and management into a single, cloud-based environment, including case management, content management, enterprise scanning, service management, and data analytics. His crusade to reduce legacy debt and increase data-based decision making involved securing two Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) awards for the Department - $3.5 million to empower a transformation of the temporary work visa certification system and $9.6 million to modernize enterprise-wide data infrastructure. The digitized certification system process enables employers to hire workers faster, and DOL to realize cost savings from eliminating the use of costly security paper and overnight mail, as well as to create near-real time data sharing between DOL, Department of State, and Homeland Security. The enterprise-wide data infrastructure project will help unlock data resources to better serve agency stakeholders, the Department’s workforce and the American public. It will also help deliver more timely information to the right user at the right time in a secure fashion. 

The annual DOL Tech Day expo and showcase, spanning across DOL’s 27 agencies and several federal and private partners, originated under his direction. He also advanced the Congressional Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) scorecard for DOL, achieving six “A” ratings out of seven categories scored – one of only two federal agencies to achieve more than four “A” ratings. The Department’s Unified Communications enterprise solutions efforts are also steered by Ahluwalia, supplying innovative and collaborative technology across DOL’s 386 geographically dispersed offices.

Ahluwalia has more than 20 years of experience in building and implementing enterprise-wide IT capabilities from the public and private sectors. He has developed global coalitions to identify customer-focused technology solutions across Europe, Asia, and the United States. While serving as Deputy Director at the U. S. Food and Drug Administration, he led negotiations with the European Union, Japan, and other countries to build and adopt the next generation of standards for exchanging data on adverse drug reactions.

As Director for IT & Application Support for a worldwide, supply chain management company Ahluwalia implemented solutions for a geographically dispersed customer base and drove innovative solutions that enabled industry standards for item synchronization. 

Gundeep Ahluwalia holds a Master of Business Administration from the Amity Business School in India and a Bachelor of Engineering from the Manipal Institute of Technology. He is a recipient of an FDA Honors Award for leading Human Drugs Informatics Platform transformation. He is fluent in English, Hindi, and Punjabi.

Vid Desai is a seasoned technology leader who brings more than 30 years of experience in the
information technology (IT) field, with over 26 years in the healthcare and life sciences
industries. He has previous experience working for large Pharma, Clinical Research
Organizations (CRO) and Medical Device companies.

As the FDA Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Vid is the day-to-day operations and technical
leader of the Office of Information Management & Technology (OIMT). OIMT is FDA’s
Enterprise Technology team that supports all the FDA Centers and Offices for their enterprise
technology needs. This team oversees the overall FDA IT spend of over $750M and a staff of
around 2,500 employees and contractors.

Prior to joining the FDA, Vid held the Chief Information Officer (CIO) roles at Vyaire Medical, a
Respiratory Medical Device company formed from a divestiture from Becton Dickinson. He was
CIO at Endochoice, a GI device and services provider, and Lake Region Medical, which was
acquired by Greatbach to form Integer, a medical device, outsource manufacturer. Vid’s
previous experience includes IT leadership roles with large clinical research organizations and
pharmaceuticals, including Quintiles Transnational, where he served as executive director,
Global IT Infrastructure. Prior to Quintiles, Vid held several leadership positions of increasing
responsibility with GlaxoSmithKline. Vid started his career in IT as a software engineer at Digital
Equipment Corporation in Reading, U.K.

Vid holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science (first class with honors) from
Royal Holloway College, University of London.

Sanjay Gupta joined the U.S. Small Business Administration in January 2017 as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) from the private sector. Sanjay is a business driven, results oriented leader, adept at leveraging technology to innovate and deliver results quickly. He brings to SBA an exclusive combination of experiences as a CIO/CTO, Managing Partner Consulting, and as a Research Analyst. 

As SBA’s CTO, Sanjay has led major 90-day transformations in each of the last four years. These modernization initiatives with inter-agency collaboration have not only benefited the SBA but have also informed change across the federal government landscape. 

Throughout his career, Sanjay has led business/IT transformations across industries. He brings extensive global experience across industries in areas such as IT Strategy, Innovation, Digital Transformation, Architecture, Cloud, Cybersecurity, Agile Development and Open Source.

Sanjay has authored over 20 research white papers focused on advice and guidance for CIOs/Boards. He is a recognized industry thought leader, keynote presenter, speaker and author.