Speakers

As State CISO, Mr. Hodges leads GTA's Office of Information Security, which unifies information security responsibilities for the state's IT enterprise, the Georgia Enterprise Technology Services (GETS) program, and GTA.

Before joining GTA, Mr. Hodges served as the Disclosure Officer and Senior IT Security Manager for the Georgia Department of Revenue (DOR). His nearly 22-year tenure at the agency included a variety of roles: Server Platform Manager, Network Support and Security Manager, IT Operations Manager, and Database Support Manager. Mr. Hodges also held responsibility for business continuity and disaster recovery planning. Before joining DOR, he was employed by the Georgia Department of Administrative Services, first as a contractor and later as a state employee.

Mr. Hodges has been involved in information security throughout his career in both the public and private sectors. Early on, he was part of a team that developed one of the first commercially marketed disk encryption and access control systems for IBM-compatible computers. His experience spans a wide array of information technology systems and configurations, and he holds several professional certifications including Lean Six Sigma, Dante Networking, Dell | EMC Clariion, and Novell CNE.

Maria S. Thompson is the State and Local Government Executive Government Advisor - Cybersecurity for Amazon Web Services (AWS).  In this role, she brings over 20 years of experience in information technology, strategic planning, computer network defense and risk management. Prior to her role with AWS, Maria served as North Carolina’s first State Chief Risk and Security Officer.  

Denis Goulet was appointed Commissioner of the Department of Information Technology for the
state of New Hampshire in February 2015 by Governor Hassan. He was then re-appointed in
2019 for another four year term by Governor Sununu. Goulet is also serving as President of the
National Association of State CIO’s (NASCIO) Most recently the Director of Development for the
software development firm Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Goulet has nearly 30 years of
private-sector IT experience in industries such as healthcare, high technology and
manufacturing. Goulet was previously the Vice President of Information Technology from 2004
to 2010 at Progress Software Corporation, were he also previously worked as the Director of
Information Systems, The Director of E-Business and the Director of IT Operations.
Goulet was also previously the Manager of IT Operations from 1993-1994 at Freudenberg-NOK
in Bristol, New Hampshire, and he graduated from the Gartner CIO Academy in 2005. Goulet
received a B.A. in business and economics from St. Anselm College.

Matt Singleton is an Executive Strategist at Crowdstrike and currently teaches as a Professor of Cybersecurity at the University of Oklahoma. Prior to joining CrowdStrike, he was the chief information security officer for the state of Oklahoma where he led all cybersecurity defensive efforts, offensive operations and compliance/privacy practices. During that time, he completely rebuilt Oklahoma Cyber Command into a world-class program, oversaw the state’s efforts to push more than 32,000 state employees to work securely and effectively from home during the global pandemic, established the state’s first enterprise fraud prevention, detection and investigation program, and launched the Oklahoma Information Sharing and Analysis Center. 

Prior to Oklahoma’s CISO, he served as chief operations officer for Oklahoma’s information services division. In that role, he oversaw the technology operations for 189 executive branch agencies/affiliates and executed the unification of 110 IT organizations across the state, realizing more than $875 million in cost savings. His work was highlighted in Chris Fussell’s Wall Street Journal best-seller, One Mission: How Leaders Build a Team of Teams. 

Matt’s prior work history includes leading IT at the University of Oklahoma. Most notably, he played a central role in establishing OU’s cybersecurity program, the OU Cyber-Forensics Lab and OU’s highly popular technology retail store, which ranked as the No. 1 institutionally managed Apple reseller in the Southeast. He also provided critical leadership for the development of OU2GO, one of the first iPhone apps in Higher Education.

Matt earned a master’s degree in applied intelligence from Georgetown University with specializations in cyber-intelligence, homeland security and counterterrorism. He also holds a bachelor’s degree from OU, a master’s certificate in IT service management and numerous other industry certifications.

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