Partner Connect at Google Public Sector Summit

Austin Adams is the Leader of Google Public Sector's Partner Organization, where he is responsible for the coordination and collaboration of Google's Partner Ecosystem. With over twenty five years of experience in public sector technology, Austin has a deep background in AI, cloud, cyber, and professional services. Before his tenure at Google, Austin held a similar position at Amazon Web Services (AWS) for five years. His previous roles include Vice President of Public Sector for Alfresco Software, a Senior Account Director for Microsoft serving the Department of Defense, a Director of DOD at the System Integrator ECS (then InfoReliance), an Account Manager at MicroLink, and a Higher Education Technology Consultant at Ellucian. Austin is a two-time "40 under 40" award winner, recognized for his contributions to the Department of Defense and Federal IT. He earned an Executive Master's in Leadership from Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business and a B.A. in Political Science from James Madison University, where he serves on the Board of the School of Political Science.

Brent Mitchell is the Vice President of Go-to-Market for Google Public Sector (GPS), bringing over 20 years of experience in information technology. He leads a team of industry experts providing cutting-edge GenAl and technology solutions to federal, state, and local governments as well as educational institutions. His team offers mission-driven products and expertise, including data analytics and highly-scalable cloud infrastructure, empowering these institutions to understand their data better, modernize legacy systems, and leverage Al to improve constituent services and student outcomes. The team is also dedicated to safeguarding government services and critical infrastructure, providing cybersecurity and incident response services.

Prior to joining GPS, Brent served as Group Vice President at Oracle, where he managed all aspects of state and local sales in North America. He is known for leading teams to rapid growth through mentorship, scaling to new markets, and introducing advanced solutions to public sector institutions. Recognized for his expertise in sales, partner strategy, and industry leadership, he has received the 2024 FedScoop 50 Award, 2024 StateScoop 50 Award, frequently speaks at industry events, and has been featured in publications such as Government Technology, StateTech, and more.

A trusted advisor to public sector organizations, Brent is deeply committed to driving digital transformation with government agencies. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Public Administration from San Diego State University and continues to be a driving force in shaping the future of technology in the public sector.

Brian Schoepfle serves as the Head of Partner Enablement at Google Public Sector. In this role, Brian leads a team responsible for developing and implementing technical enablement strategies with Google's partners, with the ultimate goal of accelerating their revenue growth. His team focuses on partners who cater to a wide range of public sector customers, including state and local governments, educational institutions, and various federal civilian and defense agencies.

Elizabeth leads the Google Public Sector Customer Engineering organization, including Federal Civilian, Defense, National Security, State and Local Governments and Education. Her team leads with a solutions mindset backed by strong technical expertise in key areas such as Generative AI, Edge, Security and Data Modernization to solve US public sector institutions’ toughest challenges. Elizabeth is an avid public speaker on key topics such as Generative AI and Security, and an advocate for Women in Tech.

Prior to joining Google, Elizabeth led Technology for AWS’ North America Sales, incubating and scaling key customer-facing capabilities across professional services, solutions architecture, and customer success, enabling AWS’ largest and highly regulated customers to adopt the cloud broadly across the enterprise. Earlier in her career, Elizabeth led the pre-sales engineering team for Oracle's North America Public Sector Consulting organization, enabling public sector entities to maximize their investment in Oracle technologies and align business initiatives with the right IT solutions. Elizabeth also spent 15 years leading data architecture and operations for MRIS, the Nation’s largest Multiple Listing Service, building services that continue to power online real estate marketplaces like Zillow and realtor.com.

As the Vice President of Federal Sales at Google Public Sector, Jim Kelly brings nearly 30 years of extensive federal market leadership and sales experience helping federal customers bring their technology strategies to life. 

Before joining Google Public Sector, Jim served at Dell Technologies in roles spanning federal sector management for the U.S. Army and U.S. Department of Defense Joint Solutions organizations, as Vice President for the U.S. Department of Defense and intelligence business and finally as Senior Vice President of North America Federal Sales. He has a proven track record in business operations, strategy development, solution sales and providing the technology and expertise needed to transform and protect the data of federal customers. 

Jim’s experience in service to federal agencies also includes his tenure as Senior Director for the U.S. Army at Microsoft where he was responsible for product sales, strategy development and oversight of services sales. Prior to Microsoft, Jim was at Symantec where he drove sales and management of the U.S. Army and Defense Agencies business providing the U.S. Department of Defense with insight into security best practices to support their defense security posture. 

At Google Public Sector, Jim applies his understanding of federal enterprise and program strategies, credibility with decision-makers and extensive relationships with industry partners to assist the federal community in achieving their mission and business goals through digital transformation, security and cutting-edge technology.

Josh Dries leads Google Public Sector's GTM motion with ISV, startup, and GovTech partners, with one mission: accelerating government access to innovation through Google Cloud and its partner ecosystem. He is building the GovTech business — spanning defense AI leaders, startups, and established ISVs — and creating programs that get partners into accredited environments fast, including an ATO acceleration fund and the AI-powered accreditation tool Project GrAIce. These efforts are returning 15x year-over-year Marketplace growth, powered by partners who co-sell with Google — pairing their solutions with Google's field, funding, and contract vehicles to win public sector business. Before Google, Josh spent fifteen years delivering transformational capabilities across Commercial, SLED, Federal Civilian, and DoD markets in leadership roles at Contrast Security, Tanium, and Cisco Systems.

Liz Combs is the Head of US Federal Partner Sales at Google Public Sector, where she leverages over 20 years of IT and public sector expertise to scale high-impact partner strategies. Prior to joining Google, Liz built a distinguished career holding positions at enterprise technology leaders, including IBM, HP/HPE, NetApp, and CA Technologies.

A passionate champion for diversity in technology, Liz is an active investor with Pipeline Angels, funding underrepresented founders, and serves as a dedicated mentor for the Princeton University Female Founded cohort. Her commitment to education and leadership extends to Seton Hall University, where she is an advisory board member for the Customer Experience program. She also maintains active memberships in the International Society of Female Professionals and the Alliance of Channel Women.

Omid Ghaffari-Tabrizi currently serves as the Head of U.S. Federal Civilian Policy at Google. Having driven or been involved with major information technology modernization efforts across multiple administrations, Omid helps provide insight into the way legislation, regulation, and policy is interpreted and implemented by the Federal employees ultimately responsible for improving and securing our nation's infrastructure. He specializes in Al, cybersecurity, emerging technology, and public sector procurement issues. He is particularly interested in issues related to interoperability, open contracting, competition, and the application of cybersecurity metrics in the procurement process.

Matthew Schneider leads Go-to-Market for Google Public Sector’s US State, Local, and Education (SLED) team, where he and his team are dedicated to ushering in a new era of innovation by bringing the best of AI and security to public sector missions. Matt is committed to empowering government and educational institutions with secure cloud-native infrastructure and accredited AI-powered solutions. He brings extensive experience to this role, having held senior public sector leadership positions at Cloudflare, Palo Alto Networks, VMware, and Cisco.

Ron Bushar serves as the Chief Security Officer and Managing Director of Solutions, Security and Delivery at Google Public Sector. In this role, he leads a diverse global team of AI, Cloud, and Cyber experts who empower Google Public Sector to safely and securely deliver customer mission outcomes and enable Google’s unique platform of innovative secure AI and cloud capabilities and solutions to state, local, educational, federal, defense, and national security national security customers.

Ron is a seasoned, highly effective, and innovative AI and cyber security leader with over 29 years of experience in technical solutions services, cyber defense operations, cybersecurity consulting, and incident response services in both the government and commercial sectors. Ron has a track record of successfully building strategic programs and dynamic teams that deliver innovative solutions, ensure effective security, minimize organizational risk, and ensure mission outcomes for customers.

Todd Goldrick leads SLED Partner Sales at Google Public Sector, orchestrating channel strategy across systems integrators, ISVs, VARs, and distribution partners to accelerate public sector digital transformation. Having led both direct sales teams and channel organizations for 20 years, Todd brings a unique perspective to partner co-selling. His foundational experience includes leading strategic IT pursuits supporting state Health & Human Services, Medicaid systems, CMS compliance, and social determinants of health (SDOH) initiatives, bridging technical solution alignment with joint field execution.

Tony is the Managing Director, Partner and Specialty Sales at Google Public Sector. Tony leads a team that is responsible for working with U.S. Public Sector agencies and customers to solve complex mission challenges through the effective placement of Google Cloud’s portfolio of Cyber Security, Workspace, Data Analytics, AI, Maps, and Application Modernization solutions.  

Tony has decades of experience helping customers build data platforms, democratize data, develop data-centric applications and modernize data operations driving mission and business value for the largest agencies and enterprises across the globe.  Tony has worked on executive teams with a focus on defining and leading strategy, driving digital transformation and growth initiatives, with a focus on innovation in cloud, data analytics and AI domains.  He has held executive leadership positions at a variety of technology companies, including Quest Software, Delphix, 3Pillar Global, CA Technologies and NetApp.