Speakers

Chris Rein serves as the Chief Technology Officer for the State of New Jersey.  In this position, he leads the State’s Office of Information Technology which is a 650-person team charged with operating the technology infrastructure for the Executive Branch - over 35 State departments, agencies, and offices.  Mr. Rein was the former Deputy Director of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Cell.  In this role, he also served as our State's Deputy CISO (Chief Information Security Officer).  His background includes 42 years developing, integrating, and managing software as well as holding leadership roles with large and complex information technology projects.  Prior to joining the State’s Cyber and OIT organizations, Chris held the position of Vice President and Chief Information Officer for CSI Technology, a New Jersey software development company serving Law Enforcement, Regulatory, and Judiciary markets.  He served as the NJ State Police IT Program Manager/CIO, and earlier advanced in technical and management roles over some 20 years at the former Bell Atlantic and its technology subsidiary, Bellcore. 

Chris received his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Rutgers University, and earned his Master’s degree in Technology Management from Stevens Institute of Technology.  Chris lives in central New Jersey with his family.

Matt Lawson is the Director for Solution Engineering for NetApp U.S. Public Sector focusing on State and Local Government, Education, and Healthcare. His areas of expertise include IT Management, IT Strategy, cloud, ITSM, disaster recovery and business continuity, enterprise IT, and green data centers. Prior to joining NetApp, Matt spent 20 years in IT management in a Higher Education environment. He is a former a CTO for a large state community college system and a former Higher Education VP for Information Technology. Matt is the proud father of seven daughters and one son and he calls Richmond, Virginia home.

Sean Phuphanich is a Principal SA and works with AWS partners and customers on migration and modernization to cloud and hybrid cloud. As a former Vice President of eCommerce & IT, Sean has over a decade of leadership and hands on experience transforming organizations. Sean guides public sector customers globally; including US state and local.

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