An industry-recognized IT leader in the design and delivery of cost-effective, high-performance technology solutions, Bradd Busick is the Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at MultiCare Health System. He has been featured in CIO Magazine, TED, recognized by Constellation Research as one of the top 150 innovative CXO’s in the country and is a two-time nominee as the top CIO in Washington state by CIO Insider. He was selected as the CIO of the year in 2023.

Busick delivers value to the enterprise by proactively offering broad, cutting-edge approaches for growing business and creating innovation across organizations such as Boeing, Ralph Lauren, Ford and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Busick has a Bachelor of Science and MBA from Pacific Lutheran University, with an emphasis in Technology and Innovation Management and is currently enrolled in the master’s program at Brown University. He is a certified Change Management practitioner, a board member of the PNW Chapter of Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP), recognized by the Business Examiner as one of South Sound’s 40 under 40 and is an adjunct faculty member in the Morken School of Business at Pacific Lutheran University.

Chandra Chikkareddy is a product and engineering leader in the area of artificial intelligence, data and cloud computing. He has extensive experience delivering large-scale customer-facing platforms and applications for both enterprises and consumers. 

At Meta, he spearheaded frontier LLM post-training and GenAI modernization for some of Meta’s core services, powering billions of users across the app ecosystem. Previously as a VP/GM at Microsoft, he was the head of the Office AI and Word teams, where they helped redefine the future of work for billions of users. His team was the home of the NLP, applied LLMs (post training), Multimodal GenAI, and the Office AI runtime platforms. Chikkareddy also led Merchant platforms at PayPal, and was involved in data and analytics startups. 

Chikkareddy holds a bachelor of engineering in computer science from Mysore University, and a MBA from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

Kristie Duffin is the Chief Technology Officer for Cascade Asset Management Company, a $100 billion+ investment management firm responsible for managing the assets of Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation. Duffin joined Cascade in 2016 to drive the strategy and operations of Cascade’s technology platforms.

Previously, Duffin was Managing Director and Head of Global CRM at BlackRock, based in Seattle and London. Duffin has held several technology leadership positions with financial companies managing software development, product and program management, and technology infrastructure.

Duffin is also on the Advisory Board for the University of Washington Bothell School of Business and is a graduate of the University of Washington Seattle Foster School of Business with both a BA and a Technology MBA.

Kari Escobedo is a technology executive, board advisor and educator with more than 25 years of experience helping organizations transform through technology, data, artificial intelligence and digital innovation. She has led enterprise technology strategy for global Fortune 500 companies and professional sports organizations including Microsoft, Starbucks, T-Mobile, Kaiser Permanente, Bartell Drugs and the Seattle Mariners, and currently serves as Interim Chief Technology Officer for Seattle Sounders FC and Seattle Reign FC.

As Founder and Managing Director of Strategy4Innovation, Escobedo advises executives and boards on AI strategy, cybersecurity, technology governance, digital transformation and organizational change. She is passionate about helping leaders responsibly adopt emerging technologies while building high-performing, customer-focused organizations.

Escobedo is equally committed to developing the next generation of technology leaders. She serves as an Adjunct Professor in Seattle University's Sports & Entertainment MBA program and is an active advisor to the University of Washington iSchool and Western Washington University's College of Business & Economics. 

Robert Gervais is the founder of Chuckanut Games, providing technical and operational solutions to clients who strive to engage with their customers through the magic of games. He enjoys working with a diverse group of government, business, and organization leaders as he draws from over two decades of experience with 10 years spent working on Unreal Engine (UE) and Epic Online Services (EOS).

Prior to founding Chuckanut Games, Gervais was Director of Learning & Education at Epic Games, where he led several teams and managed multiple co-development studios that support independent and AAA game companies working with UE and EOS for games, film, television, and advertising. While at Epic, he also worked on Fortnite, Paragon, Battle Breakers, and Unreal Tournament. He enjoys discussing ways that game technology can help organizations and businesses thrive in today’s world, so feel free to connect with him on LinkedIn.

Erik Johnson is Principal and Co-founder of Informed Decision, a Seattle-based consultancy focused on Microsoft data and AI platforms, including Microsoft Fabric, Purview and AI agents. The firm’s name reflects a conviction Johnson has held throughout his career: Organizations shouldn’t aspire to be data-driven — that risks crowding out human judgment, taste, and intuition — but data-informed. He advises executive leadership at consultancies and enterprises on strategy, go-to-market, and delivery for Microsoft AI and data solutions.

Before founding Informed Decision in 2026, Johnson spent nearly 20 years at Slalom Consulting, most recently as managing director and global lead of Slalom’s Microsoft Business Unit, responsible for the sale and delivery of client solutions across Azure, OpenAI, Copilot, Power Platform, Modern Work, Dynamics 365 and Security. During his tenure, he started and grew several practices and capabilities, including Anaplan, Dynamics, Data & Analytics, and Microsoft BI, and under his leadership Slalom was named GitHub’s 2025 AMER Services & Channel Partner of the Year. Earlier in his career, Johnson held consulting roles at Hitachi Consulting and Arthur Andersen LLP, building business intelligence and data warehousing solutions for clients including Microsoft and AT&T Wireless.

Johnson is a graduate of the University of Washington Foster School of Business and lives in Seattle’s University District.

Jeff Jones is a Cybersecurity Consultant and former Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for Milliman, Inc., an actuarial consulting and solutions firm headquartered in Seattle with revenues exceeding $1 billion. Jones was also a CISO finalist at the 2023 Seattle Orbie Awards and continues to network with other CISOs and CIOs in the Seattle area. 

Jones joined Milliman in 2016 and demonstrated innovative skills advising practices internally, managing cybersecurity and incident response, and representing Milliman’s information security interests with major clients, auditors, and vendors. He came to Milliman following a consulting engagement with Nordstrom.  Prior to Nordstrom, Jones was the Senior Information Security Manager at Black Knight Financial Services, where he managed the internal risk management team and developed security policies.   

Early in his career, Jones served honorably in the United States Air Force. Jones brings over 30 years of information technology and information security experience to the CISO role, including tenures at IBM, AT&T, ADP, and First American CoreLogic. 

Among his four degrees, Jones earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of California, Davis, and a Master of Science in Information Technology from Golden Gate University. Jones has a passion for serving in his community, and is a former VP of the 100 Black Men of Sacramento, a non-profit that mentors young men in underserved communities. 

Brian Lent is one of the earliest pioneers of the modern AI era, a technical luminary whose career began at the genesis of the internet itself. While pursuing his Ph.D. at Stanford, he worked with a legendary group of computer science students — including Larry Page and Sergey Brin — at a research lab that would one day incubate the Google search engine. This formative experience gave him a front-row seat to some of the greatest technical challenges of the era, and a deep understanding of how to build new data-driven systems from the ground up.

This unique perspective propelled him to leadership roles at some of the world's most innovative companies. At Amazon, he built the company's first predictive analytics platform and data science team, creating the recommendation system that would become the foundation of e-commerce and would ultimately drive 30%+ of Amazon.com's revenues. He has since founded four innovative AI and data-driven companies, applying his deep technical expertise to solve some of the world's most complex problems, from next-generation credit scoring to a highly complex AI to power Level 5 full autonomous driving and real estate analytics.

Florin Rotar is Avanade’s CTO and is responsible for the strategic technology direction for the company. He is leading Avanade's Emerging Technology Group, Portfolio Management & Incubation Teams, Global Innovation Team and Market Research function.

Curious by nature and a technologist by trade ever since he typed LOAD “*”, 8,1 on his Commodore 64 in 1983, Rotar is an optimistic believer in the power of technology to make a genuine human impact. With a background as an entrepreneur, a practitioner and a technology leader, and spending the last 20 years between the U.S., U.K., Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, he uses his experience to guide teams and clients through the journey of realizing the potential and promise of the Microsoft platform. Rotar is a published co-author of the book "We the People: Human Purpose in a Digital Age: A Guide to Digital Ethics for Individuals, Organizations and Robots of All Kinds."

Richard Starnes is a managing director at Accenture with over 25 years of experience focused on delivering analytics solutions with measurable value for his clients. Starnes advises many of the largest and most influential technology sector companies on approaches and programs around data governance, data platforms, cloud migrations, MDM, business intelligence, AI/ML, and CDO/COE organizational structure and operations. 

Previously at Deloitte, Starnes served as the global leader for Tableau and Salesforce Analytics, leading the Semiconductor sub-sector for Analytics, and serving in many other leadership roles in his 15 years there. 

Starnes has a Bachelor of Science in Management Science from Loughborough University in the UK. He lives with his wife and five children in Bellevue. He is an avid soccer fan, coach and player, and is on the board of the Queen Anne Soccer club.

Wendy Turner-Williams is the founder and CEO of Culstrata-ai and theassociation.ai. Turner-Williams has 25+ years of experience in the AI, Data and Trust space at companies like Accenture, Microsoft and Salesforce. Following her recent stint as the chief data & analytics officer for Tableau, Turner-Williams has embraced her entrepreneurial spirit and is now focused on bringing proven chief data & AI fractional and best-in-class talent acquisition services to market. She is using her change agent and culture building experience to form and foster an AI, data, ethics, privacy and security professionals’ community with the intention of breaking silos, improving networking, and the identification and publication of technology self-regulation opportunities that ensures ethical AI and data handling.

Turner-Williams is an award-winning chief data & analytics officer, author, speaker and thought-leader. She serves on the advisory boards at Kensu and Women in Tech World Series (North America). She also supports the development of the next generation of AI, data and ML leaders as an adjunct professor for Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College CdataO certification program.

Pawan Uppuluri is a seasoned technology executive with 25+ years of experience building consumer products at internet scale. She has a track record of building products from early stage concept through launch; and building and managing large scale systems serving multi-billion dollar businesses. Most recently, she served as the Chief Technology Officer at Thrasio, a next generation consumer goods company. Prior to this, she was the Chief Technology Officer at Glossier and Director of Product & Engineering at Amazon. Uppuluri was named in Forbes “Next CIO 2021 - 50 innovative technology leaders transforming business for a radically different world” and Girl Geek “60 Female CTOs to watch in 2023.”

At Thrasio, Uppuluri oversaw product and technology building a machine learning driven merchandising and distribution platform across multiple e-commerce channels enabling demand optimization through pricing & marketing as well as supply chain optimization. At Glossier, a digital-first beauty company, she oversaw product and engineering for e-commerce & retail and helped transform the technology team and systems to deliver a best-in-class omnichannel platform. Previously, as the Director of Software Development in Alexa, Uppuluri led product and engineering for News, Voice of the Customer and Alexa Orchestration Engine which was the backbone workflow for Alexa.

Yi Zhou is a globally recognized AI thought leader and technology executive with more than three decades of leadership across healthcare, life sciences, and enterprise technology. He founded Agentic Engineering, an AI-native discipline for building and governing production-grade AI systems, and has led major transformations at GE Healthcare, Adaptive Biotechnologies, Slalom, Quest Diagnostics, and Celera. His work includes pioneering platforms in medical imaging, precision medicine, genomics and enterprise AI, including 12 FDA-cleared technologies across X-ray, CT and MRI.

Zhou is a leading voice in responsible AI, standards and governance. He authored the GE Healthcare AI Standards and Playbook, serves as a voting member of the MITA AI Committee, and has advised the FDA, EMA, and NMPA on AI safety, validation and accountability. He is the author of three AI books and more than 80 publications and has received the Seattle CIO of the Year ORBIE Award, two CEO Awards, three DNA Innovation Awards, and LinkedIn Top Voice recognition.