Vidyut Desai -

CIO, Food & Drug Administration (FDA)

Vid Desai is a seasoned technology leader with more than 30 years of experience in the information technology (IT) field, and healthcare and life sciences industries. He has previous experience working for large pharmaceutical and medical device companies, and clinical research organizations (CRO). As the FDA’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) in the newly-established Office of Digital Transformation (ODT), Mr. Desai sets and leads the agency’s IT strategy, as well as the agency’s enterprise IT, data management, and cybersecurity. The ODT team oversees the overall FDA IT spend of more than $750M and a staff of around 2,500 employees and contractors. Prior to being named CIO, Mr. Desai served as the FDA’s Chief Technology Officer, overseeing day-to-day technology operations as the leader of the Office of Information Management and Information Technology. Prior to joining the FDA, Mr. Desai held the 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. His previous experience includes IT leadership roles with large CRO and pharmaceuticals, including Quintiles Transnational, where he served as executive director, Global IT Infrastructure. Prior to Quintiles, Mr. Desai held several leadership positions of increasing responsibility with GlaxoSmithKline. He started his career in IT as a software engineer at Digital Equipment Corporation in Reading, U.K. Mr. Desai holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (first class with honors) from Royal Holloway College, University of London.

Bharat Khandelwal -

Managing Director and Partner, Boston Consulting Group

Zaki Saleh -

Senior Vice President Health & Civilian market, LMI

Zaki Saleh leads LMI’s health & civilian market, where he is responsible for profit and loss management and business growth, overseeing project delivery, execution, and overall customer satisfaction as well as the business development function. He brings over 20 years of experience developing executable strategies, achieving profitable growth, and inspiring cultural change for leading federal consulting organizations. Zaki is passionate about helping health and federal civilian customers realize their missions through practical implementation of policies, advanced technology, and management consulting best practices. Prior to joining LMI, he served as the vice president and general manager for Peraton’s global health business unit, had the profit and loss responsibility, and led a team of over 1,000 people. He joined Peraton as part of the Northrop Grumman divestiture of its IT and mission support services business. He had held several roles at Northrop Grumman, with his last role being the chief growth officer for federal civilian, defense, intel, state and local, and government healthcare programs. Zaki attended Wittenberg University, in Springfield, Ohio, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and business. He currently serves as the chairperson for the Executive Mosaic’s 4×24 healthcare leadership group. He supports multiple local charitable organizations and was a previous member of the board of directors for the Red Cross National Capital Region, where he also served as the chair of the blood services committee.

Paul Tibbits -

Executive Director Office of Technology Integration, Office of Information and Technology [OIT], U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Dr. Paul Tibbits has 18 years of experience leading change management, process re-engineering, and IT initiatives that support federal health care programs. He developed and implemented two worldwide medical record systems, restructured IT management, and regularly represented IT projects to senior executives and Congress. Among them was the first and largest change management program in support of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) largest medical IT program. In December 2006, Dr. Tibbits began his career with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), where he served as Deputy Chief Information Officer for Enterprise Development, Deputy Chief Information Officer for Architecture, Strategy, and Design, and Program Executive Officer for the Financial Management Business Transformation Program.

Robert Wood -

Chief Information Security Officer and Director Information Security and Privacy Group, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)

Robert Wood is the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). He leads enterprise cyber security, compliance, privacy, and counter intelligence functions at CMS and ensures the Agency complies with secure IT requirements while encouraging innovation. Mr. Wood has over 10 years of experience in information technology, information security and management consulting. Prior to CMS, Mr. Wood has built and managed several security programs in the technology sector. He was also formerly a Principal Consultant for Cigital where he advised enterprises about their software security programs. He also founded and led the red team assessment practice with Cigital, focused on holistic adversarial analysis, helping organizations identify and manage risks from alternative perspectives. Mr. Wood has a B.S. in Information Management & Technology from Syracuse University.