Innovative Solutions to the Cyber Talent Gap

Thomas L. Monahan III is responsible for articulating the University’s vision, mission and values with internal and external stakeholders, as well as supporting and enhancing the institution’s academic mission and overall operations. Monahan drives execution and innovation aimed at three objectives: ensuring DeVry’s current and future students realize their career ambitions through in-demand degree programs; enabling employers to bring their strategies to life through partnerships that meet their needs for in-demand skills; and helping society meet the urgent need to reskill working adults to thrive in a work world reshaped by technology and automation.

Ashwin Bharath is a leader in talent transformation. He co-founded Revature 17 years ago, an organization that is now the top employer of emerging tech talent in the United States. His company was the first talent transformation firm to offer hire-train-deploy services at scale, a model that disrupted the status quo by providing careers in tech for thousands of aspiring software engineers without a path to get there. Today, Ashwin leads the quickly growing organization as the CEO with his sights set on the future. Ashwin's deep belief in servant leadership guides his day-to-day interactions, while his belief in the power of opportunity to transform lives guides his strategic planning. His passion and unique style have led to measurable results as the firm doubled in size year-over-year in the past 3 years. Revature has trained over 10,000 software engineers who now work at Fortune 500 companies, including Google, T-Mobile, Accenture, Capital One, Bank of America, Allstate and Lowes.

Navid has over twenty years of experience in IT, with an emphasis on Information Security. His areas of expertise include incident response, vulnerability assessment, penetration testing, red teaming, physical security, and network security architecture design. Navid has substantial experience in overseeing complex incident response investigations, remediation efforts, eDiscovery, and forensic data analysis. He develops and manages strategic relationships with law firms, insurance companies, and other third-party providers. Before joining KPMG, Navid was Vice President of Mandiant Consulting Services in the western United States where he carried out the task in incident response and other customized services. Before working at Mandiant, he oversaw the Information Assurance team at Sandia National Laboratories, responsible for incident response, forensics, eDiscovery on Sandia's production networks, and consulting services to federal clients, including agencies within the Department of Defense (DOD). Navid received his bachelor’s in interdisciplinary studies (computer science, economics, and business) from the University of California at Berkeley and a master's in information systems management, with a specialization in information security, from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).

Esther Lee is an executive with over 16 years of experience leading cyber consulting practices, security departments, and IT operations.  She has significant experience in delivering projects in the areas of cybersecurity, regulatory compliance, legal discovery, computer forensics, and incident response.  Her background in IT operations as well as serving as a CISO for a cloud marketing company gives her a unique perspective as a cybersecurity consultant.  During her time as a CISO, she built a security program, hired/trained teams in various competencies and managed multi-million-dollar budgets to maintain security in a cloud infrastructure.  She currently serves as a leader for the Health Cybersecurity practice for provider clients.   

Esther has served as interim CISO in multiple industries, where she created governance structure and cadence and executed risk security strategy roadmaps to increase security posture as part of incident remediation or general security operations. 

Esther has implemented a security program management function at a large private company with complex IT infrastructure, decentralized IT operations and a complex regulatory control environment due to PCI.  She managed a $10+ million annual budget as part of this engagement. 

Christie Gragnani-Woods is a senior vice president for Bank of America’s External Community Partnerships (including Pathways) and the Regional Banking Talent Acquisition Executive. As the leader for External Community Partnerships, including Pathways, she is responsible for strategic efforts to hire a total of 20,000 people by 2025 from low-to-moderate income communities. In her Regional Banking leadership role, Christie is responsible for leading the design, development, implementation and execution of the strategic direction for global recruitment solutions that align with Bank of America’s culture and growth objectives. She manages a team of approximately 200 employees and has indirect leadership responsibilities across the enterprise.

Eric leads a global team focused on building technical and professional capabilities that are critical to business success and the development of the next generation of data professionals for which the demand is growing exponentially. For more than 20 years, Eric has led global teams responsible for direct and indirect sales and post-sales enablement and readiness including customer education. His experience spans areas beyond learning including user experience, strategy, software engineering and research. Before joining Splunk in 2020, Eric held several leadership roles at Visa, NetApp and IBM. Most recently, he was at NetApp responsible for NetApp University which developed and delivered innovative programs, learning solutions and industry-recognized certifications that accelerated performance improvement to achieve business outcomes.

Eric received his most recent graduate degree in Learning Sciences from Northwestern University. Eric lives in San Jose, CA and enjoys participating in all competitive sports and hiking with his family, being a life-long learner and guiding others on how to become their best self through learning.

Ankur Gopal is Interapt’s founder and CEO.

Driven by the need to develop skilled talent, Ankur created a 6-month paid training program, which has now turned into one of the leading IT apprenticeship models in the US. Under Ankur's leadership, Interapt has focused on serving communities that are traditionally overlooked by the technology industry. These include rural and inner city areas, as well as veterans, first-generation college students, and displaced workers looking for new skills.

Ankur is the recipient of the EY Entrepreneur of The Year, 40 Under 40, Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame, and Business First's Business of the Year. In 2020, he was selected as an Endeavor Entrepreneur, a global distinction that recognizes and supports the world's highest-growth companies. His alma mater, the University of Illinois, honored him as their 2018 commencement speaker.

Ankur has been a featured speaker at The University of Chicago, Stanford University, and McKesson’s annual meeting. He continues to speak at conferences and corporations worldwide on creating high-tech job opportunities by blending capitalism, altruism, and entrepreneurship. He credits the guidance of his teachers, mentors, and family's immigration story for helping define his purpose and entrepreneurial journey.

Ankur is an alumnus of Second City Chicago, where he performed stand-up comedy and improv on the Main Stage. He is a lifelong tennis player and continues to play and compete. He enjoys live music, independent films, video games, and cooking for his friends and family.

He and his wife, Dr. Kiran Gopal, reside in Louisville with their two children.