Our live conference returns to the Mid America Club in Chicago. Join us to discuss the latest in software risk management and technologies for quality engineering and DevOps. Featuring speakers from leading banks, insurers and trading firms.
The 2022 event has ended now.
April 4th 2023 | Metropolitan Club, Chicago
Click here to visit the 2023 speaker line up
The leading networking and information event on the subject of software quality assurance returns to Chicago this coming spring.
Free to attend for delegates from financial firms, our audience will hear from experts and pioneers in new QA technologies from banks, insurance companies, exchanges and trading venues.
There will also be presentations on cutting-edge tools for accelerating DevOps and continuous testing from the world's most innovative software technology vendors.
As always, our QA Financial Forum is a discreet meeting place, where ideas are shared confidentially. We allow the maximum time for questions and discussion breaks.
The Forum will cover:
Subhadeep Bhattacharjee is SVP and Head of Quality Engineering at Northern Trust. Focusing on driving quality-engineering innovation to accelerate enterprise digital transformation and deliver outcomes such as improved client experience, test environment, test data, automation and production stability. Before joining Northern Trust Subhadeep served at Bank of America in the capacity to run a global Automation center of practice for its Investment banking and consumer products division. Subhadeep has significant experience in Technology Transformation & Innovation in Financial Services. Subhadeep is a recognized industry leader who has shaped strategies and executed digital transformation programs with a critical focus on improving quality of financial products for end clients.
Eran Kinsbruner is the author of the 2016 Amazon bestseller, “The Digital Quality Handbook”,“Continuous Testing for DevOps Professionals”, and “Accelerating Software Quality – ML and AI in the Age of DevOps”, which was named the “Best New Software Testing Book” by BookAuthority. He is Chief Evangelist and Senior Director at Perforce Software. With a background of over 20 years’ experience in development and testing at companies such as Sun Microsystems, Neustar, Texas Instruments, General Electric, and more, Eran holds various industry certifications such as ISTQB, CMMI, and others. Eran is a recognized influencer on continuous testing and DevOps thought leadership, an international speaker, blogger, and also a patent-holding inventor (test exclusion automated mechanisms for mobile J2ME testing). Eran is active in the community and can be found across social media and has his own blog.
My career is an example of the indirect route. I graduated from Oberlin College with a degree in East Asian Studies, taught English in Taiwan, worked as an Analyst, Project Manager and DBA at a start-up in Chicago. I moved to New York and built out a web based ticketing system for the New York Philharmonic with the hopes of challenging Ticketmaster. I joined Morningstar in 2011 and am currently the Director of QA and DevOps engineering. While at Morningstar, I have worked to build out development teams, to figure out how to measure performance, risk and reliability in meaningful ways and to reduce the toil involved in process of getting from an idea to working software. Outside of work you can find me practicing my banjo, doing woodworking or just walking my dog around the city.
Bio coming soon...
Mark Beauvais is Director of Strategic Accounts at Tricentis where his deep understanding of the automation and testing market, as well as his relationship with Tricentis founder, Wolfgang Platz, has elevated him to the position of thought leader in transformative projects and customer requirement strategies. Mark has been with Tricentis since 2014, when the company expanded to the United States from its roots in Vienna, Austria. Mark was the first salesperson outside Europe and currently manages some of the largest customers in North America. Together with Wolfgang, Mark was responsible for the explosive growth with major customers such as ExxonMobil, FIS, Nationwide Insurance, Toronto Dominion Bank, Canadian Imperial Bank, and many others. Prior to joining Tricentis, Mark previously held a variety of sales and sales leadership roles which have contributed to his deep understanding of standardizing and scaling the go-to-market functions in high-growth technology organizations. Mark has held sales and leadership roles at Computer Associates, Symantec, Riverbed, and a board position at on-site ERT, a first responder technology. Mark holds a BA from Michigan State University.
John Patrick Kelly is Chief Strategy Officer at Sauce Labs and is responsible for corporate vision, M&A strategy, advanced R&D, and technology partnerships. Previous roles in the industry include CEO of an AI/ML startup in finance, VP of Engineering at Neustar, and multiple product, engineering and R&D leadership roles at Symantec and Veritas. Prior to tech, John was a professor of philosophy.
Vikul is the Head of NextGen CoE for Qualitest, a modern quality engineering company. He has over two decades of experience working for Tier 1 companies and has led quality engineering transformation, creation of NextGen solutions and co-innovation with strategic partners across the globe. Vikul has worked with customers across different sectors and brings unique domain-specific knowledge. He has held key technologist roles ranging from CTO to Head of Engineering in companies like HP and Cognizant, with key focus on AI/ML, DevOps, Agile, Digital Engineering, Cloud and Business Service Automation.
Bringing 20 years of experience in the technology industry, Alex leads the Delphix customer success team and works with all business units to deliver on a customer-centric strategy. Over the course of his career, Alex has been responsible for scaling professional services, technical support, sales/pre-sales, channel, and customer success organizations at rapidly growing technology companies. Prior to Delphix, Alex held executive and go-to-market leadership roles at Turbonomic, Pure Storage, Riverbed Technology, and Symantec during their years of hyper-growth. Alex holds a BA from Georgetown University and resides in the Boston area.
At Discover Financial Services, Tessin leads the governance group within Business Technology (BT) Risk. In that role, he is responsible for ensuring policy, standards and procedures align with corporate objectives. He serves as the internal party responsible for regulatory exam management, and is the internal liaison to Corporate Risk Management. In his role at ISACA, Tessin was the project manager for COBIT 5 and led the development of other COBIT 5-related publications, white papers and articles. Tessin also played a central role in the design of COBIT online, ISACA’s latest web site that offers convenient access to the COBIT 5 product family and includes interactive digital tools to assist in the use of COBIT. Prior to joining IASCA, Tessin was a senior manager at an internal audit firm, where he led client engagements and was responsible for IT and financial audit teams. Previously, he worked in various industry roles including staff accountant, application developer, accounting systems consultant and trainer, business analyst, project manager, and auditor. He has worked in many countries outside of his native US including Canada, Mexico, Germany, Italy, France, UK and Australia. With more than 20 years of global business and IT experience, Tessin is able to address topical issues in business leadership.
Reena R. Bajowala is a partner at Ice Miller. With a broad-based background in complex dispute resolution, Reena represents clients in technology matters involving Information Technology (IT) disputes and data security and privacy issues. Reena is a Certified Information Privacy Technologist (CIPT), Certified Information Privacy Professional for the US (CIPP/US) and a Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM). Reena defends buyers and sellers of IT services in disputes involving contract, tort and copyright. She also regularly advises clients on data privacy and security issues, including developing privacy and security programs, proactive planning to avoid or mitigate data security risks and defending data breach litigation. Reena also helps navigate clients through issues relating to emerging technologies. Reena is a member of the CBA Financial and Emerging Technologies Committee, the Chicago Electronic Crimes Task Force and the International Association of Privacy Professionals, and an advisory board member for Hub88. She was selected through a national, competitive process as an American Bar Association Business Law Fellow in the Cyberspace Law Committee. She is also an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan Law School.
Sejal is Vice President of Compliance at Synapse and holds professional scrum master PSM I and in Six Sigma certificates. She considers herself a lifelong learner with B.S in Decision Science, M.S in Management Information System and most recently M.S in Law from Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. Sejal has over a decade of experience working within FinTech and Regulatory Compliance; specifically bringing clarity to complex product workflows for State and Federal regulators within the lending space. She began her career as a front-end Java developer and proudly held various roles as Technical Writer, Process Re-engineer, Product Owner, and QA Manager. Although, her most proud accomplishment is completing South Island Te Araroa trail in New Zealand.
Tom is a transformational Leader of Test Engineering, Quality Assurance and Governance practices across the Enterprise. He has a successful history of shifting the collective culture to think "Automation First" powered by highly scaleable, highly distributed Test Automation Frameworks used to also drive Continuous Integration and Testing Governance. He believes that key to building a successful team is the empowerment of its members to assume ownership, drive innovation and foster creative thinking. Tom joined CNA in January 2019 and formed the Independent Quality Engineering (IQE) Organization. He is accountable for Software Quality Governance, embedded Testing Services and IQE’s Common Shared Testing Services. Tom has a diverse background as a technology leader spanning Quality Engineering, Software Development, Automated Testing, DevOps, Technology Product Management and Product Data Management. Prior to CNA, Tom spent 9 years at Sears Online where he led their Global Test Engineering Practice as Senior Director, Software Engineering and was accountable for strategy, planning and execution of testing across their 14 Agile Portfolios. He introduced and built-out a common automated testing platform, was a champion for Agile Delivery and pioneered Continuous Integration (CI) practices with Quality Governance. In his final months at Sears, Tom successfully de-centralized the Test Engineering Practice while still retaining Quality Governance and Shared Services. He then assumed Delivery Ownership for Online’s largest portfolio - Checkout and Billing. Prior to Sears, Tom worked at J.C Whitney (Top 100 e-tailer and cataloger) for 7 years where he drove multiple e-commerce digital transformation efforts and later headed their IT Department as Managing Director.
As the CEO of Avo Automation, Vidur believes in building high-performing, self-motivated teams that deliver one goal – making automation simple, intelligent, and resilient. With automation being the linchpin that triggers digital transformation, he firmly asserts that a Quality Automation System is more important than ever for organizations to re-imagine the way they do business. His passion to tap true human potential by helping them utilize their superpower of imagination is what drives Avo. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Management and Finance from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and when not working, he flies planes or goes scuba diving.
Bio coming soon...
Jason Jerina has been a technology leader for over 20 years. He's led Software Development, Release Management, Business Analyst, Application Support and Quality Assurance organizations in a few industries. Jason grew up in technology as a hands on tester. Early in his career he progressed from a QA tester, to Quality Assurance Lead, to then a Quality Assurance Manager. After his career progression into management, he soon became a senior leader of development teams, production support, release management and business analyst teams. His passion has always been for Quality Assurance, Technology Leadership, and Production Support. Most of his 20+ years have been spent in Financial Services firms, ranging from Banking, Capital Markets, and now Insurance. His passion for Technology Leadership and Quality Assurance have enabled him to drive innovation with his teams in areas such as test automation, performance engineering, white box testing, and newer efficient approaches to Acceptance Testing. His approach is to encourage innovative ideas from his teams, encourage them to try them, and support them in their efforts to deliver.