George brings two decades of experience including appointments for two Presidents of the United States, most recently serving as one of approximately twenty Senior Staff as Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Public Liaison. George has served in all three branches of the Federal Government and has assisted with the successful confirmation process of two cabinet secretaries. As Founder and CEO of Ideagen Global, George has also successfully coordinated countless cross-sector strategy and partnerships to provide solutions to many of the world’s most vexing issues. A graduate of Suffolk University Graduate School, Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education and George also serves as Adjunct Faculty at Georgetown University. Prior to his current role as Ideagen’s Global chairman and CEO, George served as Assistant to the President of the United States and Director of the Office of Public Liaison at the White House. Having served in the Administration of two US Presidents and founded Axela and Ideagen over a decade ago, George has crafted countless successful policy, strategic partnership, global cross-sector collaboration, grassroots and executive communications strategies for members. George has served in all branches of the Federal Government including as Executive, Legislative US Senate Committee Staffer at the Committee on Small Business and Docket Clerk at the US Attorney’s Office. As Assistant to the President and Director of Public Liaison at the White House, George was an integral part of the White House Senior Staff responsible for leading a team, coordinating engagement with Business Leaders, NGO and Public Sector from across all sectors and issues on behalf of the President and Administration. George is a frequent speaker at global convenings on a myriad topics. George is Global Chairman and CEO of Ideagen Global LLC, A Global Accelerator where the world’s Global Leaders and CEO’s from companies, NGO’s and public sector convene to develop systemic solutions via catalytic collaboration to solve for x. Arlington, Virginia is home for George and his family, including his wife Adriana and three children, George, Alexa and Evangelia. George is fluent in Greek and enjoys learning how to play golf.
Evaristus Mainsah is General Manager, IBM Cloud Pak Ecosystem. In this role, he is responsible for working across IBM’s ecosystem including hardware manufacturers, Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), distributors, resellers and Global Systems Integrators (GSIs) to enable them to drive the adoption of IBM’s hybrid and multicloud platform with their client set. This includes offerings and platforms like Cloud Pak for Applications, Cloud Pak for Data, Cloud Pak for Integration, Cloud Pak for Automation, Cloud Pak for Multi Cloud Management, as well as IBM Edge Computing. In his Commercial Model role was responsible for working across the entire Cloud & Cognitive Software Unit, engaging with offering leaders, sales leaders and finance teams to develop a set of models and recommendations rooted in market practice for driving subscription revenue growth. His prior assignment was in IBM Global Financing where he served as General Manager, Global Asset Recovery Services, IBM. In that role he is responsible for optimizing the financial recovery of IBM’s leased asset portfolio and IBM’s excess inventory worldwide. Evaristus leds worldwide sales and reverse logistics operations to maximize reuse of returned inventory and to remarket and dispose of IT equipment in retail, wholesale and liquidation secondary markets globally. This business delivered about $2B in internal placements and $740M in revenue in 2015. In addition to remarketing, the GARS organization encompasses IBM reverse logistics worldwide: refurbishment, repair, remanufacturing, dismantling, transportation and warehousing, as well as environmentally compliant and sustainable disposition strategies for IBM and client-owned equipment. Prior to this, Evaristus was General Manager, Client Financing, responsible for the development and sale of financial offerings that assist clients in their acquisition of hardware, software and services solutions – in about 60 countries. In 2015, the Client Financing line of business generated $1.1B in revenue and with $38 B in assets. Before that he was General Auditor of IBM. In that role he was responsible for providing the IBM Board of Directors and senior management with an independent, objective assessment of IBM’s system of internal controls, guidance in managing control risks, as well as investigations regarding allegations of fraud and violations of business conduct guidelines. From 2010 to 2013 he was IBM Assistant Treasurer – responsible for global treasury centres, treasury transformation, business controls and risk management. He is also responsible for the IBM’s International Treasury Centre in Dublin. Prior to this role, he was Executive Assistant to the Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer, IBM and served for a short period as CFO of Enterprise Initiatives and Cloud Computing. From July 2007 to 2008, he was Director of Commercial Financing for IBM Global Financing (IGF), responsible for all Commercial Financing operations across Europe including Russia, the Middle East and Africa – and based out of London. Evaristus holds an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School (’04), a Ph.D. in Engineering, an M.Sc. in Manufacturing Technology and a B.Sc in Computer Science & Electronic Engineering all from the University of Birmingham, UK. Evaristus is co-chair of the Board of Trustees of the IBM UK Pension Fund and serves on the Investment Committee. He serves on the Board of two non-profits – the King Baudouin Foundation, United States (KBF-US) and of Taconic Opera (NY).
Sharan has served as a business development leader in the technology industry for 25 years. As Vice President of Alliances for NA, Sharan ensures the Microsoft and ISV relationships are tightly managed and empower Hitachi’s field with programs and tools to support customer growth. Committed to women in technology initiatives, Sharan has served as President of the Chicago WIT Chapter and is currently a Regional Lead for The WIT Network. As a member of Microsoft’s Women in the Channel committee, Sharan is helping to lead an Inclusive Work Environment initiative. Founder of the MSH Empowers Community, Sharan is working to grow the number of women in leadership roles in the technology industry via women looking to re-enter the workforce.
Ellie is the Senior Director of Customer Experience Transformation at SAP Concur, a member of Pipeline Angels, and led Community Experiences at TEDxSeattle. From hyper-growth SaaS to multinational corporations, she’s worked with executives and teams to improve their outcomes with customers, employees, and leadership. Ellie loves working with organizations and people to tackle complex problems. Her curiosity fuels the need to understand through continuous learning and enlightening experiences. Outside of work, she loves to spend time with her family, read, explore, and leave things/spaces better than she found them.
Wendy is on the Chief Diversity Officer on the leadership team for the NYC Comptroller’s office. The Comptroller is an independently elected officer and their duties include managing NYC’s fiscal health, rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the government and ensure that all agencies serve NYC as per the needs of the citizens.
As Chief Diversity Officer, Wendy Garcia is responsible for increasing contracting opportunities for Women- and Minority-owned Business Enterprises (MWBEs) and managing the Comptroller Office’s internal supplier diversity initiative, as well as other diversity-related projects across all bureaus of the agency. Ms. Garcia also leads the Comptroller’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth through Diversity and Inclusion – a group comprised of national, local, corporate, and government experts seeking to increase supplier diversity in the public and private sectors.
The Comptroller’s Office of Diversity Initiatives, led by Ms. Garcia, releases “Making the Grade: New York City Agency Report Card on Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises,” a report that examines how well City agencies meet existing supplier diversity goals while outlining additional measures that could be taken to increase the participation of MWBEs in City contracting.
Previously, Ms. Garcia served as the Deputy Chief Diversity Officer at the Office of New York City Comptroller, Director of Community Outreach and Partnerships at the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD), Deputy Director of the Manhattan Borough President’s Northern Manhattan Office, and Immigrant Research Analyst for the Rockefeller Foundation through Baruch College.
Ms. Garcia earned a Master’s degree in Urban Policy and Management from New School University with a concentration in Economic Development, and a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Delaware.
