Chapter Board

NY Metro Chapter Board Members

Officers

  • Chairman - Sunil Notani
  • President - Cindy Finkelman
  • Treasurer - Jim Carey
  • Secretary - Stuart Haas

Directors

  • Director Programs - Robert Galvin
  • Director Programs - Alistair Bruce
  • Director Membership - Carlos Fernandez
  • Director Membership - Hsing Hsing Li
  • Director Marketing - Geoff Scott
  • Director Marketing - Robert Field
  • Director Partnerships - Bernadette Rotolo
  • Director Partnerships - Patricia (Lee) Wasterlain
  • Director Outreach - Herb Hofmann
  • Director Outreach - Ricardo De La Cruz
  • Director Technology - Wolfgang von Stuermer
  • Director Events - Lauren Saenz
  • Director National Programs - Dan Gorecki
  • Director National Programs - Cindy McKenzie
  • Director Academic Affairs - Rashmi Jain
  • Director Academic Affairs - Anand Padmanabhan


Sunil Notani Headshot Sunil Notani
Chairman 

Co-Founder of The Transformation Group
Sunil is an accomplished business and technology executive with over 25 years of experience in Fortune Global 500 (Oracle, FedEx, Lufthansa) and high growth multinationals. He had leadership roles in these organizations and was responsible for driving their business transformation and leveraging technology to gain maximum benefit.
 
Sunil has extensive domain knowledge in CRM, ERP, HCM & BI along with hands-on experience transforming business organizations such as Sales, Marketing, Operations, HR and Finance. He is a technology influencer having served on advisory boards of several enterprise software companies to influence their product strategy and direction. He also serves on several boards focused on technology leadership to leverage his broad experience to drive innovation, transformation and foster networking. Sunil holds a Master’s in Technology from Columbia University. He also has an MBA in Marketing and a Bachelor’s in Management & Computer Systems.

Cindy Finkelman Headshot Cindy Finkelman
President

Managing Director, Alvarez & Marsal
Cindy Finkelman is a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal Corporate Performance Improvement in New York. She is a growth minded executive that helps organizations build scale in their business using innovative technology, efficient operating models and highly curated information supporting decision-making. Ms. Finkelman collaborates at all levels of an organization, including the Board to stand up business functions, align strategies and goals, drive process and data maturity and modernize technologies via transformational programs. She is often called upon to architect the change management agenda.

Prior to joining A&M, Ms. Finkelman served as Chief Information Officer with FactSet Research Systems. She was responsible for internal technology strategy and delivery, the project management office, cybersecurity and enterprise risk management. Ms. Finkelman worked in partnership with senior business leaders to establish vision and align the organization to build strategic, effective and efficient capabilities that would allow the company to operate at scale and facilitate fact-based decision-making in all facets of the business. She also led the company in aligning on a commercially oriented digital transformation strategy for FactSet’s products, integrating numerous acquisitions into the company’s operations and maturing the enterprise risk and cybersecurity posture.

Previously, Ms. Finkelman served as CIO with the corporate functions of New York Life, where she was responsible for all information technology services and numerous transformational programs that enabled increasingly complex business capabilities. She also served as Head of Global Operations & Systems at ALICO as they prepared for initial public offering and CTO at Merrill Lynch responsible for modernizing corporate infrastructure. She also served in leadership roles at Marsh & McLennan, Prudential, Booz Allen & Hamilton and MetLife.

Ms. Finkelman earned a bachelor's degree from SUNY/Albany and an MBA in corporate strategy and entrepreneurship from NYU’s Stern School of Business. She was recognized as CIO of the Year by Markets Media Women in Finance for her transformative impact at FactSet, mentoring of women technologists and philanthropic work. She is a Board member of the Society for Information Management New York; participates in SIM Women, the HMG Strategy Advisory Board and the Evanta CIO Governing Body; and serves on the Board of Success Academy.

Jim Carey Headshot Jim Carey
Treasurer

Executive Director - Strategy & Planning, Payments Technologies, CIB, Major Wall Street Bank

Stuart Haas Headshot Stuart Haas
Secretary

IT Director, Dotdash
Stuart Haas is a senior IT leader with over 20 years of IT leadership experience. Stuart's career has focused on international technology startups. His early IT career crystalized in Israel after his time in the IDF. Stuart later returned to the US, where his focus has been on working with startups, putting in place a solid IT foundation to lead them through IPO or acquisition. Stuart's experience has taken him across industries, including e-commerce, music, publishing, e-learning, software, and real estate.

Over his career, Stuart has led IT at Shopping.com, Vibe and Spin Magazines, Wimba, Limewire, Borderfree, and others. Most recently, he led IT Operations at Knotel. Stuart has a BA in Film Studies from Queens College. Stuart resides in Northern New Jersey, with his wife and two children, where he spends his spare time hiking and at Crossfit.

Robert Galvin Headshot Robert Galvin
Director Programs

CTO, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Robert Galvin is the Chief Technology Officer for the Port Authority of NY and NJ, which builds, operates, and maintains the airports, rail, bridges, and tunnels between the two states, as well as seaport facilities, and the 16-acre World Trade Center site.  While at the Port, Robert deployed mobile apps for PATH, the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and mobile websites JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark airports, worked with the Chief Security Officer to develop and implement an agency-wide Cybersecurity program and begun moving the organization to a secured cloud environment.

Prior to joining the Port Authority, Mr. Galvin was CTO of the NYC School Construction Authority, where he reorganized the Technology Department and modernized their enterprise applications by deploying data warehousing, cloud, and mobile technologies. Before entering the public sector, Mr. Galvin served in senior leadership for one of the largest specialty design-build contractors in the world – and as an executive at a leading supplier of ERP and field service management software for the construction industry. Mr. Galvin has over 25 years’ experience in both public and private sectors, and mentors graduate students at Columbia University seeking degrees in Technology Management. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Central Michigan University, majoring in Management Information Systems.

Alistair Bruce Headshot Alistair Bruce
Director Programs

CIO Government Public Sector (GPS), EY

Carlos Fernandez Headshot Carlos Fernandez
Director Membership

Program Manager
Carlos Fernandez has been in technology now for over 20 years in digital printing and financial space. Carlos currently serves as Delivery Program Manager for Thomson Reuters delivering with a global team across Order to Cash, Tax and Accounting, Legal and Latin America LATAM. Carlos’s entrepreneurial spirit more recently inspired him to join a startup which he helped take a $3M start-up to $50M and have it listed on Nasdaq.

Carlos is a lifelong New Yorker and holds a BS from the City College of New York in Engineering Technology and more recently an Executive Masters in Technology Management (EMSTM) from Columbia University. He has had the opportunity to give back as an Alumni Panelist for the Columbia EMSTM program.

Hsing Hsing Li Headshot Hsing Hsing Li
Director Membership

President, Illuminate, LLC

Geoff Scott Headshot Geoff Scott
Director Marketing

Robert Field Headshot Robert Field
Director Marketing

Vice President of Global Information Technology and Digital Solutions, Precipart

Bernadette Rotolo Headshot Bernadette Rotolo
Director Partnerships

SVP, Warner Music Group
Bernadette Rotolo is a global Fortune 500 technology executive with experience at Accenture, Adecco Group and Warner Music Group. Currently, Bernadette is the SVP, Head of Global Systems at Warner Music Group collaborating with the senior management team on a strategic transformational program.

Bernadette is also an active speaker on digital transformation, a member of the CIO Innovation Advisory Network at Lightspeed Venture Partners and on the advisory board for BoldStart, an early stage Venture Capital company. In 2019, Bernadette was named Business Role Model of the Year by Women in Technology Silicon Valley chapter sponsored by Information Age. Bernadette holds her Masters from New York University and her Bachelor’s from the State University of New York at Binghamton.

Patricia (Lee) Wasterlain Headshot Patricia (Lee) Wasterlain
Director Partnerships

VP, Spruce Technology
Patricia has over 20+ years of Information Technology Experience across industries including Education, Transportation and Logistics, Financial Services, and Non-Profit. She is currently a VP of Professional Services at Spruce Technology, where she is leading their Education Practice. Patricia has a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from SUNY Oswego and a Masters in Organizational Change Management from The New School.

Herb Hofmann Headshot Herb Hofmann
Director Outreach

Vice President, Information Technology, Loews Corporation

Ricardo De La Cruz Ricardo De La Cruz
Director Outreach

Director, Information Technology, Barbarian

Wolfgang R. von Stuermer Headshot Wolfgang R. von Stuermer
Director Technology

CIO
Wolfgang R. von Stuermer is the former global CIO, CISO, and Chief Digital Risk Officer for WPP's Sudler & Henessey pharma-specialist operating company (also part of Young & Rubicam Group). Wolfgang is a dynamic, entrepreneurial, and transformational leader with 20+ years of deep, hands-on technology experience and a strategic focus on digital risk mitigation, cybersecurity, data protection, IT compliance, and ethical hacking. For over two decades he held CIO and CTO positions with various marketing technology companies and was repeatedly appointed as a scientific technology advisor to the EU Commission. Currently, an NYU CyberFellow recipient he is pursuing an M.S. in Cybersecurity at NYU's Tandon School of Engineering. Wolfgang is a professional member of the ACM, IEEE Computer Society, OWASP NY, ISACA, and the offensive security lab (OSIRIS) at NYU's Center for Cybersecurity as well as an advisory board member of Harvestworks, a digital & media arts organization.

He holds a B.A. in Composition & Computer Music from the University of Music, Karlsruhe/Germany.

Lauren Saenz Headshot Lauren Saenz
Director Events

Managing Director, Layer-Z
Lauren Saenz is the Managing Director of Layer-Z, a New York based project management firm offering services to the cybersecurity, Telecom, IT and Privacy industries. Lauren is known for optimizing processes and for her impressive network of IT & InfoSec Leaders.

Processes that she has overseen and optimized have realized all-time high performance, including work with CSS and BMW. Lauren holds a degree in Political Science from CUNY Hunter College and lives on Long Island.  She is passionate about Data Privacy and the Privacy vs National Security dynamic.

Dan Gorecki Dan Gorecki
Director National Programs

Group Information Security Manager, CISO

Cindy McKenzie Cindy McKenzie
Director National Programs

Chief Information Officer, Curaleaf

Rashmi Jain Headshot Rashmi Jain
Director Academic Affairs

Professor, Montclair State University 
Dr. Rashmi Jain is currently a Professor with the Department of Information Management and Business Analytics at the Feliciano School of Business at Montclair State University (MSU).  Prior to joining academia, she was at Accenture consulting for Fortune 100 companies in energy, telecom, utilities and financial services sectors. Dr. Jain founded and lead the Business Analytics programs at MSU – one of the few ones in the tri-state area. She has extensive experience of teaching, advising, and training graduate and undergraduate students and senior executives both in the U.S. and overseas at businesses, government agencies, and academic institutions. Dr. Jain’s research and teaching interests are systems architecture and design, business analytics, and technology management. She is a visiting professor to the Graduate School of System Design and Management, Keio University, Japan since 2007.

Dr. Jain graduated with a Ph. D. in Technology Management from Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey. Dr. Jain is a board member and VP of Academic Matters for Society for Information Management (SIM) New York and a member of the SIM National Academic Council. She also heads the Education and Training area as the VP on the board of New Jersey Big Data Alliance (NJBDA). She has been recently appointed by the Governor of State of New Jersey to the first governing board of New Jersey Integrated Public Health Database (iPHD), the statutory body created in 2016 to oversee and manage the state’s health data. She is also a member of the Steering Committee, Technology for Business Roundtable for Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey (CIANJ).

Anand Padmanabhan Headshot Anand Padmanabhan
Director Academic Affairs

VP & Chief Information Officer, Fordham University