Speakers,

IIoT World Energy Day 2025

Balaji Palani is InfluxData’s Vice President of Product Marketing, overseeing the company’s product messaging and technical marketing. Balaji has an extensive background in monitoring, observability and developer technologies and bringing them to market. He previously served as InfluxData’s Senior Director of Product Management, and before that, held Product Management and Engineering positions at BMC, HP, and Mercury.

Technology Evangelist. Bit of a story teller & influencer on #EnergyTransition technologies. An advisor, speaker, podcast host & technology consultant. A member of the Siemens Influencer Community #SIEx and #InnowattsInfluencer.

Being a bit of a storyteller, Kevin has been evangelizing how new technologies can transform the way we do things through-out his career. Kevin has a proven track record of ‘bridging the gap’ between the capabilities a new technology can bring and the practicalities of bringing that technology to market.

Kevin is the founder of the boutique technology consultancy company, A Bit of This & That, focused on the intersection of technology and the Energy Industry, delivering innovative technology consultations, sales advisory, speaker & B2B Influencer services.

He has held senior leadership Technical Sales & Sales Management roles at Compaq, HP and most recently at Intel, where he was Intel’s Worldwide Sales Director for the Energy Industry.

Hamish has his been running his international consulting practice from Munich, Germany since 2006. A former IDC analyst, he helps small and midsized industrial software vendors in Europe and the US dramatically improve their growth efficiency, based on the principle that “Better Builds Bigger". His consulting expertise covers sales, marketing, customer success, talent recruitment and development, and individual and team productivity. Hamish is married with 3 almost grown-up children and splits his time between homes in Munich and Austria. Outside of work you’ll find him hiking or indulging his passion for fast cars, French red wine and Japanese whisky - but not all at the same time.

Jon Morgan is a highly experienced professional currently serving as the COO/VP and Strategic Advisor at Jay Bee Oil & Gas. Jon is also a Board Member at Clean Energy Services and an Angel Squad Member at Hustle Fund. With a background in investing and advising various startups, Jon has also held positions such as Partner at Hickory Family Office and Investor at VC Fuel. Additionally, Jon has been a Featured Speaker at Product School and Group Product Manager at Google, where Jon led the Google Health Studies initiative. Jon's educational background includes a Master of Business Administration from Babson F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business and degrees in Robotics and Mechanical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Munish Walther-Puri (he/him) is a seasoned security strategist and risk advisor, having worked on cybersecurity, critical infrastructure, geopolitics, supply chain, terrorism, and fraud. He is the former Director of Cyber Risk for New York City Cyber Command. He also teaches a graduate course on cyber resilience and critical infrastructure at NYU.

Prior to working for the City of New York, he led analysis and intelligence for a dark web monitoring company, advised startups in corporate investigations, encrypted communications, and political risk, and consulted independently on applying technology and analytics to geopolitical analysis, forecasting, and open-source intelligence analysis. He also spent time at a large American bank, working on the intersection of fraud, cyber investigations, and terrorism, and at a leading think tank, focused on nuclear policy and international security with a focus on Asia.

Munish is a Life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a co-founder and advisor to the Fletcher Political Risk Group. He is an active member of the analyst and intelligence community and has served on the Program Committees for GSX and USENIX Enigma, OSAC’s Women in Security Committee, and as a Yale Cyber Leadership Forum Fellow. He is an ally for the #ShareTheMicInCyber campaign and an Eagle Scout.

Zainab is an Associate, Energy & Power at Cleantech Group and is based in the U.S. She is focused on emerging innovation and trends in Energy & Power and has experience across all Cleantech Group sectors. ​

Zainab has experience working on circular economy solutions including evaluating recycling challenges and reuse systems, identifying collection strategies for marine plastics, and collaborating with informal waste worker collectives. ​

Zainab earned her Bachelor’s degrees in Physics and English from Binghamton University.

Dr. Williams is a serial entrepreneur and founder of 3 technology startups over the last 25 years, two of which have been sold to public companies. He is currently the founder and CEO of BlackFog, Inc. a global cybersecurity company focusing on ransomware prevention and cyber warfare. Dr. Williams is responsible for strategic direction and leads global expansion for BlackFog and has pioneered anti data exfiltration (ADX) technology for the prevention of cyber attacks across the globe. He is a dual citizen of both Australia and the United States where he now resides.

Natalia Klafke offers close to twenty years of extensive experience in all facets of oil and gas and energy, from Petrochemical Units Operations Optimization, Refineries Greenfield Projects, and FPSOs Greenfield Projects, to Onshore and Offshore Oil and Gas Production. Dedicated to driving innovation and sustainability to create a more efficient future for her clients, Natalia has honed her deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing the industry into solutions and services that help her clients grow, and scale, to meet the energy demands of today - and well into the future.

Ann Dunkin is a distinguished technology leader with extensive experience in both public and private sectors. She served as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the U.S. Department of Energy, where she managed the Department's information technology portfolio, spearheaded modernization initiatives, and led cybersecurity efforts. Prior to this role, Ms. Dunkin was the Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer for State and Local Government at Dell Technologies. Her public sector experience includes serving as CIO for the County of Santa Clara, California, and as CIO of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the Obama Administration. Earlier in her career, she held various leadership positions at Hewlett-Packard, focusing on engineering, research and development, IT, manufacturing engineering, software quality, and operations.

Ann is a published author, most recently of the book Industrial Digital Transformation, and a frequent speaker on topics such as government technology modernization, digital transformation, and organizational development. Ann was recently named to the Forbes CIO Next list 2024. She also received the 2024 Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering (IISE) Captains of Industry Award and the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology’s 2024 Pinnacle Award. She has been given a range of previous awards, including a 2024 Fed 100 Award, the 2022 Capital CIO Large Enterprise ORBIE Award, DC’s Top 50 Women in Technology for 2015 and 2016, ComputerWorld’s Premier 100 Technology Leaders for 2016, StateScoop’s Top 50 Women in Technology list for 2017, FedScoop’s Golden Gov Executive of the Year in 2016, 2021, 2022, 2023,and 2024 and FedScoop’s Best Bosses in Federal IT 2022. She was also named to Washington Exec’s Ones to Watch list for 2023.

Ms. Dunkin holds a Master of Science degree and a Bachelor of Industrial Engineering degree, both from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is a licensed professional engineer in the states of California and Washington and an IISE Fellow. In 2018, she was inducted into Georgia Tech’s Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni and in 2024.

Ray Lillback is the Senior Director of IoT Strategy at Keyfactor, where he leads initiatives to secure internet-connected devices through the implementation of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), Certificate Lifecycle Automation (CLA), and signing solutions. Since joining Keyfactor in 2019, he has advanced from Principal IoT Solution Architect to Director of IoT Solution Architecture, culminating in his current role since March 2024.
Before his tenure at Keyfactor, Ray founded 3E Controls in June 2018, offering comprehensive design services for embedded systems with a focus on security. He also served as Engineering Manager at Tangent Company LLC, leading the development of innovative water reuse systems. Earlier, at Kinetico Incorporated, he held various roles over 23 years, including Research and Development Project Engineer and Sustaining Engineering Manager, contributing to the design of flagship commercial products and the company's entry into the IoT market.