Speakers

IIoT Manufacturing Day 2025

Prasad Tarapure is a seasoned Manager at John Deere, bringing over 20 years of experience in digital manufacturing, factory automation, and Industry 4.0. With a Master’s in Technology specializing in Digital Manufacturing, Prasad has built a distinguished career executing smart manufacturing programs globally for Fortune 500 organizations across the USA, Canada, Africa, UK, Germany, and France.

His domain expertise lies in driving factory automation and implementing cutting-edge Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0 solutions, ensuring operational excellence and innovation. Prasad holds multiple professional certifications, including PMP, AWS Solution Architect Associate, and AWS AI Practitioner, showcasing his ability to bridge advanced technologies with practical, scalable solutions.

An advocate for digital transformation, Prasad combines technical expertise and leadership to deliver impactful programs that shape the future of manufacturing.

Jeffrey Schroeder is a Product Manager at HighByte, focused on guiding the company’s product strategy. His areas of responsibility include market research, product positioning, product roadmap, and ecosystem integration strategy. Jeffrey is an experienced technologist who brings more than a decade in technology leadership roles in the automotive and discrete manufacturing industries to his role at HighByte, offering deep domain expertise and perspectives on information technology, operations, and management for industrial organizations. Jeffrey received a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Economics from Oakland University.

With a wealth of leadership experience spanning government, corporate, start-up, non-profit, and research sectors across three continents, I bring a strategic vision and operational insight to the table. My focus lies in optimizing value chains, seizing emerging business opportunities, navigating global challenges, and enhancing organizational resilience and sustainability. Climate, nature and societal well-being drive me.

Senior executive with extensive business development/management experience in manufacturing operations enterprise software, including services, sales, marketing, software implementation, professional services and design and development of complex software solutions. An executive with the ability to apply people management skills, strong writing skills, software development expertise and business acumen to work collaboratively with customers in solving complex business process problems.

Máire Sogabe is a Cybersecurity Consultant with extensive experience securing IT & OT environments and advancing information security and risk management programs. Prior to her current role at Eolas Cyber Solutions LLC, she worked at Generate where she led Security & Compliance and built a robust security program that proactively manages risk, ensures compliance, and adapts to evolving threats.

Before joining Generate, Máire served as a Cyber Security Consultant at Engie, focusing on aligning the IT digital security program to the NIST CyberSecurity Framework to ensure the security and resilience of IT and OT assets across North America. Prior to Engie, she worked at Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) where she managed strategic initiatives to protect PG&E’s critical infrastructure, information assets, and business operations for the Chief Security Officer. During her time at PG&E, she also implemented complex technology solutions for the electric, gas, and nuclear business, facilitating digital transformation, and enabling next-generation energy management and the Grid of Things. Máire managed one of the largest, most complex Utility GIS implementations in North America.

She is a two-time energy hackathon winner. She was recognised as one of the “Silicon Valley 50” by the Irish Technology Leadership group for her leadership in technology.

Máire is an “In Residence Thought Leader” for the Munster Technology University M.Sc. in FinTech Innovation program in Ireland. She holds a M.A. in Community Development from the NUI Galway, and a M.Sc. in Information Systems from Golden Gate University, in San Francisco, California.

Máire is passionate about mission-driven innovation, emerging tech, and startups. She is keenly interested in AI, IoT, smart cities, autonomous vehicles, and green tech. She is committed to addressing climate change, and creating a secure, resilient and sustainable future.

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.

Pugal Janakiraman is passionate about applying the latest and greatest in technology to digitally transform and streamline traditional industrial use cases. For the last two decades, he has worked with the world’s top auto, trucking, heavy machinery, and aerospace OEMs, including companies in mainland China. Before coming to Snowflake, he led the WW business development for Amazon Web Services around industrial IoT and, before that, he led the Digital Twin and Real Time Operational Intelligence practice areas at Siemens.

Dr. Mathias Oppelt is leading a customer-driven innovation and development unit for Siemens Digital Industries. He is passionate about transforming the industry together with customers to build the future of industrial operations.

In the past, he led the development of simulation products and applied them to customer-specific solutions as the head of the Simulation and Digitalisation Center within Siemens Digital Industries.

With his educational background in engineering science, mechatronics, and technology management, he has been working for Siemens for more than 13 years in various positions, including roles in strategy, project business, product management, and software development, with a focus on unlocking the potential of people, organisations, and portfolios.

Dr. Zeeshan Zia is the CEO of Retrocausal. With a PhD in computer vision, Zeeshan is on a mission to transform manufacturing with AI Copilots. Zeeshan was a scientific leader at Microsoft’s HoloLens division, where he invented AI technologies to assist frontline workers across industries. Earlier, he shipped IoT platforms and visual defect detection software for manufacturers at Siemens and MVTec GmbH.

Zeeshan has authored more than 20 peer-reviewed publications on visual activity understanding, 3D scene understanding, learning from synthetic data, and machine learning systems, which were cited by every major lab from MIT, Stanford, and CMU, to Apple, Google, and Baidu.

He is also an inventor on almost 20 US patents or patent applications, and has shipped AI-first products including Microsoft HoloLens, Vuforia AR platform, MVTec Halcon, and camera based self-driving systems.

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.

Rod has been in the OT security industry for over 15 years, working in vulnerability testing, OT-specific network security, and embedded product security in past roles at Wurldtech, GE Digital, and Sierra Wireless. Rod is a Director of Product Management at Fortinet, focused on OT threat protection.

Shiv is responsible for worldwide adoption of Databricks in the manufacturing, transportation & energy sectors and responsible for development of new industry solutions, ecosystem partnerships & GTM programs that bring differentiated value to CxO priorities. Shiv has a proven track record of leading diverse teams and delivering game-changing data & AI-led innovation across Manufacturing, Transportation and Energy industries, with roles at EY, Strategy& and Raytheon. He regularly connects with senior executives to unfold data & AI strategies and unlock competitive advantage in their businesses.

Shiv holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering from the Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology in Punjab, India and a Masters in Business Administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in Strategic Management and Innovation.

Arlen Nipper brings over 40 years of experience in the SCADA industry to Cirrus Link as President and CTO. He was one of the early architects of pervasive computing and the Internet of Things and co-invented MQTT, a publish-subscribe network protocol that has become the dominant messaging standard in IoT. He has worked for Amoco and Koch Oil, and served as President and CTO of Arcom Control Systems and Eurotech Inc. His experience covers a broad range of technology from the design and manufacturing of embedded systems to SCADA system infrastructure implementations. Arlen holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering (BSEE) from Oklahoma State University.

Fictiv CEO Dave Evans leads the company's vision to put world-class manufacturing and supply chain capabilities in the hands of innovators, without constraints. Prior to founding Fictiv, Dave was the first hire at Ford’s Silicon Valley Innovation Lab, under Ford's Global Research and Advanced Engineering Division. Dave earned his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.

Ritwika G. is a Senior Product Manager at InfluxData where she's working on distributed InfluxDB solutions and data ecosystem integrations such as Iceberg. Ritwika has over 5 years of experience as a product manager and software engineer focusing on distributed systems, data engineering and compilers. Before joining Influxdata, Ritwika was a founding engineer at a series-A startup where she worked on building SaaS offering for an HPC compute engine and compiler infrastructure for SQL and Python. Ritwika received her PhD in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and her research was on building formal methods and verified compiler frameworks for distributed autonomous systems.

Carlos Buenaño is the Chief Technology Officer for the Operational Technology (OT) vertical. With more than 30 years of progressive experience in the control systems and telecommunications field, Carlos’ history includes positions such as Principal Systems Engineer, Senior ICS Cybersecurity Consultant, Solutions Architect and Technical Account Manager and Principal Solutions Architect. Carlos has been actively involved in several brown and green field industrial control systems projects in Manufacturing, mining and Oil and Gas, from the concept definition to the commissioning stages of the projects. The last 5 years of his career have been focused on operationalizing cybersecurity Solutions on industrial networks. He possesses a degree of Electronic Engineering and a master's degree in telecommunications.

Senior Cyber Security Professional with years of experience including various Senior Manager, Director, and CISO roles, and a track record of continuous advancement throughout career and demonstrated success managing large scale IT Security, Network Infrastructure, and Development projects. Heavy experience collaborating with diverse cross-functional groups of people, both domestic and international. Recognized for building products, platforms, and teams from the ground up and implementing technology standards, processes, and initiatives with high dollar impact, reduced costs, increased revenue, and high customer satisfaction.

Expertise Includes:
•Information Technology Management
•Information Security Strategy and Architecture
•Network Architecture and Design
•Project Management
•Identity and Access Management Architecture
•Strategic Technology Planning & Roadmaps
•Vendor Management
•Web Security Consulting
•IT Governance
•Product and Application Development & Support
•Budgeting, Estimating, and Resource Planning
•Telecommunications Architecture and Design
•Workforce Management

Key Tools and Product Architecture: Network and Infrastructure security architecture and design, SIEM, SOC/NOC management/MSP, Forecpoint SaaS security, Cisco routing/switching/FW, Checkpoint FW, Cylance AV, Promisec, BlueCoat, Trusteer, Calcom, CyberArk, StealthWatch, Solarwinds, SIP, VoIP.

With over 20 years of experience in cybersecurity, I bring a deep expertise across cloud, network, endpoint, application, and data security. My career highlights include building and managing a Security Operations Center (SOC) and a Data Loss Prevention (DLP) program from inception, leading the development of a PCI-compliant eCommerce cloud, and orchestrating the migration of multiple data centers to the cloud. These accomplishments reflect my ability to design and execute complex, large-scale projects that strengthen organizational security posture.

As an adjunct professor, I have had the privilege of mentoring the next generation of cybersecurity professionals, blending academic principles with real-world applications. Outside of work, I am a dedicated husband and father, committed to staying at the forefront of the ever-evolving cybersecurity landscape while maintaining a fulfilling personal life.

Tim is Global Head of Manufacturing at Snowflake and a technical leader with education and experience practicing advanced analytical methods including ML, data mining, optimization, simulation, natural language processing, small and big data warehousing, and the creation of compelling data visualizations.

Starting as a Data Scientist, I rolled into the world of Industrial Digitalisation back in 2010. I got quickly passionate about how to involve the human factor into digital projects. I was the industrial digitalization director at BASF Antwerp until 2022. Today I’m leading Analytics For Industry. I’m focussing on IT/OT Convergence, designing the future operational data platform, cyber security, Artificial Intelligence and more related data topics. I'm the founder of The IT/OT Insider. The IT/OT Insider offers insights, practical strategies, and real-life examples that will empower you to lead a successful and innovative transformation.

Francisco Almada Lobo is recognized as a top strategic thought leader and evangelist on digital transformation, specifically Industry 4.0, manufacturing operations and the factories of the future.
He holds an MBA and an Electrical Engineering Degree from the University of Porto and started his career in a CIM R&D Institute and joined Siemens Semiconductor in 1997.
Throughout his tenures at Siemens, Infineon and Qimonda, Almada Lobo specialized in optimizing highly complex, discrete manufacturing operations. In 2004, he led the first migration of an MES system in a running high-volume facility.

Almada Lobo holds various positions within the smart manufacturing and venture capital industries, including being a Member of the 200M Fund's Investment Committee, Executive Committee Member of SEMI Smart Manufacturing Technology, Member of the Forbes Technology Council and Advisor to many Industry 4.0 startups.

Matt Wiseman is a Sr. Product Manager at OPSWAT managing the OT product line. Matt’s focus is on product, engineering, product marketing and cybersecurity strategy. Matt has experience working in large industrial organizations and has worked to provide comprehensive cybersecurity solutions for all key critical infrastructure industries. His passion for cybersecurity comes from a love of solving unique business cases and deciphering complex problems. Prior to joining OPSWAT, Matt served in various cybersecurity strategy and global marketing leadership roles at Honeywell.

Based in Canada, Matt holds an MBA and a BA in Business Management with an Honors Specialization in Finance. In addition, Matt has obtained a variety of cyber related certifications from the Department of Homeland Security, GISF and is a member of the GIAC Advisory Board.

Outside of the office, Matt is committed to on-going education in all aspects of life, loves the outdoors and spending quality time with family and friends. Always up for a new challenge, he is looking forward to helping others navigate the fast-paced world of cybersecurity.

Experienced professional in Product Management and Technical Solutions with dynamic results in the high tech industry.

Achieved 60 percent growth in sales and 66 percent market share in highly competitive field.

Brings a powerful arsenal of skills to the table, combining senior level sales, product management and marketing expertise with engineering knowledge.

Uniquely qualified to transform technical concepts into product strategies that deliver customer value.
Has demonstrated success in all aspects of marketing management and led strategic initiatives in product life-cycle management, product marketing, analyst and media relations, channel and business development. Strong leadership and communication skills.