Eight Visionaries Named at 2007 Symantec Vision Event
For the past three years, industry leaders from around the world have been recognized at Symantec’s annual Vision event for their innovative use of technology in running their businesses. At last year’s event, Symantec highlighted Visionaries such as
Michael McGibbney from American Express,
Yves Bauget from Clearstream International,
Gary Clark from DHL,
Eun Sik Kim from Shinhan Bank in Korea, among others.
Nominations for the 2007 Symantec Visionary Awards were accepted from the Symantec sales and services organizations around the world, with more than 60 customers submitted. The nominations were evaluated based on technology innovation, business value impact, and involvement of our partners and services organization. Based on the results of the evaluation process, a total of eight customers were selected as Visionaries. These customers, which represent a range of industries and global markets, are acknowledged and applauded for their innovative use of technology in driving down costs, optimizing operations, securing information, and improving customer experiences.
“As the global economy continues to expand and interactions become increasingly interconnected, companies must take the right measures to minimize their exposure to risk,” said John W. Thompson, chairman and CEO, Symantec. “This year’s Visionary Award winners have demonstrated their success leveraging Symantec technology to ensure the security and availability of their information and systems while minimizing risk, increasing IT efficiency and assuring compliance.”
The eight Visionaries include
Allen Montgomery, the corporate director of systems and development at Baptist Health South Florida;
Rich Jackson, the general manager of Global Information Risk Management at Chevron Information Technology Company;
Gary Scott, senior architect and team leader for GE Global Infrastructure Services;
Theo Gibson, director of infrastructure at Honeywell Aerospace;
Mark Kolodzej, vice president of IT and head of the infrastructure services department at ING Investment Management Group, LLC;
Albert-Jan Boer, senior manager of communication services for the Defence Telematics Organisation, the IT supplier for the Dutch Ministry of Defence;
Gilmar Ribeiro, the information security manager at Sistema Usiminas; and
Laxman Badiga, the corporate vice president and global CIO at Wipro Limited.
Allen MontgomeryDirector of Systems and Development, Baptist Health South FloridaRead Visionary ProfileAllen Montgomery, director of systems and development at Baptist Health South Florida, south Florida’s largest not-for-profit healthcare organization, is recognized for implementing comprehensive data center management and enterprise storage solutions. These solutions have helped improve patient care while improving IT efficiency. These initiatives include a remote ICU monitoring application using Veritas Cluster Server and NetBackup that has contributed to a 27 percent decrease in ICU mortality rates. Other results include almost $7 million in annual cost avoidance through faster disaster recovery and $815,000 in annual cost savings related to the use of Backup Exec System Recovery following system crashes.
Rich JacksonGeneral Manager of Global Information Risk Management, Chevron Information Technology CompanyRead Visionary Profile
Rich Jackson, the general manager of Global Information Risk Management at Chevron Information Technology Company, is recognized for his leadership in improving the enterprise security posture of the second largest integrated energy company in the United States and ensuring the company’s heterogeneous and global IT infrastructure complies with government regulations and industry standards. His team recently launched a three-year Information Compliance Automation System initiative to standardize and automate diverse compliance and audit processes. At the end of this three-year plan, they expect to see a 50 percent improvement in operational efficiency, representing annual savings of more than $12 million on audit and compliance costs.
Gary ScottSenior Architect and Team Leader, GE Global Infrastructure ServicesRead Visionary ProfileGary Scott, senior architect and team leader for GE Global Infrastructure Services, is helping GE to imagine the business value of data center standardization and automation. With responsibilities that encompass more than 2,200 servers located across the globe, Scott and his team envisioned the proportional results of data center standardization. Deploying a software infrastructure solution that includes Veritas Storage Foundation, CommandCentral Storage, and Cluster Server, they have been able to recover five terabytes of production storage, representing immediate cost savings of $200,000, while increasing ongoing billable storage availability by 45 percent.
Theo GibsonDirector of Infrastructure, Honeywell AerospaceRead Visionary ProfileTheo Gibson, the director of infrastructure at Honeywell Aerospace, is taking data center standardization to new heights. With an IT environment that includes 1,500 applications and 35,000 employees, Gibson and his team began a data center rationalization effort using Symantec Data Center Foundation tools that will eventually lead to millions in savings over a three-year period through downtime avoidance, reduced costs and complexity, and time-to-recovery savings. They also expect to reduce the number of applications supported by 70 percent and slash the time required to deploy upgrades and new modules.
Mark KolodzejVice President of IT and Head of the Infrastructure Services DepartmentRead Visionary ProfileMark Kolodzej, the vice president of IT and head of the infrastructure services department at ING Investment Management Group, is responsible for the IT infrastructure that supports operations for the principal asset management arm of one of the world’s largest financial services corporations. Mark is recognized for his leadership in using Symantec Enterprise Vault for email and file system archiving, e-discovery, and compliance. The results are quite impressive: a 40 percent reduction in storage requirements for email and file systems equating to a 10-terabyte reduction in storage costs; $1 million in projected hardware costs through a tiered archiving infrastructure; and $300,000 anticipated in annual IT labor cost and end-user productivity savings.
Albert-Jan BoerSenior Manager of Communication Services, Defence Telematics OrganisationRead Visionary ProfileAlbert-Jan Boer, the senior manager of communication services for the Defence Telematics Organisation, the IT supplier for the Dutch Ministry of Defence, must ensure the availability and integrity of email communications supporting more than 65,000 civilian and military employees. And with SLAs that specify rapid restoration of the email system after a failure, Boer and his team implemented Symantec Enterprise Vault for email archiving, e-discovery, and compliance. In the case of compliance and security alone, Albert-Jan and his team project three-year labor savings of more than $1.1 million. The ability of end users to restore their own email instead of IT staff equates to more than $1 million. But the most impressive value concerns productivity improvements of end users through the elimination of PST files, which equates to more than $50 million over the same three-year period.
Gilmar RibeiroInformation Security Manager, Sistema UsiminasRead Visionary ProfileComparisons between the density of steel and enterprise security can be made by our next recipient, Gilmar Ribeiro, the information security manager at Sistema Usiminas, the largest producer of flat steel in Latin America and one of the world’s top 20 steel makers. He is recognized for protecting the company’s data network and ensuring compliance across its diverse infrastructure by standardizing on an enterprise security solution. Leveraging Symantec endpoint protection products, Gilmar and his team have nearly eliminated malware-related downtime and reduced incoming mail for the company’s 40,000 employees by 65 percent through more effective spam filtering. And using Symantec Control Compliance Suite, they simplified several manual processes into a single automated reporting console to help enforce security compliance, while reducing preparation time for compliance audits by 50 percent.
Laxman BadigaCorporate Vice President and CIO, Wipro LimitedRead Visionary ProfileOur final recipient comes from half-way around the world and oversees the IT operations for the world’s largest research and development services provider. Laxman Badiga, corporate vice president and CIO of Wipro Limited, is leveraging a breadth of enterprise security, information risk management, and data center software tools from Symantec. While the extensive IT makeover overseen by Laxman and his team is still a work in progress, it is already yielding impressive results. Compliance automation reduced preparation time for audits by 20 to 30 percent. Information management solutions improved employee productivity by almost 30 percent and reduced email storage requirements by 20 percent. Restore times for lost email messages and other data has been reduced by 20 percent, storage utilization improved by 20 percent, and the backup window was cut in half despite a 30 percent growth in backup volume.