Agenda

Joe Bottari is a graduate from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service with strong analytical acumen and a proven track record of success in business management and government.  

Joe excels in solving problems in highly demanding environments and working with diverse teams. 

Joe is a Senior Advisor in the Office of the U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Joe works on coordinating and managing the various workstreams for the Department to ensure that the Secretary accomplishes his goals and initiatives.  

Before being asked to serve at the Department of Commerce in the second Trump Administration, he was a Project Manager at the American First Policy Institute. Joe managed the preparation of the Executive Orders that the White House and different agencies would implement upon commencement of the second Trump Administration.  

Experienced in problem-solving and delivering results, Joe has served in various business development roles with increasing responsibility. Joe was Vice President of Business Development for Genrae, an emerging real estate mortgage investment company, tasked with enhancing fundraising efforts and driving revenue growth. Joe also served as a Business Development Manager at Alston Construction Company, a diversified national builder in the industrial, healthcare, and education real estate sectors.  

Joe commenced his career in the first Trump Administration, serving as an Associate Director of the White House Economic Council. In this role, Joe was part of the teams that delivered North America’s largest free trade agreement (USMCA) and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. 

Joe’s experiences have developed his passion for growing businesses and being on diverse teams that deliver excellent results in challenging situations.  

Joe is a former Georgetown University football player from Boston, MA.  

Since 2017, Matteo Brusco has been part of N-able, currently serving as Distributor Sales Manager for Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Before joining N-able, he worked as a System Engineer, gained first-hand experience as a Managed Service Provider (MSP), and also held roles in IT distribution. This diverse background gives him a comprehensive understanding of the MSP market at every level.

In his current role, he focuses on supporting distributors and partners, fostering strong relationships, and driving strategic growth across Southern Europe. 

Chris Corde is a Senior Director of Product Management at Google, responsible for the Google security product portfolio including Google Security Operations, Google Threat Intelligence, Mandiant offerings, and Chrome Enterprise Premium.

Prior to Google, he was the Vice President of Product Management at VMware Carbon Black and was responsible for leading all product and UX for the Security Business Unit. Chris has spent over 20 years in cybersecurity including roles at RSA Security and LogMeIn.

Chris earned a B.S. in Computer Science from Fairleigh Dickinson University, a Masters in Computer Science from New York University, and a MBA from Boston College. 

A passionate entrepreneur, Ernesto Di Giambattista has started several successful businesses, including security orchestration firm ZeroNorth, which he led through multiple rounds of funding and deployment at several Fortune 100 companies. 

As a Managing Director and Co Founder of Genesis Accel, I lead investments in disruptive, early-stage startups in enterprise and cloud applications with core technology in ML/AI, orchestration, software defined, security, technology management, analytics or internet of things. With over 25 years of experience in technology and cybersecurity, I have a proven track record of identifying, building, and scaling successful businesses in the security and cloud domains. 

Ernesto DiGiambattista is the Managing Director, Co-Founder, and Lead Investor of Genesis Accel, driving investments in disruptive early-stage startups across enterprise and cloud technologies, including AI/ML, cybersecurity, software-defined systems, analytics, and IoT. With over 25 years of experience in technology and cybersecurity, he has consistently built and scaled successful businesses. 

Mehmet Gonullu is the GM and VP for International Business at ZeroTouch.ai, where he drives global expansion of AI-driven IT automation.

Based in Dubai, he is also a startup advisor and host of The CTO Show with Mehmet, a top-ranked podcast featuring 400+ founders and tech leaders.

With 20+ years in B2B technology at companies like Rubrik, Riverbed, and Veeam, Mehmet shares actionable insights on entrepreneurship, sales, and AI-powered business transformation.

Passionate about technology since his days at the Technical Institute, Mario Menichetti, after graduating, attended the University of Pisa and simultaneously began collaborating with various IT consulting firms as a programmer and systems engineer. In 1991, he founded CIPS Informatica with his friend Silvio Signori. Since then, he has built a career spanning over thirty years at the heart of cybersecurity, establishing himself as a key figure in the ICT channel in Italy. 

Now CEO of CIPS Informatica, a value-added distributor specializing in cybersecurity solutions, Mario has guided the company through the rapid evolution of the IT sector, including through strategic partnerships such as N-Able. His profound curiosity and passion for new technologies, combined with solid field experience, allow him to interpret emerging trends and market challenges, even in light of the geopolitical context. 

A frequent speaker at events and conferences in Italy and abroad, Mario shares his perspective on the future of the ICT sector, cyber defense strategies, and innovation opportunities for businesses. His pragmatic and business-oriented vision, always up-to-date and aligned with the evolving technology landscape, is an added value for CIPS Informatica partners and customers and the entire IT channel community.

John Pagliuca brings over 20 years of leadership experience to his role, with a significant focus on the software and SaaS marketplace.

John serves as chief executive officer of N-able and prior to that served as executive vice president of SolarWinds and president of SolarWinds MSP. He joined SolarWinds with the acquisition of LOGICNow, where he served as chief financial officer. Before joining LOGICNow, John was the vice president of finance and operations of GFI Software and before that, the vice president of finance for Airvana, a leading mobile data software company, where he played key roles in taking Airvana public in 2007 and pushing them over $500M in revenue prior to the company’s acquisition by a private equity firm in 2010.

Laz Vekiarides is a seasoned technology leader, entrepreneur, and investor with a long career spanning startups and Fortune 500 technology companies. Currently a product leader at Google focused on storage innovation, Laz previously served as a product executive at Amazon Web Services, where he launched Amazon FSx File Gateway, extending AWS’s file services to hybrid environments. 

As Co-Founder and CTO of ClearSky Data, Laz raised $60M from top-tier investors and built a hybrid cloud data management service that was acquired by Amazon in 2019. He has held senior engineering and leadership roles at Dell, EqualLogic (acquired by Dell for $1.4B), Ennovate Networks, 3Com, and Banyan Systems, where he led teams scaling storage, networking, and systems software. 

Laz continues to be involved in the formation and growth of startup companies. He is a Venture Partner at NextGen Venture Partners, where he helps vet early-stage investments, a Growth Advisor at M33 Growth Partners, where he helps organize growth-stage product teams, and a board member at PerformLine, a growth-stage fintech firm. Laz draws on his deep technical expertise and business acumen to advise entrepreneurs at all stages and is the author of several storage-related patents.