Session Descriptions and Speaker Bios
(Sorted by Track and Order of Presentations)
The agile business architecture – Business architecture plays a critical role in helping organizations respond rapidly to change at an ever-increasing velocity. The time horizon for adapting to change has shifted from months and years to days and weeks, and business architecture provides the understanding and insight to leaders and the organization that enables decision-making and execution. This track highlights agility and the necessary relationship with business architecture.
Strategy to execution – The role Business Architects play with creating, illuminating, and executing organizational strategy is significant. This track focuses on methods and frameworks Business Architects use and can learn from in developing and leading strategy to drive results.
Business architecture in practice – This track focuses on case studies, methods and approaches, and practitioner stories that help us all learn and apply business architecture practices and enable innovation in our own organizations.
Keynote Presentations
Accelerating Strategy to ExecutionIn his role of SVP for Enterprise Strategy for the Target Corporation, Jamil Ghani has charted a path from being a largely brick-and-mortar organization to a fully integrated omnichannel retailer. To accomplish this, Target has had to rethink and transform its underlying capabilities to create a more seamless experience for its guests. The focus of Mr. Ghani’s keynote will be how organizations can successfully accelerate strategy to execution. In a world where the rate of change is ever accelerating, organizations need to keep pace with their industry or fall by the wayside. In particular, as new and emerging business models disrupt existing players, it is imperative to understand the potential impacts to your organization’s competiveness. To help facilitate this, business architecture can be a driver to scan the industry for relevant trends, assess an organization’s current state, outline a blueprint for a desired future state, and help the team get there. When done well, business architecture can help “future proof” an organization’s business model to help sustain its growth over the long haul. This keynote will also highlight the challenges of trying to accelerate strategy to execution in a large-scale organization. |
Jamil Ghani serves as Senior Vice President, Enterprise![]() Jamil originally joined Target in 2011 as a member of the Target.com & Mobile leadership team in the role of Director, Strategy & New Business Development. Since then he has held positions of increasing scope leading Target’s strategy, innovation, and technology functions. Previously, Jamil served as Director, Global Marketing, Strategy & Planning for The Walt Disney Company’s $14B portfolio of travel and leisure businesses. His responsibilities included business strategy, marketing, new business development, and partnership and alliance development for Disney’s businesses worldwide. He gained leadership experience in international markets such as China and France and with large-scale technology and guest experience innovation. Jamil has also held leadership positions with General Mills and the Boston Consulting Group. Jamil holds a BA magna cum laude from Harvard College in economics and computer science and an MBA from the Harvard Business School, where he was selected as a Baker Scholar. He serves as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Science Museum of Minnesota, as an Advisory Board member for the Trust for the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and as an Advisory Board member for an early-stage data science and marketing analytics start-up. Jamil lives with his wife in Minneapolis. |
Andy O’Brien Presentation Description Coming Soon! |
Andy O’Brien, Senior IT Director, Medtronic![]() Andy O’Brien is responsible for leading Medtronic’s Enterprise Architecture and Technology Futures organizations. The vision of these organizations are to act as the trusted source in bridging business and technology strategy and delivery to enhance business capabilities and value. He has held multiple leadership roles at Medtronic for the past 10 years. Andy is recognized for his strong communications skills, vision, leadership and his ability to work collaboratively and strategically across Medtronic’s global organization to align teams from both IT and business functions towards achieving common business objectives. Prior to joining Medtronic he also held leadership roles at St. Jude Medical and Carlson Companies. Andy earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting, Finance and Economics from the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire and his MBA degree from the Carlson School of Management. |