Computing Advisory Board

David Dickson, PMP, VP Enterprise Solutions for Allstate Benefits, has 20+ years experience with various technologies in the financial services space. At Allstate, David leads the Open Systems application development team, servicing all of Allstate Benefits' clients facing applications for AB's external and internal facing customers. Prior to Allstate, David spent several years consulting for IBM Global Services and Prudential Life. David holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems from the University of North Florida. In his free time, David enjoys coaching soccer, spending time with his family of four and reading Christian literature.

Melissa Hong, PMP, President and founder of Visual Solutions Inc. (VSI), has served various industries, such as, health, technology, insurance, and government industries with project management, technical and non-technical staff augmentation, custom application development, infrastructure, and training services. Melissa worked for IBM, FPL, and CSX prior to starting her own firm. She has received numerous awards, including, but not limited to: Small Business Center Leader of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist, and Woman Firm of the Year from First Coast Business Alliance. Her company was recently selected as one of the top Diversity Business Award winners. Melissa is active in leadership roles for regional non-profit and professional organizations, such as the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce Small Business Chair, Dean Leadership Council Board at the University of North Florida, and Northeast Chapter of Project Management Institute. She is a UF graduate, and resides in Jacksonville with her husband and sons.

Khwaja Shaik is the award-winning global IT Leader with 20+ years of business technology leadership with GE, PwC, IBM and Bank of America. Recognized for Cybersecurity, Innovation, Architecture, Cloud and Large-scale execution, Khwaja was instrumental in major IT transformations that have delivered cost reductions, efficiency gains, agility and competitive advantage to Fortune 500 companies. As IBM's Executive Architect, Khwaja's role is to transform client's business for digital business, building new partnerships and ecosystems by leveraging cloud, cybersecurity, mobile, Big Data, social technologies, cognitive computing, integration & transformation Technologies. Bank of America's selected accomplishments include 3 Data Center Integration programs, world's largest contact center platform, Interact platform for 5K Banking centers, mortgage loan fulfillment platform & recognized bankofamerica portal. As a Big5 thought leader (PwC) Khwaja digitized end-to-end business processes at speed & scale through ERP, Cybersecurity, ebusiness patterns & co-authored PwC's Technology Forecast. First to bring EDI to India & Middle East. Served as BAC's Employee Network co-chair (2012-2015). "Night of Asia" board member driving Cultural Intelligence. McKinsey Global Institute's Executive Panel Member and HBR's Advisory Council Member driving global thought leadership. Khwaja holds an MBA (Global Management), Bachelors in Engineering & executive programs and 2014 CIO IT & Security Forum - Speaker.

As Executive Vice President of Harris Computer Systems, Jim Simak is focused on commercial software offerings and vertical software solutions for local governments and municipal utilities. Jim brings more than 25 years of experience in commercial software development, management and service delivery. He has worked for several startups as well as several Fortune 500 companies including IBM, Computer Science Corporations, General Dynamics and Lockheed. Jim earned a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and continued graduate studies in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington. He earned his MBA from Jacksonville University.

Sharon Van Den Heuvel serves as the Director, Enterprise Business Intelligence at JEA. JEA is a non-profit community owned utility located in Jacksonville FL that provides electric, water and sewer services to approximately 420K customers in Northeast Florida. Sharon has been at JEA for 15 years. She is currently responsible for the development, implementation and direction of JEA's BI Strategy, reporting into the CIO. Sharon manages a strong BI team who supports, maintains, develops and implements BI technologies at JEA. Sharon is always seeking new challenges and opportunities. She started at JEA as a cost analyst but soon taught herself how to troubleshoot systems rather than wait on IT to resolve. She successfully made a career switch to technology and has held several positions within IT, with increasing responsibilities. Prior to JEA, Sharon worked in her former home country of South Africa for a gas company and later an engineering group in Johannesburg. She started her first career as accounts payable clerk. While obtaining her degree along the way, she made fast progression through the accounting functions to Management Accountant, reporting to the CFO. Sharon was ultimately responsible for producing consolidated annual financial statements (five divisions), working with external agencies and reporting results to CFO and Board. She holds a Bachelor of Accounting Science Degree (1990 - South Africa) and went back to school to get her Executive MBA (2013 - Jacksonville University). She serves on the Utility Analytics Advisory board as well as volunteers on HabiJax projects. Sharon has been married to Curt (also from South Africa) since 1991 and has two children in now college - Amber @ UF and Jared @ GA Tech. She has even been mom to a few Rotary Exchange students. However, as a recent empty nester and having this thing called "free time", she is fast seeking ways to serve the community more.

Paul Venditti possess over 15 years of experience as a Talent Acquisition professional, with expertise in designing, building and optimizing corporate talent acquisition strategies. I have In-depth experience within professional services, IT project based staffing, corporate recruiting, retained executive search, as well as high volume IT production-based staffing. I possess a working knowledge of recruiting best practices in technology and several industries including banking, financial services, and health care, as well as a diverse background ranging from small boutique owned businesses, to midsize and national companies, and large Fortune 100 organizations, at both the corporate and operating division levels. Currently, I am the Director of Talent Acquisition for Meridian Technologies, and in this capacity, I manage all internal corporate recruiting, and in a dual role, I serve as our resource deployment manager for our Professional Services business unit. Additionally "since 2010" I have served on the Board of Directors as the VP of Program Development for the IIBA (International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) which is an independent non-profit professional association serving the growing field of business analysis. Specifically for IT professionals working in a broad range of roles - project managers, business analysis, systems analysis, requirements analysis or management, project management, consulting, process improvement and more - IIBA® can help you do your job better and enhance your professional life. In the capacity of VP of Program Development, it is my responsibility to manage, produce and coordinate 6 presentations per calendar year for groups up to 30 -60 IT professionals per presentation.