Become a Vital Leader
Speakers:	Panel of Female CIOs
Date:	Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Time:	7:30am - 9:00am
Location:	Maggiano's Buckhead 3368 Peachtree Rd, Atlanta, GA Map
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Vital Leadership Series

Panel of Women CIOs share thoughts on Leadership

Description
In conjunction with Atlanta Woman magazine's March article entitled "Women in Technology - the perfect IT storm is brewing", WIT's March Vital Leadership session features a diverse panel of Women CIO's who will share their leadership journeys and the lessons they learned along the way.  They will explore the issues technology leaders face today and how they have been creatively addressed in their respective organizations.  There will be ample time for questions, so come prepared.  You'll learn what makes these women so special and how you can put some of their ideas into practice to move your career along. Join our distinguished panel of technology leaders including:

Helen Berg
Senior Vice President and CIO
Merge Healthcare

Becky Blalock
Senior Vice President and CIO, Information Technology
Southern Company

Deborah Dean
CIO
Matria Healthcare

Kristen R. Kirkconnell
Senior Vice President and CIO
AGL Resources

Diana Melick
Vice President and CIO
Siemens Energy and Automation, Inc.

Panelists

Helen Berg
Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Merge Healthcare  

Helen Berg serves as SVP and CIO of Merge Healthcare, a market leader in the development and delivery of medical imaging and information management software and services, including new and innovative tele-radiology services.   Ms. Berg is responsible for developing the technology vision, supporting strategies, and implementation plans to support the business operations of all Merge Healthcare divisions. 

With a background that includes the entrepreneurial and innovative Internet Security Systems, work on the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline project, and ten years at Lockheed Martin working on the F-22 Next Generation Fighter, Helen Berg is a transformational leader and information technology professional.  Through a career that spans government and defense, as well as the fast-paced high tech industry, Ms. Berg is well known as a change leader, having led several successful global ERP implementations, and numerous other enterprise-wide business and technology change initiatives. Ms. Berg earned an M.B.A. degree from The Citadel and has attended advanced leadership development programs at Carnegie Mellon University and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Ms. Berg is an experienced leader and serves on several Boards in the technology community. She was a finalist for Woman of the Year in Technology for the state of Georgia in 2006.  In 2007 she was awarded the Society for Information Management (SIM) Leadership Award, the highest award given by this well-respected organization.  She is an active mentor in the Atlanta technology community and is a frequent speaker on leadership and technology topics.

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Becky Blalock
Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Information Technology
Southern Company

As senior vice president and chief information officer, Becky Blalock directs information technology strategy and operations across the 120,000 square miles and 10 subsidiaries of Southern Company. Her responsibilities encompass 1,100 IT employees and a $330 million budget.

Blalock has more than 25 years of experience with Southern Company and has held leadership positions in many departments, including economic development, corporate communications and office of the CEO. She works with many professional and community organizations including the Georgia Aquarium IT Advisory Board; Information Technology Association of the America's CIO Council; the City of Atlanta IT Advisory Board, the United Way High Tech Initiative, the Atlanta Woman magazine's advisory board, and the Board of Leadership Atlanta. Blalock has received a host of honors including being named 2007 CIO of the Year award by the Computers for Youth, Computerworld's Premier 100 IT Leaders in 2006, Atlanta Power Woman of the Year by Atlanta Woman Magazine in 2006 and 2003 Georgia CIO of the Year by the Georgia CIO Leadership Association.

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Deborah Dean
Executive VP and Chief Technology Officer
Matria Healthcare, Inc.

In February 2008, Debbie assumed the position of Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Office for Matria and added additional responsibilities of Product Management and Informatics Departments.  As of May 2007, Debbie was Senior VP and CIO with areas of oversight which included daily IT Operations, Application Development, and Client Data Solutions. 

Joining Matria in 2005 as VP Data Applications, Ms. Dean oversaw the technology that consolidates and integrates Matria’s client data sources. She has been instrumental in leading the efforts to implement automation of data flow and pre-profiling of the data feeds to significantly reduce the overall cycle time from data receipt to member access by the clinicians.
Debbie, bringing with her 15 years of data processing and healthcare expertise, brought a proven process and development discipline to the Client Data Solutions organization.  She created standards for data ingest including all 500 eligibility sources being changed to the HIPAA standard 834 and for pharmacy the NCPDP standard.  By enforcing standards, this allowed template programs to be created for the rule mapping and software programs that process the data.  Additionally, Debbie saw the need for many tools to preprocess the data to move quality checks much earlier in the business cycle creating productivity efficiencies for the workforce.  These processes and tools have resulted in 60% of all files that come to Matria are processed automatically without manual intervention. 

Prior to joining Matria, she was Senior VP of Research and Development for Quovadx, Inc., a leading healthcare integration company. While at Quovadx, she developed the premier eligibility and claims clearinghouse product that integrated the top clearinghouses such as HDX, WebMD, MedUnite, Proxymed and Medifax. Prior thereto, Debbie worked in data warehousing and client informatics reporting management roles with Medstat and Criterion Health Strategies.

Ms. Dean earned a bachelor’s degree in Health Services Administration from Arkansas State University.

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Kristen R. Kirkconnell
Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer
AGL Resources

Kristin R. Kirkconnell was named senior vice president of information services and technology for AGL Resources in February 2007. She continues to serve as chief information officer. In this role, she is responsible for enhancing the company's technology platform along with managing information systems and the alignment of business goals with technology solutions. AGL Resources is the parent company of Atlanta Gas Light Company, Virginia Natural Gas, Chattanooga Gas Company, Elizabethtown Gas in New Jersey, Elkton Gas in Maryland, Florida City Gas and other energy and infrastructure holdings.

Prior to joining AGL Resources, Kirkconnell served as chief information officer for consumer and interconnect services with BellSouth. While at BellSouth, she also played a leadership role in the implementation of Oracle's Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution.

Kirkconnell also served as vice president for the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) regulation. In this capacity, she directed the development and deployment activities associated with registration and licensing systems. She has held numerous positions in financial applications, registration and licensing systems, and regulatory systems with leading companies including EDS and Universal Systems Incorporated.

Kirkconnell serves on the boards of Consumer Credit Counseling Services and Park Pride and on the United Way Technology Board. She also is a member of the Georgia CIO Leadership Association Advisory Board.

Kirkconnell is a graduate of George Mason University where she received her Bachelor of Science degree. She currently resides in Atlanta with her daughter, Laura.

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Diana Melick
Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Siemens Energy and Automation, Inc.

Diana Melick was appointed Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Siemens Energy and Automation, Inc. in June 2004. She is responsible for the overall planning, organizing and directing of all activities of the CIO Organization.  Her organization is responsible for business process management, IT planning, architecture and governance, compliance, security, project management, application management, and infrastructure.

Melick joined Siemens Energy & Automation in 1997 where she held various management positions across a broad range of applications and infrastructure services including order management, manufacturing, pricing and configuration, sales force automation, human resources, incentive compensation and eCommerce.  Prior to joining Siemens she was with Georgia Pacific where she managed the company's executive information systems, environmental systems, and configuration management for SAP implementations.  Melick began her career at Pillsbury where she held positions of increasing responsibility ranging from Security Administrator to Programmer/ Analyst to Project Manager for Pillsbury's financial and sales systems.

Since joining Siemens, Melick has been focused on driving a higher quality of systems through IT standardized processes, harmonizing the company's technology solutions, and lowering costs through simplified IT landscape and IT sourcing.  Melick has been leading IT through organizational, technical and industry change to become a more business focused and process driven organization.

Ms. Melick was born in Rochester, Michigan.   Melick holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree in Management Information Systems from Central Michigan University.

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2008 Meeting Sponsor

Atlanta Woman magazine offers Atlanta’s only magazine, Web site and events designed exclusively for professional and civic-minded women in all stages of their corporate or entrepreneurial careers.  With an interactive Web site, 10 issues of the magazine and 10 signature events per year, Atlanta Woman; provides resources designed to educate, shape, inform and showcase the best of women in Atlanta.

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