CSPS Digital Academy Events/Unlocking the Potential of Cloud - Speaker Biographies

Date and time: April 12, 2022 | 12:30 pm to 3:30 pm (ET)

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Speaker Biographies

	Erica Vezeau (Master of Ceremonies) Director General, Digital Academy, Canada School of Public Service Erica Vezeau is the acting Director General of the Canada School of Public Service’s Digital Academy. She joined this team in March 2021 to support its mandate to help public servants gain the knowledge, skills, and mindsets they need to succeed in the digital age. She has over 15 years of previous private- and public-sector experience in program administration, service delivery, and strategic planning with a special interest in digitally focused projects to modernize business processes and improve government services.
	Tom Roberts Vice-President of Business Enablement and Assurance Services Branch (BEASB) and Chief Financial Officer Tom Roberts is Vice-President of Business Enablement and Assurance Services Branch (BEASB) and Chief Financial Officer. The Business Enablement and Assurance Services Branch delivers a full suite of seamless and integrated solutions to internal clients in the areas of finance, security, accommodations, information management and technology, and registrar services. Of note, BEASB was the lead in implementing the School’s new Cloud-based, Software as a Service (Saas), learning platform, launched in February. Tom previously held the position of Special Advisor to the President. Tom joined the School from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, where he held the position of Director General, Budget Planning and Financial Management. Throughout his years of service, Tom has held different executive positions at Infrastructure Canada and at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS). In these positions, his focused was on internal services, public reporting, effective program design, and proper stewardship of government resources.
	Sami Khoury Head, Canadian Centre for Cyber Security Sami Khoury is the Head of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (the Cyber Centre). The Cyber Centre is the single unified source of expert advice, guidance, services and support on cyber security for government, critical infrastructure owners and operations, the private sector and the Canadian public. Sami began his career at the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) in 1992 as a research engineer exploring the impact of emerging multimedia communications technologies. He held various management positions and leadership roles at CSE, including Director General Capabilities Development and more recently as Deputy Chief (ADM) for Enterprise Technologies and Solutions. In this role, he was CSE’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) and responsible for IT and Information Security, as well as leading CSE’s overall Research program and 24/7 Operations Centre. Sami holds a Bachelor of Computer Engineering (1988) and a Masters of Applied Science (1991) from Concordia University in Montreal. He completed a certificate program in Public Sector Leadership at the University of Ottawa in 2016. Sami received the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012 and the APEX Award of Excellence for Innovation in 2020.
	Tarek Houssari a/Senior Director, Digital Business Solutions, Chief Information Office, Shared Services Canada Tarek Houssari is current the Senior Director of Digital Enablement Services at SSC; Tarek has over 20 years of experience in various aspects of technology mainly on enabling digital business in different federal organizations. Tarek specializes in transformational projects and digital enablement. He holds a Computer Science Degree and an MBA from Ottawa.
	Scott Levac Director of Core Technologies and Cloud Oversight, Office of the Chief Information Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat For the past seven years Scott has assumed a role developing Information Technology (IT) policy and strategy. During that time he has been an advocate of adopting technologies and methods to increase the speed, security, and quality of IT delivery. Scott enjoys learning from his colleagues in the GC IT community as they continue to deliver on new digital services and modernization initiatives. Prior to joining TBS, Scott was responsible for maintaining and delivering Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in various federal departments and agencies. During the summer, Scott enjoys throwing his kids into the pool. In the winter he enjoys trying to stay upright on a snowboard. Scott holds a Bachelors in Engineering from Carleton University.
	Jason Reid Chief Information and Security Officer, Director General, Natural Resources Canada Jason Reid joined Natural Resources Canada on July 27, 2020. He has more than 25 years professional experience working within the Government of Canada (GC), the majority of which has been in fields of Information Management, Information Technology and Security. He has held positions of increasing responsibility including being the Executive lead of two GC transformation projects. Jason was named to the EX cadre in 2007, he was awarded the Queens Golden Jubilee medal in 2002 and is a graduate of the Executive Leadership Development Program and the Career Assignment Program. He holds bachelor degree in Social Science with a concentration in Economics from University of Ottawa.
	Alexandre Tardif Deputy Director, Federal Geospatial Platform Initiative, Strategic Policy and Results Sector, Natural Resources Canada Alexandre Tardif is the Deputy Director of the Federal Geospatial Platform, a position he has held since 2018. Previously he held leadership and technical positions in the Federal Government in the geomatics and IT sphere. Mr Tardif held a Bachelor of Science in Geography from the University of Sherbrooke and a Master`s degree in administration from “L’École nationale d’administration publique”.
	Jean-Clément Chenier Executive Director, Office of Energy Efficiency/Low Carbon Energy Sector, Natural Resources Canada
	Bruce McHaffie A/Director, Cloud Competency Centre, Canada Border Services Agency As a highly motivated and innovative leader within the CBSA, I have been able to develop and direct strategies to better support the Government of Canada strategic plan for IM/IT, particularly in a "Cloud first" approach. Under my leadership, the Cloud Competency Centre Division has delivered a Protected B Cloud environment on Amazon Web Services (AWS), migrated over 20 applications into Cloud, and built and maintained the ArriveCAN Backend services that are critical to the functioning of the CBSA ArriveCAN mobile app. I have been in the private sector for over 20 years as a Developer and Manager, working specifically in the area of security software. I began working in the public sector in October of 2019. During my time at Trend Micro Canada Inc as a Software Development Manager, I led two software development teams, championed the adoption and development of CI/CD pipeline tooling and coordinated with Product Managers to develop product strategy. In this role I was able to further enhance my leadership skills, through mentoring and motivating employees, and providing career guidance. My personal mandate is to continue supporting the Government of Canada Infrastructure Modernization directives, by devising strategies to support Workload Migration (WLM) plans for CBSA applications.
	Philippe Couroux Manager, Science Solutions, Information Systems Branch Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Philippe Couroux started working for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) in 1999 as a bioinformatics programmer for supporting genomics research group. During those years, he developed multiple databases and applications used mainly by the AAFC Ottawa Research and Development Centre and also by other AAFC research centres across Canada. From 2017-2020 he lead the bioinformatics support for AAFC local and regional research and development centres and participated to the replacement of a Laboratory Information Management Systrem. In 2020, Philippe became the manager for the Science Solutions group under the SPAD (Science Projects and Applications Division) at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada This group is working hard with other branches on projects for the AAFC sciences clients. These projects include on premise projects but also projects that involve cloud to support current and new initiatives such as the Living Laboratories Initiative. Philippe is in constant collaboration with other members at AAFC in order to keep on pushing for new initiatives including cloud that will enable our science clients in the extraordinary work they accomplish on a daily basis.