Judges
John Randall
Judges committee co-chair
John N. Randall, CEO of Zyvex Labs, Executive VP of Teliatry, Executive VP at NanoRetina, Adjunct Professor at UT Dallas, and Fellow of the AVS, IEEE, and Micro Nano Engineering Society, has 38 years of experience in Micro- and Nano- Fabrication. He has attracted over $45M in research contracts to Zyvex and resulting products have grossed over $100M. He joined Zyvex in March of 2001 after 15 years at Texas Instruments where he was elected Distinguished Member of Technical Staff and worked in high resolution processing for integrated circuits, MEMS, and quantum effect devices and was assigned for 2 years to work at IMEC where he developed a taste for Belgian beer and chocolate. Prior to working at TI, John worked at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory on ion beam and x-ray lithography. He has 119 articles published in refereed journals, more than 50 conference proceedings and other publications with 4489 citations and 34 issued US Patents with 972 citations.
Stacie Hyatt
Judges committee co-chair
President & CEO, SL Partners & SACL
Stacie is a corporate executive, published author and dedicated advocate for health tech, education and humanitarian causes. She has worked for industry giants including Medtronic and St. Jude Medical, as well as successful early stage and start-up companies - primarily in the cardiac, transplant, neuroscience and wellness disciplines. Her geographic experience spans the globe, while being physically located in either the US or Europe. From a functional perspective, Stacie’s areas of responsibility cover engineering & product development, sales & marketing, fundraising & shareholder management, technical support, operations and general management. In addition to involvement in professional organizations such as the American Collage of Health Executives, she has served on several educational and charitable non-profit organizations and boards, often as president/chairman, including the Industry Advisory Board to the Department of Bioengineering at Texas A&M, the Advisory Council for the Salvation Army, the Executive Women’s Roundtable and The Wharton Club of DFW among others. With regard to the Tech Titans, Stacie’s commitment spans serving on the Board of Directors, as a Tri-Chair for the Health Tech Forum, as a member of the Board Nominating Committee among several other committees, as a Tech Titans Award Judge five times, and now as a Tech Titans Awards Judge Co-Chair for the second year. She earned her bachelor's degree in bioengineering from Texas A&M University and an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Betty Manetta
President & CEO, Argent Associates, Inc.
Betty Manetta is an influential executive and strategic entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience driving transformation and growth for global technology and telecommunications companies and startups. She is recognized as an award-winning, supply chain and sustainability industry expert and an advocate of women and minority owned businesses. Betty brings governance experience through her advisory leadership with several nonprofit boards.
Betty is the Founder, President and CEO of Argent Associates, a tech-centric, software development and integration firm which has received awards for its work, leadership, and workforce diversity. She built the multi-million-dollar company’s legacy by creating innovative supply chain solutions while keeping its commitment to environmental protection. Betty also formed and launched Asociar, a successful joint venture with a global international corporation which is focused on network engineering, technical installation, and testing for the telecommunications industry. She bought out their interest and transitioned the company to a certified, black and brown minority-owned business and she is expanding the company’s national footprint. Betty is spearheading a strategic transformation of technology-based entities from a functional focus to an enabler of innovation. The business is using proprietary technology solutions to create enhanced and digitized customer experiences.
Brenda Boehm
Head of Strategic Alliances, Dell Technologies
Highly accomplished C-level and board executive that combines her business acumen with her technical industry expertise in advanced next generation networks, security, big data, analytics, edge, and internet of things technologies to provide executive strategic leadership, innovative consulting, advisory leadership, and board governance. She drives organization and digital transform for companies which leverages today’s technologies for new products and services, operational efficiencies, and global market reach that significantly impacts their corporate bottom line.
Brenda’s deep industry expertise is based upon her successful leadership roles at both the executive and board leadership levels with various innovation-focused technology companies from entrepreneurial start-ups: Starent Networks, Tango Networks, and Cyphre to Fortune 100 leaders: Dell Technologies, Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia. This uniquely broad set of experiences and skills have equipped her with the insight to create a market vision that recognizes industry disruption, an ability to harness change for innovation, develop global market reach, and ensure the most successful secure operational best practices.
David Daniel
President Emeritus, The University of Texas at Dallas
Dr. David E. Daniel is President Emeritus of The University of Texas at Dallas. He earned BS, MS, and PhD degrees in civil engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, and served on the faculty at UT Austin from 1981 to 1996. His research focused on environmental controls for contaminated land and groundwater. From 1996 until 2005, he served as Head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and then as Dean of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. From 2005 to 2015 he served as President of The University of Texas at Dallas. From 2015 to 2018 he served as Deputy Chancellor and Chief Operating Officer of The University of Texas System in Austin. Honors include the Normal Medal, Croes Medal, Middlebrooks Award, Presidents Award, Opal Award for Education, Terzaghi Lecture, and Geotechnical Hero’s Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in 2000.
Greg Head
Founder of Gregslist.com, Host of Practical Founders Podcast
Greg Head is a 30-year software industry veteran who was part of the startup-to-scale journeys of three different software companies in the CRM industry, including one IPO. He is now an active mentor, advisor, podcaster, and investor helping founders of software startups all over the world.
He is the founder of Gregslist.com, his curated and up-to-date list of local software companies and SaaS jobs. Gregslist is now available for tech communities in Phoenix, Dallas,, and 10 other cities. Greg also is host of the weekly Practical Founders Podcast where he interviews successful founders who grew valuable software companies without big funding.
Hope Shimabuku
Director, USPTO Texas Regional Office
As the Regional Director of the Texas Regional United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Hope Shimabuku carries out the strategic direction of the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO, and is responsible for leading the Texas regional office. Focusing on the region and actively engaging with the community, Ms. Shimabuku ensures the USPTO’s initiatives and programs are tailored to the region’s unique ecosystem of industries and stakeholders.
Ms. Shimabuku brings to the USPTO nearly two decades of experience as an engineer and intellectual property attorney. Most recently, Ms. Shimabuku was part of the Office of General Counsel at Xerox Corporation serving as Vice President and Corporate Counsel responsible for all intellectual property matters for Xerox Business Services, LLC. She also worked for BlackBerry Corporation advising on United States and Chinese standards setting, cyber security, technology transfer, and intellectual property laws and legislation. As an engineer, she worked for Procter & Gamble and Dell Computer Corporation.
Hubert Zajicek
CEO, Co-founder & Partner, Health Wildcatters
Hubert Zajicek, MD, MBA, is CEO & Co-founder of Health Wildcatters, a top ranked healthcare accelerator and fund in Dallas, TX. Health Wildcatters provides mentorship, capital and guidance to up to 12 healthcare related startups during an intensive 3 month program, annually. The fund has invested in 88 healthcare startups, which have attracted over $200M in capital in about 8 years. Dr. Zajicek has extensive experience with startups and is an active speaker, panelist and thought leader on healthcare startups, entrepreneurship, financing & healthcare. He serves as advisor, mentor and board member on various organizations and startup companies.
In March of 2020, Dr. Zajicek started the Health Hacking Crisis Network (HHCN), a non-profit organization that engages in bringing together a rapid reaction force to deal with acute problems arising in healthcare due to COVID-19. The organization has over 500 volunteer members and has supported the creation of a variety of initiatives that had a big impact on the North Texas region and beyond.
Matt Glover
CTO, Le-Vel
Matt Glover is a military veteran and a technology executive with 32 years of industry experience. He is the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) for Le-Vel, a mid-market health and wellness company in Frisco, Texas.
He has been honored by his peers by being selected as a finalist as Tech Titans Corporate CTO of the Year for two years in a row (2016 and 2017).
He serves as Chairman of the Business Industry Leadership Team for the National Convergence Technology Center. The center is responsible for guiding the curriculum for more than 80 colleges nationally to make work force ready students in STEM related fields.
Mr. Glover was previously the CIO for AMX, a global hi-tech company. Prior to that he served as Senior Vice President of Technology at Bank of America and has helped lead technology for industry giants like HP, Intuit, and MetLife. Formerly a member of the CTO Roundtable at the White House whose mission was designed to build the “Tech Hire” initiative nationwide. This initiative was focused on pathways for non-degreed citizens to move into STEM fields.
Maria Lensing
SVP and CTO for Infrastructure Engineering & Operations, McKesson Corporation
Maria is responsible for developing McKesson’s technology stack vision, strategy and architecture that is fundamental to their future business portfolio for data and digital technologies. Her responsibilities also include a strong focus on engineering design and operational excellence to optimize current performance levels.
Maria is focused on empowering McKesson solutions through the capabilities of the technology platform that her team develops and sustains. Maria drives technological and health modernization through large-scale transformative initiatives.
Mignona Cote
SVP and CSO, NetApp Inc.
As Chief Security Officer, Mignona Cote provides leadership, strategic direction and oversight for NetApp’s IT and product security. Mignona has served in chief information security officer roles and has a demonstrated history across insurance, healthcare, and large financial institutions. She is skilled in cybersecurity, enterprise risk management, vulnerability management, internal audit, IT strategy, and leadership.
Offering over 25 years of securing and improving technical operations for companies like AWS, AIG, Aetna, Bank of America, PepsiCo, and Verizon Communications, she has led the development and execution of security solutions that improve international and global networks. Her background encompasses payments within health savings and bank card services, securing transactions, and preventing fraud.
She is a strong technology professional with an MBA focused in business and accounting from Louisiana State University in Shreveport, and undergraduate degrees in both computer information systems and Spanish.
Paul Lopez
VP, Technology Development, UnitedHealth Group
Paul Lopez is a 25+ year technology veteran whose career has spanned multiple disciplines such as IT modernization, AI & machine learning, agile software development, semiconductors, networking and all things cloud. At the Optum business unit of UHG, he leads healthcare IT transformation initiatives with large provider organizations designed to improve the quality of care for millions of Americans. He is passionate about combining digital technology with humanity and compassion to help people lead healthier lives. Prior to UnitedHealth Group, Paul was Vice President of IT Services for NEC Corporation of America, where he led a national organization of IT consultants, developers, project managers, and engineers that served enterprise and public sector accounts. He has held senior management positions at T-Mobile, Nortel Networks, IBM, AMD and National Semiconductor where he was instrumental in bringing innovative products and services to market.
Paul holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and has completed MBA coursework at SMU and the Wharton School. He has served as an active member of IEEE including several standards committees related to computer networking and wireless technologies. In 2017, he co-founded New Hope Education, Inc. a private, non-profit school serving K4 to 6th-grade students in the North Dallas area. Paul actively supports Metro Relief, a non-profit who helps people experiencing homelessness to get off the streets through an all mobile, person-centered field service organization.
Rishi Khanna
Founder and CEO of ISHIR, Co-founder and CEO of ENO8
Rishi Khanna is an impact-driven entrepreneur and high growth CEO of specialized companies in the outsourcing and digital innovation industries. For over two decades, Rishi has successfully implemented strategic outsourcing and offshore/nearshore/rural shore programs in IT, Software Development, QA, Cloud, Mobile/IoT, AI, AI Annotations, DevOps, BPO/KPO and Digital Marketing functions.
Over the years, Rishi’s companies have been named to the Inc. 5000, Inc. 100 in Texas, Dallas 100 Fastest-Growing Private Companies, Fort Worth’s Fastest Growing Companies, Best Places to Work, and Fast 100 Asian American Business Awards. Rishi is also a two-time Entrepreneur of Excellence Finalist Honoree.
Romelia Flores
Distinguished Engineer & Master Inventor, IBM Industry Engineering Lab
Romelia’s industry experiences combined with her unique software development and design expertise make her Global Markets’ most highly sought-after innovator. She has collaborated with leading clients in the design of Space Object Analytics, Health & Human Services, Storm Water Management, Cloud Platforms, Hepatitis C Eradication, and Airports of the Future. She holds 83 US patents and 10 patents pending. In 2021 she received the Dallas Business Journal’s Women in Business Award. In 2018, she was the first female ever named to the Dallas Tech Titans Hall of Fame and was the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award winner from Great Minds in STEM.
Sumit Anand
Chief Information and Strategy Officer, At Home Group Inc.
Sumit Anand currently serves as At Home’s Chief Information Officer and Chief Strategy Officer. Under his leadership, At Home has made significant progress on its Business Strategy and Transformation (At Home 2.0) initiatives, technology modernization and enabled new eCommerce selling channel(s).
Prior to joining At Home in 2018, Mr. Anand was the Senior Vice President of Information Technology from 2015 to 2018 at Signet Jewelers, a large specialty jewelry retailer with over 3,000 stores, in United States, Canada and United Kingdom. In that role, Mr. Anand was responsible for leading the Technology Modernization and Organizational Transformation initiative across 8 global brands and several capability areas, including stores, e-commerce, digital, omni-channel, supply chain, analytics, merchandizing, HR and finance.
Trude Van Horn
SVP & CIO, NCH Corporation
Gertrude G. Van Horn is the Chief Information Officer at NCH Corporation - a $1 B, privately held, global leader in industrial, commercial, and institutional maintenance products and services with locations in more than 50 countries. Trude leads NCH’s IT Team of 100 + technology professionals based primarily in the Dallas Metroplex area, along with staff located in the UK, Europe and Asia. This remarkable IT team supports a very diverse portfolio of growing NCH businesses, products and services and enables NCH global opportunities for growth and efficiency.
Trude has a professional history of driving results, challenging the norm, and transforming performance. She brings a wide variety of IT skill and leadership expertise to the CIO role, strong executive communication skills, a passion for driving business value, time for coaching and mentoring the next generation of leaders, and a desire for giving back to the community. She is fanatical about developing leaders and speaks on the topic often. Before coming to NCH, Trude held roles in Technology Leadership at American Express, JP Morgan, Jo-Ann Stores, Office Depot, Haggar Clothing Company and Victoria’s Secret.
Valerie Freeman
CEO, BravoTech & Freeman+Leonard
Valerie Freeman is the Founder and CEO of a group of specialized companies whose services include staffing, search outsourcing and consulting, operating under the names, Imprimis Group, BravoTech, Freeman+Leonard and ANSERteam. Over the years, the companies have been named to the Inc. 500/5000, Dallas 100, WPO Fast 50 and Cougar 100 (Univ. of Houston) and Women’s Business Enterprise of the Year. In 2021 Valerie was inducted into the JA Business Hall of Fame and also received the Women Paying It Forward Award from Women Leading Technology. In 2020, Valerie received the Orbie Leadership Award from the Dallas CIO Assn. and was inducted into the Tech Titans Hall of Fame. Previously she was inducted into the Women’s Business Enterprise Hall of Fame and received Lifetime Achievement Awards from both the Alliance of Technology and Women and the Dallas Business Journal’s Women in Technology. She was also in DCEO Dallas 500 Most Powerful Business Leaders publication several times and was named to the Power 50 Women in Dallas by the Texas Diversity Council. She is a former Chair of the Board of the Girl Scouts of NETexas where she also received their Woman of Distinction Award. She has been a winner of the Tech Titans Community Hero Award and also the Investment Catalyst Award (as co-founder of Texas Women Ventures). She has been an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year winner and a NAWBO National Woman Business Owner of the Year.