Western & Southern IT Team: Experts & Influencers

Western & Southern Financial Group •
IT experts presenting on stage to large audience

Members of the Information Technology team at Western & Southern Financial Group (Western & Southern) are increasingly sought after as experts and influencers by professional organizations, insurance and IT industry groups, and educational institutions.

Since May 2018, IT associates have been featured presenters at 14 conferences around the world. 

  • Jerry Edgington, senior technical analyst, served as project manager for the DevOps track at IBM SHARE conferences. In the March conference, Jerry gave three presentations on IBM mainframe operating system topics and mentored and assisted with the zNextGen project.
  • David Johnston, senior technical analyst, presented on the topic of integrating with the mainframe at IBM SHARE in August.
  • Randy Murphy, senior technical analyst, participated in the 2018 Informatica Annual Conference as a data subject matter expert and was interviewed by IT industry analysts.
  • Criss Titschinger, technical analyst, shared his experience in running Sitecore on Azure PaaS for the past year at a recent Sitecore User Group conference in Europe.
  • Lisa White, PMO analyst, and Tracy Codell, ServiceNow engineer, gave two presentations, "Portfolio 101: Getting Your Ducks in the Same Pond" and "Portfolio 201: Getting Your Ducks in a Row," at the Knowledge 19 Conference in May. They reached more than 800 IT professionals and highlighted Western & Southern’s journey in IT business management and how ServiceNow was incorporated into the process.
  • In April, Bob Turner, assistant vice president of application development, co-presented with Lincoln Financial Group to highlight the differences in how financial groups handle branding and product generation at a life insurance conference.
  • In May, Turner co-presented with IBM at an IBM Tech U conference on our mainframe training program – an opportunity that allowed us to deepen our connection with IBM, a relationship that will help us grow our training program and connect with the broader mainframe community in Cincinnati.
  • Kishore Talluri, assistant vice president and chief enterprise architect, spoke about the value of the Greater Cincinnati Architects organization at the Cincinnati IT Symposium in November 2018.
  • In June, Lisa White, PMO analyst, teamed up with Brian Haberman, manager of business reporting and analysis, Controller, to discuss Western & Southern’s collaborative technology business management process at the IASA (Insurance Accounting and Systems Association) national conference in June.
  • Jeff Sallee, senior information security risk specialist, IT, is a regular speaker at the Kentucky Bar Association (KBA) annual convention, serves on the KBA’s Law Practice Task Force, and writes articles on cybersecurity topics and ethical obligations for the KBA’s member magazine. 
  • Michael Speas, vice president and chief information security officer, was a speaker and panel member at the Tech Olympics, the IT Intern Summit and last year’s Northern Kentucky University Cybersecurity Symposium.
  • Tammy Buchholz, assistant vice president of software quality assurance, served on a panel on mentoring at the Technology First conference in June.
  • Randy Murphy and Karen Chamberlain, senior vice president and CIO, presented at Xavier University’s IT Symposium in July.