• David Bakhtnia

  • Hong Hgunyen-Phuong

  • Luig Iuliani

  • Donald Stringari

  • Ramin Elahi

David Bakhtnia, Principal Partner – CSM, CSPO, CSP, SAFe®4.5 SPC

A seasoned hands-on technology manager and full-stack development leader, David has worked on all aspects of software development, deployment, and operations in hundreds of enterprise, web, and mobile projects.

David has been an active leader of the PMI Silicon Valley Chapter since 2011, leading PMO and a few other chapter events. He teaches project management at UCSC Silicon Valley Extension to professionals looking to upgrade their knowledge and skills. As clients increasingly need to quickly deliver and validate value, David coaches them to build a collaborative value-driven environment where teams flourish and perform.

A few highlights of David’s experience:
  • Technical Program Management
  • PMO best practices, evolution, and support of Agile
  • System level Scaled Agile and Lean processes
  • Management and team coaching / mentoring
  • Resource planning, vendor management
  • Application technology (web, mobiles, CRMS, ERPS, HRIS, e-Commerce, and SaaS / PaaS)
Education and Background:
  • MS-Engineering Management, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA
  • BSEE, Concordia University, Montreal, PQ, Canada

Hong Nguyen-Phuong, Principal Partner – PMP, CSM, CSPO, PSM, PSPO, SAFe®4.5 SPC

Founder of Net-Tags Inc. (and previously serving at Sun Microsystems, Symantec, PG&E, and smaller organizations), Hong channels stakeholders and teams to maximize and accelerate value realization.

From the perspective of ensuring value, producers need to constantly innovate and validate with users. From the perspective of operational competitiveness, high-performance teams can be three times more productive and can incrementally deliver products four times faster, with higher quality.

Hong has spoken and shared his Lean-Agile experience at Silicon Valley Polytechnic Institute, Coding Dojo, Bay Area Scaled Agile Network, PMI Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley Agile Trends and Leadership, Silicon Valley Engineering Leadership Community, UCSC Silicon Valley Extension, Lean-Agile Insights, and CIO Vietnam. He is a mentor at The Mentorship Club.

A few highlights of Hong’s experience:
  • Implemented quarterly product plan and review for $2 billion industry-leading high-tech software division
  • Managed energy grid technology projects in the millions and tens of millions dollar range
  • Taught Scrum and SAFe scale agile framework, and coach Scrum Teams
  • Led development to deployment of innovative solutions including web-mobile, GIS, and blockchain solutions
Education and Background:
  • Harvard Business School, Boston, MA
  • MSCS, Boston University, Boston, MA
  • BSEE, MIT, Cambridge, MA

Luig Iuliani – CTO; DevSecOps; BlockChain; AI, Machine Language, and Big Data; IaaS,(i)PaaS and SaaS

Over 20 years of experience defining, architecting, and implementing Software Application/Tools, Software Configuration Management, and SEI-CMM/IEEE Development Processes. Developed-implemented IT requirements for R&D to maximize overall development productivity while minimizing costs requiring strong technical and project management skills.

Strong behavioral excellence in communication skills, presentations, customer interface, negotiations, and managing various people for Software and IT projects concurrently in an evolving and changing environment with budget responsibilities.

Domestic and international assignments. Part of the European Commission on BlockChain technologies and distributed systems.

A few highlights of Luigi’s experience:
  • Become a trusted advisor to CIO’s and CXO’s
  • Take a lead role in delivering and managing consulting services to high growth organizations with a diverse team of consultants
  • Forge long term relationships at a senior client level
  • Elaborate new client services in close collaboration with partners
  • Identify and lead business development opportunities
  • Build expertise in a specialization and a strong reputation as a business advisor
  • Actively mentor and coach team members to their highest potential
  • Create a learning environment through leadership
Education and Background:
  • MBA IT, ETS, Montreal, Canada
  • BEEE, Concordia, Montreal, Canada

Donald Stringari: PMP, CSM, CSPO

I’ve worked for IBM, WYSE Technology, Nippon Steel, and ADP. I’m currently managing various short-term and long-term project consulting gigs for start-ups and 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations.

I have extensive experience serving in leadership roles as Program Manager, Project Manager, Product Manager (Scrum Product Owner), Scrum Master, Release Manager, ISO Auditor, Quality Assurance Program Coordinator, Technical Support Manager, Service Support & Operations Director, and Test Lab Administrator, just to name a few.

I have additional knowledge and experience in Software Manufacturing, Hardware Manufacturing, Field Services, Technical Support, IT, Project Office, Scrum, Enterprise Agile Transformation, Product Portfolio, Procurement, Shipping & Receiving, CRM, IMS, System Administration, Web Administration, and Design, Software Development, Hardware Development, Testing, Team Leadership, High-Performance Team Development, ISO 9000, 21 CFR Part 11, Quality Engineering, Quality Assurance, Process Improvement, Risk Management, Sales, Marketing, Training, Education, Mentoring, and Coaching.

A few highlights of Don’s experience:

I am passionate about disruptive technology and taking advantage of industry methodologies that game changers and industry leaders use to forge innovation.

I’m all about…

  • Helping others gain knowledge and experience in Project Management best practices and Agile methodologies
  • Implementing the right methodologies, processes, frameworks, tools, and techniques that best fit the job at hand.
  • Driving business value.
  • Balancing the tactical with the strategic.
  • Establishing a corporate culture that embraces change, agile transformation, innovation, and continual improvement.
  • Building high-performance, highly motivated, self-organizing project teams.
  • Developing honest, driven, passionate, and innovative leadership opportunities.
  • Establishing team trust where one can test new ideas, fail fast, learn fast, reflect, adapt, and improve.
  • Creating awesome products and happy customers.

Ramin Elahi: MSEE, MBA

Ramin Elahi has been an educator, trainer, and Sales & Marketing coach for most of his career, which spans twenty-plus years. His early years as a support, escalation, and application engineer prepared him technically so his classes and seminars are filled with leading edge technology concepts and trends. He has been passionate about learning and development using any delivery modalities from ILT (Instructor Led Training) to virtual. He augments course technical content with channel partner sales experience, real-life lessons learned, and industry best practices.

An accomplished, know-how, and dynamic Learning and development professional with expertise in building and delivering specialized end-to-end technical & sales training programs for the most effective NPI & Go-To-Market (GTM) strategies/campaigns for direct sales force and channel partners; Leading Successful implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven sales enablement projects to enhance partner programs across various industry verticals such as Automotive, Healthcare, Data Center, Cloud/Edge/IoT, and 5G/6G Wireless; Proven track record of leading and supporting channel enablement and sales operations, fostering sellers’ technical/business literacy throughout their ramp-up and progression through their sales & marketing training.

Ramin has taught for UCSC Silicon Valley Extension since 2008.

A few highlights of Ramin’s experience:
  • Partner Sales Enablement Manager, where he manages the channel’s training, rewards, incentives (SPIFFs), and Marketing Development Funds (MDF)
  • Adjunct Faculty and Advisory Board Member at UC Santa Cruz Silicon Valley
  • Training manager at Cisco-Meraki where he oversaw the technical enablement and development of the software engineering team
  • Sales training portfolio manager at Infineon Technologies
  • Training Solutions Architect at NetApp where he managed the engineering on-boarding and training curricula development
  • Training Site Manager at Hitachi Data Systems Academy in charge of development and delivery of enterprise storage arrays certification programs
  • Learning and development, consulting, and management positions at Dell/EMC, HP, and Novell companies
  • Implemented the first university-level Data Storage and Virtualization curriculum in Northern California
  • Recently published a book — Bringing Down Sales Barriers and Challenges: A Road Map for Closing More Deals Faster
Education and Background:
  • Executive MBA, Saint Mary’s College of California
  • Master of Science (MS) Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Florida Institute of Technology
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