Career Track

How long at current company: More than 10 years at Advanced Health Media, which offers commercial compliance management software and other services for the pharmaceutical industry.

Career accomplishment I'm most proud of: I'm very proud of the patents that we've been awarded for our technology. I can tell my son that I'm officially an inventor! In addition, I'm honored to have won the New Jersey Technology Council's CIO of the year award for 2011.

Most important career influencer: I was influenced most by Dr. Stewart Barbera back in the early 1990s. He gave me the opportunity and motivation to start my first business. The entrepreneurial lessons I learned from that have helped me tremendously in my career.

Decision I wish I could do over: I'd love an opportunity to revisit some early decisions made while growing our company. One thing that comes to mind is allowing customization of our core products. While we ultimately created a new, much more configurable system, we spent a lot of time (and resources) supporting the original platform.

On The Job

IT budget: Around $15 million

Size of IT team: Approximately 130

Top initiatives:

How I measure IT effectiveness: The best measurement is customer satisfaction. Everything else is just a number.
Vision

The next big thing for my company will be ... utilizing the tools and technology that we've developed for our U.S.-based operations to deliver our products and services globally. The U.S. is a leader in pharmaceutical regulatory and compliance management. The rest of the world is now catching on and needs systems to help manage interactions with healthcare professionals.

One thing I'm looking to change: Institute better governance using tools that provide real insight into the performance of our IT investments. We're in the early stages of enhancing CA's Clarity, our IT governance and portfolio management tool, to help us better manage our large IT initiatives.

The federal government's top tech priority should be ... security to ensure that our systems are available and operational. We have all become very dependent on the availability of our Internet-based communications--just ask the people of Egypt.

Kids and tech careers: Almost all careers are technology focused today. Technology has become part of the business fabric rather than a behind-the-scenes cost center, so I hope that my children pursue technology careers.

Personal

Tech vendor I respect most: Steve Jobs: leader, visionary, decision maker

Least-favorite corporate plunderer: Donald Trump; even though he's successful, I just don't like his self-aggrandizing attitude

Business pet peeve: People who spend too much time in CYA mode rather than focusing on solutions

Favorite president: Ronald Reagan, a great leader and communicator

If I weren't a CIO, I'd be ... a beach umbrella rental attendant

Ranked No. 67 in the 2010