10:15 AM – 11:15 AM
Did the Bot Shutdown the Data Center? (session)
Amaya Souarez joined First Data in March, 2016 as Vice President, Global Infrastructure Software & Automation. She leads the GIO team responsible for delivering tooling and automation solutions to support operational management of global infrastructure. Additionally, her role encompasses Compliance, Business Operations and Asset Management. Souarez is a senior technology leader, with more than 25 years of experience in IT and Internet/Cloud infrastructure operations. She is an accomplished public speaker and published author on the topics of data center capacity planning and strategy, big data, and customer-centered engineering. Souarez started her technology career at the inception of the PC/LAN era, and has held technical infrastructure roles supporting a multitude of OS, server, and network platforms. Early in her career, she launched an independent IT services business, which grew to support more than 50 SMB in the Seattle area, gaining valuable entrepreneurial experience. Later, as a senior leader at Microsoft, she led multiple teams within Internet and Cloud Operations. Prior to joining First Data, she was Vice President, DC Systems & Security at CyrusOne, Inc. a global colocation services provider. At CyrusOne, she successfully launched an industry-leading customer portal serving more than 1000+ customer companies, enabling self-service management of their colocation infrastructure.