Speakers of the 9th edition (2024)

With over twenty years of experience leading high-complexity global programs and projects, Dr. Steve Bennett currently leads the IPO Readiness Program Management Office (PMO) at SAS, a $3B+ analytics and AI software company. Responsible for getting the world’s largest privately held software company ready for entry into the public markets, Dr. Bennett currently leads more than 100 organizational transformation projects in areas ranging from finance to legal to IT, and everything in between. In addition, Steve is responsible for both setting and executing overarching corporate strategy at SAS.

Before building and leading the IPO readiness PMO, Steve led SAS’ global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, organizing and managing efforts across 40 countries to ensure that governments and health care systems had the right AI and analytics insights to quickly put their data to work to save lives and protect economies. Many groundbreaking projects applied artificial intelligence to massive transportation and infrastructure data sets in novel ways to better predict pandemic spread and inform policy making.

Before coming to SAS, Steve held several senior leadership positions during his 12 years as a government official in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Following the events of September 11th, 2001, Steve was asked by White House leadership to lead multiple nationwide projects to direct how government resources should best be allocated to minimize the risks from chemical and biological weapons, as well as from other threats. Spanning numerous government agencies, these programs applied analytics and AI to some of the United States’ most challenging security decisions, including protection of American transportation systems and other critical infrastructure. In these early days of his career, Dr. Bennett learned many lessons about effective large-scale project and program management in complex, high-pressure environments with many diverse stakeholders.

His final position at DHS was as a Senior Executive serving as the Director of the National Biosurveillance Integration Center (NBIC). In his role as NBIC Director, Steve led numerous national programs to provide early warning and situational awareness regarding potential health threats to the United States. These programs provided AI- and analytics-driven decision support to the White House and other government officials for the protection of key sectors of critical infrastructure, such as transportation and manufacturing.

Steve holds a doctorate in Computational Biochemistry from Stanford University, as well as undergraduate degrees in Biology and Chemistry from Caltech, and is a prolific author and speaker. When not leading global organizational transformation at SAS, or helping the transportation, infrastructure, and public sector industries around the world apply analytics and AI to put their data to work, you can find him outdoors on a long run, leading children’s ministry at church, or building something in his workshop.