great, Great question. So, again, my name is David Todd. I am the chief information officer and chief security officer for a privately held hotel property management company based in the U. S. And my journey has been long. I have been in the the i t space for over 30 years. I started as a computer programmer working on, uh, basically a mainframe program, uh, programmer, a zey COBOL assembler programmer, and I I loved programming, but early on, uh, one of my managers recognize that the that I had the ability toe work well with others and he, uh, he moved me into a liaison position an i t to business liaison position and and quickly from there, I moved right into into management. So I had only program for a few years and then moved right into i t management because they saw the I had the ability to translate well, technology type requirements to the business. And, uh, you know, and the journey has been long. I you know, I have one that's been willing to move around, and I have worked. And oillinois Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, uh, in Arizona, in Georgia, uh, and have certainly been willing to around, and I think one of the things that's help is I'm always chasing the next big challenge and s o that. That certainly has helped me get into the role where I'm at today. I think being willing to take risk is really important. Risk is the price you pay for opportunity and eso don't get settled into status quo and being safe and not every job. And I have examples of those that we could probably talk about later. But not every job has worked out, and I saw that it wasn't a good fit and I moved on, but certainly take chances. Make sure you're in a position where you're continually learning and growing, and if you're not learning something new and your job, it's it's probably time to look on, and that's exactly what I did.

eso my responsibilities. I report directly to the CEO and eso I have I would break my responsibility up to fold one would be tactical. Uh, so I'm responsible for all technology in our organization and that technology from all the way from supporting all of the laptops and telephones on everyone's desk all the way to where our hotel company so supporting, uh, television and high speed Internet services at all of our hotels. So it's it's very broad. And, uh, I you know, I my my role is basically twofold. First would be tactical. So and I say tactical is what's occurring today over and over the next 12 months. And eso what projects are we working on? What upgrades air going on? Uh, and that's tactical. Uh, and then where I really like to spend my time is on the strategic side, uh, and I try toe to make that at least 60 if not 70% of my job. And that is what's this company gonna look like seven or five years from now? And you think about technology, how fast it changes, trying to think out what is gonna look like in five years. You know. For example, will we have robots in hotels, cleaning rooms in five years? I don't think we're quite there yet, but, you know, that's Ah, that's kind of Ah, um, you know, a twofold process. So 30% tactical. 70% strategic work hours vary again. I again in the hotel business. You know, hotels, air open seven by 24 by 3. 65. So my work week never ends. I am on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Uh, typically, on a good week, I'll work 50 hours a week. Um, if we're working on major projects and upgrades, that could go into 75 80 hours a week. Hopefully, it doesn't last that way too long. And, uh, and it draws back down into the 50 range, but 50 is pretty normal. And that's 50 hours a week. 55 hours a week is what I've been working. Probably for the last 20 years. Um

and I think you know a lot of people in my role being over technology, especially also over security. Um, I think a lot of people's first thought that would come into their head. His budgets, I never have enough money or enough resource is to get the job done. Uh, being, ah, former and a chief security officer. I'm always paranoid, you know? What's the next hack that's going to occur, whether that's ransomware or, you know, the next phishing attacks gonna look like or next, um, zero day exploit that's coming. So that certainly has me worried, um, and concerned. And I always, uh, been looking for, you know, the next silver bullet that's going to help us, you know, remedy and mitigate some of that risk. Eso budgets are always a challenge. I never feel like I have enough Resource is especially now, you know, going through the pandemic are re sources have have been thinned out and and cut, just like many companies. And so we're running on thinner on thinner resource is today. So I'm worried about what's getting what's getting missed. Um, the other challenge is trying to explain technology, um, to non technical business people. And if there's anything that I can, um, you know, share with your students and that would be, uh, learn how to speak non technical and eso speak in the language of the business, and, uh, and that will help you get things done. And so I have to spend a lot of time. I tell a lot of stories. I use a lot of analogies to try to explain things to the business. Uh, you know, in example, that I just used the other day on trying to sell a disaster recovery project Waas, uh, you know, are, you know, would be to say something like, you know, our current disaster recovery plan. I mean, we have a you know, we have a nice car that we've ordered, and it's a beautiful car. We spend $50,000 on this car. Uh, but but you know what? The car has no engine. And, uh, you know, if if your if your goal is a business is to get from point A to point B, if spending $70,000 instead of 50 gives you a car with an engine and allows you to get from point a to Point B. Isn't that the better solution to take? And, uh, and so using examples like that and trying to explain things in a different to try to explain the technology nobody in the business cares about compression ratios and all that kind of stuff and and things like that when it comes to backups and things. But they do care. If there's a disaster, will their files be copied and and saved? And what and how quickly can we restore and get business back up and running? So so that's one area where he spent a lot of time. Thea. One other challenge, I will say, is trying to align I T capabilities with business expectations. So the business believes you're doing, you know, X. But you only have the capabilities to do why and trying to bridge that gap. Uh, and so that's always, uh, that's always a challenge