200-901 resources - DevNet Associate (DEVASC) Updated: 2023

Mother Earth and moms have a lot in common (And by moms, I’m including mothers, grandmothers, aunts, godmothers and more). Moms not only create life but their focus on nurturing their children year after year and ensuring their safety and ability to flourish is unparalleled. Mother Earth does the same. For millions of years, Mother Earth has been protecting us, providing a safe and abundant environment to live and raise our families.

According to the United Nations (UN) report Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The gender snapshot 2022, “Women play transformative roles in climate change adaptation and mitigation despite many obstacles” with many taking on grassroot efforts to make a change in their own communities. Women are also taking leadership positions in the field of sustainability. At large companies, 58 percent of sustainability executives are female. And according to the 2022 GreenBiz State of the Profession report, the number of women in sustainability leadership roles has expanded. That’s good news for Mother Earth, since we know how innovative, persistent, and driven women can be when protecting their families.

From my own personal experience, I was raised by a mother who was an environmentalist before most people knew what that was. She sold “biodegradable” cleaning products to the neighborhood moms, wrapped our sandwiches in wax paper and insisted we bring that paper home so she could reuse it the next day. She sewed some of our clothes out of left-over fabric (“We can’t let this perfectly good fabric go to waste!”) and made us save our gum in water to rechew later (I know, I wish I were kidding, too). We walked and rode our bikes because gas emitted “that black stuff into the air” and donated all our used toys, books, clothing, etc. to the “Bargain Box” secondhand store down the road. My mom instilled in my siblings and me that we have to live in harmony with the Earth or she will kick us off. I took her on a hike last weekend and at 85 years old she was still “schooling me” on the wildflowers growing on Mt. Tamalpais and why they’re important to the ecosystem.

As a mom myself, I wanted to sit down with another mom at Cisco and learn more about her thoughts on sustainability. Elisabeth Brandasu is a global account manager for Equinor and sustainability lead for the North Theater in Cisco’s Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. She shares how being a mother has impacted her perspective on the environment and influenced her actions to create a more sustainable future.

How did you get into the field of sustainability?

Elisabeth: I was naïve until a few years ago. I was so busy with building my life, surviving those first few whirlwind years of being a young mom with a full-time job. At some point, I was offered the opportunity for a stretch assignment (which gives employees a chance to explore a different type of role by volunteering some of their time to another team) as inclusion and diversity lead for EMEA. That is where my calling for purpose-driven work started. I am privileged in many ways; I have a lot of energy and I want to use my voice for doing something purposeful. When sustainability came on my path it just really struck home. It’s not just the sense of necessity in accelerating the needed change, but the enormous opportunity the transition provides too. It excites me.

Did becoming a mother change your personal perspective about the work you’re doing?

Elisabeth: My worry for the kids really kicked in when they began school. As you release them into the wider world, you start envisioning their future and the planet we are leaving them. We don’t inherit the planet from our parents, we borrow it from our children. I lovingly pour all my time and effort into the kids being safe and happy, now and for all their days to come. So, how could I stand by and let this monumental systemic transition the world so desperately needs pass me by? How can I push this onto my children’s shoulders to resolve it?

You circle back to yourself, thinking, ‘what can I do?’ As a mom, you don’t just sit by, and watch tragedy impact your kids. You step up and do whatever you can.

What does working in sustainability mean to you?

Elisabeth: Working in sustainability means so much more than ‘just a job’. It is continuous learning, giving back, amplifying the reach of our experts by spreading their word, scaling the community of ambassadors, training people to incorporate sustainability as a first thought in doing business. You don’t necessarily need a formal education or background in sustainability to make a contribution. I believe I have found my own way of contributing and I know others can too. I am proud of the Green and Blue sustainability community at Cisco. It emerged from the internal Green and Blue Innovation Challenge in EMEA to stimulate as many ideas as possible, with green representing sustainability and blue representing the digital transformation. It is a force to be reckoned with and we have together accomplished so much. I want to be part of this movement of change for the better, because what we all wish for our children is the very best.

How did you start the conversation about sustainability with your kids?

Elisabeth: They’ve learned some very simple concepts about sustainability in school. They do not yet understand that if the world continues as it does, there will be some serious consequences.

When speaking about a sustainable future, it’s important to put a sense of hope into it, rather than risk paralyzing people with devastating outlooks. Hope activates! It’s not about being perfect, it’s about pledging yourself to do better all the time. I am also an optimistic realist. I choose to believe in our collective power to make amazing progress, steering us toward less devastating outcomes.

The way I speak to my kids about it is that the world has been using more than it can replenish. The system is broken, so we are trying to build a new system and that is really complicated because everything is intertwined. Do I think they get it yet? No, but that’s okay. They don’t need to have it all figured out. But they’re the type of kids that think about those things and are curious to learn more and it will eventually mature in their minds. For now, I just want them to be kids.

Do you have any advice for actions that parents can take to help create a more sustainable future?

Elisabeth: For me, there is a big focus on circularity. I try not to buy new things. So, everything I buy with the kids or for the kids I try to buy second hand. We’re also focused on reducing waste, especially around food. We don’t throw away food. When you have leftovers, you eat it again the next day. If they didn’t eat their lunch, that’s fine, but they need to have their lunch for dinner. My kids have very few toys and prefer to go outside to play.

Also, I have been focused on energy minimization in the house and using energy at the lowest possible price and load balancing throughout the day. I don’t cook while I have the washing machine on, and I don’t charge the car while the dishwasher is on.

Sustainability is a bit like exercise. Don’t overdo it from the get-go. Allow yourself to embrace it and make it a habit. You don’t need to save the world on day one. Educate yourself and understand the impact of your lifestyle. Decide what you are going to integrate into your normal routine and identify the things that you’re going to step away from. Whatever you decide to do, it is okay because you’ve been conscious about the decision. Every day, there are probably at least 200 moments where you can make the decision to do the more sustainable thing. Are any of the individual actions that I take enough on their own? Definitely not, but it is about doing what you can do and keep on pushing to do better. It’s a journey.

We also need to stop passing judgement on people that aren’t moving as fast when it comes to sustainability. It’s counterproductive. Rather, meet them where they are, and inspire them to keep moving forward.

Thirty years from now, I’m going to be retired. My kids will be the age I am now and will decide if they want to become parents. I don’t want them to have existential worries and I don’t want to look back on my own life thinking ‘I didn’t do enough for the planet when I had a chance.’ We can’t defer action any longer, it’s the responsibility of our generation, the ‘elders’, to do what we can.

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Artificial intelligence, extended detection and response (XDR), identity management and the needs of the modern-day security operations center (SOC) are Cisco's top priority Topics at RSA Conference 2023, according to Cisco Manager of Global Product and Portfolio Marketing Steve Ragan.

Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto

Speaking in a brief interview on the RSA show floor with CyberRisk Alliance's Bill Brenner on April 24, Ragan explained that the information-security industry's hopes and fears around AI were both somewhat exaggerated.

"[One] extreme is 'AI is going to replace people so it's going to lead to jobs lost,'" and that's just absolutely not the case," said Ragan. "And the other side is that AI is going to automate everything in the industry, and that is absolutely not the case."

AI will be very helpful in running operations and generating reports, Ragan said, but as appears to often be the case, AI will lack the overall context and background information to prioritize information accordingly. For those tasks, you need humans.

"The best AI can do is take a quantitative view of your network and the telemetry that's on it and provide you an outcome report — here's what happened, here's why I know that that happened, here's what I suggest you would do about it," Ragan added. "A human still has to take that and analyze it, and the reason a human needs to be involved is because the human knows the business.

"A machine will never understand your business," Ragan said. "It'll never understand the goal. It'll never understand the pressures of regulatory compliance. It may know the laws, but it doesn't know the nuance behind the laws, and that is important."

Just let the AI handle it

What AI can do is take the burden of mundane tasks off human security personnel, allowing them to do their jobs more efficiently. Humans will remain in charge.

"When you think of how AI is going to transform the security industry or how AI is going to do something performative, really what AI is going to do is simplify things," Ragan said. "It's going to take a lot of the steps out of, for example, writing after-action reports or compliance reports and things like this."

Ragan's vision of AI involvement in security operations center (SOC) management dovetailed with RSA keynote remarks delivered by Tom Gillis, Cisco Senior Vice President and General Manager of the  Security Business Group, who envisioned AI assistance with routine SOC tasks.

"The beauty about this concept is that when you use AI to augment humans in the job, there's amazing possibilities," Gillis said.

However, Ragan cautioned against unreasonable expectations for the abilities of and solutions offered by AI in information security.

"AI is not going to be the silver bullet that solves the problems in security. AI is not going to fix compliance. AI is not going to fix regulatory things," Ragan said. "The advice I would provide to people is don't look for AI to solve all of your problems. Look for AI to be an assistant."

Echoing the sentiments aired by RSA Security CEO Rohit Ghai during the conference's opening keynote addresses, Ragan said that AI might be disruptive to the infosec industry, but that it would eventually lead to job gains.

"Don't look to AI as this thing that might take your job," Ragan said. "If AI does get to the point where it starts taking low-level jobs in the industry, all that means is you're going to need to have new people go and be prepared to fix and tune the AI. It's going to create jobs. It's not going to eliminate them."

IAM and XDR

In his opening keynote, Ghai also said that AI would be essential to the next generation of identity and access management (IAM) solutions.

"The identity and access management platform is outdated," Ghai said. "Today, the core purpose of an identity platform is security. In the AI era, we need an identity security fabric."

Ragan said IAM was an important course for Cisco and for the information-security industry as a whole.

"Identity is still not only one of the most important assets to developing a security program, it's also a linchpin that you still see criminals to this day hanging on to get in," Ragan said. "Look at all the ransomware incidents you see across the board. That stuff starts with identity."

XDR and its role in streamlining security operations are also high on Cisco's list of priorities, Ragan said, emphasizing that organizations of all sizes can benefit from more efficient, more comprehensive detection and response.

"It's not about the size of your environment," he explained. "The size of your environment should not count. You should be able to have the tools in place and the people and processes in place to deal with whatever may come your way.

"That's where we want to focus," Ragan added. "That's where Cisco's going to be looking at. It's simplifying SOC operations to where we're meeting the customer where they are, no matter where they are."

Focusing on the signal, not the noise

Ragan emphasized that elimination of complexity and reducing the presentation of information to the essentials are aims that the information-security industry should strive for.

"You should not have to think about security when you start to work," he said. "It should just be there. It should be underlying.

"When you think of SOC operators," Ragan added, "it should be simple for them to judge the network, and the performance of the network, and the incidents that may roll in, based on a glance. They shouldn't have to do 50 billion steps to realize that that was a phishing email. It should be flagged, 'That was a phishing email. We've seen hundreds of it like this. This is why we flagged it. This is what it looks like.'"

Concentration of information is "what every company needs," he said. "They need more telemetry. They need more insight and viewpoints, and it shouldn't have to be 50 different vendors to achieve this. There's no reason why it can't be built on a platform."

Good, efficient information security is a universal goal, Ragan explained, and it's a goal that Cisco is prepared to help organizations meet.

"As we've been sitting here talking, I've been watching people move across the hall in front of us," he told Brenner. "When you look at these people walk through, they're from all walks of life, all points of view. They've got different enterprise operations, some scaled up, some scaled down.

"Some [of these people] know what they want with their security program," Ragan said. "Some don't even know where to start. And these are the people we want to talk to because there's a lesson for all of them, and there's a way to work with all of them."

"The ultimate goal for all of this is to make the industry better," he added, and to "make the internet suck less. That's where we want to be."

CEBU, Philippines — As the return-to-office (RTO) mandate results in continuous employee attrition, companies are urged to continue dialogue with employees and offer compromises to keep resignations at bay.

“It is easy to see why there is an intense pushback from workers against RTO Initiatives. There are plenty of benefits provided by the work-from-home [WFH] and Work from Anywhere [WFA] set-up, one of which is that workers do not have to worry about the hassle of commuting,” said Mitzi Blancaflor, Associate Director of Office Services – Tenant Representation at Colliers Philippines.

In the past few years, the work environment in the Philippines has adapted

to the circumstances brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic. Workers have started to prefer work-from-home setup because not only does this result in more time and financial savings, but it also gives them the freedom and independence to manage their workday schedules.

Cisco’s 2022 Global Hybrid Work Study found that 66 percent of Filipino survey respondents said their overall well-being improved because they spent less time commuting.

In addition, 74 percent of these respondents said they have saved over 4 hours per week from what would have been spent on sitting in traffic, while 37 percent saved over eight hours per week, explained Blancaflor.

Another benefit of a WFH setup is that daily expenses are much cheaper for the employee as they do not have to worry about the cost of commuting, laundry, and food.

In the same report by Cisco, respondents reported an average income increase of 13.9 percent, with about PHP7,000 saved per week.

Lastly, the notion that a worker gets to control the way they work due to a sense of privacy and having their own work environment is the crucial motivator for WFH enthusiasts.

According to Blancaflor, advocates of the RTO initiative must keep in mind these benefits when choosing where to set up their company and what type of office space they are looking for.

Aside from benefits, associated risks – especially attrition – should also be considered when planning the work setup for new occupiers or RTO for existing companies.

Blancaflor warned that employee attrition is especially costly to many companies, quoting a study conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management which found that on average companies spend the equivalent to six to nine months of an employee’s salary to replace them.

To minimize attrition risk and retain talent, flexibility is key, said Blancaflor.

According to Mercer’s 2022–2023 Global Talent Trends seven out of 10 employees in the Philippines said that not being able to work remotely or hybrid permanently is a deal-breaker when considering whether to join or stay with an organization.

In the same study, 74 percent of companies surveyed are providing flexible working options; this is significantly higher than the Asia (50 percent) and global (56 percent) averages.

On top of the flexible work setup, some companies are also implementing compensation adjustments, mental health initiatives, and learning and development programs to Strengthen their employee’s overall well-being. — (FREEMAN)

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NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / May 31, 2023 / Forests produce the oxygen we breathe, create rain, and shield us from climate change and disease. They are the homes and sources of livelihood for an estimated 1.3 billion people, and the areas with the most biodiversity on land. Intact, primary forests all over the planet - which have 40x higher carbon sequestration potential per hectare than new plantation forests - have already been reduced to less than one-fifth of their original extent through industrial logging and other kinds of deforestation.

Nicole Rycroft, Founder and Executive Director of Canopy Planet, has spent the last 25 years protecting the world's forests, advancing international human rights, and sparking the shift to a global green economy. She is an Ashoka Fellow, member of the UBS Global Visionaries program, recipient of the Meritorious Service Cross of Canada, winner of the 2020 Climate Breakthrough Award and a 2022 Global Australian of the Year. Nicole spearheads Canopy's strategic direction and many of Canopy's senior level partnerships.

Canopy's partnership with the Cisco Foundation is built on a shared belief that supporting innovation at scale to address significant social problems has the potential to achieve a global impact. We see great synergies between our organizations as Canopy works to catalyze a transformation in the extractive pulp, paper, packaging, and viscose supply chains by spurring the commercial-production of low-impact Next Generation Solutions (Next Gen) to mitigate the climate crisis.

Let's start with the basics. What is Canopy Planet, and what do you do? 

Nicole: Canopy is an award-winning, solutions-driven NGO dedicated to protecting the world's forests, species, and climate and advancing Indigenous and frontline communities' rights. We do this by harnessing the purchasing influence of the global marketplace to transform supply chains that are driving deforestation and forest degradation. Since our inception in 1999, Canopy's unique model of change has been based on building transformational partnerships with hundreds of the world's largest brands. We leverage our 900+ brand partners' purchasing clout to create the economic incentives to transform unsustainable supply chains, catalyze commercial-production of low-carbon Next Generation Solutions, and secure landscape-level forest conservation and community rights. We are dedicated to helping conserve 30 -50% of the world's forests by 2030.

Can you share more about the impact of logging on ecosystems? 

Nicole: In 2021 alone, we lost more than 25 million hectares of forests globally, releasing ten billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Logging for pulp, paper, packaging, textiles, and solid wood products is a carbon intensive supply chain that perpetuates a ‘take, make, waste' model that drives the degradation and loss of climate-critical forests.

With forests foundational to life on Earth, we need to accelerate the transition from forest-based goods like packaging and viscose to production that relies on circular and low-impact feedstocks that keep forests standing - places like the Leuser Ecosystem in Indonesia, one of Canopy's Landscapes of Hope. The Leuser Ecosystem is one of the world's richest intact tropical rainforest ecosystems. It is the last place on earth where the Sumatran elephant, rhino, tiger and orangutan are found within one area, and it provides habitat for thousands of mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, and plant species. In addition, the Leuser Ecosystem is the life-support system for seven million people that rely on it for clean air, water, flood protection, irrigation, medicines, and their livelihoods. Continued unsustainable demand for forest products puts places like the Leuser Ecosystem at peril.

Cutting down forests is not just about paper. Can you share more about all the kinds of products, packaging and textiles logging supports? 

Nicole: The connection between fashion and forests isn't immediately apparent, but the third largest group of fashion textiles - rayon and viscose - is derived from trees. So is the packaging in which fashion and many other goods are shipped around the world. Over 3.4 billion trees are logged annually to make textiles and packaging and when you add in paper, that number is a staggering 5.1 billion. Much of this logging occurs in the world's most ecologically and culturally valuable forests, which Canopy calls Ancient and Endangered Forests. These landscapes are pivotal to life on earth. The pressure on forests is only intensifying: packaging has increased by 65% over the past two decades, while the use of trees to make fabrics has more than tripled. Both are projected to grow significantly in the coming years.

What are some of Canopy Planet's major accomplishments so far?

Nicole: Some of our accomplishments include:

• Helping over 900 brands develop and implement robust environmental purchasing policies for their paper, packaging and viscose textiles.
• Showing that Being Stylish Doesn't Have to Cost the Earth. We launched CanopyStyle in 2013 to transform the viscose supply chain and keep Ancient and Endangered Forests off the runways and out of our wardrobes. Today, 536 brands representing USD 905 billion in annual revenues have developed CanopyStyle polices to end sourcing from Ancient and Endangered Forests and to prioritize the use of Next Gen alternatives. More than half of global viscose production is now Checked at low-risk of containing high-carbon, biodiverse forests and the first Next Gen textiles are now available and on the market.
• Launching Pack4Good in 2019 to ensure we don't continue to mow down 400-year-old trees to make shipping boxes and take out containers. In just three years, the Pack4Good campaign has secured 390 brands worth a collective USD 199 billion in annual revenues. Pack4Good has also been moving the needle on the production side: leverage from global brands has resulted in packaging producers signing policies to end sourcing from critical forest ecosystems and to invest in Next Gen. Momentum is growing every day, so watch this space.
• Developing Next Gen Solutions over a decade ago. Canopy has been the only NGO promoting diversifying the fiber basket as a key strategy for forest protection. To date, we have directly catalyzed 300,000 tonnes of new annual Next Gen production into the market and we are linked to an additional 1.7 million tonnes of new production in development. Just last month, Canopy's ambitious plan to catalyze 60 million tonnes of Next Gen in the next ten years was recognized by The Audacious Project, a TED initiative. Alongside of our work with the Cisco Foundation, the support from Audacious will supercharge our work to catalyze the global scale-up of Next Gen production - and in doing so take the pressure off forests so we can conserve more than 220 million acres of forests globally.
• Securing conservation in 41+ million acres of forests to date through our work with brands and local NGO partners.

Can you tell us more about Next Gen pulp technologies? You previously mentioned partnering with the first pulp recycling plant. 

Nicole: What many people don't know is that there is a strong pipeline of forest-free, clean-production pulp alternatives ready for market - such as paper pulp made from straw, and textile pulp made from discarded cotton textiles. While we call these Next Generation Solutions, they are actually a new spin on rediscovered inputs used for paper and textiles for millennia - flax, hemp, recycled fabrics. Despite their ubiquity now, forests are actually relatively new fiber sources, having only entered industrial pulp production within the last 150 years.

Next Gen pulps have 95 to 130% fewer greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. They have 88% to 100% less land-use impact, and at least 5x lower impact on biodiversity and threatened species. Further, by using clean production processes and creating a profitable use for inputs that would otherwise be discarded in landfills, burned, or disposed of at a cost to farmers, these pulps contribute to healthier, more profitable communities and avoid secondary pollution issues. And best of all for brands and buyers: Next Gen pulp products perform just as well as their conventional peers - and are projected to be comparable in price or cheaper once produced at scale.

Canopy is supporting independent innovators to scale their technologies, informing commercial-scale approaches for previously niche products, and encouraging adoption by mainstream producers for retrofitting existing conventional mills. Last year, we were on site in Sundsvall, Sweden to celebrate the official opening of Renewcell, the world's first commercial-scale, textile-to-textile Next Gen pulp mill for viscose production. Instead of requiring huge swaths of forests to be cut every year, Renewcell uses hundreds of millions of old jeans and t-shirts as its input. Renewcell carries five tonnes less carbon per tonne of product than conventional wood-based pulp. It uses 90% less water, is built in the bones of an old shuttered wood mill, and has re-employed 100 of the staff.

In addition to Renewcell, we are currently working with a pipeline of more than 30 other Next Gen innovators who are turning ideas that sounded like science fiction five years ago into elegant, versatile solutions for today. Canopy has also played a vital role in generating strong market pull-through, with hundreds of brand policies and over half a million tonnes in explicit purchase demand from leading brands.

I also understand you use some cutting-edge software for your work, including the Eco-Paper Database (EPD) and ForestMapper. What kind of information do they provide? And how can people access them?

Nicole: The EcoPaper Database is the world's largest database of high recycled content and Next Gen packaging and paper. Today, it includes more than 1100 listings of Ancient Forest Friendly™ and other packaging and paper products that use high amounts of lower footprint feedstock including recycled and Next Gen materials.

ForestMapper is an interactive map developed by scientific and mapping experts to help buyers and suppliers locate Ancient and Endangered Forests and identify areas of potential sourcing risk to assist in the transition to more sustainable supply chains. It is the only tool of its kind to visually represent Ancient and Endangered Forests at a global scale and includes information on forests, species, carbon and landscapes. We're working with leading scientists on an update of ForestMapper for later in 2023.

Both ForestMapper and the EcoPaper Database are free of charge and designed to be user-friendly. They can both be found on Canopy's website under the Tools and Resources section.

You were at COP27. What kind of engagement did you receive there? 

Nicole: COP27 marked an important milestone for Canopy as partners announced a collective commitment to purchase over half a million tonnes of low-carbon, low-footprint Next Gen packaging and textile alternatives once they're commercially online. This bold public statement was designed to send a signal to the investment community and help unlock the capital needed to build commercial-scale Next Gen pulp mills as well as conventional producers. Over the next two to three years, we anticipate we will secure the financing necessary to build 12 - 15 Next Gen mills, preventing an estimated 22 million tonnes of GHG emissions annually and providing communities with an alternative to burning straw and landfilling textiles.

The market pull-through announced at COP27 is essential to de-risking these new supply chains and attracting the scale of investment necessary to rapidly scale these game-changing Next Gen alternatives. Canopy will be doing more of this over the coming years but this bold initial commitment by our partners at COP was a positive step forward for the planet and low-carbon supply chains.

How do you assist or partner with local communities, including Indigenous peoples in the areas Canopy Planet works in?

Nicole: Canopy has strong relationships with Indigenous leaders and local NGOs across North America and around the world. We support the efforts of our on-the-ground partners and Indigenous leaders by bringing the influence of the international market at strategic junctures to advance robust conservation of key landscapes and support the development of conservation-based economies for local communities. It is our local and international partners that largely lead policy negotiations with local governments and community economic development. Canopy brings critical leverage that creates the economic and political incentives for industry and governments to change ‘business as usual'. This can range from brands participating in customer roundtables with political and forest industry decision makers to encourage a more sustainable path forward for both the forests and communities. We work with some of our brand partners to directly fund on the ground conservation efforts through investments in robust carbon offset programs or philanthropic programs focused on advancing biodiversity. Many of our brand partners have stopped sourcing from suppliers that have operations in high-carbon, biodiverse landscapes and link future purchasing to large-scale conservation and advancements in human-wellbeing for Indigenous and local communities.

We have also been proud to support conservation efforts by Indigenous leaders and local NGOs in Canada's Great Bear Rainforest, the Cree Nation's territory in the Boreal Forest, and Indonesia's Leuser Ecosystem. To date, Canopy's market leverage has contributed to the protection of 41 million+ acres of Ancient and Endangered Forests around the world.

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The Software Alliance, also known as BSA – a trade group for software companies including Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Cisco, Adobe and others – is announcing an expansion of its federal government procurement work with a new hire, Jessica Salmoiraghi.

Salmoiraghi is the group’s new senior director for IT modernization and procurement, both Topics she’s familiar with already, having worked at the General Services Administration as chief acquisition officer and associate administrator from 2018 to 2021. Most recently, she worked at professional services firm, the Golden Key Group.

The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. 

Nextgov/FCW: Why does BSA see a need for this role?

Salmoiraghi: I think it's additive to what BSA has been doing in the past. BSA has been really working for years on digital transformation of the economy, and the US government really plays such an important role on that, especially when it comes to IT and services.

Expanding BSA’s work on procurement is just a response to the member needs and the members’ request who want… BSA to take a more advanced focus on procurement and IT modernization, so it's really a reflection of how BSA is trying to evolve its value proposition to its membership.

Nextgov/FCW: What are your priorities in this new role?

Salmoiraghi: We're still working a bit on refining this. I think from the large, 50,000 foot view, we're really looking at digital transformation of the government, right? How can we take the current software model that we have, whether it's commercial off the shelf or not, and move it to the cloud, and make it secure, so that we're focused on both cloud software and multi-cloud solutions. In addition, it’s managing and leveraging data across the government, with again, cybersecurity and AI being a big portion of that too.

Nextgov/FCW: Will you be focusing on the executive branch, Congress or both?

Salmoiraghi: This is where I need to figure that out a little bit because I come from the place of, I've done all three legs on the stool, right? I’ve lobbied for the law to be implemented. I’ve worked in a regulatory agency that's taking that law and actually implementing it. And then when I was at Golden Key Group, I was actually on the other side of that working with the contract officers on how those laws were implemented, saying, ‘Hey, this isn't the congressional intent.’ So I think it's one of the things that again, going back to the procurement, its folks don't always see that full scope, so right now, it's a question of how are we going to get there? 

One of the issues that we've got, especially when we're talking about IT modernization, is funding for it. We are in a place where the budgets are getting tight. But when you're spending 70 to 80% of your funding on operations and maintenance, instead of new stuff,… you've got a real problem. So that to me is a conversation that needs to be had on the Hill and then also with agencies. Agencies want to change, but the Hill also needs to understand why they're trying to do it.

Nextgov/FCW: In the executive branch, what can a trade group do to get agencies to focus on modernization? Is it about getting leadership engaged or is it more working with acquisition professionals?

Salmoiraghi: I think both. I think part of it is understanding it's a priority… So if you've got folks that are saying, ‘I need to change this,’ then you're able to focus those resources on what really needs to change.

One of the things that you'll hear from the [Federal Acquisition Regulatory] Council and you'll frankly hear from [Office of Federal Procurement Policy] is that acquisition officers are in desperate need of training on IT. But that, I'm not sure, if that’s some place where BSA wants to play, so that's something that we need to figure out moving forward.

Nextgov/FCW: What are you looking for from Congress? Do you have your eye on the Strengthening Agency Management and Oversight of Software Assets Act that’s seen some action in Congress? 

Salmoiraghi: We've definitely been reaching out to our congressional partners, and that's where I'm getting started again… So yes, we have been active on SAMOSA, but we've also been active in talking with other offices about what they're trying to do… [tech policy is ]  a popular course in Congress right now.

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General Function

Performs a variety of moderately complex clerical and administrative tasks requiring some independent judgment related to ensuring the successful completion of the daily operations of a university administrative unit

Characteristic Duties and Responsibilities—Essential Functions

• Processes incoming information and/or documents regarding daily operations; makes first determination as to disposition using set standards.
• Serves as informational resource for staff; investigates and resolves problems and difficulties.
• Assists in the enforcement of policies and procedures; serves as informational resource to staff.
• Monitors and reviews projects; ensures all necessary changes are made.
• Gathers and analyzes statistical information regarding department's programs and activities; produces reports.
• Performs a variety of clerical tasks including answering phones, typing, and copying.

Reporting Relationships

Direction Received: Reports to head of administrative unit (i.e. Director, Administrative Manager, Administrative Assistant, Administrative Associate, etc.)

Direction Given: May provide functional guidance to a group of student employees on an ongoing basis

Minimum Requirements

Requires nine months of coursework or training beyond high school in Business Administration and two years of related experience, or an equivalent combination of education and experience

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Worker Characteristics

• Knowledge of unit's operations, policies, and procedures
• Knowledge of computers and office applications
• May require supervisory skills
• Clerical skills
• Research skills

Working Conditions

Periodic assignments given which entail dealing with modestly unpleasant physical conditions

Please note: The intent of this job description is to provide a representative summary of the types of duties and responsibilities that will be required of positions given this title and shall not be construed as a declaration of the specific duties and responsibilities of any particular positions. Employees may be requested to perform job-related tasks other than those specifically presented in this description. For jobs occupied by more than one employee, the identification of non-essential functions shall be determined from the individual’s position description.

Assessment enables the university community to identify opportunities to Strengthen courses and curricula, teaching practices, and student life activities, as well as make informed decisions about degree programs.

• Program Learning Goals
• Assessment Council
• Support