Sameer Patwardhan

About Sameer Patwardhan

Transformational CTO/VP with 20+ years aligning technology strategy to business growth. Drive competitive advantage through strategic cloud modernization, enterprise security frameworks, and scalable team development—consistently delivering 75% faster delivery cycles, 30%+ cost reductions, and sustainable operational transformation.With over two decades of progressive technology leadership from tactical operations to strategic executive roles,I excel at aligning technology initiatives with business objectives to deliver measurable results for organizations navigating growth and transformation.Career HighlightsLed the migration to the cloud ( GCP /AWS ) in record 7 months and retired our data center footprint at Forbes Media.Optimized cloud cost using various technology solutions by 20%. Leveraged innovative cloud service to reduce costs by 4K/month and moved to spot to support production workloads leading to 23% compute savings.Led the Cyber Security incident response creation and formulated IT/Security policies based on risk tolerance. Implemented IT policies and procedures using ISO/NIST standards, setup WAF, CIEM, EDR and SSO. Setup robust, Just In Time(JIT) privilege management and automated permission for the GCP cloud access.Created an Active / Active DR solution to maintain business continuity and Disaster recovery to keep our SLA at 99.95 even under degradation. In addition came up with the idea to create an orchestration 1-click playbook, which could spin up an entire infrastructure with Terraform and automation in under 1 hour.Under my leadership the DevOps team modernized the entire delivery pipeline from Jenkins to Argo in 10 months for all applications and created a self help devOps portal to enhance developer experience.Privilege escalations tickets were taking much longer time in general. Implemented a solution with Britive in a much more automated way with approval chaining through slack integration which resulted in a better customer experience and reduction of 3-4 hours in general process improvement during off hours.Want to connect? view my portfolio at https://sameerfolio-2zrn55je.manus.space/

Experience

1. SVP, Technology

   Forbes

   Dec 2022 — Present · Jersey City, NJ, US

   Lead the following portfolios : Development, QA, Security, Corp IT, DevSecOps - Successfully migrated Forbes tech stack from Data center to Google cloud in record time ( 7 months) and under budget- Very comfortable with vendor selection and vetting process for getting the right fit tools/products for the organization- Upskilled the DevOps team by mentoring them and through various organizational incentives motivated them to become 100% certified in professional cloud certification- Road Map based on Business needs and KPI for effective performance- Setup incident response and security program with guidance from our internal legal and external counsel- Evangelized the Forbes culture by delivering several talks at external forums and round tables on various aspects of security and technology- Drive a results oriented culture with respect and inclusivity - Encouraged team growth with holding sessions for public speaking and communication as a part of soft skills training- Looked at ways to measure developer productivity and worked with the Program manager to effectively track velocity and measure delivery with Jira - Effectively helped modernize the delivery pipeline for feature delivery for faster and smoother release process which cut the build times by close to 75%- Effectively manage OKRs for each team to ensure that each critical task to the business is measured weekly and meets the requirements- Helped develop a strategy for DR fail-over architecture with Active/Active setup for maximum availability - Speak at various engagements on security and technology, effective team leadership- Worked with peers to constantly improve audience engagement and drive traffic to our website- Support various lists and Events that are organized by the Forbes live team across the globe

Education

• Syracuse University

  MS, Computer Engineering

  1999 — 2000

• University of Mumbai

  BE, Electronics

  1993 — 1997

• OLPS

  High School, School

  1983 — 1991