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Jo Peterson

VP Cloud & Security at Clarify360

Charleston, United States

Jo Peterson , Vice President of Cloud, Security and AI Solutions for Clarify360, and the Chief Analyst at ClearTech Research.

An engineer by trade, Jo covers cloud, cloud security, cybersecurity and AI Security. Jo has been helping clients architect cloud solutions since 2009. Her expertise in cloud and security is continually being honed by the customer facing work that she and her team do with Enterprise CIO’s and CISO’s. Focused on strategy as well as practical insights around cloud, cloud security and cybersecurity, Jo is followed by an audience of almost 100K across Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube

Jo holds multiple tech certs. She has a Master’s Degree in Information Technology as well as an MBA, is an Air Force vet, having served as a Cryptologic Language Analyst in the 6920th Electronic Security Group. Jo is the founding Co-Chair of cloudgirs.org.

Jo is a member of the Forbes Technology Council, serves on CompTIA’s Infrastructure Advisory Board and serves on the AI Safety Leadership Council for the Cloud Security Alliance
Jo has provided advisory and influencer services for AWS, Cisco, Dell, HPE, Google, IBM, Intel, Juniper, Microsoft, Splunk, to name a few
Jo Peterson , Vice President of Cloud and Security Services for Clarify360, Industry Analyst and Strategic Advisor
jo@clarify360.com
Twitter: @cleartechtoday
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ClearTechResearch
www.clarify360.com

Available For: Advising, Authoring, Consulting, Influencing, Speaking
Travels From: Charleston, SC
Speaking Topics: AI Security, Cloud Security, Cybersecurity

Jo Peterson Points
Academic 0
Author 47
Influencer 658
Speaker 3
Entrepreneur 0
Total 708

Points based upon Thinkers360 patent-pending algorithm.

Thought Leader Profile

Portfolio Mix

Company Information

Company Type: Service Provider
Minimum Project Size: N/A
Average Hourly Rate: N/A
Number of Employees: 11-50
Company Founded Date: Undisclosed

Areas of Expertise

Agentic AI
AI 30.03
AI Governance
Cloud 31.84
Cybersecurity 30.06
Data Center 31.74
Emerging Technology 31.82
Engineering
Generative AI
IT Leadership
IT Operations
IT Strategy
Privacy 30.08
Security 30.05
Transformation

Industry Experience

Financial Services & Banking
Healthcare
Pharmaceuticals
Professional Services

Publications

33 Article/Blogs
ClearTech Loop Weekly – Episode 1: Rethinking Cyber Risk with Stephenie Southard
Linkedln
July 02, 2025
The CISO role is evolving—and fast. In our premiere episode of The CISO Slant, Stephenie Southard joins Jo Peterson to unpack what it really takes to align cyber risk with business strategy in 2025. From financial modeling to AI governance, this 10-minute conversation lays the groundwork for how security leaders are reshaping enterprise risk conversations.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

AWS re:Inforce 2025-- A Secure Foundation Enables Innovation
Linkedln
June 19, 2025
A secure foundation acts as a catalyst for innovation. It's not a barrier but rather a necessary element that allows organizations to confidently pursue new ideas, technologies, and strategies, leading to sustainable growth and competitive advantage.  During the keynote and throughout AWS reinforce 2025, the two key themes that stood out for me were the business benefits around foundational security and the simplification of security at enterprise scale.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

AI, Zero Trust and Vegas Converge During ZenithLive 2025
Linkedln
June 09, 2025
One of the key themes of Zenith Live 2025, which took place in Las Vegas this week and hosted about 4000 customers, prospects, vendors, analysts, media, and Zscaler employees was the concept that the relationship between Zero Trust and AI is symbiotic one, where each technology reinforces and strengthens the other.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Commvault’s Minimum Viable Company (MVC)—A Restore and Recovery Playbook for Success
Linkedln
May 05, 2025
The idea that "success is a repeatable pattern" suggests that there are specific actions, strategies, or thought processes that, when consistently followed, lead to successful outcomes. By identifying and replicating these patterns, individuals and organizations can increase their likelihood of achieving similar success in the future.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Google Cloud WAN—A network built for and powered by AI
Linkedln
April 17, 2025
AI is one of the next evolutions in technology and it represents its own set of workload challenges.  This raises an issue that many IT operations teams don’t see coming until it is often too late—the network.

There were 229 Product and Customer announcements at Google Cloud Next.  With all of the pageantry, glitz and glamour around the AI announcements, you may have missed this one on plain old layer 2 networking.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Wiz, a Lucky Security Charm for Google Cloud?
LinkedIn
March 25, 2025
This acquisition is part of a larger trend of cybersecurity consolidation occurring.  Tech firms and PE firms are actively acquiring cyber firms because security is now a recognized component of every corporate Board conversation and an integral part of every business. Good security is just good business in 2025.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Wiz, a Lucky Security Charm for Google Cloud?
Linkedln
March 20, 2025
This acquisition is part of a larger trend of cybersecurity consolidation occurring.  Tech firms and PE firms are actively acquiring cyber firms because security is now a recognized component of every corporate Board conversation and an integral part of every business. Good security is just good business in 2025.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Partners for Your Protection: How IBM+AWS Deliver Cloud Security
Linkedln
December 11, 2024
During this year’s AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, AI is probably the buzzword of the conference and IBM is all in. At the heart of IBM’s generative AI strategy is enabling customers to get the most from data across their enterprise.

As an AWS Premier Tier partner, IBM now has 24,000 AWS certifications, 21 validated service delivery programs, and mastery in 29 AWS competencies.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Multi Cloud Networking—A Must Have
Linkedln
November 25, 2024
We’re just a few short weeks away from AWS reInvent.  The 2024 AWS re:Invent conference is expected to have around 65,000 in-person attendees, plus more virtual attendees.

AWS re:Invent is a learning conference for the cloud computing community, hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS). The 2024 conference will take place December 2–6 at The Venetian in Las Vegas, Nevada

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Unpacking the AI Junk Drawer
Linkedln
November 18, 2024
The new survey from The Conference Board, which polled 1100 U.S. employees, finds that 56 percent of workers are using generative AI on the job, with nearly 1 in 10 employing the technology on a daily basis. Yet just 26 percent of respondents say their organization has a policy related to the use of generative AI, with another 23 percent reporting such a policy is under development.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Microsoft Copilot for Azure—Your AI Key to Letting the Light In
Linkedln
October 23, 2024
In IT we love acronyms.  An oldie but a goodie is KTLO or Keeping the Lights On.  KTLO refers to basic systems and infrastructure maintenance.  Did you know that some IT organizations spend as much as 80% of their resources and budget on simply supporting the infrastructure and apps that are already in place.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Microsoft Defender for Cloud--A Holistic View
Linkedln
October 08, 2024
Gartner forecasts spending on cloud security to grow 24% in 2024, making it the highest growth of all segments in the global security and risk management market.  Additionally, Gartner predicts that by 2027, more than 70% of enterprises will use industry cloud platforms to accelerate their business initiatives, up from less than 15% in 2023. With this increased use of cloud, organizations must invest more in technology to protect their data, applications, and infrastructure services.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Continued Innovation with Azure VMware Solution
Linkedln
September 30, 2024
Over the past four years, Microsoft and VMware have worked together closely to deliver Azure VMware Solution (AVS) to customers in 30+ Azure regions around the globe. AVS is a fully managed Microsoft service, based on VMware Cloud Foundation technologies, running on VMware validated Azure infrastructure.  The solution provides an all-inclusive range of software-defined services in computing, storage, networking, security, and cloud management.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Microsoft Fabric--Connecting the Dots
Linkedln
September 10, 2024
All of us in IT are familiar with this long time database friend and server that stores and retrieves data. SQL Server was revolutionary for its time. But one thing you can always count on in IT is change

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

AI’s Role in Identity
LinkedIn
June 28, 2024
Due to the widespread adoption of multi cloud strategies and the growing utilization of AI related programs like Large Language Models, we’re seeing the quantity of both human and machine identities growing quickly. Many of these identities require sensitive or privileged access. However, contrary to how human access to sensitive data is managed, machine identities often lack identity security controls, and therefore represent a widespread and potent threat vector ready to be exploited.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Amazon GuardDuty—Intelligent Threat Detection That Keeps Getting Better
LinkedIn
April 01, 2024
By 2028, 70% of workloads will run in the cloud according to Gartner. Today, 67% of enterprise infrastructure is now cloud-based. According to Zippia, 48% of businesses choose to store their most important data in the cloud.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Google Security Command Center Enterprise: Building a bridge between enterprise security and multi cloud protection
LinkedIn
March 15, 2024
We’ve seen an evolution of cloud security point solutions morphing into platforms like CNAPPs. The challenge is that these platforms often operate in a silo and are disconnected from broader security ops.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Shifting Left Securely with Amazon Inspector
Linkedln
January 19, 2024
There were lots of really cool announcements that came out of #reInvent2023. One of my favorites was the release of three new capabilities for Amazon Inspector. These feature releases broaden what’s possible when it comes to scanning for software vulnerabilities in cloud code.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Identity and Access Management—A Key to Modern Work and Secure Productivity
Linkedln
December 20, 2023
According to research from Zippia, 27% of U.S. employees work remotely, as of 2023. But that isn’t the full picture. 66% of U.S. employees work remotely, at least part-time. With up to 92% of employees working at least one day per week remotely, the average U.S. worker works 5.8 remote workdays per month. How, where and when we work has dramatically changed over the last 4 or 5 years.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Connecting the dots to AI Security in the Cloud—Thoughts from AWS reInvent
Linkedln
December 11, 2023
Dots and Boxes is a pencil and paper game for two players (sometimes more). It was first published in the 19th century by French mathematician Edouard Lucas, who called it la pipopiette. Players take turns adding a single horizontal or vertical line between unjoined, adjacent dots.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Microsoft 365 for Business Security-- Features and Best Practices
LinkedIn
November 13, 2023
It feels like the world runs on email, particularly O365. In fact, 345 million people are currently using Microsoft 365 as of January 2023. That’s an enormous number of companies across every vertical.

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Tags: Cloud, Security

Digital Resilience + AI + Splunk = A Winning Hand
LinkedIn
July 21, 2023
Just about everybody heading to Vegas hopes to put a couple of dollars in a slot machine and hit the jackpot. Bad actors have that in common with Vegas gamblers—they are both hoping to win. Maybe serious gamblers, those looking for more than a quick, easy payout, have even more in common with bad actors. These savvy players are using technology to harness or hone the pattern finding expertise of artificial intelligence and apply it to their betting. They hope to beat the system with the goal of making money. Both the gambler and the bad actor are looking for an AI advantage.

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Tags: AI, Cloud, Cybersecurity

Microsoft Helping Digital Native Businesses to Shine
LinkedIn
July 19, 2023
According to Wikipedia the term Digital Native describes a person who has grown up in the information age. But in business, the term takes on a different meaning. IDC describes Digital Native Businesses (DNBs)as having a digital-first approach and tech-driven operating models. These companies that are born in the cloud - aggressively leverage new and emerging technologies, platform services, and marketplaces. DNBs grow and scale fast, disrupting industries and creating new markets.

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Tags: Cloud, Cybersecurity, Data Center

Cloud is a Journey, not a Destination
LinkedIn
November 04, 2020
Remember when you were a kid and went on a family vacation with your parents in the car? If you were lucky enough to take a road trip on the Classic Route 66, you might have seen some cool sights like the Gateway Arch in St Louis or the Blue Whale in Catoosa, Oklahoma or maybe even the Meteor Crater in Winslow, Arizona. You of course were excited to be seeing so many cool things even if you had to be stuck in a car with your pesky siblings. Your parents of course knew you were learning new things during the whole journey.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center

Building Forward Thinking IT Architecture with Strategic Business Intent
linkedin
May 17, 2020
Like 90,000 others, I attended Think2020 virtually this year. There were over 250 virtual labs covering everything from #AI to #Cloud to #5G. Some of the themes of the conference that resonated for me were Hybrid IT and the OpenShift messaging of “Run on Anything, Anywhere”

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Tags: AI, Cloud, 5G

14 Author Newsletters
In financial services, innovation can’t outrun oversight
Linkedln
November 04, 2025
This week on ClearTech Loop, I sat down with Parrish Gunnels, longtime CISO in financial services, to talk about adopting AI inside environments where regulators, auditors, and boards all have a stake — and patience is low for “we’ll figure it out later.”

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Inferencing and ESMB through Lenovo’s ISG Lens at GIAC25
Linkedln
October 29, 2025
During a couple of absolute perfectly cool, crispy, sunny days this October in Raleigh, NC about 70 analyst from around the world gathered at Lenovo’s US headquarters for the Global Industry Analyst Conference or GIAC25.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Hybrid Integration: The Foundation of Full-Stack Automation
Linkedln
October 09, 2025
Today’s enterprise isn’t static — it’s hybrid by design. Applications, data, and APIs now live everywhere: on-prem, in private clouds, across SaaS environments, and at the edge.

The challenge isn’t just connecting systems. It’s maintaining control, visibility, and governance across it all.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

The CISO’s Financial Reality Check: Building Security That Pays for Itself
Linkedln
October 07, 2025
It’s not a subset of enterprise risk — it is enterprise risk. Every product launch, M&A, or cloud shift changes the exposure. The board doesn’t need to hear how many vulnerabilities you closed; it wants to know how much downtime, data loss, or regulatory hit costs in real dollars.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

The Identity Gap in AI
Linkedln
October 02, 2025
The identity gap in AI security refers to the significant challenges and vulnerabilities that arise because existing identity and access management (IAM) systems are ill-equipped to handle the proliferation and autonomous nature of non-human identities, particularly those used by AI agents.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

The CISO Field Guide to Becoming Operator, Strategist, Storyteller
Linkedln
September 10, 2025
CISOs today are being pulled in more directions than ever before. You’re not just running operations. You’re not just building governance. And you’re not just briefing the board.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

AI Security Isn’t a Regex Problem
Linkedln
September 03, 2025
CISOs don’t need more rules—they need architecture. F5’s Lori MacVittie is blunt: if your protections live inside the app, you’re racking up security debt you can’t repay. The fix is structural—put policy and enforcement in the infrastructure, where they update at the speed of change.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

ClearTech Loop Newsletter – Episode 9 Edition
Linkedln
August 27, 2025
I recently sat down with Brad Moldenhauer , VP and CISO-in-Residence at Zscaler , for one of the most direct, thought-provoking conversations we’ve had on ClearTech Loop. Brad doesn’t talk in circles — he challenges every CISO to get serious about aligning cybersecurity with business performance.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

AI Won’t Save You — But It Can Sink You Faster
Linkedln
August 13, 2025
AI won’t make you bulletproof, it might just help you fail faster.    In today’s security arms race, every board wants AI in the stack. But without strategy, governance, and human oversight, AI doesn’t reduce risk — it multiplies it. Daniel Pastrana , Founder & V-CISO of CyberNest Secure , has watched organizations turn promising AI pilots into compliance nightmares and breach accelerators. In this episode, he lays out how to use AI as a force for resilience — instead of your fastest path to disaster.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

#BlackHat2025 Wrap Up
Linkedln
August 11, 2025
Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay hosted the 2025 BlackHat conference last week with an estimated 22,000 guests.  The focus of Black Hat is to provide a platform for the latest cutting-edge research, developments, and trends in information security. It brings together security professionals, researchers, and leaders to share groundbreaking research, discuss emerging threats, and explore the latest vulnerabilities and defense strategies.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Ep. 6: Robert Uno on Turning Cyber Risk into Boardroom Strategy
Linkedln
August 06, 2025
In this week’s episode of ClearTech Loop, I’m joined by Robert Uno, Global CISO and Founder of Triden Group, for a conversation that reframes what it means to lead cybersecurity today.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Ep. 4: Mike Britton on Securing AI at Scale AI, Trust, and Growth: What CIOs Must Get Right
Linkedln
July 23, 2025
In Episode 4 of The CISO Slant, I talk with Mike Britton , CIO at Abnormal Security, about how security and privacy leaders can keep pace with innovation. As companies race to implement AI tools, Mike shares the importance of trust frameworks, governance, and embedding privacy into scale.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

The Business Value of AI Powered Network Automation
Linkedln
July 22, 2025
It’s different because, according to, Nabil Bukhari, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Extreme Networks,  “Extreme is the first vendor to fully integrate AI across the entire network, with complete visibility, control, and governance. With AI that’s built in, not bolted on, we’re redefining what is possible and turning hours of work into minutes, helping customers simplify operations, boost performance, and get more value, faster.”

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Thomas LaBonte on Building Security into Industrial Operations
Linkedln
July 16, 2025
In Episode 3 of The CISO Slant, Jo Peterson speaks with Thomas LaBonte, CISO at Saint-Gobain North America, about the complex realities of securing manufacturing environments. From integrating cybersecurity with operational technology to embedding risk into culture, this 10-minute conversation highlights what it takes to protect legacy systems in a modern threat landscape.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

2 Media Interviews
Ep. 2: Scott Howitt on Making Security an Innovation Enabler
Linkedln
July 08, 2025
The CISO role is evolving—and fast. In Episode 2 of The CISO Slant, SVH Cyber Founder Scott Howitt joins Jo Peterson to unpack how CISOs can shift from risk gatekeepers to innovation enablers. From board engagement to governance transformation, this 10-minute conversation delivers strategic insight into how security leaders can stay aligned with the pace of business.

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Tags: Cloud, Data Center, Emerging Technology

Empower Flexible, Mobile Access to Customer Data
SAP
December 05, 2019
On behalf of SAP, Jo Peterson outlines why organizations are adopting cloud ERP as a scaled subscription-based model where service support is available 24/7.

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Tags: Cloud, Emerging Technology, ERP

1 Video
Head in the Clouds (ft. Jo Peterson): Over-tooling Data is Overrated
YouTube
May 19, 2023
Over-tooling is overrated. Hear from Splunk's Tom Stoner and VP of Cloud & Security at Clarify 360, Jo Peterson, as they address auditing tools for easy data acess.

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Tags: Cloud

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1 Social Media Engagement
Social Media Influencer for Tech Brands

Location: Virtual    Fees: Negotiable.

Service Type: Service Offered

Currently ranked as #5 on the Rise Global Cloud Power 100 as well as #2 on the Rise Global Cybersecurity Power 100, a Top Woman in CyberSecurity by CyberCrime Magazine and a 2019 Channel Influencer by Informa, Jo is a 2016-2020 CRN Women of the Channel Recipient. She is a member of the Forbes Technology Council. Followed by an audience of over 50,000 on Twitter, Jo is a featured keynote speaker on topics such as cloud architecture, procurement and management, and cloud security. In 2020, Thinkers360 listed Jo as one of the Top 100 Thought Leaders and Influencers to follow on social media and Onalytica listed her as one of the Top 100 Cloud Influencers. Jo has worked with a variety of tech leaders including IBM, SAP, Oracle, Intel, Rackspace, Cisco, Dell, HP, and more.

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