IBIT

Engages with industry to develop digital knowledge and talent

Munir Mandviwalla

Jignesh Patel, SVP, Cencora, appointed Executive in Residence

Jignesh Patel

Temple University’s Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT) has appointed Cencora executive Jignesh Patel as its Executive in Residence in 2025.

Cencora’s Senior Vice President, Patel visited Temple’s Fox School of Business Thursday, March 20, 2025. He engaged with faculty and students on several topics including AI, cybersecurity, the job market, and others. Jig is also a member of IBIT’s advisory board.

The IBIT Executive in Residence program facilitates engagement between industry leaders and the faculty and students at Temple University.

Patel is responsible for IT strategy, support, and delivery for Corporate IT and Global Pharma Services. Corporate IT is responsible for Finance, Legal, Human Resources, Marketing, and Compliance & Risk IT. He is also responsible for Global Pharma Services technology, including manufacturer services.

Prior to joining Cencora, Jignesh worked in senior leadership roles at Vanguard including heading up AI/ML Architecture, HR and Corporate Communication Technology, and Finance and HR technology. 

IS Job Index 2024 published!

The AIS and IBIT Information Systems Job Index is the only systematic comprehensive national assessment of placement, salaries, demographics, jobs, search, geographical patterns, and knowledge of IS job market entrants.

2024 highlights

  • IS graduates get excellent salaries – 20%+ above business school average
  • Data is hot – Top job category, fastest growing area, high demand
  • Strong technical skills are critical for gaining the best salaries
  • Diversity is growing – About 44% women, strong international pool
  • Knowledge gap – Software development and cybersecurity skills rated weak

Laurel Miller, Michael Dinger, Nicholas Bortz, and Munir Mandviwalla authored the 2024 report. Thanks to AIS, especially Matthew Nelson for their support! Thanks also to Michael Bradshaw for the foreword.

Inaugurated in 2013 and published every 2 years, IS Job Index has to-date analyzed close to 10,000 job market entrants from 99 universities across the United States.

Learn more at: https://isjobindex.com/

Frank Fawzi, President & CEO, IntelePeer

Over his four decades in technology, Frank Fawzi has seen multiple waves of innovation. However, witnessing recent advances in AI and the resulting opportunity for business growth, he says, “I’ve never seen anything this large and this rapid.”

At IntelePeer, a leader in the communications automation platform (CAP) market, he is tapping into that opportunity. IntelePeer has 2,500 customers in industries ranging from healthcare and financial services to education and retail. The goal: optimize their customer interactions by voice, text, and more.

We jumped on generative AI in late 2022, and we’ve developed a whole set of capabilities our customers can use to improve automation and self-service rates.

They created their AI Hub and Data Hub, which has enabled IntelePeer clients to reach 85% self-service rates—meaning their customers can resolve their issues without needing a live agent. “Just 24 months ago the best we or anyone else was able to do was maybe 30%, 35%,” Fawzi says.

Appreciating that his passion for “creating great products that improve business outcomes” aligns well with IBIT, he joined the IBIT Advisory Board in 2024.

I’ve always believed that technology has to serve a purpose, and IBIT has a mandate to serve a combination of business, technology, and students and learning all in one.

In addition to Fawzi’s board service, IntelePeer is an IBIT industry partner. Their first project for Temple faculty and students involves IntelePeer and one of its healthcare customers. The business challenge is aimed at using AI to improve the quality and efficiency of the customer’s patient communications. Tens of thousands of patients could benefit, and Fawzi values the chance for real-world impact. 

We have a collaborative triangle to explore how our technology and IBIT’s smart people can lead to value for the patient population and our customer,” Fawzi says. “I can see a lot more projects like this in our future.

Advisory board meeting – November 2024

The IBIT advisory board meeting on November 6th, 2024, brought together industry partners, faculty, and students for a day of discussion, research, and celebration.

The meeting included opening remarks by newly appointed board chair, Sondra Barbour, and introduction of new members David McGettigan and Frank Fawzi.

Munir Mandviwalla led a discussion about IBIT’s new model for assessing interdisciplinary center impact, followed by a preview of IS Job Index 2024 by Laurel Miller. The meeting featured new research with board member Michael Bradshaw on Kyndryl‘s data liberation and practice modernization.

Manoj Chacko introduced the DIF showcase featuring MovisionHEP – physical therapy at home (Cole Hagen and Yuval Shimoni), Fanalli – fair-priced tickets for genuine fans (Rhea Mohite and Ayush Gupta), and GenAI reliability and transparency (Scholastic – Raghushri Sankaran and Konstantin Bauman).

The evening reception also included posters on AI Opportunity Index (Ziyi (Iggy) Zhao), Embodied Intelligence (David Liang, Lu Lu), and Virtual Pulmonary Rehabilitation (Cole Roberts, Seyedmohammad (Omid) Pourshahid).

The event concluded with a segment recognizing Bruce Fadem, outgoing founding board chair, for his contributions, including acknowledgments from Chip Hunter, Andrea Anania Stewart, Jeff Hamilton, and Munir Mandviwalla.