Munir Mandviwalla

Jignesh Patel has a wide-ranging, dual IT role at global healthcare company AmerisourceBergen. As Senior Vice President, he is responsible for the technology for all back-office functions, and he oversees enterprise data and analytics.

Ask Patel what motivates him each day, and he has a quick reply:

Problem-solving for the business. That is what’s most important. A saying I have with my teams is ‘Fall in love with the problem, not the solution.’ Because the solution can change all the time.

This approach is informed by Patel’s two decades in IT across multiple industries, including the financial sector with Vanguard and Goldman Sachs. Throughout his career, he has focused on skills building and professional agility.

I didn’t stick to one thing. I’ve worked across IT operations, IT strategy, IT delivery, and data analytics.

In the last year, he led a full back-end integration of a large European healthcare products company that AmerisourceBergen acquired, while continuing to drive digital transformation. For example, his teams create the tools, technologies, and platforms all business areas use for data analytics.

Data is the lifeblood of our company, data drives decisions and insights.

Joining the IT Advisory Board in 2022 was a natural fit, given Patel’s lifelong commitment to learning. He has an engineering degree and an MBA, and he still enrolls in an executive program every few years. He appreciates how IBIT connects the corporate world and academia and welcomes the opportunity to build relationships with Temple students.

Getting fresh ideas and thoughts from people who are unencumbered with years of experience is beneficial. Part of the DNA of being a senior leader is that you’re expected to develop junior talent. I am excited to work with the next generation of talent and help them think through what they need to do to be successful.

Vince Ford is a trained musician, but these days he focuses less on his French horn and more on using innovation and technology to engage and excite audiences.

At the Curtis Institute of Music, a private conservatory for gifted young musicians in Philadelphia, Ford produces digital content, capturing hundreds of student recitals and orchestra concerts each year. He also oversees the classroom and administration technology. Previously, he worked at the New York Philharmonic and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

Ford brought an MBA and decades of experience in software, dotcom startups, digital marketing, and data analytics into arts administration with a specific goal in mind:

I understand what it means for people to have access to great music and to experience live performance, and the role that institutions like Curtis play in their communities. I want to use the technology and media available to us today to expand our reach and make us more successful and sustainable.

According to Ford, the pandemic accelerated the performing arts sector’s integration of digital media. In Spring 2022, Curtis’s Performance Innovation Lab (Ford serves as Executive Director) premiered an ambitious multimedia production called “Immersive Scheherazade,” in which projections of a recorded orchestra were paired with live musicians.

Ford first heard about IBIT while pursuing his Doctorate in Business at Temple University. Since joining the IT Advisory Board in 2021, Ford says:

discussions with fellow Board members have expanded my thinking and my range of reference for technology.

His eclectic career path serves him well when mentoring Temple students.

“I didn’t start with the idea of a specific technology. My career has been about finding a field I want to work in, and then bringing technology into that space. Having those types of conversations with them and watching some light up has been amazing,” he says. The students are ambitious, and they’re committed to doing the work and preparing themselves.