#SmealWeeklyRecap featuring Vinay Dattu '09 EMBA

It's Friday! Make sure and continue to #lifelonglearn with us and follow along as we showcase other featured alumni in 2021. All webinars are free and registrations can be found on the Smeal Alumni Events Calendar. For recordings of past webinars, visit our Smeal Lifelong Learning Webinar library. Additionally, here is the link to our Smeal Lifelong Learning Podcast episodes on our website. Don't forget you can also download them on Apple, Castbox, Spreaker or most popular podcast apps and become a subscriber to get updates on our releases!

Sign up for Smeal Alumni Career Services' bi-monthly e-newsletter at this link!

Featured Alumni: Vinay Dattu '09 EMBA, Director of Legislative Information Systems, Tennessee General Assembly

Vinay Dattu spent his career resolving complex organizational problems in finance, operations, and strategy for the health, finance, manufacturing, and government sectors. He applied to the EMBA program at Penn State University to pursue his career in strategic management. Upon graduating from the EMBA program, he started working for the State of TN as an enterprise solutions consultant and found his passion for rooting out organizational inefficiencies in state government.

After ten years of working in state government, he remains enthusiastic and passionate about the opportunities to make government more effective, efficient and financially responsible for his state. He has saved over $5 million over his tenure and won national awards for fiscal efficiency and government initiatives transparency.

He is the director of legislative information systems for the Tennessee General Assembly and serves as the vice-chairman of the Information Systems Council TN. Previous to Tennessee General Assembly, he held project and program management positions for financial, healthcare, and manufacturing companies. He is also president of the FBI Nashville Citizens Academy Alumni Association.

Vinay Dattu’s career advice: 

1. Master the FINANCE, STRATEGY, AND ORGANIZATIONAL management courses. I cannot emphasize this enough, as these courses are the cornerstone of understanding how organizations function.
2. Always strive to be OBJECTIVE AND RATIONAL. Recognize the things you know and don't know, and be HUMBLE.
3. Organizations are mired with complexities and inefficiencies. Always strive to  ROOT OUT inefficiencies and SIMPLIFY complexities.
4. Find a way to identify what makes you or your organization UNIQUE and continue to REFINE it.
5. Learn and understand which LENS to use in organizational decision-making because one lens DOES NOT work for everyone!
6. There is no SUBSTITUTE FOR HARD WORK!
7. Find a JOB AND A PERSON YOU LOVE, and then you will find PURPOSE in your life.
8. Just keep BELIEVING IN YOURSELF! We have a LIFE TO LIVE; decide how you intend to WRITE YOUR LIFE STORY?

Resources for the week!

• Articles relating to IoT, cities and states: Articles on these topics from publications like Business Insider, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, SCM Magazine, Vault, Fast Company, The Guardian, Gallup, Morning Brew, The Washington Post, New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, The Economist, Entrepreneur Daily, Bloomberg and more! Why would SpaceX charge less for internet than it is spending? Are you ready to say goodbye to cookies? Will we ever have universal broadband? What will a smart city look like in the future? What cities made jobs happen even during the pandemic? Was COVID-19 the death of the city or the rise of the neighborhood center? Frigid temperatures, happened in Texas? What is coming for other states from Florida? Can California save its redwoods from wildfires? Check out the articles at the link above!
• Don't forget to view our Smeal Lifelong Learning Podcast episode release #32 featuring Smeal alumnus, Vinay Dattu and Scott Augenbaum releasing at Noon ET today (4/23)!

#32 Ask An Expert: The Truths about Cybersecurity

Tune in as Vinay Dattu '09 EMBA, Director of Legislative Information Systems for TN General Assembly, interviews his longtime business acquaintance and retired FBI cybercrime agent, Scott Augenbaum about the changes in cybersecurity over the years, ransomware, best practices for remote access, and current cybercrimes as well as providing free resources to help protect your business and family.

"Part or most of cybersecurity is attributed to human error." Vinay Dattu

"So many organizations are looking at cybersecurity as a cost and not an investment." Scott Augenbaum, Cybercrime Prevention Trainer, Author & Keynote Speaker

Access our podcast through the Smeal Alumni Career Services website at https://lnkd.in/eiKEcvr or download the episodes on Apple, Castbox, Spotify or most popular podcast apps!

• Congratulations to our recent Smeal alumni #lifelonglearners!

1. Barbara Awad '19 MKTG is an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Foundations 2020 Certified Associate issued by Oracle.
2. Josh DeLeon '20 FIN is an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure 2020 Certified Architect Associate issued by Oracle.
3. Chris Gamrat '07 M I S is now a Review Author 2021 was issued by EDUCAUSE.
4. Jennifer Mazza Cagliuso, SA, CSM Q B A is a Practitioner Certification in Human-Centered Design through the LUMA Institute and Highmark Health.
5. Andrew Wasmuth, '18 FIN is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER? Professional.
6. Sebastian Zuniga '18 MKTG earned certification in Component Business Modeling Essentials issued by IBM.

Smeal Lifelong Learning Webinars - Secure your spot today!

The webinars are LIVE on Wednesdays at Noon ET. Everyone is welcome!

Exploring Lifelong Learning Options for the Business Architecture Professional featuring Dr. Brian Cameron, Associate Dean for Professional Graduate Programs and Clinical Professor for Supply Chain Management - April 28 #backbypopulardemand

Transfluence: Leading with Transformative Influence in Today’s Climates of Change featuring Walt Rakowich ’79 ACCT Author, Leadership Speaker and Former Executive of Prologis, a global real estate company that was near collapse when he took over as CEO in 2008 - May 5

Cybersecurity Comes of Age featuring Susan Lo '04 FIN, Senior Manager, Darklab (Cloud + Cybersecurity), PwC Hong Kong - May 19

Tools and Techniques: Grounding the Steps of Entrepreneurship featuring Dr. Jeanette Miller, Assistant Clinical Professor, Associate Director of Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship - June 9 - Date Change!

Strategy & Negotiation: Tips from Smeal ACS Coaches featuring Dr. Jennifer Nicholas and Doreen Glenning, Smeal Alumni Career Services Career Coaches - September 8th #backbypopulardemand

Have a great weekend! ???? #WeAre