Milan Shetti Becomes Next CEO and More News from EVOLVE21

Last month, ASG, a Rocket company, held its annual partner and customer event, EVOLVE21. The event was an opportunity to celebrate ASG joining the Rocket family and featured new product releases, exciting updates, a magic show, music, meditation, customer stories and more.

The biggest news was that Rocket’s co-founder and CEO, Andy Youniss, announced that Milan Shetti, current Rocket president, will add CEO to his title as of November 5th. Youniss will become executive chairman, providing strategic insights and guidance to Rocket, and remain on Rocket’s Board of Directors.

This leadership transition has been highly intentional, and for Youniss, highly personal as he co-founded Rocket in 1990 and has led the growth of the organization over the past 32 years to employ and serve thousands of people around the world. Youniss championed Rocket’s core values of empathy, humanity, trust and love, and embedded them into every interaction between Rocketeers and customers. The events at EVOLVE21 reflected the same commitment to those values while ushering in a new era for Rocket. Read on to learn more about some of the highlights.

Welcoming Milan Shetti

Andy Youniss’s announcement at the general session on day one of EVOLVE21 was followed by an interview with Milan Shetti where attendees got to know Rocket’s new leader a little better and hear his vision for the future. Shetti embodies the intersection of technology and business expertise with a background in engineering and a track record of leading successful teams, most recently as Rocket’s president and before that as business unit president. In Andy’s words, Milan understands putting customers first, and truly lives Rocket’s core values.

Milan shared that growing up, he wanted to be a chess player. He still loves solving complex problems, but now, it’s to serve customers and their mission-critical technology (and he plays chess in his free time!) As the economy and the way work is done continues to transform, Milan spoke about how Rocket will continue to build a powerful legacy with its unique depth and breadth of expertise in the legacy technology space.

As Milan leads Rocket into the future, the company will continue to deliver the experiences that lead to legendary outcomes. Digital transformation has taken on a new meaning – the focus now needs to be on enabling companies to become more responsive to change.

Thought Provoking Keynotes

Mike Walsh, bestselling author and futurist, echoed Milan’s sentiment during the first keynote speech of EVOLVE21. Mike’s insights focused on his three new rules for the new world we live in since the disruption of COVID-19. First among them – there is no digital disruption, only digital delivery. With every aspect of all our interactions completely transformed, there are new possibilities that did not exist before. Companies that aren’t fully leveraging digital tools simply won’t be able to compete. Mike’s eye-opening address had the audience reflecting on how to rethink and push established boundaries.

At EVOLVE21’s closing keynote, Josh Linkner, entrepreneur and bestselling author, energized the audience with inspirational stories of “big little breakthroughs”—seemingly small creative ideas that make huge impacts at scale. He highlighted the importance of fostering creativity in organizations to solve problems in new ways and harness the power of creativity for innovation. With nearly every industry in the midst of major changes, we can no longer simply rely on the models of the past and expect the same results – the modern workforce requires ingenuity.

Breakout Tracks

Breakout sessions at EVOLVE21 delivered insights to improve governance, modernization and automation. On day one, experts from BNY Mellon, Bloor Research, Sirius, Capgemini, LKSS Consulting/Indicum and Ephesoft presented challenges and solutions to governing, modernizing and automating tech stacks. While these journeys look different for every organization, attendees all gained valuable information from experts in the industry and were able to ask questions and engage with presenters directly in the exhibit hall.

On day two of the conference, the events opened with a morning meditation guided by the owner of Breathe Yoga, Cyndi Weis. Cyndi gave an explanation of the benefits of meditation and led attendees in a brief practice to bring intention and focus. Participants then joined the Women Leaders in Tech coffee talk with Rocket’s very own senior director of inclusion, diversity and equity, Sharra Owens-Schwartz and Rocki Howard, who announced she will be starting a new role as chief people officer at The Mom Project. These two women had a powerful discussion about how organizations can thrive by leveraging the full range of benefits that diversity brings.

The following sessions were led by representatives from ACIC Rome, Groupe Pasteur Mutualité, Phillip Morris International, Ethias, Huntington Bank, 4th-IR, Mainline, Zia Consulting and BNY Mellon. These sessions covered a range of industry trends such as integrating AI, overcoming the mainframe skills gap and understanding metadata.

Thank You for A Legendary EVOLVE21

Thank you to all our partners, customers, presenters and attendees for a legendary EVOLVE21! At Rocket, we believe in the power of community and sharing ideas, which is why it’s been so difficult to be separated during the pandemic. But the success and impact of this virtual conference is a reminder that we can still learn from each other and make powerful connections through technology, which is an important part of our mission here at Rocket!

You can visit the EVOLVE21 site to watch all the sessions on demand, anytime. Just click “view all sessions” in the auditorium and “launch” the one you’d like to view.