History and Mission

The Fairfield/Westchester Chapter of SIM is the area's fastest growing not-for-profit organization of IT leaders. Started in 2000, the Chapter now boasts over 200 members and continues to receive accolades from SIMI for membership growth and value year-on-year.

The mission of the Fairfield/Westchester chapter is providing for its members:

• The premier network for IT leadership.
• Resources and programs inspired by IT leaders for IT leaders.
• A community of thought leaders who share experiences and rich intellectual capital that can be applied in their organizations.
• The further development of the leadership capabilities of themselves and emerging leaders in their organizations.
• A collective voice to advocate policy and legislation on behalf of the IT profession across industries.

Welcome to 2009! I look forward to partnering with you to make our chapter the most exciting and innovative chapter in SIM.
We have a terrific board in place and one of the most credible membership rosters across the country. This has been and continues to be one of the key success factors to the high value proposition FWSIM provides to more than 200 business and technology leaders across Fairfield County CT and Westchester County NY.

We are off to a very productive start in 2009 with over one-third of our community in attendance for Jim Tosone’s (of Pfizer) January presentation "Improv” for IT Executives where we all gained key skills and techniques to make us more successful in unplanned situations.

One of our key objectives for this year is to more fully leverage your skills and experience to help FWSIM raise the value proposition even higher. There are several opportunities for you to get involved:

1. Programs — get involved in supporting our efforts as we move to broaden the types of topics and speakers we have to include more conversations with business leaders (i.e. CXOs) as well as events focused on the topic of leadership best practices. We seek fresh input on new approaches, topics, areas of focus to provide to our members.
2. Knowledge and Collaboration — help create even more value for those members who are unable or not interested in attending our monthly events. We are hosting more salient content on our web site including streaming video.
3. Special Interest Groups — we launched two communities of interest groups in 2008 around the topics of Leadership & Career Development and Emerging Technologies. We are working to broaden the impact of these two groups and adding another focused on the Financial Services industry vertical.
4. Career Growth — we are building on our successful mentoring program by adding additional mentoring mentor/mentee pairs as well as launching a mentoring circles program.

Please feel free to email me directly with your interest in contributing to these objectives or with your thoughts for other areas to explore.

I look forward to working together to make our efforts together a great experience for everyone involved.

Larry Bonfante
President, Fairfield-Westchester Chapter
Society for Information Management

Message from the Chairman

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Welcome to the Fairfield/Westchester Society for Information Management (FWSIM) web site and thanks for reading my message. I joined the FWSIM Chapter more than 10 years ago out of my personal interest to meet other people in the IT profession to learn and share experiences. What I gained over this time was much more than I originally anticipated. One of my first experiences was participating in the Regional Leadership Forum (RLF) — an intensive, nine-month leadership development program presented by the Society for Information Management. This was one of the best educational experiences of my professional career, which has helped to shape my leadership principles and values.

I continued to participate and volunteer in the local chapter monthly meetings, special events and various committees. It’s through these experiences that the value of the organization and relationships with the other members became more important and relevant to me. I am truly honored to have been a member of the Executive Committee in multiple capacities. I’ve watched the membership grow both in terms of number of members and many members in their own careers.

The Chapter is truly an amazing place to get to know people who do what you do, to expand your mind about new trends in the industry, and to advance your career by enriching your experiences. If you haven’t joined SIM yet, I encourage you to give us a try. If you’re already a member, please volunteer in some form of Chapter activity. It will enhance your experience!

Beyond the local chapter, please look around the www.SIMNET.org web site for more information about what being a member is all about, and what SIM International has to offer members, such as:

• SIM Academic Programs
• Advanced Practices Council
• Regional Leadership Forum
• Annual SIMposium Event
• And many other programs, events and advocacy opportunities

This is an organization that we’re all proud to be a part of. As we continue to grow and learn from each other, we get better through the experience. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.  I hope to see you soon at one of our many events!

Best regards,
Mike Pellegrino
Chairman, Fairfield/Westchester Chapter
Society for Information Management