Krupal Swami
Founder & CEO
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Krupal founded Team SWAMI so she and her team can provide quality consulting services for clients. Her well-rounded background in strategy, vendor management and technology will provide immediate value to client engagements.
Most recently, she had both Technical and Architecture responsibilities associated with the Mainframe at State Farm. She was responsible for all aspects of mainframe infrastructure (Architecture, Mainframe Modernization efforts, Performance/Monitoring, Print/Storage, Db2, Db2 Analytics Accelerator, Replication, IMS, CICS, Language Support, Hardware, Software, OS/Network and Test Environments). Over her career, she led infrastructure and application development teams, a workforce team responsible for strategy and an IT expansion into Phoenix, Dallas and Atlanta. She has extensive experience with large vendor contracts and led the Technology Labor Vendor Management office.
She also spent more than 13 years in consulting for Fortune 500 insurance and financial services companies. An Illinois native, Krupal received two bachelor’s degrees from Eastern Illinois University and joint MBAs from UCLA Anderson’s School of Management and the National University of Singapore’s Business School. She also holds ChFC and CLU designations through the American College. She is also PMP certified through the Project Management Institute and CSQA and CSTE certified through the Quality Assurance Institute.
In addition to work responsibilities, Krupal is actively engaged on several Boards and spends her free time with family and friends. She’s an avid traveler and reader…she’s usually reading a couple of books at the same time and typically has one or two vacations in the works!
Karen Aplington
HR Manager
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Karen joined TeamSWAMI in November 2022 as the HR Manager. She grew up in LaSalle-Peru and moved to Bloomington-Normal to complete her Business Administration degree at Illinois State University. She worked for a local bank for several years and then joined State Farm. For most of her 31 years at State Farm, she worked in or supported Human Resources by implementing both systems and business solutions. She also spent some time as the HR Business Architect and taught enterprise classes on Business Architecture concepts and requirements gathering. She retired in April 2021.
In fall 2022 Karen met Krupal through friends and joined TeamSWAMI. She is excited to use her experience to assist Krupal with building an HR organization for her growing company. Outside of work, Karen spends time with her husband, daughters and their husbands, and grandchildren. She enjoys spending time in Florida at the beach or with Mickey and friends.
When she retired in 2021, Karen had no idea she would have the opportunity to be part of a small, growing company. She is thrilled to use her skills and experiences in this new chapter of life.
Therese Thompson
Delivery Manager
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Therese had a 34-year IT career working at State Farm Insurance Companies within the 6000+ size IT department. During those years she moved within the IT department in multiple roles and assignments as a developer, infrastructure technical support analyst, and in leadership as a Lead IT Architect.
Here assignments as a developer and technical support analyst focused on Mainframe (z/OS) systems and products. More specifically she gained in depth understanding of IBM’s IMS TM and IMS DB products and how they leveraged the capabilities of the z/OS operating system.
Assignments as a Lead IT Architect focused on leading teams to set direction for the infrastructure platforms the business applications leveraged, security systems across the infrastructure and applications, and enterprise architecture practices.
As a delivery manager with TeamSWAMI, Therese will be responsible for engaging with both consultants and clients.
Greg DeBo
Principal Consultant
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Greg is an experienced Database Specialist with a demonstrated history of working on Mainframe technology for 34 years in one of the largest mainframe shops in the United States. During his career his roles included Application Programming in COBOL and PL/1, IMS DBA, Db2 DBA, as well as Product Support for Db2 z/OS, Db2 Analytic Accelerator and Guardium for z/OS. He also provided leadership in the mainframe space by being a member of the Mainframe Architecture Team where he led many product evaluations and drove several infrastructure optimization efforts.
Greg has been recognized for his contributions to the Mainframe by being a 5 year IBM Champion. He has spoken frequently at IBM Conferences as well as Regional Db2 User Groups and zCouncil events, and has been very active working with IBM and other Mainframe vendors on product enhancements, many of which he submitted as Requirements/Ideas. He has been very active in recruiting and talking with Universities to share with students what the true value of the Mainframe is, and sharing many of the newer technologies that are available and being actively used to modernize the platform.
