Kerrie Holley

Early life and education

Born in 1954, Holley was raised by his maternal grandmother on Chicago's south side. While never having met his father and living in a neighborhood marked by poverty and gang activity, Holley defied social odds by channeling his love for math and science through his academic studies. He became a student at the Sue Duncan Children’s Center in 1961 where he was tutored in math and science. As he excelled in the program, he became a tutor at the Center, later tutoring former United States Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan and actor Michael Duncan Clarke. After graduating from Kenwood Academy in 1972, Holley went on to receive his Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from DePaul University in Chicago; followed by a Juris Doctor Degree in 1982 from DePaul University College of Law.In 2016, Kerrie Holley was conferred a Doctor of Humane Letters from DePaul University, College of Communication / College of Computing and Digital Media.

Career

Holley joined IBM in 1986 as an Advisory Systems Engineer. In 1990 he became an analytics consultant with IBM’s consulting group, now called IBM Global Business Services. He was appointed Chief Technology Officer of IBM’s GBS, AIS and IBM's SOA Center of Excellence where he works with clients to create flexible applications that enable companies to respond to rapidly changing markets. SOA (service-oriented architecture) is a software design methodology based on structured collections of discrete software modules, known as services, that collectively provide the complete functionality of a large or complex software application.

For his work Holley was recognized as an IBM Fellow. In 2000 he was appointed to IBM Distinguished Engineer and in that same year elected to IBM’s Academy of Technology for his sustained contributions in designing high performance financial services applications. Holley is a co-patent owner of the industry’s first SOA method and SOA maturity model, which helps companies develop SOA-based applications and infrastructures. Kerrie's experience with cognitive services and analytics at IBM prompted Cisco to ask him to join, to mature their analytics software and automation portfolio focused on machine learning and streaming analytics. In 2016, the opportunity and challenge to contribute to UnitedHealth Group mission to help people live healthier lives and make health care work better made an easy decision for him to join Optum Technology. At Optum, Kerrie is focused on advancing UnitedHealth Group in several strategic imperatives: Artificial Intelligence with a focus on machine learning and deep learning, IoT, Genomics, and Cybersecurity. Kerrie leads the UnitedHealth Group Fellow, Distinguished Engineer, and Principal Engineer Technical Leadership Career Program.

IBM Fellow

Holley is a Fellow in the Thomas J. Watson Research Center focused on scalable business services and API economy. Previously, he served as a CTO for IBM Global Business Services. In 2006 he was named an IBM Fellow, the Company’s highest technical leadership position. The Fellows program, founded by Thomas J. Watson in 1962, promotes creativity among IBM’s most exceptional technical professionals. The IBM Fellow recognition is the most prestigious recognition in the IBM technical community where the criteria for appointment includes:

Technical abilities considered are:

The criteria for appointment are stringent and take into account only the most significant technical achievements. Appointment as an IBM Fellow, is made by the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and is a career designation. Since 1963, 217 IBM Fellows have been appointed. Of these, 73 are active employees (as of May 2010).

Publications

In November 2010 Holley’s first book "100 SOA Questions: Asked and Answered" was published. The book describes how enterprises can adopt service-oriented architecture. His next book "Is Your Company Ready for Cloud", co-authored with Pam Isom, was released in 2012. He is widely published in the field and a sought after speaker and consultant in SOA. His expertise centers on software engineering, architecture and translating business requirements into designs for cutting-edge network centric distributed solutions with a focus on business and IT fusion. Holley’s responsibilities include technical leadership for service-oriented architecture, technical oversight for network centric software engineering projects, adaptive enterprise architecture design, IT strategy, formation of partnerships among clients and vendors, leading architecture reviews and managing technical risks.

Patents

Holley owns several patents ranging from how to maintain functionality when faced with component failure, to how to locate lost mobile devices and software engineering patents in service-oriented architecture. Holley is a co-patent owner of the industry's first SOA development method and first SOA maturity model. The maturity model helps enterprises assess where they are on the road to adopting a Service-Oriented Architecture and provides a plan for achieving an SOA-based infrastructure.

Selected publications

Articles, a selection: