DANBURY, CONN. — Austin McChord, who founded and remains the driving force of innovation at the pioneering information technology services company Datto in Norwalk, will participate in an Ancell Leadership Forum at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 5, 2016, at Western Connecticut State University.

The forum, “Executive Insight into Management: A Conversation with Austin McChord,” will be in the Ballroom of the Campus Center on the university’s Westside campus, 43 Lake Ave. Extension in Danbury. McChord will be interviewed by WCSU alumnus John Fillyaw, who serves as chief commercial officer for the New York-based IT consulting and application development firm Axispoint. The forum is sponsored by the WCSU Ancell School of Business. Admission will be free and the public is invited; attendees are requested to register online at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-ancell-leadership-forum-tickets-23861509417.

As chief executive officer and major shareholder of Datto since its founding in 2007, McChord has built a rapidly growing and highly innovative provider of comprehensive data backup, recovery and business continuity services. Recognized for three consecutive years by the business magazine Inc. as one of the 500 fastest-growing companies in the United States, Datto posted year-over-year sales growth exceeding 50 percent and expanded into European and Australian markets during 2015. Through its management of a private cloud of more than 180 petabytes of data complemented by a wide array of software and hardware infrastructure, Datto currently provides more than a million backups each week for users and offers its Total Data Protection Platform for both cloud-based and server-based data bases. The company has received numerous industry awards for growth, product excellence and technical support.

McChord’s trailblazing corporate leadership has earned prestigious recognitions including selection as one of Forbes magazine’s “30 under 30” top young entrepreneurs and as a finalist for Ernst & Young’s 2014 Entrepreneur of the Year award. He has been named as a Top 25 Innovator and a Top 50 Midmarket IT Vendor Executive by the CRN technology news service. Recipient of a degree in bioinformatics from Rochester Institute of Technology, McChord holds several patents and is a board member of the Connecticut Technology Council. 

For more information, contact Ancell School Coordinator Kathleen Lindenmayer at lindenmayerk@wcsu.edu or the Office of University Relations at (203) 837-8486.

Western Connecticut State University offers outstanding faculty in a range of quality academic programs. Our diverse university community provides students an enriching and supportive environment that takes advantage of the unique cultural offerings of Western Connecticut and New York. Our vision: To be an affordable public university with the characteristics of New England’s best small private universities.