Joe Perino is an independent consultant and advisor focused on industrial transformation and operational excellence for the energy, process, and manufacturing industries. He is actively involved with the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), DataOps, advanced analytics (AI/ML), Cloud and Edge computing, Digital Twins, robotic process automation, and blockchain. Perino founded PERTEX in 2015 to help industrial organizations drive business results. Today, he specializes in helping startups with strategy and market development. Perino started his career as a process engineer in the refining, chemicals, and pipeline sectors, and then spent several years in sales and business development with process automation and technology suppliers before moving into product and industry marketing, strategy, corporate development, M&A, and management consulting. He has worked for operating companies (Phillips Petroleum, Diamond Shamrock, Northern Natural Gas) as well as automation and software firms (Emerson, Honeywell, Blue Yonder) and services firms (IBM, Schlumberger, CGI, and DXC). Before going independent, Perino was a principal analyst for LNS Research, where he was the lead analyst for asset performance management, operational excellence, advanced analytics, and data management. Perino is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), the Professional Petroleum Data Management Association (PPDM), the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), and the International Society of Automation (ISA). He holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame, an MS in Finance from the University of Houston-Clear Lake, and has completed executive education programs at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and Harvard Business School.