Our Mission

The IT Certification Council (ITCC) is a nonprofit organization committed to growing and promoting professional IT certifications. 

Our core purpose is to support the industry and our member companies by marketing the value of certification, promoting exam security, furthering innovation, and establishing and sharing industry best practices.   

Founded in 2007, ITCC is a community of 50+ of the most respected companies in the IT certification industry.

Board of Directors

Vice Chair

Secretary-Treasurer

Director

Director

Director

Director

Executive Director

Member Emeritus

Member Emeritus

Susan Farago - Chair

Susan Farago is a Portfolio Manager for MuleSoft Certifications at Salesforce. She is very active in the certification industry and is currently Chair for the Information Technology Certification Council (ITCC), a member at the Association of Test Publishers (ATP), and keynote speaker for the 2021 International Personnel Assessment Council (IPAC). 

Early in her career Susan worked at IBM as a technical trainer and was introduced to exam development as a subject matter expert. Since then she has spent 25 years in the IT credentialing industry and has extensive experience in low and high-stakes exam development and delivery, global program creation and management, test security standards and policy setting, skills measurement, and digital badging. She has presented at conferences, written articles for print and online publications, and has served on committees including ITCC, Performance Testing Council (PTC), CompTIA Security+, and the Credly Client Advisory Board.

Being a lifelong learner, Susan is currently exploring ideas around Agile exam development. She worked with other ITCC members to create the white paper “Considerations for Exam Development in an Agile Product Development Environment” (2020), and she has co-created and presented at ATP “Lean-Agile Mindset: A Framework for Innovation” (2021) and “Design Thinking for a Customer-Centric Approach to Credentialing” (2022). In addition to her full time job at MuleSoft, Susan completed a data analytics program through the University of Denver and is combining her certification experience with big data to develop innovative and predictive data insights within the credentialing industry.

Liberty Munson – Vice Chair

Liberty Munson is the Director of Psychometrics for the Microsoft Worldwide Learning organization and is responsible for ensuring that the processes used to evaluate skills in the Microsoft Technical Credential program are valid and reliable measures of the content areas that they are intended to measure. She is considered a thought leader in the certification industry, especially in areas related to how technology can fundamentally change our approach to assessment design, development, delivery, and sustainment, and has proposed many innovative ideas related to the future of certification.

Prior to Microsoft, she worked at Boeing in their Employee Selection Group, assisted with the development of their internal certification program, and acted as a co-project manager of Boeing’s Employee Survey. She received my BS in Psychology from Iowa State University and MA and PhD in Industrial/Organizational Psychology with minors in Quantitative Psychology and Human Resource Management from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Matt Scicchitano - Secretary - Treasurer

Matt has over 17 years of experience in Certification and Assessment.  He has held several roles at both certification vendor organizations and IT certification sponsor companies.  He is currently the manager of the Certification program at SAS.

Matt lives in Pennsylvania and enjoys spending time outdoors and with his family.   

Kristin Wall Gibson

Kristin Wall Gibson – Past Chair

Kristin Wall Gibson is IBM’s Certification Strategy Lead. She is responsible for developing IBM’s Solution Based Certifications and for helping set their certification program’s strategic direction.

In 2005, Kristin joined the IBM Tivoli Certification Team. In 2009, she became the IBM Tivoli Certification Team Program Manager. As an integral part of the IBM certification team, Kristin has participated in the IBM Certification Security Council and in the migration of IBM’s certification program to PearsonVUE.

Since 2012, Kristin’s leadership role has included presenting at the Domestic and European Innovation in Testing Conferences. At these conferences, her areas of expertise focused on exam security and remote exam development.

In 2014, Kristin joined the Information Technology Certification Council (ITCC) where she participated on the Security & Education Subcommittees. In 2015, Kristin became the ITCC Vice-Chairman. Kristin served as the council’s Chair from 2016 – 2020.

Pat Hughes - Director

Pat Hughes is the Vice President of IT Assessments at Internet Testing Systems (ITS). With a wealth of expertise, Pat provides strategic guidance to IT assessment sponsors, offering insights on a diverse range of topics such as item banking, exam delivery, accessibility, security, and performance-based testing. Known for his thought leadership, Pat is a frequent presenter at industry events such as the Innovations in Testing Conference (“ATP”), the I.C.E. EXG, The Performance Testing Council, and the IT Certification Council.

Beyond his professional commitments at ITS, Pat dedicates his time to serve as a Director on the IT Certification Council board, showcasing his commitment to advancing the field. When he’s not working, you might find him making his own pizza, skiing, or taking his Labrador Retriever swimming.

Tamika Hughes - Director

In her role of CX Strategy Manager at Pearson VUE, Tamika focuses on strategy definition and execution as well as roadmap and journey management to drive customer experience transformation. Beyond her 12+ years of work with Pearson VUE to improve the assessment journey and vendor relationship experience for test sponsors and learners, her commitment to the industry includes work with multiple industry associations in support of access to the benefits of learning and assessment for all. She currently serves as chair of the Assessment Design & Science Sub-Committee for ATP’s DE&I Committee and is also a participant in ATP’s Accessibility and Accommodations committee. As past co-chair for the ITCC DE&I workgroup, she collaborated on the development of a DE&I Maturity Model for Certification Programs (2023).

Tamika holds dual master's degrees in law and social policy and social service from Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. A lifelong learner and interdisciplinary practitioner, she is certified in product management and holds certificates in a growing list of disciplines including design thinking, program evaluation, change leadership, and strategy. When not solving complex user and business problems, you'll find her walking, biking, or running on a trail, kayaking in a scenic lake or creek, or relaxing with a cup of coffee/tea and a good book, TV show or movie.
Emily Hendershot

Emily Hendershot – Executive Director

Emily Hendershot is the Executive Director of the IT Certification Council (ITCC). She is responsible for operations of the organization including headquarters team oversight, financial management, and acting as the liaison to the Board of Directions and Committee Chairmen in moving forward key ITCC projects and initiatives.

As a results-driven community and operations strategist, Emily partners with associations and nonprofits to maximize their impact and achieve their missions. Emily has a successful history creating and executing strategic initiatives to drive growth for global associations and technology user groups with membership targets of 5K – 125K people. Prior to her work with associations, she developed national volunteer training programs for the American Cancer Society and led a disaster relief program for a nonprofit in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Jim Lucari - Director

Jim Lucari leads certification solutions enablement in Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s WW Sales Enablement organization. He is responsible for sales and technical certification exam development and program operation, certification course development, certification architecture and framework, translations, HPE Press publications, and remote lab operations.

Jim has been in IT technology work for many years with experience primarily in networking and storage technologies. He also has multiple years of experience in training development and delivery with many of those focused on certifications.

Jim has previously served on the ITCC board in Treasurer-Secretary and Vice Chair positions.

Kara Pritchard - Director

Kara Pritchard began her career in certification in 1999 as one of the first Red Hat Certified Engineers and as a published author of a certification study guide by Coriolis. She has worked with multiple publishers and multiple organizations building certification programs, spent 16 years running a retail computer service and training company, and now works with the Training and Certification team at The Linux Foundation. 

Kara is a Certification Manager on the team responsible for everything (and everyone) needed to build globally accessible multiple-choice and performance-based exams aimed at growing the pool of open source technology professionals.  She currently serves on the Community Advisory Board for the Open Source with Saint Louis University (SLU), on the Board of Directors for the IT Certification Council (ITCC), and is a member of the Association of Test Publishers (ATP).

Clarke Porter – Member Emeritus

Clarke is a life-long entrepreneur and has spent his career helping transform the learning and credentialing market. In 1977 he developed the first commercial computer-based testing system that randomly generated statistically fair exams from large question sets. This technology was a precursor to Linear On the Fly Testing. Clarke is also credited with helping to build the global infrastructure that spawned a multi-billion-dollar marketplace of credentialing services. In the late 1980’s he did the seminal work in partnership with Novell to establish professional certification for Information Technology professionals which is recognized as an important readiness signal both by employers and higher education. Clarke honed many skills throughout his career starting as a software engineer and progressing to business development executive, product leader, and well-rounded business executive with finance, operations, marketing, and board-level expertise.

Clarke is the co-founder of four global businesses in the credentialing space including Drake Certification Services (Prometric), VUE, Integral7, and Acclaim. Two of these businesses were incubated within larger companies and two were start-ups.

Chuck Cooper

Chuck Cooper – Member Emeritus

Chuck joined IBM in 1969. He initially held roles in program development and marketing of IBM’s database inquiry systems and document publishing systems. Chuck helped IBM develop a new business partner channel of web integrators (regional system integrators), and then moved into his role of Program Director of IBM’s Professional Certification programs. Chuck held the position until retiring in 2016. Chuck also served as one of the founders of the IT Certification Council (ITCC), and was vice-chair of the ITCC for six years. He also currently remains involved in the test security initiative for the ITCC.