WITI Announces 2008 Conference Executive Advisory Council
WITI proudly welcomes our 2008 Conference Executive Advisory Council. The Executive Advisory Council is teaming with WITI to contribute their knowledge, expertise and commitment to an outstanding 2008 Women and Technology Summit. We are all looking forward to meeting you at the conference:
WITI Executive Advisory Council Members
Shelly Barnes
CIO, Arizona Tile
Shelly Barnes is the Vice President of Technology and Process. She was promoted to this position in January 2006. Previously she was Director of IT for Arizona Tile and served in that capacity since joining the company in February 2004. In her current role, she provides strategic leadership, technology vision, and operational direction for the company's information technology enterprise. She also drives initiatives to achieve enhanced operational excellence and efficiencies through business process improvements for this rapidly growing tile and stone company.
Prior to joining Arizona Tile, she spent 10 years in various leadership positions with Phelps Dodge Corporation, most recently as Director of Operational Excellence and Supply Chain. While at Phelps Dodge, she was responsible for global high-value, multi-year project portfolios, enterprise application development and support for the $2.1 billion company operating in 26 countries. Shelly also served five years with Safeway, Inc., where she implemented a national IT helpdesk and change management system.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Phoenix and completed the Global Leadership Program at Thunderbird School of International Management. Shelly is also the recipient of the 2006 CIO Decisions Mid-Market Leadership Award.
Sandy Carter
VP, SOA & WebSphere Strategy, Channels and Marketing, IBM
Sandy is responsible for driving IBM's cross-company, worldwide SOA marketing initiatives. In this role, she helps oversee the company's SOA strategy across software, services and hardware, sets the company's SOA marketing direction, and directs SOA messaging and content, while leading a global team in driving customer demand. She has helped to identify SOA acquisition targets and ensure the successful integration of these organizations into the IBM SOA portfolio. Sandy's efforts have driven the WebSphere Family to sustain four consecutive quarters of double-digit growth, while the brand has won 7 industry awards. She has helped IBM's SOA initiatives earn third party validation and analysts' leadership rankings. Sandy is fluent in 8 programming languages, and is the author of the new SOA book from IBM, "The New Language of Business: SOA & Web 2.0".
Ardice Farrow
Smart Thinking, Smart Talking Women (formerly with Apple, LucasArts Entertainment), Council Chair
Ardice is a seminar leader, speaker and success coach committed to generating greater enthusiasm, innovation and productivity in the work place.
No stranger to the technology world, Ardice is a former media designer and Executive Producer responsible for many ground breaking products for companies like The Walt Disney Company, Apple Computer, LucasArts Entertainment and the Smithsonian Institute. In addition, Ardice served as a Director of Technology for the development of major internet and software initiatives for publishers such as McGraw-Hill and Thomson Higher Education.
Today she impacts women across the globe as she brings together the creative processes used by entertainment studios and cutting edge technology companies with her insightful, unique approach to producing outstanding business results.
In addition, Ardice hosts the internet radio show "Smart Thinking Smart Talking Women". She is the creator and co-publisher of the up-coming "Wake Up Women", a co-authored book series for women by women published by Wake Up Live the Life You Love Publishing Group.
Peggy Lee
Vice President Business Development & Strategy, Market Metrix, LLC
Peggy Lee has provided vision and strategy within multiple industries to global Fortune 500 organizations and to numerous start-ups. Her entrepreneurial and innovative style has led to repeated successes in meetings/event, hospitality, entertainment, travel & leisure, technology, and CPG. Peggy is currently Vice President Business Development & Strategy for Market Metrix, the hospitality and travel sector leader in customer satisfaction and loyalty research, benchmarking and customer and employee performance feedback and measurement solutions. Her focus here is building channel partnerships globally, with a focus on social mediaŅUser Generated Content and Customer Satisfaction solutions providers serving the travel and hospitality industries. .Peggy's prior positions include that of Director of Business Development for North America for the Travel & Leisure vertical for BT's Consulting & System Integration group, Vice President Vice President Business Development & Sales for Portaga, Inc and Managing Director of PPL Consulting. In the travel, hospitality and convention industries, Lee is well known as an entrepreneur, innovator and successful executive. She has a reputation of providing vision and strategy to multiple start-up organizations. As founder and CEO of b-there, Lee developed and designed b-there's patented ARM (Attendee Relationship Management) system. Lee's background includes founding and building a leading group/meeting, business transient, and leisure travel organization. Lee spent many years in corporate business development and sales management positions at Duracell and PepsiCo.
She is a member of Executive Women in Travel and Travel Industry Association, serving on the e-Commerce Committee, Hotel Sales & Marketing Association International, and the International Association of Convention & Visitors Bureaus. Former: Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals, Meeting Professionals International, Association of Corporate Travel Executives, International Association of Exhibition Managers, American Society of Association Executives and the Open Travel Alliance. She has served on the Technology Advisory Board of APEX for the Convention Industry Council and Advisory Board for TravelCom. Peggy Lee was selected one of the 25 Most Influential People in the Meeting Industry in 2000 by Meeting News. As a frequent speaker, Peggy has presented keynote at the Entrepreneurial Women's Conference in Connecticut, WITI conferences, The Women's Congress and at numerous travel and event industry conventions.
Peggy is a graduate of the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, with a BS Business Administration, and alumni of Chi Omega Sorority. Her causes include Pura Vida, Invisible Children, ECO Africa Social Ventures. She currently resides in New Canaan, Connecticut.
Carolyn Leighton
Founder/Chairwoman WITI
Carolyn Leighton founded WITI in 1989 as a worldwide e-mail network for women in all technology sectors. At the time WITI was established, Ms. Leighton was President of Criterion Research, a research consulting firm for the high tech industry which she founded in 1984, as well as chair of the Core Competency Database Project at Stanford University.
Due to Ms. Leighton's leadership and vision, WITI has grown to be the premiere brand and worldwide organization dedicated to empowering women worldwide to achieve unimagined possibilities and transformations through technology, leadership and economic prosperity.
Ms. Leighton has 35 years of experience as an educator and entrepreneur. In addition to WITI, she founded four start-ups in the high-tech, legal sectors and, most recently, the pet industry. She attended the University of Michigan and has a bachelor's degree in human development from Pacific Oaks College. Ms. Leighton was named one of the "Top 100 Women in Computing" in 1997 and 2000.
In addition to her continuing work with WITI, Ms. Leighton now runs a dog camp on the central coast of California.
Laura Lopez
Consultant/Author, former VP, Coca Cola
Laura is a Leadership Specialist and a Branding Expert. During her 20-year corporate career, Laura held a variety of positions of increasing responsibility in Marketing and General Business Management where she applied her leadership and branding skills.
Laura has been in leadership roles from the beginning of her 20-year corporate career. Most recently as VP, Marketing at The Coca-Cola Company she effectively led teams of people to introduce new products, develop advertising campaigns and generated results year after year. She knows the importance of motivating and inspiring others to bring their best in order to achieve sustainable results.
Laura is also a classically trained brand marketer with her experience in creating and building brands at both Avon Products and The Coca-Cola Company. Her experience in brand building and positioning has also been applied to established house hold name brands in need of makeovers such as Minute Maid. Laura can help you apply the traditional branding techniques used by large consumer branding companies to your company brand and your personal brand. Learn how you and your associates can find synergies and linkages between your company brand and your own personal brand so that you are engaged everyday in growing professionally and personally.
Laura's keynotes and programs draw on this rich business experience both as a leadership specialist and branding expert to bring you and your organization great value and bottom line impact.
Laura holds a Masters of Business Administration from The American Graduate School of International Management (Thunderbird) and has a Bachelors of Science from Bucknell University. A native New Yorker and first generation American, Laura's heritage is of Spanish descent. Her parents emigrated from Spain as young children. She is multilingual, speaking fluent Spanish, English and French. She brings a broad international and cultural perspective to her programs as well. Laura has spent significant time outside of the US particularly in Spain, France, Mexico and Turkey. Laura's programs have no borders, her insights are applicable in the US as they are abroad.
Laura is married and has a daughter. She lives in Houston, Texas with her family.
Mary McDonagh
National Director of Technology, Deloitte
Lee Schwing
CIO, WSA Inc
Lee Schwing is a technology visionary who has transformed numerous companies through her insightful use of leading edge applications. Known for her broad strengths in business process management and the implementation of key technologies while optimizing best practices. Schwing focuses on shaping and delivering strategies and applied IT solutions, increasing revenues and profits, improving customer service and developing competitive distinctions.
Schwing single-handedly created the technology division of Ziffren, Brittenham, Branca, Fischer, Gilbert-Lurie, Stiffelman & Cook, LLP, one of the top entertainment law firms worldwide. The firm's client list includes Dreamworks, the National Football League, Pixar, Motown Records, Tom Hanks, and Harrison Ford. Schwing drove the firm from a DOS environment to a firm nationally recognized for its innovative use of technology in security, office automation, and office integration. Schwing is currently working on the merger of ENK International and WSA Global Holdings: ENK International ("ENK"), the Fashion Industry's most exclusive tradeshow organization, and WSA Global Holdings LLC ("WSA"), the leading provider of marketing services to the global footwear and accessories industry, today announced that ENK will acquire WSA to accelerate ENK's fashion product category expansion while further enhancing WSA's already impressive growth. In May 2006, Forstmann Little & Co. acquired a majority stake of ENK.
Schwing led the development of eleven customized core business applications. Her call-logging program won a patent for its innovative use of technology. Schwing was one of the first to integrate Good Technologies, remote software technology, allowing wireless synching and instant access to all office data and applications from remote locations worldwide. And her Contract Management program provided tracking of complex past, present and future contract revenue. With these programs, Schwing was able to recoup $5M annually in uncollected revenue and drive continual increased productivity.
Schwing's continual drive to utilize the latest technology has enhanced and improved the productivity and the bottom line of numerous companies. As a technology visionary, her work has helped implement significant change in the business world.
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Hope to see you in Silicon Valley!
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