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Keynotes & Speakers

Keynotes & Featured Speakers

Sandy Carter
CEO | CMO | Ecosystems | Business Development Information Technology, Silicon Blitz
Afternoon Keynote - Ecosystems, Partners and Social Media: 10 Minute Warning

Sandy Carter is a recognized leader in social business, a best selling author, and one of the most influential women in Web 2.0 technology. As IBM Vice President, Social Business Evangelism and Sales, she is responsible for setting the direction for IBM's Social Business initiative, a $200B market opportunity. Her numerous industry awards include: "Brand Leader of the Year" from the World Brand Congress, "Top 10 in Social Media" from Altimeter Group and Fast Company's "Most Influential Women in Technology." She was also named one of "The Top 25 Social Business Leaders..." . She is an avid social business evangelist, blogger, and twitterer. She holds an MBA from Harvard and a Bachelor of Science degree in math and computer science from Duke University. Visit Sandy at: socialmediasandy.wordpress.com/


Sally Jenkins
Vice President, Worldwide Marketing, Symantec
The New Rules of Brand Transformation

Sally Jenkins is the Vice President, Worldwide Consumer Marketing for Symantec Corp., the leader in protecting more people from more online threats than anyone in the world. Sally offers Symantec marketing expertise accrued during more than 20 years of expanding consumer and enterprise markets for companies ranging from start-ups to the Fortune 500. Both her consumer and enterprise marketing experience is invaluable to Symantec’s core strategic objectives. She leads all of marketing for Symantec’s Consumer Business Unit responsible for ensuring consumers understand what the Norton brand stands for…fighting cybercrime…and is tasked with our go-to-market strategies through all channels in support of growing market share worldwide in the consumer marketplace. She utilizes innovative and engaging approaches to reaching new consumers through targeted marketing and promotional activities as well as strategic partnerships while driving increased preference for the Norton brand.

Jenkins offers a strategic marketing knowledge base that enables the development of programs that are customer focused, business critical, revenue-generating, supportive of brand image and market positioning across all audiences. Throughout her career, her role has been to lead the development and growth of global brands delivering brand affinity and increased customer acquisition in support of the revenue goals of the company.

Jenkins holds a BA in English Literature from Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia. She lives in Los Gatos, CA, with her husband and twins, a boy and a girl, who are 5 years old.


Leah Sweet
VP Flagship Advisor, CA Technologies
Keynote Lunch: “Cloud Computing – the New Normal and the impact for IT Departments”

Leah Sweet brings over 20 years of IT experience to the role of VP, Flagship Advisor. Leah joined CA Technologies in April of this year. Prior to CA, Leah was the Deputy CIO for the State of Arizona and a member of the Governor’s Cabinet on Technology. She lead efforts to develop and implement the State IT Strategy which included consolidation the State’s 90+ data centers and transform State IT to a cloud computing model. Prior to this, Leah spent 11+ years as a Vice President of Technology, Strategy and Operations for American Express leading areas such as the reference architecture program, security organization, new product development strategy as well as driving the IT strategic planning program and implementation of their control and compliance infrastructure.


Kathrin Winkler
Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer, EMC Corporation
Keynote Lunch

As Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer, Kathrin is charged with providing vision and leadership in the development and implementation of EMC's strategy for environmental and social sustainability. Kathrin teams with functional leaders in EMC's Green Business Leadership, a cross-functional virtual team that champions company-wide environmental initiatives and works to ensure integration of sustainability principles both in strategy and in day-to-day operations. In her previous role as Sr. Director for EMC's hardware engineering group, Kathrin founded the company's Engineering Green Team and its Design for Environment program, which are driving leadership designs in environmental stewardship and energy efficiency throughout EMC's product portfolio.

Kathrin joined EMC in 2003 as Director, NAS Product Management. Her past positions included Principal Consultant/Analyst specializing in enterprise management systems and service level architectures at Renaissance Worldwide, Vice President Technical Marketing in a Web services security startup, and Consultant Software Engineer in Network Systems Engineering at Digital Equipment Corporation. In addition to her work at EMC, Kathrin serves as a Director of EcoLogic Development Fund, a non-profit organization dedicated to community-based conservation in Central America.


Breakout Sessions

Anne Adams, Ph.D.
President, ACS
The World Cafe

Anne has worked with many Fortune 50 companies and educational institutions both nationally and internationally. She has designed and led organizational transformation programs through seminars, workshops and educational programs for individuals, corporations, professional groups and educational institutions for more than 30 years.

She has been a teacher, school director, university instructor, a manager in an international educational corporation, and a business consultant to both large and small corporations.

Anne has worked with senior leaders and their teams from companies as varied as IBM, Mars, Heinz, AT&T, Lucent Technologies, Procter & Gamble, The Rouse Company, EZ Communications, to government entities like the Pentagon and non profits, e.g. IONS, and many schools throughout the United States and India.

Dr Adams contributes her expertise in Organization Transformation by integrating transformative practices, e.g. The World Cafe, a process in collaborative dialogue, Appreciative Inquiry, a framework for creating a learning organization, The Collaborative Way, a company's values and culture brought to the forefront, with Navigating From the Future, an approach FOR sustaining transformation.

Currently her work is focused on integral education practices both within educational institutions and businesses - accentuating the need to honor the integral nature of the human being, e.g., developing and integrating all of our intelligences - mental, the emotional, physical, social and spiritual. The impact this has on our relationships, the quality of results produced, and a worldview literary that is truly integral is of great interest.


Vanessa Alvarez
Industry Analyst, Frost & Sullivan
Cloud: Applied Cloud

Vanessa Alvarez is an Industry Analyst with the Frost & Sullivan North America Information, Communications, and Technology Practice. She focuses on monitoring and analyzing emerging trends, technologies and market dynamics in the area of enterprise infrastructure in North America.

Since joining Frost & Sullivan in November 2008, Alvarez is specializing in enterprise infrastructure and applications, with a particular focus on the impact of enabling technologies in the enterprise.

Prior to this, Alvarez was an analyst at Yankee Group, where she focused on the impact of IP communications infrastructure and examined the market drivers, as well as inhibitors and economic justification for the deployment of IP communications infrastructure and applications in the enterprise. She brings with her an in-depth understanding of infrastructure deployments in the enterprise, organizational and behavioral challenges facing enterprises today, vendor go-to-market strategies, competitive intelligence, and project management.

Alvarez has received acclaim for her research through articles and quotes published in CNNMoney, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, TheStreet.com, Forbes, and Investors Business Daily. She holds a BA in Political Science from Rhode Island College and is fluent in Spanish.


Jeni Bell
Director of Marketing - Greater Los Angeles, AT&T
Emerging Markets: Mobile Markets: New Opportunities

With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Jeni Bell currently serves as Director of Marketing in Greater Los Angeles. She leads a team of wireless marketing professionals who are responsible for proactively promoting AT&T’s full suite of products and services in the area. Bell currently resides on the Board of Directors for APCA, an Employee Resource Group within AT&T.

A member of the AT&T family of companies since 1996, Bell was Marketing Director with AT&T Mobility in the Rocky Mountain Region before moving to Los Angeles. Bell led the market which also included the Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Idaho areas. She oversaw numerous strategic programs resulting in increased growth, revenue, rate of penetration and improved reputation.

Bell holds a Masters degree in Global Business with an undergraduate in Organizational Communication.

Bell remains actively engaged in community service having dedicated time to such notable organizations such as Meals on Wheels, Wasatch Community Gardens, and Padres Contra El Cancer.


Anne Bezancon
Founder & President, Placecast
Emerging Markets: Mobile Markets: New Opportunities

Anne has an impressive track record in executive management and technological innovation.

In 2005, foreseeing that the future of mobile computing would revolve around location and physical context, she started 1020 Placecast to build the first platform designed to manage and deliver location-based content and advertising.

Prior to founding 1020 Placecast , Anne was VP of Directory Services at JiWire. Through the relationships she developed with more than 300 service providers worldwide, she built the leading directory of public wi-fi hotspots from scratch. As the founder and former CEO of BEAP, Anne provided custom content management solutions for online publishers. In her role as Executive Producer at Productopia, which during her tenure quadrupled in size, Anne coordinated web strategy, business objectives, content and technology.

Anne also co-founded PCI, a strategic consulting firm that specialized in alliances between the US and Europe, and whose clients included Excite, Swatch, Prodigy, Infogrames and AT&T. In 1994, Anne organized the 40,000-participant Forum of the United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing, China, securing major corporate sponsorship from Apple and Hewlett-Packard. In the late 80s, she also pioneered the Minitel system in France.

Anne holds an LLM and JD from the University of Paris and an MBA from the IEP of Paris, France.


Colleen Bisconti
Marketing Program Director, IBM
Social Media: Applications and Other Online Business Solutions

Colleen Bisconti leads the IBM Software Group Business Partner marketing team focused on event and communication activities. This key role ensures that her focus on enhancing the event experience for both Business Partners and clients has driven a shift in the IBM event mix to include innovative virtual and social media activities. In January of this year she led the development of a key Business Partner launch event that included one of the largest virtual events ever run by IBM. Over her 15 years career with IBM Software Group Colleen has held a variety of positions in both sales and marketing.


Cheemin Bo-Linn
President and CEO, Peritus Partners
Emerging Markets: Mobile Markets: New Opportunities

Cheemin Bo-Linn is CEO and President of Peritus Partners, Inc., an analytic platform and business IT consultancy. Leveraging her expertise in digital transformation and application of technology to drive competitiveness, Dr. Bo-Linn was IBM Vice-President and CSO, CRO, and Digital CMO at e-commerce, mobile, finance, and software companies. She has also been appointed to serve on the board Board of Directors and as Audit Chair for global public companies in Canada, US, and Europe, as well as private health IT, energy, digital, and tech firms.

Dr. Bo-Linn was inducted into the Women In Technology Hall of Fame in 2015. She is also a Most Influential Silicon Valley Exec awardee; was named to the Top 100 CEOs in STEM; and has been an invited speaker to the United Nations, Dow Jones, and British Chamber. She attended the University of Houston earning a Doctorate degree in Computer Information Systems, as well as the Stanford University GSB Exec Program. Dr. Bo-Linn was appointed Visiting Professor on digital tech (AI, big data, cyber security) and marketing at the joint Columbia University, London School of Business, and Hong Kong University EMBA/MBA program.


Emilie Choi
Director of Corporate Development, LinkedIn
Social Media: Adapting The Executive Profile

Emilie Choi is the Director of Corporate Development at LinkedIn. Prior to LinkedIn, she held Corporate Development and Business Operations and Strategy roles at Warner Bros. Emilie also worked in Corporate Development and Strategy at Yahoo! Inc., as well as in investment banking at Legg Mason Wood Walker, Inc. Emilie has a BA from the Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.


Kathy Chou
VP, PSG Americas Sales Strategy & Operations, Hewlett Packard
Growth: Moving Ahead By Giving Back: The New Culture of Social Responsibility in Business

Kathy Chou serves as the Vice President of Sales Strategy and Operations for the Personal Systems Group (PSG) Americas, where she is responsible for driving the sales strategy to reach HP’s aggressive growth goals.

She manages HP’s Americas Global Business support, volume sales in Latin America, growing the OEM business, sales analytics and operations. Chou focuses on increasing sales productivity through improvements in training, sales compensation, pipeline management and sales communications.

Prior to this, Chou was vice president of PSG Worldwide Commercial Sales, where she focused on growing HP’s worldwide commercial business through direct and indirect channels.

Chou holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s degree in manufacturing systems engineering from Stanford University, and a master’s of business administration from the Harvard Graduate School of Business.


Gayle Crowell
Senior Information Technology Advisor, Warburg Pincus

Gayle Crowell's role with Warburg Pincus represents the culmination of an outstanding career in the technology sector. Leveraging her extensive experience in operations, sales and organizational management, Gayle works closely with portfolio companies to help drive business strategy, evaluate market opportunities and build world-class management teams. As a former CEO, Gayle understands the challenges senior leaders face in building sustainable, long-term businesses in technology today. Her hands-on knowledge, coupled with a keen perspective into the financial markets and venture capital environment, brings a unique and valued viewpoint to the companies in the Warburg Pincus portfolio.


Jocelyn DeGance Graham
Client Development, Grail Research

Jocelyn DeGance Graham Named by Everything Channel CRN as one of the most influential women in IT, Jocelyn brings fifteen years’ experience in marketing, communications, and research helping to form strategic and business decisions for companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Arthur Andersen. Her latest venture, AllenPort, is a Cloud tech-start up recognized by Gartner as one of the ‘Coolest Emerging Technologies’ of 2010. Jocelyn is focused at the intersection of IT and Sustainability developing a Green conference track for Women in Technology (WITi), and blogging her interviews with the leaders of Silicon Valley’s corporate Sustainability programs. Jocelyn holds a Master’s degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology and a Bachelor's degree from University of California.


Laura Anne Edwards
Founder, SheCanHackIT.org and Alura Entertainment, LLC
Emerging Markets: Mobile Markets: New Opportunities

Laura Anne Edwards is an award-winning producer and media strategist with a 25-year track record delivering multi-platform advertising, branded content, marketing campaigns and original content on a global basis. She has worked closely with television networks, film studios, ad agencies, major brands and Tier 1 mobile carriers, brokering deals and managing large creative teams.

Edwards is a non-linear thinker and ideas person, who's mastered the craft of translating vision into actionable plans and results. She's had the opportunity to brand and launch television networks, produce massive live events, deliver competitive landscape reports, mediate sensitive high profile partnerships, serve on large non-profit boards, go all in on some digital startups, and be involved with a series of media firsts such as Hidef trailers appearing on Amazon, and video calendar apps for Dilbert and The New Yorker Cartoons.

Personal passions include start-ups, green tech, and bridging the tech divide, which have led her to become an Advisor to Crowdfunder.com and found DataOasis.org and SheCanHackIT.org.


Lauren Flaherty
Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Juniper
Cloud: Horizon Watch SAS

Lauren Flaherty oversees the full breadth of the Juniper Network's global marketing activities. Prior to joining Juniper, Ms. Flaherty served as CMO of Nortel Networks from 2006-2008. While at Nortel, she created a fully integrated marketing function that represented all lines of business, and created Nortel's first Global Marketing Board, which enabled the development of marketing investments that were fully aligned to sales and the company's strategic objectives. Ms. Flaherty also led many of Nortel's strategic business initiatives, including the company's first global Enterprise campaign, leadership of the company's green marketing initiatives and its bids for sponsorship of the Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 Olympic Games. Prior to Nortel, Ms. Flaherty spent 26 years at IBM in a variety of product marketing leadership positions, including software and servers. She also led many company-wide initiatives, such as Solutions for a small planet, e-business, on demand business, and marketing targeting key segments for small-and-medium businesses (SMBs). Ms. Flaherty has been recognized three times by BtoB Magazine as one of the "World's Best Marketers" and was named to the Women's Executive Network Top 100 in 2007 and 2008.


Lisa Garza
Market Manager, Service Provider Mobility Marketing, Cisco
Emerging Markets: Mobile Markets: New Opportunities

Lisa Garza is a Marketing Manager focused on the global Service Provider Mobility Market at Cisco. Lisa has over 10 years of experience in strategic technology marketing for service providers – covering technologies from the core of the network to the edge, across multiple fixed and wireless access technologies. In this capacity Lisa also maintains a focus on key industry standards organizations – she is a former member of the DSL Forum Board of Directors and is currently active in the Femto Forum. Today Lisa is responsible for solution marketing around some of the key mobile access technologies that deliver quality broadband into homes and businesses, including Service Provider WiFi and Femto.


Bernard Golden
CEO, HyperStratus
Cloud: Dark Cloud

Bernard has held senior executive positions in corporate IT, enterprise software, global consultancies, and venture capital firms. He was most recently CEO of Navica, a well-known open source management consulting firm. Previously he served as Engineering Director and Vice President for a number of companies, including Deploy Solutions, Uniplex Software, and Informix Software. He also founded and ran the Internet and New Media Laboratory for Arthur Andersen Business Consulting.

A highly-regarded author and speaker, he frequently presents at conferences on virtualization, cloud computing, and next generation applications and infrastructures. He is the Virtualization and Cloud Computing Advisor for CIO Magazine. In addition, he is the author of Virtualization for Dummies, the best-selling book on the subject ever published.


Nat Goldhaber
Founder and Managing Director, Claremont Creek Ventures (CCV)
Growth: "Raising capital, financing alternatives for business"

Nat Goldhaber is the Founder and Managing Director at Claremont Creek Ventures (CCV) , a seed and early stage venture firm known for turbocharging the uncommon startup. Mr. Goldhaber is the firm's expert on energy conservation and management systems. He serves on the boards of: Adura Technologies, Clean Power Finance, EcoFactor and TargetCast Networks. CCV has also invested in Alphabet Energy and Sentilla in the energy sector. Early in his business career, Nat Goldhaber was interim director of Pennsylvania's Energy Agency, the equivalent of Pennsylvania's Secretary of Energy.

Goldhaber also has decades of operating experience as CEO of Cybergold; Founder of Centram Systems West; founding CEO of Kaleida Labs, and as a Vice President of Sun Microsystems. He holds a Master's degree in Education and is an emeritus member of the Executive Board of the College of Letters and Science at UC Berkeley. He serves on the Advisory Board for the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs, as a member of the US Secret Service Electronics Crime Taskforce and is a Board Member of the Federation of American Scientists.


Ayalla Goldschmidt
Program Director, Application Infrastructure Marketing, WebSphere Software, IBM
Emerging Markets: Search Technologies

Ayalla Goldschmidt leads IBM’s WebSphere Application Infrastructure Worldwide Marketing organization, responsible for driving the global marketing strategy and go-to-market plan to achieve growth in this highly competitive segment. The key focus of Ms. Goldschmidt and her team is to build awareness, generate demand and enable the channels around application server, Cloud & Virtualization and Distributed Caching technologies. Over the past 15 months she championed a Web Optimization project which led to a 5400% increase in registrations to the Application Infrastructure web pages. In her previous role, she led the worldwide competitive team for WebSphere, furthering IBM’s position as the market share leader in the Application Integration Middleware segment. Prior to joining IBM, she served a diverse set of customers as a Change Management Consultant. Ms. Goldschmidt holds an MBA from the University of Georgia and a Master’s in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.


Paula Gould
CMO, GreenQloud
Social Media: Adapting The Executive Profile

Paula Gould launched boutique Public Relations shop PEG PR in 2007. She and her team have nurtured the growth of several start-ups ranging from fuel cell manufacturing to social networking to music branding companies and independent film. Paula transitioned from venue and artist management in the music industry to social media, technology and entertainment public relations, recognizing early the convergence of offline entertainment with online software and e-commerce solutions.

Paula is a staple on the Game and Web 2.0 scene and is a panelist annually on Comic Con’s “The Pitching Hour” panel. She is an Executive Board member for EmpowHer Institute, a non profit in Los Angeles dedicated to providing entrepreneurial and life skills programs to low income women so they may seek a more fulfilling life through financial independence. Paula was also an organizer for the 2010 LATwestival, part of the Twestival global initiative that helped raise funds for Concern Worldwide. http://heypeg.com


Melody Haller
CEO, Antenna Group
Emerging Markets: Greening Tech

Since 1989, Melody has worked on nearly every kind of technology and advised hundreds of businesses at all stages, from two-person startups to giants 3M and IBM. Her strengths include strategic insight, rapid pattern recognition, an intuition for trends and an instinct for the meaning behind the words. She engages at the strategic level with every account.

Her early career editing newspapers made Melody a tight, logical writer. Art-directing publications including MacWEEK developed her visual presentation and design skills. A decade as a Zen Buddhist monk taught her to pay attention, respect everyone and stay cool through crises, as well as quite a lot about practical problems involving buildings, energy, agriculture and plumbing. Her technology-industry engagement has included serving on the State of California Blue Ribbon Task Force on Nanotechnology.


Jessie Jiang
Product Management, Google
Cloud: Horizon Watch SAS

Jessie Jiang is a Group PM at Google overseeing a number of internal and external product areas related to infrastructure, platform, and performance. Prior to joining Google in 2005, Jessie worked at Intel as a product marketing manager and AT&T Research as a Principal Technical Member. Jessie received her Ph.D in Computer Science from UCLA and her MBA degree from Stanford Business School.


Laurel Kaufman
CEO, Los Angeles Consulting Group (LACG)
Growth: Capitalizing On New Revenue Streams

Laurel Kaufman has been a member of the California Bar since 2006. She received both her J.D. and M.B.A from Rutgers University. During her time on the East Coast, Laurel worked with the D.A.'s office in Special Narcotics as well as in Entertainment Law for Elam Reavis, LLC representing clients such as LL Cool J, King Britt and Jill Scott. Upon returning to Los Angeles, Laurel was Executive Vice President and In-House Counsel for Bassett, and subsequently began consulting for beauty, fashion and entertainment companies founding AK Consulting Group in 2007. Laurel’s current title is as CEO for Los Angeles Consulting Group (LACG). Laurel continues to consult creatives with a focus on restaurants, retailers, sits on the board of Totally Fabulous Females and is Managing Director for the Los Angeles Chapter or Girls in Tech, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering and educating women.


Elissa Lee
Vice President, Research, TiVo Inc.
Emerging Markets: Search Technologies

As Manager of User Research, Lee oversees all of the TiVo Inc. subscriber research. In this role, she is responsible for meeting the diverse information needs of many internal groups, helping them identify research needs and objectives, and answering them as quickly, accurately and as cost effectively as possible. In addition to training and mentoring team members, she develops and standardizes research processes.

Prior to joining TiVo, Lee served as the Head of Human Research at Casio U.S. R&D Center for 3 years where she developed user-centered research and innovation processes to guide and inform the development of connected devices. Her achievements led to her receiving a “Recognition of Outstanding Performance” award in 2000 and leveraging research findings into a patent in 2001.

As an expert in her field, she has been an invited speaker on research and innovation processes and case studies at a number of conferences.

Lee earned her B.A with honors, M.A., and Ph.D. from Stanford University, focusing on the intersection of media, narrative, and persuasion.


Sophia Lopez
BPM Product Marketing Manager, Process Modeling, IBM
Growth: Capitalizing On New Revenue Streams

Sophia Lopez is product marketing manager for IBM WebSphere Business Process Management (BPM) software. She defines category level strategy, overall market segmentation and positioning, outbound messaging, offering plans, channels/routes to market, and enablement requirements to meet revenue and profit goals. She has worked with Phaedra Boinodiris, IBM's Gaming and Interactive Marketing Manager, to help prove the case for ROI of Innov8, IBM's ground-breaking serious game bringing IT and business together for process model innovation. Currently Sophia Lopez is helping set up a forum for global discussions around process model content for the upcoming launch of CityOne, IBM's newest serious game that will help players discover how to make our planet smarter, revolutionize industries and solve real-world business, environmental and logistical problems using IBM solutions. She has led BPM thought leadership across brands and also in the social BPM arena, where the convergence of BPM and social technology, tech savvy business users, a shift in business user activities/responsibilities and globally integrated teams, has opened the doors to opportunities for business innovation and enhanced productivity. Sophia Lopez has an engineering degree from Harvard University, an MBA from UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School, and has worked previously in strategy consulting, finance, consumer packaged good marketing, and international marketing roles in the United States, Latin America, and Europe.


Joel Makower
Executive Editor, GreenBiz.com
Emerging Markets: Greening Tech

Joel Makower is a leading author and voice on the greening of mainstream business. He is executive editor GreenBiz.com and other websites, events and business information services produced by Greener World Media, of which he is co-founder and chairman. He also hosts GreenBiz.com’s annual State of Green Business Forums. Joel is author of more than a dozen books, including his latest, Strategies for the Green Economy (2008). The Associated Press has called him "The guru of green business practices."


Liza Mandeville
Sr. Program Manager, PayPal (ebay Inc.)
Social Media: Applications and Other Online Business Solutions

Liza Mandeville is a Senior Program Manager for PayPal Global Operations (an eBay company). She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Liza has worked in various engineering and project management roles in her 13 years throughout the technology industry. Currently she is program managing the PayPal.com Help Center and Contact Us which includes features such as a Virtual Agent, Community Help and Search. She is passionate about providing infrastructure and tools for customer’s to seamlessly self-help. She is a volunteer, team organizer for Race for a Cure and the PayPal Austin site lead of eWIT (Empowering Women in Technology).


Nancy Margulies
Co-Developer, The World Café
The World Cafe

NANCY MARGULIES facilitates visioning session, strategic planning and others multiple stakeholder events using processes such as The World Café and Open Space to enable participants to learn from one another and think together. Nancy’s ability to capture conversations and complex ideas using the latest technology enables her to facilitate virtual meetings, webinars and large conferences. The Centiq system she uses projects her in-the-moment graphic recording onto large screens and computers at remote locations.

Nancy worked with President Clinton and his Cabinet and has led strategic thinking sessions with leaders in the U.S. and abroad, including Kodak, Xerox Business Systems, Weyerhaeuser Paper Company, Hewlett-Packard, and Boeing. She recently designed and co-hosted a conference on technology and collective intelligence called CoLABboration for the Tech Museum in San Jose, CA.

Nancy also regularly collaborates with Meg Wheatley, author of Leadership and the New Science. Other activities include working with various national healthcare organizations, including CHA, universities and corporate executive development programs. She has also worked people as diverse as Fritjof Capra, Don Campbell and the Dalai Lama and facilitated workshops in Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Switzerland, Turkey, South Africa and India.

She co-developed The World Café process with Juanita Brown and David Isaacs. Nancy hosts Cafés throughout the world for corporations and community groups.


Melinda Matthews
IBM Director SWG Business Partners, IBM
Social Media: Adapting The Executive Profile

Melinda started her IT Sales career at a small Independent Software Vendor in Connecticut in 1988. In 1990 she became an Account Manager at Computer Associates specializing in Information Management and Systems Management.

Melinda joined IBM in 1996 as a Database specialist and moved into management in 1997 for the Information Management brand in the Americas. There she held management positions for the Brand, focusing on the Telesales, Business Partners, and Enablement. She was involved with the Informix integration and soon moved to a World Wide position for IBM in 2002.

In 2005 she became a Director in the IBM Company and held the World Wide Software Channel Sales position leading the Distribution and Reseller Programs. In 2007, Melinda was assigned to London to become the Northeast Director for ISVs and Developer Relations in Europe. In this position she lead a team that focused on Innovation, Software development within the partner community and the integration of IBM's Industry Frameworks with Business Partner Solutions.

Today Melinda is the North east Regional Director for IBM Software Business Partner sales. She resides in London, UK and Edinburgh, Scotland with her husband and teenage children. She enjoys hiking, camping, cycling and yoga. She recently cycled a half marathon for Breast Cancer and The London Bike Marathon for Leukaemia. She is a member of the Women in Technology, a STEM Ambassador for Secondary Schools, and a part of IBM's Women in Leadership Program.


Amanda McConnell
Head of Product, rent.com
Emerging Markets: Search Technologies

Amanda McConnell is the Senior Director of User Experience & Product Management at ReachLocal, Inc. (Nasdaq:RLOC), a global Internet marketing company that provides small businesses products and solutions to acquire, manage and retain customers online.

Amanda is responsible for determining enterprise-level mobile strategies for the most effective development across Web, tablet and smart phone applications. She also oversees the mobile experience for clients by leveraging mobile devices to communicate high priority campaign activity and results, as well as creating sales tools that optimize the sales process for ReachLocal’s 700-person sales force by utilizing multi-platform devices at every stage.

In her two years at ReachLocal, Amanda has drawn upon her 12-year-career in Product Management and User Experience to guide the build-out of the client portal and reporting platforms that include multi-language launches in the European Union and Asia. She is currently focused on expanding the UxUi team to become a global resource for all products, ensuring consistency and usability across internal and external applications.

Prior to ReachLocal, Amanda had focused her work in social media at companies such as BuzzMedia (Buzznet, Celebuzz) and TagWorld, as well as leading projects for Southern Poverty Law Center, California Pizza Kitchen, HealthNet and many others. She received a Bachelors of Science in Applied Mathematics, with an emphasis in Statistics from the University of California Los Angeles.


Rebecca McQuigg Rigal
Arts & Culture Ambassador, GOOD Projects
Growth: Moving Ahead By Giving Back: The New Culture of Social Responsibility in Business

Rebecca McQuigg Rigal is a trend analyst, consultant and writer living in Los Angeles. Currently she works on behalf of GOOD as the Arts & Culture Ambassador for the Pepsi Refresh Everything initiative where she populates the PRP website with relevant arts and culture-related content, works with Pepsi Refresh Grant recipients and contributes to GOOD.is.

Prior to working with GOOD, McQuigg Rigal worked as a trend forecaster and consumer research executive at The Intelligence Group, a division of Creative Artists Agency, where she contributed to industry-leading syndicated trend reports and consumer insight studies such as The Cassandra Report®, Tween Intelligence and Multi-Cultural Intelligence, wrote for IGs daily trend newsletter TrendCentral®, and served as the Editor-in-Chief of proprietary client projects and newsletters.

Rebecca’s expertise crosses a variety of industries including media, youth trends, sustainability, entertainment, fashion, beauty, technology, and retail. In this capacity, she identifies shifts in attitudes and lifestyles of consumers and helps clients to forecast the types of products, content and marketing that will in turn resonate most powerfully.

In addition to her work with GOOD, Rebecca contributes to various magazines, newsletters, and trade publications including C Magazine, iMedia’s Entertainment Spot, Lipsticktracez.com, and was selected by MySpace and The Wall Street Journal to cover the 2009 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as a citizen journalist and blogger.

Rebecca is passionate about social issues and is on the membership committee for http://www.suwn.org/Step Up Women’s Network, a national non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening community resources for women and girls; she has also served on the Marketing Committee for Do Something, an organization focused on providing young people with the tools to change the world through civil service and volunteerism, and, as an ardent advocate of the National Film Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY), McQuigg Rigal provides strategic support and counsel for the organization’s founder, Jesse Harris.

McQuigg has a B.A. in journalism from The Ohio State University.


Chirag Mehta
Office of the CEO, SAP
Cloud: Horizon Watch SAS

Chirag Mehta is a Silicon Valley veteran with 15 years of experience in strategy, design, architecture, product management, and product development in designing, building, and shipping multiple releases of world-class enterprise software such as ERP, CRM, BI, and a variety of middleware and infrastructure components for the #1 and #2 enterprise software companies in the world. He is #1 independent blogger on cloud computing with focus on strategy, architecture, and design as it relates to enterprise software and social media. He is an adjunct faculty, a coach, a mentor, and a social media freak.

In his current role he is helping SAP innovate simple, elegant, and effective applications on the next generation technology platform. Prior to that he was a strategist with the office of the CEO where he was a trusted adviser to the CEO, Chairman, and the executive management of SAP on strategic topics such as cloud computing, SaaS, Web 2.0, BI, in-memory computing, location-based applications, social media, and sustainability. He helped inform SAP's technology, product, operational, and go-to-market strategy at macro and micro levels for successful innovation in marketplace.


Nilofer Merchant
Entrepreneur, CEO & Chief Strategist, Rubicon Consulting
The SuperHero In All Of Us

CEO, Author and Strategist, Nilofer is a leading authority on creating business strategy to win markets. Having worked inside and outside major corporate brands like Adobe, Apple, Nokia, SAP and others, Nilofer has honed her collaborative approach to solving tough problems.

As Rubicon’s founder and CEO, she leads a distinguished team of operational veterans. Her firm is hired by global brands such as Hewlett-Packard, Pinnacle, Logitech, Openwave, Symantec and others to create the solutions to win markets.

Her keynotes attract SRO crowds at business leadership events, technology expos, women’s conferences and universities – ranging from AjaxWorld to CTIA and PBWC to Stanford. Having won multiple awards for her insights on applying strategic thinking and innovation, she’s been quoted or published in major business publications such as BusinessWeek, Entrepreneur, Fortune and The Wall Street Journal.

Nilofer earned her MBA from Santa Clara University, a BS in Economics from University of San Francisco and is a certified Instructor of Facilitative Leadership from Interaction Associates. O’Reilly Media is publishing Nilofer’s book on the art of collaborative strategy creation, in Fall ’09.


KL Moore
Executive Coach, KL Image Group
Social Media: Adapting The Executive Profile
Let's Put the "Business" Back Into Business Casual

KL Moore, MBA is a professional Image Consultant and seminar leader who teaches business professionals and entrepreneurs how to tailor their visual image for business success. As a former Electrical Engineer and prior boutique owner, she infuses her corporate experience with her fashion expertise to help clients understand the link between professional image and career success. She shares first-hand knowledge of how to convey the right message through attire at any weight, shape or height. From personal experience, KL knows that very few people are successful on competency alone. Business acumen, along with looking the part, are all part of her success formula.

KL is professionally trained in Custom Color Analysis by one of six worldwide Color Image Masters and studied Image Management at the International Image Institute in Canada. She currently serves on the Board for the Association of Image Consultants International. Her business, KL Image Group www.klimagegroup.com, is a professional Image Consulting Firm which specializes in corporate training, public seminars, and individual consultations. Clients love her honesty and frankness while her audience finds her passion contagious. From technical gurus to business savvy professionals, this third generation educator is excellent at teaching the nuts & bolts of wardrobe & personal style so that ANY business person can go from the “backroom” to the “boardroom”. Remember, looking the part is what sets you apart!


Adrian Ott
CEO, Exponential Edge
Growth: Capitalizing On New Revenue Streams

Adrian Ott was called, "One of Silicon Valley's most respected (if not the most respected) strategists." by Consulting Magazine. As CEO of Exponential Edge Inc. consulting (www.exponentialedge.com), she was named Silicon Valley Enterprising Woman of the Year by NAWBO-SV in 2011 for her work assisting relentless visionaries to achieve market leadership and differentiation for their companies.

Adrian is also the award-winning author of The 24-Hour Customer: New Rules for Winning in a Time-Starved, Always-Connected Economy (HarperCollins) which was named a Best Business Book of the Year in 2011 by Library Journal and USA Book News.

Adrian is an expert contributor to Fast Company. Her award-winning work has also appeared in Harvard Business Review, Strategy & Leadership Journal, Bloomberg TV, Fox News, The Washington Post, and Forbes. She keynotes frequently at private client events, for major universities (U.C., Harvard Business School alumni, USC, Rice University), industry groups such as TEDx, and was the commencement speaker for Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley in 2011

Prior to founding Exponential Edge, she was an HP executive who was recognized in an annual report for "infusing HP with new revenue streams, new technologies, and new business models." She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.S. from U.C. Berkeley.


Jean Pawluk
Chief Architect, Visa
Cloud: Dark Cloud

Jean Pawluk is Chief Architect for security at Visa with a global focus on security strategy, architecture, technology and tactics. She has over 25 years of experience in financial services and high tech industries alternating between strategic technical architecture, software development, and executive management roles at firms such as Visa, Equifax, and Tandem.

Jean developed an interest in security and cryptography early in her career developing ATM software and funds transfer networks for the financial industry. Her interest in security was re-awakened in the early 1990's when it became obvious that the Internet was totally insecure.

She immediately focused on starting new security initiatives at Tandem. Jean headed up several teams to deliver various security & strong authentication solutions to overcome those threats including the first commercial PKI system in the world in 1997 (for the government of Singapore.).

She has been a speaker and instructor to academic, business and technology groups on subjects such as data protection, regulatory compliance, electronic commerce, technology architecture and securing the Internet.

Jean is active in a number of technical and information security working groups as well as several business associations. Ms. Pawluk is currently on the board of the Silicon Valley Information Security (ISSA) grou


Michelle Price
CEO, Social Media Savvy
Social Media: Adapting The Executive Profile

Michelle Price's mantra is "Connectivity IS the New Currency".

After 23 years of working in corporate America, she leveraged her internet information junkie habit into income.

Michelle took a leap of faith to the entrepreneur lifestyle she craved – her very first client went from unknown author to NY Times best seller in 9 months. She never looked back.

A leader in using new technologies for over a decade, Michelle has always had a keen sense for the next big thing.

Today, as Founder of A Third Mind Digital Media, she’s leading the edge as a social media capitalist and master influencer who knows the real secret to turning connectivity into currency is to own the "deeper" conversation in your niche.

So she's inspiring and activating women experts with books (and other information products) to re-package, re-purpose and leverage their intellectual property into recurring revenue streams. You know - work smarter instead of harder. And turn all of that social connectivity into currency...

Although many of her clients have already made it to Oprah, blog for the Huffington Post, and have been written up in Fortune, Business Week, “O” and others...most of them are more interested in just having more free time to spend with family or to launch a world-changing movement.

Oh...for the past seven years since her escape, 100% of her clients have been referred from her own social network.


Stephanie Quay
Director of Business Development, Meebo
Social Media: Applications and Other Online Business Solutions

Stephanie Quay is Director of Business Development at Meebo, one of the Web’s fastest growing consumer Internet companies that enables almost 170 million users to instantly connect across their favorite social media networks. Quay is responsible for managing all of Meebo’s syndication efforts, as well as leading and executing the business development strategy for the company.

Quay brings more than a decade of experience in the entertainment industry and media to Meebo. Prior to joining Meebo in 2008, Quay was site director of TV.com at CNET Networks, where she helped grow the site’s traffic from five million to more than 20 million unique monthly visits. Quay also led video strategy in her post there--including the production of original content--and established key relationships with every major television network and film studio.

Earlier in her career, Quay started an IP-based video-on-demand company--Broadline Media--that focused on online video distribution. As its CEO, she was responsible for developing and executing on the vision and strategy of the company as well as content acquisition, marketing, and future sales forecasting.

Additionally, Quay founded Quantity Entertainment, an independent motion picture production company, when she was an undergraduate student. And her efforts quickly paid off: in 2000, Quay was honored with an honorable mention at the Hollywood Film Festival.

She also mentors students and young professionals who are considering becoming an entrepreneur. In her spare time, she is creating a documentary that she shot in Africa and documents the crisis of young boys who are smuggled into Senegal and forced to live on the streets.

Quay graduated from Emerson College in Boston where she studied film and television.


Michelle Robbins
Vice President of Technology, Third Door Media
Emerging Markets: Search Technologies

As Director of Technology for Third Door Media since 1996 - whose properties include Search Engine Land, Search Marketing Expo, Search Marketing Now, and Sphinn - Michelle oversees, directs and implements all technical initiatives for the brands. This includes front end (web sites) and back end (internal) systems, platforms, and custom applications.

Michelle has over 14 years experience designing, developing, deploying and marketing web sites for a variety of business sectors. From 1999 to 2006 she grew her web development consultancy to create online presences, develop custom applications and implement various web marketing initiatives for such companies as American Airlines, Honda Civic Tour, DMX Music, Pioneer Animation, and more. Prior to striking out on her own, she worked with Danny Sullivan at one of Southern California's first online agencies and web server software development startups. Before crossing over to technology and search in 1995, Michelle spent 4 years on the management team in marketing and promotion at the Walt Disney Company's record label (Hollywood Records).

Michelle has two bachelor degrees from the Univeristy of California, Irvine, and lives in Long Beach, California with her husband and two young children. Learn more about Michelle here and here or connect with Michelle on Twitter and LinkedIn.


Patricia Santamaria
WebSphere Demand Program Marketing Manager, IBM
Social Media: Why It's Imperative To Integrate Social Media into Your Business Strategy

Patricia Santamaria joined IBM in 2003. During her tenure, she has supported the IBM IMPACT event and technology events around the world. Most recently, she drives demand generation activities around the globe in support of the WebSphere brand and IBM's Smarter Planet Initiative. She co-leads the IBM Super Women's Group chapter in NYC which kicked off in 2009 and plans to initiate a local Connecticut Super Women's Group winter of 2010. Patricia joined the Demand Programs Team in June of 2010 as the Smart Work Demand Program Marketing Manager. Patricia holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration as well as a Master’s degree in Public Relations. She wrote her thesis on Social Media Marketing and continues to support IBM's foray into Social Media. In her free time, Patricia enjoys Tae Kwon Do and spending time with her family and friends.


Paula Satow
President & CEO, Satow Strategies LLC and Buzzuka.com
Social Media: Why It's Imperative To Integrate Social Media into Your Business Strategy

Paula Satow is an expert brand marketing consultant devoted to bringing the expertise of big company branding (which she learned from years of experience at Fortune 500 companies including Intel, Johnson & Johnson, GE and RCA) down to size for the rest of us -- small businesses, start-ups, non profits as well as micropreneurs and job seekers. Since 2002, Paula's brand consultancy, Satow Strategies has been helping companies in a variety of markets from technology to energy, consumer goods to healthcare, develop their unique positioning, naming, brand strategies, web marketing, social media and go-to-market programs. In 2009, to pursue their long-standing dream to put smart business tools in the hands of self-starters and micropreneurs everywhere, Paula and parters launched Buzzuka.com, the website for people, companies and groups to quickly and easily create and launch their powerful 30-second elevator pitch. Paula also offers Personal Positioning workshops for career and community organizations as well as Brand Strategy workshops for intact corporate teams. Paula is working on a series of specialized books on brand communications based on years of practical experience and her blogs.


Ann Saydah
General Business and Channel Sales, IBM
Cloud: Horizon Watch SAS

Ann Saydah leads worldwide channel sales for IBM's WebSphere portfolio of application and integration middleware. She helps IBM Business Partners deliver business and IT solutions in private and public Clouds for medium and large enterprises. She works with independent software vendors, Web 2.0 software-as-a-service providers, infrastructure-as-a-service providers and platform-as-a-service providers, as well as systems integrators and R&D services firms around the globe. Ann has 15 years of experience in Business Development and Channels and has built her career driving new business opportunity and sales growth with emerging technology and early adopters. Ann serves on the SaaS & Cloud Advisory Board of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council.


Becky Swain
Program Manager, Security Assurance Services, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Cloud: Dark Cloud

Mrs. Swain is a subject matter expert in data-specific Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) principles with over 10 years of experience in designing, implementing, optimizing and measuring the effectiveness of information security and privacy policies, processes and controls.

As co-founder of the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Controls Matrix (CM) working group, Mrs. Swain led a grass-roots effort to create an open standards-based security control framework as guidance for cloud service providers and measurable assessment criteria for cloud consumers, mapped and baselined to commonly-known privacy regulations and industry security standards, including COBIT, HIPAA, ISO/IEC 27002-2005, NIST SP800-53, and PCI-DSS.

At Cisco, Mrs. Swain serves a consultative role for ensuring Cisco products and services that process personally-identifiable information (PII), payment card data or personal health information (PHI) subject to privacy regulatory controls are designed with compliance in mind. Her other responsibilities include helping to shape Cisco’s cloud compliance initiatives, liaising between Internal Audit and IT to ensure and measure on-time audit remediation closure, and coordinating responses to customer security inquiries and negotiating customer contractual provisions.

Prior to joining Cisco, Mrs. Swain was a Senior Auditor and Consultant for KPMG leading SOX, SAS 70 and privacy regulatory audit and risk assessments for global financial, retail and technology companies based in Silicon Valley.

Mrs. Swain holds a BS in Computer Science from Santa Clara University with an emphasis in Information Assurance, Network Security and Cryptology and holds the following professional certifications: Certified Information Privacy Professional / Information Technology (CIPP/IT), Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), and Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA).


Joey Tamer
Consultant, Expert, JoeyTamer.com
Growth: "Raising capital, financing alternatives for business"

Joey Tamer (www.joeytamer.com) is a "shadow CEO," extending her entrepreneur-clients' bandwidth. She consults to product and service companies, and to consultancies. She has worked in the U.S., Europe, China and Qatar.

Successes include the 1st Internet B2B IPO with $30M to each of the founders in year 5; the sale of a husband/wife software company for $50M in year 4; the raising of $2.2M in seed capital with no equity out, for a software venture she built in China; and the sale of a start-up Internet company within 8 months of writing their first investment pitch piece.

Her Fortune 500 clients retain her to start in-house new business unit initiatives; these have included J.P. Morgan Capital, Sony, IBM, Apple, Hearst, Blockbuster, Technicolor, Harper Collins, Discovery Channel, Time-Warner, Agfa and Scitex. Among her many early stage ventures, she includes Earthweb (IPO 1998) and iSuppli.

She speaks and publishes widely on entrepreneurship. Her published credits include 5 books, 60 published articles, and a weblog with hundreds of blogposts of advice to entrepreneurs. Her website is www.joeytamer.com and she can be reached at joey @ joeytamer.com, or 1+310 245 5310.


R "Ray" Wang
Partner for Enterprise Strategy, Altimeter Group
Cloud: Applied Cloud
Cloud: Dark Cloud
Cloud: Horizon Watch SAS

A highly sought after thought leader focused on enterprise strategy and disruptive technologies, R “Ray” Wang has advised organizations and spoken to audiences around the world. His dynamic presentation style brings life and energy to technology and business topics such as business process transformation, next generation software, SaaS/Cloud solutions, social CRM, analytics, and ERP. He is the author of the popular enterprise software blog “A Software Insider’s Point of View.” With viewership in the millions of page views a year, his blog provides insight into how disruptive technologies and business models impact the CXO, enterprise apps strategy, and emerging business and technology trends.

Ray works with organizations to provide strategic guidance in a variety of business scenarios including designing go-to-market strategies; reviewing and designing software licensing, pricing, support, and maintenance policies; delivering competitive assessments; evaluating software partner ecosystems, and researching business processes such as the perfect order and continuous customer management for the enterprise and SMB markets.

News outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Fortune, Inc., CIO Magazine, Information Week, ComputerWorld, Financial Times, eWeek, IDG News, ZDNet, and CNBC frequently seek his point of view.

Ray is currently at Partner for Enterprise Strategy at Altimeter Group. Prior to joining Altimeter, he was VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester, where he was recognized in both 2008 and 2009 by the prestigious Institute of Industry Analyst Relations (IIAR) as the Analyst of the Year and in 2009 he was recognized as one of the most important analysts for Enterprise, SMB, and Software.


Chenxi Wang
Principal Analyst, Forrester Research, Inc.
Cloud: Dark Cloud

Dr. Wang is a Principal Analyst on Forrester's Security and Risk team. She covers cloud security, application and content security for Forrester. Chenxi is a frequent keynote speaker in research and industry conferences. Prior to joining Forrester, Chenxi was an Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University. At CMU, Chenxi led a number of large research projects, including efforts funded by the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation. Chenxi conducted consultative projects for the Federal Trade Commission, HP Labs, Lucent, and a number of Venture Capital companies. Earlier on in her career, Chenxi held one of the first research associate position at Citibank’s Corporate Information Security Office(CISO), the very first CISO designation in the country. Chenxi holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Virginia. Her Ph.D. thesis research received an ACM Ph.D. thesis award.


James Watters
Sr. Manager, vCloud Solutions, VMware
Cloud: Applied Cloud

James Watters is currently the Sr. Manager of Cloud Solutions Development at VMware where he is responsible for developing partner run public cloud computing solutions. He is active in the SF Bay Area technology community and organizes the SF Cloud Club. Prior to VMware James held positions in sales, corporate strategy, product management and engineering at Sun Microsystems and Level 3 Communications. Over his career James has focused on strategic issues around scaled data-center infrastructure, open source and virtualization software.


Ghennipher Weeks
Consultant, Agile Marketing Partners
Social Media: Why It's Imperative To Integrate Social Media into Your Business Strategy

Ghennipher Weeks is a highly skilled Online Media Marketing Professional specializing in Social Media Strategy and Analytics. She has successfully trained teams and developed client strategies in the SEO/PPC/Conversion/and Social Media spaces. 10 years of experience in creating conversion-driven and insightful Search Engine Marketing strategies for national and regional brands makes Ghennipher a veteran professional in the relatively new field of Internet Marketing.

After spending her early years in web development and SEO, Ghennipher gained Analytics experience working as a consultant for Online Conversion Consulting firm Future Now, Inc. She used the valuable skills learned in that engagement as she took on consulting projects for Pay Per Click management agencies, SEO/PR firms, and their clients. Her analytical vision has been the revenue-boosting blueprint for the many successful Internet Marketing projects she’s managed.


Bill Weihl
Green Energy Czar, Google
Emerging Markets: Greening Tech

Bill Weihl is Green Energy Czar at Google, where he leads efforts in energy efficiency and renewable energy, and also manages the company's greenhouse-gas footprint. He is an experienced technologist, entrepreneur, and committed environmentalist with deep and broad experience in computer science. His extensive business and high-tech experience includes ten years as a professor of Computer Science at MIT, five years as a research scientist at Digital's Systems Research Center, and five years as Chief Architect and then CTO of Akamai Technologies.


Lizzie Widhelm
Vice President of National Advertising Sales, Pandora
Growth: Capitalizing On New Revenue Streams

As Vice President of National Advertising Sales, Lizzie Widhelm is instrumental in driving Pandora’s success with entertainment, film and TV advertisers. Thanks to her deep understanding of Pandora listeners and what engages them, she specializes in translating listener insights into engaging campaigns for advertisers. At Pandora, she works with top-name entertainment clients, ranging from ABC to Universal Pictures, as well as other business categories, including Visa, Nike, Honda, H-P and Google. She spearheaded Pandora’s first ever Artist Exclusive with Dave Matthews in June 2009. Previously, she worked with startups such as Broadband Enterprises, a video network, and game companies iWin, Uproar and Flipside before and subsequent to their sale to Vivendi Universal.






Lorie Wigle
General Manager of Eco-Technology, Intel
Emerging Markets: Greening Tech

Lorie Wigle leads Intel’s Eco-Technology effort, which is focused on the sustainable manufacturing and usage of Intel’s products. This corporation-wide function drives Intel’s market position across energy efficient performance and design for the environment. She also drives external programs related to client, server and data center efforts including Intel’s participation in Green Grid and the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. Recently Lorie’s team also launched the Intel Open Energy Initiative to focus internal and external efforts on promoting standards and computing solutions in the electricity industry. In recognition of this work, Lorie was recently named one of the 3 most powerful women in smart grid by SmartGridNews.com. Lorie has been with Intel for 26 years in a wide variety of marketing and product planning roles and was the general manager of Intel's Internet Imaging Services group.


Teresa Zobrist
President & CEO, Zobrist Consulting Group, Inc
Social Media: Applications and Other Online Business Solutions


Special Events

Katie Boehret
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
15th Annual WITI Hall of Fame Awards Dinner

Katherine A. (Katie) Boehret is a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, where she has worked since 2002 in the office of columnist Walt Mossberg. She writes the weekly Mossberg Solution column, a review of consumer technology that appears in the paper and online every Wednesday, and creates a weekly video that coincides with the column. She appears weekly on ABC's "America This Morning" to discuss her weekly reviews.

Ms. Boehret has appeared on ABC's "The Martha Stewart Show" as well as on BBC World News. In 2004, and again in 2007, she was honored as one of the 30 most promising young business journalists by Newsbios.com.

Ms. Boehret is a graduate of the University of Delaware.


WITI Summit Speakers, Panelists and Moderators

Cathy Brooks
Founder, Other Than That
What's Your Story? How Personal Storytelling online Can Help You In Business

What began for Cathy as a career telling other people’s stories has evolved into a journey of helping others to tell their own stories for themselves. A “classically trained” Journalist, Cathy’s passion for communications began with her first job ripping wire copy in 1982 and has evolved to encompass nearly every platform and aspect of media – from reporting and editing to broadcast management, talent casting and guest booking. Cathy also has curated the content for several of the technology industry’s leading conferences.

However, it was after finding herself engaged as an activist for the LGBT equal rights movement that Cathy began to explore the way in which personal stories inform and influence people’s everyday lives. Deeply steeped in the latest digital platforms and social media technologies, Cathy began teaching people to make these connections of personal stories, using new technologies as the medium.

Currently running her own consulting firm in San Francisco, Cathy works with companies and individuals helping them navigate the crowded waterways of new technologies with the express purpose of leveraging these rapidly evolving platforms to tell their stories. Through workshops, seminars and strategic consulting services, Cathy walks clients through the story-telling process and towards the kind of deep engagement that comes from truly authentic communication.

Every week Cathy brings these discussions to life on Social Media Hour, a live, call-in, talk show on which industry leaders and average folks share their experiences and tell their stories. The program, for which Cathy is Executive Producer and Host, puts new technologies in human terms, and gives the audience a chance to interact via text chat and phone.

Her last full-time j-o-b, type job had Cathy leading the charge on business development for Seesmic, a San Francisco-based start-up that enables global conversation using video as the conduit. While there, Cathy secured and managed the company’s relationships with top media organizations such as 20th Century Fox, The BBC and The Washington Post.

Prior to Seesmic, Cathy worked with Guidewire Group – a global analyst firm focused on emerging markets and technologies. During that time, Cathy created and hosted "I of Innovation", a weekly talk show providing a unique perspective an insight to the processes and people behind the latest technology trends. On Guidewire Group’s behalf she also launched “Six Minutes With”, a weekly podcast series for Network World.

Cathy also produced two of Guidewire Group’s conferences – Innovate!Europe and Leadership Forum. In both cases Cathy identified and booked top speakers as well as moderated and emceed the events. For several years Cathy also played a role in content curation for LeWeb, the largest technology gathering in Europe.

Back in the day, Cathy worked at TechTV, running the talent and guest booking departments, and over the years has held several executive positions with PR agencies ranging from business development to account management.

When not traveling or meandering the digital world of the Web, Cathy can be found seeking the perfect hamburger in San Francisco, CA.


Special Events

Wanda Gass
DSP Systems Group, Texas Instruments
Collaborative Philanthropy: Touching Lives Locally, Nationally and Globally

Wanda Gass is a TI Fellow in the Dallas Digital Signal Processing (DDSP) Design Team. In this position she is responsible for DSP core specification and performance validation. Wanda joined Texas Instruments in 1980 and holds 3 patents for her pioneering work in the first generation DSP processors. During her career at TI she has been responsible for advanced development of semiconductor devices for applications including speech recognition, speech coding, video compression, image processing for cellular phones and digital cameras. Wanda is an IEEE Fellow, Program Chair for International Solid State Circuits Conference and has published more than 15 papers.

Wanda was the founding chair of the Work/Life Team that was responsible for changing TI policies, work schedule flexibility and creating several programs at TI that have resulted in TI being named 100 Best Companies in Working Mothers magazine for more than tens years. She is a member of the Founder’s Circle for the Women of TI Fund that promotes the empowerment of girls to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math. She was one of the people highlighted in the book “Changing Our World: True Stories of Women Engineers”.

Wanda was in the Leadership Texas class of 2003 and inducted into the WITI Hall of Fame in 2003. She is on the Board of Directors for the nonprofit organization, The Learning Center of North Texas. Wanda is married to Richard and has 2 daughters, one in college and one in 11th grade.


Duy-Loan Le
Senior Fellow, Texas Instruments
Collaborative Philanthropy: Touching Lives Locally, Nationally and Globally

Duy-Loan came to America with nothing but clothes on her back at the age of 12. Four years later, having taught herself English at night, Duy-Loan graduated as Valedictorian of her high school at 16. In 1982, Duy-Loan graduated from UT with BSEE Magna Cum Laude and started as a memory design engineer at the age of 19 with Texas Instruments. Duy-Loan received her MBA in 1989. She is currently the World Wide Advanced Technology Ramp Manager, directing development projects using cutting edge technology at Texas Instruments.

In 2002, Duy-Loan became the first Asian and the first woman to get elected to the rank of Senior Fellow (equivalent to Senior VP), joining 4 other men who held this prestigious title world wide at the time at Texas Instruments (TI). Today Duy-Loan continues to be the only woman to hold this title in TI’s 80 years of history. Duy-Loan holds 23 patents with 7 pending applications. She has been featured in IEEE (the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) SPECTRUM, Asian Enterprise trade journals, a book titled "The Pride of Vietnamese", and numerous local and international newspapers. Duy-Loan serves on the Board of Directors for National Instruments, a publicly traded company on NASDAQ and headquartered in Austin. Duy-Loan is a registered Professional Engineer (PE) and is frequently invited to speak at Fortune 500 companies.

Duy-Loan has a very long list of accolades. Her favorites include Women In Technology International (WITI) Hall of Fame, National Technologist Of The Year, TimesPeople, Asian American Engineer of The Year, Who's Who in the World, Women of Vision: Leadership, Top 15 Women in Business, VANG’s Golden Torch, and United States Congressional Recognition for Civic Leadership. One of TI’s DSP chips under Duy-Loan’s leadership was recognized in 2004 Guinness World Records.

Duy-Loan's service to the community is extensive. Among many of the things that she does in America and internationally, she enjoys most providing education assistance for children and supporting social economic developments projects in 12 different countries through two 501c3 foundations Mona Foundation and Sunflower Mission.

Duy-Loan Le is married to her husband Tuan N. Dao for 27 years. She has two boys, Quy-Dan 16 and Quy-Don 13. She enjoys deep sea fishing, reading, movie, classical music, painting, and playing poker. Duy-Loan also holds a black belt in Tae-Kwon-Do and has won several medals and trophies in the State of Texas.


Carolyn Leighton
Founder/Chairwoman, WITI
Founders Reception

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 has received numerous accolades, twice named as one of the "Top 100 Women in Computing." More recently, she was named one of Fast Company Magazine's "Most Influential Women in Technology."


Melendy Lovett
President, Texas Instruments Education Technology
Collaborative Philanthropy: Touching Lives Locally, Nationally and Globally

Melendy Lovett is President of Texas Instruments (TI) Education Technology and Senior Vice President of Texas Instruments, Incorporated. She leads TI’s math and science education technology products and services division, serving secondary schools and higher education worldwide. She is also a member of TI’s strategic leadership team reporting to the CEO.

Lovett has extensive experience in bringing people, technology and financial goals together to achieve improved business results. She held previous high-impact leadership roles in human resources, finance, information technology, and consulting.

Lovett has a long-standing personal commitment and passion for math and science education. She helped found and leads an initiative of TI women who are working to improve math and science education for girls in middle and high school (the Women of TI Fund).

Lovett is a current board member for Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and the AVID Center.

Her awards include election into the Women of Technology International Hall of Fame (WITI), recognition by the University of Texas at Dallas as a distinguished alumni, and being named one of Dallas-Fort Worth's "Top 25 Changemakers" by the Dallas Business Journal.

She is a Certified Public Accountant with a Masters degree in Accounting from UTD and a Bachelor's degree in Management from Texas A&M.


Judy Shaw
Director, Advanced Module Development, External Development and Manufacturing, Texas Instruments
Collaborative Philanthropy: Touching Lives Locally, Nationally and Globally

Judy Shaw is Director, Advanced CMOS Module Development, for Texas Instruments External Development and Manufacturing. She is responsible for delivery of silicon process technology through collaboration with silicon foundries and other external partners. The central goal of Judy's team is to continue TI's leadership technology momentum in chip scaling and on-chip integration, combined with device performance. Building on the foundation of their experience with highly successful internal development, Judy and her team have forged new partnerships and developed innovative methods of supplier management to achieve this goal.

In her prior role as Manager of Silicon Technology Development (SiTD) 90-Nanometer and 45-Namometer Process Engineering teams at TI, Judy was the first female leader to work at this leadership level in developing process technology at TI. The processes delivered by her team are used to support more than 20 percent of TI's total revenue.

Ms. Shaw excelled in a manufacturing environment as the Process Engineering Manager of DMOS5, TI's first 200-mm wafer fabrication facility. In this role, from 1995 through 2000, she provided leadership for process implementation and improvement while the factory transformed from a cleanroom under construction to TI's largest fabrication facility, producing 42,000 200-mm silicon wafers per year. She is the only woman at TI, to date, to manage a Process Engineering group during the critical fab startup period.

Ms. Shaw has promoted the roles of women and diversity, and the importance of education, throughout her leadership career. These efforts have included mentoring many individuals within TI and through external mentoring programs, as well as leading diversity programs within SiTD. She is a co-Founder of the Women of TI Fund, a unique, donor-advised fund that promotes opportunities for high-school girls in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education, and has assisted with the fund's fundraising efforts. From 2004-2008 she was an Appointee, and 2006 Chair, of the Texas Workforce Development Grant Advisory Committee. Working in this board, Judy promoted programs at Texas universities that increase STEM enrollment, retention, and graduation rates. Judy is a Board Director and the Treasurer of Real Options for Women, a non-profit Pregnancy Resource Center in Plano, Texas. She is a 2004 graduate of Leadership Texas.

Judy and her husband Tom have two grown children. Benjamin is China Director for the Edanz Group, a technology publishing firm. Whitney is a preschool teacher. Tom and Judy own Cardinal Ranch, a small ranch in Blue Ridge, Texas. Their favorite weekend activities include slowly building up the gardens and a small herd of Belted Galloway cattle.


Dr. Ruth Westheimer
Fellow, New York Academy of Medicine, Yale and Princeton Universities
Special Presentation

Everyone knows her as Dr. Ruth, the woman who survived the Holocaust orphaned only to become one of the most famous science educators in the world candidly relating to millions on all issues concerning human sexuality through mass media. The 82 yr. old grandmother still shares her expertise with humor to vast audiences and challenges the scientific and academic community to further serious research. Dr. Ruth opened up an entire field for women by serving as a role model to other women writing books and speaking publicly about sexual and reproductive freedom. She is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, Yale and Princeton Universities and a full Professor at NYU. She has twice been named "College Lecturer of the Year." She is currently serving as the Honorary President of the Council on Sexuality and Aging at the National Sexuality Resource Center.


And more to be announced soon!