The World's Communications Conference and Expo

» The Role of Unified Communications in Social Work Patterns

4PSA

Mike Ross
President

For almost 30 years, Mike Ross has seen the industry from a number of vantage points: President/CEO Acredo Technology, Inc., COO of Esna Technologies., President/Owner/Partner of Aculab, USA., Vice President Sales and Marketing/Director/Owner/Partner of Rhetorex., Vice President of Sales and Marketing/Owner/Partner of Dialogic Inc. Currently Mike is heading up his latest effort as President/Director of the Americas for 4PSA, a company that is focused on Cloud Computing technology and services for the Telecommunication Industry.

Session(s):

8x8 Inc.

Kim Niederman
Sr. VP Worldwide

Kim Niederman, Senior Vice President of Sales, is responsible for the 8x8 sales organization, sales partners and channel development. Niederman is an experienced senior executive with a proven track record at public and private companies, including Cisco Systems, Wang Laboratories, Polycom, FORE Systems and LongBoard. He most recently served as Senior Vice President of NComputing, Inc. and just prior to that as President and CEO of Anagran, Inc.

As Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Polycom, Niederman grew sales from $420M in 2003 to $920M in 2007. Niederman also was President and CEO of LongBoard, Inc., a leading software-based Class 5 IP services platform startup that deployed its softswitch technology to telecom service providers worldwide. Prior to LongBoard, he was Vice President of Sales for start-up RadioLAN, the first developer of 10MB WLANs and Vice President of Sales at FORE Systems. As a sales executive at Cisco Systems in the early 1990s, he served in various executive capacities including Director, Worldwide Sales. He holds a B.A. in political science from the University of Denver.

Session(s):

» How Channel Partners Can Benefit from the Paradigm Shift to Cloud-Based Services

8x8, Inc.

Huw Rees
Vice President Business and Channel Development

Huw Rees serves as 8x8s Vice President of Business Development and was previously Chief Executive Officer of Centile, Inc., a former subsidiary of 8x8. Rees was responsible for the change in 8x8s marketing and sales strategy away from an OEM approach to a focus on end-users including both consumers and small businesses. He has been closely involved with telecommunications technology for over 20 years, beginning with Marconi PLC in 1985, where he opened and managed their Western US sales office, growing sales from zero to over $8M in annual revenue in less than eighteen months. He has also held management roles with Plessey Inc., and with Mitel Corporation, where he was responsible for adding more than $20M in additional annual revenue for Mitels communication products. Rees received a B.Sc. (Hons) from the University of Manchester, Institute of Science and Technology in Electrical and Electronic Engineering and an MBA from the University of LaVerne.

Session(s):

» Enterprise SBCs: Extending Beyond Interoperability

Acme Packet

Steve Collins
VP of Marketing

Stephen Collins has three decades experience successfully bringing to market innovative, technology-driven products, including extensive experience in early stage company environments, delivering leading edge products into rapidly growing, emerging markets.He began his career in 1981 as a member of technical staff at pre-divestiture AT&T Bell Labs, then worked with early Internet routers at BBN Communications and in 1986 was a founding engineer at Wellfleet Communications, where he served in technical and business positions of increasing responsibility for almost ten years.In 1998 Stephen co-founded Spring Tide Networks, where he served as vice president of marketing and business development until the companys acquisition by Lucent Technologies. He has held executive marketing and business development roles with other communications infrastructure companies including StarBurst Communications, Sonus Networks, ThinkEngine Networks and Tatara Systems. Stephen has also served as an advisor and consultant to a number of early stage companies and their investors. Stephen holds an M.S. in computer engineering from the University of Michigan, and a B.S. in computer engineering from the University of Massachusetts. He serves on the advisory board for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Massachusetts, and is a director of the UMass Foundation

Session(s):

Actiance

Sarah Carter
VP

Sarah Carter, VP, FaceTime Communications IncAt 17 Sarah joined the workforce as a taxi driver and remembers her roots well, so you can expect an interesting tour through the ins and outs of Social Networking and Web 2.0. Anecdotes and customer stories are of course inevitable, (and gratuities are expected). It took a stint with IBM, a software developer in Canada before she moved to the UK IT security market some (ahem) 12 years ago, where she joined the management team of a UK security integrator, floated the company on AIM, acquired others and then sold it. Having spent four years working with FaceTime customers and partners throughout Europe and Asia, Sarah recently relocated to HQ in California. Sarah works with FaceTime clients on best practice social media and collaboration strategies in Europe and the USA and regularly speaks on the topic on both continents.

Session(s):

» Securing Social Media for Compliant Collaboration

Adhearsion

Ben Klang

Session(s):

» OpenSource Voice Apps: Introduction to Adhearsion

ADTRAN, Inc.

Jeff Wissing
Senior Product Manager, Unified Communications, Enterprise Networks Division

Jeff Wissing has an extensive career in the telecommunications industry. Prior to joining ADTRAN in 2009, he served as director of Product Management and Systems Engineering for Objectworld Communications. While at Objectworld, he was responsible for bridging the gap between enterprise telephone systems and computer telephony applications. And at Nokia, he was responsible for defining next-generation IP Voice networks for both enterprise and service provider customers. With a wealth of experience, Wissing offers a broad knowledge of networking technologies and telecom applications including telecom platforms, messaging solutions, call center applications, personal productivity tools and wireless technologies. In addition, Wissing holds a Bachelor of Science degree (with Honors) in Electrical Engineering from Queens University.

Session(s):

» UC in the Cloud: Understanding the Benefits and Challenges

Alcatel-Lucent

Lisa Abbott
Senior Manager, Product Marketing

With twenty five years of experience as a senior software marketing executive, Lisa Abbott has a long track record of successfully driving marketing strategies for products that harness the web as a customer channel. Within her past experience, Lisa has worked with brands including Charles Schwab, Autodesk and Informix Software to drive migration to and investment of new web-based products and services, as well as increase collaboration across the organization. As a Sr. Product Marketing Manager of Alcatel-Lucent, Lisa is currently responsible for defining the marketing strategy and execution of the Genesys eServices and Social Media products worldwide. Within this role she is constantly acting as a resource for organizations that are looking to evolve their customer service interaction beyond voice, and has been recognized as an industry leader through speaking opportunities and forums at various industry events.

Session(s):

» Socialize Your Contact Center for Greater Customer Engagement

Alert Logic

Matt Harkrider
Co-founder and Senior Systems Engineer

Matt Harkrider is a co-founder and Senior Systems Engineer for Alert Logic. In his role, Matt is responsible for consulting with clients across a variety of verticals, including Education, Healthcare, Finance and Retail on best practices for implementing Alert Logic solutions to improve their security and compliance posture. Matt has over 9 years of experience working with information security technology with such companies as Reliant Energy Communications and Insync Internet Services.

Session(s):

» Comprehensive Security & Compliance for Fast-Moving Businesses

Alteva

William Bumbernick
Chief Innovation Officer

Mr. Bumbernick has over 12 years of senior management and entrepreneurial experience in telecommunications, IT and managed services. Since 1994, he has been involved at executive levels of leadership and Boards of Directors within the technology and telecommunication sectors. Since 2003, Bumbernick has been focused on emerging VoIP and Unified Communications technologies with the success and tremendous growth of Alteva. Bumbernick has been recognized by Smart Business Magazine as an expert in the emerging technology of VoIP and has been published in leading publications on converged voice services.

Session(s):

AudioCodes

Alan Percy
Director, Market Development

Mr. Percy is Director of Market Development at AudioCodes, a leading provider of Voice over IP Telephony products and enabling technology. In this role, Mr. Percy is responsible for identifying market trends and building relationships to foster new business opportunities. Mr. Percy joined AudioCodes in 2001 and brings over two decades of experience in the telecommunications, networking and wireless equipment industries. Mr. Percy is a frequent industry speaker and contributes to a number of industry journals and blogs including “The SIP Invite” and “NoJitter.com

Session(s):

» Enterprise SBCs: Extending Beyond Interoperability

Avaya

Christian Goffi
APS Service Practice Leader

Christian Goffi, a Practice Leader with Avaya Professional Services. Christian is responsible for leading key growth areas for Avaya including the creation and growth of the CALA consulting team. Additionally, Christian is a Social Media Strategist and the global Program leader for Social Media Consulting within Avaya Professional Services. Moreover, Christian is tasked with guiding and leading the CALA APS Business Development and Offer Management team.

Session(s):

» The Contact Center: The Key to Social Media Success

Axis Teknologies

Eric Moore
Chief Operations and Technology Officer

Eric Moore, Executive Vice President Technology, brings over 20 years of wireless experience, strong leadership, and a proven track record for success to his role as Executive Vice President Technology. During the course of his accomplished career, he has applied his technical and business skills in a variety of positions at the regional, national and international levels. Prior to joining Axis Teknologies, Eric was Director of Network Management Center at Tellus, a Canadian telecom company with $9 billion annual revenues, and held several senior management positions at Cingular, a Tier 1 USA wireless service provider, including Director of South Eastern Operations. Eric has extensive hands on experience in with GSM, TDMA and NGN technology as well as E911 network compliance. Erics in-depth understanding of wireless network infrastructure has resulted in millions of dollars in cost savings, and has contributed to the growth of core networks by as much as 25 percent. Eric holds a Master of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration.

Session(s):

Brand Magnet

Jon Eisenstein
SVP & CIO

Session(s):

» How MNOs Can Leverage a Cloud Platform to Deliver UC

BroadSoft

Curtis Hartmann
Senior Director, Solutions

As Director, Product Management, Curtis Hartmann owns end-to-end responsibility for BroadSoft’s SIP Trunking solution. With over 15 years of experience in telecommunications software, he has held leadership positions in software development, product management and business development at ADC NewNet and Interswitch. Before coming to BroadSoft, Curtis was at Cisco Systems, where he was responsible for Cisco’s cable telephony softswitch. He is a seasoned speaker and presenter to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Session(s):

Broadview Networks

George Grabowich
Managing Director, Cloud Computing Services

George Grabowich has over 25 years of business oriented sales, marketing and product development experience with leading communications service providers and B2B application software vendors both in the wireless and wireline areas including Broadview Networks, Cingular / RAM Mobile Data, AT&T Local Services, Teleport Communications Group (TCG), Metromedia Communications, Passport Corporation, Portable Internet and ITT. While with ATT/TCG he successfully grew switched services revenues from $20M in annual revenue in 1995 to $205M in revenue in 1997. After the merger with AT&T, George created and ran the Wholesale Local division of AT&T Local Services and grew revenues within this segment from $168M in 1998 to $481M by the end of 2000 selling wholesale services primarily to wireless carriers, cable MSOs, VoIP service providers, IXCs and ISPs. Most recently, George planned and launched Broadview Networks Cloud Computing suite in early 2011. Mr. Grabowich has a deep technical and business understanding of the wireline and wireless marketplace as well as a strong understanding of the Cloud Computing space and how it applies to businesses of all sizes, especially SMB.

Session(s):

» Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Cloud: Top 10 Reasons SMB’s Need Not Fear the Cloud

Broadview Networks

Joe Corvaia
Vice President, Solution Engineering

Joe Corvaia is Vice President of Solution Engineering at Broadview Networks, a New York-based communications and cloud solutions provider. He has more than 15 years of experience in Managed Services, Cloud Computing, Cloud VoIP, Hosting, Network Integration, and Professional Services.

He is responsible for leading Broadview’s technical sales, pre-sale engineering, and cloud computing/VoIP over-lay divisions throughout the company’s service footprint, with an emphasis on driving the success of Broadview’s hosted solutions nationally.

Corvaia brings extensive cross-functional experience, including business management, product strategy, sales, marketing, and pre-sale engineering. He is a frequent speaker at industry events, specializing in cloud solutions and strategies.

Prior to joining Broadview, Corvaia was vice president of sales and marketing for a regional Unified Communications solutions provider, and spent more than 9 years with ATX Communications in various senior leadership roles.

Corvaia holds numerous industry-recognized technical certifications in network design, network security, and engineering.

Session(s):

Broadvox

Chad Krantz
Director of Channel Sales

Chad Krantz, Executive Director of Channel Sales for Broadvox Communications, is a skilled sales and marketing executive with a deep telecommunication industry background. His vast experience with telecom hardware and networks built for the SMB and Enterprise telecommunication marketplace provides him with a keen understanding that benefits his channel partners. With over 15 years in the communications’ industry, he understands the unique issues involved with doing business successfully in this marketplace.

Prior to joining Broadvox, Chad held management positions with NewSouth Communications, NuVox Communications, and Carrier Services, Inc. Chad holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Emory & Henry College and a Masters in Business Administration degree from Lenoir Rhyne University. He also holds the SSMP and SSCA SIP certifications.

Session(s):

» Picking a Winning Mix: Keys to Cloud Service Success

CA Technologies

Wendy M. Petty
Senior Advisor, Business Development, Cloud Strategy & Solutions

Wendy Petty has over 25 years experience bringing emerging software technologies to market. She has successfully built startup organizations taking them from startup to profitable multimillion dollar companies. Wendy has expertise in many aspects and has successfully built businesses through leveraging partnerships. Today at CA Technologies, Wendy is responsible for bringing the CA AppLogic® cloud computing platform to market, and her main area of focus is the service provider community. She has spent the past 5 years working with MSPs to build a business based on offering backup and disaster recovery as a cloud service.

Session(s):

Cbeyond Cloud Cloud Services

Jeff Uphues
VP Sales & Marketing

Jeff Uphues is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Cbeyond Cloud Services, a division of Cbeyond Communications (Nasdaq: CBEY). Jeff sits on the boards of several technology-related companies in the video, collaboration and VoIP industries. He is a recognized as leader within the communications industry.

In a career spanning more than 20 years in technology and telecommunications, Uphues has held numerous leadership positions in sales, corporate development, product development, product marketing and executive management. His experience includes Vyvx, Wiltel, MCI, WorldCom, Bandwidth.com and other emerging technology-based service providers.

Session(s):

» A Competitive Edge: Hosted and Cloud Services Solutions for SMBs

Cipher Software

Daniel Berninger
President

Active in VoIP since 1995, Daniel worked on the original assessment of VoIP at Bell Laboratories and led early gateway deployments at Verizon, HP, and NASA after joining VocalTec Communications. Daniel helped Jeff Pulver with the founding of Free World Dialup and won a VON Pioneer Award as co-founder of the VON Coalition. He led the founding teams and recruited the CEOs for ITXC (Tom Evslin) and Vonage (Jeffrey Citron).

Session(s):

» 2018: The Death of the PSTN Keynote Luncheon Panel

CISCO

Ian Pennell
Senior Vice President, Small Business Technology Group

As Senior Vice President of Ciscos Small Business Technology Group, Ian Pennell is responsible for growth in the small business market segment by coordinating a multitiered product roadmap and go-to-market strategy across Cisco. This group is instrumental in establishing Cisco as the trusted IT and communications provider to value-added resellers and service providers who serve small businesses. Pennell manages collaboration and innovation across Cisco to deliver new business models, technologies, and products geared for small businesses.

Session(s):

» OPENING KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Clarus Systems

Gurmeet Lamba
Senior Vice President

Gurmeet leads the product development group at Clarus Systems - a Silicon Valley based technology company specializing in VoIP and Unified Communications management solutions. Prior to Clarus Systems, Gurmeet was at Avaya heading R&D for its Unified Communications Business Unit, and before that, at Bell Labs where he was awarded the Bell Labs Presidents award. Gurmeet received his B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology - Delhi, M.S. in Electrical Engineering / Robotics from the University of Florida and is an alumni of the Executive Management Program at Stanford Universitys Graduate School of Business.

Session(s):

» Forecasting Success in Enterprise Cloud Computing

Comcast, Business Services

Caitlin Clark-Zigmond
Senior Director, Product Management

Caitlin Clark-Zigmond brings over 15 years of telecommunication and product development experience to her role as Senior Director of Product Management at Comcast, Business Services. Ms. Clark-Zigmond is currently charged with bringing to life a Hosted VoIP offering for Comcast, Business Services to target small and medium sizes businesses that are looking for improved productivity from a proven, reliable provider.

Prior to joining Comcast, Ms. Clark-Zigmond was a driving force in NGTs wholesale and private label hosted VoIP services, which are targeted at service providers (CLECs, MSOs, VARs, ISPs, ASPs) across the country, and the development of unified communications products and services for its Agent channel.

Clark-Zigmond was a member of Global Crossing’s collaboration product management team where she led video product line revenue growth 40% while re-positioning the enterprise video products into IP based offerings and driving new strategies for the future.

Clark-Zigmond previously served 5 years as Treasurer and Chairman of the Board for the Voice On the Net Coalition. Clark-Zigmond holds a BS/BA in International Business and Finance from American University.

Session(s):

» Next Generation Faxing in Today’s Enterprise IP Environment

Commetrex Corporation

Mike Coffee
CEO

Mike Coffee, CEO, Commetrex Corporation. Prior to founding Commetrex, Mike was VP, Marketing & Sales, with Natural MicroSystems, where he brought NMS into the computer-telephony market and introduced the idea for MVIP, the industry standard that propelled NMS into the markets technology-leadership position.Prior to NMS, he served as VP and chief marketing executive at Innovative Technology, a digital-media technology developer, and Autodynamics, a worldwide marketer of process-plant simulators. Mr. Coffee holds a bachelors degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech and several patents in fax- and Internet-related technologies.

Session(s):

Conexion One

Michael Curry
Chief Business Development Officer

Michael Curry is Chief Business Development Officer at Conexion One. In this role, Curry is responsible for the design, enablement and management of Conexion One’s channel business model including strategic partnerships within the USA, Latin America and Philippines tech sector.

Curry and his team focus on creating and driving channel sales and marketing strategies, programs and engagement models to accelerate Conexion One’s growth enabling IT partners to grow their businesses, adopt new technologies, and improve their profitability. Curry pioneered Conexion One’s innovative sales programs such as tech-sector opportunity development, outsourced channel sales and competitive intelligence.

Curry has been recognized for his leadership many times over the years, and is widely considered an industry expert and advocate in channel sales, opportunity development and lead generation strategies. Curry is also advisor to Wendover Corporation, Contact Center for Microsoft LYNC and Competitive Strategies.

Curry brings more than 20 years of successful sales leadership and channel management in the networking, unified communications, contact center and cloud based solutions to Conexion One. Before joining Conexion One, he managed International Channel Sales at AltiGen, Senior Channel Management positions at AVAYA/Lucent and prior was the leading telecommunications advisor to the casino resort and contact center industry worldwide.

Session(s):

» Hearing the Voice of the Customer Leads to Songs of Success

Contact Centers of America

Joe Jacoboni
President

Joe Jacoboni founded Contact Centers of America in 2007 to address the critical shortcomings he observed in the contact center industry, an industry in which he is a pioneer. Recognizing the failures of offshoring and growing customer dissatisfaction with outsourcing, Joe founded CCA to bring jobs back to America!

A senior executive, primarily in the technology industry for the past 20 years, Joe has held positions from Director of Sales to President / CEO. He was the Founder and CEO of Software Support, Inc. (“SSI”), the first third-party call center performing technical support for the personal computer industry, where he was awarded Entrepreneur of the Year. SSI supported multiple computer hardware products and software applications for companies such as Gateway Computers, Toshiba, Cisco, Corel Corporation, Dell and AT&T. SSI employed over 1,100 employees, with offices in Florida, Texas, and Utah and was sold to Matrix Marketing in 1996, (Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG).)
v To facilitate support for over 200 software applications and several hardware platforms, Joe and his team developed technology, processes and procedures to provide high quality technical support that was both cost and time effective. SSI grew from a staff of two in July 1991 to a company that employed over 1,100 people and generated $25 million in annual revenue when the company was sold for $32 million.Joe has held numerous senior level management positions for several fast-growing, profitable companies, such as Western Digital, Raytheon Data Systems, Maynard Electronics/Archive Corporation and Businessland.

Session(s):

» The Contact Center: The Key to Social Media Success

Contacual

Wendell Black
Vice President of Worldwide Marketing

Wendell Black joined Contactual in June of 2010 and leads all domestic and international marketing initiatives. Prior to Contactual, Wendell was Vice President, Contact Center Anywhere for Oracle. In this role, he was responsible for on premise and on demand versions of Oracles multi-channel and multi-tenant contact center infrastructure solutions for all North American customers. For the 4 years prior to Oracle he was President, Worldwide Sales and Marketing for Telephony@Work the original developer of Contact Center Anywhere and with the rest of the management team, sold the company to Oracle in 2006.

In 1999, Wendell joined IVR and speech recognition provider Periphonics to manage sales and sales engineering roles with a focus on service providers in the Americas. With the acquisition of Periphonics by Nortel in 2000, that role progressively expanded to include other contact center products in Nortels portfolio. Wendells experience also includes 10 years with Aspect Communications 8 years with Lanier/Harris.

Wendell holds degrees in Psychology and Business Administration from Baylor University.

Session(s):

CoreTrace

Joe Sirrianni
Vice President of Product Management

Session(s):

» Picking a Winning Mix: Keys to Cloud Service Success

Crawford Media Services

Matthew J. Kraft
Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Vice President

CIO and VP of Crawford Media Services. Prior to joining Crawford in February 2010, Matthew held a position as Sr. Manager of Technology for Aol’s Advertising Division (The Advertising.com Group, formerly Aol Advertising.) In this role, Matthew served as head of the company’s Lead Generation, Online Education Vertical, and CPC Advertising Products. This included the management of over $260,000,000 in annual revenues (2006-2008.) Prior to joining Aol & TimeWarner in 2006, Matthew served as head of Internal Systems for Web.com. Through this position, Matthew managed the company’s Enterprise Distribution Partnerships, Windows 2000 hosted product line, and Internal Systems from 1999-2006. Prior to that, Matthew served in various capacities for J/K Foods, Inc, a leading supermarket conglomerate in the upper Midwest. Matthew served on the Greater Baltimore Technology Council from 2007-2009, a Baltimore Neighborhood Economic Planning Council, and the National Republican Congressional Committee’s Business Advisory Council. Matthew has founded several successful start-ups. Matthew graduated magna cume laude from Georgia State University and attended the University of Washington in Seattle.

Session(s):

CXM

Justin O'Brien
Vice President of Sales and Marketing

Session(s):

» Hearing the Voice of the Customer Leads to Songs of Success

Cypress Communications

Steve Davis
Director Product Management

Steve Davis is an industry veteran who oversees the Product Marketing and Management team that manages Broadvox’s innovative communications product portfolio and go-to-market strategies. In this role, Steve oversees the design, development, management and improvement of Broadvox’s and Cypress’ enterprise product line including the industry-leading hosted Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) solution, C4 IP, which has won more than 20 industry awards for marketing leadership, innovation and product of the year, as well as, the widely successful GO! SIP Trunking access alternative for small to medium-sized businesses. Prior to joining Cypress in 2005, Steve was the Senior Product Manager for IP Telephony and Network Services at Trinsic where he was responsible for the product line of facilities-based IPT product set including converged voice and data communication, VPN, firewall and access redundancy. Prior to Trinsic, he spent nine years at MCI where he held various management roles including Manager of Product Marketing Communications responsible for managing a team of communications specialists.

Steve has spoken and been a panelist at many industry conferences specializing on the topic of hosted unified communications.

Steve holds an MBA from the University of Georgia and a bachelor’s degree with a double major in Marketing and Multinational Business Operations from Florida State University.

Session(s):

» Turning Your Unified Communications Solution into a Mobile Asset

D2 Technologies, Inc.

Doug Makishima
COO & VP of Mobile & Personal Communications

Doug Makishima has more than 20 years of marketing and engineering experience in the communications and networking industry. Prior to joining D2 Technologies in 2006, he was vice president of marketing at Intoto, a provider of network gateway and security software platforms. Before joining Intoto, Makishima served as vice president of marketing for Hifn, a leading provider of security and network processors. Makishima has held senior management positions with Nortel Networks, Bay Networks, AMD, Auspex and Adaptec, where he managed the marketing and development of advanced networking, wireless communications and storage products. He was also involved in the acquisition of WLAN startup Netwave Technologies by Bay Networks/Nortel, and during his engineering career, developed patented storage IC technology. Makishima has actively contributed to several IEEE and ANSI committees focused on networking, communications and storage standards. He holds a B.S.E.E. from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and an M.B.A. from Santa Clara University.

Session(s):

DeviceAnywhere

Leila Modarres
VP of Marketing

Session(s):

» Managing the Deluge of Third-Party Devices and Apps in the Enterprise

DHL Same Day

Matt Groppe
Director of Global Business Development

Matt Groppe is the Director of Global Business Development for DHL Same Day – the special services group of DHL Express. With over 25 years of transportation experience, Matt continues to seek innovative technologies to improve the expedited shipping experience to DHL’s customers.

He has developed technical courier solutions that improve the efficiency of delivering critical spare parts to field technicians and has been the voice of the customer in offering customized web applications.

In addition, Matt is a member of the Board of Directors of the Express Delivery and Logistics Association and is currently Chairman of the Airline Committee.

DHL is deploying M2M technology to revolutionize how we manage highly sensitive cargo and are looking to transform how the integrity of these high profile shipments is managed.

Session(s):

» KEYNOTE PRESENTATION Featuring DHL Same Day

Dialogic Corporation

Bud Walder
Enterprise Marketing Manager

As marketing director for Dialogic, Bud Walder is responsible for enterprise market segment strategy and supporting activities. Dialogic is a leading provider of media and signaling platforms for the unified communications and contact center markets. The platforms enable service providers, developers and system integrators to deliver services, content and applications using multimedia processing and signaling technologies.

Before joining Dialogic in 2006, Walder spent 20 years in enterprise communications systems sales and product management at Intel Corporation, Brother International Corp and Office Business Systems, Inc. Walder holds a BA degree in economics from Rutgers University.

Session(s):

» How to Save Money on Communications without Sacrificing Your Operational Efficiency

Digium

Angie Reed
Product Marketing Manager - Switchvox

Angie Reed, Product Marketing Manager for Business Phone Systems with Digium, is a subject matter expert in VoIP and telecommunications, with more than 13 years of experience. She has a broad background in technical and business IT roles and has worked in Product Marketing, Channel Development Management, Applications Engineering, and Technical Training. She is the author of multiple technical articles and most recently completed the TCO Study: IP Buyers Guide, which compares the best value in IP telephony solutions. She has successfully completed the CCNP and CCNA certifications and has an MBA from the University of Alabama.

Session(s):

» Bringing the Social Experience into the Business Context

DoubleDutch

Lawrence Coburn
CEO

Lawrence Coburn is the founder and CEO of DoubleDutch, a new service that is trying to change the way that people work. DoubleDutch helps enterprise teams stay connected, log their activity, and get work done - all via their smartphones.

Lawrence is also the geolocation editor for The Next Web, and is a mentor at IO Ventures, a San Francisco based incubator. A three-time entrepreneur, Lawrence also founded RateItAll, a top ten consumer review property. Prior to his Internet career, Lawrence worked for Nortel Networks in a variety of roles throughout Latin America.

When he’s not working or spending time with his family, Lawrence can be found on the basketball court. Despite his advanced years, Lawrence qualified for the Red Bull, King of the Rock, national one-on-one championship in 2010, a point he brings up frequently. Lawrence lives in San Francisco with his entrepreneur wife Lilia, and his daughter Lucia. Follow him on twitter @lawrencecoburn

Session(s):

Edgewater Networks

David Martin
Vice President

With more than 20 years of experience with networking technologies, Dave Martin is a recognized expert in the session border controller, SIP Trunking and hosted PBX markets. He currently serves as Vice President of Marketing for Edgewater Networks, where he is responsible for strategic business planning, product management, product marketing, partnerships and marketing programs to support the companys ongoing growth. With more than 150,000 units deployed, Edgewater has an estimated 21% market share of the enterprise session border controller market.

Mr. Martin is a seasoned speaker and has presented at Internet Telephony Conference & Expo, Broadsoft Connections conferences, Polycom User Group, Metaswitch Partners conference and many public webinars.

Prior to joining Edgewater, Mr. Martin held a variety of technical and managerial roles at several network infrastructure and security companies including Andes Networks, Ipsilon, Nokia and Newbridge Networks.

Session(s):

» Enterprise SBCs: Extending Beyond Interoperability

Embrase

Thomas Howe
Principal

Thomas has over 20 years experience in the design and development of next generation communications equipment. In March of 2007, Thomas won the first O’Reilly Emerging Telephony Mashup Contest with his “After Hours Doctor’s Office”. In Janurary, 2008, Thomas was listed among the most influential voices in VoIP. In March of 2008, Thomas won the VON Magazine Innovator’s Award. In September of 2008, Thomas won the first Broadsoft Mashup Contest with his “Disaster Dispatcher”. For a complete biography, check out the LinkedIn Profile. Thomas is an active software developer, concentrating on Voice Mashups and their supporting technologies such as Ruby, Rails, Adhearsion and Web as Platform architectures. Thomas is also a regular contributor to several online publications, such as Fierce VoIP and ProgrammableWeb.

Thomas received his bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering at University of Massachusetts at Lowell, and attended graduate school at Northeastern University where he studied Digital Communications and Signal Processing. He currently serves on several technical advisory boards and boards of directors. Thomas currently resides in West Barnstable, Cape Cod, Massachusetts with his wife and four children.

Session(s):

» Web as Platform Programming: Understanding Basic Web Applications

FaxCore, Inc.

Max Schroeder
Senior Vice President

Mr. Schroeder has over 20 years of experience in the fax messaging, managed services and telecommunications industries. In his current position, Max manages the solutions marketing, product positioning, strategy and planning for the FaxCore portfolio of products. Max Schroeder has been in the fax server industry almost since its conception and has been active in many telecommunications and fax industry associations. He was a founding member and past president of the International Computer Fax Association which was instrumental in promoting the fax server industry and the T.37 and T.38 ITU fax standards. Mr. Schroeder continues supporting the fax server industry as the Task Group Whip for the SIP Forum FoIP Interoperability Task Group. Max is a TMC Contributing Editor and has been a frequent industry speaker at domestic and international conferences including many ITEXPO events.

Session(s):

» Next Generation Faxing in Today’s Enterprise IP Environment

Five9

David Van Everen
VP of Product Management

With more than 10 years of experience delivering market-leading call center solutions, David Van Everen leads all product management initiatives at Five9. Prior to joining Five9, Van Everen was a Director of Product Management at Genesys Telecommunications, where he led multiple product management and development teams spanning workforce optimization, call routing, multimedia and web interactions, CRM and ERP integrations, enterprise workflow, unified communications, and vertical solutions. With extensive call center expertise, Van Everen has written several articles on call center topics that are still in publication today, and has co-authored a patent. He holds a B.F.A. in Painting from California College of the Arts in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Session(s):

» What’s Really Driving the Hosted Customer Care Trend?

Fonality

Aron Aicard
Senior Director of Product Management

Session(s):

» Bringing the Social Experience into the Business Context

» Design to Win: How CSPs Can Achieve a Better Customer Experience and Higher Profitability from Enterprise IP Communications Rollouts

Fonality

Eric Borrmann
Chief Operations Officer

Session(s):

» How to Save Money on Communications without Sacrificing Your Operational Efficiency

Fonality

Rick Bushell
Chief Technology Officer

Session(s):

» Overcoming Latency: The Achilles Heel of Cloud Computing

Fonality

Kimberley Drobny
Sr. Director of Marketing Strategy & Operations

Session(s):

» Harnessing the Customer Service Experience with a Multi-Channel Approach

» Harnessing the Customer Service Experience with a Multi-Channel Approach

Fonolo

Shai Berger
CEO

Before co-founding Fonolo, Shai was at Keynote Systems (NASDAQ: KEYN), where he led the team responsible for Streaming Perspective, the industry standard for streaming performance measurement.Shai led the Streamcheck team as co-founder and president. By selling hosted services to companies like Microsoft, AOL, Akamai, Viacom and BBC, he got the company to profitability while defying the high-tech slump of 2001. Along the way, Streamcheck established the industry standard for measuring of streaming media, used to this day by Microsoft to certify its hosting partners.Shai has been involved in start-ups since the late 90s and presents frequently at industry events. In 2000, he was named one of the Most Influential People in Streaming by Streaming Media magazine. His writing appears in several books including the Streaming Media Bible.Shai has a degree in Engineering Physics from Queens University and a Masters degree in Applied Science from the University of Toronto.Read Shais blog at shaiberger.com and follow him on Twitter @shaiberger.

Session(s):

» Bringing the Social Experience into the Business Context

Fortinet

Drew Savage

Session(s):

» Comprehensive Security & Compliance for Fast-Moving Businesses

GCS

Neal Axelrad
co-founder and Chief Executive Officer

Neal Axelrad is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of GCS. Mr. Axelrad brings over twenty years of solid executive experience to Global Convergence Solutions in a variety of positions and over fifteen years of communications expertise.

Prior to joining Global Convergence Solutions, Mr. Axelrad was Vice President of Global Sales at InfiniRoute Networks, the premier VoIP Peering service provider to tier one and tier two carriers globally. Mr. Axelrad was a key contributor in building ITXC into one of the worlds largest VoIP carriers. His accomplishments include delivering and managing annual sales volume in excess of $180 million, pioneering new operating paradigms in the wholesale telephony marketplace for buying and selling, and leading the development of new market products in the telephony industry that leveraged VoIP. In addition, Mr. Axelrad previously held the Senior Sales Leadership position at Qwest Communications and MCI Worldcom.
Prior to his telecommunication carrier career, Mr. Axelrad was founder and Chief Executive Officer of American Marketing Experts, a leader in direct marketing services.

Session(s):

» Evolving Interconnection – From TDM to IP to IMS Peering

GENBAND

Steve Musick
Product Marketing

Steve Musick has more than 20 years experience bringing new voice and data communications technologies to service providers and enterprises. He is currently focused on Network Transformation and IMS solutions within GENBAND’s Strategic Marketing group. Mr. Musick holds a B.S. in Computer Science from North Carolina State University and an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Session(s):

GENBAND

Greg Luptowski
Product Marketing Manager

Greg is a product marketing manager with extensive experience in telecommunications at GENBAND. As a senior member of the product marketing team, his responsibilities include GENBAND’s Softswitch and Media Gateway products. Greg has a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington (1992).

Session(s):

» Picking a Winning Mix: Keys to Cloud Service Success

GENBAND

Bruce Marler

Session(s):

» How MNOs Can Leverage a Cloud Platform to Deliver UC

GENBAND

Mitch Simcoe
Director-Product Marketing

Mitch Simcoe has over 25 years of experience in the telecommunications industry. He started his career with Bell Canada in the Technology development group standardizing first generation fiber optics products. He later joined Nortel and has assumed numerous roles in Sales, Marketing and Product Management roles in a variety of product groups including voice switching, broadband access and optical networking. He recently joined GENBAND is and currently Director of Applications Product Marketing for the A-series of application servers and is now responsible for promoting GENBAND’s strategy for communication enabled applications. He received a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical) and a MBA (Marketing) from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Session(s):

» 2018: The Death of the PSTN Keynote Luncheon Panel

Good Technology

John Herrema
Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy

John Herrema has over 15 years of experience in the wireless industry. John Herrema joined Visto Corporation, the parent company of Good Technology, in June 2003 as VP Business Development when Visto acquired ViAir Inc. In that role, Herrema helped drive Vistos growth based on marketing and distribution partnerships with partners such as IBM, Microsoft, Palm, and Ericsson.Prior to joining Visto, Herrema co-founded ViAir in February 2000 where he also served as VP Business Development and helped drive ViAirs product and business strategy, including the formation of it initial distribution partnerships with carriers such as AT&T Wireless and Nextel Communications and infrastructure providers like Comverse Technology.Before founding ViAir, John was Business Development in Microsofts Wireless Sales and Strategy Group. He joined Microsoft after helping launch Sprint PCS.

Session(s):

Grandstream

Luis Grados
Technical Engineer

Session(s):

» Forecasting Success in Enterprise Cloud Computing

Hexagrid

Dave Rokita
VP of Technology Operations

With nearly 15 years of IT operations management, system design and architecture experience, David Rokita provides technical leadership in developing Hexagrid’s state-of-the-art cloud computing solutions to match real-world enterprise IT requirements. For Union Pacific Railroad, Dave participated in managing mission-critical systems deployments, 24x7 critical issue response, and datacenter facilities and services migration between Saint Louis and Omaha. As a Senior Architect for MasterCard Worldwide, Dave specialized in secure Internet facing infrastructure, PCI compliance, real-time fraud detection, secure payment systems, and global outsourcing initiatives. Dave was also the Founding Principal and Architect for Precision Storage Solutions, a firm specializing in design and implementation of data storage, backup, document management, and disaster recovery solutions.

Session(s):

HootSuite

Greg Gunn
VP of Business Development

Gregory Gunn (@gunnr) launched the HootSuite Enterprise Sales team and currently heads up partnerships, integrations and international expansion for the social media dashboard leader. His passion for people, technology & data has driven his career towards developing successful SaaS business solutions where the three intersect.

Greg earned both a BCOM from the University of Victoria and an MBA at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. Combining practical experience with comprehensive research, Greg was the lead on projects focused around digital strategy, online commerce and hybrid business models. Outside of his professional endeavors Greg can be found enjoying basketball, photography and is a “semi-professional” wedding MC.

Session(s):

» Securing Social Media for Compliant Collaboration

IBM

Bowman Hall
Director, Cloud Computing Client Engagements

Bowman Hall joined IBM in 1996 after IBMs acquisition of Tivoli Systems, Inc. Bowman has had multiple technical and management roles within the IBM Software Group in technical support, education, consulting services and technical sales, based at various times in the US, UK and Spain. Since 2009, Bowman has been responsible for Cloud Computing Client Engagements with the IBM Software Group, where he leads early adopter customer projects and cloud software implementations. Prior to joining IBM, Bowman was responsible for managing distributed systems at Carnival Cruise Lines. Bowman attended the University of Texas at Austin where he received a bachelors degree in mathematics.

Session(s):

» KEYNOTE PRESENTATION -- "The Cloud Computing Paradigm - Transforming Business, Technology and Industry"

IBM

Mike McCarthy
Vice President of Cloud Computing Services

McCarthy

Session(s):

IBM

Ajay Apte
IBM Workload Deployer

Bradley is responsible for Technical Strategy at M86 Security and primary spokesperson for the company on aspects related to the evolution of the technical and strategic product direction beyond the immediate roadmap. In this role he evaluates new technologies and products that could enhance or extend the core M86 product line, a recent example being the acquisition of the behavioral malware technology from Avinti, Inc. Bradley also heads up the M86 Security Labs which provides 24/7 monitoring of email and Internet traffic to ensure that M86 keeps ahead of emerging threats, security trends and market requirements to provide solutions that protect customers from the latest threats and attacks to their electronic communication channels. Bradley is a 20 year veteran of the IT industry and previously was VP of Products at Marshal. Prior to that, he held various technical management positions with Protocom Development Systems and Citrix in Asia Pacific.

Session(s):

» Cloud Computing Platforms -- Which “aaS” is Right for You

IBM

Marlon Machado
Product Manager, Unified Communications and Collaboration Software

A programmer by trade and a natural problem solver, Marlon started writing code for a living at the young age of 13. Being the nerd he’s always been, he went on to major in Mechanical Engineering because of the robotics thing, and then in Computer Science and Mathematics (how geeky is that?) Then he went back to writing software in whatever language the customer wanted.

Marlon joined IBM in 1996 as a programmer for the ISSC organization (now Global Business Services) in Atlanta, Georgia, where he worked on various projects involving distributed architectures. In 1998 Marlon joined the SanFrancisco™ Technology Center in Austin, Texas. He later became a Senior IT Architect for IBM ISV & Developer Relations where he worked very closely with IBMs Business Partners in designing and bringing integrated solutions to market.

Marlon joined the Lotus Software team in 2008 as Product Manager, Sametime Platform and Solutions in charge of positioning Sametime as a platform to enable horizontal and industry-specific solutions, creating an ecosystem of offerings built in collaboration with customers and partners.

As of March 1 of 2011, Marlon is responsible for driving product strategy and requirements for the core services within the platform.

Session(s):

» The Role of Unified Communications in Social Work Patterns

IBM

Jim Colson
IBM Fellow, IBM Software Solutions Group - Industry Solutions Development

Snehal Antani is helping drive the private cloud strategy across IBM, covering the WebSphere, Tivoli, Rational, and Information Management brands. He previously led the business strategy for WebSpheres cloud and virtualization portfolio as a senior product manager. Prior to his product management & strategy work, Snehal was a senior managing consulting, where he served as the technical lead of world-wide consulting practice for the WebSphere XD suite of products, which includes:WebSphere Virtual Enterprise (virtualization technologies), WebSphere XD Compute Grid (batch & grid technologies), and WebSphere eXtreme Scale (extreme transaction processing technologies). His focus is on grid/cloud/HPC/middleware architectures and design, serving as a technical advisor to key customers, driving clients towards production, and speaking at industry conferences worldwide. Prior to joining ISSW, Snehal worked in product development for both WebSphere Application Server for z/OS and WebSphere Extended Deployment. He has worked closely with many large distributed and z/OS clients around the world, helping them achieve production with WebSphere products as well as influence their technical strategies. Snehal has disclosed numerous patents and technical publications in the domains of enterprise application infrastructure and high-volume transaction processing. He earned a BS in computer science from Purdue University, and an MS in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY with a thesis in the area of quantifying and improving the resiliency of middleware infrastructures.

Session(s):

» Turning Your Unified Communications Solution into a Mobile Asset

IBM Research

William Rippon
Senior Network Engineer

William Rippon joined IBM in 1985 at the T. J. Watson Research Center. William has over 25 years of experience in the fields of information technology and services. He has played a key role in the development and deployment of advanced solutions at IBM Research. For the past ten plus years, William has focused on voice, video and data networking as well as network, voice and video based security. For more than 7 years, William has been the global technical lead for the voice technology area of IBM Research I/S. In 2006, the role was expanded to include technical leadership for the video area. In addition, William has been an SME on IP Voice Security, representing IBM Research on various corporate and divisional security efforts. Currently William is actively engaged in leading efforts related to enterprise Video Conferencing, with a focus on interoperability and security.

Session(s):

» Why Video is a Must for Enterprise Communications

ICON Voice Networks

Michael Marchioni
VP Product Management and Marketing

Session(s):

» Turning Your Unified Communications Solution into a Mobile Asset

ICON Voice Networks

Don Gant
VP Business Development & Channel Marketing

Session(s):

IncSlingers

Simon Salt
CEO

Simon Salt is CEO of Marketing Communications Agency IncSlingers. He is an Author, Blogger, Writer & Entrepreneur – though not always in that order. His book on Social Location Marketing was published by QUE a division of Pearson publications in February 2011. He has been published online by Mashable, Read Write Web & others. He speaks internationally on the topics of Digital Marketing, Mobile Marketing and Social Media. He works with major brands as an online brand advocate.

Session(s):

InfoCision Management Corporation

Steve Brubaker
Chief of Staff

Steve Brubaker is Chief of Staff for InfoCision Management Corporation. In this position, he is responsible for staff-related issues, project details, serving as primary negotiator and managing internal and external communications. He is responsible for implementing InfoCision’s important operational processes throughout the company, serves as InfoCision’s spokesperson for media-related news and public relations events, and provides internal updates to make sure important developments are announced and promoted. Steve also directs InfoCision’s department of regulatory compliance.

As a frequent guest speaker for industry events, Steve has been featured nationally, as part of the ATA’s Annual and Legislative Conferences, DMA Conferences and the IIR Outsourcing for Call Centers Conferences, and internationally as the Keynote Speaker for AIC Worldwide’s Call Centers, Brazil. Steve co-authored a chapter on direct marketing ethics in a book titled, Direct Marketing in Action: Cutting Edge Strategies for Finding and Keeping the Best Customers, which was honored as a finalist for The American Marketing Association’s prestigious Berry Book Award in 2008. He has also contributed to numerous industry trade journals and publications.

He is a graduate of The University of Akron, and has been with InfoCision since 1985.

Session(s):

» Remote Agents: The Big Game Changer for Contact Centers

Infradapt

Corey McFadden
Managing Partner

Corey McFadden is a founder and Managing Partner of Infradapt LLC, a technology services firm. He brings over ten years of industry experience to Infradapt. His unique background includes experience in field-consulting, project management, IP telephony, and software development. Mr. McFadden has been a featured lecturer at numerous business conferences, published articles on business and technology, and been the subject of a television program profiling visionary businesspeople in Pennsylvania.

Session(s):

» A Competitive Edge: Hosted and Cloud Services Solutions for SMBs

Ingate Systems

Steven Johnson
President

Johnson has 15 years senior management experience with Sanders Associates, Telco Systems, and Lockheed Martin. Most recently he served as chief executive officer of Abrena, Inc, a business development consulting firm focused on assisting European and North American firms to expand in the United States. Prior to that, he was president and chief executive officer of Transcept Inc, a telecommunications infrastructure company. Johnson is a member of the Board of Directors for the SIP Forum, an industry organization with members from the leading SIP technology companies. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and a Master’s in Business Administration from Boston University.

Session(s):

» Enterprise SBCs: Extending Beyond Interoperability

Inphonex

Matt Bramson
Chief Marketing Officer

Matt Bramson is responsible for global sales operations for InPhonex, which provides a comprehensive range of high-quality, feature-rich Internet telephony services to businesses and consumers in more than 150 countries. As Chief Marketing and Sales Officer since 2008, his accomplishments have included growing revenue and launching a portfolio of customizable solutions for strategic business partners based on InPhonex’s powerful, scalable multiservice platform.Bramson has more than 15 years of sales and executive leadership experience with telecommunications and technology companies. During a decade at XO Communications, he helped the company grow from a startup to a major national service provider. While leading XO business development, he formed relationships that enabled successful introductions of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and fixed-mobile conference (FMC) services.

Session(s):

Interactive Intelligence

Brad Forsythe
Technical Sales Support

Brad joined Interactive Intelligence in 2006 in his current position. One of his early responsibilities was maintaining accounts on a simulation system that is still used today to demonstrate the business communication solution offered by Interactive Intelligence. Concurrently, Brad was not just learning the solution, but also how to effectively demonstrate it to prospective customers.

In addition to the demonstrations he performs himself, Brad has helped many internal colleagues and business partners learn how to perform their own demonstrations to prospective customers. Both venues have provided many opportunities where Brad can apply his company’s solution to a customer’s need.

Prior to joining Interactive Intelligence, Brad worked in the Student Loan industry where he started out as a Technical Support Rep in a Contact Center. He later moved into Business Analyst and Implementation positions where Colleges and Universities were his customers.

Session(s):

» UC in the Cloud: Understanding the Benefits and Challenges

» Remote Agents: The Big Game Changer for Contact Centers

Interactive Intelligence

Tim Wittbrod
Technical Sales Support

Tim joined Interactive Intelligence in 2005 as a training consultant before moving over to his current position a year ago. Whether in an implementation, training, or sales engagement, Tim focuses on listening first to properly understand requirements, as well as to learn from customers. While developing a well-rounded reservoir of experience, his primary focus has been on the call center, especially outbound dialing environments. Today, Tim excels at helping customers and prospects visualize solutions.

In addition to Tim’s daily solution visualization sessions, he takes advantages of opportunities to visit customer sites, whether in a consulting role to maximize ROI, or simply to learn from creative solutions. He prides himself in his adaptability to learn every day and always be open minded to new perspectives. Every implementation provides a unique opportunity to exploit technology to increase revenue, decrease liabilities, and improve customer satisfaction.

Prior to joining Interactive Intelligence, Tim worked in the security industry where he started out as a Software Engineer before taking over management of an applications support call center. He later built their education program from the ground up to provide training for partners and IT professionals.

Session(s):

» The Contact Center: The Key to Social Media Success

» The Role of Unified Communications in Social Work Patterns

Internap

John Freimuth
Vice President, Managed Hosting and Cloud Computing

Session(s):

» Overcoming Latency: The Achilles Heel of Cloud Computing

Inventor of ethernet, founder of 3Com, author of Metcalfe's Law, VC and Professor

Bob Metcalfe

Bob Metcalfe is Professor of Innovation in the Cockrell School of Engineering at UTexas Austin and a Polaris Venture Partner. He was an Internet pioneer in 1970 at MIT and Harvard, receiving a PhD in Computer Science. Bob invented Ethernet in 1973 at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. In 1979, he founded 3Com Corporation. Bob was for 10 years a General Partner of Polaris and serves on boards of five startups: 1366, Ember, IPS, SiOnyx, and Sun Catalytix. For the 10 years before Polaris, he was a publisher-pundit at IDG. In 2005, Bob received the National Medal of Technology.

Session(s):

» KEYNOTE PRESENTATION

Inzenka

Dan Sachar
Senior Project Leader

Dan runs large-scale projects for Inzenka – a cross-industry growth and innovation consultancy with extensive experience in the telecommunications space, working for clients such as Cisco, Metaswitch, Optimum Lightpath, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia, BT and others. Most recently, Dan led an extensive and in-depth study of the purchase drivers, intents and needs of business customers for cloud services, VoIP bundles and more. Prior to joining Inzenka, Dan has an extensive track record in the digital media and marketing space, including most recently launching and running the Digital Media department of the cable company InDemand Networks.

Session(s):

» Back-office Keys to Winning with Service Bundles for SMBs

» Managing the Deluge of Third-Party Devices and Apps in the Enterprise

ITR Mobility

Nathan Clevenger
Chief Software Architect

Session(s):

J.D. Power and Associates

Mark Miller
Senior Director, Market Development, Contact Center Practice

Mark Miller leads global strategy and market development for the Contact Center Practice at J.D. Power and Associates including certification programs and performance improvement consulting. In this role he provides thought leadership around the customer experience and advises executives across the globe to help improve customer satisfaction, operational performance and financial results. He has 17 years of executive management and senior consulting experience in customer experience improvement in over a dozen industries. Mark graduated from The University of Texas at Austin, was selected as a member of the Alpha Sigma Nu Honor Society and received his MBA in Marketing with honors from Regis University.

Session(s):

» Forecasting Success in Enterprise Cloud Computing

Jamcracker

Steve Crawford
VP of marketing and business development

Steve was formerly CMO for PKWARE, where he helped lead a turnaround that increased revenue growth by tenfold over a 3 year period. Previously, Steve was with VeriSign during its growth from pre-IPO to over $2B in revenues, where he negotiated strategic alliances, launched its enterprise solutions product-line, and was responsible for its $200M service provider business. He has also led marketing and business development activities at Octel Communications and managed advanced development programs at Lockheed.

Session(s):

KANA

James Norwood
Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer

James is responsible for leading KANAs global marketing strategy and execution, including: corporate, product and solutions marketing, customer, field and partner marketing, communications and communities, demand generation, public and analyst relations, and web presence. With more than 20 years industry experience, James has proven success in strategic marketing contributing to significant demand and revenue growth. Prior to joining KANA, James was responsible for the worldwide product marketing of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and industry solutions at Epicor Software Corporation. James studied systems analysis and computer science at the University of Westminster, England.

Session(s):

» Socialize Your Contact Center for Greater Customer Engagement

Lifesize, a division of Logitech

Matt Collier
Senior Vice President, Corporate Development

Matt Collier is Senior Vice President of Corporate Development with a background that includes extensive experience in the telecommunications and high-tech industries. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Voice Application Services at Level 3 Communications, Inc. Prior to joining Level 3, Matt was founder and CEO of Telverse Communications, Inc., which offered the first nationally available IP Centrex service. Telverse was acquired by Level 3 in July 2003. Before founding Telverse, Matt was Vice President of Business Development and OEM Alliances at Polycom. In late 1997, Polycom acquired ViaVideo Communications, Inc., where Matt was Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Business Development.

Matt holds a B.A. from the University of Memphis, Tennessee.

Session(s):

Lithium

Erin Korogodsky
Social Media Quarterback

Erin Korogodsky is Lithiums social media quarterback. Obsessed with social media, Erin has worked with clients like Newell Rubbermaid, Wieden Kennedy and Vista Print to monitor their brands and brainstorm engagement strategy. She is a frequent blogger on the Lithosphere (as ErinKoro) and you can follow her on twitter at @erinkoro and one of the team on @LithiumTech

Session(s):

LiveOps

Marie Amoruso Jackson
SVP of Marketing

Marie Amoruso Jackson serves as executive vice president marketing for LiveOps as well as co-director for the LiveOps Foundation. In the marketing role, Jackson is responsible for all marketing campaigns and field outreach, product and partner marketing, branding and marketing communications as well as public relations and analyst relations. As co-director of the LiveOps Foundation, she supports the activities that enhance and serve the communities in which LiveOps employees live and work.Jackson has over twenty-five years of experience building and directing integrated and diverse marketing teams that span Venture Capital start-ups, turn-around companies and public corporations. As an executive at Intervoice (now Convergys), Edify (subsidiary of S1), Pearson Communications, Good Technology and Apple Computer, she was responsible for working closely with sales to drive top and bottom-line company growth through fiscally accountable and operationally efficient marketing. Her leadership helped re-brand Intervoice with segments that covered voice and speech, service providers and a SaaS offering. Jackson received a masters degree in business administration as well as a bachelors from the University of California, Berkeley and Pepperdines Graziadio School of Business and Management.

Session(s):

LiveOps

Sanjay Popli
Vice President of Strategy & Business Development

Session(s):

LiveVox

Louis Summe
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Louis Summe, who joined LiveVox in October 1999, has spent over 15 years creating and building technology based communication services. Before joining the Company, Mr. Summe served as the Vice President of Business Development and Product Management for Physicians Online (POL), the leading online service for physicians with over 200,000 physician members. Mr. Summe was instrumental in selling POL to Mediconsult - now part of WebMD (Nasdaq: HLTH) for $200 million. Prior to joining POL, Mr. Summe held Marketing, Product Development & Business Development positions at Merck-Medco. His accomplishments include physician and patient communication programs for Pfizer and Merck, which enrolled over 10,000 physicians, 3.5 million patients and generated $50 million in annual revenues. Prior to Merck-Medco, Mr. Summe was a Systems Engineer at EDS. Mr. Summe holds an M.B.A. with honors from Columbia University and a B.A. in Physics from Xavier University.

Session(s):

Mac Murray, Petersen & Shuster

Michele Shuster
Partner

Michele Shuster is a former Ohio AG Consumer Protection Chief. She has established a solid record of assisting clients in compliance with privacy, telemarketing, consumer and healthcare laws. Michele currently services on the Board of the ATA’s Ohio Valley Chapter.

Session(s):

» Comprehensive Security & Compliance for Fast-Moving Businesses

magicJack VocalTec

Michael Tribolet
Chief Business Officer

Session(s):

» OPENING KEYNOTE ADDRESS

MegaPath

John Ramsey
Senior Product Manager of Managed Security Services

John Ramsey is a Senior Product Manager at MegaPath with over 20 years experience in software engineering, data communications and information security. As a former Air Force officer, John joined MegaPath in 2010. Previously he worked for Computer Sciences Corporation and has held various roles in product management at Nortel, Calence and security startups. John has also had extensive experience in network security architecture as well as security consulting while at Symantec (Axent). John received his bachelor of science degree in Computer & Information Science from Troy University.Drew Savage is a Director MSSP, Americas Service Provider and Carrier Group at Fortinet. In this role, he oversees the managed security services needs of Fortinet’s carrier and service provider partners in the United States. Prior to Fortinet, Drew worked as a Senior Product Manager for MegaPath and Avaya.Sean Rohde is a Global Channel Manager for Alert Logic, a provider of log management, intrusion detection and cloud security solutions for enterprises and service providers. Prior to joining Alert Logic, Sean worked as a Territory Manager for Descartes Systems Group and as a Senior Client Executive for BindView.

Session(s):

Metaswitch Networks

Marc Matthews
Director of Systems Engineering

Based in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, Marc is Systems Engineering Manager at Metaswitch. With over 20 years experience within the communications industry, Marc possesses an ability to relay technical issues at any depth while relating them in terms that anyone can understand.

Marc was part of the initial team responsible for CompuServes Information Service international deployment and creation of the first graphical user interface for the text-based online service. Next Marc worked at 3Coms carrier division rolling out DSP-based modems and 56K modem technology. At Pulsecom, Marc evangelized the deployment of DSL and was part of the DSL Forums adoption of DMT as the world-wide ADSL standard. An early supporter of next-generation networking technologies at Ascend Communications (later part of Lucent Technologies), Marc was involved with the deployment of some of the first VoIP and softswitch systems.

Marc holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer and Information Science from Ohio State University.

Session(s):

» 2018: The Death of the PSTN Keynote Luncheon Panel

Metaswitch Networks

Chris Carabello
Marketing Director

Chris is the Marketing Director for Metaswitch Networks. He has 18 years experience in sales and marketing to both consumers and businesses and for competitive and incumbent carriers. In his current role, Chris partners with Metaswitch customers to maximize their switching and applications deployments from end user product definition through market launch. Chris joined Metaswitch in 2007 after having served as Director of Marketing for Broadview Networks, where he steered the company’s branding and channel management and supported the successful market introductions of its converged IP product portfolio. Previously, Chris served in senior marketing positions at AT&T where he launched its e-commerce initiative and led distribution of its IP products to small businesses through tremendous growth. Chris holds a BA from Villanova University and an MBA from Rutgers University. He and his family reside in Yardley, PA.

Session(s):

» A Competitive Edge: Hosted and Cloud Services Solutions for SMBs

» How MNOs Can Leverage a Cloud Platform to Deliver UC

My America

Shawna Vercher
President

Session(s):

» Top 10 Tips for Online Marketing

Mzinga

Mike Merriman
Director of Strategic Services

Mike Merriman has over 20 years experience in product development, product management, customer service, strategic consulting, and industry research. As Director of Strategic Services, Mike assists clients in mapping business goals to community and social media initiatives in order to maintain competitive advantage.

Prior to Mzinga, Mike served as Research Director at Gartner, as well as leading product development for Gartner Learning which was ultimately sold to Skillsoft. While at Gartner, Mike authored numerous research notes, magic quadrants, presented at Gartner conferences and Symposia and assisted enterprise clients with strategic technology and business transformation initiatives.

Mike began his career with a record of outstanding service as a Captain in the United States Air Force and Air Force Reserve supporting the acquisition of systems and software and the transition of advanced technology solutions into active use throughout the DoD and commercial sector. He is a frequent speaker about using collaboration to drive business advantage, and the intersection of social media and structured learning.

Session(s):

» Best Practices for Leveraging Customer Conversations for Brand Equity

National Instruments (NI)

Andria Elliott
Corporate Content Manager

Andria Elliott is the Corporate Content Manager at National Instruments (NI) and currently oversees the company’s social media program, which she helped kick start back when we were all asking ourselves, “Now, what’s a tweet?”. Since then, the program at NI has grown tremendously and received recognition by organizations like Forrester and the Marketing Leadership Council. Along with counterparts on the Web, IT, marketing, and engineering teams, Andria helps ensure these functions are collaborating on an overall social business program that helps ensure customer success, seeks to gain valuable product feedback, grows awareness of the NI brands, and more. Andria also leads a team of in-house marketing writers, editors, and project managers. She graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a degree in Public Relations and has been with NI since 2003.

Session(s):

Netformx

John Trembley
Director of Strategy and Product Marketing

John Trembley joined Netformx in November 2010 as Director of Strategy and Product Marketing at Netformx where he is responsible for defining and managing product roadmaps in addition to contributing industry knowledge and identifying customer requirements.

His more than sixteen years experience in telecommunications include: most recently Vice President of Marketing for Xeround with responsibility for planning and directing strategy and execution to achieve market leadership in telecommunications. Prior to Xeround, he was Director of Business Development and Industry Strategy for Oracle’s Embedded Global Business Unit and Director of Telecom & Networking with TimesTen, acquired by Oracle. John has also held management positions at NewTERA, GST Telecom, Electric Lightwave and Atlas Telecom.

Session(s):

» Design to Win: How CSPs Can Achieve a Better Customer Experience and Higher Profitability from Enterprise IP Communications Rollouts

NetScout Systems, Inc.

Tom Schroer
Sr. Product Marketing Manager

Thomas Schroer brings many years of experience with both fixed and wireless voice and data network to the service provider marketing efforts of NetScout’s product marketing team. Prior to NetScout, he worked at Tektronix in IP Product Marketing, Sigma Networks as Director of Network Planning, GST Telecom as VP of Operations and Engineering, Brooks Fiber Properties, and SBC. Mr. Schroer holds an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis and a BSEE from University of Notre Dame.

Session(s):

» What You Need to Know About Your Cloud Service Provider

Nuance Communications

Dena Skrbina
Senior Director, Solutions Marketing

Dena Skrbina is Senior Director of Solutions Marketing in Nuance’s Enterprise Division. She’s spent the past 15 years helping contact center leaders deploy self-service solutions that save money, generate revenue, and provide a differentiated service experience. Her expertise includes nearly a decade working with on-demand customer care solutions.

Session(s):

» What’s Really Driving the Hosted Customer Care Trend?

Nuance Communications

Christy Murfitt
Senior Manager, Solutions Marketing

Christy has over ten years’ experience in the speech recognition and contact center industries. She has engaged hundreds of companies in their customer interaction evaluations, helping them to identify, prioritize, and market both inbound and outbound customer care solutions. She holds a Masters in Marketing from the University of Leicester and graduated Summa Cum Laude from Tufts University.

Session(s):

» Harnessing the Customer Service Experience with a Multi-Channel Approach

Nukona

Chris Perret
CEO

Session(s):

» Managing the Deluge of Third-Party Devices and Apps in the Enterprise

OneAccess Networks

Dennis Gatens
Vice President Business Development

Mr. Gatens is communications industry veteran who has held a number of leadership positions where he has most notably focused on emerging technologies in emerging markets; including DSL, PON, VoIP, Converged Services Delivery and Unified Communications. In his current role with OneAccess Networks he is responsible for North America operations including sales, marketing and product management. Mr. Gatens’ experience includes strategic planning, international market development, business development, sales, marketing, product management and product development. Previous to OneAccess Networks he held leadership positions at ADTRAN, Carrier Access Corporation, Texas Instruments and PulseCom. Mr. Gatens earned his MBA from Radford University and his BSEE from Virginia Tech.

Session(s):

» Design to Win: How CSPs Can Achieve a Better Customer Experience and Higher Profitability from Enterprise IP Communications Rollouts

OneTouch Global

Scott Riley
CEO

Scott Riley - Co-Founder of www.AllAboutFoIP.com and President and Founder of One Touch Global Technologies. Over 20 years of fax automation and e-document delivery solution design and implementation experience in several vertical markets including healthcare, financial, government, insurance, legal and manufacturing. Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering, served as a Naval Officer in the Civil Engineering Corp. and shortly afterward pioneered the first fax delivery solution for the contruction bidding process. Scott Riley has maintained a long-standing involvement with fax server technology integration, electronic document workflow and document management.

Session(s):

» Next Generation Faxing in Today’s Enterprise IP Environment

OpenText

John Harrison
VP of Sales

Session(s):

» Next Generation Faxing in Today’s Enterprise IP Environment

OpSource Inc.

Greg Spicer
Director, Solutions Architecture

Session(s):

» Ensuring End-User Experience on a Virtual Desktop

Pano Logic

Mike Fodor
Executive Vice President of Customer Success

Session(s):

PanTerra Networks, Inc.

Rob Mainor
EVP

Dave Immethun is the Sr. Marketing Director at PanTerra Networks responsible for all inbound and outbound marketing efforts for WorldSmart, PanTerras cloud-based unified communications service. Prior to PanTerra, Immethun was the Sr. Director of Sales and Director of Product marketing at 8x8 Inc., a business Voice over IP (VoIP) service provider. Dave grew customers and revenue over 400% in two years, while delivering the first of six consecutive cash flow positive quarters in the company’s 20+ year history. In marketing he defined and launched all 8x8 residential, video and business VoIP services. Prior to 8x8 Inc,. Dave was Director of Product Management at AltiGen Communications, an IP-PBX equipment provider, where he launched call center and IP phone offerings increasing revenue per sale by 20%. Before AltiGen, Dave was the Senior Product Manager at Entera, an Internet stream caching equipment and service provider where he was responsible for product definition and strategic markets. CacheFlow, now Blue Coat Systems acquired Entera Inc., for $440m. Dave started his career at Nortel Networks where he held positions of increased responsibility over 15+ years including manufacturing supervisor, materials planning, call center manager, NPI and product management.

Session(s):

» Managing the Deluge of Third-Party Devices and Apps in the Enterprise

Partnerpedia

Sam Liu
VP Marketing

Session(s):

PBX Central

Mark Castleman
President

Mark Castleman is co-founder and CEO of PBX Central, a highly successful provider of hosted communications and collaboration services for service providers and enterprises. He is responsible for driving strategic initiatives in the pursuit of innovation in communications and collaboration services. A serial entrepreneur, Mark founded multiple telecom entities including Swakker LLC and Caleo Networks, as well as driving business development and strategy for other cutting-edge technology companies. Mark holds 17 patents and international patents in communications, mobile device interfaces, and information sharing, and continues to create new and innovative patentable technologies. He holds a BS in Architectural Studies from the University of Texas – Austin.

Session(s):

Phone.com

Ari Rabban
CEO

Ari Rabban is an IP communications industry veteran, with specific expertise in the start-up environment, moving companies from concept to operation. He joins Phone.com from Pulver Ventures, an incubator for new IT companies, where he served as managing director and vice president.

Previously, Rabban served as vice president of corporate development and marketing for VocalTec Communications, the VoIP market pioneer and developer of the first internet phone. During his tenure at VocalTec he served as president of two subsidiaries that were ultimately spun out: Surf&Call Solutions, one of the initial voice-enhanced e-commerce solutions companies, and Truly Global Inc., a web based communications service. Rabban joined VocalTec from Lucent Technologies.
Frequently cited as a VoIP market expert, Rabban has been involved with the internet telephony industry from its very early days; he has been widely quoted in trade publications and has been interviewed for media outlets around the world.

Rabban received an MBA from Carnegie-Mellon University; he also has a law degree and bachelors in economics from Tel Aviv University. He practiced corporate law in Tel Aviv, Israel prior to his arrival in the US.

Session(s):

» A Competitive Edge: Hosted and Cloud Services Solutions for SMBs

Phone.com

Alon Cohen
CTO

Alon Cohen – Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Phone.comAlon Cohen is a serial entrepreneur and was the co-founder of VocalTec Communications, the first company to provide Internet voice technology and is widely recognized as one of the creators of the Voice over IP industry.Alon Cohen holds 4 US patents on different communications technologies at the base of VoIP technology. Alon is the recipient of many awards for his innovative work, and represented the State of Israel in the United Nations negotiations of the ITU Study Group 16 for the development and ratification of global VoIP standards.

Session(s):

Polycom

John Antanaitis
Vice President Marketing

Mr. Studt is responsible for all aspects of product strategy, product development, and corporate and product marketing, at IntelePeer, including guiding the creation, rollout and broad market acceptance of the Open Communications Platform. Mr. Studt brings over 15 years of experience in product management, marketing and engineering leadership roles, creating innovative product and service solutions for the telecommunications industry. Prior to IntelePeer, Mr. Studt served as the Director of Product Management and Marketing at TeleGea, where he was instrumental in creating the industry’s first service delivery platform for hosted VoIP services, establishing a market leadership position, and successful corporate acquisition. Previously, Mr. Studt served as an industry consultant at KPMG (BearingPoint) and American Management Systems (CGI), leading OSS and billing modernization programs at global Tier 1 carriers including BellSouth, Verizon, Swisscom, KPN and TeliaSonera. Mr. Studt holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and is a frequent industry speaker and commentator on trends such as Voice 2.0 and next-gen communication services.

Session(s):

» KEYNOTE PRESENTATION Featuring Polycom

Polycom

Stefan Karapetkov
Emerging Technologies Director

Stefan Karapetkov is Emerging Technologies Director at Polycom, Inc. where he focuses on the audio and visual communication markets and technologies. He has MBA from Santa Clara University (USA) and an MS degree in Engineering from the University of Chemnitz (Germany).

Stefan has spent more than 15 years in the communication industry, and currently serves on the Internet2 Applications, Middleware, and Services Advisory Council. His blog http://videonetworker.blogspot.com/ focuses on HD voice, HD video, unified communication and collaboration. He has authored series of white papers and articles in trade publications, and has been frequent speaker at industry events.

Session(s):

» Achieving Buy-In: Getting Your Staff to Use Video

Polycom

Roger Farnsworth
Senior Director, UC&C Foundational Technologies

Roger W. Farnsworth is Senior Director, UC&C Foundational Technologies for Polycom. Mr. Farnsworth uses his technical and industry experience to lead the Unified Communication and Collaboration product management teams at Polycom in such critical transformational areas as SIP, information security, ICT management, and technology optimization and reuse. Mr. Farnsworth has successfully led previous platform transitions in areas of information security, optical networking, and enterprise voice. Prior to joining Polycom, Mr. Farnsworth held leadership roles at Cisco Systems and Network Systems Corporation. Mr. Farnsworth has been in the communications industry since 1980 and holds a B.S. degree in Information Systems Management from the University of San Francisco.

Session(s):

» Why Video is a Must for Enterprise Communications

Proton Media

Ronald Burns
CEO

Ron founded ProtonMedia in 1998, and focuses on business development, marketing and alliances.

Ron is a true evangelist, passionate about merging technology and gaming for next generation solutions that improve collaboration and learning. He has spoken at several industry conferences, and has published articles in Pharmaceutical Representative and Focus magazines.

Prior to ProtonMedia, Ron established Burns Audio in 1987, building an extensive music library that procured and produced music for television and movies. Ron’s company began producing music and sound design for video and computer games in the mid-90s, and in that process, he began the quest to meld gaming with e-learning.

He holds a degree in music composition from Temple University. Ron is also involved with e-Learning for Kids, a global nonprofit foundation that provides free e-learning to children via the Internet.

He plays blues guitar and collects guitars from the 1950s. Ron is married with four children and lives in Harleysville, PA.

Session(s):

» Cloud Computing Platforms -- Which “aaS” is Right for You

Rackspace Hosting

Jim Battenberg
Cloud Evangelist

Jim Battenberg is a Senior Marketing Manager and responsible for cloud marketing at Rackspace Hosting. His time in the cloud dates back to the late 90s when the shared hosting, dedicated hosting and ASP markets first began implementing the core concepts of virtualization. During his nearly 20 years in the high-tech industry, his primary roles- spanning from startups to Fortune 50 companies- have been in the fields of Product Marketing, Product Management, Corporate Communications, Strategic Planning and Business Development. Jim holds both a BBA in Finance and an MBA in International Marketing from the University of Houston.

Session(s):

Rackspace Hosting

Lisa Larson
VP, Advisory Services and Technical Sales

Lisa Larson, the VP, Advisory Services & Technical Sales at Rackspace, has over 20 years of experience in the information technology industry with an emphasis in Consulting, Infrastructure Services, Project Management, Operations, Technical Support, Application Development and IT Management. She leads the presales consulting, sales engineering and Professional Services organization for the Rackspace hybrid business unit and built a team of consulting professionals to help Rackspace customers choose the right hosting solution to fit their business and technology needs.

Before Rackspace, Lisa worked at Dell where she won the Services Star Award for Winning Culture in 2003 and 2005. Lisa is a published author and a graduate of the University of Houston.

Session(s):

» What You Need to Know About Your Cloud Service Provider

Radish Systems, LLC

Theresa Szczurek
CEO and Co-Founder

Dr. Theresa M. Szczurek is co-founder and CEO of Radish Systems (www.RadishSystems.com) . Previously, as co-founder and Chief Planning Officer of RCS (aka Radish 1.0), Szczurek was key in transforming the start-up into a thriving firm that sold for over $40 million. Recently as CEO of Technology and Management Solutions, LLC she helped clients grow exponentially through strategic planning/execution, market/sales development, and organization/leadership development. She wrote the Amazon-bestseller, Pursuit of Passionate Purpose, which provides her proven, step-by-step formula for success. She began her career with eight years at AT&T Bell Laboratories and AT&T International, first designing and greatly improving performance of business information systems and then producing large-scale revenue growth by managing their delivery into world markets.

She holds an MS in Operations Research from Stanford University and an MBA and Ph.D. in Business Administration (with a focus in Marketing and Organization Development) from the University of Colorado. Szczurek lives in Boulder with her husband and 15-year-old daughter. For fun, she is a Girl Scout leader. Follow @RadishSystems and @TheresaSzczurek on Twitter and read the www.RadishSystems.com/blog/

Session(s):

» Best Practices for Leveraging Customer Conversations for Brand Equity

» Achieving Buy-In: Getting Your Staff to Use Video

RADVISION

Bob Romano
VP of Enterprise Marketing

Bob Romano is vice president of Enterprise Marketing of RADVISION; a leading technology and end-to-end solution provider for unified visual communications. Romano is an industry veteran with more than 15 years experience in the visual communications industry and as a daily user of online conferencing technologies. He is an expert in how to effectively meet over distance. Prior to assuming his current role at RADVISION, Romano was president of VCON, Inc. He also held key management roles at First Virtual Communications and IBM. Romano holds bachelors degree in business administration from the University of Washington in Seattle.

Session(s):

RedShift Networks, Inc.

Srinivas Mantripragada
CTO & VP, Products

Dr. Srinivas is responsible for the overall product direction, technology and architecture at RedShift Networks. Srinivas comes with 16 plus years of experience in building and delivering cutting edge solutions in Systems, Networking, Security, Communications and Infrastructure. Prior to that Srinivas was VP, Technologies at Phoenix Technologies leading their cloud infrastructure efforts, CTO-office roles at NetContinuum (leader in Web Application Firewall category; acquired by Barracuda Networks) and Determina (leader in Host Intrusion Security; acquired by VMware). Srinivas was also at MIPS Technologies (acquired by SGI) and HP-Labs. Srinivas is a frequent speaker in leading conferences, driving numerous standards and authored more than 40+ publications with 8 patents. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from University of California, Irvine.

Session(s):

» UC in the Cloud: Understanding the Benefits and Challenges

RIM

John Storozuk
Security Product Manager

John is a Senior Security Product Manager for BlackBerry Security at Research In Motion (RIM). His responsibilities include security focused Product Management for the Enterprise product portfolio which include products such as BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Ubitexx ubi-Suite and BlackBerry Pushcast Software. John has been with RIM since 2001 previously holding positions within BlackBerry Technical Support and Market Intelligence specializing in Competitive Intelligence. John is CSSLP certified and is currently completing a degree in Computer Science.

Session(s):

» Bringing the Social Experience into the Business Context

Saba

Milind Pansare
Sr. Director, Product Marketing

Milind Pansare is responsible for driving product marketing strategy and execution for Saba’s Collaboration offerings, which include Enterprise Business Networking solutions and Web conferencing.

Prior to Saba, Milind led Marketing at an Enterprise 2.0 Open Source collaboration software startup. Milind has held several leadership roles at Sun Microsystems (now Oracle), where he led the worldwide Sun Partner program for ISVs. During his tenure at Sun, Milind helped expand Suns technology partner ecosystem, launch several new products, and develop marketing strategy in Suns Java Software and iPlanet (Sun/AOL/Netscape Alliance) Web Services portfolio. Milind has a strong Engineering background with a B.S. in Computer Science, and has managed engineering teams in the Java Software, Secure Operating System, and Window Systems and Graphics groups at Sun. He also managed and helped establish Sun’s Java Software and iPlanet overseas engineering teams.

Milind’s background includes roles at large companies like Hewlett Packard, and at startups as an advisor and Executive-in-Residence at a prominent Silicon Valley technology incubator.

Milind can be contacted at mpansare@saba.com or on twitter @milindpansare

Session(s):

Sagemcom

Karol Waldron
Business Development Manager and Regional Sales Manager

Sagemcom, Inc. is the largest provider of fax-over-IP in the United States with 70% market share. In her current roles, Karol manages not only sales and distribution in ten states, but also manages third-party relations and go-to-market strategies with hosted VoIP providers and VoIP manufacturers. She joined Sagemcom in 2009 after spending twelve years with the fax software division at Captaris, Inc. in a variety of sales and marketing-related positions. Prior to that, she held both domestic and Latin American sales/business development positions at Qwest and Worldcom.

Session(s):

» Next Generation Faxing in Today’s Enterprise IP Environment

Sangoma Technologies

Jeff Dworkin
Director of Marketing

Jeff Dworkin serves as director of marketing for Sangoma Technologies, a leading provider of hardware and software components that enable or enhance IP Communications Systems for both telecom and datacom applications.

A recognized pioneer in the Voice Processing and Internet Telephony industries, Dworkin co-founded Interface Alternative in 1992, which implemented some of the first commercial grade IVR systems to include speech recognition, speaker verification and text-to-speech systems.

Dworkin has a successful record of leading product marketing teams. Prior to joining Sangoma, he served as enterprise marketing manager for Dialogic, and was responsible for developing go-to-market strategies for the company’s open source, fax and IVVR solutions.

Session(s):

» Media Handling and Transcoding in a Distributed VoIP Network

Shelton Interactive

Rusty Shelton
Principal

Rusty Shelton first spoke at Harvard on the changing world of public relations at the age of 23. An active speaker and book industry veteran, he founded Shelton Interactive in the summer of 2010. In the company’s first year of operation, it represented eight New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Inc Magazine bestsellers, giving Shelton Interactive a book on a top national bestseller list for more than half the year. The firm has a strategic partnership with the country’s top business book PR firm, Cave Henricks Communications, is the lead digital agency for brands like Chicken Soup for the Soul and Harvard Health Publications and has worked with companies like IBM, Open Road Integrated Media, Forrester Research, Deloitte and others. Shelton sits on the University of Texas Texas Exes PR Committee and lives with his family in Austin.

Session(s):

» Top 10 Tips for Online Marketing

ShoreTel

Kevin Gavin
CMO

Kevin Gavin joined ShoreTel in October of 2007 and is responsible for product line management and marketing for all ShoreTel products.For over 25 years, Gavin has helped high-growth telecommunications companies achieve market-leading status in new market categories by delivering breakthrough products and services directly to businesses and consumers. Gavins executive experience includes Chief Marketing Officer at GoBeam Communications, a VoIP-based hosted PBX service provider that was purchased by Covad Communications in 2004. Gavin was also Chief Marketing Officer at InternetConnect, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Softnet Systems, Regional VP at Teligent, Corporate VP of Marketing and Product Development at Nextel Communications, and Regional VP of Marketing at McCaw Cellular.Gavin is a graduate of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He also attended the Executive Education Program at Stanford University.

Session(s):

» Turning Your Unified Communications Solution into a Mobile Asset

» Socialize Your Contact Center for Greater Customer Engagement

Siemens Enterprise Communications

Mark C. Straton
Senior Vice President Solution Marketing Voice and Applications

Mark Straton is senior vice president of global solutions marketing at Siemens Enterprise Communications, Inc., 51% held by the Gores Group and 49% by Siemens AG. Siemens Communications is a top three market leader of VoIP, unified communication and data networking software, services, devices and services with approximately $3.0 billion in annual revenues and approximately 10,000 employees.

In this position, Straton has worldwide responsibility for solutions marketing including strategy and planning, product positioning and messaging, product launch and programs. Stratons responsibility is to position the unique value offered by Siemens Enterprise Communication solutions and introduce these to the market. From June 2006 to December 2008, Mr. Straton was senior vice president, global marketing and led the company’s global alliance, channel, sales enablement, sales promotions, product and solution marketing activities. Prior to this, he served as senior vice president of marketing and strategy at Siemens Communications in the United States from October 2004 until June 2006 with responsibility for fixed and mobile carrier networks, mobile phones and enterprise networks. From 2000 to 2004, Mr. Straton had worldwide responsibility for global marketing as well as U.S. regional field marketing.

Session(s):

» KEYNOTE PRESENTATION

Siemens Enterprise Communications

Donald Greco
Director, Contact Center Field Marketing and Sales Systems Engineering Development

Don’s responsibilities include the sales, marketing efforts and partnership development for the Siemens Enterprise Communications national Contact Center practice. SEN is one of the leading worldwide providers of contact center technology and telephony applications world wide. He is based out of Reston, Virginia.Don has held a number of positions in his 30 years with SEN including engineering, sales, education, development and management. He has been a featured speaker at a number of national events in the Contact Center field including state, federal, and commercial venues. He is a recipient of the Siemens TOP + award for marketing excellence.

Session(s):

Siemens Enterprise Communications, Inc.

Nigel Trueman
VP of Product Management

Nigel Trueman is VP of Product Management with global responsibility for SEN’s Hosted and Cloud based UC Solutions.

He has worked in the Telecommunications industry, both carrier and enterprise, for over 30 years. In his time with Siemens his career has been divided between working in Europe and the US on leading edge projects.

He holds a MSc. Hons. degree from the University of Leicester, where he studied Computing and Information technology and trained as a systems analyst.

Nigel is currently based at Siemens Boca Raton, offices, in Florida.

Session(s):

» UC in the Cloud: Understanding the Benefits and Challenges

Sigma Systems

John Frame
Director of Product Management, SaaS

Session(s):

» Back-office Keys to Winning with Service Bundles for SMBs

Sipera Systems

Jack Rynes
Director of Product Line Development

Jack Rynes is the Director of Product Line Management at Sipera Systems. He is responsible for the product direction and feature set.

With over twenty years in the telecommunication industry in both the Service Provider and Enterprise arenas, Mr. Rynes has worked in every aspect of the industry from Customer Care to Research and Development with such companies as AT&T, Sprint, Sprint PCS, Verizon and NetworkIP. Mr Rynes has participated in the designs of multiple national networks in the service provider arena and in the service delivery side with enhanced service providers.

Session(s):

» Enterprise SBCs: Extending Beyond Interoperability

Socialware

Mike Langford
Head of Social Business Strategy

Mike Langford has a rare combination of skills and experience that bridge financial services and social business. Mike is a financial services industry veteran with over 17 years of experience in roles spanning customer service, finance and investment advice and management. After years of working for world-class firms such as Fidelity Investments and State Street Corporation Mike founded an independent registered investment advisory firm. He also founded the social media company Tweetworks, a platform for rich conversations for Twitter users prior to joining Socialware as the head of social business strategy.

Session(s):

Sonus Networks

Robert Bradley
Product Manager, Security Solutions

Session(s):

Sonus Networks

Wes Durow
Vice President of Global Marketing

Wes Durow comes to Sonus Networks with more than 20 years’ experience driving marketing results for consumer and business-to-business companies, large and small, public and private. Most recently, Wes was Chief Marketing Office of Fonality – a fast-growing hosted Unified Communications provider. Previously, Wes was Vice President and General Manager of Global Marketing at Avaya, where he guided the company’s marketing investments and initiatives worldwide. Prior to that, he held a variety of marketing, strategy and channel executive roles at Nortel. Wes began his career in advertising helping build brands like American Airlines, Pace Picante Sauce, Eckrich Meats, GTE (now Verizon), NationsBank (now Bank of America) and Greyhound Bus Lines. Wes has been a featured speaker on the subject of marketing excellence at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, the University of North Carolina and the American Marketing Association. He holds a bachelors degree from the University of Northern Iowa and a masters degree from Northwestern University.

Session(s):

» Enterprise SBCs: Extending Beyond Interoperability

Sonus Networks

Mykola Konrad
Director of Enterprise Product Management

Mykola “myk” Konrad in the director of product Management for the SBC business unit within Sonus Networks. In this role he directs SBC strategy and future releases. Prior to Sonus Mykola worked at Microsoft, Panasonic and Nortel in various product management roles.

Session(s):

Sonus Networks

Fardad Farahmand
Director of Systems Engineering

Fardad Farahmand is a Principal Architect and Director of Systems Engineering at Sonus Networks. For over a decade, Fardad has been active at Sonus in the architecture, development and deployment of SIP solutions on Sonus Gateway, SoftSwitch, SBC and IMS family of products. Fardad has spent significant time on introduction of key concepts such as SIP Profiles for application interactions, carrier to carrier and carrier to enterprise IP Peering. He has worked for many years on addressing SIP and SIP-I interoperability in wireless and wireline VoIP networks worldwide. Fardad holds issued patents and pending patent applications on IP trunking. Prior to Sonus, Fardad was founder of AccuSource, a VoIP consulting company working with Tier 1 carriers on migration of communication services to VoIP. Prior to that Fardad held lead research and development positions at Comverse Technology (previously Boston Technology) and Stratus Computer, a supplier of fault tolerant computer systems for mission critical applications.

Session(s):

» Evolving Interconnection – From TDM to IP to IMS Peering

Spiceworks

Nicole Tanzillo
Head of IT Marketing

Session(s):

» Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Cloud: Top 10 Reasons SMB’s Need Not Fear the Cloud

Sugar CRM

Chris Bucholtz
Editor in Chief of Outsiders

With 17 years as a technology and business under his belt, Chris took over the role of editor in chief of SugarCRMs CRM Outsiders blog in 2011. He first focused on customer relationship management as the editor of InsideCRM, then moved to Forecasting Clouds as the founding Editor in Chief in 2009 to continue honing his views on how the discipline of CRM can impact the entire business. He tries to write from the point of view of the customer to create what he calls “advocacy journalism for CRM users.”

Before developing into a CRM influencer, Chris covered a variety of technology-related topics. He was the editor of Semiconductor Manufacturing Magazine, senior editor of technology for VAR Business, senior editor at HP World and intelligence and software editor for Telephony. After a six-year stint in the U.S. Navy, his start in journalism came as a rock columnist for BAM Magazine.

In addition to his business and technology writing, Chris has written three books on World War II aviation. An avid scale modeler, Chris and his wife live in Alameda, California.

Session(s):

» Remote Agents: The Big Game Changer for Contact Centers

Support.com

Anthony Rodio
Chief Operating Officer

Anthony Rodio joined Support.com from SideStep (acquired by Kayak), where he was the vice president of product management. Prior to SideStep, Mr. Rodio was vice president of marketing at StubHub.com (acquired by eBay), a fast-growing consumer online marketplace for event tickets. Mr. Rodio has also held senior positions at Microsoft, where he was responsible for MSN consumer marketing, and at Amazon.com, where he was general manager for the companys zShops and the Computer Store, following brand management experience at Procter & Gamble. Mr. Rodio holds a B.S.B.A. from University of Oregon, an M.S. in Economics from Portland State University and an M.B.A. from Washington University

Session(s):

Swittergy

Ricardo Guerrero
founder and CEO

Ricardo Guerrero (@ggroovin & @ESggroovin on Twitter) is the founder and CEO of Stwittergy™ (@STWITT3RGY), the “Chief Buzz Generator” of Social Media Dynamo™ (@SoMeDynamo), and an award-winning social media marketer. Ricardo created most of Dells Twitter accounts, which generated $6.5M in their first 2.5 years, as well as several successful Facebook pages, and established the core strategy for Dells Twitter presence. As Social Media Dynamo™, he offers social media strategy, implementation, and coaching to Generate excitement & Power your Brand.™ He is also building a web-based application called Stwittergy™ to help organizations use Twitter effectively by identifying influencers via follower data mining and the ability to create self-updating groups which allow easily Direct Messaging everyone in the group. Ricardo is currently employed by WCG in Austin.

Ricardo has presented at SXSW Interactive, ClickZ/Search Engine Strategies, & Webmaster World/Pubcon in the U.S. and Go EMMS & Twitt.DO in Latin America. (He typically shares his public presentations on SlideShare.) Additionally, he was a co-organizer for the Latin America programming at SXSW Interactive 2011 as well as the first Americas IT Business and Investors Forum. Ricardo is the chair of the Social Media Ambassadors program of the Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and a co-organizer of the Austin Business Owners Meetup group. He recently served as the first Social Media Director for 2010-2011 for the Austin chapter of the American Marketing Association, on the SXSW Accelerator 2011 Advisory Board and on several of the various boards of the North American Students of Cooperation 2003-2010.

Session(s):

» Best Practices for Leveraging Customer Conversations for Brand Equity

Symantec Corporation

John Engels
Principal Product Manager, Enterprise Mobility Group

As the Principal Product Manager at Symantec for the Enterprise Mobility Group, John Engels is responsible for Symantec’s mobile management and mobile security products. Engels has been with Symantec for over six years and previously managed Symantec’s security products including the company’s SMB suites, Critical System Protection, Symantec Antivirus, as well as the Symantec integration of the Sygate and WholeSecurity product lines.

Prior to Symantec, John worked in product management and product marketing with a number of telecom-related hardware and software companies, with a focus on high speed data communications testing, service support and security. Engels has an MBA from the University of Michigan and a Bachelors Degree from Texas A&M in Electrical Engineering.

Session(s):

Taqua

Payam Maveddat
EVP, Product Management

Payam Maveddat is responsible for Taqua’s product line management organization and all of Taqua’s convergence switching and RF backhaul products. Payam has considerable expertise in wireless, IMS standards and architectures. He is a technologist, pioneer, and veteran of mobile communications industry, with expertise in product management, strategic planning, technology development, network planning, and systems engineering. Previously, Payam held executive positions in product management, systems engineering and marketing at Mavenir, Tekelec, Nortel, and AT&T Bell Labs. He specializes in mobile Internet, FMC and IMS, Voice & Messaging over LTE/4G, and soft-switching. Payam has been granted eight (8) US patents in mobile networking. He has BSEE from University of Iowa, MSEE from Georgia Tech, and MBA from University of Texas.

Session(s):

» 2018: The Death of the PSTN Keynote Luncheon Panel

Telesphere

Sanjay Srinivasan
CTO

As Chief Technology Officer and head of Operations, Sanjay Srinivasan is responsible for all Engineering, Product Development and Operations at Telesphere. Mr. Srinivasan comes to Telesphere with over 15 years of experience and expertise in the areas of data networks, voice services and hosted application services. He has served in all aspects pertaining to a service provider including network design, VoIP, software architecture and development, service provider process engineering, product marketing and development, and network and service operations. Prior to Telesphere, Mr. Srinivasan has served in various capacities with leading telecom companies like Hughes Network Systems, AT&T Wireless, Lightedge Solutions and Terabeam Corporation. At AT&T Wireless, he was one of the leading members of the team that successfully rolled out a fixed wireless residential product and integrated it successfully in to AT&Ts operations. With Terabeam, he was a leading member of the team responsible for rolling out of one of the first, native Ethernet/MPLS backbone networks in the country offering high-bandwidth metro-ethernet services to corporations. With the emergence of VoIP as a disruptive technology in the business communications sector, Mr. Srinivasan was responsible for rolling out and operating to scale one of the countrys leading Hosted VoIP PBX services. He has held educational seminars on the concept of Hosted IP PBX based services in various cities across the nation and has presented in conferences on the subject of VoIP. He is also responsible for rolling out Hosted Application and IT services focused on the Small-to-Medium business sector. Mr. Srinivasan holds a doctorate degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Virginia. He is a member of Engineering Honor societies such as Eta Kappa Nu and Tau Beta Pi. Mr. Srinivasan has published in refereed journals and conference proceedings.

Session(s):

» Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Cloud: Top 10 Reasons SMB’s Need Not Fear the Cloud

TelStar Hosted Services, Inc.

James Dunn
CEO

James P. Dunn is the founder and CEO of TelStar Hosted Services, Inc., a leading provider of call center solutions via the cloud. Jim is an experienced Senior Executive with over 30 years of success as a proven change agent. He has formulated growth strategies in a wide range of information technology, communications and financial service industries. Jim has held executive management positions in publicly and privately held companies like GE ITS, SITEL, Stream International, Access Graphics, Oppenheimer Funds, Kemper, and others, and has managed operations on both sides of BPO relationships.

Prior to founding TelStar Hosted, in 2003 Jim began D Partners, a boutique consulting firm in the DC area focused on transforming tough business situations into profitable ventures in the High Tech, Financial, BPO and Customer Care industries.

A dynamic speaker, Jim has authored and delivered numerous presentations to private equity and emerging growth companies, firms and their organizations on the subjects of enterprise performance appraisal, operational excellence and successful external growth.

Jim serves (or has served) on various boards including Capstone Strategic, Remote Power, and CLBL. Jim holds a BSBA and MBA from the University of Denver. For more information, see www.TelStarHosted.com.

Session(s):

» What’s Really Driving the Hosted Customer Care Trend?

Terremark

John Considine
CTO

Session(s):

» Overcoming Latency: The Achilles Heel of Cloud Computing

TMC

Rich Tehrani (Host)
CEO

Session(s):

» 2018: The Death of the PSTN Keynote Luncheon Panel

Transverse

Chris Couch
COO and Co-Founder

Chris Couch is our COO and Co-Founder. He spent 17 years as a professional focused on telecommunications softwaree solutions. Most recently, Chris served as Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at ACE*COMM Corp., a leading provider of wireless OSS, BSS and value-add services platforms. He also led consulting practices at American Management Systems and Logica, where he oversaw or participated in the ground-up launch of several wireless carriers around the world.

Session(s):

» Picking a Winning Mix: Keys to Cloud Service Success

tw telecom

Brian Adensamer
Director of Market Development (aka Director of Innovation)

Brian Hoekelman is Director of Market Development (aka Director of Innovation) and has been with tw telecom for 7 years. Mr. Hoekelman has worked in the technology and telecomm industry for nearly 20 years in various key roles. Currently, Brian successfully leads the organization in evaluating markets and opportunities as well as identifying strategic alliances. His main focus is on exploring new technological innovations that deliver increased business value to tw telecom’s customers. Mr. Hoekelman collaborates with the executive team to define and articulate the future vision and direction for our suite of solutions. Prior to tw telecom, Brian held senior Product and Business Development roles at Qwest, TouchAmerica & ConferTech International (aka Polycom). In addition, Brian has consulted in the OSS/BSS field transforming back-office methodologies for a number of large Telco’s. A native of Denver, Colorado, Mr. Hoekelman earned a BS in Business from Oregon State University and holds a Masters in IS from the University of Denver.

Session(s):

» Picking a Winning Mix: Keys to Cloud Service Success

utribo

Alain Sturzenegger
Co-founder & CEO

Alain Sturzenegger, a serial entrepreneur as a lifelong explorer of software-enabled capabilities in communications services, is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of utribo . utribo is a Swiss company that develops natural rich voice and video over IP communications solutions for Internet communities and websites. Prior to launching utribo, Sturzenegger founded and ran eyeP Media, which focused on voice over IP solutions for telecom services providers, ISPs, cable and systems integrators. Sturzenegger started tinkering in software programming at 12 and earned a degree in electro-technical engineering just as deregulation of telecoms was sweeping across Europe. That deregulation created a fertile environment for software-based innovations and spawned a wave of new communications services operators anxious to leverage innovation to gain footholds versus incumbent carriers. After spending several years as a developer of applications for a company that provided data communications between ATMs and host computers, Sturzenegger founded his first services company, a software engineering consultancy, in the early days of LAN communications for business users. Next came Media Phonics, a startup he co-founded in 1995 with the backing of Swiss and French investors that developed signal-processing capabilities for linking hardware and software in telecom and computer systems. Meantime, Sturzenegger remained fascinated with the possibilities of delivering IP-based voice and video applications to independent operators and services providers and that led to the founding of utribo

Session(s):

» Achieving Buy-In: Getting Your Staff to Use Video

Veddio

Stonly Baptiste
Co-founder & CTO

As Veddio’s Chief Technology Officer, Stonly coordinates reliable and efficient hosting services for businesses in the United States, Canada and Central America. As lead developer for Veddio’s back-end software and service integrations, he ensures that Veddio is providing a secure cloud infrastructure and effective management platforms.Prior to Veddio, Stonly was President and CEO of Aston Unified Communication. Aston’s purpose was to meet the needs of businesses looking to move from legacy phone systems to hosted and on-premise VoIP solutions. There, he coordinated the implementation of a variety of open source on-premise voip solutions and developed Astons hosted VoIP platform.Stonly is a public speaker on topics such as technology and community service. He has been interviewed on radio and TV regarding topics such as Wireless security and Cloud Computing. He will be featured in an upcoming book on effective communication.

Session(s):

Verecloud

Russell Wurth
VP Product Management

Russell Wurth is Vice President of Product Management at Verecloud where he drives the product strategy, marketing, and architecture direction for Cloudwrangler. He has over 10 years of experience in the communications industry, including cable, satellite, and wireless. Russell brings broad experience in designing and implementing enterprise architecture and technology solutions. In his current role, Russell, combines his technical expertise with an understanding of SMB IT needs for the purpose of bringing cloud capabilities to reality. Russell participates in TM Forum, ATIS, and OASIS, to drive IT standards toward interoperability that is needed for cloud computing. Russell received his undergraduate degree at the Colorado School of Mines and his MBA and Masters in Information Systems from the University of Colorado-Denver

Session(s):

» How to Save Money on Communications without Sacrificing Your Operational Efficiency

Vertical Communications

Steven De Korne
Vice President

Session(s):

VideoMost.com, subsidiary of SPIRIT DSP

Paul Baron
VP, North America

Paul Baron is the Vice President, North America for VideoMost, a subsidiary of Moscow headquartered SPIRIT Technologies. Based in Atlanta, GA., Paul is a Business and Partnership Development Professional representing technology companies seeking higher value solutions, customers and partners. Paul was the founder and President of PAGE Telecomputing in 1994. PAGE was one of the original Computer/Telephony (CTI) software developers providing integration of large enterprise and SoHo telecom systems with customer database (CRM) applications. After the acquisition of PAGE in 1999, Paul began consulting to telecom vendors, carriers, and other communications software developers until joining SPIRIT in 2003. Since then, he has served as SPIRIT’s Business Development Director for US and worldwide customers. Today, Paul leads the introduction of VideoMost’s multi-party PC based voice and video conference solutions to service providers, application developers, and SaaS hosts seeking to deliver high margin cloud-based emerging IP services and solutions to their SMB and large enterprise customers and subscribers.Paul has an MS - Mathematics education from the University of New Hampshire and a BS in Mathematics from the State University of New York. Paul also has more than four decades of entrepreneurial successes spanning retail, foodservice, sales consulting, software, and business & market development. He is an outstanding communicator, frequently called upon as an entertaining speaker and expert panelist at media and technology industry events and is a published author on a wide range of sales and technology topics.

Session(s):

Virtual PBX

Greg Brashier
Chief Operations Officer

Gregs 30 years in high-tech has taken him from telecommunications, to storage and networking, to University-level teaching all the way back again. A leader in the marketing field, Gregs energy has helped the growth and profitability of Iomega, Maxtor, Mylex, and Hewlett-Packard. His deep knowledge of the industry made him a top-rated marketing professor at BYUs Marriott School of Management. Greg is responsible for all of Virtual PBXs revenue growth strategies as well as all aspects of the companys marketing strategy, including branding, communications, product marketing, online marketing, and evangelism. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Brigham Young University.

Session(s):

» Ensuring End-User Experience on a Virtual Desktop

Virtuon Inc.

Forrest Blair
CEO

Forrest’s professional background ranges from technical innovator and entrepreneur guiding technology startups, to executive leadership in large corporations. He has held Senior Director, Vice President, President, and other executive roles at various companies. At General Electric and Sorenson Media companies he led innovations in software advances and programs in internet media streaming. In addition to managing efforts at ThermoFisher Scientific to streamline strategic planning and operational execution, Forrest deployed corporate improvement and growth programs in world-wide locations. Internationally, Forrest has managed partnerships and programs in Asia and Europe. Currently he is leading innovations in cloud computing and virtualization at Virtuon. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Brigham Young University.

Session(s):

Vocalocity

Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya
Chief Technology Officer

Mr. Paolini-Subramanya is the CTO of Vocalocity, a position he has held since its merger with Aptela. Drawing upon 20 years of accomplishments in Internet based services, Mr. Paolini-Subramanya is a recognized thought leader in the VoIP industry. An Internet pioneer, he developed the technological foundation for the e-commerce revolution by helping to create the worlds first online commerce system, and has since been at the forefront of the development of hosted VoIP services.Mr. Paolini-Subramanya was previously a founder and CTO of Aptela prior to its merger with Vocalocity. Before to that, he was V.P. of Development at Neoglyphics Media where he inaugurated the use of Java technologies in financial services and CTO of Proxicom where he also led the Technology practice. He holds a B. Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology - Kanpur and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame.

Session(s):

VoIP Supply

Garrett Smith

Session(s):

VOIPSA

Dan York

Session(s):

» Hearing the Voice of the Customer Leads to Songs of Success

Vovici

Nancy Porte
VP of Customer Experience

With over 20 years experience, Nancy Porte is responsible for the Voice of the Customer program while managing customer support, customer training, and CRM systems.

Prior to joining Vovici, Nancy most recently served as Senior Director, Technical Field Operations at Approva, a provider of continuous controls monitoring solutions based in Reston, VA. While at Approva, Nancy implemented a comprehensive client services strategy, resulting in 100% retention of customers over her tenure. Nancy has implemented successful client support and retention strategies at several other DC-area companies including Monster Government Solutions, iDEFENSE, and CareerBuilder.

Session(s):

Xconnect

Andy Cooper
Head of Technical Solutions

Andy Cooper has more than 25 years experience in the engineering and operation of telephony networks and services.

For three years, he has been Head of Technical Solutions for XConnect – a role that sits between XConnect’s sales and technical teams. Cooper has been instrumental in defining, delivering, presenting and selling XConnect’s range of next-generation interconnect and registry services.

Before joining XConnect, he held engineering, operational and sales positions with a number of telecommunications companies, including Cable &Wireless, Level 3 and Interoute.

Session(s):

» Evolving Interconnection – From TDM to IP to IMS Peering

» Why Video is a Must for Enterprise Communications

XO Communications

Ronan Keane
Social Media Strategist

Session(s):

» Securing Social Media for Compliant Collaboration

Moderator List

Katie Butcher (Moderator)

B-Lynk
CEO

B-Lynk provides Sales, Customer End-User and Customer Administrator Training and Professional Services to BroadSoft Service Providers. Their robust catalog of services can be delivered via eLearning video tutorials, webinars or on-site. Courses are designed to provide scalable training solutions and are built to keep up with the ever changing technology, new product feature/functionality and ongoing release updates. The team at B-Lynk understands the challenges that service providers face when training and building a Sales Team, as well as the complexities that arise while on-boarding, training and providing continuing education to customers.

Session(s):

» Design to Win: How CSPs Can Achieve a Better Customer Experience and Higher Profitability from Enterprise IP Communications Rollouts

Michele Rowan (Moderator)

Customer Contact Strategies
President

Michele Rowan, President of Customer Contact Strategies, spent 12 years with Hilton Hotels Corporation as VP of Performance Management and held roles in the US as well as five years in International Operations. Her last key assignment was to lead both US and European strategy development and deployment of the remote agent program. Michele moved over 1000 agent positions home in 18 months at aHilton, and is established as one of the industry’s leading experts of remote agent business models.

Rowan currently conducts two-day Remote Agent workshops in the US and Europe to help companies develop strategic and operational plans that best suit their culture and objectives. She also conducts readiness assessments to scale the remote agent model, project management and other customized consulting for remote agent deployments. She has written a step-by-step implementation guide (“Go Home), is a frequent speaker, and writes articles and briefings that have been recognized around the globe.

Michele has worked with over 300 companies in financial, health care, travel, retail, entertainment, telecom /tech support, BPO, and non-for-profit sectors in design and implementation strategies.

Prior to Hilton, Michele spent three years with a large US based outsourcer in the lead Human Resource role. Her expertise is diverse and includes strategy development, operations, performance management and support, training, quality and human resources.

Session(s):

» Remote Agents: The Big Game Changer for Contact Centers

Matt Clark (Moderator)

Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP
Principal, Valuation Services

Session(s):

» Next Generation Faxing in Today’s Enterprise IP Environment

» Managing the Deluge of Third-Party Devices and Apps in the Enterprise

Bob Emmerson (Moderator)

Electric Words
Freelance Writer

Session(s):

» Forecasting Success in Enterprise Cloud Computing

» Comprehensive Security & Compliance for Fast-Moving Businesses

Rob Ayoub (Moderator)

Frost & Sullivan
Global Program Director- Network Security

Session(s):

» Why Video is a Must for Enterprise Communications

Doug Mohney (Moderator)

HD Voice News
Editor-in-Chief

Doug Mohney has clocked more than 20 years of experience in the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) arena between working in real world businesses and writing about them.

His resume includes Editor in Chief, Telecom and Digital Media Group for a B2B emedia company and Editor-in-Chief at VON Magazine (the pulvermedia incarnation, not the Virgo one). Publications he’s written for over the past dozen years include Boardwatch, Mobile Radio Technology/Urgent Communications, The Inquirer, and VON Magazine, covering telecommunications, the Internet, and online video.

His hands-on/real-world experience includes stints at two high-tech start-up companies, one that went public (DIGEX) and one that didn’t (SkyCache/Cidera). Joining DIGEX as employee number 10 in 1993, Doug had a ring-side seat to the trials and tribulations of a fast growing, VC-funded startup doing the boom growth years of the Internet.

Session(s):

» Evolving Interconnection – From TDM to IP to IMS Peering

Mark Ricca (Moderator)

IntelliCom Analytics
Partner

Session(s):

» What You Need to Know About Your Cloud Service Provider

» How to Save Money on Communications without Sacrificing Your Operational Efficiency

Frank Stinson (Moderator)

IntelliCom Analytics
Partner

Session(s):

» UC in the Cloud: Understanding the Benefits and Challenges

» What’s Really Driving the Hosted Customer Care Trend?

Jon Arnold (Moderator)

J Arnold & Associates
Principal

Jon Arnold is Principal of J Arnold & Associates, an independent telecom analyst and strategy consultancy based in Toronto, Ontario. The consultancy’s primary focus is providing thought leadership and go-to-market counsel regarding IP communications and disruptive technologies, such as VoIP, mobile broadband, contact centers, telepresence/video, unified communications, SIP trunking, cloud communications, session border controllers, and social media.

He has been consulting about these technologies since 2001, and can be followed on his widely-read Analyst 2.0 Blog, along with regular commentary on Twitter and Linked in. Jon also contributes to other publishers and portals, such as UCStrategies, ADTRAN, Exony, and Focus.com, speaks regularly at industry events, and accepts public speaking invitations. He is frequently cited in both the trade press and mainstream business press, serves as an Advisor to several emerging tech/telecom companies, and also works with companies of all sizes to help monetize their patents and intellectual property.

Session(s):

» Harnessing the Customer Service Experience with a Multi-Channel Approach

David H. Yedwab (Moderator)

Market Strategy & Analytics Partners
Partner

Session(s):

» Enterprise SBCs: Extending Beyond Interoperability

Peter Radizeski (Moderator)

RAD-INFO, Inc
President

Peter Radizeski started as a telecom agent in 1999. Today he is a Blogger and Columnist for TMC, author, and telecom consultant to service providers.

Session(s):

» Top 10 Tips for Online Marketing

» 2018: The Death of the PSTN Keynote Luncheon Panel

Richard Shockey (Moderator)

SIP Forum
Chairman

Richard Shockey is an internationally recognized expert on Data Communications, Voice over IP [VoIP] Technology, VoIP Interconnection, Signaling and the principal of Shockey Consulting a private firm advising telecommunications companies and the investment community on any number of issues related to Next Generation Networks.

Mr. Shockey is also Chairman of the Board of Directors and Technical Working Group Chair of the SIP Forum, an industry organization with members from over 40 leading IP communications companies with a mission to advance the adoption of products and services based on SIP [RFC 3761]. SIP is THE means by which global carriers are deploying real-time communications over IP networks. Mr. Shockey is also chairing the SIP Forum SIP Connect task group that has produced a new comprehensive specification of how SIP based IP-PBX’s can interconnect with Service Providers. http://www.sipforum.org/.

Mr. Shockey has spoken countless times at industry events on SIP, ENUM and Next Generation Networks and led the architecture and design of several commercial products based on ENUM. ENUM [ RFC3761 ] has been frequently mentioned in the media as a key enabler in the convergence of the PSTN and VoIP and the principal technology service provider’s are considering for VoIP Network to Network Interconnection, VoIP peering and SS7 avoidance.

Mr. Shockey is a founder and is still Co Chair of the Internet Engineering Task Force ENUM Work Group and is an author of several IETF RFC’s Active in IETF affairs since 1998 he also participated in numerous other IETF WG including FAX, SIP, SIPPING, SPEERMINT, SIMPLE and its management nominating committee NOMCOM. He has also been the co-chair of the IETF working group DRINKS on the provisioning of data for VoIP Peering Federations. Among his current interests are White Space Databases.

Session(s):

John Macario (Moderator)

TelcoFuture
Managing Director

Session(s):

» Back-office Keys to Winning with Service Bundles for SMBs

Erik Linask (Moderator)

TMC
Group Editorial Director

Session(s):

» The Contact Center: The Key to Social Media Success

» Turning Your Unified Communications Solution into a Mobile Asset

Tom Keating (Moderator)

TMC
VP of TMC/CTO/Executive Technology Editor

Session(s):

» Cloud Computing Platforms -- Which “aaS” is Right for You

Paula Bernier (Moderator)

TMC
Executive Editor

Session(s):

» Achieving Buy-In: Getting Your Staff to Use Video

» Bringing the Social Experience into the Business Context

Peter Bernstein (Moderator)

TMC
Senior Editor

Session(s):

» Overcoming Latency: The Achilles Heel of Cloud Computing

» Ensuring End-User Experience on a Virtual Desktop

» Picking a Winning Mix: Keys to Cloud Service Success

Chris DiMarco (Moderator)

TMCnet
Managing Editor

Session(s):

» Hearing the Voice of the Customer Leads to Songs of Success

» Socialize Your Contact Center for Greater Customer Engagement

Stefanie Mosca (Moderator)

TMCnet
Managing Editor

Session(s):

» The Role of Unified Communications in Social Work Patterns

Juliana Kenny (Moderator)

TMCnet
Managing Editor

Session(s):

» Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Cloud: Top 10 Reasons SMB’s Need Not Fear the Cloud

» Securing Social Media for Compliant Collaboration

Luca Filigheddu (Moderator)

Twimbow Inc.
CEO

Luca Filigheddu is an executive with 10+ years management experience in C-level roles in companies operating in the internet space, ranging from telecommunications to social media. Luca is currently CEO of Twimbow, Inc., a social media dashboard with offices in San Francisco.

Session(s):

» Best Practices for Leveraging Customer Conversations for Brand Equity

Gary Kim (Moderator)

VoIP Business News
Editor in Chief

Session(s):