The challenge--build a vast resource of knowledge within a rapidly changing technology world, while keeping fixed costs low, so as to pass true value and low price points along to clients.

Traditional research and advisory firms have struggled for years to offer personal advice, with excellent research backing, to their clients. Traditional research and advisory firms, like Gartner Group, Meta Group, and Forrester Research, have developed large internal staffs to produce massive volumes of research. This staffing approach required large fixed cost commitments that, as the firms grew and became public, required the firms to move away from personal service to more of a publishing business model.

Our goal is to remain a provider of personal advice--based on the wisdom of our network of experts. We do not aspire to ever move away from our close contact with our clients, so we can fully tailor our deliverables to their needs.

To that end. we have taken a unique approach to providing wisdom.  We have assembled an inner core of generalists, augmented with a network of on-call experts and strategic partners, as well as a network of industry counterparts.

Network of experts

To provide you with the breadth – and depth – of coverage, we extend our inner core of experts to work with experts in our Expercycle. These are industry experts and thought leaders who have been thoroughly reviewed by us. Through their partnerships with Experture, we can provide and manage experts on-demand, where and when you need them - thereby extending your knowledge domain. No longer will you have to swim through a sea of consultants, hoping to find the right match. We have done that for you.

Experture currently works with over 200 innovative, leading global experts in a wide variety of industries who view driving shareholder wealth as a strategic imperative rather than as a short-term tactical fix.

We spend a significant portion of time and effort to find and hire the best in the industry--so you can take advantage of one-stop shopping for all your advisory needs.

Please contact us for more information if you wish to join our network of experts.

Strategic alliance partnerships

Experture strives to provide the highest quality and most comprehensive, synergistic suite of advisory and consulting solutions to our clients. In order to achieve this goal, strategic partnerships play an important role. We understand that to succeed in today's competitive business environment, it is crucial to align with premier companies offering complementary products and services.  We actively seek partnerships where it makes sense to do so for our clients.

Industry counterparts

A key component to our network of experts is you--and your industry counterparts.  And who is better at providing insight and advice on the core issues you face than others who have faced similar issues?  Our CIO roundtables provide you with an avenue you need to discuss these issues at great length, and get tremendous insight you can apply immediately.

Our Expercycle (tm)

Here is a representative sample of some of the people in our Expercycle:

Charles Ambuhl

Mr. Ambuhl has more than 25 years of experience in the IT benchmarking industry, with the past 12 years focused on increasing the business benefit from investment in information technology. He has designed and implemented innovative approaches to performance measurement, benchmarking, and alignment of technology for increased IT effectiveness. Mr. Ambuhl is co-founder of the IT Performance Management Group and an active consultant within the IT performance management practice. He works with senior business and IT executives on high-level engagements focused on establishing current IT organization performance and synergy/alignment between business and IT, employing tools, techniques, and methodologies he developed specifically for these assessments. Recently, Mr. Ambuhl was Vice President, EMEA Benchmarking for META Group. At META Group he co-developed and managed the delivery of a set of cost and price benchmarking services, focusing on KPIs and IT cost/price performance, unique to IT benchmarking. Previously, Mr. Ambuhl was vice president of Gartner Measurement’s client services for North America, where he managed service analysts and delivery of IT measurement services to Global 2000 accounts. Before that, he developed and managed Gartner’s delivery team for the IT Overview Analysis, the first measurement service directed at the CIO/CFO to provide understanding of IT performance with a business viewpoint. In addition, he spent 14 years at Real Decisions, which was acquired by Gartner, and was instrumental in launching several IT benchmarking services still in use today. Mr. Ambuhl received a BA in business economics from The College of Wooster.

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Henry Bevilacqua

Henry Bevilacqua was most recently the Director of Network Telecom and Operations for the Girl Scouts of the USA in New York City. In this position he was responsible for the design and management of the technology infrastructure for GSUSA headquarters and its satellite offices, including the Edith Macy Conference Center, the Juliette Gordon Low National Center, the Washington DC Advocacy office and the NES Distribution Center. As the Technical Architect for the GSUSA technical infrastructure, he had responsibility to ensure that all new, current and future applications and services are supported effectively and efficiently. Mr. Bevilacqua came to GSUSA with a Bachelor's degree in Architecture and several MBA courses from the Baruch Business School. He has worked extensively in the financial industry including, Drexel Burnham Lambert, Dean Witter, Jefferies and Co. and Lehman Brothers. The experience also includes several years with a Brazilian Foreign Bank with over 1800 branches in Brazil and offices in New York, the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg. During his tenure at Banco Bamerindus do Brasil, he was responsible for working closely with IT Management in the Curitiba head office in the design and implementation of wide area networks connecting New York, the Caymans and Luxembourg to a then new and custom banking system in New York. His experience includes many disciplines, including project management, technical and visionary architecture, strategic technical and business planning and a clear working relationship and understanding of business processes and principles.

Larry Birchfield

Larry Birchfield has 28 years of experience with Progress Energy including 20 years in information technology. For the last 11 years, Larry served as the Technology Acquisitions Program Leader for Progress Energy's Information Technology and Telecommunications Department. As the resident expert on IT contracts, he shared his expertise with other business units and subsidiaries to ensure that IT investments were predictable and cost effective and that IT contracts contained flexible and fair terms and conditions. Larry has negotiated and managed long-term strategic contracts with several hundred suppliers of mainframe, client/server, and desktop software, hardware, and services. Larry earned B.S. and M. S. degrees from the University of Michigan.

Michael Bitterman

Mr. Bitterman is a founder of the IT Performance Management Group and an active consultant within the IT performance management practice. He currently works with senior business and IT executives in performing high-level engagements focused on establishing the current performance of the IT organizations and the synergy and alignment between the business and IT. He employs the tools, techniques and methodologies he developed specifically for these assessments. Prior to founding ITPMG, Mr. Bitterman was a vice president at Gartner Group. He joined Gartner in 1994, and held a number of positions and established the IT Transformation and IT Performance Management practice at Gartner. As vice president and northeast regional service director, Mr. Bitterman was responsible for management of the analyst staff and for client engagements. He provided direction and support to analysts across all areas of IT, ensuring that a “business perspective” was a part of every performance analysis. Prior to joining Gartner, Mr. Bitterman held senior management positions within both vendor and user IT organizations. He was the vice president of sales and marketing for two network management companies that developed products and services to meet the requirements of voice and data network users. Mr. Bitterman held senior management positions at PepsiCo, where he directed a staff of 60 IT professionals in the planning, design, implementation, and operation of worldwide voice and data communications networks and data center operations. He held a similar position at Continental Group, managing staff in the delivery of voice and data network services. Other positions included manager telecommunications at Emery Air Freight, where he operated the first real-time, online system for tracking airfreight. He planned and implemented the deployment of facilities and equipment on a worldwide basis to over 150 locations with over 1,500 terminals. Mr. Bitterman began his career at New York Telephone in 1967 as a communications consultant. Mr. Bitterman holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Doane College.

Irv Brownstein

Irv Brownstein is a consultant with over thirty years experience in the information industry. In the course of his career he has demonstrated particular expertise in the areas of metrics, balanced scorecards and measurement programs, business intelligence, program management, business continuity, software asset management, process engineering, skills management, all phases of systems development and implementation, software package evaluation and installation, systems methodology development and implementation, productivity improvement and cost reduction, quality assurance and project management. He has developed Disaster Recovery templates and an integrated Business Continuation Plan (DR/BCP) for a 200 person IT area of a large insurance/financial services firm as well as a major City and large consulting firm. The DR/BCP process categorized all system functions; established critical functions, data and resource needs; identified recovery timing needs; and, determined a call tree with associated procedures. The DR/BCP was documented, distributed and maintained for all key participants. He has developed and marketed software packages; has published 27 articles and authored Guidelines for Selecting Software Packages (Elsevier). He has also developed and conducted over 30 seminars, workshops and training sessions focusing on benchmarking assessments, developing SAM & ITIL metrics, performance and productivity improvement, skills management, cost reduction, technology “Readiness”, knowledge-based planning and estimating.

Maureen Butler

Maureen Butler is a senior business analyst, project manager and documentation specialist providing clients with a range of Information Technology (IT) regulatory compliance and audit-related services, including gap assessment; evaluation of processes; assistance in the re-engineering of those processes; the development of regulatory compliance documentation; analysis and executive summaries of security vulnerability scans. Maureen began her career with the management consulting firm, APC Skills Co., a division of Proudfoot, designing and developing training systems geared to improve performance for clients in manufacturing and retailing. She brings over 20 years of experience in IT, and has worked as a consultant to the IT departments of such companies as US Trust, Estee Lauder, Axa Financial, First Boston (now Credit Suisse), Panasonic, JP Morgan, Revlon, and Sanwa Bank (now part of the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group). She has, for example, assessed systems development and network maintenance policies and procedures to uncover gaps in compliance; worked with managers to establish internal controls as a means of complying with the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other regulations, as well as adding overall value; and developed the associated documentation. As part of several overall risk mitigation and remediation efforts, she has worked with IT managers to re-engineer business processes, in particular in the area of Change Management. She has often acted as a liaison between IT managers, business owners, and internal IT auditors. Maureen recently passed the CISA exam (Certified Information System Auditor) and her certification is pending.

Melissa Carnevale

Melissa Carnevale is the founder of MouseHelp, LLC. She received a B.S. in Human Services and an MBA with dual majors: E-Commerce and Computer Information Systems. As an experienced developer and manager of both intranet and internet sites combined with her deep knowledge of on-line marketing, Melissa is uniquely suited for on-line marketing communications. Melissa has authored entire web sites for several technical and engineering companies. She has managed the digital marketing activities, which involved the management of seven web sites, two extranets, and all the on-line marketing activities (web seminars, customer database management, analysis of web statistics, etc.) Data mining, electronic newsletters, on-line advertising and technical writing were all part of her past responsibilities.

Maria DeGiglio

Maria DeGiglio has 17 years' experience as an IT executive and consultant. She has been a senior member of analyst teams at Robert Frances Group and Andrews Consulting Group. She has researched and written over 100 industry reports, white papers, and articles on a diverse set of topics. Ms. DeGiglio has held various positions in the IT industry including IT Director, Senior Consultant, Project Manager, and Senior Systems Analyst. She holds a B.A. degree from Cornell University and has taken graduate courses at The Johns Hopkins University and New York University.

Brian Dooley

Brian J. Dooley is an author, analyst, and journalist with more than 20 years' experience in analyzing and writing about trends in IT. He has written six books, numerous user manuals, hundreds of reports, and more than 2,000 magazine features. Clients include research companies such as Seybold, IDC, Gartner Group, Falkner and PriceWaterhouse; publishers, such as TAB books, Heritage Books, Wordware, and IDG Comm; and a diverse range of hardware and software companies in IT and telecommunications.

Deacon Economos

Deacon Economos is an independent consultant with over fifteen years of operational and consultative experience in the fields of Information Technology and customer support services. For 13 years Mr. Economos held a number of progressively responsible IT positions at a major university. His expertise includes hardware and software deployment, support, and enhancement. Mr. Economos continues to utilize his experience with his consulting clients on a regular basis.

Rich Evans

Rich Evans is an industry leading expert on data center infrastructure and IT operations. He comes to Experture after 12 years at META Group, where he was formerly a Research Vice-President. Before joining META Group, Mr. Evans was director of large-scale data center consolidation and operational development projects at United Technologies Corp. (UTC) for 25 years. Mr. Evans received a Mechanical Engineering degree from Stevens Institute of Technology and an MBA from the University of Connecticut.

Jerry Fensterstock

Jerry joins Experture after a career at IBM that spanned nearly 40 years. For more than a decade of that time he specialized in the public sector where he held a number of assignments in systems engineering and sales. After a two year leave of absence where he was engaged in software development at the National Institutes of Health, Jerry rejoined IBM at Corporate Headquarters. Since then he has held a number of executive positions in Market Analysis, Forecasting, Market Intelligence and Business Planning. During this period, Jerry worked with a wide variety of business units in leading them in the development of their business plans and strategies. Jerry has consulted with a broad range of organizations including personal computing, software, services and servers. Most recently, he has led in the development and deployment of management systems in support of business unit plans and strategies. His focus has been on making organizations aware of, and responsive to, changes in their competitive environments, and in the implementation of proactive business plans and enabling IT strategies to exploit market opportunities. Jerry has earned AB and MBA degrees from Columbia.

Douglas Ferguson

Doug Ferguson is the Executive Director of Gunnison Partners, a professional services firm which specializes in applying technology for competitive advantage and innovative growth. He has written and spoken extensively about innovation management, particularly the role of partnering in accelerating growth. In addition Doug has an in-depth understanding of how collaboration software, wireless technologies and analytics can be used to increase productivity and develop new products and services. Prior to his current role leading Gunnison Partners Doug held senior positions at The Monitor Group, Cambridge Technology Partners, Nextera Enterprises, and Lotus Development. He began his consulting career at McKinsey & Co. Doug currently sits on the board of Saba Software, a leading human capital management firm and is the Vice-Chairman of the Yale-China Association, a non-profit institution whose mission is to promote educational and cultural exchanges between the United States and China. Doug has a B.A. from Yale University and an M.A.L.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Annette Foster

Annette Foster is currently President of L. A. Foster & Associates, LLC. She is an experienced IT professional with over thirty-three years of experience, the last 26 in management and consulting roles. She focuses on the application of technology to solve business problems and create competitive advantage for the corporation. She has diverse experience in distribution, manufacturing, retail, and health care with small to Fortune 100 firms. Her strengths include deep business process knowledge and delivering results in dynamic environments. She holds an M.S. in Computer Science from UNC-CH and an MBA from UNC-Greensboro.

Caroline Gabriel

Caroline Gabriel co-founded Rethink Research Associates in 2002 and is currently the Research Director and Lead Analyst for their Wireless publications. Caroline remains up to date with all areas of wireless technology, especially the various formats of cellular and short range technologies like UltraWideBand, since early 2003 she has focused much of her research on WiMAX and related broadband wireless technologies. She has developed a series of business models for broadband wireless, and offers an advisory service on the pricing and Opex and Capex costs of delivering such services, called the WiMAX Business Models Advisory Service. She has advised many multinational carriers and operators on their WiMAX strategy, and is an acknowledged expert in the field, speaking as an independent authority at virtually all the important WiMAX events around the world this year, including those held in the US, Brazil, Russia, Germany, Spain, France, the Netherlands and Portugal and is the chair of the largest US conference on WiMAX, WiMAX World held by Trendsmedia in Boston. Before that she had spent a large part of her career in various senior positions at VNU Business Publishing Europe. VNU BPE is Europe's largest publisher of IT-related information with over 50 magazines, seven web sites, a conference organization and various research services.

Jack Gold

Jack Gold is a leading authority on mobile, wireless, and pervasive computing.  He has more than 35 years of experience in the electronics and computing industry, including time as a Research Vice President at META Group.  He is founder of J.Gold Associates, where he advises clients on business analysis, strategic planning, application/technical architecture, product evaluation/selection, and enterprise application extension strategies.  His other experience includes positions at PCS Systems (co-founder and executive officer) as well as marketing and technical management roles at Digital Equipment Corp. and Xerox. Mr. Gold has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology and an MBA from Clark University.

Barb Goldworm

Barb Goldworm has spent over twenty-five years in the computer industry, in various senior management marketing, sales, technical and industry analyst positions with Novell, StorageTek, IBM and several successful startup ventures, as well as her own analyst and consulting practice. Barb has been a frequent speaker at industry conferences worldwide, and created and chaired the 2000 premier of the Networld+Interop track on Networked Storage. Barb has written regular columns for industry publications including ComputerWorld and NetworkWorld. She currently writes a byline column for ComputerWorld's Storage Networking World Online, as well as frequent white papers on business and technical aspects of storage and storage networking.

Mark Griffin

Mark Griffin is the Enterprise Integration Architect at a Fortune 250 corporation in the southeast US. Mark has spent the last 5 years working with Enterprise Application Integration and was the chief evaluator and architect of the current integration platform. He has authored several white papers on the real world challenges of Event Driven Architecture and Enterprise Application Integration. He is currently focused on Service Oriented Architecture and Web Services strategies. Mark has over 17 years working in the IT sector. These positions include application architecture and development, network and systems management and infrastructure planning for various companies including Cisco, Nortel, Interpath and Progress Energy.

Gerard Hallaren

Gerard Hallaren, CFA, has been a successful technology analyst and investor for more than 20 years. Between 2001 and 2006 he was responsible for delivering investment information and analysis, based on the work META/Gartner does with its Global 2000 IT customers. Hallaren began his career with International Data as a computer pricing expert and joined META Group founder Dale Kutnick at the Yankee Group. Prior to joining First Albany, Hallaren was a Managing Director in Corporate Finance at Stifel Nicolaus / Hanifen Imhoff. Prior to Hanifen, he was a co-manager of Invesco's Technology funds and sole manager of other assets. In 1989, he was a part of a team tasked with investigating fraud at the troubled disk drive maker MiniScribe. In addition, Gerard is a member of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers), holds a patent for Data Storage and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Christie Hangey

Ms. Hangey has several years experience focusing on storage hardware and software technologies, as well as the issues surrounding data storage and storage utilization in the enterprise. Ms. Hangey has also focused extensively on electronic records retention, particularly the policies and regulations pertaining to capture and deletion of such records. Ms. Hangey most recently worked as an analyst with the Robert Frances Group, where she helped to advise clients on topics such as document management systems, server consolidation, and disaster recovery strategies. Before RFG, Ms. Hangey was a Research Analyst for Latin American and North American energy markets for Frost & Sullivan. During her time there, she consulted on both electrical generation and oil technologies and markets, with a focus on renewable energy technologies. Her work included a comprehensive study of renewable energy technology adoption rates and markets within Latin America, as well as analysis of automated billing systems for a Texas-based energy provider. Ms. Hangey's work has appeared in such venues as Environmental Law Reporter, Power Engineering International, the Wall Street Technology Association's WSTA Ticker magazine, and the popular CIO.com Web site. Ms. Hangey graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Spanish and is currently working toward a J.D. at the University of San Francisco.

Howard Israel

Howard Israel is currently the founder and CEO of Secure Systems Consulting, LLC. He has been active in Information Security and Risk Management for over 23 years, having worked at the National Security Agency's (NSA) Computer Security Center, AT&T Bell Labs, AT&T WorldNet, Lucent Technologies, and Avaya. A list of major projects worked includes: evaluating operating systems security; enhancing the security functionality of the SVR4 UNIX OS; secure development practices in the Strategic Defense Initiative (aka "Star Wars"); numerous consulting projects including enhancing the security of a banking system for the government of Taiwan; and numerous projects to improve the security of commercial products (e.g., VoIP). He has co-authored several government reports and research papers in computer security. Howard has a BS from SUNY Albany (double major in Computer Science and Business Administration) and an MS in Computer Science from Stevens Institute of Technology.

Hal Kreitzman

Hal Kreitzman is the Research VP at Experture responsible for Inquiry and Research Administration/Development. He is a senior executive with a strong, diverse business/technology background in financial services working for several global financial institutions. He understands the importance of corporate culture and how to be a successful change agent to integrate process, people and technology. Hal audited, reengineered and managed several different types of organizational areas including finance / accounting analytical support, application development, data-center operations, and firm-wide technology. He also managed the development/operation of the technological components of global branch and business integration; established strong partnerships with other operating groups and business units; and managed mission-critical processes/systems and firm-wide initiatives to realize growth/profitability targets.

Doug Lynn

Doug Lynn is an independent analyst and consultant with nearly 20 years of experience in designing, building, implementing, and upgrading enterprise report writing applications, middleware, ERP and CRM application suites, EAI, and data warehousing infrastructure, and the supporting organizations. As a Vice President at META Group, he provided advisory services to 40+ C-level IT and business executives in North America and in northern Europe across a broad mix of industries: telecom, energy, retail, shipping, PayTV, retail banking, discrete manufacturing, home construction, federal government. Mr. Lynn's most recent work has centered on solving core quality management issues (e.g., change, configuration, release, SLA, outsourcing), building baseline IT organization cost models, project managing global SAP deployments, ERP roadmap development, and building metrics programs to track and measure performance improvement in each of these areas. Before joining META Group in May 1996, Mr. Lynn held sales, support, and development management positions at Information Builders and Applied Data Research (CA). He received a B.A. in Economics from Oregon State University.

Sheila McGee-Smith

Sheila McGee-Smith, the founder of McGee-Smith Analytics, is a leading communications industry analyst and strategic consultant focused on the contact center and CRM markets. Ms. McGee-Smith works on a daily basis with both solution providers and enterprises. Her insight helps them develop strategies to meet the escalating demands of today's consumer and business customers. Ms. McGee-Smith has spent over twenty years in the telecommunications industry, including 12 years with The PELORUS Group, most recently as Director, Call Center and Operator Services. She has published a significant amount of research, and is a frequent speaker at industry events. Prior to joining The PELORUS Group, Ms. McGee-Smith held sales management, market research and product management positions at AT&T, Timeplex and Dun & Bradstreet. She received a bachelor's degree, cum laude, from Barnard College, Columbia University, majoring in psychology and an MBA, awarded with distinction, majoring in marketing and management information systems from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.

Darryl Meeks

Darryl Meeks is a seasoned global IT executive with over 20 years of business experience with startup through mature companies (Fortune 16), taking two through an IPO. He has worked within the Retail, Direct Mail, Manufacturing, Transportation, Outsourcing, Contract Pharmaceutical Development, Computer Validation, Olympic Games, Oil, Chemical and Consumer Products industries. He has also held business positions as Director/VP New Business Development, Marketing, Sales and Operations, with $150M P& L responsibility, for outsourcing and direct mail companies. He was previously a Principal for software development / service company for 12 years and has developed IT business strategies for companies for over 20 years.

Robert Norian

Robert Norian is a senior level Information Technology executive with extensive experience in domestic and international project and operational management for Fortune 50 companies. His areas of specialization include planning, developing and implementing corporate-wide voice, data and video networks, voice and data switching systems and management of data center operations. His experience also includes carrier agreement negotiations, as well as audit and contract compliance. He has previously served as Director of Telecommunications for both AlliedSignal (now Honeywell) and W.R. Grace & Co. Norian holds a BEE in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Jerry Norman

Jerry gained more than 20 years of application architecture and design experience with Progress Energy, a Fortune 250 diversified energy company, and with his own software services company. His expertise spans diverse domains including service-oriented architecture, enterprise application integration, web services, application development methodologies and best practices, and relational database design. As Principal IT Architect at Progress Energy, Jerry's knowledge and technical leadership helped guide the Company's major application and IT infrastructure initiatives, and evolved the technical skills of their large IT organization. Jerry received a BS in Civil Engineering from University of Tennessee.

Tom Poirier

Thomas J. Poirier is CEO of Persystence, Inc. Tom has brought 22+ years experience as a software consulting professional to the vision of creating superior value for Persystence's clients by continuously maturing proven solution "building blocks" that can be flexibly blended to specific client needs. As a founder/co-founder of 3 other ventures related to software development and software quality, Tom's passion is to enable his clients to achieve verifiable quality and confidence in IT deployment on-time and on-budget. Tom is a recognized expert in the areas of test automation and the integration of multi-vendor quality solutions, has in-depth knowledge of the major vendors in the automation space, has consulted directly with vendors on product improvement strategies, and has acted as a consulting advisor to other large, global IT consulting firms in implementing and managing test automation and life cycle process automation.

Theresa Rae

Theresa Rae is an experienced veteran of Information Technologies and Materials Management, and an accomplished implementer of ERP solutions geared toward data capture for Business Intelligence purposes. Theresa has 10 years of experience in Purchasing, Material Management, and Database Development in the retail, computer and manufacturing sectors. She is a leader in streamlining the Manufacturing Life Cycle thru Inventory Controls and Financial Analysis. She has spent the last 5 years developing ERP solutions within the Marine Industry, driving up productivity thru the use of Information Technologies. Theresa's previous work history in Information Systems Management brings in the trench expertise in Disaster Recovery, Warehouse Processing, Inventory Controls, Life Cycle Management, and Lean Manufacturing.

Chad Robinson

Chad brings to Experture an extensive track record providing consulting services in the areas of Open Source, information security, and infrastructure systems. He is an active member of the Open Source community, and has worked with both SMB and enterprise firms to identify ideal deployment cases, minimize exposure to business risks, and maximize the value of those efforts. He has also assisted in strategic evaluations of development technologies (such as J2EE and .NET), security postures, software stacks, system architectures, system deployment plans, Web services, and other aspects common to most enterprise back-office infrastructures. Prior to joining Experture, Chad was the Open Source Business Practice Leader at Robert Frances Group. He has also worked extensively at various consulting firms, including White Aspen Consulting, a market trading infrastructure developer, and BRT Technologies, a regional technology services provider.

Ben Rothke

Ben Rothke is a New York City-based Senior Security Manager at a large professional services firm. In this role he has established himself as a leading authority on information security. He advises senior executives of corporations and financial institutions on issues of Information Risk Management, Strategic Security Governance, Policies & Best Practices, and Security Technologies & Operations. Mr. Rothke has attained both CISSP, CISM certifications, and has devised curriculum for colleagues seeking the same. A frequent speaker at industry events, Mr. Rothke is frequently quoted in trade publications and news sources.

Rick Runyan

Rick Runyan, founder of Lighthouse Business Consulting, LLC, has been around application software his entire 35+ year career. He's been consistently motivated by a simple basic belief: that the digital computer is a truly general purpose tool that has the potential to improve virtually every aspect of the human experience. In pragmatic terms that boils down to getting computers to do what one wants, and that translates to applications that work and are understandable. It also means getting people to use them, to adopt new paradigms for what they do. The consequence of this belief is the compilation of many years of experience, first in translating human and business needs into working systems, and later in driving paradigm shifts that enable their effective use. Today he specializes in the building of alliance ecosystems that determine the success or failure of technology in the marketplace. After hands-on design and development work for eight years in heavy industry and healthcare, Rick joined IBM where he held many different positions in sales, marketing, product management, product development, support and ultimately relationship management. Now retired from IBM, he consults on alliance strategy, its alignment with corporate goals, and on alliance program and portfolio execution. His consulting company tag line is, "How long have we been hearing 'partner or perish'? And how many alliances do you know of that really work well?"

KV Sastry

K. V. Sastry is founder of NeXTERIS Technologies, a consulting concern focusing on Consulting, development projects outsourcing fulfillment in Enterprise software platforms. His past background includes senior level technology positions at leading software companies, including Sonic Software, Sun Microsystems, and Digital Equipment. Dr. Sastry holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, from, University of Minnesota, USA., Master of Engineering, from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, and a Bachelor of Engineering from Andhra University, India.

Dr. Michael Schneider

Michael Schneider, with over 30 years domestic and international experience brings a knowledge technology management in vendor and user corporations in computing and telecommunications. His positions include executive and management level positions at Gartner Group, Manufactures Hanover, ITT and Sperry. His expertise in technology management includes leveraging computing and communications technology investments, the development of long term technology strategies and implementing high-performance technology transfer programs. In the area of analysis, he predicted future technology directions with accuracy in excess of 70% at Gartner Group and identified applications to provide a competitive advantage for business. His multi-faceted approach to applications has resulted in new business directions that leverage current and future technologies. He has authored corporate strategic plans, or parts thereof at ITT and other corporations. His unique approach to technology transfer and the management of advanced technology groups have been adopted by over 100 Gartner Group clients. He earned a Ph.D. at the University of Durham (UK). He has authored over 100 books, chapters and refereed articles. He founded the ACM SIGCHI conference, the premier conference in computer human factors.

John Stehman

Mr. Stehman has over 35 years of experience in the data and telecommunications industry. This includes roles in engineering, network operations, sales, and technical marketing. Areas of expertise include data communications network design, wireless communications, satellite and terrestrial communications networks, and network management platforms. He is also well-versed in technologies such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), Frame Relay, virtual private networks (VPNs). Mr. Stehman is an active Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) senior member, and a member of the IEEE 802 standards group He is a past member of the ADSL Forum and the TeleManagement Forum. Key focus areas include wireless communications including 802.11 wireless LANs and network architectures and infrastructures, including 3G carrier networks. Mr. Stehman also assists clients in defining wireless network requirements, evaluating technology solutions, preparing and evaluating contracts and service level agreements (SLAs), and insuring compatibility of business applications with wireless environments. Mr. Stehman is also actively involved in helping clients define requirements for enterprise data network infrastructures and network management best practices, especially in areas such as carrier environments, security, VPNs and wireless. Mr. Stehman has worked in both vendor and user environments, and most recently brought a strong grasp of networking and operations experience to Robert Frances Group (RFG). At American Airlines (AA), Mr. Stehman served as Vice President of Network Services, where he was responsible for marketing, operations, and sales. The worldwide American Airlines SABRE network employed Frame Relay technology to support more than 15,000 Novell NetWare LANs, with an availability of at least 99.95 percent. While at AA, Mr. Stehman was responsible for all contract negotiations with service providers and vendors and successfully negotiated many vendor contracts in excess of $500M. Mr. Stehman is considered an expert in the area of contract negotiations and vendor management including request for proposal (RFP) preparation and evaluation and service level management best practice. From 1999 through 2006, Mr. Stehman served as the Director of Research and Principal Analyst for RFG, a Connecticut based consulting group. Mr. Stehman has authored more than two hundred Research Notes for enterprise clients. Before joining RFG, Mr. Stehman served as Director of Network Management Systems for Diamond Lane Communications (now a part of Nokia) and supported the service provider focused DSL product families.

Earl Steman

Mr. Steman is a Telecommunications Industry Analyst with proven record of accomplishment in the contact center and IP technology markets working with end users and solution providers. He is the author of numerous articles, research reports and white papers on the competitive markets for telephony products and services. He was most recently a Research Director for Applied Research at Gartner for the past eight years where he covered Contact Center Infrastructure and IP Telephony. Mr. Steman has also held senior executive positions in sales and marketing with several technology companies for over twenty years. He received a bachelor degree from St. John’s University in Accounting and Business.

Michael G. Taytslin

Michael G. Taytslin is presently President & CEO of MatchPoint International Inc., specializing in consulting and business advisory services to technology start-up and early-stage companies in the areas of marketing and sales strategy, channel development, and business planning and operations; another specialty of MPI Inc. is its value-add relationship management services (VARM), matching talents and unique qualities of individuals, companies, and technologies with corresponding market demand. Prior to MPI Inc. Michael managed Strategic Alliances and Global Sourcing, as well as SME practice (based primarily on SAP Business One product), for NEC Solutions (America). Before NEC, Michael was a SVP of Worldwide Client Services at Centive, a leading solution provider in the Incentive Compensation Management marketplace. At Centive, Michael spearheaded the successful reorganization of the company's Services organization resulting in higher levels of customer satisfaction, top-line growth and profitability. Prior to joining Centive, Michael managed Worldwide Client Services at BlueGill Technologies, later acquired by CheckFree Corporation. Before BlueGill Michael was a SVP of Operations at INSCI, a leading digital document archival and management company, where he directed the efforts of Consulting and Implementation Services, Integration Services, Technical Support, Training and Information Services. Earlier, Michael was the Chief Information Officer for PTC (formerly Parametric Technology), the leader in high-end, 3-dimensional, solid modeling CAD/CAM software. Michael holds an MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Information Management Systems from the Polytechnic Institute, Sevastopol, (former) USSR.

Christophe Toulemonde

Christophe Toulemonde founded JEMM research, a European research and advisory firm which focuses on Service-Oriented Architecture impacts. Christophe helps end-user and vendor organizations to define, plan, and execute their SOA initiative. He has more than 20 years of IT experience in various areas and roles, including application development, technical support, and software marketing and sales. He is a recognized expert in service-oriented architecture, his broad experience and expertise includes enterprise integration (data, application, and process), distributed application design and architecture, and enterprise architecture. Before founding JEMM research, he covered integration and development strategies at Meta Group for EMEA. During 15 years, at IBM and IBM subsidiaries in the US and in Europe, he held multiple technical and marketing management positions. He has authored numerous books on e-business, application integration.

Max Ward

Max Ward has over 30 years of experience in creating high performance IT service delivery capabilities in a variety of industries. Max has been the VP of Technology of Staples for the last 10 years, using his expertise in service level management, capacity management, and continuous improvement to support a rapidly growing business with over 1800 stores in 21 countries. He previously served as the infrastructure VP for Blue Cross of Massachusetts. As a consultant, Max has assisted clients in business process design, IT operations improvement, and in “in-sourcing” formerly outsourced business functions to improve operations and customer service. He also lectures at Babson College in both information management and marketing. Max received a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from Clarkson University and a Master of Business Administration from Northeastern University.

Peter White

Peter White co-founded Rethink Research Associates in 2002 and is currently the Managing Director and Lead Analyst for their Faultline publication. Peter has built a deep understanding of the impact that IP is having on all of the entertainment fields, and calls his service Faultline because of the deep faults that can potentially devastate all companies which operate in consumer electronics, broadcasting, content delivery and creation, and telecommunications, as content is delivered digitally. Before that he had been founder and managing director of ComputerWire since 1984, a leading researcher and publisher of IT-related subscription newsletters and research and advisory services. The company employed 139 staff and had 50 active analysts and journalists. Peter provided leadership which resulted in ComputerWire becoming one of the first web-literate organizations in the world, delivering content over the internet as early as 1989 and establishing a web presence as early as 1993. Before ComputerWire, Peter began his career as an IT journalist on the leading UK weekly magazine, Computing.