Gartner CIO Leadership Forum
5 - 7 March, 2012 | London, UK | Sofitel Heathrow

Gene Alvarez is a research vice president in Gartner Research. He leads Gartner's research on all aspects of e-commerce - from business models to cloud-based e-commerce technologies and more. In addition, his research covers mobile e-commerce, context-aware computing and social commerce, as well as CRM organizational vision and strategy. Mr. Alvarez often provides strategic advice to CEOs, heads of sales, heads of CRM, VPs of e-commerce, directors of e-commerce, channel-base sellers, and IT professionals responsible for customer-facing transactional websites. He is the chairperson for Gartner's premier Customer 360 Summit for his second year and has spoken at many international events.

Monica Basso is a Gartner Research vice president, specializing on enterprise mobility. Her research areas include wireless email, cloud file sharing and synchronization, mobile social collaboration, mobile device management and security, mobile virtualization, and bring-your-own consumer mobility. She advises clients on building their mobility strategy, from segmenting mobile users to defining and enforcing policies, to delivering corporate applications on personal iPhone, iPad and Android devices. Ms. Basso is also Nokia's vendor lead. Ms. Basso contributed to the creation of the Gartner IT Market Clock Methodology and leads research in this area. Other areas of coverage include the impact of mobility on people, society and organizations; social trends affecting mobile technology adoption; generational changes in IT and digital natives; and innovation. Ms. Basso also leads Gartner's research into the growing impact of virtualization technologies on mobile products.

Elias N. Bayeh is a vice president and executive partner with Gartner Executive Programs based in Zurich, Switzerland. Bayeh brings 26 years of IT experience to executives, to whom he provides strategic advice and best practices.

Alexa Bona is a vice president and distinguished analyst in Gartner Research, where her research currently focuses on IT management. As part of the IT asset management research practice, Ms. Bona is responsible for coverage of future trends in software licensing and pricing practices, as well as maintenance and support models for business applications. She is also a generalist for software asset management trends and issues. In addition to looking at how models will evolve, Ms. Bona advises organizations on deal negotiation strategies to help them achieve best-in-class, sustainable and flexible deals with major business application software vendors, such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle/Siebel, salesforce.com and SAP.

Brian Burke is an analyst for Gartner, specializing in enterprise architecture and IT portfolio management, and most recently developing research on the emerging gamification trend. His groundbreaking work in the development of federated architectures has been implemented in hundreds of organizations in both the public and private sectors. He is also a prominent researcher and speaker in the areas of IT strategy, IT organizational structures and business/IT alignment.

David Cearley is a vice president and Gartner Fellow in Gartner Research and is a leading authority on information technology. As a member of Gartner Research, Mr. Cearley analyzes emerging business and technology trends and explores how these trends shape the way individuals and companies derive value from technology. His current research is focused on cloud computing and how Internet and Web technologies, standards and business models are impacting the IT landscape.

Andrea Di Maio is a vice president and distinguished analyst in Gartner Research, where he focuses on the public sector, with particular reference to e-government strategies, Web 2.0, open government, cloud computing, the business value of IT, open-source software, green IT and the impact of technology on the future of government.

Roger Kemp is a group vice president with Gartner Executive Programs in EMEA, where he is committed to ensuring that Executive Programs delivers business value to CIOs and other senior IT executives.

Charlie Leadbeater is an author, a leading authority on innovation, strategy and education, and one of the most influential creative people in the world. He has advised companies, cities and governments, and is former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's favourite corporate thinker. He is widely recognised as one of the world’s leading innovative thinkers on the future of learning, in the developed and the developing world. His renowned work, Learning from the Extremes, looked at the demand for innovative approaches to low cost, mass forms of education in the developing world. Charlie has worked as a senior adviser to several governments on the rise of the knowledge driven economy, the Internet, and on future strategies for more networked and personalised approaches to learning and education. The UK Government has turned to him for advice on policy issues ranging from health and education to climate change and culture. He was one of the first Europeans to advise the Chinese government.

Jorge Lopez is a vice president and distinguished analyst based in the United States, where he focuses on issues of concern to business executives, especially the CEO, and their relationship to IT and the CIO. His research includes CEO concerns, global industry scenarios, strategic change, and cost optimization. He has produced research that includes how CEOs view their challenges and what IT should do about them, radical IT cost cutting, how to overcome IT as a constraint to business change, how to reduce the risk of IT, and how to improve the business strategic value and alignment of IT. In addition, he works with key IT vendors and services providers to improve the effectiveness of their business strategy and value to their customers.

Biswajeet Mahapatra is a research director for Gartner Research covering IT operations management topics on a global basis. As part of this global coverage, Mr. Mahapatra provides insight on managing IT services in cloud computing, virtualized and traditional data center environments. He also has a specific focus on hardware-oriented management tools and technology.

John Mahoney is a vice president and distinguished analyst in the CIO research group at Gartner. An experienced strategic leader, coach and executive board member, Mr. Mahoney focuses his research on the development and transformation of CIO and IT leadership roles and the future of IT organizations. His research and advice blend the practical and the strategic, including all aspects of leadership and strategy for IT organizations and for IT-driven companies.

Mark McDonald, Ph.D., is a group vice president, head of research in Gartner Executive Programs, and a Gartner Fellow. He is responsible for the research agenda focused exclusively on CIOs and the business of information technology. Mr. McDonald is the lead author of research in the areas of CIO credibility, the business use of advanced technologies, enterprise architecture and business process transformation. He is the co-author of the forthcoming book, "The Social Organization" (October 2011) with Anthony Bradley. He is also the co-author with Peter Keen of "The eProcess Edge" and the author of "Architecting Enterprises — Achieving Performance and Flexibility." He has also been interviewed or published in the Wall Street Journal, Computerworld, CIO Magazine, the Financial Times and other publications. He routinely works with senior business and technology executives and is currently working on the issue of innovation in management.

Tina Nunno is a research vice president in Gartner's CIO Research group based in Stamford, Connecticut. Ms. Nunno is responsible for conducting research and developing publications aimed at helping CIOs and their organizations around the world improve their performance and contribution. She specializes in CIO-related management issues including working with the board of directors, executive communication strategies, change leadership and governance strategies. She also focuses on issues specific to women in technology. Ms. Nunno's most recent research deals with navigating complex CIO decisions and sensitive organizational politics issues. She focuses on specific strategies and tactics for managing IT political land mines. Ms. Nunno also explores the use of more extreme political tactics in her research titled, "Machiavelli's Guide to IT."

Martin Plessow is a regional vice president in Gartner Executive Programs (EXP), where he manages Central Eastern Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf region. He also works as an executive partner with CIOs and their leadership teams on all CIO relevant topics.

Stephen Prentice is a VP and Gartner Fellow working in the Executive Leadership and Innovation Group (part of CIO Research). He takes a specific interest in emerging trends and the long-term future of technology - looking at the intersection of technology, business and society. Current research interests include the nature of innovation, the consumerization of IT, and the growth of virtual worlds and social computing and their impact on businesses.

“Naren,” as he is known by everyone, is responsible for the business operations of Cordys in India and Middle East. He reports to Cordys CEO at Cordys HQ in The Netherlands. Naren has been in the Indian IT industry for the last 11 years. In a career spanning 25 years, Naren has worked with a wide range of industries – starting with Personal Care, Auto Ancillary and then Passenger cars before moving to the IT industry. His perspective of the IT industry originates from a large ERP implementation project, of which he owned the sales and distribution process. He has been a strong advocate of business processes and process improvement and he strongly believes that technology is a means to the end. Mr. Shukla has a degree in Engineering from NIT Warangal and an MBA from IIM Calcutta (India).

Peter Sondergaard is a senior vice president in Gartner, where he is the global head of Gartner Research. Mr. Sondergaard is responsible for people management and the direction of the global research organization, which includes Semiconductors, IT Infrastructure and Operations, Communications, Software and Services Management, Business of IT, Research Operations Management, and IT provider and end-user organizational roles.