Gartner Customer 360 Summit

Vala Afshar is Chief Customer Officer for Enterasys Networks, a Siemens Enterprise Communications Company. Afshar is responsible for worldwide services operations and technical support functions including contact center operations, field engineering, support engineering and infrastructure technologies. Afshar and his team have successfully implemented an award winning cloud computing and social collaboration customer relationship management framework that enables Enterasys to achieve best-in-class customer satisfaction and employee retention. Enterasys' strong technical service and support capability is recognized globally by customers, partners and industry analysts as a true company differentiator.

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.

Stephen Bergmann is Senior Product Marketing Manager for D&B360 & D&B Direct workflow integrations through CRM and API. With over a dozen years in technology companies, Stephen’s has launched products in a wide range of industries such as Telecommunication, Retail Electronics, Travel, Software and Business Information, and both B2B and B2C markets with customers and partners all over the world and from all areas of the business. After 4 years of running Marketing for a French startup, Stephen returned to the US to help D&B integrate technology and business information.

Tiffani Bova is a vice president with Gartner Research, where she cover IT Sales and Channel Strategies. Ms. Bova's area of specialization includes the development of comprehensive indirect channel programs (recruitment, enablement, tools), go-to-market sales coverage models, the impact of alternative models on the traditional channel, and trends in IT distribution. In addition, Ms. Bova conducts significant public speaking and publishing in leading industry periodicals on these topics. She spends a significant amount of time with IT vendors (large and small) that are looking to launch or enhance an existing channel program, improve the leverage of their distribution partners, and expand their reach in the global market. Her job would not be complete without significant interaction with the channel partners to ensure she understands what they need and expect from their vendor partners to be successful in today's market.

Erick Brethenoux leads the Predictive Analytics & Decision Management Market Strategy at IBM. Prior to IBM, Erick was VP at Lazard Frères, working with institutional investors, analyzing startup companies for venture capital funding and merger and acquisition activities. Before Lazard, Brethenoux was Research Director of Advanced Technologies at Gartner focusing on decision support systems, knowledge management and advanced software engineering architectures. Prior to Gartner, Erick was completing a scientific mission for the French Embassy in the USA. His research as a Ph.D. candidate at University of Delaware was aimed at knowledge engineering within a cognitive sciences multidisciplinary program.

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.

Bill Clark is a research vice president in Gartner Research. His research agenda includes mobile software development, context-aware computing, the effect of mobile on business processes and workforces, mobile enterprise application platforms, mobile consumer application platforms, all types of wireless networks, smartphones, ruggedized PDAs, and location technologies.

Kimberly Collins, Ph.D., is a research vice president in Gartner Research for the CRM team and a research agenda manager for the Marketing and Sales Strategies, Processes and Technologies area. Her research focuses on CRM and marketing strategies and processes, as well as enabling technologies. Areas of primary focus include marketing resource management, integrated marketing management and marketing performance management.

Brian Curran is the vice president of product marketing and customer experience strategy at RightNow. Curran has a successful track record helping companies deliver exceptional customer experiences; his expertise spans multi-channel strategy and implementation, organizational transformation, process reengineering, customer management and customer experience improvement. In his role at RightNow, Curran leads a team that ensures RightNow’s 2,000 clients around the world receive the greatest possible value from their RightNow CX implementation, helping them acquire more customers, increase retention rates, improve efficiency and drive revenue. Prior to RightNow, Curran was vice president at BestBuy.com. While there, he was part of a senior team responsible for building the company’s web site and contact center strategy, and was tasked with Best Buy’s initial customer centric transformation. Curran also held senior management and executive positions at CompUSA, Wirefly and Generation Mobile.

Jim Davies is a research director in Gartner Research and is part of the company's European CRM team. His research focuses on all aspects relating to the voice of the customer (VoC), including technologies such as surveying, speech analytics and social media monitoring. He also covers the contact center workforce optimization (WFO) marketplace, which integrates and optimizes call center agent functions spanning from recruitment, recording, evaluation and training to scheduling, reporting and all associated analytics. Both research areas feed into Gartner's overarching coverage of customer experience management.

Robert Desisto is a Vice President and Distinguished Analyst in Gartner Research. He is responsible for managing the software as a service (SaaS) research agenda. His research focuses primarily on the use of SaaS as a delivery model for applications. Mr. Desisto has extensive expertise in SaaS and cloud computing models, including architectural, economic, and application implementation and governance issues. Mr. Desisto has drill-down application expertise in sales force automation, partner relationship management, sales configuration, pricing applications, incentive compensation, sales analytics and performance management.

Craig Dewar, Director of Community Marketing, manages the overall community strategy for Microsoft Dynamics™. Dewar joined Microsoft in February 1995 and has held various positions over the years including: Chief Technology Officer for Microsoft’s New Zealand subsidiary; Technical Marketing Manager for Windows Mobile® software for Pocket PCs and Smartphones; and speechwriter for the Chief Operating Officer of Microsoft Business Solutions. Dewar has a bachelor of science in physics from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

Ksenija Draskovic is an IT Manager at Verizon Wireless. She has over 10 years experience in using wireless data to understand customer needs and behaviors while enabling highly-targeted, and cost-effective campaigns. In addition her team provides predictive analytics modeling services for the various departments within Verizon Wireless including Real Estate, Finance, and Customer Care. She is a regular speaker at many Data Mining/CRM conferences in the US and around the World.

Kevin W. English is the Global Offering Leader for CRM Analytics in IBM’s Global Process Services where he continually seeks the value in the intersection of advanced software assets and customer data. Kevin has over 10 years with IBM and has held roles in analytics, research, thought leadership and strategy consulting with clients in the electronics, industrial ,telecommunications, media and financial services Industries. Mr. English holds three patents in the text analytics space, has authored and co-authored several thought leadership articles and has been published in several journals including the IEEE’s Annual Review of Communications.

Russell R. Esposito joined Amerigroup Corporation as SVP for ITS in February of 2008. Mr. Esposito’s prior position was with Vytra Health Plans, which he joined in 1996 as CIO. In 2002, Vytra was acquired by HIP of Greater New York (now Emblem Health), and Mr. Esposito assumed additional enterprise responsibilities for Business Intelligence, Corporate Reporting, Data Warehousing and E-Commerce. Prior to joining Vytra, Mr. Esposito was CIO/Associate Executive Director at University Hospital at Stony Brook, and was responsible for information systems, medical records, biomedical engineering informatics, and telecommunications. Mr. Esposito has lectured at SUNY Stony Brook’s W. Averell Harriman School of Management and Policy, and its School of Health Management and Technology. He was also a Visiting Professor at Touro College’s Health Science Center, and is a frequent lecturer at national symposiums.

Rob Farris is responsible Chief Marketing Officer at Echopass. Rob has extensive experience within the contact center and technology industry, having held executive roles at well-known companies including Adomo, WebEx, Octel and ROLM Corporation. Prior to joining Echopass, Rob was the Principal at UpScale Consulting, following his roles as VP of Worldwide Sales at Adomo, WebEx Communications and Storage Way. Earlier in his career, he served as the VP and General Manager of US Field Operations at Octel and Lucent Technologies, as well as having been a founder or principal in seven technology start-ups. Rob holds a B.A. in communications from the University of Miami.

Chris Fletcher brings more than 30 years of industry experience to his role as research director at Gartner. He has worked in both the analyst and vendor sides of the IT industry in CRM, e-commerce and enterprise applications. He is part of Gartner's CRM and E-Commerce research team and publishes research on CRM and e-commerce segments, including lead management, B2B and B2B2C e-commerce, e-commerce subscription/billing/payments, and partner/channel management. Mr. Fletcher has been quoted in leading trade and business publications, including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Information Week, as well as in numerous Web publications, and he speaks frequently at industry and trade events.

Richard Fouts analyzes best practices in marketing management for technology and service providers, including insight and advice in brand management, market and competitive position, messaging, sales, and go-to-market strategies.

Bill Gassman is a research director in Gartner Research, where he is part of the Business Intelligence infrastructure team. He is the lead analyst for the topics of business activity monitoring and Web analytics.

Named one of the top 21 speakers for the 21st century by Successful Meetings magazine, Seth Godin is a best-selling author, businessman and marketing pioneer. He has written 14 books that have been translated into more than 36 languages, every one of which has been a best-seller. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership, and most of all, changing everything. Godin has also founded several companies, including Yoyodyne, which pioneered permission marketing and Squidoo, which is among the 100 most visited websites in the United States. Find his blog by typing “seth” into Google.

From founding a pioneering firm when the concept of customer relationship management (CRM) was taking form, to being one of the first three inductees into the CRM Hall of Fame, Barton has always occupied a leading role in providing a lifecycle approach to customer relationships. Today, with the always-on, always-connected ‘digital’ customer, collaboration has become the next step in the customer lifecycle. Whether B2B or B2C, digital customers have real time expectations and demands, an observation Barton first addressed in his 2008 book, CRM in Real Time: Empowering Customer Relationships. In his latest book – Social CRM – to be published in 2012, Barton explains how the arrival of social networking and user-generated content has brought digital customers interactively into an organization’s branding, product development, and customer service processes, and why it has become critical to capture this consumer insight and to create a two-way dialog with these digital customers. He describes how best-in-class companies have begun to successfully integrate digital customers’ social insights, harvested from both public and private communities, into CRM customer profiles thereby enabling organizations to market, sell and service their customers more effectively. As a regular columnist and member of the editorial board for ‘CRM Magazine’, Baron writes about leading-edge methodology and industry trends. Barton publishes the benchmark Guide to Mobile and Social CRM (now in its 18th edition). He chaired the CRM Evolution conference from 2006-2008, and for more than a decade served as Co-chairman of the DCI CRM Conferences & Exhibitions held worldwide. He is a regular guest speaker at multiple industry events; in 2012 Barton is scheduled to present at the Gartner’s Customer 360 Summit, multiple Selling Power events, and the CRM Evolution conference. Prior to founding ISM, Barton held senior management positions at the U.S. Department of State and Monsanto Europe S.A. He holds a BS degree with honors in economics from the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) and an MS degree in economics from the London School of Economics.

Gareth Herschel is the Gartner lead analyst on the use of analytics to drive improved business performance in the area of customer relationships. Today's analytical enterprise uses metrics to improve (not just track) performance, employs predictive analytics to drive better decisions, and applies social network analysis and text mining to improve understanding of customer segmentation, value and satisfaction across the marketing and customer service channels.

Johan Jacobs is an enterprise application analyst focusing on CRM and ERP and specializing in Web self-service channels, processes and technologies. Mr. Jacobs has held several key roles in IT and financial services companies and is well-known as an authority on CRM Web customer service and ERP competency centers, with a keen focus on all contact center multichannels. As the Gartner lead analyst for Web customer service, Mr. Jacobs focuses on Web chat, knowledge base for self-service, e-mail response management, virtual assistants, collaborative browsing and mobile communication for CRM service. Within ERP, Mr. Jacobs is passionate about competency centers and ERP-related support. He frequently speaks at local and international events and is often quoted in the press.

Nick Jones is a vice president and Gartner distinguished analyst. Mr. Jones' research focuses primarily on mobile business, mobile technology, mobile applications and emerging technologies. His research coverage includes business-to-employee (B2E) and business-to-consumer (B2C) mobility; mobile commerce and payments; machine-to-machine (M2M) applications and technology; wireless technology; the impact of emerging technologies on mobility; and mobile application development. His research interests also include emerging trends/technologies, technology road mapping, and the social impact of technology.

Satya Krishnaswamy founded Next Principles in 2010. He has more than 17 years of enterprise software experience in a wide variety of roles including pre-sales, business development, software development and project management. Satya spent more than 14 years at SAP, both in Asia Pacific and the U.S. His involvement with CRM dates to the late 90s when he led SAP’s first CRM team in Asia Pacific. Satya also held leadership roles within teams in the Offices of the CEO and the CTO in SAP Labs, Palo Alto.

Mitch is responsible for maintaining and expanding upon Sword Ciboodle’s future product and marketing vision. Specifically, CRM in the context of modern, multi-channel contact center that now includes 'Social' channels. Mitch is a passionate technology executive with expertise in software architecture, implementation services as well as product and market positioning. He also enjoys the great outdoors, making northern Vermont his home.

Venecia K. Liu is a research VP at Gartner as part of the Vertical Industries unit covering media and communications. In this capacity, Ms. Liu consults on market strategies, competitive assessment of the IT services landscape, technology trends and the direction of IT spending to provide market research for IT vendors. She examines the critical issues and business processes for media-telecom convergence in this dynamic multichannel environment. Her current research spans social media, BPO, content life cycle management, digital distribution and cloud-based advertising. Ms. Liu conducts primary research, writes foundational reports and develops market positioning.

Anthony Lye is senior vice president of CRM, responsible for Oracle CRM On Premise and Oracle CRM On Demand, CRM on demand operations, Oracle's own deployment of CRM, and CRM IT. Previously Mr. Lye was the group vice president of CRM products at Oracle, responsible for Oracle’s CRM product strategy and product management for CRM in the applications development organization. Prior to joining Oracle in 2006, Mr. Lye was the group vice president and general manager of CRM products at Siebel Systems, responsible for Siebel’s vertical and horizontal CRM application technologies. Mr. Lye managed and directed all of Siebel’s enterprise application strategy, product marketing, and product management.

Michael Maoz is a research vice president and distinguished analyst in Gartner Research. His research focuses on customer strategies and technologies, with an emphasis on the CRM customer service disciplines, social media, and customer-centric Web strategies. Mr. Maoz is the research leader for both the customer service and support strategies area and customer-centric Web strategies. He researches software as a service (SaaS), CRM strategies, multichannel contact center applications, social CRM/communities and field service management.

Dennis Michalis is a respected technology industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience growing businesses, defining and aligning technology offerings, and leading global, world-class teams. He is responsible for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM product management group accountable for setting the long-term business strategy; aligning customers’ needs with product plans; creating and executing marketing strategy, including product positioning, pricing and packaging; developing channels; and driving revenue for Microsoft Dynamics CRM worldwide.

Erik Molinaro has over ten years of experience in the insurance industry. He is currently the Manager of Operations and Systems Integration for Liberty Mutual Group’s U.S. based Personal Lines Customer Service Operations. In this capacity he is responsible for the overall customer experience, process improvement initiatives, and new system development. His group supports over 5000 employees across over 400 locations nationwide. Erik joined Liberty Mutual in 2001 and over the past decade he has held numerous management positions within their Personal Lines operations. He holds two Master’s Degrees from Boston University and is happily awaiting his first child in May of this year.

Scott Nelson is a managing vice president in Gartner Research. He is responsible for managing research in the area of customer-related research, including CRM and customer experience management. His particular research examines the effect on vision and strategy that results from focusing on the customer. His broader team looks at areas such as the role of social media in relating to customers, e-commerce, sales strategies, marketing strategies, and customer service strategies.

Mr. Papas is an executive with over 22 years of experience in consulting and over 15 years of specialization in Customer Relationship Management and Business Analytics. He leads a global practice that helps clients use digital technologies to increase the value they provide to their customers and business partners. He is a frequent public speaker and blogger on the subject of digital transformation. Mr. Papas was a Partner at PriceWaterhouseCoopers and has held several practice leadership roles throughout his career. Prior to assuming his role as the Global Smarter Commerce leader, Mr. Papas led IBM’s Life Sciences practice and is a recognized industry subject matter expert. He is a dynamic leader with a passion for helping our clients solve their most complex problems.

Gene Phifer is a managing vice president in Gartner Research. Mr. Phifer covers a broad set of Web and cloud-centric technologies, including Web architecture, intranets, extranets, e-business, portals, rich Internet applications, Web applications, cloud computing and software as a service. Additional concepts covered include SOA, WOA, governance and management of infrastructure resources.

John Radcliffe is a research vice president at Gartner in the information management team. His main research focus is master data management (MDM), with a special emphasis on MDM for customer data and creating the "single view of the customer." He has served as chair of Gartner's U.S. and EMEA MDM Summits and was lead author of Gartner's Seven Building Blocks of MDM. He analyzes and comments on the MDM market and helps clients achieve successful MDM programs.

John A. Romans currently serves as President & CEO of BioMedix Vascular Solutions, Inc. Prior to joining BioMedix in 2000, John Romans was a founding officer of EURUS Technologies, Inc. where he had P&L responsibility for the Company’s three business lines as well as contract R&D. John Romans has successfully negotiated contracts with federal and state agencies such as the US Department of Defense (DOD) and Department of Energy (DOE) and has established strategic working relationships with national laboratories, universities, industrial partners and research institutes including Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL). John Romans was a founding member of ETSA, a telecommunications consulting company that played an instrumental role in the strategic development of companies such as GTS, LCCI, and Arraycom. John Romans currently serves on the Board of Directors for BioMedix and Dare To CARE and is a frequent speaker at physician and health system conferences. Recent acknowledgements include the APMA Executive Director’s Award, CPMA Corporate Citizen’s Award, and Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award. John Romans received his B.A. from Williams College and MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Carol Rozwell is a vice president and distinguished analyst on Gartner's Content, Collaboration and Social team. Ms. Rozwell explores social business strategy, including social media, social networks and collaborative communities. Prior to her current assignment, Ms. Rozwell focused her research on technology and standards for R&D productivity in the pharmaceutical industry. She joined Gartner during the e-business frenzy and helped clients electrify their business processes. She brings to her role extensive practical experience as an implementer of buy-side and sell-side e-commerce systems that is augmented by positions in marketing, consulting and strategic alliance management.

Adam Sarner is a research director at Gartner, responsible for global coverage of CRM, with a focus on marketing automation. This includes multichannel campaign management, lead management, marketing analytics, segmentation, loyalty marketing, online marketing, and social CRM strategy and technology. In addition, he is a member of the Customer-Centric Web team at Gartner, concentrating on customer experience and company/customer engagement over the Web. Mr. Sarner has defined and writes about the power of "Generation Virtual," its members' growing use of anonymous online personas, and their unstoppable influence on business and culture, online and off. Before covering marketing automation, Mr. Sarner covered the e-commerce market within CRM.

David Schehr is a research director in the Banking and Investment Services vertical of Gartner Industry Advisory Services. Mr. Schehr is based in the United States and manages research covering the alignment of IT and emerging technologies to business strategies, focusing on issues relating to investment management, retail brokerage and online financial services. His research provides clients with advice on wealth management and financial planning systems, trading platforms and systems, shifting business models for investment services and leveraging technology to optimize business and market strategies.

Don Scheibenreif is a research VP with Gartner's Industries Research group. He works with Gartner's Consumer Goods Manufacturing clients to help them understand the technologies and trends that will drive consumer demand and engagement in a holistic manner.

Kurt Schlegel is the agenda manager for Gartner's Analytics, Business Intelligence, and Performance Management research agenda.

Praveen Sengar is a principal research analyst with Gartner's Business Applications team. His research focus areas are e-commerce and CRM. Mr. Sengar covers e-commerce/CRM trends in Asia/Pacific, as well as end-user issues, and he helps end users realize the benefits of e-commerce/CRM investments. In addition, he focuses on a broad range of e-commerce applications, such as B2B, B2C and mobile commerce, and also helps localize the sales, marketing and customer service applications research.

Michael W. Smith is a vice president in Gartner Research, focusing on the value of IT. Mr. Smith's principal responsibilities include the development of business performance frameworks and methodologies to help organizations evaluate IT-enabled business initiatives. Mr. Smith's published research covers topics involving how to use business methodologies such as Kaplan and Norton's Balanced Scorecard and Six Sigma to demonstrate the business value of IT. Mr. Smith conducts workshops and assessments for Gartner clients and prospects.

Mark has over 20 years of experience in applying analytical solutions to customer management problems, and he works directly with leading Financial Services, Retail and Telecommunications companies, consulting on their use of customer data to drive increased business performance. Mark holds a Ph.D. in mathematics and statistics from the University of Edinburgh. He has written numerous papers on the impact of new technology to consumer marketing operations and speaks regularly at industry events and technology conferences. Prior to Pitney Bowes Software Mark was a founder and President of Quadstone – a world leader in customer analytics.

Patrick Stakenas is a research director at Gartner Research. His primary focus is on sales performance management (SPM) and mobile. Mr. Stakenas has extensive expertise in SPM, CRM, SaaS and cloud computing models. He has application expertise in SPM, incentive compensation, sales force automation (SFA) and performance management analytic tools.

Matthew Storm is the Director of Innovation & Solutions for NICE Systems. Matthew has over 14 years of experience in the contact center industry and started in the contact center industry back in the 90’s while working for Dell Computer, where he implemented solutions for workforce management, recording, analytics, predictive dialers and CRM. Matthew regularly presents on numerous topics such as customer satisfaction, predicting churn, speech analytics, multi-channel communications and real-time guidance and has been featured in dozens of industry events in over 20 countries. He holds a degree from Oklahoma State University and an MBA in HRM from St. Edward’s University.

As a consultant and manager, Patrick Sullivan has more than 20 years of experience successfully implementing processes and applications to solve business problems. He has focused on IT services, application development processes, information architectures and software marketing while working for several consulting and software firms. At Gartner, Mr. Sullivan has focused on application services, consulting services and IT infrastructure outsourcing. He has a focus on CRM-related services aligned with the deployment of CRM solutions for sales, marketing and customer servcis. He has also supported professional services providers in refining market strategies, competitive positioning and go-to-market models. Mr. Sullivan joined Gartner in 1999 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Jenny Sussin is a senior research analyst in the ITL Enterprise Software group of Gartner Research, with primary focus on social CRM.

Edmund (Ed) Thompson is a vice president and distinguished analyst in Gartner Research. His research focuses on CRM, and he is the research leader for the CRM Strategy and Implementation and Customer Experience Management topics. He researches CRM strategy, implementation, CRM service providers, customer experience and SAP CRM, and more generally covers CRM in Europe.