WITI's Women Powering Technology Summit

Workshop: The Changing Role of Technology Marketers

Ketan is the founder of CardFlick. Designer, developer, and visionary, Ketan is up to his elbows in CardFlick on a daily basis. Prior to founding CardFlick, he founded and helmed the interactive design agency kidBombay for 10 years, and was a professor of interactive design at Academy of Art University.

Ketan brings immense experience in all facets of the business and can often be found working ridiculous hours. He has been designing since he first made paper kites on the roofs of Bombay.

Erna Arnesen

Vice President, Global & Strategic Services Partners, Cisco Corporation

Erna Arnesen has most recently led Global & Strategic Services Partnerships for Cisco Services. In this role, she and her team managed the worldwide global and strategic partnering strategy for Cisco Services, managed key strategic partner relationships, and worked with the Worldwide Partner organization to develop and execute strategic partner and service alliance programs within a services-led and solutions-driven environment.

With more than 25 years experience in channel sales, marketing, and alliance management, Erna joined Cisco from Symantec, where she was most recently vice president of Global SMB and Industry Solutions, responsible for messaging, campaigns, and programs for the SMB segment and for global development teams covering key vertical industries. She also served as vice president, Global Channel and Partner Marketing, responsible for creating and building the channel and alliance marketing organization, strategy and programs globally during and after Symantec's acquisition of Veritas.

Prior to Symantec, she was at Fujitsu Softek where she was vice president, Worldwide Channels and North American Sales. Previously, she held vice president positions in alliances, channels and sales at Saba and at CyberSource. As vice president of Global Channels at SGI, Erna managed and implemented SGI's channel, VAR/ISV, global accounts and partners and channel marketing strategies, as the network of channel partners grew to represent the majority of the company's revenue. She also led channel teams, defined and built channel strategies and programs at NeXT and at Apple. She began her career as a VAR selling vertical applications on DEC platforms.

Arnesen is a member of the board of directors for Watermark (formerly known as FWE&E). She is also a member of the Wellesley Business Leadership Council. She has served as an advisory board member of Women in Consulting (WIC) and is currently a board member of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP). Arnesen completed the Harvard Corporate Board Governance Program in January 2012.

Erna is a recent Honoree of the 2011 Women of Influence Award by the Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal. She has also received the YWCA Tribute to Women in Industry (TWIN) award, and is a graduate of Leadership California.
She has a master's degree in business administration from Harvard Business School and a bachelor's degree from Wellesley College.

Maya Baratz

Senior Product Manager, ABC News

Paths to Success - Stories from the Front Lines of Tech

A media and technology aficionado, Maya Baratz has spent some time on both the product and editorial sides of new media - previously working at companies including The Wall Street Journal, MTV Networks, Flickr, Monster.com, and Terra Lycos. Picking up The Knight Foundation's Silver Knight Award in 1996 and a Webby Award in 2006, she's been also published and quoted by publications including The Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, SF Weekly, The Huffington Post, Neiman Journalism Lab, Forbes and the BBC, among others. She led the product release of WSJ Social, The Wall Street Journal's standalone publication on Facebook, and recently joined ABC News to run the new and social product strategy and development team.

Veronica Belmont

Co-Host, The Sword and Laser

Veronica is a technology and gaming-centric video host based out of San Francisco. Currently her projects include Tekzilla (a weekly tech help and how-to show on Revision3.com), and The Sword and Laser, a science fiction and fantasy podcast and community, co-hosted with Tom Merritt. She has also written for Slate, DoubleX, MaximumPC and PC Gamer, and was the original host of Qore on the PlayStation Network.

Veronica initially made her mark as a producer and on-air talent for CNET Networks (now CBS Interactive). She worked on such shows as Buzz Out Loud, MP3 Insider, Crave, and Prizefight. In 2007 she left CNET to host the eclectic video show Mahalo Daily, which was named one of the top new podcasts in 2008 on iTunes.

An avid gamer and social-networking fanatic (with over 1 million Twitter followers), Veronica often speaks about her interests at conferences and panels. She has also been the emcee at events for companies such as gdgt, Boxee, MacHeist and RiffTrax, and advises for companies such as About.me, gdgt, GoodReads, Soundtracking, WeGame, and others.

Sloane Berrent

Vice President of Digital Marketing, Lippe Taylor

Workshop: The Changing Role of Technology Marketers

Sloane Berrent is Vice President of Digital Marketing for Lippe Taylor and its sister agency ShopPR, both communications and public relations agencies in New York. Sloane has over ten years of experience in digital marketing across industries including nonprofits, early-stage startups and in the traditional agency capacity.

She has been blogging since 2005, first as an editor for the largest city-based blog in Los Angeles, LAist.com and then for her own blog, The Causemopolitan.

Previously to working at Lippe Taylor, she ran her own consultancy, Answer With Action, building and executing digital strategies for companies including PepsiCo, Microsoft, Samsung and Macy's. She has launched many successful experiential marketing campaigns including NOLAlicious, CrisisCampNOLA, Gulf Coast Benefit, Cause It's My Birthday and Help A Woman Out.

She has raised, to date, over $1.5 million dollars for nonprofits and impacted the lives of thousands through her blog, The Causemopolitan, and extensive use of social media including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr.

Sloane's inspirational story has been featured on CNN.com, Mashable, Triple Pundit and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Sloane utilized social media as the citizen journalist for MySpace and The Wall Street Journal at the 2010 World Economic Forum and was named a Top 10 Twitter influencer at the 2010 Clinton Global Initiative and a "Top Women To Follow On Twitter" by Forbes.

She spent 2009 volunteering for various projects worldwide including St. Bernard Project in New Orleans and working in the field as a Kiva Fellow in the Philippines. Originally from Pittsburgh, PA, Sloane has a BA in Political Science from the University of Vermont and currently resides in New York City.

Cheemin Bo-Linn

President and CEO, Peritus Partners

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

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

Rachel Book

Associate Director, Global Talent Attraction & Diversity, AT&T

Women's Employee Resource Groups: Invigorating Your Organization by Connecting Powerful Women

Associate Director - Global Talent Attraction & Diversity develops and implements innovative recruitment media and marketing strategies to attract external talent to AT&T's professional and technical career opportunities all over the world. She leads a consultative global sourcing team that headhunts and handpicks top talent for hard-to-fill positions in support of more than 100 AT&T Recruiters. Rachel also spearheads AT&T's Diversity, Military, and Disability recruitment strategies for the enterprise and has been instrumental in optimizing the job search experience for transitioning veterans. Rachel has over twelve years of HR/Recruiting experience, holds a BA in Psychology and counts Global PHR/PHR and AIRS CIR/CDR certifications among her external affiliations.

Nancy Cam-Winget

Distinguished Eng., Enterprise Service & Security, Cisco

The Social Business Agenda: Developing a Strategy to Drive Business Forward

Nancy Cam-Winget has been at Cisco for almost 10 years and is recently focusing on identity-based security solutions. She reports to the Security Chief Technology Office responsible for the technical strategy and roadmap for the Secure Access and Mobility Product Group. Previously, she was the Security architect for the Wireless Networking Business (WNBU) Unit defining the security product strategy, roadmap and design for WNBU. Nancy was also the IEEE 802.11 editor for the Protection of Management Plane and continues to support WNBU as a security consultant and continues to champion wider adoptance of EAP-FAST.

She was also prime contributor to IEEE 802.11i better known as WPA, architect for the 802.11 fast roaming solution (CCKM) which led to the standardization of 802.11r and author of EAP-FAST. She is also currently one of the editors for the EAP Method Unification working group as they have adopted EAP-FAST as the based IETF EAP tunnel method standard and editor for the IETF Network Endpoint Assessment working group.

Nancy's passion is in delivering new technologies, while today they are network-centric, she previously defined how computer graphic systems could be used to reconstruct MRI and ultrasound imagery. She holds over 20 patents in the network security, computer graphics and image reconstruction.

Sandy Carter

CEO | CMO | Ecosystems | Business Development Information Technology, Silicon Blitz

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

Sophia Chung

Software Engineer, Facebook

Diversity Hiring That Innovates Business: An atypical approach to solving a very typical hiring practice

Sophia Chung is a software engineer at Facebook.

She studied Computer Science at MIT and has been working in the tech industry at companies including EA, Google, and now Facebook, for nine years in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Jackye Clayton

\, Textio

Manager, speaker, author, facilitator, and moderator, Jackye Clayton teaches, inspires, and motivates people of all ages to become better recruiting, business, government, community, and family leaders. Jackye's background is a combination of recruiting, business analytics, and systems, primarily in the IT industry. Her forte is working with a team to develop and implement a new, lean, supply-chain model of talent acquisition.

Jackye recently joined Holiday Retirement as a Senior Recruiting Manager, to audit the current hiring process and identify process improvements to increase the yield of high-quality hires and reduce total time to fill open requisitions. In addition, for Sourcecon.com, Jackye writes the “Ask Jackye” column, where readers can ask any question about diversity sourcing and recruiting.

Some of Jackye's accolades include Business Women of the Year Role Model, Business Women of Excellence, and South Florida Mover & Shaker, among several others. But the business accomplishment she is most proud of is being able to place hundreds of people into the right job and the right company.

JJ DiGeronimo

Author, The Working Woman's GPS

Navigating Success through Practical Strategy

JJ is recognized for her success as an entrepreneur, technology executive, author, wife and mother. In February of 2006, Entrepreneur Magazine featured her first company as a resource for small businesses. In 2007, she received an award for innovation from Small Business Network.

In 2008, she launched Tech Savvy Women that led to the creation in 2010 of Women of Purpose at VMware , where she serves as a global cloud solutions director. Over 350 Tech Savvy Women from various industries continue coming together to expand their technical knowledge and build relationships.

JJ, a successful speaker and presenter, launched her first book, The Working Woman's GPS, in 2011 with the Purposeful Woman blog (www.purposefulwoman.com). She created the site as a place for working women to engage in conversation and learn how to make their lives more fulfilling and balanced.

In search for balance, JJ makes sure her life is filled with plenty of special times with her husband and two young children.

Monica Dodi

Managing Director, The Women's Venture Capital Fund

Funding and Investments

Currently Managing Director of The Women's Venture Capital Fund, Monica has over 20 years experience as a new media pioneer.

After graduating from Georgetown, she was one of the founders of a new technology company focused on military and government databases which was subsequently sold to a Dutch conglomerate. Inspired by the fast pace of entrepreneurship and innovation, Monica went on to earn her MBA at Harvard Business School in order to further refine her knowledge of building brands and creating sustainable businesses.

Monica joined MTV Europe in London as one of three founders and negotiated major satellite, cable and advertising sales agreements, built the regional offices across 16 countries, and created innovative marketing campaigns, thereby making MTV the fastest growing TV channel in Europe and profitable within 18 months.

She then joined Walt Disney/Europe in Paris to turnaround their Consumer Products business as head of European Licensing, negotiated major multinational licensing deals across a wide array of product sectors, and created new revenue streams for classic and newly released brands. Seeing an opportunity in creating a business in paper products with a Disney license, she launched CD Productions which was acquired by American Greetings.

Returning to the US to help Warner Bros launch television channels worldwide, she was recruited by Brandon Tartikoff as CEO to launch AOL's Entertainment Asylum which became the fastest growing entertainment destination on the Web and hit profitability in less than a year with over 4 million visitors per day.

Subsequently, Monica worked with Softbank VC in their investment strategies, deal flow and due diligence in the convergence of new media. Softbank also invested in her company, oediv.com, an early precursor to YouTube.

Always on the cutting edge of the new media landscape, Monica has since been working with new ventures in virtual worlds, music technologies and social media as an advisor and angel investor. Monica serves as a Board member for the LA River Revitalization Project, and previously was a Board member of the Barnsdall Foundation.

Nicole Enright

VP, Strategic Enablement Services, Avnet

Nicole Enright is the vice president of Strategic Enablement Services for Avnet Technology Solutions, Americas and reports to Jeff Bawol, president, Avnmet Technology Solutions, Americas. Appointed to the role in January 2011, Enight is responsible for guiding the definition and execution of TS Americas strategic initiatives, brand management, internal and external communications, partner and employee events, and implementing change management principles to improve productivity, efficiency and effectiveness throughout the company.

Patricia Florissi

Vice President, Americas & EMEA CTO, Distinguished Engineer, EMC

Innovation in Emerging Markets - Brazil and Russia

Patricia Florissi is Vice President and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Americas and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). As Americas and EMEA CTO, Patricia helps define mid and long term technology strategy, representing the needs of the broader EMC ecosystem in EMC strategic initiatives. Patricia also acts as the liaison between EMC and our customers and partners, to foster stronger alliances and deliver higher value to EMC clientele. Patricia holds the honorary title of EMC Distinguished Engineer, having been nominated in October 2007.

Rachel Franklin

VP / Executive Producer, EA Games

Rachel Franklin is the General Manager of the Visceral Play4Free studio within Electronic Arts, one of the largest video game publishers in the world. Rachel leads the development of a portfolio of games that are fundamental to EA's shift toward digital goods in 2012. With a unique blend of technical, business and marketing skills, Rachel's background supports the demands of the latest microtransaction-based video games.

Prior to joining EA, Rachel had a colorful career path, most recently heading up marketing for OnLive, a cloud gaming company. Rachel has held positions as varied as CEO of an SMS startup, VP of Technology for a video game startup, and both Producer and Lead Developer roles at Activision. Rachel's longest tenure was as Founder and Executive Producer of a Web development and marketing company, Moonstone Interactive, which she sold in 2004.

Rachel holds a BS in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.

Melanie Frazier

Engagement & Strategy Team Manager, CISSP, eBay

Melanie Frazier currently works at eBay within Global Fraud, Risk & Security where she is the Engagement & Strategy Team Manager. Her team focuses on strategy and the execution of the global security strategy for eBay and eBay's 30+ business units (China, India, Australia, Korea, Germany, England, etc.). Through partnering with eBay's internal business units, third parties her team works to build relationships and evangelizes the global security vision and strategy.

Melanie has over 20+ years in IT/Information Security. Her experience goes beyond eBay, where she was employed with Fishnet Security as a Program Manager, facilitating information Security initiatives for clients and with Silicon Valley Bank where she the held Director of Information Security for Silicon Valley Bank building their Information Security program.

Melanie is CISSP. She has her Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certificate from Villanova University and a B.S. in Management from Golden Gate University.

Jen Friel

Owner/Lifecaster, Talk Nerdy To Me Lover

Paths to Success - Stories from the Front Lines of Tech

Jen Friel is a corporate sponsored minimalist who gave up everything she owned to find happiness and currently spent the last year urban camping, living with readers of her site "Talk Nerdy To Me, Lover," documenting all of her adventures in social media. (Which included but were not limited to, crashing the 2010 Grammys to meet Pete Cashmore, dancing on stage with Prince, hosting on the red carpet at the 2011 Academy Awards, eating beef jerky for 30 days, having her arm lit on fire, skydiving, flying cross country with Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, and The Fonz, learning how to drive stick on the Ford test driving track in Dearborn, Michigan, and going out on over 103 dates in 9 months from OkCupid.) She has previously worked for the founder of Myspace launching his start up LiveVideo, and was also a model on Deal or No Deal (5 episodes on the syndicated version #16), and for Snorg Tees respectively. Talk Nerdy To Me, Lover currently has over 75 contributors and is also being made into a pilot from the producers of Elf, Wedding Crashers, Meet the Fockers, and The Bourne Supremacy.

Cindy Gallop

Founder & CEO, IfWeRanTheWorld

Cindy Gallop is the founder and CEO of IfWeRanTheWorld, co-action software launched in beta at TED 2010 and subsequently written up and taught as a Harvard Business School case study, which enables brands to implement the business model of the future â€” Shared Values + Shared Action = Shared Profit (financial and social).She is also the founder of MakeLoveNotPorn â€“ â€œPro-sex. Pro-porn. Pro-knowing the differenceâ€ â€” a social sextech platform designed to promote good sexual behavior and good sexual values, which she launched at TED 2009, and for which she has raised $2million to build out MLNP.tv as â€œthe Social Sex Revolution.â€ Cindy acts as board advisor to a number of tech ventures and works as a personal brand/life/executive coach and a consultant on brand and business innovation for companies around the world. Business Insider named her one of 15 Most Important Marketing Strategy Thinkers Today, alongside Malcolm Gladwell and Seth Godin, and cited her as number 33 on their list of 100 Most Influential Tech Women On Twitter, and number one on their list of Top 30 People In Advertising To Follow On Twitter. An outspoken advocate of diversity and inclusion in advertising, tech, and business, Cindy recently partnered with AARP on their Disrupt Aging initiative to challenge and change ageism. She is a graduate of Somerville College, Oxford, with a background of over 30 years in brand-building, marketing, and advertising. As well, Cindy started up the US office of ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty in New York in 1998 and in 2003 was named Advertising Woman of the Year.

Eileen Gittins

Founder and CEO, Blurb

Workshop: Book Publishing for the Technology Author

Eileen Gittins has been at the intersection of the Internet, consumer and enterprise software, imaging systems, search, and digital photography throughout her 20+ year career. A passionate advocate for enabling technologies that offer new ways to do valuable things, Eileen is now disrupting the publishing industry as the founder and CEO of Blurb, a creative platform that enables anyone to design, share, and sell beautiful print and digital books.

Since launching in 2006, Eileen has led Blurb from a startup to a high-growth company, reaching profitability in two and a half years of product availability. With over 2 million registered users, nearly 1 million unique book titles, and a global footprint that extends to more than 70 countries, Blurb continues to grow even amidst challenging economic times. At it’s peak volume in 2009, Blurb produced more book titles in two minutes than a mid-sized publisher would produce in a year.

In 2010, Eileen won Best CEO in the under $100MM revenue category in the Tech Innovations Awards (sponsored by the San Francisco Business Times) and was a semi-finalist in the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year Awards in 2011.

Heather Healy

Vice President and EMC Products Division CIO, EMC Corporation

Paths to Success - Stories from the Front Lines of Tech

Heather Healy is Vice President and Business Unit CIO for the EMC Products Division and several Corporate functions. In this role, she leads the Business Technology Groups for Engineering, Manufacturing, Legal, Facilities, Licensing & Compliance, eBusiness, and emerging businesses. Heather is responsible for the strategic partnership between IT and these business functions, the exploration, definition, and delivery of technology-enabled business solutions to fuel revenue growth and innovation while improving business performance and efficiency.

Prior to joining EMC IT, Heather lead the Strategic Planning organization in the Office of the CTO. In this role, Heather managed the development and execution of company-wide technology and business strategies, focusing on hardware, software, and services. Prior to joining the CTO's office, Heather spent several years in product management and business development within EMC.

Before joining EMC, Heather held several key technical and managerial roles at Gensym Corporation, Oracle, and Digital Equipment Corporation. Heather is a past recipient of the Massachusetts High Tech Women to Watch award in recognition of Heather's technology and professional accomplishments, leadership and mentoring activities and her civic involvement.

Heather holds a BS from University of Lowell and a Master's of Software Engineering from Brandeis University.

Possessing a unique blend of technical and strategic experience and a passion for active mentoring, Heather speaks externally at many community forums with a focus on women in science and participates in the professional development of EMC employees globally.

Joan Hestenes

Platforms IT Leader, Life Technologies

Joan is an IT leader supporting the Platform executive teams at Life Technologies, delivering strategic roadmaps and projects that span functions and IT systems areas. Over 16 years her career grew from entry level to executive leadership, through a key passion for project management. Her experience has included roles with Facilities, Finance, Tech Support and Service, Sales and Marketing, eBusiness and B2B, IT Project Management Office, Strategy and Governance, New Product Introductions, Manufacturing, M&A and Divestitures, and Business Platforms.

Joan's early career was in the nonprofit arena, as Co-Founder and Exec. Director of Village Enterprise which helps rural African entrepreneurs to start microenterprises to alleviate poverty. Over 23,000 enterprises started since 1987, and GiveWell named the organization in the top 10 of 400+ charities.

Joan holds an MBA in Economic Development from Eastern University in St. Davids, PA, an MDiv from San Francisco Theological Seminary, and a BA in International Relations from Univ of Calif Davis.

Bess Ho

Partner, Archimedes Labs

Bess Ho serves as partner at Archimedes Labs, a Palo Alto-based startup incubator for seed stage startup. A popular conference speaker, Bess has presented at the GSMA Mobile Asia Conference, Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC-SV), WIT Women Technology Summit, Android Open, Web20 Expo, Where 20, Silicon Valley China Wireless Conference (SVCW), and Silicon Valley Code Camp (SVCC), among others. She is often mentioned in national and local newspapers.

Bess also advises LumoBack (Series A), Eligible (Angel Round, YCombinator, Rock Health), and AfterShip (Seed Round, Global Startup Battle Winner).

Jessica Hunt

Senior Vice President and General Manager, HighTable

As Senior Vice President and General Manager of HighTable (http://www.hightable.com), Jessica Hunt leads the team building the world's most extensive and easy-to-use online expert network where professionals go every day to get intelligently sourced insights in order to build their businesses. HighTable users access real-time, direct answers to their business questions from people across the globe that are best suited to answer them, culled from a network of over 300,000 experts in virtually any field.

Hunt has built a world-class team employing the latest continuous deployment development practices and maintaining an unrelenting focus on the user experience. She drives product strategy and product development, and is spearheading the external launch of this new world class service.

Hunt has spun HighTable out of Gerson Lehrman Group, the world's most successful expert network, and is building HighTable utilizing key assets from GLG including their army of top subject matter experts built over the past 14 years.

Prior to taking the HighTable leadership role, Hunt was General Manager of Corporate Markets, and Senior Vice President in charge of the Life Sciences Segment at Gerson Lehrman Group. In these roles Hunt forged and grew over 35 Fortune 500 corporate relationships, including many of the world's leading global life sciences, industrial and technology corporations. She worked closely with established thought leaders throughout R&D, strategy and business development -- the most sophisticated buyers of information.

Hunt was instrumental to the firm's growth from the original 11 corporate clients to 160 firms, including nine of the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies. Her clients have used the insights of the leading expert network to generate new ideas, better allocate capital, focus on the right products to develop, and provide clinical investment direction. She has also managed and directed the sales and marketing team across the business in the U.S., EU and Asia. She previously held key management positions in the company's new markets and healthcare divisions.

Hunt has been with the company since 2004. She has a Ph.D. in physical anthropology from Yale University and a B.A. in biological anthropology and a certificate in primatology from Duke University.

Hunt is an active board member of the National Alliance for Mental Illness's first and largest chapter in NYC and is an advocate of better services and reducing the stigma around mental illness. She also follows the latest in evolutionary biology and enjoys reading about the philosophy of science.

Brigette Jackson

VP GM Michigan/Indiana, T-Mobile

As Vice President and General Manager for the Michigan and Indiana Region within the Central Area, Brigette Jackson leads all sales channels, including Business-to-Business, Retail, and Retail Partner Sales, in the Region.
Brigette, who is based in Detroit, is the Region's top executive responsible for customer growth and retention, driving top and bottom-line sales, EBITDA, and closely managing bottom-line profitability. In her VP GM role, she has full P&L accountability for Michigan and Indiana, while also focusing on talent development and sales training.

Before joining T-Mobile, Brigette was a Regional Manager covering nine states for a subsidiary of Limited Brands, Express, where she was responsible for managing all budgets and increasing net profits. Previously, at Pier 1 Imports, Brigette was the Divisional Director of Sales covering Maryland before covering Texas/Louisiana. While at Claire's, in several different roles, Brigette led Retail Division and Outlet Store teams in seven states across the country - from California to Texas to North Carolina and several in-between. She was also instrumental during the transition periods post-three separate acquisitions.

During each of these acquisitions as new companies became subsidiaries of Claire's, Brigette led the company's new hire process for multi-unit stores, training and new program implementation. Prior to Claire's, Brigette held leadership roles at The Children's Place.

Brigette graduated with a Bachelor's degree from Michigan State University. She enjoys spending time with her husband, their two teenage boys and their dog Nikey. In her spare time, she enjoys painting, traveling, chaperoning her son's high school marching band activities, and volunteering in the community. She has been involved in the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Fight for the Cure, Habitat for Humanity and Feeding the Hungry organizations.

Michelle Koblas

Director of Security, Guardian Analytics

Michelle Koblas is the Director of Security for Guardian Analytics, a SaaS provider and the leader in solutions that detect and prevent Internet banking fraud. She is responsible for security for the company's SaaS platform, corporate information security, and business continuity planning.

As a client-focused leader, Michelle has over 25 years experience directing cross-functional IT and Information Security teams for companies such as Brocade, eBay and Cisco. Her responsibilities have included product and architectural review; global operational network management and design; policy development and contract negotiations; security awareness and training; and design and audit of security and operational controls, supporting compliance to PCI, HIPAA, ISO27001, and Sarbanes-Oxley.

Michelle has her CISSP certification and received an M.S. in Computer and Information Science from the University of Oregon and a B.S. in Computer Science from Pacific Lutheran University in Washington state. Her publications include documentation on the SOCKS protocol and research studies in network technologies and protocol applications. Michelle has been a speaker at technical conferences worldwide and is currently a member of ISSA, (ISC)2, IEEE, and the Executive Women's Forum (EWF).

Betty LaMarr

Chairwoman 2012 WITI NextGen Summit, Executive Coach, Nadisa Associates

Betty LaMarr, international speaker and author is President of Nadisa Associates an executive coaching and consulting business. Betty's many years in business are distinguished by significant accomplishments in a wide range of senior positions. She has served as the Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing for a South African telecommunications company, Executive Vice President of an Orange County IT Consulting firm, Global Alliance Executive for a Boston-based technology integration firm and Director of Business Development for a worldwide diversity consulting firm.

Betty specializes in supporting women to achieve success by valuing their talents and abilities while focusing on strengths instead of fears. She can help you understand the politics so you can influence the decisions in your favor. She will show you how to separate emotions from the facts and get the best from your work relationships.

Special Events

Carolyn Leighton

Founder/Chairwoman, WITI

WITI Founder's Reception

Carolyn Leighton founded WITI in 1989 as a worldwide e-mail network for women in all technology sectors. At the time WITI was established, Ms. Leighton was President of Criterion Research, a research consulting firm for the high tech industry which she founded in 1984, as well as chair of the Core Competency Database Project at Stanford University.

Due to Ms. Leighton's leadership and vision, WITI has grown to be the premiere brand and worldwide organization dedicated to empowering women worldwide to achieve unimagined possibilities and transformations through technology, leadership and economic prosperity.

Ms. Leighton has 35 years of experience as an educator and entrepreneur. In addition to WITI, she founded four start-ups in the high-tech, legal sectors and, most recently, the pet industry. She attended the University of Michigan and has a bachelor's degree in human development from Pacific Oaks College. Ms. Leighton has received numerous accolades, twice named as one of the "Top 100 Women in Computing." More recently, she was named one of Fast Company Magazine's "Most Influential Women in Technology."

WITI Summit Speakers, Panelists and Moderators

Marina Levinson

Founder and CEO, CIO Advisory Group, LLC

Paths to Success - Stories from the Front Lines of Tech

Marina Levinson has more than 25 years of leadership experience managing all aspects of IT and business process transformation with 12+ years as a global CIO of fast-growing high tech companies. She has an exceptional track record building high performance teams and delivering measurable results in both high-growth and downturn business cycles. She has deep expertise integrating M&As and spinning off companies. Marina achieved tangible successes with both on-shore and offshore IT outsourcing in multiple companies.

Sonita Lontoh

Head of Global Marketing, Trilliant

Sonita Lontoh is the head of corporate marketing at Trilliant, a venture-backed smart grid company in Silicon Valley. She is a clean/green technology expert recognized on Wikipedia and is a frequent speaker and contributor on energy, clean tech, and women leadership topics for publications such as FORBES,FORTUNE, CNN, MIT Review, etc.

Sonita joined Trilliant from Grid Net, a clean tech company in San Francisco. Prior to that, she was a leader at PG&E Corporation, a Fortune 200 energy company with assets of more than $45 billion, serving more than 15 million customers in California, where she was involved with many of the company's strategic initiatives, including its carbon, renewable and smart energy technology solutions. Earlier in her career, Sonita spent a few years as a technology entrepreneur including co-founding a successful online game company serving the Greater China region and a stint in management consulting with Bain & Company. She earned her MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and her Master of Engineering from MIT, where she was also cross-registered at the Harvard Business School. Sonita holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from UC Berkeley. Follow Sonita on Twitter @slontoh.

Joanne Martin, Ph.D.

Distinguished Engineer and Vice President of Technology, IBM Corporation

As a Distinguished Engineer and Vice President of Technology, reporting to Linda Sanford in IBM's Enterprise Transformation organization, Joanne Martin is responsible for supporting the development of IBM's technical strategy and for the global technical community. She is Past-President of the IBM Academy of Technology. Prior, she was VP of Infrastructure Management Services for Global Technology Services (GTS), responsible for providing a consistent and coherent architecture for the development and delivery of service products in the transformed GTS. Dr. Martin was the Business Line Manager for Scientific and Technical Computing for the RS6000 Division, responsible for IBM's high performance scientific computing systems. She served on the management team that developed and delivered IBM's first supercomputer, with specific responsibility for the performance measurement and analysis of the system.

Dr. Martin was founding Editor-in-Chief of the MIT Press Journal of Supercomputer Applications, and on the steering committee that created the successful ACM/IEEE conference series on High Performance Computing and Communications - chairing the conference in 1990 and chairing the technical program for 1998. She has served as an advisor to the Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, and National Research Council. She was named by Working Mother magazine as one of the 25 most influential working mothers for 1998.

Dr. Martin earned a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the Johns Hopkins University. She began her research career at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she conducted the first comprehensive analysis of the scientific workload and its relationship to the performance of supercomputers. In 1984, Dr. Martin joined IBM as a Research Staff Member at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center to continue her research into supercomputer performance evaluation and measurement. She was appointed a Senior Technical Staff Member in 1993, and elected to the IBM Academy in 1997. Dr. Martin is currently a member of the Academy's Technology Council.

Amanda McConnell

Head of Product, Rent.com

Amanda McConnell is the Head of Product at Rent.com, the nation's number one internet listing site in the rental housing industry. Her responsibilities include leading the Product Strategy for Rent.com, overseeing the product roadmap and managing the product lifecycle process. Amanda is well versed in agile development and believes in an environment of creative collaboration to drive product driven results through innovation.

Amanda has been a professional in the internet space since 2000. Prior to Rent.com, she served as Senior Director of User Experience and Product Management at ReachLocal, where she led multi-language launches in the European Union and Asia and expanded the UxUi team to become a global resource for all products, as well as leading mobile strategy for the company. She also has a strong focus in social media at companies such as BuzzMedia, Inc (Buzznet, Celebuzz) and TasWorld, as well as leading projects for Southern Poverty Law Center, California Pizza Kitchen, HealthNet and many others.

Amanda received a Bachelor's of Science in Applied Mathematics, with an emphasis in Statistics from the University of California Los Angeles. She is a true LA native, with family roots going back to 1917 and is a third generation UCLA alum, following in her mother & grandmother's footsteps.

Mike McGlade

Chief Revenue Officer, FastPay

Funding and Investments

Mike is a lifelong entrepreneur with extensive technology, entertainment, and digital media experience. He has led business development, financial planning, marketing and sales efforts for multiple companies at various development stages. His core skill set is centered on building and managing highly effective sales & marketing teams - either as an in-house operator, an external consultant or a long term advisor.

Mike is currently the Chief Revenue Officer for FastPay, a new digital media finance company. FastPay (www.gofastpay.com) helps digital publishers, ad-tech businesses and creative developers manage payment cycles and boost revenues through access to non-dilutive working capital.

He graduated from Penn State University with a Bachelors of Science in Computer Engineering and received his MBA from Harvard Business School. He is co-President of the Harvard Business School Association of Southern California Board of Directors and is the chair of the HBS Alumni New Venture Contest in Los Angeles.

Maureen McQuestion

Director, IRT Customer Service Center, California State University, Sacramento

Paths to Success - Stories from the Front Lines of Tech

Maureen McQuestion is the Director, IRT Customer Service Center at California State University, Sacramento. Maureen built an IT Service Center grounded in the ITIL framework. California State University, Sacramento is a vibrant metropolitan university that is among the largest campuses in the California State University system. CSUS enrolls a multicultural student body of 28,000. Her prior position was Chief Information Officer, California State University, Channel Islands from 2005-2008. She has also worked at Cleveland State University from 00-05 , Boston College and the University of Washington in Seattle. Maureen is a Ph.D. candidate in Public Administration at the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. Her research interests include public sector technologies, ethics, and education policy. She received a Master's degree in Urban Studies at Cleveland State University and Bachelor's degree in Social Science from California State University, Sacramento.

Kathryn Minshew

Founder & CEO, the Daily Muse

Kathryn Minshew is the Founder & CEO of The Daily Muse, a career platform & job discovery tool that has been featured on CNN, Forbes, The Huffington Post, INC, TechCrunch and PBS. She was recently named to Forbes' 30-Under-30 in Media and INC's 15 Women to Watch in Tech. Previously, Kathryn worked with McKinsey & Company in the New York office before taking a job with the Clinton Health Access Initiative in Rwanda, which she left to work on her company. Follow her on Twitter @KMin.

Jane Moran

CIO, Unilever

Paths to Success - Stories from the Front Lines of Tech

As Global CIO for Thomson Reuters, Jane Moran oversees an organization of 1,200 employees driving the strategy, implementation and support for the internal business systems applications and platforms that support prospect-to-cash activities, financial operations, sales management and global reporting.

Jane has been with Thomson Reuters since 2002 and has held a number of senior leadership roles including CIO of the Markets Division, CIO of Thomson Financial, and CIO of CCBN (a Thomson acquisition). Prior to Thomson Reuters, she consulted for a number of years on large-scale enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management system implementations and provided IT portfolio management expertise to financial institutions. Jane started her career as a developer, building financial portfolio management and trading software applications and platforms.

At Thomson Reuters, Jane leads the Women in Technology special interest group and co-sponsors Thomson Reuters' Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender and Friends Network. Jane is also a member of the Technical Executive Forum for the Anita Borg Institute of Women in Technology, and is a member of the Advisory Board of Women in Technology International (WITI). In December 2011, Jane was named by CIO Magazine, as number 3 in the top 100 ranking of CIO's in the UK. In April 2012 Jane was named by CNN as one of the top 10 most powerful women in technology.

Jane earned an MBA from Boston University and a BA degree from Brown University where she's currently a member of the Advisory Council on Computer Science and Information Technology. Additionally, Jane is a member of the CIO councils for Salesforce.com, SAP, and Workday.

Jane works and lives in London with her husband and two sons.

Patricia Nakache

General Partner, Trinity Ventures

Panel Discussion: Women, Venture Capital and Creating a Paradigm Shift

Since joining Trinity Ventures in 1999, Patricia has focused on funding companies launching innovative online consumer and business services. She is particularly interested in the impact of social media and mobile on the next generation of Internet services. Prior to Trinity Ventures, Patricia worked at McKinsey & Company helping enterprises in technology, financial services and retailing address their strategic and operational issues. Previously, she also contributed to Fortune magazine (see herefor articles) and other publications on management best practices in technology companies. Patricia is a member of the Stanford Business School Trust Investment Committee.

Maria Ogneva

Global Head of Community, LinkedIn

Panel Discussion: Women, Venture Capital and Creating a Paradigm Shift

Maria Ogneva is the Global Head of Community at LinkedIn. She has a social media bent and extensive experience in various roles in community management, social media, customer development, and marketing. Ms. Ogneva is passionate about building communities and loves helping businesses better connect with their customers and employees. She enjoys writing and speaking on the topic of operationalizing social business, and building strong communities.

Stephanie Palmeri

Senior Associate, SoftTech VC

Steph Palmeri is a senior associate with SoftTech VC, where she invests in early stage consumer internet companies including next generation commerce, mobile services, and saas. She has over a decade of experience working at the intersection of marketing and technology. At SoftTech VC, Steph's work includes opportunity reviews, due diligence, market analysis, and dealflow management, in addition to active involvement with SoftTech VC portfolio companies.

Prior to joining SoftTech VC, Steph was an active member in New York City's emergent VC and entrepreneurial community where she was an Associate with early-stage venture fund NYC Seed and launched the NYC SeedStart incubator. Additionally, she worked with Lot18 on business development and marketing initiatives. Steph's early experience includes working for Accenture and Estee Lauder as well as building SaaS applications for customers including SAP AG, JP Morgan, and Diageo. Steph holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and graduated magna cum laude from Villanova University with joint degrees in Marketing and Management Information Systems. In her spare time, Steph enjoys bikram yoga, skiing, and getting lost in foreign countries.

Nicole Perlroth

Reporter, The New York Times

Nicole Perlroth covers cybersecurity and privacy for The New York Times. She previously covered venture capital and start-ups for Forbes and produced The Midas List, Forbes Magazine's annual ranking of top venture capitalists.

Sue Robins

Owner, Ascend Training Solutions

Panel Discussion: Women, Venture Capital and Creating a Paradigm Shift

Sue Robins is an experienced teacher, trainer, facilitator, and invited speaker for workshops, classes and plenary sessions. Sue has a 25 year career in both the public and private sectors with a record of success in sales, sales management, marketing, software development, teaching and leadership; primarily in the areas of life and physical sciences. Sue has a B.S. in Zoology from the University of Maryland and M.S. in Education from Mt. St. Mary's College.

Sue is currently owner and principal trainer of Ascend Training Solutions, a company dedicated to assisting businesses with developing their human capital. This is accomplished through customized employee development programs as well as candidate personality profiles and benchmarking. Sue is a Board Member and Education Committee Chair for the Culver City Chamber of Commerce. Additionally,

Sue serves on the board of EmpowHer Institute, an organization dedicated to using education and business ownership as empowerment tools for girls.
Helping people achieve their greatest potential has proved Sue's most gratifying professional responsibility. As President of Ascend Training Solutions, Sue Robins makes this her mission.

Rinki Sethi

Chief of Staff, Global Fraud, Risk & Security, eBay

Rinki Sethi currently works at eBay as the Global Fraud, Risk & Security Sr. Manager & Chief of Staff. Rinki drives the global security strategy for eBay and eBay's 30+ business units (China, India, Australia, Korea, Germany, England, etc.), enabling more effective communication and understanding of security issues across eBay's global business units, and delivering customer security education programs to eBay. Other responsibilities include defining and driving a security culture within and across eBay that will enable the agility and innovation that is critical to eBay's success. Rinki Sethi also manages the Project Management team, Security Resolutions team, and Security Awareness & Training Team for eBay Global Fraud, Risk & Security.

Prior to eBay, Rinki Sethi worked at Walmart.com as an Information Security Engineer and before that, at Pacific Gas and Electric as an Information Security Analyst. Rinki has built effective security awareness and training programs for the past 10 years. She enjoys building innovative programs that shift corporate cultures to be security aware.

Rinki is CISSP, CISA, CEH, NSA-IAM, and GIAC-GSEC certified. Rinki has a B.S. in Computer Science Engineering from UC Davis and M.S. in Information Security from Capella University.

Rinki also served on the development team for the ISACA book, "Creating a Culture of Security" by Stephen Ross. Rinki recently gave a talk on the "Criticality of Communications" at Secure World and will also be on a Global Security Awareness panel at RSA 2012.

Rachel Sheinbein

Parter, CMEA Capital

Rachel thrives when she is surrounded by smart, talented and passionate people. In her career at Intel, she worked with a team on cutting edge waste water treatment and with a group that was shaping the industry in environmental metrics and treatment technology. She, also, led a group on strategy for IT in the supply chain. After Intel, Rachel had the opportunity to consult for entrepreneurs in the sectors of solar, bio plastics and water. And, now at CMEA, she seeks out visionaries who see possibilities and can make them a reality.

In addition to her work at CMEA, Rachel is a board member for Expanding Your Horizons (EYH), which encourages girls in math, science, engineering and technology.

Rachel Sklar

Founder, Change The Ratio

Rachel Sklar is a writer and social entrepreneur based in New York. She is the founder of Change The Ratio, which increases visibility and opportunity for women in tech & new media, and Charitini, which encourages group giving around events. A former lawyer who writes about media, politics, culture & technology, she was a founding editor at Mediaite and the Huffington Post. She has written for outlets like the New York Times, Newsweek, Mother Jones and The Daily Beast, and she speaks widely at conferences, on panels and on TV. She is also the co-host of "The Salon" on The Jewish Channel (check local listings!). Rachel is a TechStars mentor and an advisor to several startups, including Hashable, Vox Media, Siftee, Lover.ly, Votizen, The Daily Muse & Honestly Now. She was named to the Silicon Alley 100 in 2009, 2010 and 2011, and won two Mirror "People's Choice" Awards in 2008. Follow her on Twitter at @rachelsklar - and watch for her latest project, TheLi.st.

Rakel Solvadottir

Founder and CEO, Skema

Women's Employee Resource Groups: Invigorating Your Organization by Connecting Powerful Women

Rakel is the Founder and CEO of Skema, an award-winning computer education program for children, based in Iceland. She has developed teaching methods and curriculum that enable children as young as 6 years old to learn the basics of computer programming through computer game creation. Rakel believes that teaching methods can be adapted to enable both children with and without learning disabilities to effectively learn computer skills. Additionally, Rakel is spearheading an ongoing study to analyze the impact of computer programming on cognitive development and well-being of 9 - 10 year old children.

Prior to Skema, Rakel worked as a senior programmer for the Icelandic Social Insurance Administration, as a software developer for Mentis where she oversaw all database development. She also served as the team leader at Teris, for second level support in software development. While working at Teris she studied psychology that encouraged her to combine technology and psychology to build up education in line with technological advancements.

Rakel is an active member of Iceland's startup scene and sits on the board of The Federation of Icelandic Startup Companies. She was recently a featured speaker at TEDx Reykjavik.

Theresa Spralling

CEO, Women of AT&T National Organization

Theresa Spralling is chief executive officer of the Women of AT&T National Organization. Over 18,000 members strong, Women of AT&T is organized to connect and inspire members to achieve their personal and professional goals and effect change in the community.

Ms. Spralling's experience ranges from business development, generational learning, and relationship building, to planning, conflict resolution, and change management. She serves as a senior associate director for the Business Sales Leadership Development Program of AT&T Services Inc. She's responsible for talent development and building performance sales leadership teams and sales professionals for the global leader in mobile Internet services and IP-based business communications solutions.

Ms. Spralling has worked at Avaya, Lucent Technologies, and The Advisory Council, and first joined AT&T in 1998 as an executive briefer. She joined AT&T Mobility as a business sales manager in 2007. She is a member of Toastmasters International and the owner of the Karmaworks Inc. motivational consulting firm.

Lauren States

Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow, Harvard University

Making Business Drive IT Transformation Through Enterprise Architecture (Cloud)

As Vice President, Technology Strategy, Growth Initiatives and CTO for Cloud Computing on the IBM Corporate Strategy team, Lauren is responsible for the technology strategy for IBM's growth initiatives, including cloud computing, Smarter Planet, business analytics and emerging markets. In her previous role in the IBM Software Group, Lauren engaged directly with clients to deliver leading edge cloud solutions globally. She joined IBM as a systems engineer after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School.

Lauren was a leader in the company's client/server emerging business, led the client/server Midwest sales team and has also served as global technical sales and customer deployment executive for IBM Software Group. As a senior executive on IBM's Integration and Values Leadership Team, she was a leader in the company-wide Client Value Initiative - responsible for the reshaping of IBM's skills development.

In 2012, Lauren received the Federal 100 Award and was recognized by CloudNOW as one of the Top Women in Cloud.

Deirdre Straughan

Community Architect, Joyent

Workshop: The Changing Role of Technology Marketers

Deirdre Straughan has long acted on her belief that everything that touches the customer is marketing, including UI design, customer service, social media - and more. Working for tech companies large and small worldwide, she uses the latest tools to create new ways to interact with customers, online and offline. She has particularly focused on innovative uses of media, in recent years producing hundreds of technical videos for Sun Microsystems, Oracle, and Joyent, including live video streams. She currently lives in the Bay Area and works for Joyent as Community Architect for the SmartOS and illumos open source communities. Plays well with geeks (is one), and has taken an active role in supporting women in technology through Girl Geek Dinners, Women@Sun, and conference talks. A TCK, she went to boarding school in India, then got a BA in South Asian Studies and Languages from the University of Texas, and an MBA from the Open University. You can learn more on her blog beginningwithi.com, and she's @deirdres on Twitter.

Katherine Swift

Director, Sales Operations, AT&T

Women's Employee Resource Groups: Invigorating Your Organization by Connecting Powerful Women

Director of Sales Operations, AT&T manages national sales operations team and serves as Chief of Staff for the Industry and Mobility Application Solutions team (focused on driving growth in the advanced mobility applications space for B2B). She has over 12 years in the telecommunications industry and has held positions at AT&T, Cingular Wireless and Verizon Business including: marketing, analyst relations, mass media advertising, PR, community and employee relations and has served as spokesperson for AT&T. Kathy co-founded the AT&T Women in Emerging Technology Organization to aide developing women for leadership roles and to support recruiting efforts. She heads operations for the division to drive critical operational processes for development, compliance and results reporting and analysis in support of revenue plan. She serves as chief liaison for all business processes: compensation planning, budget management and results analysis and supports the organization's hiring and onboarding efforts. In her spare time, she loves to play tennis and golf, travel and spend time with friends and family. She holds a BA from Susquehanna University and resides in Atlanta, GA

Candice Tal

CEO, Infortal Worldwide

Panel Discussion: Women, Venture Capital and Creating a Paradigm Shift

Candice Tal is CEO of Infortal Worldwide, a global security and investigations company founded in 1985. Infortal serves the emerging security needs of industries including banking, high-technology, life sciences, biotech, non-profit organizations and international law firms. Ms. Tal works closely with multi-national corporations to investigate and find solutions to corporate security issues, providing deep-level due diligence investigations, threat risk assessment, risk management, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) compliance, and armed security for workplace violence issues.

Infortal is the most accurate in on-demand systems for Best Practices Business Risk Mitigation and global Employment Screening.

Candice specializes in strategic corporate business investigations for Mergers & Acquisitions, providing expanded due diligence to corporations and non-profit organizations to protect Boards of Directors and assist companies in compliance with federal regulations including FCPA and SOX. Candice has presented on these topics to numerous law firms, professional groups, news media and radio interviews.

Pemo Theodore

Media Producer & Startup Coach, EZebis

Pemo Theodore is an online entrepreneur & startup coach. Originally from Australia she has been in online business for over 6 years. She has been involved in small business for 33 years in Australia, Canada, Ireland & London. She video interviews venture capitalists, angel investors & women founders in the US & Europe on the shortfall in funding for women. She recently launched an ebook with 120 short embedded clips & summary of her findings "Why are Women Funded Less than Men? a crowdsourced conversation" www.ezebis.com/ebook. She created a virtual program PitchPerfect to prepare entrepreneurs for funding ezebis.com/pitch-perfect/

Patty Toland

Partner, Filament Group, Inc.

WITIstyle Storytelling: Stop Telling Women Not To Do Startups

Patty Toland is a founding Partner at Filament Group, Inc., a Boston-based design studio focused on creating highly functional, accessible and intuitive user interfaces for a broad range of devices, from mobile, tablets, kiosks and desktop.

Filament Group places a particular focus on employing Responsive Design and Progressive Enhancement techniques to help create online experiences that deliver the richest and most appropriate experience to the widest range of devices, all with a single codebase -- an approach they've used with some noted success on projects including BostonGlobe.com and the jQuery Mobile framework, for which Filament Group is sponsor and project lead.

Prior to founding Filament Group, Patty worked at ZEFER Corporation, US Peace Corps, Kohn Cruikshank, Inc. and Harvard Business School. She holds an AB in English from Harvard University, and an MA in Irish Literature from University College, Dublin.

Alexia Tsotsis

Co-Editor, TechCrunch

Alexia Tsotsis works for TechCrunch as a writer. She attended the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA, majoring in Writing and Art, and moved to New York City shortly after graduation to work in the Media industry.

After four years of living in New York and attending courses at New York University, she returned to Los Angeles in order to continue her career in new media, first as LA Weekly's internet culture reporter, and then as SF Weekly's web editor. Before she joined TechCrunch, Alexia ran the SFweekly.com website while staying on top of memes, the tech scene, and human behavior in the digital age.

At TechCrunch, Tsotsis covers early stage startups, and has had the opportunity to interview everyone from Groupon's Andrew Mason to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Most recently Tsotsis made the Forbes "30 Under 30: Rising Stars of Media List." Her Twitter bio reads, "Breaks news, hearts."

Emily Ubik

Engineering Student, Boston University

WITIstyle Storytelling: Women, Tech Innovation and the Great Global Opportunity

Emily Ubik attends Boston University, where she just finished her freshman year. Emily is pursuing majors in Engineering and Archaeology. While at BU she has worked in the Biomedical Engineering Brain and Vision Research Laboratory and on the Fairbanks House Archaeological Project.

Prior to her freshman year, she interned at the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) gaining experience in establishing relationships and survey research.

Her interest in engineering was born while in high school at University Liggett School where she was a founding member of their FIRST Robotics high school team. She took a leadership role in Fundraising and assisted on the Build Team.

Emily resides in Michigan and enjoys sailing, cooking and reading good books! In addition, she has a patent pending using LED and Wireless technology to solve a practical problem.

Vivek Wadhwa

Vice President of Academics and Innovation, Singularity University

Vivek Wadhwa is Vice President of Academics and Innovation at Singularity University; Fellow, Arthur & Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance, Stanford University; Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at the Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University; and distinguished visiting scholar, Halle Institute of Global Learning, Emory University.

Wadhwa oversees the academic programs at Singularity University, which educates a select group of leaders about the exponentially growing technologies that are soon going to change our world. These advances - in fields such as robotics, A.I., computing, synthetic biology, 3D printing, medicine, and nanomaterials - are making it possible for small teams to do what was once possible only for governments and large corporations to do: solve the grand challenges in education, water, food, shelter, health, and security.

In his roles at Stanford, Duke, and Emory universities, Wadhwa lectures in class on subjects such as entrepreneurship and public policy, helps prepare students for the real world, and leads groundbreaking research projects. He is an advisor to several governments; mentors entrepreneurs; and is a regular columnist for The Washington Post, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, and the American Society of Engineering Education's Prism magazine. Prior to joining academia in 2005, Wadhwa founded two software companies.

Ekaterina Walter

Senior Social Media Strategist, Intel

Panel Discussion: Women, Venture Capital and Creating a Paradigm Shift

Ekaterina Walter is a social media maverick at Intel and is responsible for company-wide social media enablement and corporate social networking strategy. She is a recognized thought-leader in her field, a vibrant speaker, and is a regular contributor to well-known industry publications such as Mashable, Fast Company, HuffingtonPost, TheNextWeb and others. Ekaterina is a proud TEDizen. She also sits on a Board of Directors of Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA). You can follow her on Twitter @Ekaterina

Sharon Wienbar

Managing Director, Scale Venture Partners

Sharon invests in Mobile and Internet companies at ScaleVP. She sits on the boards of Actiance, BeachMint, Everyday Health, PlayPhone, Reply.com and uTest.

Prior to ScaleVP in 2001, Sharon was Vice President, Marketing for Critical Path and Amplitude Software. She spent most of the 1990's at Adobe Systems, starting as Product Manager for Asian Products and later led marketing for many of Adobe's applications, and spearheaded numerous cross-product initiatives. Before her technology line experience, Sharon practiced strategy consulting at Bain & Company for nearly five years.

Sharon holds an A.M. and an A.B. in Engineering from Harvard University, and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Sharon also serves on the board of directors of the non-profit Myelin Repair Foundation and on Microsoft's Venture Advisory Committee.

Marlene Williamson

Vice President, Corporate Marketing, HGST

Workshop: The Changing Role of Technology Marketers

Marlene Williamson is the vice president of corporate marketing for HGST, a $6B subsidiary of Western Digital Corporation. HGST is the former storage division of Hitachi Ltd. Marlene has responsibility for the company's demand generation, thought leadership and brand building efforts targeted to consumers, enterprises, OEM & channel partners.

Prior to joining Hitachi, Marlene was vice president of global marketing for Ericsson where she evolved the company's product marketing to value-creation marketing. She has held vice president of marketing roles at Symantec, IBM, Polycom and Acer. Earlier in her career, she led global consumer marketing at Apple.

She has been named Marketer of the Year by the American Marketing Assoc., Partner of the Year by Yahoo, Innovator of the Year by Google, Outstanding Female Executive in Silicon Valley by the YWCA, a Woman of Influence in Silicon Valley by the San Jose Business Journal and is a former board member of Watermark, Silicon Valley's premier women's executive organization. She is a board member of the CMO Council and the Association for Corporate Growth.

She holds an MBA from DePaul University.

Laura Wolf

Social Business Sales Executive for North America Canada, IBM

The Social Business Agenda: Developing a Strategy to Drive Business Forward

Laura is an IBM Social Business Sales Executive for North America Canada as well as a Social Evangelist both inside IBM and for her customers. She has been working in the area of social business for over 4 years, which is to say she has been working in this space basically since its inception. She is passionate about helping customers understand the business value that can be achieved through the use of social tools. She is a graduate of Texas A&M University and has been with IBM for 13 years.

Bonnie Wolfe

Co-Founder, 2 Billion Monkeys