Featured Speaker(s)

Speaker 1:
Lisa Orth Mannion started her career as a project coordinator for International Development. She earned her MBA, Masters in International Business at Thunderbird School of Global Management, located in Arizona. ( U.S. News and World Report ranked Thunderbird #1 in International Business for the 11th consecutive year.) Lisa joined SAP America out of graduate school worked way up to the position of Project Manager. She retired from the almost 100% travel and joined Nortel. Lisa obtained her Project Management Professional (PMP) certification in 2005. Currently Lisa provides Project Management and Solution Architect expertise for Nortel's Global Services Business.

Speaker 2:
Natalie McDonald started her career in telecommunications as an Account Representative for US SPRINT where she was employed for eight years eventually working her way up to Branch Manager Major Accounts. Post US SPRINT; she held the position of National Account Manager for MCI where she managed such national accounts as Marriott, USAIR, and Amtrak. After ending her career in sales, Natalie moved into the engineering aspect of telecommunications and worked for six years as a Telecommunications Engineering Analyst on-site at the Headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for DynCorp, a government contractor in Washington DC. After DynCorp, Natalie seized the opportunity to utilize her knowledge of telecommunications and consulting experiences and worked as an independent management consultant for MCI’s local phone services product management group.

As a result of her industry experience and reputation, she was offered a position as Sr. Product Manager for Concert (a joint venture between MCI and British Telecommunications (BT). Natalie’s employment with Concert and then BT spans over 13 years. For twelve of those years, she worked as a Sr. Product Manager, responsible for the life cycle management of several new BT products and services which ranged from international mobile roaming to product management of all e-service releases and service level agreements for intelligent virtual private networks.

In the role of Sr. Product Manager, Natalie was responsible for defining all product features and functionality which included budget and system development. She managed requirements from feasibility, assessment, development, delivery, and launch while managing a development budget in excess of 15M.

Natalie is currently a Business Development Manager for BT North America (BTNA) where she relies heavily on her international experience, industry knowledge, and sales management experience and product development skills. As a Business Development Manager, Natalie manages one of BTNA’s, largest multi-national accounts, with 97 sites throughout, North America, Latin America and Canada. She is a graduate of Rutgers University �" New Brunswick, NJ with a B.A. Degree in American Studies/Business Industry and has completed post graduate work at Marymount University, Arlington Va. in the area of Management Information Systems.