Jim Ericson

Editorial Director

Information Management

Editorial Director, Information Management Magazine.
Jim Ericson is responsible for identifying and aligning all areas of editorial content for Information Management and for ensuring that the magazine maintains its position as a market leader in the data warehousing and information management arena. He is a primary contributor of features, interviews and editorial comment for the publication. 

Ericson has a proven track record in building excellent teams and strong editorial products. Most recently, he was editorial director and senior news editor at Line56 Media, a multimedia publishing company serving consumers of e-business technology in the public and private sectors. Before joining Line56 Media, Ericson worked as managing editor at MSNBC’s Washington D.C. affiliate and was a senior morning news producer for the NBC radio network. His mainstream news background enables him to speak directly with technology consumers and to address the issues of relevance for the end-user readership.

Ericson has written extensively on a variety of topics including business intelligence, customer relationship and supply chain management, application integration, content and process management, architectures and Web services. His stories have been widely reviewed and excerpted in corporate and consulting publications, and at academic sites.

Aaron Zornes

Chief Research Officer

The MDM Institute

Aaron Zornes is the founder and chief research officer of The MDM Institute. Mr. Zornes is a noted speaker and author on Global 2000 enterprise IT issues and is the most quoted industry analyst on the topics of customer data integration' (CDI), master data management (MDM), and data governance. Mr. Zornes is also the editor and lead contributor to Information Management's CDI Newsletter as well as the monthly columnist for both CDI and MDM. Prior to founding The MDM Institute, he was founder and executive VP of META Group's largest research advisory practice for 15 years. Mr. Zornes also held line and strategic management roles in leading vendor and user organizations, including executive and managerial positions at Ingres Corp., Wang, Software AG of North America, and Cincom Systems. Mr. Zornes received his M.S. in Management Information Systems from the University of Arizona.

Tony Fisher

President & CEO

DataFlux

Tony Fisher joined DataFlux as president and CEO in 2000. In his years at DataFlux, he has guided the company through tremendous growth as DataFlux became a market-leading provider of data quality and data integration solutions. Tony is also a featured speaker and author about emerging trends in data quality, data integration and corporate compliance efforts. Prior to DataFlux, he was the technology director at SAS. Tony is a native of North Carolina and earned a degree in computer science and mathematics from Duke University.

John Gairhan

WW Manager InfoSphere MDM Product Marketing

IBM

John Gairhan is responsible for product marketing for IBM's Master Data Management group of products and has been with IBM since 2005. Prior to joining IBM, John worked at DWL Inc., and was Director of Strategy for DWL Customer, a leading CDI hub. John also spent 5 years at Acxiom Corporation working on marketing and recognition solutions and spent 9 years working in software development for Alltel Information Services/Systematics. He received his Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville and spent several years working as a software engineer.

Rob Karel

Principle Analyst

Forrester Research

Rob serves Business Process & Applications professionals. He is a leading expert in how companies manage data and integrate information across the enterprise. His current research focus includes master data management, data quality management, metadata management, data governance, and data integration technologies, including ETL and EII.

Rob has more than 14 years of data management experience, working in both business and IT roles to develop solutions that provide better quality, confidence in, and usability of critical enterprise data. Prior to joining Forrester, he managed Intuit's enterprise data quality initiatives and supported the implementation of Intuit's customer master reference system. Prior to Intuit, Rob managed the design and development of customer master and attribute management solutions for Cisco Systems. Earlier, Rob was research manager for the global mergers and acquisitions product group at Thomson Financial Securities Data (now Thomson Financial Investment Banking).

Rob holds a B.S. in finance from Ithaca College.

Eva Larson

Eva Larson IT Quality Analyst

Zebra Technologies

Eva Larson is the Quality Analyst for the MDM Global Business Solution at Zebra Technologies Corporation, a leading provider of specialty, on-demand printing solutions worldwide. Her focus is on Data Quality and Master Data Management for Customers and Product Items. She also is the founder and facilitator of Zebra Technologies Data Governance and Data Stewardship teams. Eva has more than 20 years experience in Data Management and Data Quality.Eva holds a bachelors degree in Business Management from Trinity International University in Deerfield, IL.

Pascal Laik

Vice President

Oracle

Pascal Laik is the Vice President of Oracle Master Data Management (MDM) Product Strategy. His group’s responsibilities include the direction of Oracle’s investment in the Master Data Management area as well Oracle’s MDM go to market strategy. His group is also in charge of supporting Oracle MDM sales, marketing and services effort. Prior to that position Mr. Laik led the Customer Data Integration (CDI) Oracle/Siebel practice in EMEA. This responsibility included sales and delivery of CDI based solutions and projects. Prior to that position, Mr. Laik was Product Line Manager in the CDI/UAN product at Siebel within the Product Marketing organization. In that respect Mr. Laik was in charge of the product direction, development and marketing of the CDI Business Integration Applications across horizontal and vertical Siebel product lines. Prior to this position, Mr. Laik was the product manager for the Siebel Customer Order Management product line. Before Siebel, Mr. Laik worked 8 years in Consulting including 4 years with Andersen Consulting in Paris and Chicago as a Senior Consultant and 4 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Paris as a Manager. As a consultant, Mr. Laik directed and participated in a wide range of team-based engagements ranging from IT strategy to design and implementation of enterprise front-end and back-end solutions in the high-tech, media, government and banking industries. Mr. Laik has a Master of Science in Engineering from Ecole Nationale Superieure de Techniques Avancees (ENSTA), Paris France and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the Wharton School from the University of Pennsylvania where he graduated with a major in Finance in May 2000 with distinction. Mr. Laik has been awarded the Siebel Star for exceptional contribution to the Siebel Product Marketing organization as well as the Siebel Chairman’s Circle award.

Ed Allburn

President

DataDelta

Mr. Allburn is a 20+ year industry veteran and President/CEO of DataDelta, Inc. which provides CDI-MDM consulting and patent-pending, vendor-neutral match accuracy analysis software used to analyze & optimize the match accuracy of Data Quality, CDI & MDM vendor match engines including custom, in-house match engines.  Mr. Allburn has held senior technical and strategic management positions in the fields of Database Marketing, Data Quality, CDI and MDM for industry leading companies such as Metromail / Experian, the IBM TJ Watson Research Center, Firstlogic and Group 1 Software.  During his career Mr. Allburn has been responsible for over 200 successful CDI projects in banking, telecom, catalog and other industries.  He is an international speaker and instructor for CDI-MDM Workshops, a contributor to DM Review and other publications, and a recognized Expert Witness in the Data Quality and CDI-MDM industries.

Alok Arora

Director, Enterprise Integration and Architecture

NetApp

Alok Arora has more than 20 years experience directing and architecting CRM strategies, large-scale enterprise products and applications, financial products, and enterprise-scale information systems. Mr. Arora is responsible for driving the SaaS and SOA strategies at NetApp. Prior to NetApp, he held leadership roles at Visa International (Director, Commercial Products Development), Siebel Systems (Global Architect, Emerging Technologies), Infogain (Practice Director), Hewlett-Packard (CRM/Master Data Consultant), and Siemens AG/Munich (Sr. Product Manager). Mr. Arora also worked as Sr. Scientist at National Informatics Center and Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, India. Mr. Arora received his technical degrees from Kamla Nehru Institute of Technology, India.

Vinod Badami

Associate VP for Business Intelligence

Patni Computer Systems

Vinod Badami is the Associate Vice President for Business Intelligence at Patni Computer Systems, a global IT solutions firm. Mr. Badami has more than 20 years of IT and business intelligence experience in the asset management, computer, insurance, banking, financial services, pharmaceutical and telecommunications industries. Prior to Patni, he has held multiple leadership positions managing enterprise level BI and Data Management groups at companies such as Lord Abbett & Company, and RCG Information Technology. Mr. Badami also led the Northeast Professional Services business unit for a BI software company Brio and was the Lead Architect for the global systems integrator DMR Consulting. He received his MS in Computer Science & Telecommunications from Iona College in New Rochelle, New York.

Paul Bertucci

Enterprise Architecture

Autodesk, Inc.

Paul Bertucci has been dedicated to solving complex data solutions for nearly 30 years. He is a frequent speaker at database, architecture, and integration conferences around the globe, author of several popular database books including the “SQL Server Unleashed” series and “SQL Server High Availability”, and has lead the data architecture and enterprise architecture organizations for some of the world’s largest organizations (such as Symantec (their Chief Data Architect) and now with Autodesk (their Chief Architect)). Mr. Bertucci cut his teeth with data from the ground up including extensive experience with database base design, data analysis, data modeling, performance and tuning, distributed data/data replication, master data management, data integration, data warehousing, data standards and methodologies, high availability, and complex data architectures. He apprenticed under Dr. Peter Chen (the originator of the Entity/Relationship Modeling approach) and became an authority on data modeling and data analysis, wrote and taught Dr. Chen’s “Entity/Relationship modeling and database design” seminars, wrote Sybase’s Physical Database Design and Performance and Tuning approaches, created several OLAP/Multi-dimensional Database Design courses, and more importantly, has implemented a vast number of major database solutions over the years (from OLTP, to OLAP, to DW/DM, to massively distributed applications). Mr. Bertucci’s formal education is from UC Berkeley in Computer Science.

Chris Blotto

Partner, Data Management and Analytics

EMC Consulting

Martin Boyd

VP, Marketing

Silver Creek Systems

Martin Boyd is Vice President of Marketing at Silver Creek Systems, a pioneer and leader in automated product data solutions that complement PIM and MDM solutions with a full range of solutions from initial clean-up and standardization to enrichment, translation, integration and ongoing governance across all product data domains. Martin has over twenty years experience in Product Management, Product Marketing and Marketing Communications for enterprise software companies.

Steve Dimas

Sr. Director of IT Application

Polycom, Inc.

Steve Dimas is a Sr. Director of IT Application for Polycom, Inc. A IT veteran with more than 20 years of retail sales and corporate experience with a successfully track record of building systems and organization taking small companies to over a billion dollars in sales. Steve has implemented and supported several ERP, CRM, Web and B2B Solutions globally. Building a strong relationship with partners, focusing on what drives revenue are the keys to success.

Tyler Graham

Senior Program Manager, MDM Product Team

Microsoft

Tyler Graham is currently Senior Program Manager with the Microsoft MDM team. Mr. Graham has over ten years of MDM experience in working with Fortune 500 companies as a consultant for Arthur Andersen and Stratature. He has been the lead consultant in over 20 implementations of the Stratature +EDM product prior to its acquisition Microsoft in 2008.

Richard Hoyt

MDM Architect

Cardinal Health

Richard Hoyt is an MDM architect with 6 years of experience at Cardinal Health, a global manufacturer and distributor of medical and surgical supplies and technologies dedicated to making healthcare safer and more productive. Richard is currently designing an MDM solution focused on product cleansing and classification. Previously, he has designed MDM solutions supporting customer, product, and vendor domains. These solutions have supported CRM, SFA, and financial services projects. As an MDM architect, he is responsible for the data quality, matching, and governance architectures at Cardinal Health.

Shenoy P. Karkala

Enterprise Solution Architect

Cisco Systems

Shenoy has more than 18 years of experience in Information Management for large global organizations, focusing on Master Data Management. His key interests include business agility through business process improvement and integration. Shenoy thinks of poor data quality as a symptom than the problem itself and believes in business process integration as a primary solution to overcome the challenges in the organization. He has led successful implementation of Service Oriented Architecture in MDM and business process integration. His design philosophy includes continuous performance improvement, pro-active service management in large scale solutions. Shenoy is now Enterprise Solution Architect at Cisco, leading Master Data Management practitioners.

Nagesh Kanumury

MDM Practice Director

Perficient

Nagesh Kanumury is practice director for the MDM Practice at Perficient. Mr. Kanumury’s responsibilities include developing, communicating, and implementing client strategies for MDM (PIM and Customer), Traceability (RFID), and Data Governance. His 16 years of business experience include architecting MDM solutions for Fortune 500 clients in various industries in addition to providing oversight to ensure project success. Mr. Kanumury is also a member of IBM's Data Governance council and a speaker at public conferences.

Tom Kennedy

Founder & CTO

BackOffice Associates, LLC

Mr. Kennedy has over thirty (30) years of experience in ERP systems, software design and business process engineering. He founded BackOffice Associates in 1994 after realizing the complex structure and data requirements required by SAP integrated systems, as well as the lack of an existing methodology for producing business ready data in the SAP environment. Focused on global SAP implementations, Mr. Kennedy has been the Chief Solutions Architect and Executive Advisor for many Fortune 100 companies His vision and resolve for the future of SAP data quality standards is unmatched and his solutions are highly regarded throughout the industry.

Ravi Krishnappa

IT Architect

Cisco Systems

Ravi Krishnappa is an IT architect at Cisco Systems, a leading provider of networking equipment. His focus is design of enterprise class applications. Ravi has designed and managed IT applications supporting ERP, CRM, Marketing and distribution. His interest includes integration of master data management systems to heterogeneous systems, business intelligence and marketing intelligence.

Arun Lakshmanan

Director, Global Business Systems Solutions

Starbucks Coffee Company

Arun Lakshmanan is the Director of Global Business Systems – MDM Track at Starbucks Coffee Company, specialty retailer of premium coffees and teas worldwide. Mr. Lakshmanan has more than 16 years of IT experience in the automotive, general manufacturing and retail industries. Prior to Starbucks, he has successfully managed the implementation and maintenance of large scale enterprise business applications at companies such as Michaels Stores Inc., Alcoa, and Ford Motor Company to name a few. Mr. Lakshmanan brings a unique blend of consulting delivery management and direct industry experience through his 10+ years of consulting most notably at Oracle Consulting Services and 6+ years of direct industry experience most notably at Starbucks Coffee Company and Michaels Stores Inc. He received his degrees from the National Institute of Information Technology and the University of Madras.

William McKnight

Partner, Information Management

US Analytics

William is Partner, Information Management at US Analytics. William functions as Strategist, Lead Enterprise Information Architect, and Program Manager for complex, high-volume full life-cycle implementations worldwide utilizing the disciplines of data warehousing, master data management, business intelligence, data quality and operational business intelligence. Many of his clients have gone public with their success story. William is a Southwest Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist, a frequent best practices judge, has authored more than 150 articles and white papers and given over 150 international keynotes and public seminars. His team’s implementations from both IT and consultant positions have won Best Practices awards. William is a former IT VP of a Fortune company, a former engineer of DB2 at IBM and holds an MBA. He may be reached at 214-514-1444.

Mani Kumar Manda

Founder & President

Rhapsody Technologies, Inc.

Mr. Manda is a seasoned entrepreneur with over 14 years of experience in implementing Enterprise solutions using Oracle, PeopleSoft, etc. As a founder of Rhapsody Technologies, he is a seasoned implementer of CDI solutions. Mr. Manda regularly lectures on CDI implementations, Oracle’s Trading Community Architecture, and related topics, etc. Mr. Manda is also the chairman of the Oracle SIG for Oracle Customer Data Hub.

Himanshu Mishra

Process Solution Consultant

Medtronic

Himanshu has more than 16 years of experience in the Life Sciences, Medical devices, Pharmaceutical, Chemical, Semi-conductor, Automobile, Manufacturing and Financial industries in the areas of Enterprise Package Software (MDM/ ERP/ SCM/ SRM/ PLM/ CRM) Project and Delivery Management, Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), Business Process Re-engineering (BPR), Supply Chain Management (SCM), and Global Delivery Model (GDM). Himanshu has presented on SAP MDM and Data Governance at ASUG and SAPPHIRE forums. Himanshu leads MDM and Data Governance MN ASUG forum.

Himanshu has extensive domain knowledge in Master Data Management, Manufacturing Planning and Execution, and Supply Chain Management, Compliance and Validation in Life Science Industry. He has master in Industrial Engineering and Bachelor in Mechanical Engineering. Himanshu works as a Process Solution Consultant at Medtronic, where he leads various master data related initiatives: Customer Master Data, Product Data Management, Global Compliant Management, SAP Auto ID Infrastructure, Quality Management, Global Label Management and Environmental Health and Safety.

Kelle O'Neal

Managing Partner

First San Francisco Partners

Having worked with the software and systems providers that have been key to the formulation of MDM, Kelle O’Neal has played important roles in many of the groundbreaking initiatives that have confirmed the value of MDM to the enterprise. Recognizing an unmet need for clear guidance and advice on the intricacies of implementing MDM solutions, Ms. O’Neal founded First San Francisco Partners early in 2007. First San Francisco Partners immediately established a reputation as the first-call resource for companies looking to tap the value of CDI and MDM. Ms. O’Neal developed her ability work through organizational complexity, build consensus and drive results in senior roles at companies such as Siperian, GoldenGate Software, Oracle, and Siebel Systems. She has worked at the executive level in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Her strong background in CRM, enterprise software, and systems integration enable her to provide expert counsel to any organization seeking to execute an MDM project. Ms. O’Neal most recently served as General Manager, EMEA, for Siperian. She earned her B.A. from Duke University and also holds an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Sriraj Rajaram

Senior Master Data Management Strategist

Cognizant Technology Solutions

Sriraj Rajaram is a Senior Master Data Management Strategist at Cognizant Technology Solutions. With 15 years of experience in the consulting arena, Mr. Rajaram specializes in defining ROI for master data project, establishing data governance processes and developing MDM sponsorship within enterprises. He is considered an innovator in this space and has created many of the industry recognized solutions such as MDM in a Box, MDM Express and MDM Shared Service. In his current role, he is involved in the innovation of industry specific data governance principles and establishing strategic roadmaps to enable better value addition.

Robert Rich

President & Founder

DataQualityFirst

Robert Rich’s vision for innovative data integration, quality, and governance solutions that positively impact business performance is at the heart of DataQualityFirst. Known for his enthusiastic presentations and subject matter expertise, Mr. Rich is a recognized expert in data quality, data integration and managing master data in complex heterogeneous environments. His real world understanding of how to drive business value out of technology deployments comes from 20+ years of experience as an IT professional, consultant and in various marketing and product roles for enterprise application software vendors. Most recently, Mr. Rich led Worldwide Product Marketing for IBM’s Master Data Management solutions and before that was Director of Product Marketing responsible for the data quality offerings at Ascential Software. Prior to Ascential, he held leadership positions at Syskoplan Consulting, Siebel, Vality Technology, and Technology Solutions Corporation. Mr. Rich started his career as an applications programmer after earning a B.B.A. in marketing from Hofstra University.

Rajesh Shewale

Senior Consultant

Wipro Technologies

Rajesh Shewale currently leads the multi-entity MDM Implementation program at Lexmark. Mr. Shewale’s areas of focus include: business intelligence, data warehousing, and the leveraging of data as an asset using global delivery model. He has over fifteen years experience in consulting across manufacturing, insurance, military and financial industries. Mr. Shewale received his MBA from the University of Louisville.

Dileep Srinivasan

Asst. Vice President – MDM & CRM

Cognizant Technology Solutions

Dileep Srinivasan is the Assistant Vice President – CRM & Global CDI/MDM Practice at Cognizant Technology Solutions. With over 25 years of experience in the consulting practice, Mr. Srinivasan has contributed extensively to organizations, helping them derive strategic benefits and greater return on investment from their IT investments. He has been a key speaker at many global conferences covering wide varieties of topics such as strategic outsourcing, change management, call center management and managed operations. In his current role, he is involved in building industry specific CDI-MDM solutions, establishing data governance principles and establishing key partnerships to enable better value addition. Mr. Srinivasan has also provided key solutions to clients in the data governance and stewardship areas. He received his MBA from the National University of Singapore.

Sid Suri

Product Marketing, Master Data Management

TIBCO Software

Sid Suri has been in the enterprise technology space for over ten years and runs Product Marketing for the Master Data Management business unit within TIBCO. Prior to TIBCO, Mr. Suri worked in Product Marketing at SAP and before that in technology consulting in San Francisco and Boston. He has an MBA from the Haas Business School, UC Berkeley and an BA from Middlebury College in Economics and Italian.

Dan Vnuk

Chief Architect, Media

The Nielsen Company

Dan Vnuk serves as the Media Chief Architect for The Nielsen Company. He was appointed to this role in June of 2008.In this capacity, Dan has global responsibility for the technology strategy and architecture for Nielsen’s Media businesses. This includes systems that support information collection, processing, data warehousing, complex analytics, and business intelligence.

Dan has been with The Nielsen Company for 9 years and has held several technical roles at Nielsen that span from data acquisition to data warehousing and client analytics systems. Dan holds an M.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM and a B.A. in Physics from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN.

Adam White

President

Global Data Competency

Adam White brings 20+ years of experience in large banking and insurance system initiatives with a focus on MDM enterprise initiatives. Mr. White’s most recent project experience includes tenure with Baseline Consulting for MDM programs including several projects utilizing Initiate Systems: development of enterprise roadmaps to move large organizations into SOA architecture, implementations of CDI, MDM, metadata repository, and data governance processes. Project responsibilities included: business requirements, functional requirements, vendor product evaluations, business case, vendor contracts for software and services, and configuration requirements – including data mastering requirements. Prior to Baseline Consulting, as Senior Manager of Integration for the California State Automobile Association he managed key initiatives including: enterprise CDI, SOA architecture, Enterprise Middleware, and Metadata Repository. He also was a contributor to the corporate IT Re-Engineering and Data Governance transformation programs. Additionally, Mr. White was employed at Wells Fargo during its acquisition of Crocker National (the largest banking merger in history at that time), as well as projects with IBM and EDS. He received his MBA from St. Mary's College of California.

Joe Young

Sr. Manager, Enterprise Information Management

Lexmark International Inc.

Joe Young manages IT Centers of Excellence for business intelligence, data warehousing and MDM at Lexmark. Early in his career, Mr. Young focused on implementing CRM and eCommerce systems. That experience with business process and technology led him to develop Lexmark’s enterprise information management strategy and MDM implementation. Mr. Young graduated with a degree in Communications from Ohio University.