Chad Paalman is the co-founder and CEO of NuWave Technology Partners. In 2005, NuWave was started with a focus on being a trusted partner for organizations looking to find an IT company that could take care of all their technology needs.  This includes internet and voice services, cabling, network electronics, computers, servers, phone systems, physical and video security, wireless networks, mobile devices, and more. NuWave now has offices and staff throughout Michigan in Kalamazoo, Lansing, Grand Rapids and Southfield.  NuWave Technology Partners was recognized as one of Michigan’s 50 Companies to Watch.  NuWave is endorsed by the Small Business Association of Michigan as a preferred partner to their more than 23,000 business members. Paalman serves on The Channel Company's NexGen Cloud Advisory Board, CompTIA Partner Advisory Council, Cisco System’s SMB Advisory Board, Lansing Community College & Career Quest Learning Centers IT Curriculum Advisory Boards, the Michigan FFA Foundation Board and on both the Leadership Council & Executive Boards of the Small Business Association of Michigan. Paalman holds a Bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University.

Over a period of 25 years, Brett built and sold three companies, led hundreds of soldiers as an officer in the US Army, and built an international channel partner program from inception to over $30M in revenue. Brett launched Six Keys Group based on the Six Key Concepts of the Entrepreneurial Operating System, with the passion to help other entrepreneurs and leadership teams gain traction to live the life they want running the business they love. 

Over the years Brett has had the pleasure of working with hundreds of businesses in varying capacities and came to understand the common pitfalls of why most business owners are not living the life they dreamed.  The company hits a ceiling. They struggle with employees.  They aren’t achieving the growth they expected.  Their personal lives suffer as they become slaves to the business.  There is a lack of control and no clear vision to right the ship. He saw that the life of the entrepreneur is a challenging one at best, so he set out to make a difference by taking his experience leveraging the EOS® system in his own businesses and helping entrepreneurs and leadership teams follow the same methodology to grow their businesses profitably, regardless of industry. 

Karl W. Palachuk has been an IT Consultant since 1995 and is one of the pioneers of the managed services business model. He is the author of fifteen books, eight of which are also available as audio books. He is the host of the SMB Community Podcast and maintains four blogs, including Small Biz Thoughts and Relax Focus Succeed. Karl has owned several small businesses, including two very successful Managed Service companies in Sacramento, CA. He received his first Microsoft certification in 1995 and his first MCSE in 1999. He was an active, hands-on Systems Engineer until January of 2017.

Described as endlessly optimistic, Nancy is a strategic futurist with a drive to help enterprise organizations and visionary leaders transform to meet the escalating expectations ahead. Recognized as one of the world’s top female futurists, she has spent her career building, shaping and evolving a portfolio of $50 billion worth of major global brands with her unique abilities to sense and synthesize the shifts ahead and to guide those ready to build more relevant and sustainable solutions for us all.  

With an early career at several of the most influential ad agencies in NY, Chicago, and LA, Nancy has spent the past 10 years as Founder/CEO of Play Big Inc, a strategic inspiration company, applying her broad understanding of the intense cultural and technological shifts we’re facing. Her extensive knowledge of the drivers shaping our future (and driving business) have guided transformation projects with The Coca Cola Company, Brinker International, Sprint, Nestle, Acumen, Energizer, Mercedes Benz and many other Fortune 500 companies. And through keynote talks to CXO leaders in wide range of industries including entertainment, travel, food, business, homebuilding, culture/talent and more.  

Diving more deeply into the intersections of tech, business and society, she recently worked to frame the internal culture and talent infrastructure for a provocative artificial intelligence company and currently is producing GigaOm Change, a Leader's Summit diving into the seven most disruptive technologies for enterprise.

Forbes contributor and Featured Technology Futurist on CNN, Ian Khan is a highly sought after emerging technology expert. A three times TEDx Speaker & Author, Ian has impacted over 5000 organizations in his career of 20 years to help organizations understand emerging technology and the steps they can take to create limitless value. An advocate of emerging technologies, Ian helps organizations gain a competitive advantage in today’s era of disruption and rapid change. His core speaking topics include technology trends, industry future outlook and the role of IoT, AI & Blockchain in shaping our future.

Ian is also the author of over 8 books. Some of these include Cloud Wars, The Internet of Things (IoT) A Concise Introduction, The Internet of Things & the Future of Innovation, Make Me Like You, 21 Steps & Get Ahead and Meaningful Conversations. A highly sought after expert, Ian has dedicated the last 20 years evangelizing technologies such as Cloud Computing, Internet of Things, and emerging tech. Though his career he Ian has worked with Information Technology startups, SAP EBS Partner Companies and key Microsoft partner ecosystem providers. Through his two decades of working in the industry he also gained a complete understanding of where organizations face maximum challenge as his roles included Sales, Business Development, Management, to managing global marketing teams.

Ian is also an active speaker and spends more than 200 days per year on the road speaking at industry conferences. He is also a frequent contributor to industry publications and his work has appeared in McGraw Hill Education, Huffington Post, & Techvibes.

Bonnie Hagemann is the CEO of Executive Development Associates. EDA is a boutique consulting firm known around the world for its C-Suite capabilities in executive education, coaching, assessment and high-potential development. In addition to leading the firm, Hagemann is an executive coach to Fortune 500 senior leaders as well as a speaker and a published author. To date, Hagemann has provided coaching for more than over 225 leaders in primarily large organizations including 8 organizational presidents. The majority of her coaching clients receive a promotion, better position or an increase in salary during or upon completion of the coaching process. Hagemann has 32 published works including "Decades Of Differences," a book on the shifting workforce demographics and their impact on leadership and "Leading with Vision: The Leader’s Blueprint for Creating a Compelling Vision and Engaging the Workforce." She leads research initiatives and publishes results in the areas of trends in executive development, executive coaching and high--potential development. Hagemann earned her Bachelor of Arts in English Education and Masters of Education in Counseling. She is a certified qualification instructor for the MBTI, FIRO-B and CPI 260 assessments. In 2016, Hagemann earned the Harvard Business School Executive Education Program’s “Women on Boards: Succeeding as a Corporate Director” certification.

John Shaw is the CEO of ELE.ai, combining his enterprise cloud experience with the power of artificial intelligence. Shaw has founded several companies during his career mostly recently Nimbo, a cloud computing professional services company acquired by Equinix in 2016.

Shaw has worked closely with cloud providers and possess a practical understanding of cloud computing and the cost benefits to enterprises. He has worked with some of the largest global companies on application migration to the cloud using Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services. Along with his business acumen, he is an experienced coder and a published author, so he can always roll up his sleeves when needed. Shaw served as a member of the Azure Business Technology Advisory Team for Microsoft which provides deep insight in the direction of the company’s cloud offerings. Shaw serves as mentor for Techstars, sits on the boar of Cycle Computing and on the advisory board for chowbotics. He graduated from Liverpool John Moores University with a bachelor’s degree in computer studies.

In his spare time, he enjoys travelling and collecting visas. He is a U.S. and EU citizen, permanent resident of Australia, New Zealand and a India business visa holder.

Lincoln Murphy is a Customer Success Consultant focused on customer success-driven growth. He co-authored the book Customer Success which has evolved since it was published four years ago. Murphy has been lucky enough to not only be a part of that evolution, but through his blood, sweat, tears, and travel, he has been driving that evolution. In 2016, he started referring to it not as customer success, but as customer success-driven growth, to bring to the forefront the fact that customer success is a growth driver; a growth engine. Customer success is not just about retaining customers. Last year, Murphy found himself working with amazing companies, venture capital firms, and startup accelerators around the world. He has spoken to thousands of people at workshops and events all around the globe and helped companies grow and spread the word about customer success-driven growth. What he called the “definite guide to customer success” way back in 2014 is getting far more definitive for 2018 as he incorporates what he has learned over the last year. Murphy has been part of Sixteen Ventures for nearly 10 years and remains an independent professional wrestler. He worked as a customer success evangelist for Gainsight, was a SaaS consultant, business architect and freelance programmer.

Jason Palacio is a Channel Sales Professional with is 8 years of experience at multiple top wireless technology companies such as Meru, Ruckus and currently Aerohive where he has specialized in educating and enabling the channel to create successful partnerships. Jason is based in Northern California and enjoys surfing and snowboarding on his free time.

As The NPD Group’s Director of Industry Analysis for Commercial Technology, Michael Diamond offers expert analysis and commentary about the shifting commercial market. Through his focus on driving deeper insights with clients, Michael is improving core business-to-business (B2B) services and helping B2B clients navigate the channel more effectively.

Prior to joining NPD, Michael worked for Ingram Micro for 17 years in market and competitive intelligence, worldwide strategic planning, business intelligence, and North American strategic development. During his time at Ingram Micro, Michael was responsible for analyzing the competitive landscape, developing vendor and customer strategies, identifying trends in vertical and sub-vertical markets, and analyzing near-term and future technology trends. He also presented at vendor and customer-facing events to share industry insights.

Michael holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from the University of Phoenix.

Ben Johnson is a serial entrepreneur in his early 40’s from Griffin, GA. He has notably bootstrapped three startups in times of economic uncertainty and created a lucrative, thriving enterprise. Ben currently serves as CEO of Liberty Technology and Kitchen Sink Marketing. In his role as CEO, Ben’s primary responsibilities include, overall strategy, solution portfolio design, strategic partnerships and innovative projects.

Michael France is the chief operating officer of Taylor Business Group.  As an owner of an Apple dealership, his team grew it to over 100 employees, successfully exiting eight years ago.  He is skilled in business planning, operations management and performance improvement.  What France loves most about his current position is interacting with business owners, understanding their stories, helping them reach their goals and dreams along with being able to connect members who can help each other.  France also enjoys helping buyers and sellers involved in M&A. Taylor Business Group’s toolset allows them to provide valuable insight into a company’s financial performance.    

With over 24 years of sales and account management experience in the hardware and software technology sector, Mark Baird provides both leadership and channel sales expertise to StorageCraft.  Baird was the first sales rep hired at StorageCraft over ten years ago and continues to lead and drive its success. Prior to joining StorageCraft, Baird was involved in various leadership, account management, channel development and sales roles at companies such as Ingram Micro, 3Com Corporation, NextPage and Parvus Corporation.  Specializing in company growth and profitability, Baird is skilled in technology related hardware and software systems, solutions and applications and is known for excellent management and leadership, customer service and training skills.