Michele Stern is an IBM sales leader with more than 30 years of experience in a variety of channel sales, channel strategy, and channel management positions.  In her current role, Stern is the managing director for Arrow Electronics, where she is responsible for all aspects of the IBM and Arrow relationship, with a focus on value-added distribution of IBM cloud, storage, servers, software, and services. She works with Arrow and their ecosystem of business partners to sell and deliver $2 billion in IBM technology to clients in North America, Europe, and Middle East and Africa. Prior to her role as managing director for Arrow, Stern was vice president of business partners in North America.  She led the North America One Channel team, working with business partners of all types to deliver high value technology solutions to clients in all industries. Under her leadership, sales teams in the U.S. and Canada engaged channel partners to capture growth in the strategic areas of cloud, big data, and cognitive solutions

Jennifer Pharr Davis is a hiker, author, speaker, and National Geographic Adventurer of the Year who has covered over 12,000 miles of long distance trails on six different continents. In 2011, Davis covered the 2,185-mile Appalachian Trail in 46, days, 11 hours, and 20 minutes, maintaining a remarkable average of 47 miles per day.  By doing this, she claimed the overall (male or female) fastest-known time on the A.T. Davis has written five books, including three North Carolina guidebooks and two hiking memoirs called “Becoming Odyssa” and “Called Again.” She has written for and been featured in The New York Times, Outside magazine, and Trail Runner, The Washington Post, Daily Beast, NPR’s Talk of the Nation and the CBS Early Show. When not hiking, Davis shares her trail adventures with corporations, conferences, schools and libraries across the country. She is the founder and owner of Blue Ridge Hiking Co., a guiding service that strives to make the wilderness accessible and enjoyable for hikers of all ages, genders and ability levels. She is also a board member for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and an ambassador for the American Hiking Society. Davis resides in Asheville, N.C., with her husband and their 3-year-old daughter.

Wendy Petty is Executive Director, Global Channel Sales, at Verizon Enterprise Solution responsible for building indirect channels that support the overall Channel Strategy.  This includes leveraging Enterprise partners and building a scalable model that will protect our installed customer base and create net new upsell revenue streams, bring new Verizon Enterprise Solution to market and develop partnerships that will create new routes to market for Verizon Enterprise Solutions.  Wendy has 25 years of experience in building startups, channel sales organization in both small startup’s and large enterprise software companies.  She has a number of Channel Awards including being selected as one of the Powerful Women in the Channel, by Everything Channel.  She looks forward to leveraging her leadership and channel experience to build the Verizon Channel.

Jennifer Anaya serves as vice president of marketing for Ingram Micro North America. In this role, she is responsible for directing the activities of Ingram Micro's marketing organizations across the United States and Canada and leading the Ingram Micro Agency. With nearly two decades of marketing experience, Jennifer has been named one of the 'Power 100' and top 'Women in the IT Channel' by CRN Magazine. Jennifer was with Ingram Micro for eleven years prior to becoming an independent channel communications strategist and business owner under the brand iD8 Marketing. She also served as vice president of marketing for NetEnrich, a provider of remote IT.

Lisa MacKenzie is a seasoned executive with expertise in marketing, sales, product management and operations. Lisa was instrumental in The Channel Company's evolution from providing traditional media to offering a full portfolio of solutions and services. She brings her proven expertise to The Channel Company's extensive events portfolio - helping ensure that our events meet the evolving needs of our customers. Thanks to Lisa's leadership, The Channel Company attracts record audiences and receives high customer satisfaction scores. Lisa also repositioned our consulting, research and education offerings, resulting in increased profitability and new product launches.

Stacey brings more than two decades of enterprise, networking, and security marketing expertise to Fortinet, with a strong track record in global demand generation, customer-centric digital marketing, and strategic sales enablement programs. Stacey is responsible for creating brand preference, generating demand, and accelerating customer acquisition and sales productivity for Fortinet's global market opportunity. Prior to Fortinet, Stacey was vice president, marketing and demand generation at Avaya, and prior to that, she held a variety of marketing leadership roles at Symantec, most recently VP of strategic marketing and planning. Prior to Symantec, she led various product marketing teams at Check Point Software, NEC, and HP. Stacey holds an MBA from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a B.S. in Computer Science from San Francisco State University.

Debbie Dove Larson, Vice President of Sales, joined Sirius in 1991 where she been instrumental to the company’s growth in the North Central Region. Larson has held positions in sales and sales management during her tenure at Sirius, and continues to be a tireless sales advocate on a constant mission to improve Sirius’ client experience. Larson is both a leader and significant contributor to many of Sirius’ business improvement projects, and holds one of the company’s top records for year-over-year quota attainment. Larson earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing from Baylor University and currently serves as the Vice President of Sales for Sirius’ North Central Region.

As a managing director with more than 30 years of experience in the securities industry, Lisa Chapman brings a high level of expertise to the challenges faces by high net-worth individuals, families, corporate retirement plans, and foundations. By guiding her clients through the complex planning process, Chapman provides unique solutions throughout the wealth accumulation, distribution, and into the bequest and multi-generational planning process. Her work includes the tax efficient management and distribution of trust and retirement plan assets, maximizing social security benefits, equity compensation plans, and portfolio management. She has conducted corporate seminars at Fortune 500 companies and been featured in various publications including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, On Wall Street, Fortune Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, and has been recognized on multiple occasions on the prestigious Barron's Top 100 Women's Financial Advisor list. Chapman is a graduate from California State University, Dominguez Hills and has worked at UBS (formerly Paine Webber) for 27 years. Her credentials include the Certified Financial Planner designation, Certified Investment Management Analyst designation from The Wharton School, and Certified Retirement Plan Specialist designation. Chapman serves as a mentor for the Youth Leadership Council at Operation Jump Start and as a member of the Board for Memorial Medical Center Foundation locally in her community. Chapman lives in Long Beach with her husband of 30 years and their rescue cat and dog.

Lisa Rock is a co-founder and director of the NeuroLeadership Institute, helping medium to large organizations transform leadership through neuroscience. As well as driving the firm’s global operations, Rock is a senior consultant involved in designing and delivering wide-scale behavior-change initiatives that improve the quality of conversations in the workplace, reduce bias and improve employee learning.

Rock has been integral in the structuring of the institute’s research agenda, and authored the paper “Learning that lasts through AGES.” The AGES model explains how the brain learns and informs NeuroLeadership approach to behavior change and the rollout of large-scale organizational initiatives.

Previously, Rock co-founded Results Coaching Systems in 1998, building it into a global training organization. The Results methodology has trained more than 12,000 executive and personal coaches around the globe. The approach is also used as the coaching model inside many leading technology, insurance, finance and government organizations. She has held the Master Certified Coach credential with the

International Coaching Federation for more than 10 years and has coached for more than 17 years.

Anika Bagga is an inspiration to women of all ages. As a sophomore at Cupertino High School, she serves as president of her school's Women In Tech club. The club helps teach girls web development, Arduino, and other skills to create projects for the community and foster interest in computing. The organization also teaches Scratch programming to elementary school students in underserved neighborhoods and exposes them to careers in technology. Bagga helps empower young girls to embrace technology, particularly coding. She founded SheCodess, an organization to empower middle-school girls so they can solve problems in their own communities and be more confident about their potential. As part of her efforts with SheCodess, Bagga has led workshops to teach more than 100 girls how to make mobile applications and create a business plan for their ideas, and to participate in the International Technovation Challenge. She also is the founder of the Technovation Ambassador Program where girls like Bagga can be trained to mentor and support local girls participating in the challenge. Bagga enjoys participating in robotics, drawing, listening to music and learning new things. She is a frequent speaker at technology events and was selected from more than 5,000 girls nationally for leadership training in New York with Ann Taylor and Vital Voices.

Angie McCourt has served as vice president, Cisco Solutions group at Tech Data since September 2010 and launched the IoT Solutions Group in July 2016. In this role, McCourt is responsible for leading the company’s dedicated team of sales, marketing and technical professionals in support of all Cisco solutions available through Tech Data. McCourt joined Tech Data in January 2000 as an Asset Manager and progressed through various leadership roles in purchasing, sales, and marketing. McCourt was named to CRN’s Power 100 Women of the Channel list in 2011, named the 2014 Business Woman of the Year by the Tampa Bay Business Journal, Tampa Bay Technology Forum’s 2014 Technology Leader of the Year, CRN’s 2017 Channel Chief and Industry Week’s 2016 25 Most Influential Women in IoT and 2017 Girls Inc. of Pinellas Girls Champion. She serves on the Board of the St. Petersburg College Foundation, works with Junior Achievement and STEM Woman of the Year Luncheon volunteer for Girls Inc. of Pinellas. She holds a B.S. in Human Sciences from Florida State University.

Sue Enquist is UCLA Softball’s first All-American, National Champion, and Hall of Famer. In 2006, Enquist concluded her storied 27-year career as head coach of the UCLA Bruins with a 887-175-1 (.835) record, making her the winningest softball coach among all active coaches. She is the only person in NCAA Softball history to win a championship as a head coach and a player. During her career, Enquist produced 65 All-Americans and 15 Olympians. She has been inducted into six Hall of Fames including UCLA, Women’s Sport Foundation, USA Softball Hall of Fame, and National Fastpitch Coaches Association.. Enquist is also the recipient of multiple National Coach of the Year and Pac-10 Coach of the Year honors. Sue Enquist grew up in San Clemente, California, and is a former professional surfer. Today she lives in San Clemente, California, where she surfs daily and enjoys spending time with her family.

Brittany Schmid is the president, CEO and certified trainer of Dale Carnegie in San Diego and the Bay Area. Schmid facilitates Dale Carnegie course and skills for success, leadership training for managers, high-impact presentations and customized solutions. As a former regional vice president, Schmid has a natural affinity for developing highly motivated individuals and top performing corporate teams. With more 16 years of business experience, she understands the challenges faced by small and large organizations alike. Schmid purchased the Dale Carnegie of San Diego and the Bay Area to embrace her entrepreneurial spirit and embark on a venture that would combine her experience, talent, and passions. Schmid has specialized knowledge in many diverse industries, including, medical, manufacturing, construction, healthcare, service and information technology. Before Dale Carnegie, she spent eight years in the medical device industry where she held positions such as the regional vice president of sales, national director of training and sales representative. She earned her stripes by “carrying the bag” and winning President’s club for consecutive years. She is a highly-driven individual with a deep desire to help others reach their true potential. Brittany has a B.A. from San Diego State University. She also holds an M.A. in Education and an MBA with an emphasis in leadership. Schmid enjoys family time, being outside at the beach, exercising and riding her motorcycle.

As vice president and senior portfolio manager, Natalie Barron creates comprehensive financial plans for clients and tailors their portfolio to accomplish their personal goals while guiding their decision making through the wealth accumulation and distribution phases of the investing lifecycle. Barron collaborates with clients' teams of trusted advisors in implementing proper estate planning, insurance, and tax efficient investment and withdrawal strategies to preserve and growth wealth for multiple generations.

Barron helps business owners and corporations with the design and implementation of retirement plans and employee education seminars. She works with executives on strategies for managing their stock options, restricted stock units, retirement plans, and the unique challenges that come with single stock compensation for highly compensated executives. Similarly, she helps privately held business owners manage their wealth through their private equity business transactions.

Barron began her career with UBS in 2004 and joined the Chapman Group in 2008 as a financial advisor. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Speech Communication and a minor in Business Marketing from California State University, Long Beach. She received her Certified Financial Planner designation in 2012, which is a nationally recognized board designation given out by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. Award of the CFP designation requires completion of extensive training, comprehensive examination, experience and ethical requirements, as well as ongoing continuing education, and is a Charter Retirement Plan Specialist.

Barron enjoys being active in Long Beach. She is a Group Leader for ProVisors Long Beach 2, a member of The Estate Planning and Trust Council of Long Beach and The Alpha Phi Alumnae Association of Long Beach. She lives in Seal Beach with her husband and daughter. In their free time, they enjoy spending time at the beach, paddle boarding, and bike riding.

Muffin Mott, Symantec’s head of global channel marketing has 23 years of channel sales, marketing and operations experience in the security and software industry. Mott joined Symantec in 2016 through the acquisition of Blue Coat Systems. During this time, Mott has played a key role in structuring the integrated Secure One partner program, partner communication strategy and partner readiness programs. Before the acquisition, Mott spent three years with Blue Coat Systems as senior director of global marketing and channel programs. In that time, she launched a global renewal incumbency program and a new partner portal as well as a global digital partner campaign platform that  helped partners drive new business growth.  Prior to joining the security industry, Mott spent 19 years in North America focused on driving channel sales growth through the evolution of the software industry at The Douglas Stewart Co., Corel and Adobe (Macromedia). Mott’s extensive background in building channel sales and marketing programs plays a key role in her ability to drive successful global channel marketing programs at Symantec.

Alexandra Fleur, was the inspiration behind the seed idea of Critique It, the annotation technology company. She leverages design thinking to provide vision and thought leadership on complex problems and strategy. Her focus at Critique It is to develop a strong corporate brand and culture that results in an engaged user base, happy team, and excellent product. Prior to Critique It, Fleur was principal of her own design company, providing comprehensive identity and branding strategies for corporations and non-profits. She is the co-founder of Chicks Can Code and creator of Collaboration Works, a social network of independent innovators that provide affordable design thinking strategies for nonprofits.

Beth has spent over two decades advising C-level leadership and Board of Directors in Silicon Valley.  She was most recently the Sr. Vice President, Finance for Rovi Corporation, a multi-national media and entertainment technology company with offices around the globe.  She has also led the finance teams at McAfee, CrossWorlds Software and IDG Books Worldwide.  Her track record includes two successful IPOs and over 30 M&A transactions. She is also an expert in business intelligence automation and business transformation.

Gavriella Schuster serves as corporate vice president in Microsoft’s One Commercial Partner business. Schuster is responsible for global partner channels and programs, with a focus on driving digital transformation for partners and customers. Schuster’s team is responsible for the high-touch experiences of managed service providers, hosting companies, resellers, distributors, national and local systems integrators. She has extensive experience in sales, marketing, product management and partner development with a strong track record of managing customers, partners, and teams. Over the last 20 years at Microsoft she has managed sales and marketing teams across the Server and Cloud business, the Windows Client Commercial business and in Enterprise Services. Schuster has also worked in a variety of strategic positions in licensing sales and marketing, field business development, training and worldwide operations. Schuster earned dual degrees in psychology and social psychology at the University of Michigan. Before joining Microsoft, she worked for Adobe and Aldus Corp.

Amy Blankson is the only person to be named a Point of Light by two presidents--President Bush and President Clinton.  She received a presidential appointment to serve a five-year term on the board of the Corporation for National Service, and was one of the youngest delegates to the Presidents’ Summit for America’s Future.  Blankson received her Bachelor of Arts from Harvard and MBA from Yale School of Management. In 2007, Blankson co-founded GoodThink to bring the science of happiness to life for organizations and individuals. Blankson brings both passion and practicality to GoodThink. She is currently doing research in partnership with Google to determine how to make positive psychology strategies stick and create sustainable positive change. She serves as a Visioneer for the Xprize Foundation for Personal Health. She was also a featured professor in Oprah’s Happiness course. Blankson is the author of two books: “Ripple’s Effect and The Future of Happiness” and “Well-being in the Digital Era.”

Wendi O’Neill, Splunk platform leader and Women’s Forum chairwoman, joined Sirius Computer Solutions in 2007.  O’Neill has held a variety of positions in technical, presales and business solutions and is a go-to for launching new initiatives and practices within Sirius.  She has been integral part of growing Sirius’ Software Solutions practice for the past decade.  O’Neill heads the Sirius Women’s Forum which focuses on three key initiatives: education, mentorship and career-path development, and recruitment.  The Sirius Women’s Forum goal is to embark on specific activities, tasks and behavioral changes that help develop, grow and empower women, individuals and leaders at Sirius.  An industry veteran of nearly two decades, O’Neill served as program and product manager with Avnet before joining Sirius. She is a graduate of the University of Idaho.

Brooke Cunningham, AVP, Global Partner Programs & Operations for Splunk, is an industry-recognized marketing leader with a unique blend of expertise in all aspects of global channel and SME marketing management. She has experience driving direct and indirect sales channel growth in global and field leadership roles. Brooke is a channel expert across Strategic Alliances, VARs, Distribution, ISV/OEMs, SIs and SaaS/hosting partners.

Margaret-Ann Bolton serves as Senior Director, Global Partner Marketing at Red Hat and is responsible for marketing programs to grow Red Hat’s OpenSource business through an ecosystem of partners.  She has over 25 years experience in the IT industry encompassing strategic planning, direct and indirect sales, alliance development, worldwide partner and channel marketing and go-to-market execution.

Ms. Bolton joined Red Hat in 2011 as Senior Director of Integrated Field Marketing.  In the five years she has been at Red Hat, she has unified global partner marketing into a high-performing organization delivering marketing and sales programs for Red Hat’s expanding partner ecosystem. Driving 70% of Red Hat's revenue, these partners include ISVs, OEMs, systems integrators, solutions providers, distributors and cloud service providers.  Her areas of expertise are OpenSource business models, solutions design and marketing, co-branded demand generation programs and delivering scalable partner programs and tools.  A passionate advocate for partners and OpenSource technologies, Ms. Bolton recently championed the redesign and relaunch of Red Hat's partner portal to  enable a more capable and productive partner ecosystem extending reach and relevancy for Red Hat's complete portfolio.  

Prior to Red Hat Ms. Bolton held executive positions across multiple disciplines including direct and indirect sales, engineering, services, product management, and product marketing with global technology companies including EMC, HP, and Sun Microsystems.  She has been recognized as a CRN Woman of the Channel in 2013, 2014,  and 2015 and as a CRN Channel Chief in 2014, and 2015 which acknowledges top channel leaders for their accomplishments and impact on the technology industry. 

Ms. Bolton earned her undergraduate degree from Union College in Schenectady, New York and her masters degree in business administration from the University of New Hampshire.  She is married with two children and an avid runner and outsdoorsman.

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Florencia has a passion for food and wine that began when she was studying biology at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. “I started cooking all the time to relax and started a cooking group with my biology study partners,” she says. “The wine followed the food as a natural accompaniment.” At Palmaz Vineyards she is the sylistic force behind the winery and the wine managing all the marketing, and creative style. Known for her contagious laughter, she lives for gathering people around the table and uses delicious food and wine to lure them.  Florencia’s interest in food and wine has led her to establish two enterprises with her mother, Amalia. Haute at Home, a national catalog company that offered gourmet foods for in-home dining; and GoodHeart Brand Specialty Foods Co. producing fine-quality prepared food and meats. Florencia divides her time between Napa and San Antonio; her hobbies include sailing, cooking and rowing. She lives on the Palmaz estate with her son Nicholas who is the first member of the third generation to roam the Palmaz vineyards.

Wendy Hoey is the Director of Distribution and Vendor Alliances at Optiv. Wendy is a dynamic and technically-savvy channel executive leader with demonstrated experience in channel account management, strategic channel marketing, and channel partner development within the IT Security Industry. Exemplary record of delivering and sustaining revenue and profit gains within highly competitive B2B and B2C vertical markets.