Chris has been with SonicWall since January 2016, where was responsible for North America sales, including marketing and distribution.  In August 2016 he transitioned from North America to Americas sale leader with the addition of Central and South America. Chris lead the transition of SonicWall from a mixed direct and channel company to a 100% channel centric company as SonicWall separated from Dell.

Chris previously with Dell since 1998 where he started in product development as a test engineer, then moving to create a team solely focused on providing direct access for engineering into a small group of customers to drive innovation.  Chris spent the next 7 years as a technology strategist.   Moving into sales leadership, for four years Chris built and led a team of technology strategists focused on public sector customers globally, and created a team focused exclusively on networking.  In 2011, Chris became responsible for Enterprise Systems sales in Dell’s Large Enterprise segment (Server, Storage, and Networking) roughly a $1B business.  His role expanded to Server, Storage, and Networking sales in Dell’s Large Institution Segment which contains the largest public sector and private sector customers across the US, roughly a $2.4B annual business. In January 2016 Chris transitioned to lead the North America Network Security business.  In his current function, Chris is responsible for the overall P&L of Network Security (SonicWall) for all technologies and routes to market.

Scott Borg is the Director of the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, an independent, nonprofit research institute that investigates the strategic and economic consequences of cyberattacks. Widely recognized as the leading authority on the economics of cybersecurity, Borg is responsible for many of the concepts currently used to analyze the implications of cyberattacks in business contexts. His record for anticipating new cybersecurity developments since 2002 is probably unequaled. His technical contributions have included work on the techniques for hiding and finding malware. He comments for NBC, CNN, the BBC, NPR and other broadcast media, served on the Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency, and has lectured at Harvard, Yale, Columbia and other leading universities.

Nathan Bradbury is the systems engineer manager with Intronis, MSP Solutions by Barracuda. His core expertise is demonstrating how Intronis solutions solve the partners' most pressing technical challenges. His deep knowledge of the data protection and security markets is an asset to partners who want to know how Intronis stacks up competitively.

Alex Brown, CEO, founded 10th Magnitude in 2010 because he saw the ground-breaking business agility and economic benefits cloud applications offer. "I believe cloud is the most profound change we've seen in IT since the Internet. It's letting businesses tackle many new opportunities and will unleash a renaissance of business software development and innovation".Brown combines an undergrad degree from Oberlin in economics and an MBA from Yale. His experience includes: EVP - Arrowstream, VP Univa and Director, Dell Inc., for the US and Asia-Pacific.

Mark Conley has more than 30 years of experience in the IT industry.  His in-depth channel experience spans building channels at CommVault and SolidFire, where he ran channels worldwide, to his early years working with VAR pioneers during his time with Novell and Sun Microsystems.  Conley has experience in managing complex businesses and understands the business of the channel. Conley works with partners to solve the complexities facing business leaders in the channel and applies his knowledge to building mutually profitable business with partners of NetApp.

Michael B. Dembo, brings more than 30 years of experience and strong business acumen in developing and delivering business and people strategies to a wide range of venues. Having worked in human resource leadership roles for Fortune 500 organizations such as AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, Philips Healthcare, and Black & Decker, Dembo brings extensive knowledge and experience in people-focused best practices. Since 2010, Dembo has been providing his human resource expertise to small and medium sized businesses through his independent consulting practice. Dembo is a strategic and innovative business partner and consultant working across several industries including life sciences, manufacturing and international development. He has a global footprint having held leadership responsibilities in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America as well as working and living in Asia for several years. Dembo also provides executive coaching and facilitates executive peer advisory groups as a Vistage Chair. Vistage Worldwide is the world leader in executive peer advisory boards and has selected Dembo to bring his extensive people-focused experience to bear in providing coaching and counsel to CEOs, business owners and executive teams.

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.

Stephen DiFranco most recently lead the acquisition of Broadcom’s IoT business unit where he served as VP & GM of Broadcom Ltd.’s IoT BU.   He was responsible for the 450 member hardware engineering, software development, platform, sales and marketing team.  These teams design, develop and marketing industry leading communication products for consumer, commercial and automotive IoT customers.  DiFranco also oversees the company’s community of developers, VARs & IoT partners and alliances.  In February 2016 DiFranco lead the process to identify a buyer for the group.  The acquisition to Cypress Semiconductor was closed on July 5, 2016.

Dan Dignam is an experienced media and IT channel executive who directs sales, strategy and operations for The Channel Company, among other responsibilities. Dan has a proven track record of launching successful new projects, extending brands through organic growth and acquisitions - and providing innovative solutions for customers. He is skilled at providing solutions for customers and driving significant revenue. Previously, Dan held strategic leadership positions in various media products of The Channel Company - managing editorial, marketing and sales.

Adam Lloyd Eiseman founded Lloyd Group on June 12, 1995. Mr. Eiseman oversees the strategic vision and direction of the company. He is responsible for generating new business, maintaining existing client and partner relationships, fostering team work within the firm and planning and guiding overall growth. Mr. Eiseman prides himself on operating a company that is defined by a culture fueled by strong work ethic and values. Under Mr. Eiseman's direction, Lloyd Group was honored with placement in MSPmentor's 2015 Top 501 Global Managed Services List, CRN's 2015 MSP 500 List, and INC. 500's Fastest Growing Private Companies in 2001, 2002 and 2003.

Robert Faletra is one of the top authorities in the IT channel and technology marketplace and often referred to as The Voice of (and for) the Channel. Bob brings a unique understanding of the technology marketplace, informed by 30 years of experience in all aspects of the channel. A dedicated advisor to technology suppliers (from start-ups to enterprises), Bob helps them conceptualize and build strategic channel initiatives and often meets with CEOs to discuss channel strategy. Bob has deep relationships in the solution provider community and also sits on the advisory board of several high tech start-ups, helping them formulate their go-to-market strategy.

Sean founded Managed Solution in 2002 after receiving his degree from the University of San Diego. Sean recognized the need for consultative IT services for small-to-medium and enterprise clients. With little capital, Sean and his dedicated team grew the company organically to success. Within 3 years, the company was recognized as one of San Diego’s 40 fastest growing companies, awarded one of the 40 companies with owners under 40 years old and recognized as the 27th fastest growing IT company in Southern California.

Laz Gonzalez, chief strategy officer at Zift Solutions, has served as strategic adviser to leading B2B channel programs worldwide. Before joining Zift as chief strategy officer, Gonzalez was group director of channel sales and marketing strategies at Sirius Decisions. He has extensive experience implementing solution-driven sales programs with OEMs, strategic alliances, distributors and resellers during two decades as a channel practitioner.

Jesse Grindeland is director of partner sales in VMware's Americas Partner Organization. In this role, he is responsible for indirect routes to market. Grindeland joined VMware in October 2016. Prior to joining VMware, he was vice president of enterprise sales and marketing with iSoftStone, a large Chinese system integrator and IT outsourcing company. He also held leadership roles in global channels and sales with Microsoft. Grindeland started his career with Sprint, where as an engineer he earned seven patents for mobile location services and next-generation mobile networks. He subsequently look on leading strategy and business-development roles within Sprint’s mobility group. Grindeland is a graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology with a degree in telecommunications engineering and has continued his education through Kellogg School of Management.

Matthew Hickey is a director of engineering, enterprise, at Sophos.  He got his start in the field of information security working for the Securities Industry Automation Corp., at the time, a subsidiary of the New York and American Stock Exchanges.  After working several years on Wall Street he continued honing his skills in this field at Lockheed Martin.  There he worked on several projects for the U.S. Defense Department. This work included conducting security audits, penetration testing and firewall deployments guides for high profile, security conscious customers.  Most recently, Hickey has been working for the leaders in tech industry which include Dell-SonicWall and Fortinet deploying network security solutions for their customers.

James takes overall responsibility for the strategic direction and performance of Webinfinity. Since founding the business in 1998 James has led Webinfinity in its passion to use the power of the Internet to change the way businesses engage with their employees, partners and customers. After years of working with Fortune 100 companies around the world James led the vision to build an online platform that would 'Consumerize' the enterprise content experience. And so the Webinfinity platform was born - going live in the summer of 2014.

Bill Jones continually drives bottom-line performance for our events business. He leads a team of operations, customer service, venue planning and event systems that support The Channel Company’s renowned brands. Drawing from his extensive knowledge of the event and conference industry, Bill is responsible for new business development tools, profitable execution and custom engagements for the group. His event expertise spans launching and managing programs, including on-demand conferences, virtual events, live events, conferences, road shows and partner events.

Mohit joined Clairvest in 2016 and participates in all areas of the investment process.  Before Clairvest, Mohit worked as an Engagement Manager with McKinsey & Company and prior to that was an investment professional with GRI Capital (a leading Canadian family office).  Mohit has earned an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Applied Science from the University of Toronto.

Alexander Karstens, Ixia, director channel systems engineering, has more than 22 years of worldwide experience in a number of different capacities. Karstens career has covered different roles with increasing responsibilities in engineering, sales engineering, account management, business development and channel development. In her current role at Ixia, Karstens is responsible for driving adoption of Ixia’s technology with its worldwide partner community to create value for its partners.

Leo Kelly was born and raised in a solution provider family. Kelly’s father and two brothers founded Circle Computer Resources (CCR) when he was just a year old.  Kelly’s career began with CCR began at the age of about 8, when he was trained on the art of formatting floppy disks. As he climbed the corporate ladder to vice president of sales and marketing serving as garbage collector, computer assembler, support tech and sales rep among others. As the company grew, the company became increasingly fractured as silos developed in departments, locations, and management levels. Employees generally liked the workplace and CCR was performing adequately but everything was getting more difficult and the growth wasn't sustainable. Kelly realized that culture was central to the company’s success--both financially and relationally--and immersed himself in becoming an expert on the topic.  After some trial and error, he implemented several extremely effective and simple measures to improve culture, seeing significant improvements in every important area of measurement. Kelly left CCR and, after some travel and work in the non-profit sector,  is now bringing his experience with culture to other businesses via Isbrea Culture Advisors.

Sammy currently serves as the North American Channel Chief, presiding over the PC and System X Channel teams. Prior to this role, in October 2014, he was appointed as Executive Director of Channel Sales for the System X team in Lenovo’s Enterprise Systems Group following the acquisition of IBM’s x86 server team.

Formerly, Sammy held a variety of leadership positions with IBM and Lenovo. He served as Executive Director of VAR & Distribution sales for Lenovo in the US, Caribbean, and Central America. A cornerstone role for Sammy included launching Lenovo’s new consumer product line, the “IdeaPad notebook and IdeaCentre desktop” into the retail space for both the US and Canada.  In a time frame of just 2 years under his leadership, Lenovo built a firm presence in this channel. While working for IBM in Dallas, Texas he was the Business Unit Executive covering Large Enterprise, Mid-Market, and Public Sector end user accounts for the Southwest.  

Sammy was recognized by CRN in June of 2011 as one of the 100 people you should know in the channel. He holds a B.S. in Marketing from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and resides in Raleigh, NC with his wife Andra, and their two children, Olivia, and Chapman. He is an active tennis player and runner. 

Michael Knight is the CTO at Encore Technology Group and responsible for company go-to-market strategies, technology and sales strategies, vendor relationships, technology partnerships, research and development, cloud building, enterprise architecture and consulting. Knight has been previously employed as the CTO and senior vice president at Computer Software Innovations, Inc. He has worked as the CTO of SDI Networks and as the CIO of American Control Systems, Inc., with over two decades of IT experience.

Dr. Kevin T. Kornegay is a Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD. He received his Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y., and a Master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. His research range from hardware assurance to reverse engineering, secure embedded system and broadband wired and wireless system design. Dr. Kornegay serves or has served on the technical program committees of several international conferences including the IEEE Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST), EEE International Solid State Circuits Conference. He has also served a two-year term on the IEEE Solid-State Circuits AdCom committee, as well as, on the editorial board of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Society of Black Engineers' Dr. Janice A. Lumpkin Educator of the Year in 2005, the 2002 Black Engineer of the Year Award in Higher Education from U.S. Black Engineer and Information Technology magazine, the NSF CAREER Award, an IBM Faculty Partnership Award, the National Semiconductor Faculty Development Award, and the General Motors Faculty Fellowship Award.

A lifelong technology evangelist with 21 years in IT channels.  A fierce customer advocate with a lifetime of stories from the road to educate and entertain.  A self-professed poet of all things wireless with a deep appreciation of good bourbon.

Gordon Mackintosh, senior director, worldwide partner programs and sales business development joined Extreme Networks in January 2016.  Mackintosh assumes responsibility for the ongoing development of Extreme Networks’ partner program and supports Extreme’s leadership team in developing sales and partner initiatives in line with strategic objectives. Mackintosh joined Extreme from Cisco, where he held a variety of sales and channel leadership roles. He completed a post-graduate diploma in information technology and an honors degree in international marketing. In his early days at Cisco,  Mackintosh was responsible for managing the Catalyst switching product line across Europe, Middle East and Africa. This led to a successful two-year assignment in the U.S., which saw  Mackintosh work at Cisco’s global headquarters focused on the go-to-market for Catalyst switching line across Cisco’s worldwide channels division. On his return to the U.K.,  Mackintosh was appointed head of SMB marketing, with a focus on developing a new innovative SMB go-to-market strategy before taking on the challenging role of head of sales for SMB and distribution.   Mackintosh then returned to San Jose with his family 5 years ago to lead the partner-led Velocity sales team and played a lead role in developing Cisco’s new partner-led strategy. Recently, as part of the Cloud and Managed Services Organization,  he developed an innovative low-cost virtual sales and marketing engine driving sales in software and hybrid cloud solutions.

Allen Male is a 20 year veteran of the IT security industry. Male has held global roles with leading solution providers. He joined Cisco in 2013 from Sourcefire where he was vice president responsible for global strategic revenue producing partnerships. Male also spent several years working for Axent Technologies which was acquired by Symantec and for Advanced Asphalt Technologies.

Martorano is responsible for Intermedia's global sales and strategic partnerships.

With over 20 years of experience in the industry, Martorano has deep expertise in working closely and strategically with a range of customers and partners, and a passion for customer and partner success.

Prior to Intermedia, Martorano spent over eight years at Microsoft, most recently as General Manager of U.S. Channel Sales where he had over $17 billion of revenue responsibility. Before Microsoft, Martorano led a number of key initiatives and strategies at other notable companies such as Sage Software and Ingram Micro. He started his career working for a Value Added Reseller (VAR) located in Southern California.

Martorano has been recognized as a top industry performer, including being named to CRN’s "50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs", "Top 100 Executives" and "Channel Maverick" lists, among others. Martorano holds an MBA from Pepperdine University and a bachelor's degree from California State University, Northridge.

Brandon Miyazaki is the lead sales engineer at Zyxel Communications. Miyazaki’s started as a tier 1 tech support agent at Zyxel and he was escalated to a tier 2 tech where he provided exceptional support to high-profile customers. From there, he was recruited to the sales side to provide his expertise to the company’s channel partners to help develop customer solutions and in-depth training. Miyazaki is a graduate of both Chapman University and The Southern California Institute of Technology. 

Dan Negroni, founder and CEO of Launchbox Inc., leverages his bold, authentic, no-nonsense approach and interactive style to challenge your employees and empower them to deliver immediate business results. Offering the solution to today’s critical cross-generational issues, Negroni successfully bridges the gap between managers and their millennial workforce to increase employee engagement, productivity and profits. Negroni is also the author of “Chasing Relevance: 6 Steps to Understand, Engage, and Maximize Next-Generation Leaders in the Workplace.” The book which explores the chasm between older generations and millennials in the workplace attracted national media attention. With a successful 20-year career as a CEO, attorney, senior sales and marketing executive, Negroni’s keynotes, workshops, and coaching sessions are proven to reinvigorate businesses and people on the spot. Negroni is an active philanthropist, serving as board member and development chair to support the efforts of various charities. He resides in Del Mar, Calif., with his wife of 25 years and the youngest of his three children. He is an avid health and fitness nut, running, biking, swimming and doing anything else he can to fight off looking his age.

Keith Nelson’s mission is to bring his technology knowledge and passion for service to Vistem Solutions, Inc. Keith has a history of technical leadership with companies such as Technical Support Services, Software Technologies, Sun Microsystems , Oracle and iBASEt. His long history of providing technical guidance and solutions as a consultant with a focus in Business Solution Design including high profile projects such as the LA Unified School District Food Services System and directing legacy integration development for SeeBeyond (now part of Oracle). He was recently chosen as an SMB 150 Influencer.

David Powell, a veteran of the IT industry,  has spent the last seventeen years exclusively in managed services. Named one of the Top 250 People in Managed Services for over five years, Powell has worked for three of nation’s top 100 managed services providers. Currently, Powell is the chief revenue officer at Corsica Technologies where he oversees sales, marketing, customer  experience and the overall go-to-market strategy for the company. Prior to Corsica, he was the GM of the solution provider business unit at LogicMonitor.  He came to LogicMonitor from TekLinks, where he helped transition the company from a traditional VAR to an integrated solution provider with a nationally recognized managed and cloud services portfolio, as evidenced when TekLinks received the Top MSP Award at the CRN SP 500 conference in 2012. Powell was a member of the Birmingham Business Journal’s Top 40 under 40 in 2011, and in 2013, he was named to the publication’s first ever Forty to Follow List of executives to follow on Twitter. Powell is a frequent speaker on technology and managed and cloud services, and for three years he co-hosted an engaging “Tech Tuesday" segment that aired each week on the local CBS affiliate in Birmingham.  Powell is actively involved in the Birmingham community as a Board member of TechBirmingham, current president for the Vestavia Hills board of education, and past president of the Vestavia Lacrosse Organization.

Blaine Raddon is the Director, Worldwide Partner Development for HPE Servers.  He is part of the World Wide Partner Server organization and is responsible for driving the design, development, and deployment of HPE’s global partner sales enablement efforts.  Blaine works for HoJin Kim, who is responsible for the HPE Server Channels overall.  HoJin’s organization is responsible for development of the HPE Server strategy to build a sustainable competitive advantage for both HPE and its channel partners.  HoJin’s team is also focused on partner enablement to ensure that HPE’s partners have the capabilities to sell HPE Servers’ entire portfolio.  Blaine’s emphasis is sales and segmentation, with a focus on Enterprise and SMB, Programs and Enablement.

Blaine has been an IT sales and channel professional for more than 28 years.  His career in the IT industry has included selling hardware, software and services through all aspects of the IT channel and direct.

Prior to joining HPE, Blaine was with Acronis Software as General Manager for the Americas.  Prior to Acronis, Blaine spent five years at Juniper Networks, where he was Vice President, Americas Commercial and Partner Sales, responsible for the overall enablement of the Americas partner community as well being the sales leader for the Americas SMB sales organization.  Before Juniper, Blaine held executive leadership roles in sales and channels at IBM for over 20 years.  Blaine also served 7 years in the US Army.

Blaine has an MBA from Pepperdine University with an undergraduate degree  from the University of Utah in Marketing and lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Jason Rook is the Vice President of Alliances at 10^th Magnitude where he is responsible for developing and executing on strategic relationships that deliver business transforming solutions to 10^th Magnitude customers.  A 19-year industry veteran, Rook has held a broad range of technical, sales, and channel roles.  Prior to joining 10^th Magnitude, he was the Director of US Azure Channel Sales at Microsoft where he led a team of sales professionals responsible for driving Microsoft Azure revenue across the US though a broad network of Systems Integrators, Cloud Software Vendors, and Managed Service Providers.  Prior to Microsoft Azure, Rook was a Partner Territory Manager who was recognized as the top performing territory in Microsoft’s US Subsidiary and whose team was instrumental in building the early channel ecosystem for Office 365.  Regardless of the position that he is in, it is obvious that Rook has a deep passion for helping customers and partners transform businesses through strategic technology innovation and relationships. 

David Russell is CEO and senior consultant of MANAGEtoWIN and author of “Dave’s Charm School” of soft skills training.  He’s been called the “Leadership Guy” for IT entrepreneurs and has spent the better part of his career working with entrepreneurs to help them hire, manage, develop, and retain superstar employees.  Russell’s mission is no bad bosses.  His Leadership Essentials and Certified Leader services are unique, one-on-one transformational learning experiences.  His fifth book, The Company Culture Challenge,” is a step-by-step leadership guide.  You can read Russell’s latest thoughts on the MANAGEtoWIN blog, LinkedIn and Twitter.

As SVP of Product Management, Irina Shamkova is responsible for designing and driving Intermedia’s product strategy. Over Shamkova‘s 15-year tenure at Intermedia she has built and led high-performance product management, project management, UI/UX, and customer experience teams and processes. Under Shamkova’s leadership, Intermedia’s proprietary product portfolio has expanded to cover broader communication and collaboration needs, including two fast growing solutions—cloud voice and SecuriSync backup and file sharing. She also was integral in enriching the cloud email product family with the addition of Office 365, email archiving, encryption, and more, which drove Intermedia to become the world's largest independent provider of business-grade email. Shamkova has been named to CRN’s Women of the Channel list for two consecutive years. She holds a Master’s in applied mathematics from Saint Petersburg State University in Russia and has completed the General Management Program at Harvard University.

Bob Skelley serves as The Channel Company’s Chief Executive Officer. Prior to his role as CEO, Bob led the company’s PartnerDemand Services group, providing demand generation and marketing services that drive revenue for both IT solution providers and vendors. Bob has over 20 years of experience in channel development, business development, sales and marketing. Prior to The Channel Company, Skelley held numerous channel executive positions including Vice President of Global Channels and Alliances for Infinio, Executive Director of North American Channel Sales for Dell, Global Vice President, Channel Strategy and Operations for EqualLogic and Director of U.S. Distribution and VAR Channel for Microsoft.

In January 2015, Alan Marc Smith joined DLT Solutions as president and CEO. The company generates more than $1 billion in revenue and last year celebrated its 25^th anniversary. Smith is a seasoned executive with more than 25 years of experience in the technology and software industry.  He is formerly CEO of Westcon Group Inc., a value-added distributor of unified communications, networking infrastructure, data center and security solutions for vendor partners including Cisco, Avaya, Citrix, and Checkpoint.  At Westcon, Smith oversaw revenue growth from $120 million to more than $2.2 billion; grew management and staff from 120 employees to more than 1,400; managed eight acquisitions and 24 subsidiary integrations in 16 countries. Following Westcon, Alan spent five years as CEO of Electrograph, a leading distributor of advanced display technology products, software and related components. Earlier in his career, he served as director of the Business Management group at Bay Networks Inc. (formerly SynOptics Inc.) and director of contracts at Oracle Corp. Smith graduated from Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., with a concentration in economics.

Mr. Tindel joined Pamlico Capital in 2013. His investing efforts are focused in the Business & Technology Services, Communications and Healthcare industries. Mr. Tindel currently sits on the Board of Directors of 10th Magnitude, Dexter & Chaney, LLC and Vast Broadband.

Prior to joining Pamlico Capital, Mr. Tindel was an Associate at GTCR, LLC and an Analyst at Goldman, Sachs & Co.  Mr. Tindel received a BE from Vanderbilt University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Stelios Valavanis is the founder and president of onShore Security. He currently serves on the boards of the ACLU of Illinois and We the People Media, and advisory committees for several other organizations. He has appeared as a guest lecturer and panelist for local colleges, non-profits, and various industry events. Stel graduated from the University of Chicago in 1988 with a Bachelor’s degree in Physics. Prior to founding onShore, Stel held a number of technical positions at the University of Chicago.

Stel’s love for things technical has spanned most of his life. By age 15, he was writing dBase code for a market research company, producing an analysis tool for sale to other marketing firms. He formed his first business in 1981, producing and distributing Apple II software packages. Stel also has been involved and remains active in many artistic projects, including audio CD recordings, video compilations, and interactive installations.

Lawrence Van Deusen is the Director of the Network Integration Line of Business at Dimension Data. Van Deusen has over 18+ years of experience designing, architecting, implementing and supporting enterprise business solutions in a variety of IT computing environments. Prior to joining Dimension Data, Van Deusen was most recently employed as a Senior IT Architect for IBM Global Services in the IP Connectivity services practice. His primary focus was Cisco WAN/LAN architecture design and implementations. Prior to joining IBM Global Services, Van Deusen was employed as a Senior Consultant at Bearing Point (formerly KPMG consulting) where he was employed in the Network Solutions practice.

Ryan Walsh oversees the build-out of the Pax8 product portfolio and drives the market requirements and development of the Pax8 Command Console.  Walsh served as vice president of product management for MX Logic, a cloud-based email and web security company that was acquired by McAfee in 2009. Following the acquisition, Ryan directed the product teams responsible for McAfee's portfolio of cloud-based email and web solutions for the Content and Cloud Security division, and later led the product unification and hybrid cloud development effort for the company's web security product lines.<br /><br />Walsh has dedicated his career to enabling business improvements with Internet or IT-based solutions and startups. He started his career building a re-engineering practice at Deloitte & Touche in the Consulting division.  He holds a BA in Business Economics from Colorado College and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

David Walter is the Marketing Director at MSP SEO Factory, a company providing IT marketing to businesses in the United States. Their expertise is creating managed services marketing ideas and turning them into original, optimized blog posts. Their process involves in-depth brainstorming, thorough editing, and effective promotion of fresh and unique articles for their MSP Business clients.

He has 16 years experience in marketing for the IT industry, as well as experience in direct MSP marketing, internet marketing, article writing. David speaks at trade shows, webinars and is a sales trainer for major IT companies. He is also a published author; his latest book is 'Stratospheric Marketing Secrets'.

Robert Westervelt is a Research Manager within IDC's Security Products group. He provides insight and thought leadership in the areas of cloud security, mobile security, and security related to the Internet of Things (IoT). Rob is also responsible for research and analysis around a wide range of evolving security markets, including endpoint security, security and vulnerability management (SVM), and identity and access management (IAM). Prior to joining IDC, Rob was senior editor at The Channel Company where he led the information security news coverage, reporting on threats, vulnerabilities and technology trends impacting the security market for CRN.

Change is coming to your industry. Or, as Luke Williams might call it, disruption. A best-selling author and globally recognized authority on disruptive innovation, Williams discloses a way of thinking that can literally transform your business and allow you to stay ahead of the game. To remain competitive, business professionals need a revolutionary way of thinking, one which includes a pattern of disruptive strategies and unexpected solutions. The author of “Disrupt: Think the Unthinkable to Spark Transformation in Your Business,” Williams is a world-renowned expert on innovation leadership. He provides business leaders the skills to implement new strategies to produce successful results. Williams is the executive director of innovation and entrepreneurship and marketing professor at NYU's Stern School of Business. He is a Fellow at Frog Design, one of the world's most influential innovation companies. Williams works with organizations to identify challenges, including the creation of new products and services and the transformation of organizational behaviors and processes. He has been featured in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Fast Company, The Atlantic and The Wall Street Journal.

Dexter Williams has a passion for helping business owners realize the freedom that comes with creating a business that works for them and not the other way around.  He has been an evangelist for the ConnectWise mission of creating success for small businesses since 2009, and has worked in several capacities for the company. Williams focuses on expanding the ConnectWise footprint and bringing best practices, solutions, and profitability to the company’s network of more than 12,000 of the most progressive IT companies in the world. The company today boasts the largest IT footprint of any business management software company in industry. Started in 1982 as an IT solutions firm, ConnectWise has grown organically to solve the problems many IT service providers face when it comes to managing their business.

Mary Catherine Wilson is the Senior Director of Global Channel Marketing for Dell EMC. In this capacity, she is responsible for investing and educating partners and distributors through marketing enablement to grow profitably. She served as Director of Channel Marketing & Programs for North America at Dell where she was responsible for leading the strategy and delivery of Dell’s PartnerDirect programs and marketing in US & Canada. Her focus was on Partner Enablement, Partner Growth, and the evolution of Dell’s channel program. She has served in a variety of management roles at Dell including Online, Self Service, including Dell’s Community and online knowledge bases, and Contact Center. She has a passion for listening to Partners and has been able to translate Partner feedback and insights into solutions and programs that help enable the growth of their business. CRN has named her in the Power 100 Women of the Channel for the past seven years and Top 30 in their 30’s Channel Executives.

She is an experienced business leader with over 22 years’ experience in management consulting, software development, contact center strategy and operations, and channel marketing. Prior to Dell she was with Accenture and holds a B.A. in Business Administration from Trinity University.