151 Advisors

Steve Brumer is a Partner with 151 Advisors, a global execution-focused strategy and consulting firm that is working with the executive leadership team at wireless and technology companies from early to growth stage with talent, expertise and relationship connections. The strategic initiatives that 151 focuses on are around growth, expansion and increasing shareholder value by creating executable plans that drive revenue growth in existing or new markets organically or through acquisition. Steve merged 151 Advisors with Wireless Rain, a Wireless Channel Development strategy consulting organization specializing in complete design, implementation and deployment of a successful, profit-driven reseller and national dealer system which creates a program for manufacturers, software developers, and service providers. In addition, Steve co-founded & was President of Global Wireless Data, a National Value-added Distributor of wireless products and services. Steve also held various management positions at Millicom, RAM Mobile Data & BellSouth Wireless. Steve is a Board Member of several technology firms and trade associations. In addition, Steve is a valued presenter at National Events including CTIA, CCA, ITExpo, IOT Evolution, CIO Symposium, CES & Mobility Live, speaking about wireless technology, products, applications and future trends.

ABI Research

Ryan Martin, Principal Analyst at ABI Research, covers new and emerging transformative technologies, including augmented reality (AR), analytics, and the Internet of Things (IoT). He currently leads the firm’s Smart Manufacturing and Enterprise IoT research.Prior to joining ABI Research, Ryan spent the past several years working at technology market research firms, including Yankee Group and, most recently, 451 Research. Before his time as a market research analyst, Ryan served as a consultant at Mobile Future Institute, a U.S.-based think tank focused on business strategies and marketing tactics for the mobile ecosystem. Additionally, he held advisory, consultative, and managerial positions at a number of early- to late-stage startups.Ryan is frequently quoted and published in a variety of industry and business media, including BBC, CIO, ComputerWorld, CyberTrend, E-Commerce Times, FastCompany, International Business Times, LA Times, PCWorld, TechNewsWorld, TechRepublic, Time Magazine, VentureBeat, Forbes and WIRED. He is also a regular speaker at client and industry events, and a judge for major awards programs such as the CES Innovation Awards and the GSMA’s Global Mobile Awards.Ryan holds degrees in economics and political science, with an additional concentration in global studies, from the University of Vermont and an M.B.A. from the University of New Hampshire.

Accenture

Strategist with diverse international experience in Analytics and Operations Optimization. Adept at leading cross-functional teams to achieve stretch goals. Success in building & executing strategic programs in Digital Transformation for Industrial Products, Financial Services and Communications industries

Aegis

Arm

Rhonda Dirvin is Director, IoT and Embedded at ARM. Since joining ARM in 2011, she has worked in several marketing and strategic roles, including digital marketing and alliances. She now drives ARM’s marketing strategy through the lens of IoT vertical markets. Ms. Dirvin is an experienced electronics-industry veteran, who began her career with Motorola Semiconductor, where she worked for 17 years. She started in the nascent data communications business where she took on increasing responsibility as it grew into a multi-billion dollar business. She moved on to roles in sales, wireless marketing, and operations with P&L responsibility. She holds a BS in electrical engineering from Cornell University and an MBA from the Red McCombs School of Business.

Atmosphere IoT

Jeffrey Liebl is the co-founder and CEO of Atmosphere IoT Corp, a recent spinoff of Anaren, Inc. With more than two decades of industry experience, Jeff provides strategic vision and tactical direction for Atmosphere IoT’s expanding software and services business centered around its innovative IoT cloud software platform. Jeffs background includes senior executive roles in venture-backed as well as publicly traded software, hardware and data analytics companies. Jeff has held various leadership positions at Digi International, eBureau, Ubiquity Software, Jetstream Communications, and 3Com.

Atmosphere IoT

Richard LaBorde is the Director of Business Development at Atmosphere IoT Corp, a recent spinoff of Anaren, Inc. In this role, Richard helps customers and partners use the revolutionary Atmosphere cloud software platform to power their solutions. Richard’s background includes extensive experience in embedded product design with a recent focus on wireless technologies. Richard has a Masters of Engineering Management from St. Cloud State University and a BSEE from the University of Minnesota.

Axis Communications

Vince Ricco serves as a business development manager for the Axis Technology Partner Program Axis Communications, Inc. Mr. Ricco works with IT hardware providers to showcase the Company’s network video surveillance solutions and educate the IT industry on the ongoing technology shift from analog CCTV to IP-based video surveillance. Mr. Ricco joined Axis following nearly two decades at Allied Telesis, Inc., a leading manufacturer of Layer 2-7 network hardware and software solutions. He held a variety of positions during his tenure at Allied, from district sales manager to senior vice president of sales. Most recently, Mr. Ricco was a senior network consultant working with end-users and integrators to provide infrastructure guidance for the physical security, transportation and healthcare markets.

Canaccord Genuity

Mike Walkley is a Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Canaccord specializing in communications technology. Mike has over 18 years of experience as a research analyst, and previously worked at Piper Jaffray, where he was the senior wireless technologies analyst for the past 6 years. Mike has also worked in equity research at RBC Capital Markets and Raymond James Financial. Mike was ranked number 2 sell-side analyst in 2014 in part due to his recommendations of IoT public companies. He was also ranked No. 3 stock picker for communications equipment for 2004 by Starmine and No. 5 stock picker for telecommunications equipment for 2004 by the Wall Street Journal. He holds a bachelors degree in commerce from the University of Virginia and a masters degree in business administration with a concentration in finance and economics from the University of Chicago

Cassia Networks

Felix Zhao is the founder and CEO of Cassia Networks and the inventor of the Cassia Hub, the world’s first Bluetooth router. Prior to Cassia Networks, Felix was the VP & GM of APAC for Sensys Networks where he grew the revenue of Sensys APAC region 300 percent in two years. Felix also served as the VP, Mesh Technology at Aruba Networks (NASDAQ: ARUN), which acquired Felix’s company Azalea Networks in 2010. Felix founded Azalea Networks in 2005 and served as CEO, CTO and sat on the board directors. At Azalea, Felix was the lead developer of wireless mesh technology and inventor of the Azalea Wi-Fi Mesh Router. He grew the company from three to 120 employees and won the Wireless Beijing project for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Felix also initiated the first large scale China Mobile 3G + Wi-Fi project in 2009. Before Azalea, Felix worked for Cisco Systems and Cable & Wireless IDC where he was a key contributor for developing the wireless products & solutions at those companies.

Cisco

Tom Gilheany is Cisco’s portfolio manager of security training and certification. His background is diverse; he’s worked in small startups and multinational Fortune 100 companies in product management, consulting, and technical marketing. Prior to joining Cisco, he spent more than a decade running global IT and operations groups in mission critical environments. Tom is a member of the US NIST NICE working group, holds a CISSP, an MBA, and is an active board member of Silicon Valley Product Management Association and Product Camp Silicon Valley.

Cradlepoint

At Cradlepoint, Ken is responsible for defining the company’s IoT strategy and for driving strategic industry partnerships to accelerate the company’s market growth and leadership. As part of the leadership team since 2009, Ken has helped drive Cradlepoint’s growth and development through roles in strategic planning, product management, solution strategy and thought leadership. Ken frequently represents the company at industry conferences and events, and served on the original Advisory Board for the IoT/M2M Evolution Magazine. Ken has 25 years of experience in marketing, sales, R&D and manufacturing. Prior to joining Cradlepoint, Ken served as VP of Marketing for Casabyte (later acquired by JDS Uniphase), the leading provider of service validation solutions to wireless service providers. Ken also served as VP of Business Development for GoAhead Software (later acquired by Oracle), the leading provider of high availability software to communication infrastructure providers. Ken earlier spent 10 years at Hewlett Packard in a variety of engineering and engineering management roles for networking equipment and personal computers. Ken holds a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and an M.S. degree in Manufacturing Engineering, both from Stanford University.

Cradlepoint

Perry is Director of Technology at Cradlepoint focused on IoT architectures as well as fog and edge compute. He previously served as Director and Distinguished Member of Technical Staff for Advanced Memory Systems focused on non-von Neumann computer architectures for HPC, automated driving systems, machine learning and computer vision at Micron. Before that Perry spent 20 years as Distinguished Technologist and Chief Architect at Hewlett Packard responsible for development and advances in imaging hardware and software. His research interests are currently in avant-garde computer architectures focused on IOT, imaging architectures, computer vision, and edge level machine intelligence. Perry holds a BS computer science, MS computer engineering, and Degree of Engineer (electrical engineering) from Columbia University. Perry has been awarded patents in imaging, computer vision, computer architectures, and memristor systems. He is a senior member of the IEEE and senior member of the ACM.

Crate.io

Andy Ellicott is Chief Product & Marketing Officer at Crate.io, developers of CrateDB, an open source real-time SQL database for IoT and machine data. Prior to Crate.io, he held executive product strategy and marketing roles at Cloudant (acquired by IBM), Vertica (acquired by HPE), VoltDB, and Kalido.

CyberBridge Group

After graduating from law school, Tom clerked for the Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court. Following his clerkship he was an associate with Skadden Arps, where he worked in the litigation and corporate finance practices. After leaving Skadden, he joined Citibank where he was an assistant general counsel, responsible for representing the bank in litigation, internal investigations, criminal investigations, and regulatory matters. He also worked on Citibank’s initial cyber security standards and responses to data breaches. After retiring from Citibank he joined PriceWaterhouseCoopers as an expert in information management and electronic discovery. He has also been an adjunct professor of law at New York Law School. He served as the General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Vigilant, Inc., a security monitoring and cyber threat intelligence firm. Vigilant’s clients included Fortune 500 firms in the financial services, hedge fund, and insurance sectors. After Vigilant was sold to Deloitte & Touche, Tom concentrated his practice on cyber security and providing advice to entrepreneurs on corporate governance and funding. He joined LemonFish Technologies as its chief legal and chief administrative officer in 2016. LemonFish was recently acquired by iJet, a risk management portfolio company of LLR Partners. LemonFish was a data security and data behavior analytics solution that detected in real time critical data exposure on the open, deep, and dark web, with direct application for banking, financial services, health care, and legal enterprises. He is one of the founding members of CyberBridge Group, a firm that partners with companies to solve enterprise and cyber-security risk issues.

Drake Star Partners

James Turino is a Managing Partner at Drake Star Partners. Over the past 20 years, he has advised numerous companies in the technology and communications industries on over $5 billion in mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance transactions. In addition to his advisory roles, James has underwritten several principal equity and mezzanine investments in client companies.Prior to joining Drake Star Partners, James served as Director of the Technology Investment Banking team in New York for SG Cowen, where he managed public and private equity offerings, principal investments, and mergers and acquisitions for emerging growth software companies. He was also Director of the Media and Telecommunications Group for Prudential Securities in New York. Previously, he held the position of Vice President, Corporate Finance for ING Barings, where he started the Telecommunications Group. He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia College.

FreeWave Technologies

Scott is an executive leader with more than 25 years of experience in product lifecycle management, product marketing, business development, and technology deployment. He offers a unique blend of start-up aggressiveness and established company executive leadership, with expertise in product delivery, demand generation, and global market expansion. As CMO of FreeWave, Scott is responsible for product life cycle/management, GTM execution, demand generation, and brand creation/expansion strategies. Prior to joining FreeWave, Scott held executive management positions at Fluke Networks (a Danaher Company), Network Associates (McAfee), and several start-ups including Mazu Networks and NEXVU Business Solutions. Scott earned his BA in Computer Information Systems from Weber University.

Harbor Research

Alex is the Vice President of Harbor Research and an expert in smart systems thinking and design. He is responsible for leading the firm’s marketing, operations, and business development strategy. Alex also helps lead Harbor’s Smart Systems Lab program – a real world laboratory where organizations can design, prototype, and test new models for delivering smart systems and services value. Alex brings broad client experience in strategy consulting, value chain analysis, and research development across a variety of industries including industrial, energy, manufacturing, transportation, smart cities and telecom. He also has deep experience developing qualitative and quantitative research studies related to the Internet of Things and smart systems. He has helped develop Harbor’s research programs, methodologies, designs, and services. Alex is extremely well versed on the space, specializing in industrial automation and analytics, and is a frequent speaker, moderator, panelist, and contributor to industry events and media publications.

IBM

Roger Rea is responsible to drive market share growth for IBM Streams, leading development, marketing, sales, finance, service and support. Previously, Roger has held a variety of sales, technical, educational, marketing and management jobs at IBM, Skill Dynamics and Tivoli Systems.He has received four (4) 100% Clubs for exceeding sales targets in large account and general business territories, one (1) Systems Engineering Symposium for on-time installation of a Directory Assistance System with multiple sites in two states, numerous Excellence Awards for development and delivery of Competitive, Strategic and UNIX Marketing courses and several Teamwork Awards for successes like revenue growth of 67% in one year as Brand Manager, Intel-based Systems Management.Rea earned a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Computer Science, cum laude, from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). He has also received a Masters Certificate in Project Management from George Washington University. He lives with his wife and two children in Cary, North Carolina and enjoys kayaking, cooking, reading and singing in the choir.

Intel

Dipti Vachani is vice president in the Internet of Things Group and general manager of the Strategy and Solutions Engineering Division at Intel Corporation. Vachani’s organization is responsible for driving the overall strategy, technology direction, industry standards and IoT Edge product portfolio for IOTG.Prior to joining Intel, Vachani served as vice president and general manager of Power, Lighting and Display at Skyworks, maker of analog semiconductors. In that role, she managed product development, applications and operations.Before that, Vachani worked at Texas Instruments for 17 years, where her most recent position was vice president and general manager of the Single Core Processors group , a multinational business unit consisting of ARM MPU, video security and DSP. Also, while at Texas Instruments, Vachani led the creation of the company’s Sitara brand of ARM MPUs.Vachani holds a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from Texas A&M University and an executive MBA degree from the University of Texas at Austin. She is also a graduate of the executive education program at both the Harvard and Cambridge business schools.

ITG Technologies

Aldo Ferrante has been ITG Technologies CEO & President since its inception in 2003. A pioneer in the industrial automation age with over 25 years of experience providing turn-key solutions to clients in all markets. Aldo has been considered a thought leader in the IIoT/AI space with his forward thinking approach in disrupting the IIoT platform market.

James Brehm & Associates

An independent advisor and technology evangelist, James Brehm is a regular speaker at industry conferences and one of the leading voices on the state of the IoT and M2M market today. Mr. Brehm is a regular contributor to CNBC and is frequently quoted by media outlets such as Business Week, RCR Wireless, ComputerWorld, PC Magazine, and the San Jose Mercury News. Over the past decade, Mr. Brehm has spoken to various groups on topics including wireless services, mobile marketing and advertising, mobile content, VoIP, activation and provisioning, service creation, mobile apps, premium messaging, wireless security, fixed-mobile convergence, mobile broadband (LTE and WiMAX), the telecom regulatory environment and vertical market deployment of web-enabled services. From 2011 to 2014, Brehm served as practice leader, strategist and senior consultant for Compass Intelligence. Prior to joining Compass Intelligence, Mr. Brehm served in multiple roles for nine (9) years at Growth Consulting firm Frost & Sullivan. Prior to joining Frost & Sullivan, Mr. Brehm worked in marketing, sales management, and business development roles for Rackspace Managed Hosting and Interland (now Web.com), two of the largest pure play web hosting companies in the U.S. His responsibilities included research on the competitive landscape of the market, developing new product offerings, assessing emerging markets, improving the over all value chain for Global 1000 clients, due diligence, and acquisition analysis. Mr. Brehm entered the high tech arena in the mid 1990’s working in sales management within the telecom arena for MCI and later working for Gateway, Inc in multiple roles including product marketing, product management, training, and sales management.

LoRa Alliance

Geoff Mulligan is a consultant, developer and lecturer on the IoT, Privacy and Security and Chairman of the LoRa Alliance. In 2013 and 2014 while serving as a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow working on Cyber-Physical Systems and IoT for the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Institute of Standards and Technology he co-created and launched the SmartAmerica Challenge. Mr. Mulligan is the Founder and President of Proto6, a technology consulting company focused on the Internet of Things, RF Sensors, IPv6, IP networks and open systems and served as the US representative to the ISO Smart and Sustainable Cities project.Previously, Geoff helped create and deploy the Arpanet and IP technologies including the design of IPv6, the creation and standardization of 6lowpan, the formation and founding of the Zigbee Alliance and the IPSO Alliance and has been instrumental in many key aspects of the embedded Internet – in fact Vint Cerf called Geoff the “Father of the Embedded Internet”. After graduating from the Air Force Academy, he served in the Air Force and worked for Digital Equipment, Sun Microsystems, and Invensys. He helped found start-ups working on email security, next generation Internet technologies, wireless systems and protocol design. He holds over 15 patents, wrote a book on combating SPAM and testified before Congress on Computer Security.

MapQuest

When she’s not tap dancing or rapping about her teams, Elise Neel, VP, Verizon Location Services & GM for MapQuest, is reimagining location contextualization and the role it plays in consumer and B2B Navigation, Artificial Intelligence, Analytics, Advertising Segmentation and Emerging Technology. Supporting commercialization, product, engineering, marketing and sales, Elises team works within Verizon to enable businesses across the firm to leverage the power of location in unique ways while also supporting thousands of direct customers around the globe.

McAfee

Gary Davis is Chief Consumer Security Evangelist. Through a consumer lens, he partners with internal teams to drive strategic alignment of products with the needs of the security space. Gary also provides security education to businesses and consumers by distilling complex security topics into actionable advice. He is a sought-after speaker on trends in digital security including the evolving threat landscape, privacy and securing the Internet of Things. He has presented at high profile conferences and events including CES, Mobile World Congress, and CTIA Super Mobility. Gary has appeared on multiple business, security and consumer lifestyle broadcast outlets, including CBS News, CNBC, FOX News, Bloomberg, WSJ MoneyBeat and quoted in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Money Magazine, CNN, Forbes, TIME Magazine and more. During his 11+ years at Intel Security, he has held leadership roles in the consumer and enterprise divisions where he has helped shape various product portfolios and strategic direction along with advocating for cybersecurity education. Prior to joining McAfee, he held senior management positions for more than 20 years in technology companies. Gary served on the board of directors of the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA).

MVP Capital

Michael leads IoT sector investment banking coverage at MVP Capital, a middle market investment bank focused on the technology, media & telecommunications sectors. Michael has more than 20 years of Investment Banking experience and has been involved in a wide variety of financing and M&A transactions for software, telecom and new emerging technology companies. Michael has advised numerous companies throughout the IoT ecosystem. Most recent transactions include the sale of M2M Data to Caterpillar, Reltima and GPS North America to Telular, the sale of SkyBitz to Telular Corporation, the sale of Telular to Avista Capital and MiX Telematics on their initial public offering. Michael has a BA from the University of Western Ontario and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

NIST

Katerina Megas is the Commercial Adoption Lead for the Trusted Identities Group and Program Manager for the Cybersecurity for Internet of Things (IoT) program. She has her undergraduate degree in Business Administration with a minor in Marketing and M.S. Information Systems and has over 25 years of experience leading organizations development and execution of marketing strategies, and deployment of solutions in telecommunications, ERP and IAM (identity and access management) technologies. She loves traveling and appreciates her wonderful colleagues who cover for her at work while she piles her family into a minivan taking road trips across Europe and the U.S. in search of the non-touristy experience. If not traveling for pleasure, in her free time she can be spotted sitting in the bleachers at volleyball tournaments across the country cheering wildly for her daughter’s team.

OpenFog Consortium

Lynne Canavan is the Vice President of Marketing for the OpenFog Consortium, the global nonprofit working to solve the bandwidth, latency and communications challenges associated with IoT. There she leads global initiatives to drive market growth and engagement for fog computing and networking in IoT. Previously, Lynne was Vice President of Program Management for the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) where she oversaw the activities of the Consortium’s Working Groups, member services and broader ecosystem initiatives. She joined the IIC from IBM, where she spent 17 years focused on new initiatives with IBM’s largest alliance partners.

Oracle

Travis Russell has been in telecommunications more than 35 years, with experience in radio, voice and data networking. As a cyber security professional and technologist, Mr. Russell has a long career focused in telecommunications cyber security and fraud, with expertise in SIP, SS7, and Diameter technologies. He participates in a number of standards bodies and trade associations, including the GSMA, IETF, CTIA, ATIS, and is currently the chair for the FCC Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) working group 3, focused on security. Mr. Russell has authored several technical books, including “Signaling System #7,” “Session Initiation Protocol,” “IP Multimedia Subsystem,” and “LTE Signaling With Diameter,” all published through McGraw-Hill. His book, “Telecommunications Protocols” is still used in colleges and universities today for teaching the fundamentals of telecommunications, and is printed in four languages.Mr. Russell holds several patents and patents pending focusing on cyber security and fraud solutions, and has lectured at colleges, universities, and industry events all over the world. He is currently Director of Cyber Security at Oracle Communications.

Plantronics

As Director of DSP Engineering for Plantronics, Arun Rajasekaran provides strategic guidance and leads internal and external teams working on embedded software (firmware, DSP, and IoT) development. In addition, he is also responsible for leading the company’s enterprise and consumer wearable communication product architecture, design, and development efforts. This includes spearheading global engineering efforts related to the conceptualization of next generation connected wearable tech platforms. Previous to Plantronics, Rajasekaran was an engineering manager at Blackberry, where he led embedded systems teams in the United States and Canada. Additional positions that have contributed to Rajasekaran’s more than 23 years of experience include vice president of engineering at Xingtera, and director of engineering at Ikanos Communications. Rajasekaran holds an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Tennessee Technological University, and a BE (Honors) in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Madurai Kamaraj University, India.

SAP

Pushkar works in the global SAP Internet of Things Go-To-Market team at SAP doing sales, marketing, business development, sales enablement, and community engagement with prospects, customers, partners and developer ecosystems for the Internet of Things. Pushkar has worked with SAP for more than 16 years across disciplines of product management, strategy consulting and operations management in areas of customer engagement, enterprise performance management and the manufacturing industry. Pushkar has academic degrees of a Master’s in Business Administration from the Indian Institute of Management with a focus in the areas of Information Systems, Strategy and Marketing. Prior to that he received a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Computer Science from the Birla Institute of Technology. Pushkar has also completed a design thinking course at Stanford as part of his work at SAP and states that he is a student for life.

ServiceMax from GE Digital

Lubor leads the Product Marketing function at ServiceMax, with a broad spectrum of responsibilities ranging from messaging, product launches, and market intelligence to thought leadership, analyst relations, and customer leverage programs. Prior to joining ServiceMax, Lubor led corporate-wide product marketing at OpenText, the leader in Enterprise Information Management. During his tenure, OpenTexts revenue grew from $725 million to $1.9 billion and the company completed more than 20 acquisitions. Before OpenText, Lubor worked at EMC, Documentum, and Novell. From 2011-2015, he also served on the Board of Directors for the Association for Intelligent Information Management (AIIM). Lubor is an accomplished presenter and recognized thought leader with active social media presence. He holds a Computer Science degree from the Technical University Ilmenau, Germany and an MBA from Santa Clara University in California.

Silicon Labs

Christian Legare is Director, IoT OS Platform at Silicon Labs. He joined Silicon Labs through the Silicon Labs acquisition of Micrium Inc. a leading provider of embedded software, including the uC/OS real time kernel, where he was the CTO since 2002. Prior to Micrium, he was in charge of an IP (Internet Protocol) certification program at the International Institute of Telecom (IIT) in Montreal, Canada. Throughout his 22 years in the telecom industry, he has served as an executive in large scale organizations as well as start-ups, mainly in the engineering and R&D fields. He also currently serves as President and Chairman of the IPSO Alliance, where he provides guidance on the embedded systems industry to the IPSO Alliance to advance the mutual goals of making IoT a reality. He holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Sherbrooke, in Quebec, Canada.

Telit

Fred Yentz joined ILS Technology as senior vice president and chief operating officer in January 2007, bringing with him more than 20 years industry experience in the technology solution market. Prior to ILS Technology, Fred Yentz served as Vice President and General Manager of RadiSys Corporation, a leading provider of embedded solutions for the telecommunications, enterprise data, medical equipment and the industrial automation marketplaces. While at RadiSys Corporation, Fred served in many capacities including the oversight of World Wide Sales, Marketing, Professional Service, Business Development in addition to General Manager of Enterprise, Communication and Commercial operating divisions. Fred also worked for IBM where he held various positions with responsibility for Engineering, New Business Development and Management. Mr. Yentz is named as an inventor on two U.S. patents and has received IBM’s First Level Plateau Invention Achievement Award. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), National Science and Technology Education Program (NSTEP), and is chairman of the Industry Advisory Board for Florida Atlantic Universitys College of Engineering. Mr. Yentz holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Michigan Technological University (1988), a Master of Business Administration (1996) from the University of Miami, and a Master of Science in Computer Information Systems (1997) from the University of Miami.

Telus

Heidi Wilson is a market strategist with over 15 years in all aspects of B2B commercialization, from partnerships and channel management to sales and marketing. At TELUS she is currently responsible for global growth of the Internet of Things; she has also previously championed for TELUS the introduction of mHealth, workforce mobile applications and Managed Mobility. Her current area of focus is as commercial lead on emerging IoT opportunities with complex cross-border requirements, including Connected Car, eSIM and Global Data MVNOs. She also created and launched the TELUS IoT Marketplace, a bill-on-behalf partner ecosystem, and Canada’s first “over the top” partner program for IoT solutions connected to the TELUS network. Prior to her time in the wireless industry, she opened new lending markets in Oil & Gas at GE Capital while developing innovative new financing products for their customers, and served as product manager for a variety of start-up technology companies. Passionate about market-centric strategies, translating market need into profitable growth, and cooperative go-to-market models, she most often finds herself in emerging business-to-business markets where confusion is rampant and a clear commercial strategy is essential. Heidi received her MBA from McGill University in 1999, and holds a Bachelor of Arts from DePauw University in her home state of Indiana.

Tempered Networks

Erik is the VP of Products at Tempered Networks where he is responsible for product strategy and go to market execution. Prior to Tempered, Erik served on the executive team at ExtraHop Networks as the SVP of Marketing and Business Development. During his four year tenure at ExtraHop, Erik and his team helped grow revenue 15x taking ExtraHop from a 50 person startup to the market leader in IT Operations Analytics with over 300 employees, a rich ecosystem of technical alliances, and the establishment of Wire Data analysis as the richest source of real-time analytics. Before ExtraHop Erik was the SVP of Product Management and Product Marketing at F5 Networks.

Thiel Advisors, Inc.

Fred Thiel has over 30 years of experience leading and advising companies and investors in the technology, data communications, Internet, IoT/M2M (Internet of Things/machine to machine), automation, Big Data, digital media and software industries. He has helped drive rapid growth and generated hundreds of millions of dollars in shareholder value through a focus on transformational value creation, innovation and a keen understanding of how trends and disruptive technologies affect businesses and industries. Thiel is a technology and industry visionary and frequent keynote speaker at global events and corporate and industry conferences on the IoT and its impact on our future daily lives, business models, industries and society. He also lectures on innovation, strategy, disruption and transformational growth to MBA classes at both the University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business, and the University of San Diego (USD). Thiel has helped companies transform their business models and leverage the disruptive trends affecting industries globally. He works with management teams and helps boards of directors evaluate, develop and execute strategies to transform operating businesses and product lines, drive innovation initiatives and create new product lines and business models that drive growth and create value. He has developed visionary concepts and products, most recently to help companies develop and execute strategies for collaborative autonomous systems, intelligent sensor systems, predictive maintenance, and intelligent fleet/asset management solutions.

Trident University International

Michael has been involved in the IT industry for more than 12 years starting in the US Air Force. After 9 years of service and traveling to South East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, he transitioned to a government contracting company in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Michael started with the company as a Senior Systems Engineer working with all things IT including servers, networks, security, and IoT Solutions, and now maintains the companys cybersecurity as the Chief Information Security Officer or CISO.Michael maintains multiple network and security certifications, holds a Bachelors of Science in Information Technology Management, a Masters of Science in Information Technology Management, and is working towards his PhD in Business Administration with a focus on Information Technology Management. His dissertation investigates the early adoption of companies who decide for or against the use of IoT enabled industrial automation technologies, and the factors relating to those decisions.

Twin Oaks Computing

Nina is the co-founder of Twin Oaks Computing, and has the current responsibility to use her extensive software expertise to create and manage customer and partner relationships for Twin Oaks Computing. Nina has over 20 years experience designing, developing, testing, and deploying large complex software systems used in critical military and industrial applications. Her work over the last decade has focused on the infrastructure components of these complex systems, including connectivity, data centric communications, and cyber security.Nina has a strong passion for both engineering and education.Nina was born in South Florida and grew up with local small business owners. She started her career with G.E. Aerospace (now Lockheed Martin) in Valley Forge, PA as an entry level software engineer. Over the next fifteen years, Nina worked on a number of programs developing and maintaining a variety of large and complex software systems, in a various technical roles, from system administrator, to senior software engineer, to software engineering manager. Nina co-founded Twin Oaks Computing in 2005, and has personally worked and held responsibility for all roles of the company during its growth since inception.

Verizon

Warren Westrup is director of IoT Solutions Engineering and Architecture at Verizon. In this role, Warren helps develop and deliver solutions that combine machine-to-machine connectivity with Verizons enterprise platform, including telematics, dynamic cloud, security and professional services, along with the company’s global Internet protocol and 4G LTE networks. The goal is to leverage the full breadth of Verizons assets to deliver solutions that solve customers business challenges while providing greater efficiencies.Warren is a licensed Professional Engineer, and holds a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a master of business administration degree from Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio.

Verizon Wireless

Mary Beth Hall is the Director of Global IoT Product and Development at Verizon with responsibility for developing new products. In her recent role she manages the ThingSpace Platform, a web portal that brings together tools for developers/customers to build, test and bring to market new applications, with the goal of simplification and rapid time to market. Prior to this role, she was responsible for promoting the strategic path forward for M2M core products; as well as the negotiations with worldwide suppliers to deliver competitively priced modules and devices that run on the network. During her twenty plus career, she had a leading role in growing the Northeast Area channel distribution. She led the alternative distribution market, vertical marketing strategy and the core data products. As an experienced product marketer, she managed Global and Push to Talk for the Northeast Area. During her management, the Northeast Area was number one in sales for Global and Push to Talk for Verizon Wireless.

Virtium Solid State Storage and Memory

Hiep Pham is currently the Vice President of Research and Development at Virtium, a highly reliable storage and memory solution company serving the Industrial Market. With a strong passion for Artificial Intelligent and the Internet of Things (IoT), he joined Virtium to spearhead the Industrial IoT- Intelligent Storage product road map and its development. Prior to his role at Virtium, Hiep was the president of R&D for Uniden San Diego (a division of Uniden Japan) and founder of a number of start-up technology companies. He co-founded and successfully built WIDCOMM, which was later acquired by Broadcom, into a world leader in Bluetooth software platform solutions. Hiep owns many technology patents, and was awarded San Diego’s E&Y’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 2002.

Watson IoT Platform, IBM

As the Vice President of the IBM Watson IoT Platform, Veeru oversees the technical development & deployment, specific offerings, business development, marketing and sales for IBM’s IoT Platform business. Veeru has been in the technology space for more than 30 years. During that time, he’s built incredibly complex and innovative systems with large organizations such as Comcast, Cablevision, Bell Labs, and General Electric (GE) and has been part of many startups. As the Technology Leader for Digital Industries at GE, he was one of the first two to build GE digital from the ground up at San Ramon, California, and was one of the initial and core architects and innovators for GE Predix. Some of his groundbreaking technology innovations at GE have been extensively covered by the media.Prior to IBM, Veeru served as the Senior Vice President of Big Data and Data Science (Chief Data Officer) for Cablevision, one of the largest cable companies in the U.S. During his time at the company, he was responsible for the development of big data platforms across the enterprise both on-premise and in the cloud, along with advanced data analytics, mining and engineering, and data technology capabilities that drove significant business impact. Veeru has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from University of Madras, a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and a PhD in computer science and engineering from the University of South Florida, Tampa.

Wind River

Woodside Capital Partners

Adam Tilow is an Associate Director at Woodside Capital Partners, where he focuses on M&A transactions for companies within Internet of Things, Industrial IoT, Smart Factories and Smart Cities. Adam is involved in all aspects of originating and executing transactions, including financial modeling, analysis and company valuation, identification of corporate buyers and financial investors, and due diligence. Mr. Tilow also regularly writes industry research reports on his coverage sectors. Prior to joining Woodside Capital, Adam was an Associate with Wunderlich Securities on their Investment Banking team in Newport Beach, California. He was previously a Senior Analyst with Moss Adams Capital in Irvine, California on their Investment Banking team. He also worked in the investment banking group at Waveland Capital Group in Irvine, California and with UBS Financial Services in San Diego, California. Adam has closed over 25 M&A transactions, debt and equity capital raises for middle market clients. Adam received his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from San Diego State University.

Woodside Capital Partners

Greg began his career in investment banking in 1993. Prior to joining with Woodside Capital Partners in 2007, Greg was a senior sell-side semiconductor analyst for Alex. Brown and UBS through 2000 and then a portfolio manager/technology analyst for GLM Capital Advisors and Engemann Asset Management on the buy side. In his various investment banking roles, Greg has been involved with many M&A advisory, private placements, initial public offerings, and follow-on offerings.Prior to entering investment banking, Greg worked in business development and product management for Intel. He was a member of the team responsible for the introduction of the Pentium microprocessor and oversaw product management of the i486 microprocessor. From 1985 to 1988, Greg worked at Digital Equipment as a semiconductor engineer.Greg holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Chemistry from Northeastern University and an M.B.A. from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University.

ABI Research

Ryan Martin, Principal Analyst at ABI Research, covers new and emerging transformative technologies, including augmented reality (AR), analytics, and the Internet of Things (IoT). He currently leads the firm’s Smart Manufacturing and Enterprise IoT research. Prior to joining ABI Research, Ryan spent the past several years working at technology market research firms, including Yankee Group and, most recently, 451 Research. Before his time as a market research analyst, Ryan served as a consultant at Mobile Future Institute, a U.S.-based think tank focused on business strategies and marketing tactics for the mobile ecosystem. Additionally, he held advisory, consultative, and managerial positions at a number of early- to late-stage startups. Ryan is frequently quoted and published in a variety of industry and business media, including BBC, CIO, ComputerWorld, CyberTrend, E-Commerce Times, FastCompany, International Business Times, LA Times, PCWorld, TechNewsWorld, TechRepublic, Time Magazine, VentureBeat, Forbes and WIRED. He is also a regular speaker at client and industry events, and a judge for major awards programs such as the CES Innovation Awards and the GSMA’s Global Mobile Awards. Ryan holds degrees in economics and political science, with an additional concentration in global studies, from the University of Vermont and an M.B.A. from the University of New Hampshire.

Capstone Partners

Allen Proithis has an extensive background in the IoT and M2M markets, having led the development of several businesses in those spaces within the U.S. over the last five years.Early last year, Proithis led the funding and launch of wot.io, an award-winning Internet of Things startup focused on accelerating value produced by the data generated by the IoT .Prior to that, he was executive vice president of InterDigital Solutions, where he was responsible for monetizing a $700 million, 10-year R&D investment by taking commercially promising technologies to the marketplace. In that role, he led the creation of Convida Wireless, an M2M joint venture with Sony, InterDigital and Stephen Capital, and until recently served as chairman.Earlier in his carrier, Proithis spent seven years at Hewlett-Packard. At HP, he ultimately led strategy & business development for their Handheld Business Unit, where he was responsible for strategic initiatives for mobile devices, software and services, including the launch of HPs first mobile app store.Proithis began his career in the consulting business in the telecom and technology industries and holds a bachelor of arts degree in telecommunications from Penn State University.

Coris

Over 35 years management experience in leading edge technology companies: Founded and sold several technology companies; Raised over $150MM in venture capital, built companies valued at over $4B; Advisor to various federal, state and local governmental agencies (NYC, FCC, U.S. Congress, FBI, others); Ernst & Young U.S. Entrepreneur of the Year finalist 2000; Implemented trading network for NY Stock Exchange; Consultant to IBM, Nortel, AT&T, Verizon, Siemens, Citibank, Chase Bank, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Gartner Group; Implemented remote video surveillance for Homeland Security (CORIS was spin off of that project); Granted two patents on IOT network security, used by CORIS.

Crossfire Media

Carl has been highlighting the key initiatives around the advances of the Commercial Internet since the inception of the worldwide web. Carl’s diverse experience in technology spans the areas of costing, operations, marketing, regulatory, and product development and management. Carl has become known throughout the Communications community for his ability to connect people and businesses; be it in formal conference settings or through the well-planned serendipitous encounter. Carl’s technology experience along with his expertise in building relationships as well relevant, thought provoking conference content, make him an invaluable asset to IoT Evolution.

Deloitte & Touche

Colin Soutar is a Senior Manager in Deloitte & Touche’s Federal Advisory practice with over 20 years’ experience in identity, privacy and cybersecurity. After finishing his studies in Dundee, Scotland, Soutar completed a two-year post-doctoral stint at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, developing pattern recognition techniques for autonomous rendezvous and capture operations. He then applied similar pattern recognition and classification techniques to biometric systems as the Chief Technology Officer for over a decade with Bioscrypt, a public company based in Toronto, Canada. With Deloitte & Touche, Soutar currently provides support to several federal and private sector cybersecurity programs.

Harbor Research

Alex is the Vice President of Harbor Research and an expert in smart systems thinking and design. He is responsible for leading the firm’s marketing, operations, and business development strategy. Alex also helps lead Harbor’s Smart Systems Lab program – a real world laboratory where organizations can design, prototype, and test new models for delivering smart systems and services value. Alex brings broad client experience in strategy consulting, value chain analysis, and research development across a variety of industries including industrial, energy, manufacturing, transportation, smart cities and telecom. He also has deep experience developing qualitative and quantitative research studies related to the Internet of Things and smart systems. He has helped develop Harbor’s research programs, methodologies, designs, and services. Alex is extremely well versed on the space, specializing in industrial automation and analytics, and is a frequent speaker, moderator, panelist, and contributor to industry events and media publications.

Innovation Women

Bobbie Carlton is the founder of Carlton PR & Marketing, Innovation Nights and Innovation Women. She speaks regularly on innovation, building startup communities and product launches, and consults with small businesses and individuals on social networking, marketing and PR. Over the last 8 years, Bobbie has been involved in the launch of more than 1,000 new products in the Boston region. As the founder of Innovation Nights and Innovation Women, an advisor to NewCo Boston and Startup Massachusetts, and a MassChallenge mentor for more than 5 years, Bobbie is very tied into the startup and innovation community. Previously, in addition to working with a number of Boston-area high-tech marketing firms, she headed global PR efforts at enterprise software companies like PTC and Cognos (now part of IBM). In 2006 she switched gears, joining a consumer brand startup and in 2008, she started her own company offering marketing services. In 2010 she was named one of the “Ten Bostonians who have done the most for the startup community”, and in 2011 she was a recipient of a Mass High Tech All-star award. In 2015 she was named a Boston Business Journal Woman to Watch. Innovation Women is an online “visibility bureau” helping drive visibility for entrepreneurial, technical and innovative women through speaking engagements. Innovation Nights is a social media powered new product showcase and networking event. Follow Bobbie on Twitter as @BobbieC @MassInno @WomenInno or @CarltonPRM

James Brehm & Associates

Keith is a market research and business operations professional with extensive telecommunications experience. Keith focuses on studying companies, markets, and trends within IoT and quantifying business opportunities by translating complex data into meaningful and actionable insight. He also leads James Brehm & Associates’ survey practice that gathers qualitative insight from companies across the IoT ecosystem regarding attitudes, priorities, and preferences. Prior to joining James Brehm & Associates, Keith was Director of Market Research at AT&T responsible for market forecasting and competitive intelligence for business mobility and IoT. He also was Director of Marketing for Dun & Bradstreet’s telecommunications and cable vertical supporting the largest U.S. communications service providers. Keith has a B.A. in economics from Bucknell University.

US Cellular

Patel is a IoT industry veteran of 8 years. As a Sr. Manager of Product Management for US Cellular IoT products, Mahesh Patel is responsible for driving innovation and developing an extensive IoT product portfolio and building a solid IoT business. In this role, he manages the overall IoT business, product portfolio and building an eco-system to deliver innovative customer solutions Prior to joining US Cellular in 2015, Patel held a variety of executive technical and leadership positions with industry pioneers that included Sixnet, Redlion, ADC, Motorola, T-Systems, and Lucent Technologies. In these positions, he managed large teams who worked closely with customers and product divisions to define business needs and requirements, resulting in the development of new business initiatives, revenues and markets via end-to-end customer solutions and broader market leading product portfolios. Patel holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electronics Engineering Technology from DeVry Institute of Technology, a Master of Science in Computer Science degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology, and an MBA from DePaul University.

US Cellular

Scott Scheuber is a Product Management and Business Development leader with of over 17 years of experience in wireless and location based solutions. He directs Product Management at U.S. Cellular--developing and managing a robust industrial Internet of Things (IoT) and Value Added Services (VAS) portfolio for business and government customers. Scott has previously managed the consumer and home business as well as the developer API program at U.S Cellular. As a Director of Product Management at HERE (formerly NAVTEQ and subsidiary of Nokia), Scott led teams responsible for new product creation and go-to-market for all map and location content products in North America. Prior to Nokia, Scott was the Manager of LBS Strategy and Product Management at Garmin International. He innovated across advanced location technologies and managed worldwide pricing and forecasting for Garmin’s smartphone portfolio while leading Garmin-Asus accessory product management. Before pioneering Garmin’s LBS initiatives, he was the Mobile Product Manager and Engineering Business Development Manager responsible for the launch and lifecycle management of several Windows Phone smartphones and the growth of Garmin’s mobile navigation application business.