Dave Passmore, Research Director, Burton Group
David Passmore is Research Director for the analyst firm Burton Group, originally NetReference, Inc., which he founded. He was previously a Gartner VP running their local and wide-area networking services, and a Partner with Ernst & Young. Mr. Passmore wrote a monthly column for Business Communications Review magazine for 14 years, and was conference chairman for the Next Generation Networks (NGN) for 5 years.
Dave has been recognized as being one of the top six consultants in the IT industry, featured in an Information Week cover story on "Hot Consultants,” named as one of the "most influential industry analysts" by Technology Marketing magazine, and made Network World's list of the 50 "most powerful" people in networking.
Kevin Kinsey, Chief Executive Officer, NETREO
Netreo CEO and Co-Founder Kevin Kinsey has been a C-Level IT executive in the network software space for well over 10 years. He is responsible for Netreo’s day-to-day operations, strategic direction, profit and loss, personnel, and overall vision. Previous to forming Netreo in 2000, Mr. Kinsey was responsible for sales and operations at Virtual Networks. He serves as chairman to the board of directors, and is a sought-after speaker at industry events.
Frank Grillo, Executive Vice President of Marketing, Cypress Communications
As a visionary communications executive, Frank M. Grillo joined Cypress Communications in August of 2005. Frank is known for his ability to identify growth opportunities and to produce extraordinary results that make a real contribution to the bottom line of an organization. Previously, Frank worked as Senior Vice President - Business Services for Z-Tel and as Senior Vice President of Global Business Markets for MCI WorldCom, where he managed over 1,000 marketing professionals and was responsible for global business marketing strategy, including product management, pricing, marketing communications, advertising, sales training, sales support, sales engineering and online and alternate channel distribution. From 1995 to 2000 he was Vice-President of Marketing for LDDS.
Gurmeet S. Lamba, Vice President, Engineering, Clarus Systems
As VP of Engineering, Gurmeet leads product development and the strategic direction of Clarus Systems voice service management application suite as well as represents the company at industry events, including keynotes and panels on Unified Communications. Prior to joining Clarus Systems, Gurmeet was Director of Engineering at Avaya, where he led the R&D division for its Unified Communications Solutions portfolio. He was responsible for all aspects of product development, leading a team of up to 300 engineers distributed across US, Europe and Asia developing IP Telephony applications. Gurmeet managed a portfolio that accounted for more than 85M voice mailboxes deployed worldwide. At Avaya, he led the transition to IP standards based next generation Unified Messaging solutions, speech recognition & wireless based mobility applications. Previously, he was the Director of Engineering at the Octel Messaging Division in Lucent Technologies, where he was accountable for driving product development in both enterprise and service provider converged communications solutions. Additionally, Gurmeet held engineering leadership positions at AT&T Bell Labs, where he developed various enterprise telephony and networking solutions, for which he and his team were awarded the Bell Labs Presidents Award. Gurmeet received his Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology - Delhi, an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida and also completed the Executive Management Program at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.
Norm Schillaci, Principal Sales Engineer, Global Crossing
As a principal sales engineer for Global Crossing, Norm Schillaci is responsible for the conceptualization of advanced solutions that leverage Global Crossing assets in voice, data, conferencing, access, ATM, frame, managed and converged IP services . Between 2000 and 2003, he was the lead developer for Global Crossing's QoS VPN, Remote Access, Managed Services and IP Video. Before joining Global Crossing in 2000, Schillaci served as product line manager for Acterna (JDSU Test and Measurement), where he oversaw Acterna’s protocol analyzer business unit, managing well-known direct and OEM products, including FIREBERD 500/300, Netlens 3000, Spyder RMON Probes, Shomiti 100M analyzer and Network General/TTC OEM Sniffer. He also developed the industry’s first PC-based VoIP analyzer. Schillaci has more than 21 years of experience and holds 12 U.S. and international patents. He has published articles on technician automation and has held engineering and product management positions at Harris Corporation and Teleprobe Systems.
BUZZ KLEINERT, US Director of Market Operations, Unified Communications, Siemens Communications, Inc.
Buzz, based in Atlanta, Georgia, is responsible for the U.S. market with regards to OpenScape, Siemens Unified Communications portfolio. This includes solution sales support (both direct & indirect), driving product & pricing roadmaps, developing deployment models to further enable sales success, creating new strategic marketing efforts as well as establishing new Go-To-Market partnerships for continued success in this application and solution segment.
Buzz has 20 years of diversified experience in the communications industry with Motorola, Nortel Networks and most recently Siemens, since 2003. Buzz has held a variety of positions throughout his career, including Development & Manufacturing Engineering, Engineering Management, Global Operations Management, Product Marketing & Business Development, and has also been awarded 10 US Patents along the way.
Buzz holds a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech and an M.B.A. from Florida International University.
Tony Rybczynksi, Director of Strategic Enterprise Technologies, Nortel
Tony is Director of Strategic Enterprise Technologies reporting to the VP of Global Marketing and to the enterprise CTO, and has 37 years experience in convergence technologies. He has presented at numerous conferences including a keynote at the Wharton Technology Conference. He has written over 150 articles (including a monthly column in Internet Telephony magazine). In addition, he has written articles that have been published in the Financial Executive, in the European CEO and for the Wall Street Technology Association (10 times). He has contributed to two books, is a graduate of McGill and University of Alberta, and Senior Member of IEEE.
Jim Koniecki, Lead UC Solutions Manager, Dimension Data
Jim Koniecki is the Lead UC Solutions Manager at Dimension Data. For over 12 years, Jim has been architecting, designing, and deploying leading-edge IP telephony and UC solutions for companies of all sizes – from the F100 to small organizations. Jim has deep knowledge and experience with a wide range of collaboration and convergence technologies – from IP telephony design, remote site integration, and wireless to video integration, Unified Messaging, Presence, IM, and Federation. He is a certified CCVP, CCDP, CCNP, and CQS.
Jeff Griggs, Avaya, Practice Leader, Financial Services Industry
Jeff Griggs is a senior leader in Avaya'sFinancial Services Industry Practice and has over ten years of experience working in the Financial Services arena. Griggs most recently managed the Unified Communications Consulting and Solutions Integration team for Avaya. He has managed software and client integration teams, led application sales teams globally, and overseen some of the largest unified communications deployments globally. He has extensive experience managing relations between IT and line-of-business leaders. Jeff Griggs holds a degree from Michigan State University.
Christopher Briglin, Vice President, Business and Strategic Alliance, Jabra/GN US
Christopher Briglin is Vice President Business and Strategic Alliance Development) for Jabra/GN, US in Nashua, New Hampshire. He has over 20 years experience in technical sales, business development and marketing with an extensive background in a broad range of wireless technologies for infrastructure and mobile devices. Chris is responsible for evaluating and developing high growth opportunities by leveraging GN Netcom’s leadership in consumer/Bluetooth and call center headset applications. His focus includes identifying strategic partnership opportunities in the form of OEM, joint marketing, accessory partner/bundling, and/or technology licensing. He is leading global alliance development activities in the enterprise telephony market by building relationships with Microsoft, Skype and the leading IP-PBX and IP end-point OEMs.
Prior to joining GN, Chris was Director of Market Development for Nokia Enterprise Solutions Mobile Devices Unit. There he was responsible for global strategy and business development activities to extend the multi-billion dollar mobile devices business into enterprise mobility and created strategy and execution plans for entry into the converged (cellular/VoIP/VoWLAN) device market.
