come together

Nate Silver

Statistician, Author, Founder of FiveThirtyEight.com

Nate Silver has become today’s leading statistician through his innovative analyses of political polling. Honored by a series of accolades, from Time’s 100 Most Influential People to Rolling Stone’s 100 Agents of Change, Nate runs the award-winning political website FiveThirtyEight.com, where he publishes a running forecast of current elections and hot-button issues. Published in the New York Times, FiveThirtyEight.com has made Nate the public face of statistical analysis and political forecasting.

John Bowden

SVP, Enterprise Customer Care, Time Warner Cable

John Bowden is responsible for all customer care interactions for Time Warner Cable. In this capacity, John leads the enterprise level strategy and execution teams associated with technical support and customer service contacts. Prior to joining Time Warner Cable in April 2010, he was Senior Vice President, Customer Support at EarthLink. Prior positions include four years of independent consulting to both U.S. – and India-based companies, Senior Vice President – Operations for APAC Customer Services, Vice President– Consumer Sales and Service for Ameritech (now part of AT&T), and Vice President– Consumer Sales and Service for MCI.

Richard Burns

General Manager of Customer Experience, Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Richard Burns is the General Manager of Customer Experience in Commonwealth Bank’s Equities and Margin Lending division. In this role Richard is responsible for five teams including Marketing & Content, Product Management, Product Development & Innovation, Customer Insights & Analytics and User Experience (web, mobile and social). Richard also worked at E*TRADE Australia for 7.5 years and became the Head of Marketing, Product Development and Client Services. Richard has previously held various B-to-C and B-to-B Product Management and Marketing Roles in Australia and the UK.

Dave Frankland

Vice President & Research Director, Forrester Research

Dave serves Customer Intelligence Professionals. He leads a research team that is focused on helping companies better leverage customer knowledge to improve marketing performance and business strategy. Dave's team delves deeply into the dynamics of CI and specializes in areas of CI technology and services, web intelligence, social intelligence, and marketing and customer analytics.

Ben Gibson

Chief Marketing Officer, Aruba Networks

Ben Gibson brings 20 years of IT industry experience to Aruba networks, where he serves as Chief Marketing Officer. In this role, Gibson leads global marketing strategy, including Product and Solution Marketing, Corporate Communications, Brand, Demand Generation, Theater and Channel Marketing. Prior to Aruba Networks, Gibson served as Vice President of Marketing for Cisco's Data Center/Virtualization business, as well as marketing leadership roles for Cisco's Enterprise Global Marketing Solutions and Program Development and Wireless and Mobility Solutions Marketing. Prior to Cisco, Gibson served as VP of Marketing at both Meru Networks and Proxim Corporation, where he led global marketing, communications, investor relations, and channel marketing programs.

Rose Hamilton

EVP & CMO, Pet360

Rose Hamilton has two decades of experience in building direct-to-consumer multi-channel businesses, with expertise in e-commerce strategy/general management, brand building, digital/traditional direct response marketing, and consumer insights/analytics. Rose currently serves as the EVP, CMO for Pet360, leading the brand vision, customer experience, and overall business growth plans for Pet360.com, PetFoodDirect.com and NationalPetPharmacy.com.

Mathieu Horn

Founder, Joe Mobile

Mathieu Horn is the founder of Joe Mobile, the newest mobile operator in France running on the SFR network. Mathieu has worked for SFR since 1999 in various Marketing and Strategy positions before he founded Joe. He started his carrier working at Air France, first in Amsterdam then in Paris. Mathieu graduated from the ESSEC Business School in Paris in 1995.

Tim Irvine

Executive Creative Director, Acquity Group

Tim leads Acquity Group's Experience Design team, serving as the connective tissue between all offices' User Experience and Creative groups, "pointing talented people at a complex problem, stirring the pot, and helping them figure it out and make things we're really proud of." Tim has a long history of Chicago-based digital pot-stirring, from first-wave digital shop Giant Step through a long stint as SVP Group Creative Director at Arc Worldwide (Leo Burnett's marketing services arm), before leaving to lead award-winning rich media efforts for boutique firm 15letters.

Charlene Li

Founder, Altimeter Group

Charlene Li is Founder of the Altimeter Group, a research-based advisory firm that offers pragmatic strategies to help companies thrive with disruptive technologies. She is also one of the foremost experts in social media and technology as well as a consultant and thought leader on leadership, strategy, social technologies, interactive media and marketing. Before founding the Altimeter Group, Charlene was Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, and a consultant with Monitor Group. She was named by Fast Company as one of the 100 most creative people in business in 2010, and one of the most influential women in technology in 2009. In addition, she is the author of the New York Times Best Seller Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform How You Lead and co-author of the critically acclaimed best seller Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies.

Neil Ward

GM of Business Operations, Skype

Neil Ward has been GM of Business Operations at Skype Communications since 2009, where he has overseen the growth of Skype's customer base to 150 million connected users. The company was recently sold to Microsoft for $8.5 billion dollars. Prior to this, Neil held positions at BT Group in sales, marketing, and customer service as well as Virgin Media for five years where he oversaw the integration of NTL, TeleWest, and Virgin Mobile as Director of Integration.

Paul Wilmore

Managing Director of Consumer Markets, Barclaycard

Paul Wilmore heads up the Consumer Markets business for Barclaycard US, the payments business of Barclays in the U.S. In this capacity, Paul is responsible for the Barclaycard-branded card business which offers credit cards to consumers that feature low rate and rewards. Paul led the 2012 launch of Barclaycard Ring®, the first crowd-sourced credit card. Most recently, he oversaw the US Cards acquisition and business strategy at Barclaycard US. Paul has more than 20 years of financial services experience and has held various positions with Barclaycard US Marketing and US Cards.

Danielle Beeken

Director of Customer Community, SAP/SuccessFactors

Danielle Beeken is Director of Customer Community, responsible for leading the end-to-end Community strategy for SuccessFactors Cloud globally. This includes everything from community development, brand, communications, participation and engagement. Danielle brings more than 15 years of experience in high technology marketing with a focus on Human Capital Management. Danielle previously served in marketing roles at Oracle, PeopleSoft and Apple Computer focused on product, solutions and integrated marketing. She is a modern marketer focused on customer voice and engagement through social channels.

Mark Bonchek, Ph.D.

Founder and Chief Catalyst, ORBIT+Co.

As Founder and Chief Catalyst of ORBIT+Co., Mark helps organizations and their leaders realize the full potential of social technologies. Since earning Harvard's first doctorate on the topic of social media in 1997, Mark has been a pioneer in creating online and offline communities for such organizations as IBM, the Economist, and the U.S. Department of Education. Most recently, Mark was the SVP of Communities and Networks for Sears Holdings. He is also a regular columnist for Harvard Business Review on business in a social age.

Christine Crandell

President, New Business Strategies

As President of New Business Strategies, an international B2B customer experience strategy consulting firm, Christine leads client services teams serving customers worldwide. Widely published in BusinessWeek, Forbes, B2B Marketing, Investor Business Daily, CMO.com, Sandhill.com, Huffington Post and a blogger for Forbes.com, she has keynoted and spoken on building customer-centric organizations, improving sales and marketing ROI, actionable buyers' journeys, and customer experience strategy. Her thought leadership has led to recognition in 2012 as one of the top twenty women in Sales and Marketing by the SLMA, one of the top 15 influential leaders in sales and lead management, one of the top 15 leaders in social selling, and one of Silicon Valley's Most Influential Women by the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal.

Joe Clarke

Distinguished Services Engineer, Cisco

Joe has contributed to network management products and technologies by finding and fixing bugs, as well as implementing maintenance and troubleshooting components in Cisco Prime, Cisco's flagship network management suite. He is one of the founders and architects of the Lithium-based community platform, Tech Zone, the standard for collaboration and knowledge management by Cisco technical support. Joe is a top-rated speaker at Cisco's annual user conference, CiscoLive!, and a certified Cisco Internetworking Expert, Java Programmer, and VMware Professional. He has authored technical documents on Cisco network management products and technologies and has been published in the "Network-Embedded Management and Applications: Understanding Programmable Networking Infrastructure" and the Cisco Press book, "Tcl Scripting for Cisco IOS."

Cathy Choi

Director of Social Media, Sephora

Cathy Choi helps Sephora define and propel its Social Media presence in the retail and beauty world as their US Director of Social Media. Cathy's experience includes over 12 years of marketing, stemming from a start-up background with an emphasis in online advertising and marketing. Before Sephora, Cathy was with Lycos, Inc. for six years, managing their Direct Marketing Business Development efforts.

Darren Choo

VP of Marketing & Social CRM, StarHub

Darren has 14 years of experience at StarHub and has seen the exciting journey of the evolution of social media in the company. His broad-based experience servicing different departments across the organization from his Customer Insight, CRM functions such as analytics & customer lifecycle management to cross-product bundling, helped him to spearhead social CRM initiatives across StarHub.

Jason Duncan

Manager of WW Consumer Support Forums, HP

Jason Duncan is Hewlett-Packard's Manager of Worldwide Consumer Support Forums which covers seven languages and over 75 million visits annually. He oversees the recruitment and growth of customer and employee expert programs, social media response agents, forum operations, and the annual HP Social Media Summit. In his previous role as Business Strategist for HP's Global Digital Support organization, he was instrumental in setting web-based support strategies for HP Consumer & SMB customers. Jason has over 19 years of HP experience and has spent his entire career in customer-facing support and sales roles.

Jen Geddy

Director of Customer Experience Management, Sony Electronics

As Director of Customer Experience Management at Sony Electronics, Jen Geddy leads the charge in defining the post-sales customer experience, from customer support to retention marketing, with the goal of encouraging the customer to deepen their engagement with their Sony Electronics product(s) and the SONY brand. Jen has 15 years' experience in marketing and CRM and has received several awards at Sony for innovation and leading cross-functional teams and was inducted to the Sony Samurai Society.

Monty Hamilton

Director of Digital Operations, Telstra

Monty Hamilton leads digital operations for Telstra—Australia's leading telecommunications and information services company. Telstra's digital activities span across consumer, business, enterprise and government segments. Monty is responsible for Telstra.com, mobile apps, social media and user experience. Monty is motivated by the design and delivery of digital experiences that empower customers and has over 15 years experience in digital, project management, sales & marketing in the banking, finance and telecommunications industries. Prior to Telstra, Monty led the digital design, delivery and operations of UBank, Australia's leading direct bank.

Rick Haring

Director of Digital Engagement, Verizon

With telecommunications experience across the business—operations, sales, marketing, and strategic planning, Rick was uniquely qualified to lead the team within Verizon whose focus is to develop a website experience for existing customers that delivers account management, product engagement, self-serve tools and social media communities. Rick’s team is responsible for the “My Verizon” site experience, UX/UI interface, support content and all aspects of social strategy and advocacy. Maximizing and integrating these digital experiences has enabled his team to cost effectively extend the reach of the Verizon brand and messages, drive sales, and find new ways to engage the distracted and empowered customer.

Bill Johnston

Director of Online Community, Autodesk

Bill Johnston is Autodesk's Director of Online Community & Strategic Content, where he oversees the company's community, social media, ideation and content initiatives related to customer help & nurturing. Prior to Autodesk, Bill was Dell's Director Online Community & Social Media, where he oversaw global online community & social media strategy, including IdeaStorm and the Dell TechCenter community. Bill previously served as Chief Community Officer with Forum One Networks where he directed several pioneering social media events and research projects. Bill has also held previous senior positions with Autodesk and helped launch TechRepublic.com in '99. Bill is currently advising a small group of startups, including Brandle. Bill founded the Online Community Roundtable networking group in 1995.

Catherine Kaiser

Sr. Manager of Online Community and Social Media Programs, Webroot

Catherine Kaiser leads social strategy for Webroot's home, mobile and enterprise business. Catherine's team is responsible for all aspects of customer engagement, including management of the Webroot Community—as well as two successful advocate programs and ten social media channels. Her work has been quoted in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, MSN Money, SmartMoney.com, and the book "Turning Brand Advocates into a Powerful Marketing Force to Drive Leads and Sales." Prior to Webroot, Catherine was Director of Marketing at Quizzle.com, a start-up focused on credit and debt management.

Ben Kay

Head of Digital Strategy & Social, EE

With over 10 years in the telecom sector, Ben brings a wealth of experience from a variety of disciplines, from marketing, operational management, customer experience to strategy. Ben is now accountable for leading the strategic direction of EE's digital experience to enhance customers' already increasingly digital lives. With the daily emergence of new digital technologies, and customer expectations ever increasing, Ben is on a mission to find ways to push the boundaries of the industry, to deliver a best a world class digital experience.

David Lang

Sr. Director of Customer Support, Services, and Training, YouSendIt

David Lang is the Sr. Director of Customer Support, Services, and Training at YouSendIt serving a large and diverse customer base of fortune 500 enterprise and individual professional users. David has 15 years industry experience with a background in providing technical support and account management for major consumer brands. He has deep experience in developing self-help support sites and is currently leveraging Lithium to build an elegant content delivery platform to meet YouSendIt's support, training, and community objectives.

Michael Maoz

VP & Distinguished Analyst, Gartner Research

Michael Maoz is a Research Vice President and Distinguished Analyst in Gartner Research. His research focuses on customer strategies and technologies, with an emphasis on the CRM customer service disciplines, collaborative customer strategies, social media strategies, and cloud-based CRM applications and analytics. Michael has 25 years of international experience, with 18 years in CRM applications, contact centers/customer engagement hubs, social CRM, field service, SaaS and European market dynamics.

Tim Notte

Manager of Customer Technology Systems, Myspace

Born and raised in southwestern Ontario, Canada, Tim moved to California in 2003 for the weather, and to complete his education. He graduated from CSUF with a degree in Business Administration, with a focus in Operations Management. In 2007, Tim began working for Myspace and is now the Manager of Customer Technology Systems as part of the Customer Experience Team. He oversees and manages all customer facing technologies for Customer Experience, as well as back office application administration.

Kenneth Refsgaard

Manager of Online Support, TomTom

Kenneth's career has encompassed support, technical writing, content management, project management and community management. He was the driving force behind the launch of TomTom Discussions, the first official TomTom community, in March 2011, and currently manages the team responsible for TomTom's community and support website. As a keen advocate for social he is deeply interested in the best practices that power successful communities.

Ashish Seth

Co-Founder, CloudSquads

Ashish is admittedly "obsessed" with helping enterprises make their business social, measurable & actionable. He brings 15+ years of experience in enterprise software having played leadership roles in product management, engineering & consulting—with a passion to help build software and solutions that delight customers. His expertise spans social media, online marketing, analytics, CRM, and collaboration systems having worked at Sun Microsystems, PeopleSoft/Oracle, Bearingpoint, and Bay Area start-ups that include EmailLabs and Rearden Commerce.

Gonzalo Salgueiro

Technical Leader, Cisco

Gonzalo Salgueiro, CCIE® No. 4541, is a Technical Leader in the area of Unified Communications at Cisco Systems. As a member of the Global Technical Center (GTC), he drives engineering excellence and customer success as a senior advisor and escalation point for many of Cisco's largest and most critical Unified Communications networks. In addition to his technical role, Gonzalo is also one of the principal contributors to the collaborative vision and strategy of the GTC transformational initiative and a lead architect of the Tech Zone project.

Archana Shrotriya

AE Web Operations Manager, National Instruments

As a senior manager of the Web Support team at National Instruments, Archana is responsible for delivering effective self-service and support experiences to our valued customers across the globe. Archana has worked in many different roles for 18 years at National Instruments including the Engineering Leadership Program, Customer Training Programs and Web Development. In her current role, she is responsible for driving customer success from self-service on the web to agent assisted service and support.

Jared Young

Sr. Director of Consumer Markets, Barclaycard

Jared Young is the business owner for Barclaycard Ring. Barclaycard Ring has been lauded as the world's first social credit card. Jared led the team that pioneered the innovation and brought this unique crowdsourced credit card to market. Jared has been with Barclaycard US for nearly 9 years. Prior to this role Jared worked in various Marketing Analytics functions. He also worked previously at Advanta Corp, NextCard Inc, Walker Digital and First USA Bank (currently JP Morgan Chase).

Rob Tarkoff

President & CEO, Lithium

As President and CEO, Rob is responsible for the strategic direction and corporate vision at Lithium. Rob joined Lithium from Adobe Systems, where he served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Digital Enterprise Solutions business unit that had annual revenue in excess of $1 billion. Before Adobe, Rob held several executive positions at EMC Corporation, Documentum, Inc. and Commerce One.

Mike Betzer

SVP of Lithium Social Web, Lithium

Mike is responsible for Lithium’s overall product marketing group and leads product strategy for Lithium's Social Web business. Most recently, Mike was CEO of SocialDynamx, an enterprise social customer care platform acquired by Lithium in October, 2012. An experienced executive in Contact Center and CRM, Mike's previous work experience includes MCI, Siebel OnDemand (acquired by Oracle), and Convergys.

Lyle Fong

Chief Strategist & Co-Founder

As Co-Founder and Chief Strategist, Lyle oversees Lithium's products and strategic direction and serves on Lithium's Board of Directors. A serial entrepreneur, Lyle also founded two other companies including Gamers.com which was the the No. 1 trafficked independent gaming portal as measured by Nielsen. As the CTO of Gamers.com, Lyle and his team learned how to build a consumer website with millions of users and how to use gaming mechanics to build vibrant communities. When Dell and Sony showed interest in using the technologies to build their own corporate communities, Lyle spun Lithium out of Gamers.com to serve the enterprise market.

Katy Keim

CMO, Lithium

Katy serves as Lithium’s Chief Marketing Officer, leading all strategic marketing activities for the company including branding, positioning, communications, go-to-market strategy, and customer acquisition programs. Prior to joining Lithium, Katy was the EVP of Marketing at ServiceSource. Under her leadership, ServiceSource established itself as the market leader in delivering revenue results for blue-chip technology brands with its deep customer analytics and insights. Katy’s previous experience includes VP of Ecommerce at Intraware, where she participated in growing the company from an early stage concept to $100M+ in revenue and ultimately, an IPO. Her team was responsible for equipping a 100+-person sales team with lead generation programs, product marketing, and training for over 50 partners, including Sun, Oracle, and IBM.

Sunil Rajasekar

SVP of Engineering, Lithium

As SVP of Engineering, Sunil oversees core development and delivery of Lithium's enterprise social customer platform. Sunil is a seasoned technology executive who brings more than 15 successful years of enterprise, small business and consumer software experience. Prior to joining Lithium, Sunil served as VP of Engineering, Operations and Program Management at Intuit Financial Services and held a variety of senior roles in the Intuit Small Business and Central Technology groups. Previously, Sunil worked at Oracle, Cisco and several startups.

Joe Cothrel

Chief Community Officer, Lithium

For more than a decade, Joe has helped large organizations use social technologies to drive measureable business value. In working with more than 300 companies, he has helped plan and launch successful social support efforts in telecommunications, computer hardware, computer software, e-retail, and many other industries. His previous roles include serving as head of research for a community management services firm, and as a consultant and researcher in management consulting practices at Andersen and Ernst & Young.

Dave Evans

VP of Social Strategy, Lithium

Dave is the VP of Social Strategy at Lithium, based in Austin, TX. Dave is also the author of best-selling "Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day," as well as "Social Media Marketing: The Next Generation of Business Engagement." Dave is a regular columnist for ClickZ on social technology and customer care, published in both the US and Asia.

Vincent Baskerville

Product Owner, Lithium

Vincent Baskerville is the Product Owner for Lithium's Mobile Products. In this role, Vince tracks market trends and customer needs to help define, refine, design, and drive Lithium's products for mobile devices like smart phones and tablets. Vince joined Lithium in 2012 from TripLingo, a mobile language translation tool company he co-founded. Vince has notable experience with mobile products, is a skilled user experience designer (he's been organizing the Atlanta area's user experience meet up group for a while), and has provided a range of consulting engagements and public speeches on product design, usability, and software development methodology. You can follow him @whoisvince.

Leslie Jordan

Sr. Product Manager, Lithium

Leslie is the Senior Product Manager for Lithium Social Web. She was a part of the team acquired by Lithium from Social Dynamx, where she was the Product Manager as well. Before that, she led Product Management at Socialware, which provides industry-leading software and services for organizations to securely and compliantly market through social media. Leslie has a wide range of experience with enterprise software having served product management, sales engineering, and development roles at IBM, Lombardi Software, and Socialware.

Morten Moeller

VP of Product Management, Lithium

Morten leads product management, user experience and product design team for Lithium Social Web. He was a part of the team acquired by Lithium from Social Dynamx where he owned Product Management and Product Design as well. Before that, he served as lead product strategist for IBM’s business process management (BPM) software division after the acquisition of Lombardi Software. Morten was responsible for product design and user experience at Lombardi for more than 10 years leading up to and after the IBM acquisition in 2010.

Michael Puhala

VP of Worldwide Sales Engineering, Lithium

Michael Puhala runs the worldwide sales engineering team at Lithium and is responsible for ensuring that companies understand the full breadth of the Lithium solution and how it can address their business goals. Prior to Lithium, Michael held executive positions at a number of innovative technology companies including Clickability, OpenPages, and Interwoven.

Jeff Saenger

VP of Social Strategy Consulting, Lithium

Jeff Saenger is Vice President of Lithium's social strategy consulting team, where he helps companies and their connected customers work together to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. Jeff is a Silicon Valley veteran who has built and operated global service teams at both early stage and established software companies. Jeff is an author and active community volunteer.

Doug Schroeder

Lead Software Engineer, Lithium

As a Lead Software Engineer on the Lithium Development Network (LDN) team, Doug plays a key role in initiatives that expand our ability to customize and extend the Lithium community platform. Doug has been with Lithium since 2007. He has been on three core development teams and was a member of our Professional Services group, helping with deep integrations during that time.

Justin Schuster

VP of Product Marketing, Lithium

Justin Schuster is VP of Product Marketing at Lithium. Prior to joining Lithium, Justin held senior marketing and product roles at Symantec, EMC, and MarketTools.

Jeff Spitulnik

VP of Products, Lithium

Jeff Spitulnik is head of community products at Lithium. He joined Lithium in April 2012 from IBM, where he was part of the BigFix product management team building innovative endpoint management and security products now in use on tens of millions of computers and mobile devices around the world. Jeff has a wide range of experience innovating in social, consumer, mobile, and enterprise web technologies having served product management leadership roles at BigFix (acquired by IBM), Documentum (acquired by EMC), Razorfish, and Borders Group. As part of his graduate research at the University of Michigan, Jeff studied the design and use of collaborative technologies and technology-enabled communities of practice. Jeff is an avid soccer player and youth soccer and lacrosse coach based in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can follow him on Twitter at @spitulnik.

Izabela Usarek

Product Owner, Lithium

Izabela is the Product Owner for Lithium Communities, where she defines the strategy and vision for features and workflows that engage the passions and capture the knowledge of the millions of customers that visit Lithium-powered communities. Prior to joining Lithium, Izabela worked in customer service, internationalization management, viral loop innovation, moderation and QA engineering roles at Bebo, where she also got her first taste of community management and the 'social customer'. Izabela freelanced as a designer on print and web based brand identity projects after graduating from the Creative Advertising program at the University of Texas in Austin. She owes her career in tech to the emergence of social networks there in 2005, where she immediately became an avid user of social media.

Jeff Yeldezian

Product Owner, Lithium

Jeff is the Product Owner for the Lithium Developer Network (LDN) and is responsible for making Lithium's platform more open and extensible. Jeff works closely with developers in customer and partner organizations to support their development initiatives with a combination of new Studio and REST API features, productivity tools, documentation, and training. Jeff and his team also support Lithium's third-party integration strategy.

Kirk Yokomizo

Co-Founder & VP of Engineering, Lithium

Kirk currently heads the Lithium Labs team in Engineering, focusing on future vision and emerging technologies. Kirk has over fifteen years of experience building and growing social customer communities. Since the inception of Lithium Technologies he has managed and built teams in customer success, professional services, engineering, technical operations, and IT. Prior to Lithium, Kirk helped build the platform for Gamers.com and the Gamers.com message boards which eventually would become the seed technology and inspiration for Lithium’s Social Customer Experience platform.

Michael Yang

Co-Founder & Product Owner, Lithium