Geoff Colvin

Senior Editor-in-Large, Fortune Magazine

Respected for his brilliant commentary on the most significant trends in business, the acclaimed journalist Geoffrey Colvin provides context to today’s biggest news stories and economic events while he arms business leaders with important perspectives to help them respond to an evolving marketplace.

Colvin is the author of The Upside of the Downturn: Ten Management Strategies to Prevail in the Recession and Thrive in the Aftermath (June, 2009). His recently released Talent is Overrated: What Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else (2008) fortifies the idea that high performers are made, not born.

Brent Adamson

Senior Director, Sales Executive Council, Corporate Executive Board

Brent Adamson is Senior Director of Member Advisory Services for the Sales, Marketing, and Communications Practice at the Corporate Executive Board. In that role, Brent facilitates a wide range of executive-level discussions around the world for Fortune500/Global 1000 executives in Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service, including multi-company retreats, single-company working sessions, global sales meetings, keynote presentations, and hands-on best practice workshops.

Brent joined CEB from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, where he received his MBA in 2003. Prior to that, he served on the faculty of Michigan State University as a Professor of German and Applied Linguistics. In addition to his MBA, Brent holds a BA in political science from the University of Michigan along with MAs in political science and German, and a PhD in applied linguistics from the University of Texas.

The Corporate Executive Board provides authoritative and timely guidance to enable business professionals to take decisive action. Our insights and global network help organizations work smarter and faster and deliver superior outcomes.

John Aiello

Co-Founder and CEO, SAVO Group

John co-founded SAVO, the leading provider of on-demand, collaborative Sales Enablement software. He’s spent years aligning Marketing with Sales to deliver the best sales materials, tools, insights and expertise to sellers when they need it most. Helping some of the best companies in the world such as IBM, Morgan Stanley, GE, Staples, Citi and others drive more effective sales conversations.

John is an evangelist for promoting the importance and the business value of Sales Enablement. He is a very frequent speaker for the American Marketing Association, Kellogg, University of Chicago, University of Notre Dame and many other institutions on topics related to sales/marketing effectiveness.

While a classically-educated and trained marketer, John has spent his entire career at the crossroads of marketing and sales, developing and implementing innovative ways for these two critical disciplines to work together more effectively and efficiently to move the revenue needle.

Heidi Castagna

Director of Sales Enablement, Seagate Technology

Heidi brings more than 15 years of sales and marketing experience to her current role, leading WW Sales training, communication, and automation efforts for Seagate Technology. She is passionate about driving success for business and people through a focus on the simple things: communicate for clarity, listen for understanding, and whole-heartedly believing in success.

Heidi holds a bachelor’s degree in Business-Marketing from Chico State University, and a Masters in Business Administration from Santa Clara University.

Rick Froehlich

Vice President and General Manager, Dell OEM Solutions

Rick has led this business for Dell since 2005. OEM Solutions is a Global business focused on delivery of hardware and services sold to customers that integrate Dell product into their solutions. Dell OEM Solution’s focus is on embedded systems and the hardware appliances market.

During Rick’s 9 year career at Dell, he has run Dell’s PowerConnect Network switching business in Product Group, and also started and ran the Dell|EMC partnership.

Prior to Dell, Rick spent 6 years in management consulting at A. T. Kearney, running large strategy and operations improvement engagements. Rick began his career in the Finance Development Program at Procter & Gamble, where during his 5 years he managed the Tide Brand and the laundry category R&D investments.

Rick received his MBA from Washington University at St. Louis and his B.A. from Principia College in Illinois. Rick resides in Austin, Texas with his wife Liz and daughters Sophia and Eva.

Jeffrey J. Fulgham

Chief Marketing Officer, GE Water & Process Technologies

Jeff Fulgham is Chief Marketing Officer of GE Water & Process Technologies. In this role, he is responsible for global strategic marketing initiatives on existing and emerging markets, and leads the business intelligence, regional segmentation, and commercial training functions for the business. Before assuming his current role in 2006, Jeff was the General Manager of Global Marketing.

A 28-year veteran in the water industry, Jeff began his career in 1981 in industrial water treatment chemical sales at Nalco. In 1989, he joined Betz Laboratories, Inc. as a field salesman in the Power Division and was promoted to Corporate Sales Manager for Power Generation in 1994. From 1998 to 2002, he held positions of increasing responsibility within the commercial and corporate sales organizations.

Jeff has been a key speaker at numerous industry events, including UN International Water Conference, Goldman Sachs Global Water Conference, US-India Business Council for Green India, NASA Environmental & Energy Conference, and Executive Energy Forum. Jeff was recognized as a member of the Marketing Dream Team by Event Marketer Magazine in 2007. In 2008, he was recognized with the Ex Award by Event Marketer Magazine for his leadership driving GE’s World Water Tour. He was also awarded multiple GE “Proof Not Promises” awards for delivering enhanced customer value.

Jeff holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Ohio State University. He resides in Doylestown, Pennsylvania with his family.

Jim Higgins

President and Co-Founder, By Appointment Only

The President and Co-Founder of BAO, Jim's vision of providing companies with a streamlined approach to generating revenue through new business fueled his creation and development of BAO. Today he is responsible for BAO's strategic direction, and has led the efforts in growing BAO to a 200-person company serving over 150 Clients. Jim brings 16 years of experience in sales, business operations, and management to his current role. Prior to BAO, Jim held leadership positions at Hyperion, KPMG, Grant Thorton and American Management Systems. In addition to his professional success at BAO, Jim is committed to entrepreneurship, serving as a member of the prestigious Young Entrepreneurs Organization. Jim received a B.A. in Economics from The College of William and Mary.

Sharon Little

Director, Global Field Communications, VMware, Inc.

As Director of Global Field Communications at VMware, Sharon Little is responsible for driving a broad range of communications initiatives on behalf of the senior field leadership team. Her role includes acting as a liaison between the 3000-person field organization and the rest of VMware, while ensuring the field organization receives communication that is high-value, consumable and actionable. Since joining VMware in January of 2008, Sharon has developed an infrastructure for field communications that includes a high impact blend of audience-friendly communication vehicles. These include a portal, a weekly blog, quarterly radio shows, Kickoff, Club and more.

Sharon’s work in field communications is inspired by more than 15 years working in areas that span both Sales and Marketing. She has spent the majority of her career working at software companies, including Hyperion, Cadence, and ASK. Sharon knows what it’s like to carry a quota and manage a sales team. She has in-depth experience in inside sales, sales operations, field marketing and lead generation. In 1995, Sharon established The Inside Advantage, a consulting firm with clients including Palm, Remedy, iPass, Oracle, 3Com, Computer Curriculum and Synopsys to name just a few.

Brian McGuire

Communications Director, GE Energy Services

Brian directs all communications activities for customers, media, employees, and communities. As an engineer turned marketer, Brian firmly believes that process discipline and Lean Six Sigma are as home in the Communications department as on the factory floor. He has spent his career in process engineering, sales, marketing, and communications. This breadth of experience gives Brian a unique perspective on the gaps which can exist in a company’s ability to tell its story across the spectrum of high level brand positioning and one-on-one conversations with buyers.

In his current role with GE, Brian’s mission is to help bring a complete Company story together that resonates consistently with internal and external audiences in executive presentations, ads, sales calls, and backyard barbecues.

Kenneth Powell

VP, Sales Learning & Performance, ADP Major Accounts

Kenneth Powell is Vice-President, Sales Learning & Performance with the Major Account business unit of Automatic Data Processing, one of the world’s largest providers of business process outsourcing solutions. His mission is “Making Good Sales People Great” and he has spent his entire professional career dedicated to that goal.

Ken has held positions in sales, sales leadership, sales operations, marketing and sales training. Currently, as the Vice-President, Sales Learning & Performance, Ken is responsible for the vision and execution of the overall sales learning strategy for a $2 billion business unit consisting of 1,500 sales associates in one of the premier business to business sales forces in the United States. He holds a BA in History from the Ramapo College of NJ, an MBA in Technology Management from Stevens Institute of Technology and is completing his business coaching certification at Corporate Coach U. His work has been showcased by a variety of outlets including the Corporate Executive Board, Selling Power Magazine and The Aberdeen Group, to name a few.

Wendy Reed

Founder and CEO, InfoMentis

As the Founder and CEO of InfoMentis, Wendy uses her entrepreneurial drive to help clients change the way they interact with customers and prospects and continues to be a catalyst for InfoMentis' leadership within the consulting and performance improvement space.

Starting her career in Information Technology with Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting), Wendy went on to hold sales, marketing and sales management positions with organizations such as MSA (which later became Dun & Bradstreet Software), Viasoft and Clarus, as well as acquiring valuable customer experience during her time with Hayes Microcomputer Products. Wendy has been instrumental in managing and mentoring some of the industry's top sales professionals. As a prominent industry speaker, Wendy is regularly asked to speak at events such as Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference, Oracle's Worldwide Leadership Forum, and is a regular speaker at ATDC's Brown Bag Lunches, Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals Events, Technology Executive Round Table Events, TAG's Entrepreneurial Forums, WIT Events, IHRIM, Global Executive Woman and High Tech CEO Council.

Additionally, Wendy continues to be recognized by organizations such as American Business Women's Association Express Network as a 2008 Phenomenal Woman, named as one of Inc Magazine's Fastest Growing Companies, Ernst & Young as the 2006 Entrepreneur of the Year, WIT (Women In Technology) as the 2006 Woman of the Year, Turknett Leadership Group as the recipient of the 2006 Leadership Character Award (Company Category), Catalyst Magazines - Top 50 Entrepreneur in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008, TAG (Technology Association of Georgia) - Excalibur Award Finalist in 2005, Metro Atlanta's Chamber of Commerce - 2004 Small Business Person of Year Award Finalist, Georgia Trend Magazine – 40 Under 40 Georgia's Brightest Stars in 2002 and Clarkson University - Entrepreneurial Success in 2001.

Most recently, Wendy wrote a book entitled Selling for the Long Run, which provides the key principles for acquiring and maintaining satisfied, repeat-buying customers.

Wendy received a bachelor's degree in computer-based management with a minor in communications from Clarkson University in 1984.

Bradley Samargya

Corporate Senior Vice President and Chief Learning Officer, CA Employee Education

Bradley J. Samargya is responsible for worldwide training activities for CA employees and its partners. Since joining CA in 2006 as the first-ever Chief Learning Officer for the company, Brad has led a complete reengineering of the employee education organization to improve the quality and adoption level of training programs. CA’s commitment to making training a #1 priority supported Brad taking the learning team from 13 members to a high-impact staff of 137 training professionals supporting 13,000+ sales, technology services, R&D, customer support and corporate personnel.

Brad has lead a number of initiatives including the launch of more than 100 role-based training plans tied to performance management with tight alignment to global leaders in sales, channels, services, technical support, product development, finance and admin and IT. He was also responsible for a revamped global new hire and on-boarding program and the establishment of a centralized infrastructure including implementation of new learning management system with global support and help desk. In addition to a new LMS, he supported the successful implementations of SAP, virtual Web classroom, collaboration sites, application simulations and other applications. Brad recently accepted responsibility for CA Education, our for-profit customer training group.

Prior to joining CA, Brad moved from Group Vice President/Vice President, Siebel University/Siebel Support Renewals to Group Vice President, Siebel University, responsible for customer, partner and employee education at one of the fastest growing companies in the history of IT.

Brad earned a Bachelor of Science degree with High Honors in accounting from Pennsylvania State University. He was a Certified Public Accountant, State of Ohio. Brad is currently a member of Social Learning Executive Council.

Joe Terry

CEO, Corporate Visions Inc

Joe Terry is Chief Executive Officer of Corporate Visions, responsible for driving the company to become the recognized category leader in the Sales and Marketing Enablement space. Joe’s mission as CEO is “building a world class organization that changes the lives of his team, community and customers.” Joe brings with him over 20 years of experience in sales, sales management, marketing, operations and executive management from companies such as Workstream, Kronos, PeopleSoft, Ventaso and Pacific Medical. In addition, he spent five years in Senior Level Sales Management positions at Kronos, with the most recent being VP of Global Sales for the Talent Management Division.

Recently, Joe has built a new leadership team and led the company to record growth in 2008, 2009 and year to date.     

Joe studied Marketing at California State University, Hayward, earned a B.A. in Management from the University of Phoenix and has additional education from the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. Additionally, Joe played middle linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks.

Tim Riesterer

CMO and SVP Strategic Consulting, Corporate Visions Inc

Tim co-developed the Customer Message Management approach for creating more customer-relevant, sales-ready Marketing, Communications and Sales Support. He has lead Customer Message Management initiatives for world-class companies such as American Express, Manpower, Caterpillar, FedEx, ADP, AmerisourceBergen, HP, Mastercard and others.

Tim is the co-author of Customer Message Management: Increasing Marketing’s Impact on Selling (AMA/Thomson July 2006) and the CMO and SVP of Strategic Consulting for Corporate Visions Inc. He has 20+ years of experience in strategic consulting services, executive marketing and sales, advertising and communications with in-depth knowledge in message development and delivery methods.