Seth Grimes, Principal Consultant, Alta Plana Corporation
Seth Grimes is an analytics strategist with Washington DC based Alta Plana Corporation. He consults on data management and analysis systems for public- and private-sector clients internationally. He is also contributing editor and Breakthrough Analysis columnist for Intelligent Enterprise magazine, founding chair of the Text Analytics Summit, and a leading industry analyst covering text analytics. He writes and speaks on business intelligence, data management and analysis systems, text mining, visualization, and related topics.
Fern Halper, Partner, Hurwitz & Associates
Dr. Fern Halper has over twenty years of experience in data analysis, business analysis, and strategy development. She has held key positions at AT&T Bell Laboratories and Lucent Technologies and directed strategy and product line planning for Lucent's Internet Software Unit. She has also held a variety of marketing and product management positions with AT&T's shared infrastructure services, including its Network Commerce Service.
Fern spent eight years at Bell Laboratories leading the development of innovative approaches and systems to analyze marketing and operational data. Fern has published numerous articles on data mining and information technology. Fern received her BA from Colgate University and her Ph.D. from Texas A&M University. She is a co-author of the second edition of SOA for Dummies.
David White, Senior Research Analyst, Aberdeen Group
David has 20 years experience in the software industry, including roles in development, systems engineering, consulting, product management, product marketing and industry marketing. His career includes roles at Kewill Systems, Data General, Oracle Corporation, Dimensional Insight, Cognos and Progress Software.
At the Aberdeen Group, David is a Senior Research Analyst in the Business Intelligence practice with a major focus on understanding the business value derived from the use of Business Intelligence (BI), and how organizations use BI to drive strategic and operational change. David has a BS in computer science from Hertfordshire University and an MBA from the Cranfield School of Management.
Dr. Holger Kisker, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research
Holger came to Forrester from SAP AG, where he headed the energy business unit, one of SAP's most successful verticals, responsible for the global product and partner strategy, user community, and sales enablement. Prior to this he held various positions at SAP in development, marketing, solution management, and business development and was vice president in SAP's global service partner group, where he was responsible for the partner strategy across all industries for SAP's largest service partner.
Before joining SAP, Holger worked as assistant professor at Toyota Technological Institute in Nagoya, Japan, where he developed new data recording media that is used today in magneto-optic recording discs.
James Taylor, Founder and CEO, Decision Management Solutions
James was previously a Vice President at Fair Isaac Corporation where he developed and refined the concept of enterprise decision management or EDM. The best known proponent of the approach, James helped create the emerging EDM market and is a passionate advocate of decision management.
James has experience in all aspects of the design, development, marketing and use of advanced technology including CASE tools, project planning and methodology tools as well as platform development in PeopleSoft’s R&D team and consulting with Ernst and Young. He has consistently worked to develop approaches, tools and platforms that others can use to build more effective information systems.
James is an active consultant, speaker and author. He writes several blogs (JT on EDM and James Taylor's Decision Management) as well as a Decision Management channel on the BI Network. His articles appear in industry magazines and on popular websites. He has contributed chapters to "The Decision Model" (forthcoming), "The Business Rules Revolution:Doing Business The Right Way" and "Business Intelligence Implementation : Issues and Perspectives", and is the co-author of "Smart (Enough) Systems: How to Deliver Competitive Advantage by Automating Hidden Decisions" (Prentice Hall, 2007) with Neil Raden.
