Keynote Speakers
Mark Bishof
Executive Vice President and General Manager,
Software Business Unit
Macrovision Corporation
Mark Bishof, executive vice president of the Software Business Unit at Macrovision, is responsible for leading sales, services and engineering in the independent software providers and enterprise IT markets. Bishof was previously the executive vice president of sales and services worldwide for Macrovision.
Bishof is a software and management consulting industry veteran and brings a diverse background in selling and delivering enterprise integration and technology solutions for Global 2000 customers.
Prior to joining Macrovision, Bishof held executive positions at IBM, including vice president of worldwide industry solutions sales and vice president of worldwide sales for WebSphere Business Integration. Bishof was brought into IBM as part of the IBM acquisition of CrossWorlds Software, where he was senior vice president of global sales and services.
Prior to CrossWorlds, Bishof was a partner at Deloitte Consulting in the Global Telecommunications & Media practice. He has also worked as an associate with Booz-Allen Hamilton and as a consultant to Warburg Pincus in their Information Technology and Communications practice. Bishof serves on the Board of Directors for Solstice Software and holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland.
Richard Davis
Managing Director,
Needham & Company
Richard Davis, Managing Director, Needham & Company Mr. Davis has over 22 years of research experience. He joined Needham & Co. as Managing Director in March 2000. His previous affiliations include Tucker Anthony, where he was a Managing Director and launched the firm's Internet enterprise software coverage. He was a Senior Vice President and Director of Research at Rauscher Pierce, where he established the firm's telecom coverage. He was the fifth partner and 20th employee at Wessels, Arnold & Henderson. He began his career in 1984 at Equitable Securities. He has an A.B. from Davidson College and an MBA from Vanderbilt University. He is fluent in Basic, COBOL, FORTRAN and APL.
Nilofer Merchant
CEO,
Rubicon Consulting
Nilofer Merchant is a consultant, writer, conference speaker and the CEO and founder of Rubicon Consulting, a strategy and marketing consultancy designed specifically for the needs of tech companies. She and her team of principals and staff have launched nearly 100 products, created five developer platforms, designed 18 channel vendor programs, run numerous user influencer marketing initiatives and defined more than 30 new markets.
By the time Rubicon was founded in 1999, Merchant had accrued 15+ years of operational experience in key leadership positions at technology firms such as Apple, Autodesk and GoLive (later acquired by Adobe). She uses her expertise to design industry-leading go-to-market programs, and has won awards from CRN, VAR Business and the Marketing Association in both marketing and channel development. Through her many successes (and even her losses), Nilofer has developed a multidisciplinary approach for assessing business situations clearly, applying critical wisdom, and defining a strategic direction.
Merchant and her team of consultants are trusted advisors to a wide range of Silicon Valley firms such as Adobe, Autodesk, Genesys, Handmark, Hitachi Data Systems, HP, Logitech, Symantec, VMWare and others. Merchant has been published in AdAge, Chief Marketer, MarketingProfs, The Pragmatic Marketer, RainToday, SandHill.com, WITI's Savvy Magazine and other publications.
She holds an MBA from Santa Clara University, a BS in Economics from University of San Francisco, and is a certified Instructor of Facilitative Leadership. Rubicon Consulting can be found on the Internet at www.rubiconconsulting.com. Ms. Merchant blogs at www.winmarkets.com.
Wendy Perilli
Director,
SMB Product Marketing
VMWare
With over 16 years in marketing and sales, Wendy Perilli has broad experience in the high tech business. Prior to joining VMware, she was senior director of marketing at Akimbi Systems where she focused on channel and global marketing programs. During her five years at Mercury, where she was a director of marketing, Wendy managed teams and led a variety of initiatives across channel marketing, product management, and Americas marketing (campaign director for the region). Wendy's background includes sales and marketing positions with companies such as IBM, 3Com, and Adaptec, as well as smaller startup organizations. Her skill set spans sales, product management, corporate and campaign marketing, channel management, business development, as well as OEM, SI and ISV alliances marketing. Wendy holds a bachelor's degree in business and quantitative studies from San Jose State, and an MBA from Santa Clara University.
Michael Sippey
VP Product Management,
Six Apart
Michael Sippey is Vice President of Products for the Professional Division at Six Apart, Ltd., where he's responsible for product strategy and management for the TypePad and Movable Type blogging platforms.
Before joining Six Apart Michael was part of the founding management team at boutique email services agency Quris, where he led client engagements and helped design the technology platform used to serve the needs of clients at Charles Schwab, MBNA America, Discover Card and Blockbuster Video. Prior to Quris, Sippey was at Internet consulting firm Viant where he did strategy consulting and led client engagements. Prior to Viant, Sippey held a variety of product marketing and management roles at Advent Software in San Francisco.
Michael is a long time blogger, having helped pioneer the medium with his site "Stating the Obvious" which he started in 1995. Michael blogs today at sippey.typepad.com and michael.vox.com. He has his BA in English Literature from Colgate University and his MBA from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. He lives in Berkeley with his wife and their two beautiful daughters.