Jeffrey M. Kaplan

Jeff Kaplan is the Founder and Managing Director of THINKstrategies, the only strategic consulting firm focused entirely on the business implications of the transition of the technology industry from product-centric to services-driven solutions. Kaplan is also the founder of the Managed Service Showplace (www.thinkmsp.com) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Showplace (www.thinksaas.com), the highest ranked, vendor-independent, online directories and best practice resource centers focused on SaaS and managed services.

Jeff is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and contributing columnist for BusinessWeek, Mass High Tech Journal, Financial Times of London, NetworkWorld, Business Communications Review, ComputerWorld, InfoWorld, InformationWeek, and others on topics including SaaS, cloud computing, managed services, outsourcing, IT operations and service level management (SLM). He has a BA in Urban Planning from Rutgers University and MBA from Boston College.

Phil Wainewright

Since 1998, Phil Wainewright has been a thought leader in cloud computing as a blogger, analyst and consultant. His newest role as an industry advocate is as vice-president of EuroCloud. He is best known for his Software as Services blog on ZDNet, and also blogs on The Connected Web at eBizQ, covering topics from cloud to social media. As CEO of strategic consulting group Procullux Ventures, he has developed an evaluation framework to help ISVs and enterprises choose between cloud platforms. He advises US and European vendors on messaging, positioning and go-to-market, working with Salesforce.com, NetSuite, Appirio, OpSource and others.

Bill Rencic

Mr. Rancic, host of the A&E Channel’s hit program, We Mean Business, and reality show "Giuliana and Bill," positively impacts the lives of others since earning the title of Donald Trump’s original Apprentice on NBC’s hit program. Mr. Rancic inspires millions of all ages around the world to reach their full potential and fulfill their lifelong dreams.

In the past decade, Mr. Rancic has served as a keynote speaker for major Fortune 500 corporations, including Allstate, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, KPMG, Leo Burnett and Allergan, as well as premier universities. Recently, Mr. Rancic spoke at an event for US Senator Bennett from Utah.

In addition to his speaking and television work, Mr. Rancic is an accomplished author with two best-selling books, titled "You're Hired: How to Succeed in Business and Life from the Winner of The Apprentice" and "Beyond the Lemonade Stand".

Michael A. Beedle Ph. D.

Mike Beedle is an entrepreneur that not only has applied Scrum and Agile to start and operate several companies successfully (New Governance, Enterprise Scrum, Quant Traders, Framework Technologies, e-Architects, etc.), but has consulted for many large companies on how to apply Agile in the enterprise. His companies collectively have created over 50 million dollars in revenue since 1996. He has been using Scrum, patterns and org patterns since 1995, and has applied these techniques to a multitude of projects in different domains. He is a co-author of the Agile Manifesto, the first Scrum book (Agile Software Development with Scrum), and the first published paper on Scrum, (SCRUM: “An extension pattern language for hyperproductive software development”).

Mike has introduced Scrum and Agile to thousands of people at hundreds of companies around the world. His current companies, Enterprise Scrum, New Governance, and Quant Traders, use Agile and Scrum internally for the development of their products, as well as for their client’s custom software installations. Mike’s current interest is to continue exploring the union of Scrum and Org Patterns in enterprise environments, which he believes is the best way to complement and evolve Scrum and Agile. Mike has a Ph. D. in theoretical Physics, and uses his free time to spend time with his family and friends, play tennis and music, and explore the unification theories of quantum gravity.

Yura Vasylyk

Yura Vasylyk is an Executive Vice President Delivery at SoftServe, responsible for leading and managing the software delivery team of over 600, as well as maintaining a strong relationship with existing and new customers ensuring efficient and profitable software delivery operations. He obtained MBA in Management Information Systems at Lally School of Management and Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.

Eugene Yamnitsky

Eugene Yamnitsky is an Offshore Engineering Manager at Imprivata, Inc. He has more than 11 years of software development experience in both IT and ISV environments. In his role at Imprivata, Eugene’s primary focus areas are relationship with SoftServe, development management and release management.

Over the past years Eugene has been increasingly focused on Agile software development and is currently leading the Agile Transformation program at Imprivata, guiding Engineering process changes and coaching Agile teams. He has a BA in Economics and MBA from The Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Karen McKay

Karen McKay is the Senior Vice President of Client Services at Doreen Evans Associates. In this position, Karen has overseen many diverse business process/ system requirements projects, ensuring quality and success. She has performed as the liaison to the client strategic management teams to ensure the individual project work is supporting the strategic goals of the entire client engagement. She has played the role of project manager, consultant, trainer, facilitator, technical advisor, mentor and business analyst on projects that have spanned a variety of industries, business areas and system solutions. Karen's extensive experience working on projects throughout the entire systems development lifecycle has involved working with numerous business process and systems development methodologies and BA requirements definition and management tools, as well as many planning, analysis and design best practices techniques that she has tailored to the specific needs of client consulting engagements. She is particularly well versed in the establishment of a Business Analysis Center of Excellence within organizations – how to analyze the current BA environment, plan for the transition to establishing the BA Center of Excellence, building the necessary artifacts and infrastructure and guiding the successful deployment of it.

Vasyl Mylko

Vasyl Mylko is a Research & Development Director at SoftServe, specializing in the projects with elements of novelty and technological uncertainty. He is responsible for R&D service offering and management of R&D unit. His areas of expertise include multi-paradigm analysis and design, software architectures, software optimization, user experience, usability, multimedia and dynamic teaming. Vasyl joined SoftServe in early 2001. Prior to his current position he managed strategic business unit at SoftServe called JetLab with 80 people on staff, and was responsible for developing of system, user experience, video/audio, Mac and embedded projects. Vasyl has authored SOA and Unix publications in Telecom magazine and gave interview about Modern Multimedia for PCWeek magazine, and provides periodical speeches in the Universities, Institutes and Ukrainian IT Festivals. He influenced Microsoft Silverlight technology improvement.