Keynote Speakers

Senior Vice President Doug Merritt is responsible for the go-to-market strategies for Cisco. His focus is to promote differentiation and value through unique combinations of Cisco's product and solutions portfolio.

Prior to joining Cisco, Merritt led Silicon Valley startup Baynote through a period of significant investment and rapid growth within the emerging personalization and digital marketing optimization industry. Previously he was Executive Vice President (EVP) of Global On Demand Applications at SAP, where he was also a corporate officer and member of the Executive Council for SAP AG. In this role he accelerated the rate of new customer acquisition by over six times in less than one year. His tenure at SAP also included positions as EVP Premier Customer Network, where he delivered greater than 100 percent revenue attainment, and EVP Business User Applications, where he reorganized his group and led it to more than tenfold revenue growth over three years.

Prior to SAP, Merritt was at PeopleSoft, where he led the company's $1 billion Human Capital Management division as Group Vice President/General Manager. Before that, he was founder, president, and CEO of Icarian, Inc., which was later acquired by Workstream Corp., a pioneer in the online human capital talent management category. He also served in various leadership positions for Patrol Software (acquired by BMC Software), Powersoft (acquired by Sybase), Oracle Corporation, and Accenture/Andersen Consulting.

Ric Telford's professional business career highlights 29 years of product and service development experience and is noted for bringing innovative approaches to the design and development of key technologies. In his current position, Ric is responsible for defining strategies related to IBM's Services businesses, including Cloud. IBM has a clear vision for what is required to make Cloud Computing accessible and valuable to the enterprise, and provides Cloud consulting, Cloud implementation and Cloud-delivered services to deliver on this vision.

Ric tends to be at the forefront of emerging technologies at IBM. He served as Director of Technology for the IBM CIO, responsible for the development, implementation and adoption of technologies that hastened the transformation of IBM into an e-business. Ric was VP in IBM's Tivoli division, where he was responsible for defining and driving the Autonomic Computing initiative for IBM, and he was CTO in IBM's Information Technology Services business.

Ben is Chief Information Officer, overseeing the company's global technology systems. His extensive hands-on experience in technology includes stints as a dBASE II programmer, front-line support manager, Macintosh developer, Windows 1.0 programmer, and Unix systems programmer. Prior to joining Google, he spent more than 13 years in Morgan Stanley's technology department, where he rose to the level of Managing Director. During his time there, he led teams responsible for software development technology, web and electronic commerce technologies and operations, and technologies for knowledge workers.

Stephen Schmidt is Vice President & Chief Information Security Officer for Amazon Web Services (AWS). His duties at AWS include leading product design, management, and engineering development efforts focused on bringing the competitive, economic and security benefits of cloud computing to business and government customers. Prior to joining AWS, Schmidt had an extensive career at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he served as a senior executive. His responsibilities at the FBI included a term as acting Chief Technology Officer, Section Chief responsible for the FBI's technical collection and analysis platforms, and as a Section Chief overseeing the FBI's Cyber Division components responsible for the technical analysis of computer and network intrusion activities. His Cyber Division oversight included areas of malicious code analysis, computer exploitation tool reverse-engineering, and technical analysis of computer intrusions.

Bethany Mayer is the senior vice president and general manager of the HP Networking business unit, which has grown 8 consecutive quarters and delivers $2.5B in annual revenue for HP. In this role, she oversees the group's worldwide business operations, with a focus on expanding its market share position as a leading networking supplier in the market. Prior to her general manager role, Bethany was responsible for worldwide marketing and alliances for Enterprise Business Group.

Mayer brings more than 25 years of experience in leading product management, marketing communications, operations and engineering from start-up companies to Fortune 500 corporations.

Mayer joined HP from Blue Coat, where she was senior vice president, worldwide marketing and corporate development. While at Blue Coat, Mayer's marketing leadership moved the company to market share leader in Secure Web Gateway and WAN Optimization markets. She was also responsible for the acquisition of Packeteer which drove Blue Coat's revenue growth of more than 300% during her three-year tenure.

Prior to Blue Coat, Mayer served as chief marketing officer with Mirapoint Incorporated in the email and email security market. She has held executive positions at JDSU, Vernier Networks and Skystream Networks (now Ericsson). Mayer also held management positions in product management, engineering development and operations at Cisco Systems and was responsible for Cisco's initial channel products and supply chain design. Earlier in her career Mayer held positions at Apple and Lockheed Martin Corporation.

Mayer holds a bachelor of science from Santa Clara University and an MBA from California State University, Monterey Bay. She was recognized as one of the Top Women of Influence in Silicon Valley in 2008.

Gregory S. Smith, a 26 year veteran of the IT field, serves as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Pew Charitable Trusts in Washington DC. Previously, he was the Vice President and CIO for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Washington, DC. Prior to WWF, Mr. Smith directed all software development, e-business, and business intelligence activities for the American Association of Retired People (AARP) in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining AARP, Mr. Smith was with Sallie Mae, where he directed technology for the Corporate Finance Division and two subsidiaries, and also was a principal consultant in the Management Consulting Solutions group at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. He is an honoree of the following awards: SmartCEO magazine Top 10 CIOs in Washington DC in 2011, Computer World magazine Premier 100 IT Leaders in 2007, CIO magazine CIO 100 in 2003 and eWeek magazine Top 100 CIOs also in 2007. Mr. Smith is the author of Straight to the Top: CIO Leadership in a Mobile, Social, and Cloud-based World (Wiley 2013), How to Protect Your Children on the Internet: A Road Map for Parents and Teachers (Greenwood 2007) and Straight to the Top: Becoming a World-Class CIO (Wiley 2006). Mr. Smith received a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland at College Park and an M.S. in Business from The Johns Hopkins University, where he also serves as an adjunct faculty member in the Carey Business School, Graduate Programs. He is currently a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University in Washington DC.