Events | May 22-23, 2018: General Sessions

Huguette Ranc is Vice President, Collaboration and Talent Solutions, Europe.
She has lead this business in Europe for more than 4 years now, focusing on Client Success and Europe specifics requirements.

Bob Schultz oversees IBM’s collaboration and talent management solutions business, which helps companies transform their business by providing a unique combination of software, analytics and behavioral science to help clients source, attract, recruit and hire the right people, design the workplace to ensure people feel valued and engaged, and develop strategies to help people reach their full potential and optimize the business. Schultz is also responsible for driving and innovating a multi-billion-dollar portfolio of SaaS and premise-based email, social and communication software, infused with cognitive and analytics capabilities.
As a technology veteran with more than 30 years of experience creating, building and running businesses for leading Silicon Valley companies, Schultz has also held a diverse set of leadership roles at Citrix, HP, Adaptec, Compaq and AT&T. Before IBM, he was Chief Strategy Lead of VMWare’s End-User Computing group, helping transform the business into a recognized technology innovator and Digital Workspace market leader.

Richard is the Vice President and General Manager of HCL’s Collaborative Workflow Platform business. In this capacity, Richard is responsible for leading HCL’s multi-hundred million dollar SaaS and Premise based Social, Mail, Meetings, Chat and Workflow / Apps Businesses. Richard’s responsibilities include day to day operations of the enterprise and portfolio leading ongoing engineering and next generation technologies. He leads the continuous delivery of software into the cloud, enablement of Agile development processes globally and overall quality and customer experience.

Andrew Manby is responsible for the market and product strategy of the IBM Domino portfolio including IBM Notes, IBM Domino, IBM Sametime, IBM Verse on Premises and IBM Connections Cloud (Mail and Sametime) offerings. Andrew has experience in both product and marketing leadership roles across the analytics, data management, and data integration markets.

Your Mistress of Ceremonies
Libby Ingrassia runs the IBM Champion program worldwide for IBM. She has a long background in IBM technology as a certified instructor, book author, and speaker. Libby is passionate about engaging with and supporting the authentic voices in the tech community.

Tony Holder

Your Master of Ceremonies
Tony Holder is a prolific traveler, hiker, runner, fly fisherman and beer connoisseur. In his professional life he is an enterprise social business advocate and evangelist. Tony is Sales Manager North America and UK for panagenda and is also a board member of the Penumbra Group. “If you want to make me smile, show me a picture of some mountains or even better, lets go hiking!”

Libby Ingrassia runs the IBM Champion program worldwide for IBM. She has a long background in IBM technology as a certified instructor, book author, and speaker. Libby is passionate about engaging with and supporting the authentic voices in the tech community.

Alan Hamilton is the chief advocate for IBM Connections and Watson Work. In his role he gets to lead an incredibly talented group of business professionals who listen to customer needs and help them become more productive, communicative and profitable. Alan’s approach to helping customers is to be extremely practical - focus on the issues, identify where IBM can help and apply IBM Connections and Watson Work to those solutions for immediate benefit. He is an expert in collaboration adoption and implementation and has experience in architecting, designing, implementing and supporting collaboration solutions.

Bob Schultz oversees IBM’s collaboration and talent management solutions business, which helps companies transform their business by providing a unique combination of software, analytics and behavioral science to help clients source, attract, recruit and hire the right people, design the workplace to ensure people feel valued and engaged, and develop strategies to help people reach their full potential and optimize the business. Schultz is also responsible for driving and innovating a multi-billion-dollar portfolio of SaaS and premise-based email, social and communication software, infused with cognitive and analytics capabilities.

Richard is the Vice President and General Manager of HCL’s Collaborative Workflow Platform business. In this capacity, Richard is responsible for leading HCL’s multi-hundred million dollar SaaS and Premise based Social, Mail, Meetings, Chat and Workflow / Apps Businesses. Richard’s responsibilities include day to day operations of the enterprise and portfolio leading ongoing engineering and next generation technologies.

Jason Roy Gary is the HCL Vice President of Next Generation Engineering. A recognised executive in social business and collaboration, at HCL, IBM, and in the global marketplace, Jason has demonstrated, in more than two decades of leadership, vision and drive in social collaboration, agile development, cloud and hybrid, software architecture, real-time collaboration, agile transformation, open source initiatives, and situational applications. Jason has led innovation efforts in collaboration and workflow from development engineering and services. He is an acknowledged thought leader and is widely solicited, by the industry, to speak and provide thought focus around the world.

Mat Newman is the Global Executive, IBM Collaboration Solutions. Responsible for driving adoption and growth of the IBM Collaboration Solutions portfolio of products including IBM Notes/Domino, Sametime, Traveler, Connections and IBM's Cloud Collaboration offerings. Mat mentors and works closely with the ICS teams globally to assist them to deliver IBM's unique vision and capabilities as the leader in collaborative technology.

Francie Tanner

Francie Tanner is a Director at panagenda and has 20 years experience engaging people, building strategic alliances, creating sustainable relationships and growth.
Born and raised in Switzerland, and after nearly a decade in the British West Indies, she now lives in South Carolina and is passionate about connecting people with technology and resourcefulness. Francie is an 8 time IBM Champion, frequent conference speaker, and enjoys building communities and traveling across 7 countries with a single carry-on.

IBM Champion 2011/12, former director of the Atlanta User Group for IBM Collaboration, and architect of the .Domino framework on OpenNTF, Peter Presnell is globally recognized as a lecturer, trainer and thought-leader within the IBM Notes marketplace. Peter leads Red Pill Now’s market strategy and program management practice.

Simon Vaughan

Simon Vaughan is a Product specialist at AppFusions and an IBM Champion for Collaboration (since the program was launched).
He is a keen advocate for driving business value thru the adoption of an integrated digital workplace and a board member of Social Connections – The IBM Connections user group.
A season ticket holder at Liverpool FC, Simon has presented at a number of international conferences including IBM Impact, Lotusphere, Connect, Engage, Social Connections and keynote sessions at a number of international conferences.

Viktor Krantz has worked in the Lotus and IBM business for over 25 years for consulting companies, IBM and business partners.
His current role is Director of Modernization Solutions at Red Pill Now.
He has been a presenter at over 40 IBM conferences and User Groups over the years.

Theo Heselmans

In 1993 Theo Heselmans started working as a Notes/Domino consultant with version 3. He delighted (and still does) many customers with custom applications. He founded his own company Xceed. He's also a proud member of the Penumbra Group.
For 10 years now, he is responsible for Engage. During these events he gives users, speakers, IBMers and Business Partners the opportunity to share information, collaborate and network.
Theo visits other User Groups regularly, and has been to 23 Lotusphere/Connect/Think conferences.
He is an avid believer in all things 'Social'. He loves to talk about Notes, Engage, Excel, wine and beer!