Keynote Speakers

Thomas E. Hogan
Senior Vice President
HP Software
Technology Solutions Group
Hewlett-Packard Company

Thomas E. Hogan serves as senior vice president for HP's Software business. Tom has responsibility for all software functions, including sales, marketing, engineering, product development, operations and technical support. HP's Software portfolio is focused on linking business and IT and managing IT as a business.

Prior to joining to joining HP in 2006, Hogan served as the president and chief executive officer of Vignette, a publicly held software company specializing in enterprise content management. During his tenure as CEO from 2002-2006, Hogan transformed Vignette through a series of four strategic acquisitions, leading the company to sustained growth and profitability.

Hogan began his career at IBM in 1982 and held a variety of executive posts, including his last assignment as vice president of midrange servers for the Americas region in 1999. He spent two years prior to his Vignette assignment as senior vice president of global sales and operations for Siebel Systems, where he helped quadruple total revenues. Tom holds a Masters of Management from Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management, graduating with distinction with concentrations in finance, international business and organizational behavior. He also holds a Bachelors of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Illinois.

Tom is married with three children and resides in Austin, Texas. He is active in philanthropy and has served on the board of the United Way for the past nine years, in addition to other public boards.

Donald J. Rippert
Chief Technology Officer (CTO) &
Managing Director, Technology
Accenture

As Chief Technology Officer and Managing Director of Technology, Don Rippert is responsible for Accenture’s Technology Consulting organization, Accenture Information Management Services, Accenture Technology Labs and Global Technology Alliances. In his CTO role, Don is responsible for leading Accenture’s technology vision and strategy, driven by a rigorous process that identifies and incubates emerging technologies and technology-related businesses with relevance to Accenture.

Mr. Rippert is proud to have spent his entire, 25 year professional career working for Accenture. Before assuming his current role, Mr. Rippert was a Managing Partner in Accenture’s Communications and High Technology (C&HT) Operating Group and ran C&HT’s Global Solutions Group (GSG), which has global responsibility for product development, alliances, technology and marketing for C&HT. Prior to becoming the Managing Partner – GSG, Mr. Rippert held a number of positions within Accenture spanning the spectrum of roles, from client group partner to project manager to programmer.

Mr. Rippert graduated from the University of Virginia in 1981. He resides in Northern Virginia with his family.

Dave Robbins
VP Global Infrastructure
Network Appliance

Please check back soon to read Mr. Robbins' bio.

Stephen Elliot
Research Manager
Enterprise Systems Management Software Service and
Industry Insights' IT Management Service
IDC

Stephen Elliot is a Research Manager for IDC's Enterprise Systems Management Software Service and Industry Insights' IT Management Service. Mr. Elliot's primary focus is research, analysis, and strategy advisory on enterprise management markets and the impact of emerging and evolving technologies on IT organizations. Mr. Elliot is a noted analyst who is quoted regularly in the trade and business press, and is a frequent presenter at business and technology conferences around the world. In 2005, he was named "Analyst of the Year" by IDC customers.

Before joining IDC, Mr. Elliot was a Research Director covering storage management at Hurwitz Group. Prior to Hurwitz, he was a Product Marketing Manager at Inteq, where he focused on product marketing and partner development. Previously, as part of the Network and Systems Management (NSM) team at Gartner, Mr. Elliot delivered research and consulting on issues in enterprise IT infrastructure and management service providers.

Additionally, Mr. Elliot developed strategic research on NSM software and networking vendors at Instat Group and Forrester. Mr. Elliot holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Southern California with graduate work at American University. He has also completed Harvard Business School's Executive Education course on Strategic Financial Analysis for Business Valuation.

Clifford B. Meltzer
Senior Vice President
Network Management Technology Group
Cisco Systems, Inc.

Cliff returned to Cisco Systems in October 2003 to head up the Network Management Technology Group. In this capacity he provides guidance, business strategy, and product development strategy for all of Cisco’s Network Management products.

Cliff became CEO and President of Digital Fountain in December 1999, bringing with him a broad range of technical and business experience in the networking, computing, and software industries.

In 1999, Cliff was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Redpoint Ventures in Menlo Park. Prior to that Cliff spent seven years at Cisco Systems, Inc. At Cisco, Cliff was Senior Vice President of the IOS Technologies Division where he had overall responsibility for guiding the strategy and the development of software across the company. His previous executive positions at Cisco were Vice President and General Manager of the Internet Service Provider Business Unit and Vice President and General Manager of the InterWorks Business Unit where he guided the company’s strategy and product development in the SNA migration market space.

Before joining Cisco, Cliff spent 16 years with IBM; the last 10 years at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York, where he did research and product development on high-performance mainframe internetworking.

During his first two years of college Cliff attended The Julliard School of Music where he studied classical piano. He subsequently transferred to the University of Rochester from which he holds a B.A. degree in mathematics and an M.S. in computer science.