Ben Averch is Senior Product Manager, Analytics Platform & Delivery, for eBay Inc. He is responsible for data warehouse support for eBay's Marketing organization, including customer analytics, channel performance tracking, and operational data support. Over a 15-year career, he has helped leading companies, including Genentech, Microsoft, Expedia, and eBay, define and deliver critical data warehousing and reporting solutions. 

Randy Bean is managing partner at NewVantage Partners. He began his career in IT and strategic planning at Bank of Boston and later joined Harte-Hanks, a pioneer in database marketing, where he helped grow the firm from $9 million to $150 million as Senior VP and member of the operating committee. Randy held leadership positions with two Internet-era startups: CMO at Veridiem and a founding executive at Wheelhouse. He holds a BS from Washington University in St. Louis. His commentaries have appeared in MIT Sloan Management Review, Harvard Business Review, and The Wall Street Journal.

Michael Benedict leads the Progress Data Connectivity business line and is responsible for its strategic direction and day-to-day operations. This business line, which markets itself under the DataDirect brand, is the industry-leading provider of data connectivity drivers and technologies in the premium data connectivity market; it is more than ten times larger than any other independent provider. The business line combines an incredible installed base, compelling market position, strong channel/ISV ownership, and vast portfolio of connectivity solutions into a core component and strategic differentiator of the company's highly-connected aPaaS strategy. 

Francine Bennett, a data scientist, is the CEO and cofounder of Mastodon C, an agile big-data specialist offering an open-source technology platform and skills to help companies realize the potential of their data. Before founding Mastodon C, she spent a number of years working on big-data analysis for search engines, helping them to turn lots of data into even more money. She enjoys good coffee, running, sleeping as much as possible, and large datasets.

David Blackwell is a partner in Deloitte's Analytics practice, with extensive experience in the telco, media, and sports sectors. His expertise lies in helping clients identify the information that is important to them, and then organize themselves to exploit it. As such, he has helped international carriers, mobile operators, record labels, content aggregators, and national sports governing bodies to improve their understanding of operational processes, know what their customers think, and predict the services that customers are most likely to buy. David is a frequent commentator on the cultural challenges that organizations face to become "data-driven" in their decision making.

Kirk Borne is a data scientist and is Professor of Astrophysics and Computational Science in the George Mason University School of Physics, Astronomy, and Computational Sciences. He received his BS degree in physics from LSU and his PhD in astronomy from Caltech. He has been at Mason since 2003. 

Previously, he spent nearly 20 years supporting NASA projects, including the Hubble Space Telescope as Data Archive Project Scientist. He has extensive experience in big data, including expertise in scientific databases, data mining, analytics, and statistics. He has advised several federal agencies on data mining and big data applications, and he is a frequent speaker on multi-disciplinary big data science.

Frank Bria is the principal consultant and co-founder of Bria Analytics Group. He has over 15 years' experience helping companies utilize data, predictive analytics, and mathematical optimization to solve business problems. He has worked with companies like Capital One, SAP, SAS, IBM, US Bank, CoreLogic, and others to craft analytic strategy. He specializes in financial services and in that capacity has consulted for 9 of the top 10 retail banks in the US. Frank is a frequent speaker at trade and analytic conferences. He has a Master's in mathematics from Purdue University.

Graham is one of VoiceSage's visionaries and a founding member of the company. His insight and expertise are the driving force behind the development of VoiceSage technology. A software engineer by training, Graham has extensive business process reengineering experience, enabling him to envision and develop solutions with a transformational business impact.

As a technology blogger, Ariella Brown writes about analytics, marketing, branding, social media, big-data, and the impact of the Internet on education and society, among other topics. Ariella holds a PhD in English and has years of experience as a writing instructor. Through her business, Write Way Productions, she offers writing, editing, marketing, ad design, and social media services.

Joshua Burkhow is a Senior Global Supply Chain Systems Analyst at Nike as part of its Global Performance Management & Analytics team. He has extensive experience in analytics, business intelligence, data analysis/reporting, data warehousing, IT management, and innovation with Fortune 500 companies such as Nike, Siemens, Fujitsu, and MassMutual. Joshua is passionate about applying big data analytics efforts towards complex global supply chains and other business problems. He writes about data science, analytics, business intelligence, and big data at his blog, www.dataenthusiast.com.

Based in New York, journalist Peter Buxbaum has been writing about business technology, security, defense, and international relations for two decades. Several thousand of his articles have appeared in publications and on websites such as Fortune, Forbes, Chief Executive, Information Week, Jane's Defense Weekly, Military Information Technology, Homeland Security, Computerworld, and ISN. Peter's website is www.peterbuxbaum.com.

Adi has spent more than 20 years working in data, in agency and client roles, in B2B and B2C markets, and across a wide range of sectors. Before launching Reveal Insight in January 2013, he spent four-and-a-half years as Head of Insight and CRM at the NEC Group. Prior to that, Adi was Customer Insight Director at planning-inc, following almost six years at BT. The start of his career included three years as a programmer, and a number of agency client-service roles including a spell at Acxiom.

While news editor of Computer Weekly, the UK's leading business computing magazine, Lindsay Clark helped edit and launch multiple award-winning campaigns while managing a team of reporters who regularly broke stories picked up by the national news papers. Since becoming a freelance writer in 2003, he has featured in the Financial Times, Guardian Public, and technology supplements in The Times. He has written on topics including government, health, construction, procurement, and HR as well as technology. During 2012, he began to specialise in business intelligence, analytics, and big data. 

Senior Resultant Howard M. Cohen has more than 30 years of IT channel executive experience and now consults, presents, and writes extensively on IT topics including virtualization, infrastructure, cloud, and management. He has written previously for VARBusiness, Redmond Channel Partner, eWeek, Microsoft, Citrix, Cisco, IBM, CA, Dell, Verisign, Ingram Micro, and many top solution providers. He has served on many key vendor partner councils including the Apple, HP, IBM, and NEC service advisory councils and on the Ingram Micro Service Network board. He is also a US Board Member ‒ and Northeast Regional Chair ‒ of the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners.

Jim Connolly is a versatile and experienced technology journalist who has reported on IT trends for more than two decades. He has written about mainframe-centric computing, the PC revolution, client/server, the evolution of the Internet, the rise of Web-based business, and IT management. He has covered breaking industry news and has led teams focused on product reviews and technology trends. Throughout most of his tech journalism career, he has concentrated on serving the information needs of IT decision-makers in large organizations and has worked with those managers to help them learn from their peers and share their experiences in implementing leading-edge technologies through publications including Computerworld. Jim also has helped to launch a technology-focused startup, as one of the founding editors at TechTarget, and has served as editor of an established news organization focused on technology startups and the Boston-area venture capital sector at MassHighTech. A former crime reporter for the Boston Herald, he majored in journalism at Northeastern University.

Gary Coombs is the Enterprise Data Architect at UBM and is working to transform the way the business uses and values its data. He truly has data routed in his blood, having been the Head of Data for EMAP and the Data Director for UBM before taking up his current role. Gary has transformed marketing operations, taking them from Excel-based storage to database decision-makers. He has a business-focused approach but is able to bridge the gap to technology.

Will Crandle doesn't like feet and is a big Will Ferrell fan who has coincidently been involved with managing high volumes of data and loves it. In 2011 he co-founded www.jobstheword.co.uk, which uses big-data to analyze keywords from a person's skills, education, experience, and general interests and a company's hiring patterns, culture, and current employee skill base. The resulting insight is used to recommend opportunities to a very relevant and engaged audience. Thanks to a brilliant team of developers, JobsTheWord has produced its very own in-house solution and algorithms, which has attracted the likes of Google, BlackBerry, Amazon, and Experian and positioned JobsTheWord as the fastest growing company in the UK employment sector.

Richard Dannan is the founder of DataSavvy. With over 15 years' experience in the realm most now recognize as data science, he provides thought-leadership and strategy and manages execution for clients. Based predominantly in the UK, his background covers multiple sectors including banking, retail, and travel. He focuses on building and nurturing corporate data capability and aligning it with commercial objectives. Simply unlocking the potential of data through analysis is not enough; Richard leverages his expertise to drive the integration of insight with transactional systems and processes. Despite keeping it quiet, he has an academic background in marketing and maintains particular interest in the consumer impact of big data. 

Alison Diana has written about technology and business for more than 23 years, spending a decade at CRN before entering the freelance world after her daughter was born. Although she's written about practically every topic in that time, she specializes in social media, healthcare, SMBs, education, and retail. Alison, who lives in Central Florida, has written for many of the top B2B publications and Websites including: Information Week, CRN, eWEEK, Channel Insider, CIO Insight, ChannelPro, Baseline Magazine, Redmond Channel Partner, and IT Expert Voice. She graduated with honors from the School of Visual Arts with a major in print journalism, and minors in sociology, humanities, and psychology. She can be reached on Twitter at @alisoncdiana or email at Diana@DeusM.com.

Steve Downton has advised leading-edge service companies for the past 30 years and regularly benchmarks the service industry. He has produced thought-leadership and educational whitepapers. Currently he is advising companies on how to overcome the changing demographics of both employers and customers, as well as how to successfully implement innovative mechanisms to deliver profitable results. He is researching "Customer Experience Drivers" and the use of service to support a company's brand. In 2011 Steve founded the Service Community, a not-for-profit organization designed to provide a networking environment for people in the service industry. The events are always free, and everyone is welcome.

John Edwards is a veteran business technology journalist. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and numerous business and technology publications, including Computerworld, CFO Magazine, IBM Data Management Magazine, RFID Journal, and Electronic Design. He has also written columns for The Economist's Business Intelligence Unit and PricewaterhouseCoopers' Communications Direct. John has authored several books on business technology topics. His work began appearing online as early as 1983. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, he wrote daily news and feature articles for both the CompuServe and Prodigy online services. His "Behind the Screens" commentaries made him the world's first known professional blogger.

Brian Enochson is an independent software developer, consultant, and trainer. He spends his time working on high-throughput applications and tackling NoSQL, big data, and machine learning problems. In addition he is spending entirely too much time with Scala and functional programming topics at the moment. Brian is passionate about helping others through writing, mentoring, and training but also loves to learn from others and their experiences. He has an MS in computer information systems from Boston University. He may be contacted at brian.enochson@gmail.com.

Susan Fourtané is a journalist; business, science, and technology writer; and philosopher (educated at Birkbeck, University of London) with a life-long interest in science and technology -- among many other things. She has written for Helsinki Times since 2006 and also contributes to HPIO_UK, Global Blue Marketing, and World.Edu. Prior to journalism and writing, she worked extensively in the international B2B environment in several countries on two continents. A former educator who specialized in international business, she writes about the use of new technologies present in all spheres of life and their practical applications. As a constant traveler based in Finland, Susan considers herself a citizen of the world and loves the Scandinavian lifestyle and design.

Bill is a long-time analytic professional and consultant, a faculty member of the International Institute for Analytics, and the author of the book Taming the Big Data Tidal Wave (John Wiley & Sons, April 2012). He is also an active speaker and blogger. Bill's focus has always been to help translate complex analytics into terms that business users can understand and to then help an organization implement the results effectively within its processes. His work has spanned clients in a variety of industries for companies ranging in size from Fortune 100 companies to small non-profit organizations. You can learn more about Bill at http://www.bill-franks.com

Jake Freivald is the Vice President of Corporate Marketing for Information Builders, a leader in BI and analytics, information integrity, and integration solutions. He joined the company in 1999 as a product manager for the Data Warehouse division and has since served as VP of Marketing for the iWay division, in addition to his current role. Prior to Information Builders, Jake held positions with Andersen Consulting and Prudential Life Insurance Company of America. He has also served in the United States Marine Corps as a Signals Intelligence Officer at First Radio Battalion. He graduated from Cornell University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering. 

Doug Fuehne is Vice President of Strategic Consulting with PROS. He previously served as its VP of Professional Services and as Senior Director of Science Solutions. Prior to joining PROS, Fuehne consulted with clients in industries including oil and gas, chemical, discrete manufacturing, financial services, and retail, where he focused on science- and process-based solutions for supply chain and mergers-and-acquisitions. Fuehne worked directly for manufacturing, energy trading, and financial services companies, performing operations and running e-commerce groups. He earned an MBA in quantitative operations from Vanderbilt University and a BS in aerospace engineering from the University of Illinois.

James J. Gillespie is President & CEO of the Center for Healthcare Innovation, a 501(c)(3) research center and thought-leadership institution focusing on the global life sciences industry. He is Co-Leader of the Working Group on Innovation & Interoperability, a healthcare analytics project featuring executives from Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, HIMSS, Metropolitan Chicago Healthcare Council, and Walgreens.  Dr. Gillespie is also a Senior Advisor to the MetroChicago Healthcare Information Exchange, one of the largest fully integrated HIEs in the US. His education includes: Northwestern, MA, PhD; Harvard, JD; Princeton, MPA; and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, BS.

Seth is the leading industry analyst covering text analytics and sentiment analysis. He founded Washington-based Alta Plana Corporation, an information technology strategy consultancy, in 1997. He consults, writes, and speaks on business intelligence, data management and analysis, text mining, visualization, and related topics.

Daniel D. Gutierrez is a Data Scientist with Los Angeles-based AMULET Analytics, a service division of AMULET Development Corp. He's been involved with data science and Big Data long before it came in vogue, so imagine his delight when the Harvard Business Review recently deemed "data scientist" as the sexiest profession for the 21st century. Previously, he taught computer science and database classes at UCLA Extension for over 15 years, and authored three computer industry books on database technology. He also served as technical editor, columnist and writer at a major computer industry monthly publication for 7 years. Follow his data science musings at @AMULETAnalytics.

Rich Heimann currently coordinates analytical efforts for Data Tactics Corp. in McLean, Va., that focuses on advanced analytics, big data, and cloud computing. His specialty includes spatial statistics and geographic knowledge discovery, and he has been following the social and spatial turn in big data closely. He is Instructor of Human Terrain Analysis at George Mason University and adjunct faculty at The University of Maryland, Baltimore County, teaching Spatial Social Science and Demographic Inquiry as well as Spatial Statistical Reasoning using nontraditional social science data such as geo-social media. He recently provided direct support for DARPA special programs in Arlington Va. He tweets at @rheimann.

Francis Irving runs a startup called ScraperWiki, which helps people make data do things on the Web. Before that he was one of the world's first democracy hackers, scraping government Websites to make them more usable since 2002. He was on the founding team of charity mySociety, making innovative tools like WhatDoTheyKnow, which brings Freedom of Information requests out into the open. However, if you're a developer, you'll most likely know him for having created the original TortoiseCVS version control software. Francis lives in Liverpool, fount of the original industrial revolution, has a first class degree in Maths from Oxford University, and in his spare time recreates everyday Tudor life and technology.

Johna Till Johnson is President and Senior Founding Partner of Nemertes Research, where she sets research direction and works with strategic clients. She has decades of experience in technology design, deployment, and operations. Under her leadership, Nemertes has emerged as a leading trusted advisor to Fortune 50 and other world-class organizations.

Her recent work includes:

• Developing a next-generation network strategy for a Fortune 50 organization
• Crafting the data-center strategy and roadmap for a leading financial services firm
• Developing a global WAN strategy for a pharmaceutical company
• Optimizing operations for a Global 2000 media firm
• Researching and writing a groundbreaking report correctly predicting today's Internet challenges

A widely regarded expert, Johna regularly speaks at numerous tradeshows, conferences, and seminars, including Navigator360, IDG's IT Roadmap, and Interop. She also writes an incisive column in Network World.

Jim Kelly leads Quantcast's R&D team, which works on both adding computing capacity through cluster software innovations and using it up through new analytic and modeling products. Having been at Quantcast for six years, he has seen its data volumes and processing challenges grow from zero to petabytes and led technical and organizational changes that have kept Quantcast a step ahead. Previously he held engineering leadership roles at Oracle, Kana, and Scopus Technology (acquired by Siebel). Jim holds a PhD in physics from Princeton University.

Mike Lata is a technology reporter, freelance writer, and journalism grad. He has been focusing his writing on technology and computing advances. This includes mobile applications, 3D tech, augmented reality, computing devices such as tablets, and software news. Mike covers both the consumer and B2B markets.

Justin Lovell is an experienced leader in the field of Business Intelligence and data warehousing, with a passion to put big data into context and to work. Having been in the industry for more than 16 years, he has had the opportunity to work closely with partner companies to major vendors including SAP and Microsoft and was trained by Ralph Kimball through the Kimball University. When he is not at his whiteboard working on solution architecture or building an ETL pipeline, he's tweeting his latest insights @JustinLovell.

Andy MacMillan is salesforce.com's Senior Vice President and General Manager of Salesforce Data.com, where he maintains overall responsibility for the market's leading cloud-based business data solution. In this role, he is focused on delivering data and insights that allow companies to transform into social enterprises by better understanding and engaging with their customers. Prior to Salesforce.com, Andy was VP of Product Management at Oracle. He holds a BA from Michigan State University and an MBA from the University of Edinburgh.

A busy freelance writer for 30 years, Robert McGarvey has written more than 1,500 articles for many of the nation's leading publications, from Reader's Digest to Playboy and from The New York Times to Harvard Business Review. He also has written 10 books. A member of the advisory board of Learning Streams, a startup social network for educators, McGarvey also is a recognized authority on social media. He may be reached via email at rjmcgarvey@gmail.com and on Twitter at #rjmcgarvey.

Jed is marketing director for Europe, responsible for Acxiom's communications with its target audiences. Since joining Acxiom in 1996, he has held various leadership roles and has worked directly with leading brands such as P&G, Sony, Dell, and Hearst. Prior to Acxiom, Jed worked for Cable & Wireless, Ernst & Young, and the Royal Navy.

Yves de Montcheuil is the Vice President of Marketing at Talend, the recognized leader in open-source integration. Yves holds a Master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science and has 20 years of experience in software product management, product marketing, and corporate marketing. He is also a presenter, author, blogger, social media enthusiast, and can be followed on Twitter: @ydemontcheuil.

Simon Moritz, Senior Researcher, Ericsson Simon Moritz is a Senior Researcher at Ericsson (Nasdaq: ERIC). He was one of the first recruits to Ericsson in areas like data mining and big-data. Since the start, he has been working with anything from recommender systems, location analytics, targeting ads, and predictions to privacy perseverance in the above mentioned areas. A lot of the work is still a well kept secret, since it is ongoing research, though there are some public available concepts such as Ericsson Apps, of which Simon is the father.  You may also find a few patents in his name.

Jeff Morris is Vice President of Product Marketing at Actuate Corporation. For nearly a decade at Actuate he has worked to differentiate Actuate from its business intelligence competitors. He draws upon his open-source product management experience at Sendmail and development platform expertise from Forte Software in the 90s and IDE in the late 80s, to help position ActuateOne as a premier, modern information application platform for tackling the current explosion of data sources, cloud services, and mobile consumption devices that are dominating today's technology headlines. Jeff studied electrical engineering and history at Syracuse University.

Robert Mullins has covered the technology industry in Silicon Valley for more than a decade. He covered technology at the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal beginning in 2000 after transferring from the Milwaukee Business Journal where he covered, among other beats, financial services. In 2006, Robert joined IDG News Service, the "wire service" for IDG publications. He transferred to Network World in 2007. He has worked with UBM since 2010, writing for Network Computing and Information Week.

Rajeev Nayar leads the big data practice as part of the cloud unit at Infosys. He has more than 18 years of experience in the information management area. His key areas of focus now are big data analytics and extreme data processing, which deals with very large-scale data solutions. His works spans multiple vertical areas and has helped guide the development of a patent-pending solution for big-data at Infosys. Rajeev has presented at a number of conferences and co-authored a book on big data called Big Data Spectrum.

Bryce Nyeggen is a data scientist at LivingSocial, the local marketplace to buy and share the best things in your city. He focuses on building recommendation systems that leverage good algorithms and fast math to send customers the most relevant deals. Prior to joining LivingSocial, he developed insurance pricing models and software for Geico Insurance.

Robert Plant is an Associate Professor at the School of Business Administration, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla., and holds a PhD in computer science. His research, teaching, and executive coaching are centered on the CEO/CFO/CIO relationship, the future of technology, and the role of information systems in strategic management. He has authored more than 60 peer reviewed articles in the area of technology for outlets such as Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Sloan Management Review.  His recent publications for Harvard Business Review include "A Global Brand Requires a Global App" (2012), "When Will You Outgrow Your Data Center" (2010), and "The Disappearing Data Center" (2009).

Bill Portlock is Managing Director of consumer analytics agency Marketing Metrix, with offices in London and San Francisco. Marketing Metrix is an independent consumer analytics agency that studies millions of records on a daily basis, helping companies grow by increasing the value of their customers. Working with some of the largest consumer brands, the company has developed some of the most innovative data products in the UK, including Attribution Modelling, Social Media Optimisation, and Big Data Convergence.

http://www.m-metrix.com/

Ben started his career as a software engineer at Belspeed NV in Belgium, prior to moving to Australia and starting at Funnelback as a Support Engineer in 2007. He worked at Funnelback Australia for three years and started in a Technical Consultant role and then progressed to a Senior Consultant role based on his strong work with high-profile clients. In 2010, Ben relocated to the new Funnelback UK office as a Senior Consultant, and in 2012 he began his current role as Search Technology Specialist. In this role he engages with prospects and clients, advises the consulting team on the design and implementation of solutions, and actively pursues new technologies and methodologies as part of the R&D effort of Funnelback. 

Christian Prokopp holds a PhD in information retrieval and works as a data scientist at Rangespan. He spends his spare time as a columnist and blogger. He is passionate about data science and data-driven products, in particular about how they can solve real-world problems and add value to businesses. Before his current position, Christian was a Marie Curie Fellow, APAI researcher with an ARC project in Australia, consultant and project manager in Bangladesh, and IT manager and software engineer in Germany. You can read his blog, follow him @prokopp, and connect on Google+ and on LinkedIn.

James Robinson is CTO at OpenSignal.com, a project to map global connectivity using mobile phones as probes. So far, data from 2.5 million phones has been used to rank networks across 200 countries. Prior to that, he worked at Tesco's demand forecasting department, using data from one of its vast data warehouses to optimize orders placed from stores to depots. He holds a Master's degree in Physics and Philosophy from Oxford. You can find him on Twitter @jamescrr.

Kurt Roots is a software engineer, data scientist, blogger, and entrepreneur. He started his first company, which provided web analytics, while in high school. During his five years at Oracle, he worked in retail application R&D as a programmer and also built data warehouses and analytics for Oracle products and customers. Later he spent time at an innovative software firm devoted to predictive retail optimization solutions, before moving on to management consulting in retail and healthcare industries. He is the founder and CEO of CogCubed, a game and data company focused on creating fun cognitive games for education and health. Kurt received an MBA and an MS in information systems from Iowa State University and an MS in software engineering from the University of St. Thomas. He also studied systems engineering at MIT. When he isn't working, you can find him spending time with his wife and young son. Connect with him on LinkedIn and/or Twitter.

Michael co-founded eCommera with Andrew McGregor in 2007. Prior to eCommera, Michael was CEO of Figleaves.com, the world's leading online retailer of multi-brand lingerie, and swimwear. He is the force behind the Decision Intelligence Quarterly and regularly presents at eCommerce events across Europe. Michael also works very closely with our team of analysts developing formulas, models, and algorithms that solve the challenges of online retail. In 2011 he ranked No. 27 on Retail Week's ranking of the 50 most influential people in retail.

K. R. Sanjiv is the Senior Vice President and Global Head of Analytics and Information Management at Wipro Technologies. He carries P&L responsibility, strategy, and global operations of this unit, reporting to the CEO. Analytics and Information Management helps customers derive valuable insights out of integrated information by bringing together the combined expertise of analytics, business intelligence, performance management, and information management. The group provides consulting, business-centric and technology-specific analytical solutions, and data management frameworks developed through a complete ecosystem of partners, focusing on industry-specific analytics, optimization and operations analytics, enterprise data warehouse, MDM, data quality, and data lifecycle management.

Sanjiv has over 25 years of enterprise IT experience, including consulting, applications, and technology development spanning multiple industry segments and diverse technology areas. Since joining Wipro in 1989, he has been involved in defining enterprise architectures for organizations that included technical models, transformation program definitions, and governance models. He has designed OLTP mission-critical systems such as screen-based trading systems for stock exchanges, surveillance systems, and order routing systems for brokerage houses. He has spearheaded due diligence exercises in M&A situations for customers and also managed large project implementations in a global delivery model. Sanjiv has spoken at leading CXO summits and industry and academic conferences on varied topics related to business technology. He holds a Bachelor's degree from Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, India.

As a product marketing senior manager at Tableau Software, Brett focuses on enabling analytics and collaboration for enterprises and public sector organizations. He previously worked as a senior analyst at Gartner. Born and raised in the United States, Brett lived internationally for six years in Western Europe and Asia/Pacific, and has worked onsite with enterprise business and technical executives in 35+ countries. Connect with him by email, Twitter, or LinkedIn. 

Saul Sherry is Editor of Big Data Republic. He originally hails from the first-rate county of Leicestershire in England and currently plies his trade in that nation's capital. He is particularly interested in the ways big-data can reveal to us the intelligence that lurks below the surface of the everyday, and how we can use this to improve lives. When not writing about big-data (or looking for excellent minds to do the same) he can normally be found deafening himself in one of London's fine live music venues. Other weekly highlights involve dragging himself around Clissold Park and buying books based solely on their covers. If you have questions about Big Data Republic, or want to inquire about being a moderator or a blogger, please feel free to email: saul.sherry@ubm.com.

Parthiv Sheth has more than 15 years of technology consulting and management experience. He is the Director of Business Intelligence at Hyatt Hotels Corp., where he leads efforts to build and improve analytics and customer relationship management capabilities. In his prior roles at Hyatt, he drove key technology initiatives for finance, human resources, procurement, and other corporate functions. He started his career at KPMG, where he delivered business and technology solutions to Fortune 500 clients. Before joining Hyatt, he led the business systems department and managed a portfolio of applications at a national home improvement retailer. He has a Master's degree in computer science from the University of Illinois at Chicago and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

In Terry's most recent employment with Telstra (Australia's largest telecommunications company with more than AU$25 billion in annual revenue) he directed the rollout of a national forecasting and analytics platform for 140+ users. He has rolled out three national BI/analytics platforms (SAS) over the last seven years. Much of his career has been involved with developing data information stores, business forecasting, analytics and business modeling, undertaking internal stakeholder management, and training and coaching staff on the use of analytics, presenting, and consulting.

Malvinder is Global Head of Architecture at UBM plc and also technology lead for a major, ongoing, group-wide transformation project. Prior to this he was divisional CIO at UBM. Originally from India, he attended university in Germany and went on to work for PwC in Dusseldorf. He moved to London with PwC, instantly fell in love with the weather and the public transport system, and has been living and working there ever since. A business technologist at heart, Malvinder has led a number of mid- and large-scale transformation and change projects.

Katie Smith is a Fashion and Retail Market Analyst at EDITD. She works with retailers, brands, and suppliers to help them develop better products, price items correctly, and adjust product assortment by bringing factual data to an industry that traditionally has made decisions based on opinion and intuition. Katie's previous experience as a womenswear designer gives her an innate understanding of the challenges apparel businesses face as technology influences consumer behavior, manufacturing capabilities, and market dynamics. She has a fondness for tea and splits her time between London and Melbourne.

Mithun Sridharan is a Business Development Manager with Corporate Quality Consulting (CQC), in Bonn, where he leads big data and analytics initiatives. He is also a Consulting Partner at pliXos GmbH, an outsourcing advisory consulting company based in Munich. He brings with him more than nine years of international experience in business development, project management, global delivery, and consulting. Mithun holds an MBA from the European School of Management & Technology, Berlin, and an MSc from Christian Albrechts University of Kiel. He is a Harvard Manage Mentor Leadership Plus scholar, a Project Management Professional (PMP), and a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA). He also serves as the Communication Chair for the German Outsourcing Association and is based in Frankfurt (Main), Germany.

Formerly a Senior Vice President with Specific Media Inc., Rupert joined Europe's premium behavioral ad network in late 2005 to lead the expansion into Europe. His online advertising experience goes back to 1998, when he opened Valueclick Inc. (NQ: VCLK) in London, Paris, Munich, and Madrid. He ran European operations through the company's successful IPO in 2000. Passionate about ideas and structure for business strategies that meet the challenges of the digital age, his mission is to persuasively articulate and demystify the complexity of digital and to help marketers understand the future issues relating to the strategic use of data in creating the new "engagement" dynamic between consumer and commerce to drive an increase in customers for businesses.

Colin has focused on technology research throughout his career. He has been Managing Director of GfK UK's Technology division since 2009 and has helped to shape GfK's UK business for the last 15 years. Working with large-scale datasets has always been a feature of the division's work, not only through large-scale survey data but through the use of CRM and social media datasets. Colin and his team have also been using digital datasets collected by consumer panels as well as those aggregated from ISPs and network operators. Engaging with the issues around big data is considered key for GfK, which sees huge opportunities for brands. There are significant implications for the market research industry to organise itself in a way to properly leverage the benefits that big data can deliver.

Istvan has worked at Hewlett-Packard, Nokia Networks, Google, Morgan Stanley, and Vodafone Hungary before joining Vodafone UK as IT Technical Architect. He holds certificates such as Sun Certified System Administrator, Sun Certified Java Programmer, Sun Certified Web Component Developer, Salesforce.com Certified Force.com Developer, and Siebel 8 Consultant Certified Expert. For more details see his LinkedIn profile.

Re-imagining the way work is done through big data, analytics, and cloud, Chris is the co-founder of SuccessfulWorkplace. He believes there's no end to what we can change and improve. He flew for the US Navy before finding a home in technology and software, first in application development with Perot Systems. His career has taken him from coding to business strategy with Accenture, ILOG (now IBM), and TIBCO, where he leads industry and customer marketing. An avid outdoorsman, Chris is passionate about technology and innovation and speaks frequently at industry and technology events about creating great business outcomes. He contributes to the Harvard Business Review, Forbes , the PEX Network, and Venture Beat.

Hamish Tedeschi is a Principal Test Consultant at MagenTys, a specialist UK-based software testing consultancy. Follow him on Twitter @MagenTys. His posts are drawn from many years of work on datacentric projects in finance, telecommunications, and government sectors and, in particular, applying ATDD/BDD to these.

Before founding Postcode Anywhere, Jamie was IT manager for the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, where he set a new record as the youngest person to join the organization in a senior managerial role. In 2000, he met Guy Mucklow, who shared his passion for innovation, and together they founded the award-winning technology company, Postcode Anywhere. Jamie holds a first-class honours degree in Computing Science from Aston University, where he received a faculty accolade for "an outstanding contribution to technological innovation." He is on Twitter @PCAJamie.

Jenn Webb is a veteran of the newspaper industry turned freelance scribe, editor, and researcher. She is a nerd with a passion for publishing, technology, and cultural disruption.

Laura Wilber is the former founder and CEO of California-based AVENCOM, Inc., a software development company specializing in online databases and database-driven Internet applications (acquired by Red Door Interactive in 2004), and she served as VP of Marketing for Kintera, Inc., a provider of SaaS software to the nonprofit and government sectors. She also developed courtroom tutorials for technology-related intellectual property litigation for Legal Arts Multimedia, LLC. She earned an MA from the University of Maryland, where she was also a candidate in the PhD program, before joining the federal systems engineering division of Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) in Washington, DC. Laura currently works as the Solutions Analyst at Dassault Systèmes Exalead. Prior to joining Exalead, she taught business process reengineering, management of information systems, and e-commerce at ISG (L'Institut Supérieur de Gestion) in Paris. She is the author of the recent Exalead whitepaper "A Practical Guide to Big Data: Opportunities, Challenges & Tools" and co-author with Gregory Grefenstette of the book Search-Based Applications: At the Confluence of Search and Database Technologies (2011, Morgan & Claypool Publishers). A second book with Morgan & Claypool, Information Retrieval in the Era of Big Data, is forthcoming.

Mark Young is Editor at Big Data Insight Group, which helps businesses identify ways to monetize big data analytics. A writer, analyst, and product developer specializing in digital disruption, he has authored an extensive portfolio of research reports on topics covering big data analytics, cloud computing, finance, engineering, change management, lean business, marketing, the creative industries, and more. With cutting insights into the ways that business landscapes are evolving in the context of the digital economy, Mark is able to help businesses understand the full value proposition of new technologies and their opportunities.