We were pleased to present the following keynote speakers at WES 2009::
Tuesday General Session, May 5, 8:30am - 10:30am
Mike Lazaridis
President and Co-CEO of RIM
Mr. Lazaridis is known in the global wireless community as a visionary, innovator, and engineer of extraordinary talent.
He traces his passion for his work to his hometown of Windsor, Ontario where his love of science and fascination with electronics
were nurtured in supportive family and school environments.
As President and Co-CEO of Research In Motion (RIM), a company Mr. Lazaridis founded while a student at UW, he is responsible
for product strategy, research and development, product development, and manufacturing. Mr. Lazaridis is also a leader in
his community and a passionate advocate for education and scientific research. Mr. Lazaridis supports his community and
country through generous philanthropic gifts made possible by his success in business.
He has donated $75 million to UW to help establish an Institute for Quantum Computing. Mr. Lazaridis also personally invested
$150 million in the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI) and, through his leadership and tireless effort, has
generated more than $100 million in additional private and public sector funding for this world leading centre of scientific
excellence. PI is home to a growing cluster of international scientists who are pushing the limits of our fundamental understanding
of space, time, matter and information. Since opening in 2001, the institute has attracted the attention of the world's
scientific research and educational outreach community. The independent centre is now associated with over 30 Canadian universities
and a growing number of institutes world-wide.
Mr. Lazaridis holds honorary doctoral degrees from the University of Waterloo (Engineering), McMaster University, University
of Windsor and Université Laval. He has been awarded Canada's most prestigious innovation prize - The Ernest C. Manning
Principal Award and was listed on the TIME 100 List of Most Influential People. Mr. Lazaridis is a Fellow of the Royal Society
of Canada, was named to the Order of Ontario and is an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Tuesday General Session, May 5, 8:30am - 10:30am
Robert J. Picciano
General Manager, Lotus and WebSphere Portal Software, IBM Software Group
As general manager for Lotus and WebSphere Portal Software, Bob Picciano has oversight for an extensive portfolio of collaboration
tools designed to empower people to be more effective, responsive and innovative within the context of the work they do.
It includes email, calendar, instant messaging, electronic forms, web conferencing, portals, mashups, team spaces, business
dashboards, document management, social software and software as a service. He also serves as a member of IBM's Performance
Team and the IBM Integration and Values team, two select communities of executives who provide guidance across IBM on various
operational, business, and strategic issues.
Bob has spent 19 of his 21 year IBM career in the Research and Development positions leading innovations into many product
domain areas. Immediately prior to becoming general manager, Mr. Picciano was vice president, worldwide sales, Information
Management, Software Group. He was responsible for sales and operations for the Information Management portfolio, a multi-billion
dollar product set that is sold in over 130 countries. Bob had previously been vice president for Data Servers, responsible
for business line performance of IBM's highly successful database portfolio of software products including DB2, Informix
IDS, Cloudscape, RedBrick, and XPS. From 2001 to 2004, Mr. Picciano led the worldwide development and support of DB2 Linux,
Windows and UNIX platforms as vice president of Database Technology while on international assignment at the IBM Toronto
Software Development Lab in Markham, Canada.
Over the course of his twenty year career at IBM, Mr. Picciano has held numerous technical management and executive positions
including Technical Assistant to IBM Chairman and CEO Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. and IMS Family Product Manager, where he also
managed the Santa Teresa laboratory central development technologies team, providing development, test and product packaging
services to the lab's development teams.
Mr. Picciano holds a B.S. degree in Computer Science from Northeastern University.
Tuesday General Session, May 5, 8:30am - 10:30am
Laurent Philonenko
Vice President and General Manager, Unified Communications Business Unit, Cisco
Laurent Philonenko is vice president and general manager of the Cisco Unified Communications business unit, which provides
messaging, conferencing and desktop and phone client solutions including video and mobility.
His prior role at Cisco was vice president and general manager of the Customer Contact business unit, which provides multi-channel
contact center and interactive voice applications to enterprises and service providers.
Laurent is closely involved with Cisco's customers and channels worldwide. He is credited with fostering a culture of customer
service, innovation, and quality, and is focused on advancing Cisco's business and thought leadership in unified communications.
He also serves in several Cisco cross functional initiatives, and is in particular involved in Cisco's IT deployment of
unified communications solutions.
Prior to joining Cisco, Laurent was president and CEO of Genesys Telecommunications, a leading provider of contact center
solutions, where he had previously held the roles of chief technical officer and chief operations officer. Laurent joined
Genesys from Alcatel, where he was senior vice president in charge of network software solutions.
Laurent's career has also encompassed sales, strategy, marketing and development positions in the IT and telecommunications
industry; he has had assignments in five countries, and is currently based in San Jose, California. Laurent is a graduate
in from Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and holds a masters degree in management science from Paris University.
Tuesday General Session, May 5, 8:30am - 10:30am
Eric Haseltine
Former 'CTO' for the U.S. intelligence community
Former head of Walt Disney Imagineering
Eric C. Haseltine is President and Managing Partner, Haseltine Partners LLC. He was Director of Research at the National
Security Agency (NSA) and then Associate Director for Science and Technology for the Director of National Intelligence -
essentially CTO for the entire U.S. intelligence community. Before entering government service in 2001, Eric was Executive
Vice President of Walt Disney Imagineering, in charge of all R&D for Walt Disney Company, and director of engineering for
Hughes Aircraft. Eric has 15 patents in optics, special effects and electronic media, and more than 100 publications in
science and technical journals, the web, and Discover Magazine.
Throughout his career, Eric has helped organizations harvest the future by developing far-sighted technological solutions
that deliver near-term value. He is an expert on managing innovation processes, with especially deep experience the defense
and entertainment industries-for Hughes Aircraft, designing virtual reality technology for flight simulation; then for
Disney Imagineering as head of R&D; and ultimately, as 'CTO' for the U. S. intelligence community.
Calling himself a 'psycho-ecologist', with a Ph.D. in physiological psychology, Eric applies neuroscience to new technologies,
using how the human brain naturally wants to interact with technology to improve performance.
Eric is also a leading authority on managing digital rights and protecting intellectual property.
Eric offers a view from the crow's nest, a vision of what's on the horizon and over the horizon, from two perspectives:
navigation-where we need to be going; and steering-how do we get there? Most technology futurists focus on the technology,
the bitware-software, hardware, firmware, any kind of ware that isn't neurons. But it's the wetware-the neurons-that really
matter. Technology is constantly changing, but human nature stays pretty much the same. As a neuroscientist and 'psycho-ecologist',
Eric extrapolates human nature where it intersects technology in the future. That intersection is where the opportunities
and necessities are. Maximizing performance when you get there depends on providing for the human nature of the user. Eric
Haseltine is uniquely qualified to make the crucial connection: predict the technical requirements of the design and marry
it to the needs of the user.
Wednesday General Session, May 6, 9:00am - 11:00am
Jim Balsillie
Co-Chief Executive Officer of RIM
Since 1992, Jim Balsillie has been co-CEO at RIM, maker of the world renowned BlackBerry® wireless solution. At RIM, Jim
is responsible for driving corporate strategy, business development, marketing, sales, and finance.
In 2002, Mr. Balsillie founded The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), a world-class global research
institute focused on the restructuring of international governance. In 2007, Mr. Balsillie announced the creation of the
new Canadian International Council (CIC) of which he is the Chair. In 2008, he founded the Balsillie School of International
Affairs.
Mr. Balsillie is a graduate of the University of Toronto and the Harvard Graduate School of Business. He is a chartered
accountant and a fellow of the Ontario Institute of Chartered Accountants. He also holds numerous honorary doctorate degrees.
Wednesday General Session, May 6, 9:00am - 11:00am
Shane Robison
Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy and Technology Officer, Hewlett Packard
Shane Robison is responsible for shaping HP's overall corporate strategy and technology agenda, and oversees the company's
corporate marketing function. He steers the company's $3.6 billion research and development investment and fosters the development
of the company's global technical community. All of the company's senior chief technology officers and the director of HP
Labs report into him.
Robison also leads the company's strategy and corporate development efforts, including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures,
intellectual property licensing, venture capital community and partnerships. He was one of four principal architects of
HP's merger with Compaq Computer Corp., and, in 2004, InfoWorld declared Robison one of the world's 25 most influential
chief technology officers.
Robison also has responsibility for worldwide corporate marketing activities, including external and internal communications,
brand marketing, customer intelligence and corporate affairs.
Robison was senior vice president and chief technology officer of Strategy and Technology at Compaq. Prior to joining Compaq,
Robison was president of Internet Technology and Development at AT&T Labs, where he led a 2,000-person team that was
responsible for the architecture, planning and development of all of AT&T's Internet technologies and services.
Robison also was president of the Design Productivity Group at Cadence Design Systems and, prior to that, spent several
years at Apple Computer, where he was vice president and general manager of the Personal Interactive Electronics Division.
He also held a research management position at Schlumberger's artificial intelligence lab in Palo Alto.
Robison received bachelors and masters degrees in computer science from the University of Utah.
Wednesday General Session, May 6, 9:00am - 11:00am
Malcolm Gladwell
Best selling Author of Outliers, The Tipping Point and Blink
Malcolm Gladwell has an incomparable gift for interpreting new ideas in the social sciences and making them understandable,
practical and valuable to business and general audiences alike. He's become so successful at this that, in 2005, Time Magazine
named Malcolm one of its 100 Most Influential People.
He is the author of two New York Times #1 bestsellers, The Tipping Point and Blink.
With his first book Malcolm embedded the concept of The Tipping Point in our everyday vocabulary and gave
organizations new tools for understanding how trends work.
In Blink he analyzed first impressions-the snap judgments that we all make unconsciously and instinctively-and
he explores how we can master this important aspect of successful decision-making.
Malcolm's newest book promises to have an even greater impact on both business and society. In Outliers: Why Some
People Succeed and Some Don't, Malcolm suggests an exciting new approach to helping people succeed by using the
factors that really foster success.
Malcolm is a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine. His editor describes his work as a new genre of story, an idea-driven
narrative that's focused on the everyday and combines research with material that's more personal, social and historical.
He was previously a reporter for the Washington Post .