Dr. Thomas E. Downey – has held senior executive positions in IT and e-learning training systems. He has proven global success in the aerospace, engineering, publishing, medical education and health industries. Tom is best described as a learning technologist who has been dedicated to the design, development and delivery of technology-based learning products. His passion is to enable people to increase their personal and professional potential through well designed training systems while being cost effective.
Dr. Downey has been in Adult Training / Education and Instructional Technology for over twenty years. His professional experience has been with the University of Washington, the Portland Community College System, the Raytheon Co., Boeing Aerospace, Boeing Commercial Airplane, the Higher Colleges of Technology in the United Arab Emirates and Thomson Learning. He has lived overseas in Brazil, Mexico and the Middle East. He has traveled extensively, speaks Spanish fluently and has conducted technical workshops in Mexico and Chile. He holds an Ph.D and M.A. from the University of Washington. Dr. Downey also earned an MBA in Accounting, Information Systems and Security from the New York Institute of Technology as a Thomson Elite Scholar.
Michael Gale – is a partner at PulsePoint group. He sees the migration of integrated needs to the digital and social landscape as one of the major challenges and opportunities for the next generation of CMO's tasked with taking social beyond a low cost reach alternative. He is a recognized industry expert in integrated technology marketing, having founded Strategic Oxygen in 2001, which is widely seen as one of the technology industry's primary data toolset for marketers.
Mr. Gale was previously a group partner at Monitor Group and expanded the integrated models at Strategic Oxygen into a range of B2B and B2C categories such as integrated sales and marketing models for wealth management. Prior to PulsePoint, Mr. Gale was the Chief Web Officer for MiconPC and also built the global technology branding and marketing measurement business at IntelliQuest (went public in 1998). From 1985 to 1990 he worked for VNU BV in developing new IP publishing products and M&A. From 1990 – 1992 he worked at Banner and Co. in developing measurements systems for European media and marketing effectiveness. Mr. Gale holds a degree in history and mathematics.
With a business-innovation and operating executive background spanning 40 years, Steve Kirchoff has worked with companies such as Digital, Compaq, Microsoft and Fujitsu, as well as with smaller non-technology and technology companies. He has staged several public and non-public companies for growth and exit, participated in acquiring15 companies totaling more than $13 billion in M&A value.
Mr. Kirchoff is an author, investor, speaker and business advisor. He sits on advisory boards and is a board member to some of the most innovative companies. Mr. Kirchoff holds a BS and MBA. He has enriched his professional development in executive programs at Harvard, Wharton School of Business, and the University of Virginia.
Dr. Ramachandran is a Senior Manager with Accenture's Talent & Organizational Performance Management Consulting practice focused on delivering learning strategy, technology and content to Accenture's Learning & Collaboration clients. Previously, Dr. Ramachandran has spent over a decade working with TPI, IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers as a Talent Management and Learning Consultant for Fortune 500 organizations.
In addition, Dr. Ramachandran as presented at such events as Masie's Learning conferences, University of Chicago's Booth School Leadership Summit and India's NASSCOM events as well as taught at Accenture's Management Consulting University. He has also been quoted in the Wall Street Journal and India's Financial Express and Business Today periodicals in the area of global learning leadership. Dr. Ramachandran is an alumnus of the Wharton School of Business and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, earning both his Doctorate and Masters in Education. Dr. Ramachandran also holds a B.S.in Biochemistry from The Ohio State University.
Pamela Halpern – With over 25 years management experience in strategic planning, business development, product development, and marketing. As an entrepreneur, the main thread of her career has been the building of successful and profitable businesses. She has worked at all ends of the economic cycle. Ms. Halpern was the founder and President of Easy i, Inc., the North American division of Easy i Holdings, Ltd., a global market leader providing compliance, regulation, and risk management solutions to Fortune 500 companies. She was a Partner and Board member of Easy i Holdings, until the sale to SAI Global, an Australian public company. Following acquisition by SAI Global, she was asked to stay on to oversee the establishment of a new compliance division. She successfully integrated Easy i into the new company, remained President of North American operations, was member of the Global Compliance Division Executive team and established strategic positioning and action plan for growth, including future acquisitions.
Prior to establishing Easy i, Ms. Halpern had worked in the training and education media sector for both private and public companies. She has presented at numerous national and international venues, including: American Society of Training and Development, UCLA, InfoSec Europe, ISSA and ISACA annual conferences and chapter meetings across the country, The Computer Security Institute's Annual Conference, The California Counties Information Services Association, The Portland Information Technology Exposition and Conference, The Institute of Internal Auditors. She is a past Board Member of the American Society for Training and Development (Los Angeles Chapter).
Kevin Paulsen – is an accomplished executive with over 30 years experience in start-up, mid-size and very large companies. He served 10 years as the President and Chief Executive Officer of TechSkills LLC, a privately held, national, post secondary educational institution where he was responsible for TechSkills' day-to-day operations. During his tenure, TechSkills grew from a $2M Company in 1999 to over $45M. To fund the growth Mr. Paulsen was actively involved in multiple equity and debt financing rounds totally over $30M.
Prior to joining TechSkills, Mr. Paulsen was the Executive Vice President of Global Services for Norstan, Inc., a publicly traded technology integration and consulting company in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Mr. Paulsen is also a 21-year veteran of IBM, where he held a number of financial, sales and consulting positions. While in finance, he managed a financial organization of three managers and 30 financial analysts responsible for the development and analysis of the business plan for a $3B marketing and services organization consisting of over 7,000 employees and $600M in expense. Prior to joining Norstan, he held the title of Vice President of Integration Services within IBM Global Services, in Chicago. As the Vice-President he had P&L responsibility for the $100M consulting and systems integration business unit for the ten states around Chicago as well as the consulting practice leadership for the insurance industry vertical for North America. Mr. Paulsen earned a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration and Finance from the University of Iowa.
Co-founder and CEO of Cache IQ. Mr. Trammell came to Cache IQ from CA Technologies/NetQoS. Since co-founding NetQoS in 1999, he led the company to become one of the fastest growing in the U.S., with a rapidly expanding list of blue-chip customers and sustained profitability ultimately leading to the CA Technologies acquisition of NetQoS in 2009. Joel's achievements in information technology span more than two decades and include numerous positions of leadership and management.
Prior to NetQoS, Mr. Trammell held executive positions at UST Computers and HomeSmart, a company that he co-founded to provide sales and marketing products for the residential construction industry. He holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Louisiana Tech University. Mr. Trammell recently accepted the role of Chairman of the Board of the Austin Technology Council.
