916-577-1717 / shofer@team-sos.com As a 20 year business owner of a chain of retail record stores, Steve had implemented numerous computer systems that automated manual processes, created and maintained customer databases, implemented Point Of Sales systems etc. As Project Manager in the music industry he migrated numerous company divisions to automated processes. As National Account Manager with Valley Media, Steve worked directly with the call center team to service and sell to accounts such as Borders Books, Trans World Records (1,100 stores) and others.
Shifting to technology with New Horizon Computer Learning Center, he quickly became one of the top 5% sales staff and was promoted to sales manager. Working as an independent contractor for Crestcom International providing Management and Leadership Training, he was awarded Sales Person of The Year. Working with SOS for close to a decade, Steve has helped design and install Multi-Media Contact Centers for a diverse base of customers that include Sutter Health, Cost U Less Insurance, STA Travel, State of California Contractors State License Board etc. The SOS team has designed and installed Contact Centers in 20 industries for clients ranging up to 5,000 seats.
David Sahim has more than 13 years experience in the telecommunications industry. During his tour at Advantel Networks he has designed and implemented voice communications systems with a more recent focus in contact center applications. He also manages the voice communications systems within Advantel. David has worked with clients to design communications solutions for various sized business in the US and abroad. He is an Avaya Certified Expert with specialist’s certifications in VoIP, Multimedia Messaging and Call Center.
David began tinkering with electronics and computers at a very young age and has been known through much of his life as the “go to person”, by his peers and other acquaintances, when it comes to technology. He had his first introduction to telecommunications in the US Navy aboard the Aircraft Carrier CVN 72 Abraham Lincoln. He continues to practice and hone his skills at Advantel Networks and helps lead the company and its clients in decisions on when and how to make the most of new and emerging technologies. Dave takes pride in cutting through all the Sales and Marketing chase to bring the real world of what technology today can actually do for the people he works with as well as the Advantel Networks clients. Frequently on the bleeding edge of technology, Dave is always happy to share his experiences – both successes and mistakes - with the many who express an interest to learn more.
Neil Giles has more than 15 years experience in the communication solutions industry. He has provided solutions for multimedia contact centers since 1997. For the past 13 years, he has focused on contact center applications while working for AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and Avaya, Inc. Neil has worked with clients to design contact center solutions for leading global corporations, governmental entities, and commercial enterprises in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Pacific Islands. He received an award from Bell Laboratories for design of the most innovative communication application enabling enhanced process efficiency and utilization of network resources.
Neil earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the United States Naval Academy and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Redlands California. He served as Communications Officer onboard the submarine USS Birmingham and has patrolled on the USS Alabama and USS Michigan. He was certified as a Naval Nuclear Engineering Officer and currently serves as a Commander in the US Navy Reserves.
Debra Bentson has over 25 years of Contact Center Experience including 11 years managing Workforce teams. Debra started managing her first Workforce team while preparing a job hunt as she was facing layoff. A coworker had applied for a position at California Federal Bank and during her second interview, she exclaimed, “enough about me, here’s something you really need to see” and slid Debra’s resume across the table to them. Later that same afternoon, Debra received a call at home from the Senior Vice President of Customer Service inquiring if she would be interested in talking to him about a job opportunity. That introduction led Debra to her first Workforce Manager role.
Debra’s Workforce Management experience includes managing workforce for companies with multiple sites and lines of business including California Federal Bank, Citibank, Comcast, CSAA, and currently Delta Dental. The Delta Dental Enterprise has 4 contact center sites with ~650 agents in both Union and non-Union environments. Debra balances traditional workforce forecasting and scheduling practices, collaborative stakeholder agreements to clarify roles and responsibilities, an empowered self-directed work group, and a sense of humor to meet and exceed expectations.
Amy Wolf is a Senior Solutions Engineer for the NICE System’s IEX Workforce Management Group. She began her workforce career at Pacific Bell, now part of AT&T, in 1979 and became an IEX customer in 1989 when she participated in the selection and design of IEX’s very first workforce management deployment. After implementing TotalView, Amy managed the statewide workforce management support team at Pacific Bell until joining IEX in 1996. Since then, Amy trained IEX users for 10 years and is now supporting sales efforts for the TotalView Workforce Management and IEX Performance Manager products.
Jeff has over 6 years of Call Center experience, all with SureWest. He served as the Operations Analyst at the start of his career at SureWest for two years, then was promoted to one of the Technical Support Supervisors positions and held that role for another two years. Currently he serves as the Customer Operations Manager where he oversees the day to day operations of the ACD, IVR, WFM, Service Quality and reporting as it relates to customer interactions with the company.
Prior to SureWest, Jeff was one of the Network Operation Center Engineers for Alcatel Submarine Networks where he monitored and maintained a terrestrial and submarine fiber optic terabit DWDM network for a 24/7 network operation center. From 2000 to 2001, he oversaw installation teams for Nortel Networks as a Network Field Technician, Site Team Leader.
Jeff has a bachelor’s degree in Telecommunication Management and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in business administration. He currently serves as a SureWest Foundation board member, which raises money to help local nonprofit organizations within the communities SureWest serves.
Ken is an experienced high technology industry analyst, product marketing and business development executive, specializing in enterprise telecommunications products and services, including voice telephony solutions and customer care/contact center applications. Prior to joining CSCG he held senior analyst positions with Yankee Group and Giga Group where he was responsible for creating leading industry research used to guide both vendors and end user customers in the development of strategies and business plans for products and services in the areas of customer care, voice and data convergence and related office products and applications. Prior to beginning his career as an industry analyst he served as both a product and market management executive with leading global telecommunications firms including AT&T, Fujitsu and Siemens. Ken earned a degree in economics from Rutgers College and an MBA from Seton Hall University.
Greg Sherry
Sr. Director, Marketing and Business Development, Witness Actionable Solutions www.verint.com Verint Systems, Inc. - Phone: 678-254-5324 / Cell: 678-984-2379 / greg.sherry@verint.com
Greg's background includes leadership roles in software marketing, business consulting and sales training. His 'real world' experience strengthens his current role. Previously, Greg led business optimization and service quality initiatives at Verizon Wireless (GTE Wireless). The team Greg managed received the highest level annual company award-the annual President's Award-based on measurable contributions to service quality and business optimization.
Dru Phelps
CEO Value Partner, 4D-CRM, 4 Dimensional Customer Relationship Model www.4d-crm.com / Phone: 312-822-1080 / Cell: 805 331-6284 / DruPhelps@4D-crm.com
Dru shares 25 years hands-on experience, from performance assessment to process optimization in Sales/Service/Support Centers. Her pragmatic approach relies on data and diagnostics to justify areas ripe for change. In her career, she has identified profitable ROI on over 400 Customer Service projects driving strategic business goals into tactical tools that optimize the Customer experience. Dru is an active Board Advisor alumnus from Purdue University, earned M.S. at USC in Systems Management, and on MBA faculty 4 years at University of Phoenix. Today as advisor, consultant, speaker, and avid author on Tools from A to Z, Dr.U conducts executive Roundtable Clinics or 1:1 ‘Insite’ Engagements. Some of Dru’s expertise includes:
World-wide speaker, judge, and advocate on Customer Service Excellence
Director/ Manager for Performance Optimization Practice: Assimilation to Implementation
Author of How to Conduct a Call Center Performance Audit: A to Z
Lead Certification Auditor of Purdue’s Center for Customer Driven Quality
VP at BenchmarkPortal, client and consulting services for gap-analysis comparisons
Performance Director in 200-seat fulfillment Call Center for 18 clients
Quality Engineer to monitor, measure, calibrate ROI of first call resolution
In the low morale, high turnover world of outsourced call centres with their churn and burn approach to people management and an attrition rate that routinely averages 150 - 200%, a young man who believed that "work, all work, could matter" created his own job title, started his own revolution and began to make real his vision of what culture building could do to make a difference.
It was as a manager in this world that without a budget and without formal authority, Kirk began his personal cultural revolution to make work matter and make culture count. Kirk succeeded in creating an excellent leadership training program for all managers, pioneered the development of a full-scale corporate university featuring a two-year curriculum, built an award-winning customer service quality program and created an industry-leading employee recognition program. Kirk's efforts also contributed heavily to the creation of over 700 jobs. His role as Chief Morale Officer helped achieve an attrition rate that was five times less than the industry and a 97% referral rate for new hires.
The measurable results of Kirk's efforts and the curiosity generated by his Chief Morale Officer title got Kirk invited to share his philosophy and story at a national gathering of Contact Center and IT professionals five years ago. Since that day Kirk has been continually invited to share his evangelical message with corporate audiences around the world encouraging, inspiring and inviting them to create the culture the want, to take ownership of their environment and to stop having a job and start having a life.
Kirk is an expert on creating culture, change, community and connections in the workplace. His engaging, experiential and passionate presentation style connects with audiences around the globe and leaves them empowered with practical and doable techniques that they can take home and replicate with their employees. Audiences leave enthused and armed with the tools to take themselves and their culture to the next level.
Kirk has shared his engaging message with business leaders and corporations worldwide including People Soft, Lockheed Martin, Fossil and GE.
Nicole joined AchieveGlobal’s San Francisco office in 1998 just at the time Zenger Miller, Learning International and KASET International had merged. AchieveGlobal has grown and continues to maintain an outstanding international reputation for its expertise in the core areas of sales effectiveness, customer loyalty and leadership and teamwork development.
Nicole is passionate about learning and performance improvement and works tirelessly to provide her clients with the best-in-class solutions to address their unique business challenges. Whether a client requires assistance with strategic implementation planning, the creation of a blended workflow solution or a focus on specific skill development, Nicole will develop a customized program that insures the results that business needs.
Nicole holds a Bachelors of Arts degree in Sociology and Psychology from Arizona State University and is currently pursuing an advanced degree in Organizational Development. In addition, she regularly attends various professional development events to continue her personal learning journey.
Deborah has over 20 years of experience in the field of education, ranging from elementary education to corporate training. She has been with the Wells Fargo National Business Banking Center (NBBC) for 5 years. Since she has been at the NBBC, Deborah helped to create and standardize a new hire training program for multiple locations and developed training for the center’s ‘specialty queues’. Her current role is to provide leadership and professional development training to supervisors and managers at the NBBC.
Martin Prunty is a highly respected consultant, writer, thought leader and speaker in the field of contact center management and technology. For over 20 years, he has worked with a variety of organizations across multiple industries, providing the analysis and guidance required to improve the manner in which customer sales, service and support are delivered.
Over the course of his career, Martin has been an active call center consultant for over 15 years. After successfully managing his own practice, he was instrumental in forming and managing an international call center consulting practice with over 30 consultants specializing in the financial services industry. His experience also includes his work with IBM Global Services, where he held the position of Contact Center Practice Leader.
He has maintained a close relationship with International Customer Management Institute (ICMI), and was designated its first Certified Consulting Associate. Through this relationship, he has trained over a thousand call center managers in numerous countries on the most effective methods of managing call center environments. He has also completed consulting assignments for a variety of Fortune 500 companies including Xerox, Cigna, Siemens, MasterCard International and others.
In addition to his active consultant role, he has also functioned as an advisor to foreign companies setting up outsourcing operations in the U.S. He developed the highly acclaimed seminar, “The Road Ahead to the Next Generation Call Center,” a seminar focused on the future of call centers, which he has presented in three continents. Prunty has been a keynote speaker at a variety of call center events across the U.S., Canada, U.K., Norway, Iceland, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Malaysia and Singapore. He is frequently quoted in trade journals and is the author of many industry-related articles in publications such as Call Center Management Journal, Business Communications Review, Call Center Magazine, and Bank Systems and Technology.
Punty received the Call Center Pioneer Award, an honor bestowed upon him by Call Center Magazine for achievements that have had a significant impact on the industry.
Martin has also been a member of the Society of Telecommunications Consultants and served on its board of directors from 1990 to 1992. Rick Q. Chin Manager, Solutions Marketing, Interactive Intelligence, Inc. – www.inin.com 317-715-8244 / Rick.chin@inin.com As the designer of forward-looking datacenters and infrastructures for fast growing financial firms, Rick Chin embraced converged networks and business process automation as key initiatives to support enhanced business continuance, disaster recovery, and workplace efficiency.
Rick’s exceptional track record of business improvement is based on his philosophy of total enterprise engagement in efficiency. He is known for his ability to quickly identify, diagnose, and resolve impediments that go beyond technology, working with companies to refine their organizational structure, product lines, sales support, customer service levels, as well as market position – while creating a technology base to both enable and support those missions.
As a Manager in the Solutions Marketing Group at Interactive Intelligence, Rick delivers briefings and presentations to prospects, customers, analysts, and media. Rick also helps define the product direction and marketing strategy of the suite of products offered by Interactive Intelligence.
Rick’s previous experience includes 6 years as the Senior Vice President of Information Technology at Pinnacle Financial Corporation, where he directed technology operations for 1,400 employees in over 100 offices nationwide, including the call center. Prior to that, he built the technology infrastructure for Taylor, Bean & Whitaker, now a top 5 lender. Rick also ran a technology consulting firm for 10 years and worked for 9 years as the international director of accounting for a non-profit organization.
Trini is responsible for the Lodi Customer Service call center for Blue Shield of California. Her team focuses on the Large Group and Labor Public Strategic, Spanish and the Priority clients. Trini has been with Blue Shield for 4 years. Prior to joining customer service, Trini was responsible for the training and quality teams in Chico and Redding. Prior to Blue Shield, Trini spent 8 years leading a call center for SBC Communications.
David Fleming has been acknowledged as pioneer of the telework - telecommuting work option by his peers, the American Management Association, the CIO Magazine for Chief Information Officers. He was inducted as the fourth member into the International Telework Association and Council (ITAC) Hall of Fame. He served as the Telework Program Consultant for the State of California, working with an array of state agencies in adapting and monitoring telework programs unique to individual cultures of each organization. He managed the planning and development of 12 multi-employer neighborhood telecenters, a research project conducted at the University of California, Davis. He directed the planning and execution of the State of California telecommuting pilot program, resulting in 1990 legislation formally establishing the telecommute work option in California government and the "Innovations Award" from the Council of State Governments. He served as a founder and a director of ITAC. (Visit www.DavidFlemingLTD.com)
Phil Keester has been specializing in audio & video conferencing, voice communications, headsets for office, home and mobile phones for the past 4 years. Previous to his tenure at Quagga, he was involved in the competitive sailing industry as Procurement & Logistics Manager with teams competing in the America's Cup in 1992, 1995, 2000 and 2003.
Vern Fernandez has been with Plantronics since March 2004. Beginning as the Senior Federal Sales Specialist, Vern specialized in strategic sales, requiring the coordination of field sales, OEM engineering and channels to close business with the U.S. Navy, the Dept. of Homeland Security, FEMA, Amtrak, and, currently one of the single largest enterprise wins for Plantronics in the VOIP space, Social Security. He has earned Inside Sales Rep of the Year for 2005 and World Class Club Award for 2005 and 2006 In the last year, he managed over 50 major accounts, coordinated with various managers on the restructuring of Inside Sales, and collaborated as a core team member on the deployment of Salesforce.com. Today, Vern is the Field Sales Territory Manager for Northern California and Hawaii.
Darryl Addington is Manager of Product Marketing at Genesys for Genesys IP products. Darryl has 13 years of experience supporting, designing, marketing and selling call center solutions in a variety of roles. Darryl has a BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Robert Cate Director of Contact Center Operations, Vegas.com Vegas.com – www.vegas.com
As Director of Contact Center Operations, Robert Cate is responsible for leading the Contact Center at Vegas.com, the largest city destination travel website in the world. In his role at Vegas.com, Robert and his management team have taken advantage of his 20 years of experience to blend ethereal human management principles with the real world of technology. This philosophy turned “Doing Customer Contact” into “Doing Customer Contact Right.” Prior to joining the Vegas.com team, Robert was the Director of Innovation and Development for a large international emergency response company and Vice President of Information Technology for the security division of Adelphia Communications.
Susan Wheeler has extensive background in providing consulting and training to public and private sectors. She has over 20 years of experience in management as an executive in large corporations and small companies. As part of her consulting practice, Susan works with her clients to improve their internal and customer-facing processes. Before opening Pathfinder Consulting Solutions in 2000, Susan held a number of senior level positions at start-up and established companies including AT&T, General Electric and Chevron. She leverages her experience in the corporate world to communicate clearly across all levels of a client organization. Among her areas of expertise, Susan focuses on helping her clients to develop best-practices for recruiting and retaining employees. Susan’s training expertise includes facilitating group discussions for collaborative thinking and decision-making and translating complex subjects into easy-to-understand concepts. Pathfinder Consulting Solutions provides process improvement, strategic planning, project management and training to clients worldwide.
Myla Ramos is the Business Development Director and managing partner of SearchPros Staffing – a 3 years old Sacramento based firm that has recently started to receive accolades from organizations outside of their client base. They are currently being honored as one of the Top Business by DiversityBusiness.com. With over 600,000 business in the US that were eligible for the annual contest, SearchPros Staffing has distinguished itself as one of the top entrepreneurs in the country and will be awarded at their national conference in Walt Disney World Florida in April 2008. They were featured in the FTC (The Federal Technology Center) as a certification success story. They also recently made the Sacramento Business Journal’s Book of List as a top 20 Staffing Firm in the region. Myla has over 15 years in the Human Resources and Staffing industry, having worked with some of the largest staffing firms nationally. Her responsibilities on a day-to-day level are recruit and retain employees for Fortune 500 firms in the No Ca region. She graduated Cumlaude from San Francisco State University with a double major in Industrial Psychology and Business Administration and has been a guest speaker for the Sacramento Legal Association and California Employment Development for topics in recruitment, screening and retention.
Rusty is a seasoned professional with an enviable reputation for forging and maintaining solid sales and marketing strategies on the national level. Specialist in creating sales cultures that foster appropriate compensation, rewards and recognition, competitive intelligence and training in a “based-on-results” environment. Background includes national business strategy, operations liaison, new product introduction and retail relationships, as well as a myriad of everyday practical solutions for hiring, educating and motivating an effective sales organization. Programs have consistently increased volume, revenue and profitability with accounting metrics that clearly track ‘bottom line’ results. Strong negotiating skills working with vendors, channels and partners create ‘win-win’ situations for all involved. Especially accomplished as a turnaround specialist, this former college football coach sports a proven track record of motivating his team with an inspirational style that brings out the very best in his people.
Ian is an external call center consultant, currently focused on developing new call centers from scratch. In the last 12 years he has had quite a variety of call center management experience. For three years before switching to consulting he led Wells Fargo’s most profitable call center for individual clients, with a staff of over 500 people, in Sacramento. He has led call centers for large public and private enterprises, in Australia and the U.S.A. He also has worked as a Call Center Director for a smaller dotcom company that provided outsourced call center services to about 150 different clients. In addition to these management roles, he served as a full time Strategic Consultant to Wells Fargo's Banker Connection Call Centers, the 2004 winner of ICMI’s Call Center Of The Year award. Ian is a strong believer in the importance of supporting team members and learning from others at every opportunity.
Louis Cullo Workforce Management Analyst Delta Dental 916-861-1925 lcullo@delta.org
Louis currently works at Delta Dental as a Workforce Management Analyst. He is responsible for creation and development of a capacity plan which forecasts call volume and determining staffing needs 12 months out for six business units across four locations nationwide that are soon to be consolidated into one enterprise. Louis uses Aspect’s eWorkforce Management and Real-Time Adherence to manage the resources of the six different business units and an outsourcer. He was the first member of the workforce management team and as the team expanded, trained and coached the new members on workforce management.
Prior to Delta Dental, Louis worked at Bank of America for over 14 years; the last five in the contact center. There, he was responsible for gathering staffing and call data from five contact centers nationwide and determine ways to increase capacity with the staff currently employed. He began gathering exceptions, approving and declining vacation requests and call routing between two sites in California. From there, he developed a method of planning vacation time for approximately 400 associates, where each received average of 4 weeks per year, for the upcoming calendar year, and completed the process within 30 days. Louis also developed several reports used by team leads to help manage their associates and senior management to make sound staffing decisions. He was also the business SME during the department’s upgrade from TCS 4.4 to Aspect eWFM 6.4.
Louis has a Bachelor’s degree in Statistics from Union Institute and University.
Adam is part of the Product Management organization at Genesys, where he leads the team responsible for workforce management and routing solutions. His team of Product Managers is responsible for setting both the short and long-term strategy and roadmap for the products they manage. Although there are numerous sources for product ideas and improvements, Adam believes that nothing can take the place of direct interaction with customers.
Prior to Genesys, Adam worked at Aspect Communications (now part of Aspect Software), where he was the Product Manager for numerous products, including network and enterprise routing, CTI servers, multi-channel routing, web chat, and the agent softphone.
Gia McNutt is CEO & Co-Founder of SOS, a nationwide expert in call centers and IP Communications. Since 1992, hundreds of businesses including Trader Joe's and Vegas.com have chosen the SOS team for IP communications, call center technology, and network security solutions. McNutt has served on the Cisco Commercial Channel Advisory Board since November 2002. She also served for years on the VentureTech Advisory Council and on the VAR Business Advisory Board.
Chris Ewing, CEO of Keenan Holdings, which runs Cost-U-Less Insurance in Rancho Cordova, will discuss the lessons learned in moving a call center to an IP platform last year, and the dollar-for-dollar return on investment. Keenan Holdings includes Sacramento-based Cost-U-Less serves 600,000 Californians from its Rancho Cordova headquarters and 60 offices statewide.
Mike Nemetz Regional Sales Manager for the West Interactive Intelligence 800-267-1364, x194 mike.nemetz@inin.com
Mike Nemetz is Regional Sales Manager for the West at Interactive Intelligence. Mike has over 18 years experience in the communications and contact center business with specific emphasis on customer service & support. Mike will be focusing on how an all-in-one platform can best deliver multimedia benefits to contact centers.
Gina Carriere, Senior Field Marketing Manager for Nuance, manages lead generation and field marketing activities for Nuance’s Western Region. At Nuance for over 7 years, Gina previously worked within Nuance’s Product Marketing group, managing two core Nuance products: Nuance Vocalizer text-to-speech and Nuance Verifier voice authentication software. As Product Marketing Manager, Gina was responsible for many aspects of product delivery, including the launch of products and releases to market, as well as helping to drive the strategic product direction. Prior to joining Nuance, Gina worked at Lucent Technologies/Avaya in both Product Management and Account Management capacities
Vinh Amis – Intervoice Network Strategic Market Unit and Channels, Western Region 602-363-4837 vinh.amis@intervoice.com
Adam Holden – Empirix, Inc. Regional Account Manager p: 925.558.2711 m: 408.499.8917 aholden@empirix.com
Background:
>8 years+ with Empirix,
>4 years working with the Communications Infrastructure Test Group, providing telephony test equipment to next generation equipment manufactures such as Cisco, Lucent, and Genesys.
>For the last four years, I have worked with our Enterprise Test Group which specializes on providing products and services to companies to test and monitor their contact center infrastructure with a focus on both the customer and the Agent Quality of Experience
>Prior to Empirix I spent 5 years providing liability and quality monitoring recording systems to public safety and commercial businesses.
Kent Barnes – PG&E Senior Project Manager 415-973-8484 Skb3@pge.com
Kent Barnes is a Sr. Project Manager at Pacific Gas and Electric Company. He has 25 years experience in telecommunications as a technician, business analyst, engineer and project manager. He's currently responsible for the Customer Care IVR program and was the principle project manager for speech enabling the Contact Centers IVR system.
Susan Rueppel is a Contact Center Solutions Architect and Technical Project Manager at Performance Technology Partners (PTP). She has over 20 years of experience in both public sector and private industry including telecommunications management within organizations such as The Sacramento Bee, Contact Center Solutions Engineering for Siemens Communications, and professional services consulting. Susan has been involved in organizing and managing a number of telecommunications and contact center industry user groups throughout her career.
