Natalie Zeituny, Principal and Founder

Natalie has over 20 years' experience in business strategy, process management and technology implementation. As a multi-lingual senior business advisor (English, Hebrew, Arabic, French), she had worldwide corporate experience in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the United States. In 2002 she founded NZ Consulting, an Business/IT management-consulting firm that has successfully advised corporations such as Apple, Yahoo, Palm, Seagate, Network Appliance, Brocade, Altera, BEA, Safeway and others .

Natalie held a number of highly visible and successful leadership positions. At Brocade, Netapp and Safeway, she lead the IT Strategy, IT Governance, IT PMO and IT Process Architecture Definition and Implementation, working with CIO's and Business executives, coaching and improving upon corporate goals and technology solutions. At 3Com and Palm she managed large scale IT Projects and e-commerce strategies. At Comverse she managed Customer Support budget of $30M that drove customer support strategy and call-centers excellence.

Natalie is the author of "Climbing the Ladder of Business Intelligence", which outlines how business can attain high performance through alignment of people, process, and technology. Natalie is an honor graduate of the Technion Engineering University and completed the majority of her MBA work at Ben-Gurion University in Israel. She has been living and managing NZconsulting in San Francisco, CA since 1998.

Steve Romero

Steve Romero is an innovative, passionate IT professional with over 20 years experience working in almost every area of IT. For the past 10 years his career has predominantly focused on helping large enterprises run their IT departments like a business. Steve is an expert in IT Governance, IT program and project management and business process management. He is a Certified Project Management Professional, a Certified Information Systems Security Professional and a Certified Process Master.

Steve has an extensive technical background. His IT career started in computer operations, database management and teleprocessing in the US Navy. He then worked in data communications and networking as a systems integrator, strategic planner, network architect at Pacific Bell. After Program Managing a $45M infrastructure upgrade at Pacific Bell, Steve joined an IT Management Consulting start-up to establish and manage a Technology Project Management Practice. Steve then worked at Charles Schwab and the California State Automobile Association Steve where he established formal process management and IT Governance processes.

Throughout his career, Steve has been a thought leader due to his rare combination of technical and management experience and wide-ranging knowledge and skills. Steve understands what is required to enable IT to become a strategic corporate asset that can be leveraged for competitive advantage.

Ian Duffield

Born in England, Ian spent the first 18 years of his career designing and implementing ERP systems in manufacturing companies, including Black & Decker and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. He moved to California in 1989 with Oracle Corp, where he led several teams in the design and development of Oracle’s Manufacturing applications. Later he successfully led multiple implementations of those applications at various technology companies. Over more than 30 years Ian has developed a wide range of business experience as a hands-on leader, and company executive. Ian was the first CIO at Radius, Aspen Technology and eGain where he brought his passion to organizing and building high performing teams; transforming IT from a cost center to a significant business asset, driving dollars to the bottom line. He was recently COO at Decipher Inc, a market research software company, where he led the company’s rapid growth and drive for operational excellence, delivering outstanding results on customer and employee satisfaction.

Ian graduated from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne in England, and continues to do extensive on-going training and education.

Benny Kirsh

Benny Kirsh is an accomplished IT professional with over 20 years of experience in IT Strategic planning, Change Management, IT Transformation and M&A activities. He was directly responsible for leading several significant business transformation implementations providing technology solutions responding to the business needs of SMB companies in Life science and High-Tech industries. His accomplishments have proven to improve operation effectiveness and organization financial performance. At his most recent position as the CIO of The Cooper Companies, Benny managed a global team located in the US, Europe and APAC and was brought in to lead an ERP implementation, prepare the IT department to support the new environment and drive cultural change necessary for a global roll-out.

Previous to The Cooper Companies Benny was the CIO of a Medical Device Company, Kyphon, till it was acquired by Medtronic. His most important objective was to build the IT foundation for the continuous growth including, infrastructure, Systems and Team while sustaining the flexibility required to operate in a very competitive market. Benny has a BSc in Industrial Engineering from Farleigh Dickinson Univ, NJ and an MBA from Harriott Watt, UK.

Susan D. Berland

Susan D. Berland, brings extensive knowledge in diverse areas of financial management and business transactions gained in over 20 years of experience. Her senior management experience has included the positions of Chief Financial Officer of Poniard Pharmaceuticals, Director in Monsanto’s Company’s corporate M&A group, and then subsequently leading that Company’s Financial Planning function through their merger with Pharmacia & Upjohn. She has worked in diverse industries including life sciences (pharmaceuticals, molecular diagnostics, and medical devices), agriculture (seed operations and crop protection), and telecommunications. Consulting clients have included such companies as Presidio Pharmaceuticals, Sierra Surgical Technologies, Calderome Inc., Richmond Chemical Co., and Lynx Therapeutics. Ms. Berland holds MBA and BBA degrees from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee.

Gwen Morris

Gwen Morris is a proven IT and business leader, with over 20 years of experience in a broad range of business functions, including operations management, process development, governance, large scale program management, and security. Gwen has built and managed teams ranging in size from 10 to over 200. She began her career at Hewlett Packard Company (HP) and held leadership positions in order fulfillment and services. She lead a team responsible for significantly reducing new product time to market, globally, by re-engineering new product release processes. She led a dramatic transformation of HP's UNIX software delivery business by implementing SAP, re-structuring the organization, and re-engineering 80% of the order and delivery processes.

Gwen has worked in large, medium, and small companies, demonstrating the agility to adapt to diverse work environments. She tackles business problems at both a strategic and tactical level, interacting effectively at all management and employee levels within companies. At BEA Systems, she held a number of senior leadership positions within IT, including program managing establishing a corporate wide business continuity plan; managing a team of 60 to deliver IT infrastructure services, and leading the Governance and Security function. The team successfully established governance for IT and the business functions; achieving 100% adoption.

Gwen has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Davis and an Executive MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Suzanne Singman

Suzanne Singman is a Usability Consultant with over 10 years of demonstrated success in identifying and implementing solutions that improve usability for both websites and products, and enhance the user experience. Suzanne has experience on e-commerce websites, desktop applications and hand-held devices. Her industry experience includes: Financial Services, Telecommunications, Biotechnology and Non-Profit. Suzanne has used a variety of usability techniques depending on the situation such as: Task-based Usability Evaluations, Best Practice Reviews, Heuristic Evaluations and Field Studies (User Observations).

Her unique combination of skills, experience and education includes: Extensive experience conducting iterative research through the full product development life cycle. Ability to link business strategy with user needs. Skilled in cross functional collaboration to drive and negotiate user-centered design. Deep understanding of Human Computer Interaction theory and practice. BA in Psychology and MBA in Management Information System.

Madhu Nair

Madhu Nair is a results-driven IT professional with over 13 years of proven experience in Project/Program Management, Business Process Reengineering and implementing enterprise wide applications. He has executed numerous projects with teams located in Costa Rica, Mexico, The Netherlands, Malaysia and India. He brings with him a broad spectrum of industry specific experience including Semiconductors, Medical Devices, Healthcare and Aerospace & Defense. He has implemented projects in multiple functional areas including Sales, Marketing, Procurement, Sourcing, Inventory/Warehouse Management, HR and Learning.

Madhu started off his career at Baan Company as the Product Architect for their Application Integration Platform. At Ducommun Aerostructures Madhu implemented corporate wide enterprise applications. At Altera he executed ERP, EAI and MES projects to enable Altera to meet its strategic goals. Most recently at Align Technology, he led the global Sales, Marketing, Operations, HR and Learning programs. He was also involved in setting up the PMO at Align Technology.

Madhu has a degree in Computer Science from Pune Institute of Computer Technology (India).

Arona Primalani

Arona brings over 10 years of experience in sales, products and operations for start-ups and Fortune 100 clients across a broad range of verticals. She specializes in helping clients push to new frontiers of technology, processes and organization.

Most recently, Arona spear-headed business intelligence solutions for C-level initiatives in the telecommunications, medical providers and financial verticals. Her role in orchestrating sales strategies, technical architectures, and product marketing yield multi-million dollar partnerships, company growth and name recognition. Arona was also the key architect in designing an avant-guard global workflow engine that led to the IPO filing and continued success of her clients.

She has built corporations from ground up from organizational staffing, to best practices and product design. Her insight to change management spans people, technologies, process. Her core competencies are rooted in building product plans, business cases, sales demos, marketing collateral, process improvement strategies and project management. In her roles as Director of Sales Engineering, Practice Manager, and Business Development Manager, Arona leads team while playing a hands-on role as individual contributor.

Arona holds a BS in Information Systems from The American University and completed several masters' certificates from Oracle Corporation. She continues to invest her training in Organization Management and Change Management.

Reuven Shelef

Reuven Shelef is a talented business consultant with more than 16 years of technical, operational, market and service experience in leading, fast growing organizations, including both start-ups and large multi-national corporations such as Nicecom, 3Com, Savan, Infineon, Atrica, Intransa, Active Decisions, Integral Axis and Network Appliance.

Reuven possesses excellent organizational, communication, presentation and interpersonal skills, and is committed to excellence and continual process improvement. Reuven creates successful working environments and results by exercising his authentic leadership skills and his incredible focus on customer needs and satisfaction.

Reuven served for several years in the Israeli army as a company commander, an intelligence research officer, training officer and as the commander of field intelligence course in the IDF School of Intelligence. He is an Honor graduate of the Tel-Aviv Practical Engineering University and a first class honor graduate of Coventry Engineering University in Israel.

Jason Le

Jason Le has over twenty years of experience with a proven track record in MIS management, project management, information technology, Business Process Reengineering, ecommerce, manufacturing and management consulting. He is a results-oriented team player with a successful record of leading cross-functional teams focusing on projects that drive to improve corporate profitability.

As a project manager, he able to define, communicate, and fulfill project goals, manage risks, and break complex issues into manageable parts. Jason Le has strong leadership, collaboration, communication and team-building skills coupled with a demonstrated drive to achieve goals.

Ian Evans

Ian has an uncontrollable drive to make IT environments reliable, flexible, and top performing. He have over 25 years of IT experience providing real-world knowledge of customers’ needs. His major focus has been on developing and improving the infrastructure of IT environments. Ian has worked in all areas of IT including software development, infrastructure, security, and architecture. Over the last 20 years Ian has worked at technology companies like Sequent, Synopsys, and Brocade. Ian changed the IT environments at these companies from chaos to an orderly and well-performing service they could rely upon. Ian also has over 4 years of Product Marketing/Management and Business Development expertise from Brocade. Having both IT and business-side experience gives him a valuable perspective on how customers use IT solutions.

Stacy Forgy

For over twenty years Stacy has been working with high technology companies to successfully implement new business processes through the implementation of state of the art application software. Her corporate employment experience includes management roles and global project implementations for Apple Computer, 3Com, and Xilinx. During her consulting experience while with Arthur Young and Cullinet Software she was involved in implementation projects at Compaq Computer, JB Hunt, AO Smith, and Texas Instruments. Under her guidance and management these companies experienced the successful implementation of Oracle, SAP, Cullinet Software and business process improvements in Manufacturing, Financials, Engineering, and Service.

Stacy has lead in the development of Information Technology processes for the management of IT business processes such as; systems strategy and architecture, operational support for applications, application lifecycle management, and project/program management. She excels in forging relationships throughout IT to provide outstanding, seamless service to the business community.

In addition to her management and project accomplishments she has selected to lead special initiatives such as Y2K at 3Com, Sarbanes Oxley Improvements for Applications at Xilinx, and the Palm IPO from 3Com. These projects all benefited from her pragmatic and get it done approach which helped these companies achieve the objectives on time and on budget.

Stacy has a BA degree from Colorado State University, along with graduate work in Leading in a Technical Environment from Cal Poly and Leadership Training from NTI Institute.

Eradin Maldonado

Eradin Maldonado is a business solutions professional with extensive experience in the Information Industry at Fortune 500 companies as well as companies in a start-up environment. He has delivered successful enterprise-wide solutions to clients involving knowledge management / content management solutions, corporate intranet solutions and other web-facing applications. Eradin has a strong background in information architecture, project management, business process analysis/re-design, SDLC, and contract negotiations.

As a senior-level manager Eradin has led global, cross-functional project teams. He has experience on both the supply side and demand side of offshore vendor outsourcing. In his international management experience Eradin has worked with vendors in Asia, Latin America, and Europe. He has also established domestic operations for an offshore vendor.

Eradin has been a co-presenter at KM World and Intranets Conference. He is a member of AIIM - The Enterprise Content Management Association, and The Information Architecture Institute.

Krishnakali (Roke) Chaudhuri

Krishnakali (Roke) Chaudhuri is a multifaceted product management, project management, process reengineering and marketing professional, with 15 years of experience in the corporate world ranging from billion dollar multinational to 5 people start ups.

Having started as a programmer as well as an IT systems analyst, Roke is equally comfortable addressing both the technical and business aspects of large projects. She moved quickly to being a consultant at SAIC, working on high security government projects.

Her passion for processes and efficiency made Roke get into project management. As International Project & Program Manager over 7 years, Roke has Managed a variety of software engineering, product development, company acquisitions, process reengineering and marketing projects dealing with cost, budget, vendor and partner relationships and communication for these projects.

As International Product Manager at Quintus Corporation, a CRM Company later bought over by Avaya, Roke conducted extensive global market analysis and defined product and service requirements. She worked with all cross-functional teams to create processes, Governance and entire life cycles of products.

As Product Marketing Director at Utopy, a speech analysis company in SF, Roke created & executed inbound and outbound marketing strategies, branding, vision & mission statement, elevator speech, marketing plan, road maps for Quintus Corporation & Utopy Inc. over last 6 years.

She has served as a business consultant to companies like Countrywide, State Farm, Thomson, Sprint, Cummins and many more over the years.

Krishnakali (Roke) holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Jadavpur University, Calcutta, India as well as an MS in Software Systems Management, George Mason University, Virginia, US.

Ralph Boethling

Ralph Boethling is a senior-level technology executive who's been helping companies achieve and often exceed their operational and financial performance goals through improvements in the way they manage their people, processes and technology for more than 25 years. He has extensive project management office and project portfolio management experience with project budgets of more than $20 million and portfolios in excess of 300 global projects. Ralph's earlier IT career includes "Big 8" management consulting and practice management with Price Waterhouse where he led successful custom system development, enterprise software implementation and IT strategy engagements.

His broad industry experience includes software development, technology, entertainment, healthcare, insurance, consumer products, higher education, county government, foodservice, and retail.

Some of Ralph's recent accomplishments and areas of focus include IT organizational change management; process definition, implementation and improvement; project/program management office implementation; IT vendor management office implementation; IT governance and compliance strategies; and IT financial management improvement.

Ralph was the lead editor, author and project manager on Prentice Hall's best-selling book, "CIO Wisdom: Best Practices from Silicon Valley's Leading IT Experts" (2004).

Ralph has a B.S. degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Management Information Systems, cum laude, from California State University.

Maria Prieto

Maria brings 14 years of experience in business process development and system support. She is an excellent communicator, who promotes collaboration with all levels of team players. Her background includes supporting business and software projects through process development, improvement, and identifying business initiatives. In a consulting role, she’s participated in several significant projects and served in various roles including: CRM assessment and vendor selection measurement, documentation for credit card compliance project utilizing BPMN standards, developing infrastructure documentation methods, managing installation programs on a custom web development project, providing quality control recommendations, and managing functional systems testing.

During her tenure at Nortel Networks she led the West Coast ISO 9000 audit team and consistently completed region-wide quality audits on time, within budget constraints, and in compliance with ISO 9000 standards. In other roles, she supported business process improvement, participated in SAP Manufacturing implementation, developed engineering bug tracking methodology, defined quality initiatives for customer service logistics management, and supported manufacturing quality systems.Maria holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Santa Clara University, an ISO 9000 Lead Auditor RAB certificate, Information Technologies Project Management certificate, and BPM Certificate of Training.

Nathalie Brochstein

Nathalie Brochstein is a creative, passionate IT professional with over 15 years experience. She began her career in application design and development then moved into systems architecture with an emphasis on designing high volume e-commerce sites. Her flair for creating highly effective teams quickly led her to the management of a number of successful projects. These include an interactive web application for HP that became a critical component of a $30MM self-service system, a complex loan rating engine for an E*Trade affiliate and a self-service website for Covad Communications that produced a positive ROI, through cost savings, within two years. In Nathalie's most recent position she worked to design, implement and monitor a certification process that reviewed the quality of every IT project that AAA of California released.

Nathalie's edge has been described as combining a strong IT background, clear comprehension of the services that IT can provide and their potential total business value with excellent communication skills that inspire teams building on each member's unique qualities.

Christine Reiners

Christine Reiners is a business consultant and brings 6 years of expert knowledge in project management, internal audit, financial analysis and strategic marketing to her client engagements. She has worked for a variety of industries including consumer products, pharmaceutical, biotech and gas industry.

In her most recent experience as Senior Project Manager in a Consulting firm, she led Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 implementation projects for clients in the biotech arena. Christine also assessed and designed companies' internal controls. Christine was responsible of the planning and supervision of several projects in the internal audit arena for a variety of companies. Some of her previous clients included international locations of Del Monte Foods, Methanex, Alcan Inc, Threshold Pharmaceutical, and others.

Previously, as an Internal Auditor for the Corporate Finance department at Procter and Gamble in Venezuela, Christine managed and coordinated Customer Service and Logistics audits for Latin America. She directed a group of six auditors for the execution of internal auditing and consulting in the area.

Christine began her career as a Financial Analyst at Procter & Gamble where she conducted value creation analysis for core marketing initiatives in Venezuela. She executed Venezuelan financial forecasting and pricing analysis and effectively provided financial perspective to global business units and country management. Christine received the Procter & Gamble "Excellence Challenge Award".

Christine earned an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management and a BS, Industrial Engineering degree from Universidad Catolica Andres Bello (Venezuela).

Christopher Michalik

Christopher Michalik is an experienced and well-rounded consulting professional with over 14 years experience. He began his career in marketing and strategic planning at The Eastman Kodak Company. He moved on to Deloitte Consulting where he led process improvement and software implementation projects. These included significant experience in supply chain improvement and new process implementation supported by strong project management capabilities. He proceeded to Cisco Systems where he continued to develop his skills as a Program Manager. He had the opportunity to design new processes and support them with complementary technical solutions. His most recent experiences have been in the CPG world leading supply chain strategy and demand planning teams and working to continuously improve forecasting and business processes.

Christopher's broad experiences have resulted in a strong ability to lead teams and manage projects. In addition, they have required the ability to be a strong and effective communicator across all levels of an organization, from Senior Management to the individual team member.

Christopher earned a BA in Political Science, and an MBA from The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor .

Steve Berley

Steve Berley brings 18 years of experience in marketing, strategy, and technology. His extensive background managing products and projects, as well as specifying and developing complex systems are complimented by his excellent writing skills.

Having worked as a programmer as well as an IT systems analyst, Steve is equally comfortable addressing both the technical and business aspects of large projects.

For example, at StayWell, Steve led a team that transformed a 300 page book into an award-winning website in three months.

At Caredata.com he created a product management process that included documents template for use throughout the company. He also developed a strategy that combined nine separate products into a single, integrated, product line.

At the American Academy of Ophthalmology, he rescued a project in distress to deliver a new product to market on time and under budget.

Finally, during a two year break from technology, Steve took a position doing advocacy and public relations on behalf of Israel. During this period, he developed strategy and crafted messaging for educating the Bay Area community about the situation in the Middle East. In recognition of his efforts, he received the Jewish community’s "Staff of the Year" award in 2004.

Steve holds a BS in Mathematics from the University of Florida, as well as an MBA from San Francisco State University.

Lesley Frana

Lesley Frana is a management consultant with over 16 years of business experience. She focuses on developing business and technology strategies for companies across a range of industries. Her portfolio of clients includes Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, Kaiser Permanente, Grupo Abril, and many more leading firms.

Lesley has an excellent track record of delivering superior client service results and is skilled at managing complex team environments involving consulting staff, client resources, and third-party vendors. She is able to quickly deliver value in a broad range of functions and has specific depth working with customer support, IT, and marketing groups.

Lesley has done extensive work in the area of business performance management. She is experienced in defining key performance indicators using the balanced scorecard methodology to effectively monitor and drive attainment of business goals. Lesley also has hands-on expertise designing business intelligence systems for aggregating and analyzing key business data.

Lesley earned an M.B.A. with honors from Wharton and an M.A. in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. She graduated summa cum laude with a B.Sc. in Chemistry from the University of Redlands.

Corinne Fok

Corinne brings 17 years of deep marketing and business development experience from leading companies in telecommunication, high technology and financial services. Corinne currently manages her own consulting company, GSS Consulting, which specializes in providing strategic marketing, business development and project management solutions to companies internationally. GSS Consulting develops innovative marketing, business development and project plans for companies looking for go-to-market strategies, increasing revenue and building customer loyalty. This includes building brand visibility; messaging & positioning development; partnership and channel strategy; project & product management; on-line and off-line marketing programs and marketing content. Previously as Vice President at Bank of America, Corinne was responsible for product management, marketing and strategic partnerships in the Interactive Banking Division. Prior to joining Bank of America, Corinne held positions in business development, strategic marketing and sales at Cisco Systems, France Telecom and MCI.

She has extensive international experience and speaks German and French.

Corinne holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Telecommunications from Michigan State University and holds a marketing certificate with distinction from the University of California, Berkeley Extension Program.

Ilga Celmins

Ilga Celmins is a certified General Electric Six Sigma Black Belt. During her tenure at GE, she managed a $2.7M R&D program, leading the development teams in the application of Design for Six Sigma (DFSS). She also led several "At the Customer, For the Customer" (ACFC) projects, closely working with the customer to successfully apply Six Sigma processes to address issues identified by the customer.

Prior her company's acquisition by GE, Ilga Celmins had 12 years of experience in project management of engineering software development. She developed the processes to streamline and improve the quality of the customized software delivery and ongoing technical support. Ms. Celmins leadership and these established processes helped to complete the integration with GE within the scheduled time period of 90 days, something that had not been done before at GE Power Systems.

Rated a top talent at GE, Ms. Celmins brings to any project intelligence, energy, and strong organizational and cross-functional team leadership skills, and an undistracted focus on the overall objective.

Ilga Celmins has a B.S. from The Johns Hopkins University and an M.S. from the University of California in Santa Barbara in Chemical Engineering with an emphasis in process control.

Miriam Karell

Miriam Karell draws on ten years of experience designing practical strategies that address profound change in organizations. She is trained in The Natural Step, Integral Theory, Systems Thinking, Strategic Business Management, and Environmental Engineering. Ms. Karell assists companies in setting up green teams, developing sustainability programs (assessments, trainings and strategic planning), and acquiring green certification.

In the past year, Ms. Karell designed sustainable business membership criteria for a $1 Billion green village, developed strategic sustainability plans for two organizations, co-designed a sustainability report with benchmark metrics and tracking mechanisms for a beverage company, and organized and facilitated sustainability workshops and leadership trainings for change champions in Mexico and the United States .

Ms. Karell has presented at West Coast Green (largest residential green building conference in US), ‘Evolutionary Leadership for Sustainability’ conference, New College Sustainable Building Advisory Program, Asian Pacific Islander Business Association, Women of Vision, Presidio Sustainable MBA program, EGADE MBA program, and American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) dinner. In the fall of 2008, she will be teaching a course at UC Berkeley on ‘Sustainability Leadership: Strategies and Paradigms’

She holds a Master’s in "Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability" from the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden , Bachelor of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering from University of California Berkeley , and a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies from University of California Santa Cruz .