Speaker Biographies

Abel, Rob; Chief Executive Officer, IMS Global Learning Consortium

Dr. Abel is the Chief Executive Officer of IMS Global Learning Consortium, the world's leading nonprofit member consortium developing, supporting, and advocating learning technology standards and best practices. Under Rob's leadership, IMS Global has introduced the Learning Impact program, which is setting new benchmarks for high impact applications of technology in support of learning worldwide.

Rob is a recognized expert on the use of information and communication technology (ICT) for learning, as well as an education industry researcher focused on the impact of education in society. As Senior Vice President at Collegis (now SunGard Higher Education), the leading provider of ICT services to U.S. higher education, he was responsible for online and academic services provided to over 60 U.S. institutions. As Senior Director at Oracle Education he was a leader and innovator in the development of online learning architectures and related standards, including the Reusable Content Object (RCO) strategy. Rob is a member of the IEEE, ACM, ASTD, ISTE, and American Educational Research Association.

Rob holds a Doctorate in Educational Leadership and Change from Fielding Graduate University; a Masters degree in Management from Stanford; a Masters degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Southern California; and a Baccalaureate degree in Computational Physics from Carnegie Mellon University. His articles, commentary, and research have been featured by Training Magazine, CBT Solutions, Inside Technology Training, TechLearn, Educause Review, Educause Quarterly, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Greentree Gazette, Campus Technology, The League for Innovation, University Business, and eSchoolNews.

Aissa, Ben; CEO, American EPAY, Inc.

Mr. Ben-Aissa has more than seventeen years of experience in management, entrepreneurship and investment. His background consists of various experiences in starting, growing and managing technology companies.

He started his career as a software engineer in France, where he developed artificial intelligent robotic control software for automotive manufacturing. He then worked for Johnson Controls (www.jci.com) where he earned four US patents, and was awarded the JCI Chairman's award, which represented one the highest achievements for quality work at the 60,000 or more employee company.

In 1996, he founded AB Internet Solutions, (later renamed 1internet Corp.) a services company that specialized in custom technology projects for banking and financial institutions. In early 2001, Mr. Ben Aissa Joined Chicago based Computer Discoveries Inc., as Vice President. CDI is a software development and services organization which focused on implementing IBM, JD Edwards, SAP and Oracle ERP systems for mid-market companies. At CDI, he lead new growth strategies, managed multiple software teams, kicked off a new sales and marketing direction, introduced new products, and launched a new practice which helped the company sustain its business model in a fast changing highly competitive marketplace.

In late 2002, Mr. Ben Aissa founded American EPAY Inc. (www.americanepay.com), a company specializing in electronic tracking, management and payment of low wage hourly workers.

Mr. Ben Aissa speaks six languages, holds a dual Masters in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, and owns six US patents. He also holds an MBA from Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management.

Averbook, Jason; Chief Executive Officer and co-founder, Knowledge Infusion

Jason Averbook is Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Knowledge Infusion, a strategic consulting organization that works collaboratively with clients to help them achieve true business results from technology solutions that manage and drive the workforce. As CEO, Jason is responsible for the groundbreaking vision and strategy that has grown the organization into the recognized leader in talent management consulting with triple-digit year-over-year growth, over 150 global clients, and industry awards including the IHRIM 2007 Partner of the Year and HR World's 2007 Top 25 HR Influencer.

Drawing on more than 15 years of experience in the HR and technology industry, Jason works closely with clients as the executive lead on strategic consulting engagements. He is dedicated to helping organizations create technology strategy and execution plans that tie HR technology to business results and transform people, process, and technology to align with business objectives. Jason has held senior management positions at PeopleSoft and Ceridian, and has worked with industry-leading companies around the world to help them transform their HR organizations into strategic partners.

Jason was honored by Human Capital Magazine as a recipient of its Future HR Leader Award, and speaks at over 75 industry events worldwide each year. He is a frequent contributor to leading publications, such as CLO, Talent Management, HR Executive, Workforce, and IHRIM.link. Jason holds a B.A and an M.B.A from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Bartkus, Kim; Director of Standards & Certification, HR-XML Consortium, Inc.

Kim Bartkus is the Director of Standards and Certification for HR-XML Consortium. Working for the consortium since 2000, she has aided in recruiting and educating members about the importance of standards development in the HR industry. Ms. Bartkus has spoken at various venues within the United States and Europe, sharing the message of the consortium and promoting standards within the global community. Kim Bartkus is also responsible for coordinating the consortium's standards effort and managing the certification program.

Ms. Bartkus has an extensive managerial and technical background, with over 25 years in Technology Information. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Business Management and Master of Science in Computer Information of Technology at Regis University, Colorado.

Bhamre, Neal; Technology Strategist, The Code Works

Neal has been a technology strategist to the staffing and recruiting industry for over a dozen years. Neal consults with Fortune 10 and emerging organizations on how to best leverage technology to reach recruiting goals. Neal's prior experience is rich and broad, encompassing an almost decade long ride with Robert Half International (NYSE: RHI). There, his accomplishments included helping grow business divisions from the ground up; launching the company's internal and external web presence; and, prior to his departure, serving as the Director of Technology Innovation, supervising technology innovations and advancements to achieve efficiency and growth in both front and back office processes.

Bloom, Naomi; Managing Partner, Bloom & Wallace

Naomi Lee Bloom, the Managing Partner of Bloom & Wallace, is a renowned consultant and thought leader throughout the HRM delivery system (HRMDS) industry. Her specialty is the application of information technology and innovative service delivery models to achieve breakthroughs in organizational business outcomes. Leveraging a considerable body of intellectual property, Ms. Bloom works as a change agent and HRMDS planning coach for large corporate clients, as an advisor on business strategy and product/service design to HRM software vendors and outsourcing providers, and as a provider of competitive insight and due diligence services to the investment community.

Ms. Bloom's current research interests include: (1) the delivery system enablers for the full range of human resource and enterprise performance-enhancing practices; (2) comprehensive and point solution HRM software and business process outsourcing; (3) business outcomes-focused, competency-centric, strategic human resource management practices; (4) Web services, SOA and XML standards for HRM; and (5) putting automated intelligence everywhere in the HRM delivery system.

A frequent speaker, author, and advisory board member, Ms. Bloom has been a monthly columnist and feature article author for HRO Today and HRO Europe since the magazine's inception in 2003, and she is the author of Human Resource Management And Information Technology: Achieving A Strategic Partnership, published in 1994. In 1995, Ms. Bloom's contributions to the industry were recognized with IHRIM's Summit Award, and in every year since its inception in 2004, she has been named an HRO Superstar by HRO Today Magazine. Ms. Bloom's undergraduate degree is from the University of Pennsylvania; she holds an MBA from Boston University. Bloom & Wallace is Ms. Bloom's solo consultancy, founded in 1987, before which, beginning in 1977, she was a senior principal with American Management Systems (now owned by CGI).

Cataldo, Mike; Senior Director Development, ADP, Virtual Edge

Mike Cataldo is the Sr. Director of Development for ADP VirtualEdge where he is responsible for engineering and overall product development. He is responsible for hands-on management of ADP VirtualEdge software applications including development of plans and schedules.

Prior to his appointment ADP VirtualEdge he directed product engineering at Triversity, the leading provider of complete "click-and-mortar" software solutions where he specialized in systems engineering, application development and architecture. During his 10 years at Triversity, the company won several Microsoft RAD awards and has been featured on CNN and in the Wall Street Journal for technical innovation and achievement.

Prior to joining Triversity he worked at E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. Mike earned his degree in Computer Science from Pennsylvania State University.

Charles, Alex; Product Director and Founder, SkillsMarket Ltd.

Alex is one of the original founders of iProfile, "the online CV" used by over 2 million individuals and many leading staffing providers. He is a director of the HR-XML consortium, which promotes the standard XML schema use throughout the HR community. Alex also chairs the ATSCo IT Directors forum where common strategic IT, product and service issues are discussed. He serves on the Board of the HR-XML Consortium.

Crispin, Gerry; Founder, Principle and Chief Navigator, CareerXroads

Gerry Crispin, SPH, is an international speaker, author, and consultant whose views on employment strategy, hiring processes and staffing technology are sought by many of the world's most competitive corporations. Gerry's career in Human Resources spans 30 years and includes stints as Director of Career Planning and Placement at Stevens Institute of Technology where he received his Bachelors degree in Engineering and advanced degrees in Organizational Behavior. He has also held HR leadership positions at Johnson and Johnson, worked in an executive Search Firm, and as the General Manager of a major recruitment advertising firm before forming his international consulting practice.

Cowan, Ellen; Social Networking Analyst and Consultant

Ellen Cowan brings many years of Internet business development experience to the area of corporate social networking and community strategy, working with marketing communications thought leaders at HiveLive, LinkedIn and TMP Worldwide.

In her work, Ellen assesses cutting-edge solutions that leverage internal and external social networking and explores into traditional and emerging business strategy. Currently, Ellen works with HiveLive, an award-winning social networking platform, and serves as a guest analyst for the Institute for Corporate Productivity, providing vendor-neutral technology assessments and strategy recommendations for the use of social media and social networking to solve human capital business challenges.

Ellen has coordinated and led executive discussions through the International Quality & Productivity Center, Society for Human Resources Management HR/NY, and Human Resources Planning Society.

Cunsolo, Andrew; Director of Product Development, Talent Technology

Andrew is the Director of Product Development at Talent Technology, a leading provider of recruitment and hiring software and component technology. At Talent Technology, Mr. Cunsolo is responsible for product management and product development of the Resume Mirror product lines - Resume Extraction and Search Enterprise. Prior to joining Talent Technology, Mr. Cunsolo was co-founder of Revsolutions Inc, a software company that developed advanced resume extraction software that was acquired by Talent Technology. Mr. Cunsolo has focused his careers in finding and building solutions to critical HR business problems. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science.

De Geijter, Filip; CEO and Founder, Actonomy

Filip De Geijter is the CEO and founder of Actonomy, a provider of Intelligent Search and Fuzzy Matching technology. With an experience of over 20 years of management positions in international technology oriented companies (Philips, Barco, Lernout&Hauspie Speech Products, Dialogic (Intel), IPG), he co-founded Actonomy in 2001. After an initial period of research in the field of fuzzy logic/decision technology in close cooperation with NJIT, the company evolved in the development of next generation searching and matching technology primarily for the HRM industry. The company's flagship product, xMP, provides an advanced platform for fuzzy matching unifying traditional search technology with semantic matching/knowledge management based on web 2.0 concepts.

Mr. De Geijter holds a Masters in Telecom Engineering, Masters in Applied Economics, Masters in Management and a MBA.

Dell 'Aquila, Emanuele; Operations Director, Abraxas

Emanuele has a wealth of experience in implementing solutions that improve recruiter productivity and is responsible for the companies It and solutions strategy. He has also been responsible for the implementation of iProfile at Abraxas, a Vedior company.

Edwards, Eric, E.; Principal Product Manager, High Volume, Peopleclick

Eric Edwards is the product line manager for Peopleclick's High Volume business, directing the application of Peopleclick RMS products and services into volume hiring opportunities across industries and globally. Eric's experience draws from seven years as product manager with the Peopleclick RMS technology, and through working with an extraordinary list of companies to understand and provide solutions for their needs particularly in the areas of recruiting search technologies, compliance mandates and process automation. Eric started his career in artificial intelligence R&D and internet commerce, and has a combined 18 years of experience developing and managing innovative applications for the government and private industry.

Fleming, Peggy; CEO, CV One, Inc.

Peggy Fleming has over 10 years of experience in e-commerce and HR solutions. Ms. Fleming is the CEO of San Diego based CV One, Inc. which launched its flagship product, CV One, a video resume application in 2006. CV One is offered as a secure desktop application and a web-based version that empowers job seekers to present their skills, talents and personalities in a video-based medium. Additionally, Ms. Fleming is President of The Video Resume Compliance Committee (VRCC), a non-profit organization whose mission is to develop standards for video-based recruiting. Finally, Ms. Fleming is co-founder of www.praktika.de; one of Europe's leading Internet job portals.

Fohn, Steffen; CTO of Information Architecture, ADP, Employer Services

Steffen M. Fohn is the CTO of Information Architecture for the Employer Services Division at ADP Corporation where he is responsible for developing enterprise data standards. He previously worked at IBM in the development of large commerce and knowledge representation systems. He holds several patents and has published several journal articles in the areas of knowledge representation, graphical interfaces, and intelligent navigation/search algorithms. He represents ADP on the OAGi Policy Board and also serves as the Vice Chair on the OAGi Architecture Council.

Mr. Fohn received his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from UNC Charlotte in 1988 and his M.E. in Manufacturing Systems Engineering and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering degrees from NC State University in 1990 and 1994, respectively. He received IT Architecture certification while at IBM and TOGAF certification while at ADP.

Goulart, Robert; Vice President, Business Development & Alliances, SuccessFactors

Roger Goulart manages SuccessFactors' relationships with world-class partner companies from around the globe. He is an integral member of a team that helps SuccessFactors customers make the most of their investment in Performance and Talent Management. These partnerships strengthen the quality of the SuccessFactors solutions for their customers.

Mr. Goulart has had the pleasure of making a positive contribution to SuccessFactors customers, hearing their appreciation of the SuccesFactors company and products. The partnerships he forges allows for his customers to have a broader and deeper solution than ever imagined.

Prior to SuccessFactors, Mr. Goulart was Vice President of Alliances at Salesforce.com and Senior VP, Global Servcies at BroadVision. Roger Goulart earned his MBA and Bachelor of Arts in Economics and General Business at Santa Clara University.

Harris, Brad; Co-founder and CEO, Harris Echternach Solutions Corporation

Mr. Harris is co-founder and CEO of Harris Echternach Solutions Corporation. HES Corp. was founded in 2004 with the goal of providing strategic high level technical services to vendors of human resource services and other organizations in support of their various hiring and other HR initiatives. Prior to founding HES Corp., Mr. Harris worked with organizations such as Coca-Cola, Continental Airlines, CE, Enron, Boeing, Signet Bank, Keane, Manpower Staffing, and many others in developing, selecting, implementing, integrating, and maintaining HR Systems. Mr. Harris has served as an expert speaker at several different HR Technology events. Mr. Harris has been a participating member of the HR-XML Consortium since 2000.

Hatton, James; Global Leader for Human Capital Management Alliances, IBM

James Hatton manages the independent software vendor (ISV) alliances for IBM's Human Capital Management (HCM) consulting practice globally and is based in the UK. The HCM practice has more than 2000 HCM professionals around the world whose focus is helping clients enable enterprise innovation and performance through improved workforce effectiveness.

His primary focus is to develop strong relationships and differentiated propositions with ISV's that can add value to IBM solutions and consulting offerings

James joined IBM Global Business Services in 1996. Prior to that he was a consultant specialising in the implementation of ERP systems and has been involved specifically with HR systems and processes since the early nineties. During his time at IBM, James has led IBM's North European PeopleSoft practice and has successfully implemented HCM solutions across most industries including retail, financial services, communications, industrial and life sciences and in most geographies, including the Americas, Europe and Asia.

Heck, Matt; Chief Technical Officer, Valtera Corporation

For the past fourteen years, Mathew Heck has steered the technical vision for Valtera. He is responsible for developing and introducing new software to support integrated client solutions. His accomplishments include overseeing the development of Valtera's Sage Technology Suite, as well as innovating custom solutions to support portals, data and comment processing, reporting and interactive results display. He has directed the development of Valtera's web-based survey administration and report generation system and IVR survey platform.

Prior to joining Valtera, Mr. Heck held the position of Consultant with Manteq International, where he was responsible for the management and coordination of a global employee satisfaction survey process. Mr. Heck holds a Master of Arts degree in Industrial Psychology from the University of Tulsa.

Herman, Scott; Vice President of Product Management, VisualCV.com

Scott is the Vice President of Product Management at VisualCV.com. At any given moment, he is supporting Business Development, Customer Service, Production Operations, Product Development, and Marketing, depending on what time of day (or night) it is. Before joining Phillip Merrick and Clint Heiden at VisualCV.com last year, Scott was the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of webMethods. Scott was with webMethods for many years - from one of the most successful software IPOs in history in 2000, through years of explosive hypergrowth fueled by several acquisitions, to the successful sale of webMethods to Software AG in 2007. During that time Scott was the Director of Knowledge Management, the VP of Enterprise Applications, and eventually Senior Vice President and CIO. Before joining webMethods in 2000, Scott spent most of his career designing, developing, and deploying Knowledge Management, Imagery, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for the U. S. Intelligence Community.

Howard, Chris; Vice President of Research & co-founder, Bersin & Associates

Chris, a co-founder of Bersin & Associates, has an extensive background in learning and enterprise systems technology and is an expert in LMS systems, development tools, and content integration. He has provided research and consulting services in the deployment of e-learning solutions to hundreds of organizations. Howard is the author of several recent Bersin & Associates reports, including Learning Content Management Systems: WhatWorks and Content Integration in Enterprise E-Learning: Challenges, Costs, Solutions. He is a contributor to training industry publications and is a frequent speaker and panel discussion moderator at leading industry events.

Earlier in his career, Howard held positions in product development and management for several industry-leading learning technology products, including those from Macromedia, IBM and Convergys. Chris holds a B.S. in Computer Science and an M.B.A. from the University of Houston.

Idziak, Bon; President, Applicant Insight Ltd., Inc., nomoreforms, Inc.

Bon Idziak is well-versed in policy, procedure, and compliance. He regularly shares his employment screening expertise with corporate audiences in instructional settings. Experienced in best practices, industry standards, and compliance issues, Bon is frequently asked to present at conference and in educational settings, as well with industry publications and various media outlets. Bon's philosophy is to minimize hiring and retention risks through the design, implementation, and execution of an intelligent screening program built to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and agencies governing the use of background checks and substance abuse screening in the workplace.

An early pioneer of the HR-XML Standards, Bon has been a contributing member of the HR-XML Consortium since its inception. As a member of the team responsible for the proposal to create the Background Checking Specification and an early implementer of the standards, Bon is a proven advocate of the Consortium and its efforts. Additionally, he offers subject matter expertise to the Consortium and its members relative to the business processes and legislative matters that affect the integration efforts of peer HR organizations. As a key contributing member on the Board of Advisors of the first Global Partnering and Integration Summit 2007, Bon lent his conference and marketing experience to help make a successful inaugural meeting.

Kiel, Paul; President, XMLHelpline

Paul Kiel owns a consulting firm xmlHelpline.com, where he specializes in data integration and training. He previously held the position of Chief Architect at the HR-XML Consortium Inc. Kiel has been immersed in Xml related technologies since 1997, implementing applied solutions even as the original Xml specification was developed. Prior to HR-XML, he held positions at Sertus Software and N.C. State University, working on data modeling, programming, data integration, and standards advocacy. He applied his original experience as an Archivist toward advocating the use of standards for long term data storage needs. Kiel has a B.A. from James Madison University and an M.A. from North Carolina State University.

Malaika, Susan; Senior Technical Staff Member, IBM

Susan is a Senior Technical Staff Member in IBM's Information Management Group on the DB2 pureXML team. She has developed standards that support data for grid environments at the Global Grid Forum. Her specialties include XML, the Web, and Web Services. In addition to working as an IBM product software developer, she has also been an Internet specialist, a data analyst, and an applications designer and developer. Susan has co-authored a book about Web tools, and published articles on transaction processing and XML. She is a member of the IBM Academy of Technology.

Moran, Greg; Director of Industry Sales and Partnerships, Talent Technology Corporation

Utilizing more than a decade of human capital management, sales and leadership experience, Greg Moran serves as Director of Industry Sales and Partnerships for Talent Technology Corporation (TTC). He is a rising thinker in the field of human capital management, having been quoted in numerous national publications including Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, and Inc. Magazine. Greg's newest book, Hire, Fire & The Walking Dead (W Business Books, June 2006) was released in June 2006. Previously, Greg authored Building the Talent Edge: A Manager's Guide to Recruiting the Best (AuthorHouse, May 2005) which was released in May 2005.

Prior to his experience with TTC, Greg founded PeopleAnswers America, a leading provider of web-based behavioral assessment software used by some the top brands in the US, including Texas Instruments, Neiman Marcus, and Medtronic. Previously, Greg founded and served as President of Pinnacle Technology Solutions, a leading executive search, staffing, and human capital management services firm. Moran also served as Vice President of Best Resume/Career Management Services in Latham, N.Y. During his tenure, he co-authored Job Hunting: The Ten Best Steps to Success, a nationally marketed job search workshop and audio/video tape series.

Moran serves as a board member of The Entrepreneur's Organization (EO), an international organization of entrepreneurs and the Make A Wish Foundation of Northeastern New York. In January 2001, Moran co-founded the Tech Valley Angel Network, a not-for-profit organization formed to bring together Tech Valley entrepreneurs and investors.

Moss, Sara; CEO, The Code Works

Sara Moss is a Partner at the Code Works Inc. and leads software development teams to design, build and integrate custom and best-of-breed enterprise systems. She has demonstrated a deep expertise in the areas of web-facing candidate, client and vendor portals; front office and applicant tracking software; VMS strategy and technology; and HR-XML-based integration. Sara has over 15 years of IT consulting experience and has successfully delivered technology solutions and business process consulting to large enterprise clients around the globe.

Pearson Hendricks, Marilyn; SPHR, Director of Strategic Technology Alliances, Personnel Decisions International

Marilyn brings over 20 years' experience in the human capital management industry to her role as Director of Strategic Technology Alliances for Personnel Decisions International (PDI), where she oversees relationships with SAP, Oracle, Lawson Software, Knowledge Infusion, SuccessFactors, Saba, Nakisa, and Cornerstone on Demand, among others. Previous to PDI, Marilyn held a variety of leadership and subject-matter expert positions spanning the areas of alliances and partnerships, account management, pre-sales, sales operations, marketing, and implementation project management. She previously worked for Cyborg Systems (acquired by Hewitt), Lawson Software, Vianet Technologies, Arbita (formerly RecruitUSA), and Peopleclick.

Perlmutter, Marty; Co-founder and CEO, Hireme.tv

A new media industry pioneer for over three decades, Marty Perlmutter has dedicated his professional life to interactive video - demystifying television, disseminating knowledge and skills in use of the medium, creating landmark interactive products and building large-scale exhibits and video publishing systems for colleges, museums, hospitals and science centers. He produced and consulted for companies in the US, Great Britain, Australia, Japan, Holland, France, Denmark and Sweden. His contacts in government and industry span five continents.

Perlmutter has been widely published in magazines and newspapers, analyzing and explaining strategic developments in computing and communications. He has edited and written for leading magazines and newsletters in multimedia and authored a book on interactive videodisc production. Perlmutter won numerous awards for interactive video and multimedia production, creating more than fifty commercial disc products, including dozens of games.

He has been a keynote speaker and panel participant at industry conferences speaking on topics ranging from multimedia production to immersive technology to applications of VR in medicine and education.

He helped to found the San Francisco Multimedia Development Group trade association, sat on its board of directors, and helped make the Bay Area a hub for new media. Perlmutter co-founded and was managing partner of Hook-Up!, widely regarded as the premier multimedia recruitment agency in the years 1995-2000. He has consulted to venture finance organizations and helped raise capital for semiconductor and software ventures. Perlmutter began work on HireMe.tv in 2003 and serves as its CEO.

Plath, Terry; Vice President, Business Development, Lawson Software

Terry Plath is Vice President, Business Development for Lawson Software, an $850M ERP solutions provider based in St. Paul, MN. Mr. Plath oversees the company's global product & technology alliances, product pricing/licensing and new solution offerings. He has been with Lawson Software for 15 years, where he has held various leadership roles in the areas of product management, market development and software consulting.

Terry earned his MBA from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, holds a BA in International Studies from Hamline University, and received a Certificate of German Studies from the Europa Kolleg in Kassel, Germany.

Restout, Romuald; Director of Products and Technology, Talent Technology Corporation

Romuald Restout brings over 15 years of success and expertise in the information technology and human resource technology industries to his role as the president of the HR-XML consortium. Before this role within the consortium, he was the leader of both the Assessment and the Recruiting workgroups and had also been actively involved in the Competencies, the Web Services Interoperability and the Technical Steering Committee workgroups

Mr. Restout is the Director of Products and Technology for Talent Technology Corporation where he manages product roadmaps and synthesizes overall product initiatives for the company's Resume Mirror and HireDesk product divisions. Previously, he was Principal for the Technology Practice at Humanuo, an HR technology consulting and development firm in Los Angeles, where he was responsible for overseeing the definition and the development of a new suite of products, and advising HR software vendor companies in developing their own products.

Prior to joining Humanuo, Mr. Restout worked at Taleo, the leading provider of on-demand talent management solutions in Quebec City, Canada. From Taleo's inception in 1999, Mr. Restout was an integral part in the development, architecture, analysis, and methodology of Taleo's industry leading staffing management solutions. At Taleo, Mr. Restout worked closely with customers to help shape and define the functional specifications and solution architecture of the Taleo solutions.

Mr. Restout holds a EuroMaster Degree from France Telecom, where he studied software engineering, design and administration of networks.

Ruff, Robert; President, Sovren Group, Inc.

Robert is a co-founder and now President of Sovren Group, Inc. With a diversified background in banking, retail, recruiting, and programming, Robert brings over 25 years of experience to Sovren's recruitment intelligence solutions business, helping solve customers' parsing and matching challenges worldwide.

Robert was a pioneer in the parsing field, writing the first iteration of the Sovren Resume Parser back in 1996. Robert's IT background encompasses the writing of optical character recognition and signature verification solutions, and he wrote the first parser using concepts adapted from those domains. In addition, Robert developed and sold fuzzy matching technology to a search engine company, adapting some of the same concepts to the development of the Sovren Semantic Matching Engine. Robert's focus on quality products backed by outstanding customer service has helped grow Sovren to a leading global parsing and matching vendor.

Schmidt, Tom; President and Founder, Resumefit LLC

Tom Schmidt is President & Founder of Resumefit LLC. Prior to founding Resumefit, he was VP & Co-founder of NtechRA, Inc., in San Jose, CA. He has worked in early stage start ups as well as large enterprises such as US Robotics, Sun Microsystems, and 3Com managing customer service organizations. For the last four years he has worked with the Center for Applied Cognitive Studies and Qualitech Solutions, Inc. developing Resumefit's Integrated Evidentiary Resume System. He attended Pierce College in Philadelphia, PA and has an associate's degree in accounting.

Shannon, Sean; Microsoft .Net Developer, The Code Works

Sean is an accomplished Microsoft .NET developer and leads the development of Facebook applications for Code Works clients. Before joining The Code Works, Sean was a Sr. Software Engineer with Hire.com.

Storfer, Paul; Director of Talent Architecture Group, Personnel Decisions International

Paul is the Director of the Talent Architecture Group at Personnel Decisions International. Before joining PDI, Paul was a founder and former President and CEO of HR Technologies and InScope. He has more than twenty years of experience in competency modeling and development with senior executives from a number of Fortune 500 corporations and has built online competency-based performance improvement systems. This followed his efforts leading the early development for the service now known as Prodigy. Paul also serves on the Board of Directors and chairs two workgroups of the HR-XML Consortium.

Van Rijn, Fred; Vice President of Sales & Marketing, WCC

Fred van Rijn is the VP Sales and Marketing at WCC, a company that automates the matching process by providing more accurate and intelligent results. Prior to joining WCC, Mr. van Rijn has worked for SPSS Inc., where he was VP Sales for the Enterprise Solutions in the EMEA region. In this role, he developed Predictive Analytics solutions and grew sales in the EMEA region. Before SPSS, Mr. van Rijn was VP Sales & Marketing for DataDistilleries, a Dutch startup company that focused on enterprise analytical solutions which was subsequently sold to SPSS. Mr. van Rijn has a Bachelors degree in Electronics.