Speakers

Featured Speakers

Deepak M. Advani
Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President Global e-Commerce
Lenovo

Deepak Advani is responsible for building the Lenovo corporate brand globally and generating demand for Lenovo’s $14 billion global business. He is responsible for activating global sponsorships for the corporation, including the Olympics, Formula One and the NBA. In addition to marketing, Advani is responsible for the global P&L for Lenovo’s e-commerce business, product design and press/analyst relations.

Prior to joining Lenovo, Advani spent 13 years at IBM. In his last assignment, Advani was Vice President for Marketing and Strategy for IBM’s Personal Computing Division and was part of the leadership team that orchestrated the Lenovo/ IBM transaction. Advani’s career at IBM included serving as general manager of High End Intel Servers, which during his tenure IBM’s market share went from #3 to #1; vice president of Linux Strategy, where he helped craft the early strategies around Linux and Open Source; director of High Performance Computing, where he was part of the team that built a $1 billion business in 4 years; and also served as a member of both the Senior Leadership Team, comprised of the top 300 global executives, and the Global Marketing Board, comprised of the top 6 marketing executives.

Advani has an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business, an M.S. in computer engineering from Wright State University, and a B.S. in computer science from Michigan State University.

Michael Chen
Vice President, Corporate Marketing
Red Hat

Michael Chen is responsible for leading Red Hat's global corporate marketing function, which includes corporate brand, global communications, customer experience management, online strategy, and community affairs. Prior to this role, Michael was the General Manager of Red Hat China. In this role he carried P&L responsibility and led overall operations including strategic planning, sales, marketing, government relations in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong markets. He was also a key member of Red Hat's APAC Management team where he contributed significantly to Red Hat's global channel, marketing, and sales strategy. Michael started his career at Red Hat as a product marketing manager in 2003 where he co-managed the Red Hat Enterprise Linux product line. In all his roles at Red Hat, he provided valuable input to Red Hat global strategy.

Prior to working with Red Hat, Michael held several senior sales and marketing management positions in Chinese and Hong Kong companies, facilitating multi-million dollar sales and winning significant projects.

Michael holds an MBA from The University at North Carolina, a Masters degree in Computer Networking Engineering from North Carolina State University, and Bachelors degree from Nanjing University.

Panel Speakers (partial list):

• John D. Allison, Partner, Kennedy Covington
• Janet Babin, National Reporter, North Carolina National Public Radio
• Neil Bagchi, Corporate Associate, Kennedy Covington
• Kim Beer, Product Development Manager, Global Health Technology Group, RTI International
• Oren J. Cohen, M.D., Chief Medical and Scientific Officer, Quintiles Transnational Corp.
• Guy Harvey, Senior Vice President & Managing Principal, Corporate Services, The Staubach Company - Carolinas, Florida & Tennessee
• Chris James, Vice President of Corporate Marketing, Cree, Inc.
• Art Pappas, Managing Partner, Pappas Ventures
• Marshall Phelps, Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Intellectual Property, Microsoft Corp.
• Terrance Philips, Vice President, SVB Global
• Christopher Price, Ph.D., President & CEO, LaamScience
• Arti K. Rai, Professor of Law, Duke University
• Mark Rostick, Managing Director, Intel Capital
• Alex Schröder, Vice President of Corporate Development, Noël Group, LLC
• Bob Sutor, Ph.D., Vice President of Open Source and Standards, IBM Corporation
• Ted Zoller, Executive Director, Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship, UNC Kenan Flagler Business School

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