Featuring:

Kurt Schlegel joined Gartner in April 2005 with the acquisition of META Group, where he wrote extensively about the business intelligence market. In addition, he built cost-benefit models that have been used to predict Windows migration costs, forecast the impact of technology standardization, and estimate the return on investment derived from deploying an enterprise portal framework.

Howard Dresner is the president and founder of Dresner Advisory Services, LLC, an independent advisory firm and a well-known authority in the areas of business intelligence and performance management. Prior to his latest venture, he spent 13 years at Gartner where he was a research fellow and lead analyst for Business Intelligence and also served as chief strategy officer at Hyperion. He is a frequent speaker at events around the world, and his new book, published in November of 2007, is entitled The Performance Management Revolution: Business Results Through Insight and Action.

Boris Evelson is a leading expert in business intelligence and delivers strategic guidance, helping enterprises define BI strategies, governance, and architectures, as well as identify vendors and technologies that help them put information to use in business processes and end user experiences. Boris has more than 25 years of experience with enterprise software and applications implementation, management consulting, and strategic advisory skills. Most recently, he was a co-founder and managing partner at Textra, a boutique strategic advisory firm serving all IT constituents: users, vendors, and investors. 

Wayne W. Eckerson is the director of research and services for The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI), a worldwide association of business intelligence and data warehousing professionals that provides education, training, research, and certification. Eckerson has 18 years of industry experience and has covered data warehousing and business intelligence since 1995. Eckerson is the author of many in-depths reports, a columnist for several business and technology magazines, and a noted speaker and consultant. He authored the book Performance Dashboards: Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing Your Business.

Mark Smith is responsible for the overall direction of Ventana Research and drives the global Performance Management research agenda, covering both business and technology areas. Mark is an expert in business intelligence and information management and directly manages the Workforce Performance Management research practice. As an industry veteran with more than 18 years of experience, Mark worked at companies including SAP, META Group, Oracle, and IRI Software before founding Ventana Research. He has experience in banking, consumer products, food and beverage, insurance, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and retail and consumer services.

Claudia Imhoff, Ph.D. is a popular and dynamic speaker and internationally recognized expert on analytical CRM, business intelligence, and the infrastructure to support these initiatives. Dr. Imhoff has co-authored five highly regarded and popular books on these subjects and writes monthly columns (totaling more than 60) for technical and business magazines. She has an expert channel, a monthly newsletter, and a popular blog on the B-EYE-Network.com Web site. She has served on the Board of Advisors for DAMA International and was chosen by the DAMA organizations to receive the 1999 and 2005 Individual Achievement Awards.