IBIT News

The Fox School’s Institute for Business and Information Technology presents the Distinguished Speaker Series, featuring talks by leading professionals on essential business technology topics.

Finding the Market’s Sweet-Spot

Lee D. Green
Worldwide Vice President-Brand and Values Experience
IBM

October 24, 2007

 

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About the event

Innovation is not about new technology. It is about relevance. It is about understanding markets, your customers, opportunities in disguise, and creating compelling experiences. Design methods applied properly can help you excel in all of the above. It can help identify unarticualted needs that can lead to differentiation and business success.

Lee Green, Worldwide Vice President, Brand and Values Experience at IBM will share insights from his 25 years of experience leading efforts to develop innovative products that achieve marketplace success. Learn about IBM’s design methodology, a process that relies heavily on observation and then market and user validation and iteration, and apply this framework to your business to achieve real usiness results.

Biography

Lee Green is the Vice President, Worldwide IBM Brand and Values Experience. He has responsibility for IBM’s worldwide brand and values experience initiatives, brand strategy and identity, design strategy and IBM’s recently launched Design Consulting Services offering for IBM clients. Mr. Green has played a pivotal role in IBM’s re-branding efforts over the last 13 years. His team also leads the corporation’s efforts in the area of “advanced concept design” working closely with IBM Research.

In his career with IBM Lee has held numerous design, communications and management positions. Recently, he has launched IBM Design Consulting Services offering, working in conjunction with IBM’s Engineering and Technology Group and with IBM Global Business Services. This capability provides Design Services Consulting as a collaborative innovation offering to IBM clients. In addition to industrial design and human factors, it provides Design Consulting Services to help IBM clients consider how they can extend new experiences to their customers, utilize design to differentiate their offerings from their competition, and leverage innovative IBM technology to enable new solutions.

Mr. Green has an undergraduate degree in design from Temple University and a master’s degree in communications design from Rochester Institute of Technology. He has published numerous articles and case studies on a variety of design and identity topics. He has also taught design and branding courses at Stanford University, Harvard, MIT, and RIT. In 2004 he was named Rochester Institute of Technology Distinguished Alumni of the Year. He currently serves on the Board of Directors and Advisory Board for the Design Management Institute, and on the Board of Advisors, Suffolk University Business School.

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Attendance is free on a space available basis for qualified industry and academic professionals. For more information, please contact ibit@temple.edu.

The Fox School’s Institute for Business and Information Technology presents the Distinguished Speaker Series, featuring talks by leading professionals on essential business technology topics.

IT-Creating Powerful Choices for Business and for Individuals

Susan J. Unger
Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer
DaimlerChrysler AG

March 13, 2007

 

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About the event

The role of information technology both in business and in our personal lives is expanding, growing more strategic, and creating choices that were not imaginable even a decade ago. We have moved into an age of instant access, global reach, and the virtualization of pretty much everything. All of this is supported both by our core efficiencies and an accelerating rate of innovation. IT is all about performance and passion. Join Sue Unger, Senior Vice President and CIO of DaimlerChrysler AG as she shares her passion for the power of IT and the value it brings to companies and people around the world.

Biography

Susan J. Unger was named Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer for DaimlerChrysler AG in November 1998 and is responsible for directing systems and computer hardware strategy and planning, systems applications development, data center operations and telecommunications network operations for DaimlerChrysler AG.

Unger joined Chrysler Corporation in September 1972 as a financial analyst in Sales and Marketing.

Her work and academic background include:
• Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer – DaimlerChrysler AG, 1998
• Executive Director – Information Services, Chrysler Corporation, 1993
• Finance Director – Product Development and Jeep/Truck Operations, 1993
• Director – Corporate Financial Analysis, 1991
• Various managerial positions in Finance – 1973-1990
• Financial Analyst – Sales & Marketing, 1972
• M.B.A. Finance, Wayne State University, 1979
• B.A. Economics, Michigan State University, 1972

Sue Unger is a board member of the Detroit Science Center and the Center for Leadership of the Digital Enterprise at Michigan State Eli Broad College of Business. She’s also a member of the Kleiner Perkins CIO Strategy Exchange Forum, the Research Board, the Automotive Women’s Alliance, the University of Michigan College of Engineering National Advisory Committee, the Wayne State University Foundation Board, and the President’s Campaign Cabinet at Michigan State University. She’s past board member of CyberMichigan and past president and board member of the Eli Broad Board in the College of Business at Michigan State University.

Awards include Temple University’s Fox School of Business and Management “2006 Fox Information Technology Leader Award,” Automotive Hall of Fame “2006 Distinguished Service Citation,” 2005 Automotive News “100 Leading Women in the North American Auto Industry” and 2004 Phoenix Mill Women’s Museum “Pioneer Award.” She’s also received an “Alumni Service Award” from Michigan State University, Association of Women in Computing “Top American Women” award, “CIO of the Year” by Salomon Smith Barney, “Distinguished Alumnus of the Year” from Wayne State University School of Business Administration, “Detroit’s Most Influential Women” by Crain’s Detroit Business, “Outstanding Alumni” from Michigan State University Broad College and the Automation Alley “CIO of the Year” award.

Ms. Unger was born in Detroit, Michigan.

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Attendance is free on a space available basis for qualified industry and academic professionals. For more information, please contact ibit@temple.edu.

The Fox School’s Institute for Business and Information Technology presents the Distinguished Speaker Series, featuring talks by leading professionals on essential business technology topics.

Winning Strategies for Starting, Growing and Managing an Innovative Company in the 21st Century

Jeffrey Citron
Chairman and Chief Strategist
Vonage

October 25, 2006

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About the event

A serial entrepreneur, this discussion will explore Jeffrey Citron’s experiences founding several successful startups that transformed their respective industries — Vonage, a leading provider of broadband telephone services being his most recent endeavor. Highlights of the talk will include insight into how he’s spotted several disruptive technologies, what they should consider when starting a business, how to manage growth. He will also share key learnings from his decade of experience reinventing several billion dollar industries: stock trading, electronic communications networks and telecommunications.

Biography

Jeffrey A. Citron served as Vonage’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer from January 2001 through February 2006. He resigned from his position as Chief Executive Officer and became the company’s Chief Strategist in February 2006. In 1995, Mr. Citron founded The Island ECN, a computerized trading system designed to automate the order execution process. Mr. Citron became the Chairman and CEO of Datek Online Holdings Corp. in February 1998 and departed The Island ECN and Datek in October 1999.

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Attendance is free on a space available basis for qualified industry and academic professionals. For more information, please contact ibit@temple.edu.

The Fox School’s Institute for Business and Information Technology presents the Distinguished Speaker Series, featuring talks by leading professionals on essential business technology topics.

Banking Systems Technology: A Practitioner’s Perspective

Kent Seinfeld
CIO
Commerce Bank

April 27, 2005

 

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About the event

Banking is one of the oldest and most fundamental of business endeavors.  While it has changed over hundreds of years, many of the basic functions have survived throughout the centuries.   Taking deposits, making loans and facilitating payments are still at the heart of banking.

While not in the business of technology per se, banking has long been on the frontier of the application of information technology.  As the concept of (monetary) value has evolved, it continues to get increasingly virtual.  It is this virtualization of value that makes it increasingly susceptible to technological innovations.  From barter to gold to paper money to credit cards to wire transfer to internet banking, banking is very close to, if not at the front of the line in the application of information technology.

This discussion will explore where banking has been, where it is and where it is going with respect to IT.

Biography

Kent Seinfeld is the Chief Information Officer of Commerce Bank. Kent has led the development and management of systems to support rapid growth at Commerce over the past four years. Kent was a consultant specializing in enterprise architecture prior to joining Commerce. As a consultant, he led efforts to establish enterprise architectures and planning processes at a pharmaceutical firm, an insurance company, a Russian bank, and a Canadian cable and telecommunications company.

Prior to that, Kent was a senior vice president and served in three different positions with CoreStates (Wachovia/First Union) Bank.  He was the CIO of First Pennsylvania Bank prior to its acquisition by CoreStates.  After the merger, Kent became the manager of systems development for the MAC ATM and POS network.  Subsequent to the spin-off of MAC, Kent founded and managed the Strategic Technology Planning group.  This group was responsible for the development of the bank wide client/server systems architecture, standards, development methodologies and a workflow and document imaging infrastructure.

Kent was the founder and manager of the Technology Planning and Research group at CIGNA, where he was responsible for standards, security policy, development methodologies, and R&D.  Kent has also served as the CIO for Girard Bank (now Mellon Bank/Philadelphia).  Earlier in his tenure, he was the principal architect in the design and implementation of a large-scale highly integrated banking system.  This system evolved into the foundation of the George Network, one of the first large ATM and Bank-by-Phone networks.  Kent has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from NYU and a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania.

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Attendance is free on a space available basis for qualified industry and academic professionals. For more information, please contact ibit@temple.edu.

The Fox School’s Institute for Business and Information Technology presents the Distinguished Speaker Series, featuring talks by leading professionals on essential business technology topics.

Information Portals: From Vision to Value

Sondra Barbour
CIO and Vice President of Operations
Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems & Solutions

November 17, 2004

 

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Biography

Sondra Barbour is the CIO and vice president, Operations for Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems & Solutions (IS&S), a $3.4 billion business area of the Lockheed Martin Corporation.  Headquartered in Gaithersburg, Md., IS&S employs over 13,000 people with key locations in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, Arizona, California, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Virginia.  Ms. Barbour is responsible for the operation, maintenance, and future directions of IS&S technical infrastructure, enterprise applications, facilities, support services, publications, employee health & safety, and supply chain.  She is also responsible for IS&S activities under the Lockheed Martin LM21 Operating Excellence initiative.

Most recently, Sondra had served as director of the IS&S Transformation Program, orchestrating efforts to re-engineer business processes and leverage technology to improve productivity, saving the company more than $220 million over the last four years.  She also managed the development of the IS&S employee portal. She has 19 years experience in the design and development of large scale information systems.  Her background includes management roles in engineering, functional and program operations areas for large software development systems (1+ million lines of code) with engineering and operations staffs of 1000 or more professionals.

Sondra is a volunteer with Lockheed Martins’ Network of Volunteer Associates, an organization volunteering time and resources to give back to the community.  She is the co-champion for IS&S sponsorship of FIRST, a national program that supports high school teams in robotics competitions.  She is also a member of the steering committee for the Pennsylvania Eastern Technology Council’s CIO Institute and sits on the advisory board for the Math Options program for young women at Pennsylvania State University Delaware County.  Within IS&S, she acts as the Executive Sponsor for the Delaware Valley Diversity Council.

Sondra is a graduate of Temple University with a double major in Computer Information Sciences and Accounting.  She is also a graduate of IS&S’ Program Management Development Program.

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Attendance is free on a space available basis for qualified industry and academic professionals. For more information, please contact ibit@temple.edu.