Ayman Antoun

Vice President, Business Partners North America, IBM

Ayman Antoun has been named vice president of Business Partners, IBM North America in September 2006. Reporting to the general manager of IBM North America, he is responsible for IBM's channels strategy and for developing and executing sales and marketing initiatives to grow IBM's business through the network of Business Partners in North America.

Antoun joined IBM in 1988. During his 21 years, he has held a number of Marketing and Management positions including Executive Assistant to Country General Manager of IBM Canada; Business Unit Executive, Education, IBM Canada; Executive Assistant to General Manager, World Wide Personal Computing Division; Director, xSeries & Intellistation Sales, IBM Americas; Director, Personal Computing Division, IBM Canada; Vice President, eServer xSeries & Intellistation, IBM Americas; and Vice president, Small and Medium Business, IBM Canada.

Antoun holds a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from the University of Waterloo.

Maria Battaglia

SVP of Marketing, OnForce

With a wealth of experience in strategic branding, marketing and corporate communications for global technology and consumer brands, Maria Battaglia leads marketing strategy, brand and communications at OnForce. Battaglia was Chief Marketing Officer at Weplay.com, where she led all aspects of marketing for the youth sports social networking company.

She previously served as vice president of brand integration and partnerships for Monster.com, in addition to serving as a marketing partner for Polaris Venture Partners, a US $3B venture capital firm. Prior to this, Battaglia served as NBC's corporate vice president of communications and public affairs. Battaglia also worked at IBM's Internet Division, where she ran strategic communications for IBM's 1996 Atlanta Olympics Global sponsorship. She obtained her B.S. in Psychology from St. Lawrence University.

Brandon Conley

Vice President of Sales, SonicWALL

Brandon Conley is the Vice President of Sales for SonicWALL. He comes to SonicWALL from the acquisition of Aventail, a leading provider of secure remote access solutions. While at Aventail, he held the position of Vice President of Sales. Before joining Aventail, Conley was a regional manager at Oblix, an identity management solutions company, which was later acquired by Oracle.

Stephen DiFranco

Vice President of Commercial and Consumer Channels, Lenovo

Stephen DiFranco is Lenovo's Vice President of Lenovo's Commercial and Consumer Channels business in the Americas. He is responsible for growing Lenovo's business with the Think-brand of business PCs and the Idea-brand of consumer PCs through the company's hundreds of business partners. Previously as the Vice President of the Americas Consumer Business Unit, he launched Lenovo's consumer business in countries including Brazil, Mexico, Canada and Spanish-speaking Americas.

Prior to Lenovo, as the Vice President of Consumer Sales and Marketing at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), DiFranco drove growth of AMD-based PCs sold through stores worldwide. During his tenure, the company's consumer share rose from five to 50 percent in North America and Mexico. From 2002 to 2004, he served as Vice President, Corporate Marketing for Maxtor Corporation. His responsibilities included global marketing strategy including channel development, corporate branding initiatives, and marketing communications including launching Maxtor's OneTouch external hard drive business.

Prior to Maxtor, DiFranco served as the Executive Vice President of marketing for WebGain, Inc., a Warburg-Pincus backed Java tools provider for enterprise companies. His roles included Director of Marketing for Iomega Corporation and General Manager for its Professional Products and Business Division. Before Iomega, DiFranco worked for a decade for Sony Electronics, Inc. in senior marketing positions in the Consumer, Industrial and Professional Divisions.

DiFranco speaks frequently and has published a number of papers including "Creating a Marketing Ruler," "Five Degrees of Channel Separation" and "The War is in the Store...How to Create Brands in Retail."

Jose Fernandez-Stoll

VAD Remarketer Program, Oracle

Jose Fernandez-Stoll works in Oracle's Worldwide Alliances & Channels organization, he runs Oracle's VAD Remarketer Program (http://www.oracle.com/goto/remarketer) globally. This program enables resellers to resell Oracle technology products with no initial investment through a global network of Value Added Distributors. The program was launched in June 2007 and since then has seen growth across all geographies. To date there are over 1200 partners participating in the program.

Prior to this role, Jose has had indirect and direct sales responsibilities in Oracle's sales organizations. Jose has been with Oracle for over 5 years, in Oracle's Toronto office, and has over 15 years experience working in the distribution industry.

Steve Harvey

Vice President, Worldwide Sales, Digium

Steve Harvey joined Digium in February 2007 and is responsible for driving Digium's revenue through worldwide channel development and strategic OEM activity.

Prior to joining Digium, Harvey was vice president, Enterprise Networks and Competitive Service Provider Sales for ADTRAN, where he was responsible for designing and developing the company's overall channel strategy. Under Harvey's leadership, ADTRAN's Channel and Competitive Service Provider revenue grew to account for nearly 50% of the company's overall revenue.

Harvey holds a BS in Computer Science from Indiana University.

Kerry McDonough

U.S. Director, Small Business Sales, Cisco

As U.S. Director of Small Business sales, Kerry's role is to lead Cisco's growth in the small business market -- to, through, and with partners. Kerry began his career at Cisco in 1996 as a channels account manager and was soon promoted manager of channel operations in the Midwest. In 2003, he was promoted to operations director for the Northwest Area Channels. Last year, Kerry led the Linksys Small Business sales division.

Before joining Cisco, Kerry spent nine years at Digital Equipment Corporation managing the EDS global account and five years at NCR Corporation as a commercial territory sales representative. Kerry graduated from the University of Missouri with a bachelor's degree in Management Information System.

Michael Valentine

Vice President, Americas Sales and Support, Fortinet

Michael Valentine brings to Fortinet more than 20 years of sales and channel experience. Michael joined Fortinet as Vice President of Americas Channel Sales, during which time he expanded the company's network of North America technology distributors, signed more than 700 new Americas partners, grew the internal channel team by 82 percent and updated the award-winning FortiPartner Program with a stronger enterprise focus. He is a recognized and respected sales executive who in 2008 and 2009 was named a top "Channel Chief" by CRN magazine. Prior to joining Fortinet, Michael held vice president of Americas sales positions at both SonicWALL and WatchGuard Technologies, as well as held senior sales positions at Panasonic. He holds a bachelors degree in business administration from The University of Texas at Arlington.