TechColumbus e-Track Luncheon: Competitive Analysis

Speaker Details:

Ingrid Fields
Ingrid Fields invested 19 years with A&T and Lucent in Sales and operations leadership roles and received the coveted “Leader’s Council” designation right before being promoted to Sales Vice President of Los Angeles and the Southern California markets.  Bell Labs’ “Best New Product Award” was presented to Ingrid for an educational technology campaign launched while she was a Sales Manager in Cleveland.  In addition, during a declining market in Cleveland, Ohio in the 1990s, her leadership and team building capabilities inspired her sales team to create over 300% revenue growth resulting in 50 new jobs.

Ingrid founded Tempest Networking in December 2007 to offer integration of engineering services focused on large enterprise data centers.  Tempest specializes in integrating Network Management, Virtualization and VoIP with a security emphasis.  Tempest has already attracted several multi-billion dollar enterprise organizations as customers.  In addition, Tempest has recently launched sales force and engineering support products for small to mid-size businesses so they can receive the benefits of these new technologies and Tempests’ expertise in a cost effective manner.   Ingrid expertise in management, leadership and market analysis positions her to be a great panel member for this luncheon.

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ingrid-fields/2/3a/237

Willie Neumann
Willie has been active in the technology industry for over twenty years. He owns two technology businesses, has worked with some of the largest companies in the software industry and acted as CIO for a number of businesses in and out of the technology industry.

In the early 90’s Willie’s software company, Hyper Active, began working on application development for mobile computing platforms. Initially developing software for the Go Penpoint, Apple Newton and MagicCap platform then moved on to development on the Palm and Windows Mobile environments. Long a gadget freak, Willie continues to actively follow developments in the mobile computing market.  In the mid 90s, his company developed database connectivity solutions for Novell’s AppWare Object Oriented programming environment. This relationship lead to developing software solutions for Novell, BTrieve, Borland, Oracle, Sybase and other software development providers.

After the turn of the century, Willie merged one his software development firms to a software application and services provider in the healthcare industry.  Willie is currently leading the 14ninetytwo program, which focuses on startup businesses in the web/mobile application space and designed to boost a company from idea to business quickly.  Willie’s broad experience across industries and his understanding of the importance of competitive analysis in launching and growing products positions him to be a valuable contributor to this conversation.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/willieneumann

Matt Armstead, Founder & CEO, MobileWait
Matt is an innovative, successful executive and entrepreneur focused on high growth opportunities and solutions that address significant gaps for his clients. He is a strategist who works with clients to design and activate innovative Relevance Marketing programs that deliver business results by positively affecting consumers’ brand perceptions and buying behaviors. Matt’s expertise is creating ready-to-implement industry-specific applications which enhance consumer experiences. He has a history of developing consumer relevance solutions, such as those for Saks Fifth Avenue, Coca-Cola and Commerce Bank.

Matt's skill sets provide deep experience in programs that drive sales and increase relevancy between brands and their consumers. He accomplishes this by creating and managing innovative solutions that acquire, retain or enhance highly valued, profitable and targeted consumers.  With this background and current efforts in building a company, Matt will be a strong contributor to this discussion.

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/matt-armstead/0/450/742

April McCollum, Business Librarian for CentralOhioEntrepreneurs.org
April McCollum is the CentralOhioEntrepreneurs.org business librarian and serves as a research source for entrepreneurs in multiple areas, including competitive intelligence.  April routinely helps entrepreneurs find the information and resources available to them to start, plan and grow their businesses. Prior to working with CentralOhioEntrepreneurs.org, she was a business librarian at an investment bank.  In that role, she provided actionable business research & analysis to assist sales objectives and conducted strategic competitive research.  Her experience also includes information resource evaluation, company/industry strategic research & analysis and general business research.  She received her Masters degree in Library & Information Science, with an emphasis on business research, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations, with minor in economics, both from Kent State University.  April will capably address issues confronting entrepreneurs in pursing competitive intelligence and address a wide range of tools available for research and analysis.

http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=12692053&authToken=6Foz&authType=name&goback=.con