Toufic Boubez
CTO, Layer 7 Technologies
Toufic is a well-respected and renowned Web services visionary. Prior to co-founding Layer 7 Technologies, he was the Chief Web Services Architect for IBM's Software Group and drove their early XML and Web services strategies. He worked as IBM's technical representative to the UDDI Web services consortium and participated on several standards bodies including the UN/CEFACT/OASIS ebXML initiative. During this time, Toufic co-authored the original UDDI API specification. Toufic also managed some of IBM Global Services' largest e-business engagements. He is a sought-after presenter and has chaired many XML and Web services conferences. In 2002, InfoWorld named Toufic to its "Ones to Watch" list. An author of many publications, his most recent book is the top-selling Building Web Services with Java: Making Sense of XML, SOAP, WSDL and UDDI. Toufic holds a Master of Electrical Engineering degree from McGill University and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Rutgers University.

Jeromy Carrière
Senior Architect Evangelist, Microsoft
Jeromy Carrière is a Senior Architect Evangelist on Microsoft’s National Architecture Team for Financial Services. The National Architecture Team exists to enable successful adoption of the Microsoft platform by fostering core architectural principles enabling agile Connected Systems. Jeromy is part of the Financial Services team, addressing the needs of Microsoft customers in capital markets, banking and insurance.

Most recently, Jeromy was the Chief Technology Officer of Kinitos, where he was responsible for guiding the development of a .NET-based distributed application server platform. Prior to Kinitos, Jeromy was a Chief Architect for America Online, Inc. Jeromy joined AOL through the acquisition of Quack.com, where was a co-founder and Chief Architect. Jeromy had previously worked at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, doing architecture research and analysis.

Brent Carlson
VP of Technology and Co-founder, LogicLibrary, Inc
Recently named to InfoWorld's list of "CTOs to Watch in 2004," Brent drives the development and delivery of LogicLibrary's products. He is a 17-year veteran of IBM, where he served as lead architect for the WebSphere Business Components project and held numerous leadership roles on the "IBM SanFrancisco Project." Brent recently led LogicLibrary's product development team in porting the Logidex solution to the .NET platform. He is the co-author of two books: San Francisco Design Patterns: Blueprints for Business Software (with James Carey and Tim Graser) and Framework Process Patterns: Lessons Learned Developing Application Frameworks (with James Carey). Carlson is also a frequent presenter at industry conferences and regional user groups. He is a BEA Regional Director and holds 16 software patents, with eight more currently under evaluation.

David Chappell
VP and Chief Technology Evangelist, Sonic Software
David is vice president and chief technology evangelist for Sonic Software. Dave has over 20 years of experience in the software industry covering a broad range of roles including R&D, code-slinger, sales, support and marketing. He has a strong passion for shaping the future of technology, and enjoys sharing his knowledge and experience with others. Dave is well known for his writings and public lectures on the subjects of the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), Message Oriented Middleware (MOM), enterprise integration, and evolving standards for Web services. As Director of Engineering for Sonic Software, Chappell led the development effort for SonicMQ, which has grown to become synonymous with enterprise messaging and the Java Message Service (JMS). He has extensive experience in distributed computing, including JMS and MOM, CORBA, COM, EJB and Web application server infrastructure. Dave's experience also includes development of client/server infrastructure, graphical user interfaces, and language interpreters.

Mark Collins-Cope
Technical Director, Ratio Group, Ltd
Mark has been working in the Software Engineering field for over 15 years. Having graduated in with a first-class honors degree in Computer Science, Mark has undertaken a variety of roles within the software industry, including: project management (software development, training course development, consultancy studies, etc.); analysis of requirements; technical architecture, software design and development.

Mark has worked for a variety of companies, both large and small, including The Instruction Set, Hoskyns, Cap Gemini, Logica and British Airways. He is now Technical Director of Ratio Group Ltd, a UK based training, consultancy and development company specializing in object and component technologies, where he combines his management role with ongoing involvement in complex technical projects.

Dr. Rix Groenbroom
Support Manager, Parasoft
Dr. Rix Groenboom supports Fortune 2000 companies in automated software error prevention and correction for Parasoft. His main area of expertise is in the use of formal languages for the specification, design and validation of software applications. Using this knowledge, Rix Groenboom has written over 30 technical articles and contributes regularly to IT industry associations and conferences in Europe. Dr. Groenboom holds a MSc and PhD in Computing Science from the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) and published a thesis focusing on Formalizing Knowledge Domains — Static and Dynamic Aspects (Shaker Publishing, 1998).

Chris Haddad
Practice Manager, Burton Group
Chris has over 14 years of experience architecting and managing development initiatives, and advising on product strategy for Web service companies such as Grand Central, Flamenco Networks (Digital Evolution), Computer Associates (formerly Adjoin), Securant, Employease, Jamcracker, and TRX. An expert in the design of service oriented architecture and business class Web service infrastructure, he chaired the IBSi Technology Committee and the Web Services Special Interest Group. He is the current Director of the XML Atlanta Users Group and former technical chair of a business service provider consortium forging standards relating to application integration. He has worked on Web services infrastructure for the Apache Axis and Employease EConnect projects. He was granted committer status on the Apache Axis project in 2002. Chris is an author, speaker, and technical editor of courseware, presentations, and books on XML and Web services.

Ralph Hodgson
Executive Partner, TopQuadrant
Ralph has over 25 years experience in the United States and internationally in enterprise systems design, consulting, software development and methodology development and deployment. Most recently, he has held executive consulting positions at IBM Global Services where he was a founding member of Portal Practice and Object Technology Practice. Prior to IBM, he was European Technology Director, founder and Managing Director of Interactive Development Environments, which was an international CASE tools vendor. He started his career in the Research and Development Department of Hewlett Packard where he designed telecommunications test instrumentation.

Roger James
Chief Consultant, Telelogic BV
Roger James has almost 40 years experience in IT. A (post-) graduate of London University, he worked for a number of leading software companies before starting his own consultancy business. During this time he gained insights into the problems of complex implementation projects and consequently moved the accent of his business to methodology led implementation, which in turn led to the introduction of tools and repositories for method support. For many years his business was the premier distributor for Popkin Software (now Telelogic) in mainland Europe. Having sold his business, Roger now has a roving brief in the field of architecture and methods within Telelogic Europe.

Finbarr Joy
CTO and founding member, UPCO
UPCO is a J2EE and .NET platforms Systems Integrator. In his position Finbarr has led the foundation of UPCO's architecture practice that over the last six years has delivered a number of enterprise architecture initiatives for UPCO's global and UK customers in the retail, transportation and logistics, telecommunications, and leisure industries. Prior to joining UPCO, Finbarr was senior consultant, application platforms for Netscape Communications Corporation Professional Services, where he led many of the pioneer Java Application Server platform deployments with early adopters of Netscape technology in the online banking, telecommunications, and global insurance industries.

Gunther Lenz
Program Manager for Software Platform Technologies, Siemens Corporate Research
Gunther Lenz is the Program Manager for System Migration & Integration at Siemens Corporate Research in Princeton NJ. He is the author of the Book ?.NET-A Complete Development Cycle?, invited member of the Microsoft Software Design Review team (for Visual Studio Team System and Indigo) and received the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) — Architect award. His current research focuses on the areas of Model Driven Software Development and Software Factories. Gunther frequently presents at internal and external conferences on subjects related to Software Engineering.

Paul Lipton
Senior Architect, Web Services and Application Management Group, Computer Associates
Paul Lipton is Senior Architect in the Web Services and Application Management Group at Computer Associates (CA) and affiliated with the Office of the CTO. He has been an architect and developer of enterprise systems for over 20 years, and has worked closely with key CA customers to solve important business challenges through the creation of manageable, mission-critical distributed solutions. Mr. Lipton has represented CA in numerous standards organizations, such as the W3C, OASIS and the Java Community Process. He is a highly sought-after author and conference speaker, and has shared his knowledge with appreciative audiences around the world on such diverse topics as Web services, SOA, management and security, Java, .NET, EAI, distributed systems, and utility computing.

Martin Milani
CTO, Intersperse
Martin is an industry expert on distributed computing. His areas of expertise include operating systems, passive parallel systems, distributed operating systems and kernels, enterprise application integration, systems and network management, directory services, asynchronous messaging systems, and communications systems. Martin obtained a BS in computer science with a minor in mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh.

Laurence Moroney
Senior Architect, Mainsoft
Laurence joined Mainsoft from Reuters, where he was a Senior Architect in their CTO Office, specializing in Enterprise Architecture and Web Services Interoperability. Laurence is the author of several computer books, including ‘Expert Web Services Security in the .NET Platform’ and ‘ASP.NET 1.1 with VB.NET’ as well as several dozen technology articles for DevX.com, LinuxWorld Magazine and WebLogic Developer’s Journal. He holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Systems Specification and design from UCE Birmingham and a Bachelors Degree in Physics and Computer science from the University of Wales in Cardiff.

Dr. Tony Palmer
Senior Solution ArchitectVordell
Dr. Palmer is Vordel's Senior Solution Architect and is responsible for architecting and implementing best of breed security infrastructures for leading Fortune 1000 and public sector organizations in Europe and North America. As a leading Web Services security expert, Dr. Tony Palmer regularly delivers training workshops and seminars to partners and customers, including various blue chip companies such as Fortis ASR, Experian, British American Tobacco, British Telecom and Clerical Medical. Tony is also a frequent presenter at industry conferences worldwide. Prior to joining Vordel, Tony worked at Citibank and security integration firm, Delphium Technologies. He has a PhD in Chemistry and a Business qualification from University College Dublin.

John Rodford
Managing Director, Parasoft, UK Ltd.
As the Managing Director of Parasoft UK Ltd., John Rodford is currently in charge of shaping and driving Parasoft?s sales and support strategy throughout Europe. With more than 20 years experience in international business development and sales management from Europe to Africa, he has successfully grown international revenues and developed, then managed, distributor and reseller channels for several global IT companies. His career began with hands-on positions ranging from analyst to developer to systems manager. Rodford uses his strong understanding of the software development issues affecting companies to answer the IT industry needs and advocate software quality. An industry spokesperson, Rodford has contributed articles in publications such as ComputerWeekly and spoken at conferences such as SIGIST (British Computer Society) mostly focusing on quality and performance in development.

Arvindra Sehmi
Lead Architect, EMEA Developer and Platform Evangelism Group, Microsoft
Arvindra is Lead Architect in Microsoft EMEA Developer and Platform Evangelism Group. He focuses on enterprise software-engineering best practice adoption throughout the EMEA developer and architect community and leads Architecture Evangelism in EMEA for the Financial Services Industry where his current interest is in high performance asynchronous computing architectures. The highly regarded EMEA Architects Forum is a multi-country conference that he has led for the past two years. Arvindra conceived, produced and is the executive editor of JOURNAL, the new Microsoft Architects Journal which is a quarterly peer-reviewed publication for software architects.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Arvindra was CTO at Agility, a Boston-based start-up, where he designed knowledge management systems for Private Client Banking and consulted on original technology projects for Financial Institutions in the area. As Principal Consultant at Capco Ltd., he developed new software architectures for securities settlement, transaction flow and event management, and real-time compound data reconciliation. During this time he was lead-architect for an industry-first global B2B utility service for cross-border securities settlements. Before he discovered .NET and a life at Microsoft, Arvindra was a serious Java/J2EE hack and continues to do extensive work on competitive technology strategy at Microsoft.

Arvindra holds a Ph.D. in Bio-medical Engineering and a Masters degree in Business.

Beat Schwegler Sbilordo
Architect, Microsoft EMEA HQ
Beat is employed as an Architect for Microsoft EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). In this capacity, he is supporting and consulting large companies in software architecture related topics and is a frequent speaker at international events and conferences. He has more than 13 years of experience in professional software development and architecture and was involved in a wide variety of projects, ranging from real-time building control systems, best selling shrink-wrapped products to large scale CRM and ERP systems. For the last three years, his main focus was in the area of Service Orientation and Web Services.

Gordon van Huizen
Strategic Technology Advisor, Sonic Software
Gordon Van Huizen is Sonic Software’s Strategic Technology Advisor, as well as chief technology officer (CTO) for Sonic’s parent company, Progress Software Corporation. In this role, he provides insight and feedback on the company's technology strategy and standards initiatives, as well as coordinating technical strategies and architectures across all of the Progress business units.

Prior to his latest appointment, Van Huizen was Chief Technology Officer for Sonic Software, working closely with Sonic’s strategic partners, customers and product group to help chart the course of Sonic’s SOA products. During his tenure, Van Huizen helped establish the enterprise services bus (ESB) as a significant market trend and was honored by InfoWorld magazine as one of the top 25 CTOs. Previously, he served as vice president of product management at Sonic, overseeing the launch of Sonic ESB® and SonicMQ® 5.0. In this role, Van Huizen provided a driving force in bringing the industry’s first enterprise service bus (ESB) to market. He also played an instrumental role in the acquisition and integration of eXcelon Corporation in 2002.

A popular speaker and authority on Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA), Van Huizen has delivered keynote speeches at numerous conferences. He has written for industry publications such as Network World, Business Integration Journal, Java Developer's Journal and JavaWorld, and he contributed to Professional Java Server Programming, J2EE Edition.

Marc Wilkinson
Software Group Regional CTO, Hewlett Packard
Marc Wilkinson is HP’s Software Group Regional CTO, focusing on EMEA. Most recently Marc was deputy CTO at RiverSoft and Micromuse. He joined HP in 2004 to implement HP’s vision of an organization in which business and IT are synchronized to capitalize on change within key corporate accounts. Marc is also chartered to bring the industry direction & customer requirements back into HP engineering plans & roadmaps."