2015 Data Impact Awards

Matt Aslett

Research Director, 451 Research

As Research Director for the data platforms and analytics research channel, Matt has overall responsibility for the coverage of operational and analytic databases, data integration, data quality, and business intelligence. Matt's own primary area of focus is on relational and non-relational databases - including NoSQL and NewSQL - data warehousing, data caching, and Hadoop. Matthew is also an expert in open source software and regularly contributes to 451 Research's open source-related research.

Tom Bain

Vice President, Marketing, CounterTack

Tom Bain has over 12 years of experience in Marketing, working with leading security organizations. As the VP, Global Marketing for CounterTack, he’s responsible for driving CounterTack's overall Marketing initiatives, including Analyst and Investor Relations, Corporate Messaging, Corporate and Product Marketing, Corporate Communications, Web/Digital, Demand Generation, Partner Marketing and Sales enablement.

Martha Bennett

Principal Analyst, Forrester

Martha serves the CIO role, covering business intelligence (BI), analytics, and big data. Her current research has two main areas of focus: 1) the investigation of best practices for making the most of an organization's data, as well as building appropriate processes and organizational structures; and 2) analyzing the effect of emerging technologies and business pressures on the way BI capabilities are managed and delivered. Other key research area include BI in the cloud and mobile BI.

Andreas Bitterer

Vice President and Research Fellow, BARC

Andy Bitterer is vice president and research fellow at BARC, where he advises clients on business analytics, data management, strategy and architecture, as well as current trends around “Big Data”, Internet of Things, or location intelligence. Before joining BARC he was research VP at Gartner, where he authored highly-regarded research, such as Magic Quadrants, Hype Cycles, and Predicts, chaired the European BI Summit and spoke at many conferences worldwide. Andy joined Gartner in April 2005 with the acquisition of META Group, where he started in September 2001. Before that, he was managing director technology and CTO at Antfactory, a strategic investment and venture capital firm. He spent 15 years with IBM in various management, consulting and technical roles, for the IBM e-business and interactive media practice, as project manager at its Almaden Research Center in San Jose, and as application architect in Canada and Germany. Andy has authored numerous books on application development, data management and object technology, is an accomplished pianist and an award-winning photographer.

Drew Conway

Drew Conway is a leading expert in the application of computational methods to social and behavioral problems at large-scale. Drew is the Head of Data at Project Florida, and has been writing and speaking about the role of data — and the discipline of data science — in industry, government, and academia for several years. Drew has advised and consulted companies across many industries; ranging from fledgling start-ups to Fortune 100 companies, as well as academic institutions and government agencies at all levels. Drew started his career in counter-terrorism as a computational social scientist in the U.S. intelligence community.

Raj Dalal

Founder and Principal Analyst, BigInsights

Raj is passionate about the potential of Big Data & Analytics to transform industries and improve customer experiences. He tracks the ecosystem of technologies and techniques evolving to help companies get data driven actionable insights.

Raj has over 20 years experience in IT&T Industry across consulting, sales/marketing and Industry research.  He recently worked at Big Data security firm, TrustSphere as Head of WW Marketing and Alliance. As IDC's Vice President he was responsible for emerging technology research and "Go-to-Market" advisory services across Asia. At Hewlett-Packard, he ran the Asia-Pacific CRM/Business Intelligence solution business. He is on the advisor board of MyPsych.com and is actively engaged with the start-up ecosystem.

He is a Charter Member of TiE, a worldwide non-profit organization focused on helping entrepreneurs succeed. He holds a Masters of Commerce (Information Systems) & Bachelor of Computer Science from University of New South Wales in Australia. He can be contacted at raj@biginsights.co.

Wayne Eckerson

Founder and Principal Consultant, Eckerson Group

Wayne Eckerson has been a thought leader in the business intelligence and analytics field since the early 1990s. He is a sought-after consultant and noted speaker who thinks critically, writes clearly and presents persuasively about complex topics. Eckerson has conducted many groundbreaking research studies, chaired numerous conferences, and written widely read books on performance dashboards and analytics. He is founder and principal consultant of Eckerson Group (www.eckerson.com), a business-technology consulting firm that helps business leaders use data and technology to drive better insights and actions.

Mike Ferguson

Managing Director, Intelligent Business Strategies Limited

Mike Ferguson is Managing Director of Intelligent Business Strategies Limited. As an independent IT analyst and consultant he specialises in BI/Analytics, big data, data management and enterprise business integration. He has over 33 years of IT experience with 25 years in BI/Analytics, 33 years in Data Management, 11 years in Smart Business and 4 years Big Data Analytics on Hadoop and NoSQL.

Philip Howard

Research Director, Bloor Research

Philip started in the computer industry way back in 1973 and has variously worked as a systems analyst, programmer and salesperson, as well as in marketing and product management, for a variety of companies including GEC Marconi, GPT, Philips Data Systems, Raytheon and NCR.

Claudia Imhoff

President, Intelligent Solutions, Inc. 

A thought leader, visionary, and practitioner, Claudia Imhoff, Ph.D., is an internationally recognized expert on analytics, business intelligence, and the architectures to support these initiatives. Dr. Imhoff has co-authored five books on these subjects and writes articles (totaling more than 150) for technical and business magazines.

She is also the Founder of the Boulder BI Brain Trust, a consortium of internationally-recognized independent analysts and experts. You can follow them on Twitter at #BBBT or become a subscriber at www.bbbt.us.

Ping Li

General Partner, Accel Partners

Ping Li joined Accel in 2004, having worked previously as a product manager at Juniper. Ping leads Accel’s Big Data initiative and many of the firm’s enterprise IT investments. He is the lead investor and board member at Cloudera, Code 42, DataGravity, Origami Logic, Primary Data and Trifacta. He was responsible for numerous investments with notable exits, including Arista (NYSE: ANET), Nimble Storage (NYSE: NIMB) and RelateIQ (acquired by CRM). Ping is active in the security space as lead investor and board member at Lookout Mobile Security, Tenable Network Security and (previously) Imperva.

Ben Lorica

Chief Data Scientist, O'Reilly

Ben Lorica is the Chief Data Scientist and Director of Content Strategy for Data at O'Reilly Media, Inc. He has applied Business Intelligence, Data Mining, Machine Learning and Statistical Analysis in a variety of settings including Direct Marketing, Consumer and Market Research, Targeted Advertising, Text Mining, and Financial Engineering. His background includes stints with an investment management company, internet startups, and financial services.

Curt Monash

Author and Editor, Monash Research

Since 1981, Curt Monash has been a leading analyst of and strategic advisor to the software industry. Praised by Larry Ellison for his "unmatched insight into technology and marketplace trends," Curt was the software/services industry's #1 ranked stock analyst while at PaineWebber, Inc., where he served as a First Vice President until 1987. He subsequently co-founded Evernet, Inc., a $40 million networking systems integrator. Since 1990 he has owned and operated Monash Research (formerly called Monash Information Services), an analysis and advisory firm covering software-intensive sectors of the technology industry. In that period he also has been co-founder, president, or chairman of several other technology startups.

Narendra Mulani

Senior Managing Director, Accenture

Narendra Mulani is the senior managing director—Accenture Analytics. In this role, he is responsible for creating a culture of analytics and driving Accenture’s strategic agenda for growth across business analytics. He leads an integrated community of strategy, technology and operations people who are serving clients across industries around the globe. Together, they serve clients around the globe, focusing on value creation through innovative solutions that combine industry and functional knowledge with analytics and technology.

Carl Olofson

Research Vice President, Application Development and Deployment, IDC

Carl Olofson has performed research and analysis for IDC since 1997, and manages IDC’s Database Management Software service, as well as advising and guiding the Data Integration Software service. Mr. Olofson’s research involves following sales and technical developments in the structured data management (SDM) markets, including database management systems (DBMS), database development and management software, and data integration and access software, including the vendors of related tools and software systems. Mr. Olofson also contributes to the Big Data Overview report series and provides specialized coverage of Hadoop and other Big Data technologies. Mr. Olofson advises clients on market and technology directions as well as performing supply and demand-side primary research to size, forecast, and segment the database and related software markets. In 2000, Mr. Olofson received IDC's highest award, the James Peacock Memorial Award for professional excellence in market research.

Jake Porway

Founder and Executive Director, DataKind

Jake Porway is a machine learning and technology enthusiast who loves nothing more than seeing good values in data. He is the founder and executive director of DataKind, an organization that brings together leading data scientists with high impact social organizations to better collect, analyze, and visualize data in the service of humanity.

Tom Pringle

Practice Leader, Information Management, Ovum

Tom is Practice Leader of the Information Management team at Ovum IT. He leads Ovum’s research covering data and content management, information architecture, enterprise performance management, business intelligence, and analytics. The Information Management practice helps Ovum’s Enterprise clients effectively manage their data and seek innovative ways to realize its value. For vendor clients, the team provides technical review, market context, and strategic advice on current developments and future trends.

Neil Raden

Founder, Hired Brains Research

Neil Raden, based in Santa Fe, NM, is an active consultant, widely published author and speaker and the founder of Hired Brains, Inc., http://www.hiredbrains.com. Hired Brains provides advisory services, consulting, systems integration and implementation services in Decision Management and Information Architecture for Advanced Analytics for clients worldwide. Hired Brains Research provides consulting, market research, product marketing and advisory services to the software industry.

Neil was a contributing author to one of the first (1995) books on designing data warehouses and he is more recently the co-author of Smart (Enough) Systems: How to Deliver Competitive Advantage by Automating Hidden Decisions, Prentice-Hall. He welcomes your comments at nraden@hiredbrains.com or at his blog at Competing on Decisions.

Nik Rouda

Senior Analyst, ESG

Nik is an ESG senior analyst covering big data, analytics, business intelligence, databases, and data management. With 20 years of experience in IT around the world, he understands the challenges of both vendors and buyers, and how to find the true business solutions value of innovative technologies. His strategic leadership and guidance has helped accelerate growth for fast-paced startups and Fortune 100 enterprises. His insights have been recently featured in publications such as the New York Times and The Guardian (UK), as well as many technology journals. Nik provides influential coverage and analysis of industry and vendor events and announcements, and particularly loves helping clients find the bigger truth.

Svetlana Sicular

Research Director, Gartner

Svetlana Sicular has a uniquely combined experience of Fortune 500 IT and business leadership, product management at world-class software vendors, and Big Four consulting. She primarily handles inquiries in the areas of data governance, enterprise information management strategy and big data.

Before joining Gartner, Ms. Sicular was a leader of Visa Data Authority. She was responsible for data interoperability, global oversight of critical data components, and international standards that support Visa's global data. She was also in charge of all aspects of Visa global CRM applications and BI for CRM. In her previous role at Oracle/Siebel world-class technology product marketing, which defined the core architecture of all Siebel applications, Ms. Sicular was in charge of databases, operating systems and infrastructure platforms for all Siebel products, such as CRM, analytics and acquired technologies.

Kim Stevenson

Chief Information Officer, Intel

Kimberly "Kim" Stevenson is corporate vice president and Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Intel Corporation. Her IT organization capitalizes on information technology to accelerate Intel's quest to bring smart, connected devices to every person on Earth. More than 6,000 worldwide IT professionals are protecting Intel's assets, driving competitive advantage, and providing IT solutions under Stevenson's leadership.

Rick van der Lans

Managing Director, R20/Consultancy

Rick F. van der Lans is an independent analyst, consultant, author, and lecturer specializing in data warehousing, business intelligence, and database technology. He is Managing Director of R20/Consultancy based in The Netherlands, and has advised many large companies worldwide on defining their business intelligence architectures. His popular IT books have been translated into many languages and have sold over 100,000 copies. Rick writes for TechTarget.com and B-eye-Network. For the last 25 years, he has been presenting professionally around the globe and at international events. Last summer, Rick published a new book entitled "Data Virtualization for Business Intelligence Systems".

Ashish Verma

Director, Big Data Innovation and Architecture, Deloitte Consulting

Ashish leads the Big Data Analytics, Innovation and Architecture Initiative within Deloitte Consulting and has over 17 plus years of management consulting experience with multiple fortune 100 clients in building solutions that focus on solving complex business problems related to realizing the value of information assets within an enterprise. In his role Ashish is building offerings for selected use cases with vendor partners. Ashish is a frequent speaker at external conferences and has published and presented on the challenges of overcoming Information Integration and Management at vendor conferences and Deloitte TMT and CFO Dbriefs.

Dan Vesset

Program Vice President, Business Analytics and Big Data, IDC

Dan Vesset is Program Vice President of IDC's Business Analytics and Big
Data research. Mr. Vesset leads a team of analyst covering analytics, business intelligence, cognitive systems, data management, and data integration markets. He and his team provide market research and advisory services to some of the leading worldwide IT organizations and startups. Mr. Vesset is also the co-lead of IDC's Big Data research. He has been published and quoted in numerous business, academic, and industry publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CIO Magazine, Ivey Business Journal, and Association for Business Systems. Mr. Vesset has 20 years of experience as a user, implementer, and analyst of business analytics software. Mr. Vesset earned an MS degree in MIS and an MBA from Boston University and BS degree in Finance and Investments from Babson College. He is a frequent speaker at business analytics and Big Data conferences and seminars worldwide, and tweets at @danvesset

William McKnight

William is President of McKnight Consulting Group (www.mcknightcg.com). He
is an internationally recognized authority in information management. His
consulting work has included 17 of the Global 2000 and numerous midmarket
companies. His teams have won several best practice competitions for their
implementations and many of his clients have gone public with their success
stories. His strategies form the information management plan for leading
companies in various industries.