Greetings,

Just wanted to update you on the program on a couple of exciting new editions.

We have a special treat for you.

Some of you might know that Mitch Lewis, our esteemed panelist from Juniper is an accomplished mountain climber and marathoner. He is in fact, one of the rare individuals in the world who have climbed 7 tallest peaks and ran 7 marathons in each of the 7 continents (highest peaks are Everest, Kilimanjaro, Denali, Elbrus, Aconcagua, Carstensz Pyramid, and Vinson).

In December, he climbed Mt. Vinson in Antarctica to complete the goals he set for himself 10 years ago. I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to have Mitch talk a bit more about his extraordinary journey and what it took to accomplish this monumental goal while evangelizing Cloud, Mobile, and SDN at Juniper Networks. Mitch has agreed to give us a short talk on “Seven Leadership Principles From Everest.” Trust me, you don’t want to miss this talk.

Of course, we will have our full-fledged discussion on mobile cloud computing.

I am excited to add Louis Brun, SVP at Guavus – a mobile big data company. The nexus of big data and cloud is made for each-other and I want to explore what kind of opportunities this is creating in the ecosystem. Louis, co-founded Neuralitic Systems, an analytics company which got bought by Guavus that is doing some really interesting work in the big data space. Louis will also bring the startup perspective to the discussion. I am glad to have him onboard.

Registration. We will be closing registration soon, so be sure to reserve your spot.

Mobile Cloud, SDN, and the art of mobile computing

Shankar Chandran, Vice President, Samsung Catalyst Fund,

Mitch Lewis, Vice President, Juniper Networks

Biju Nair,  EVP and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer of Synchronoss

Randy Wagner, Executive Director, B2B Sales and Marketing, Verizon Wireless

Louis Brun, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Product Strategy, Guavus

Chetan Sharma, President, Chetan Sharma Consulting (moderator)

Location: Columbia Tower Club, Seattle

Date: March 21st

Program: Cloud, SDN, and the art of Mobile Computing

07:30 – 08:30 – Breakfast and Networking
08:30 – 10:00 – Panel Discussion
10:00 – 11:00 – Networking

Shankar Chandran is vice president, Samsung Catalyst Fund, at the Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center (SSIC), Samsung Electronics. He is responsible for venture capital investments in cloud infrastructure, core technology and mobile technology. Previously, he was part of the founding team at Panorama Capital and has been an active venture investor for 11 years at Panorama Capital and at JP Morgan Partners. Shankar has held various engineering, business development and management roles at Applied Materials, Inc., and has been granted eight patents as the primary inventor. He also serves on the Advisory Board at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Santa Clara University. Shankar holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Metallurgical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, BHU, India, an MS in Materials Science from Arizona State University, and an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Biju Nair has over 18 years’ experience as an entrepreneur and technology industry leader. In March 2011, Mr. Nair joined    Synchronoss and serves as the Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer. In this role, Mr. Nair is responsible for leading the strategic vision of the connected devices and cloud computing for profitable growth of the company’s product portfolio. Prior to joining Synchronoss, Mr. Nair was the Chairman & CEO of Sapience Knowledge Systems, Inc., a venture backed wireless software company (acquired by Synchronoss Technologies in 2011). Previously, Mr. Nair held the position of Senior Vice President & GM of the Connectivity and Security Group at Smith Micro Software (NASDAQ: SMSI) and Corporate Vice President & GM and founder of Mobility Solutions Group at PCTEL, Inc. (NASDAQ:PCTI) which was acquired by Smith Micro in 2008). Mr. Nair also held senior executive positions at SAFCO Technologies and Agilent Technologies.

Mitch A. Lewis is Vice President, WW Partners and Alliances for Ericsson at Juniper Networks,  since June 2010.  He has over 25 years of experience in the telecommunications industry as a service provider, partner and infrastructure solutions provider. His career started with AT&T and developed with Ericsson, Dilithium Networks and Microsoft including a wealth of experience and expertise acquired while based at various positions in Europe, Asia and the United States. Mitch has served in technical, marketing, sales, engineering and general management positions.  His background has been centered in telecommunications broadband, IP and mobile networks; voice, data and multimedia; infrastructure, service layer, cloud and applications development solutions.  He has been at the forefront of analog to digital, circuit to packet, copper to fiber and network to cloud based evolutions. He holds an MBA and Bachelor’s degrees from Pepperdine University and Executive Management Program certificates from Harvard and Stanford Universities.

Randy Wagner is executive director, B2B Sales & Marketing-West Area for Verizon Wireless, responsible for area-wide marketing, operations and loyalty for the business sales channel. Randy’s team drives growth in emerging areas including Machine to Machine connections, private networks, cloud and security services. Wagner previously served as vice president, Marketing & Sales Operations-West Area for Verizon Wireless, responsible for area-wide marketing strategy, product management, marketing communications, sales operations, training and telesales.  Prior to that, he served as executive director-Indirect Distribution and Area Operations Center for Verizon Wireless. He joined Verizon Wireless in 1994 as manager of Finance in Irvine, Calif.  Later he held a variety of finance management roles, including director-Financial Operations and Facilities; director-Compliance; and director-Financial Planning and Analysis.  Wagner holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with emphasis in Finance from San Diego State University and a Master of Business Administration from Pepperdine University, in Calif. 

Louis Brun is a seasoned entrepreneur with a long and successful track record as an executive in the mobile telecommunications and IT industries. Prior to co-founding Neuralitic Systems, Mr. Brun was based in Paris, France where he handled EMEA business development activities for Invidex, an innovative provider of transmission management software for broadcasters. Invidex was sold to Aldeavision in February 2006 (TSXV: AVS). Before joining Invidex, Mr. Brun co-founded Lipso, a company at the forefront of mobile messaging in Canada. Mr. Brun also served as Business Manager at Ericsson where he completely redefined a product line in the OSS area, the revenues of which increased tenfold under his leadership. Mr. Brun has solid experience in venture capital, business strategy and product strategies. Mr. Brun holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Université Laval and has completed studies in actuarial methods.

Looking forward to seeing you on 21^st.