Speakers
If you have any questions regarding speaker or presentation submissions for the Voice Biometrics Conference London 2007, please contact Derek Top: (415) 904-7666, or dtop@opusresearch.net.
Bruce Balentine - EVP and Chief Scientist, EIG
Bruce Balentine is a design consultant specializing in speech, audio, and multimodal user interfaces. During his 14 accumulated years working with speech recognition and related technologies, Balentine has designed more than a dozen user interfaces for telecommunications, desktop multimedia, entertainment, language training, medical, and home automation products. He received his undergraduate degree in 1971 and his Master's in 1975 from the University of North Texas with work in electronic music and intermedia. Ballentine is also the author of the industry best-seller, "How to Build a Speech Recognition Application," which is considered the definitive style guide for human factors design in IVR.
Chuck Buffum - President, Buffum Group
Chuck Buffum, president of Buffum Group LLC, is a visionary and pioneer in the call center, speech technology and secure authentication domains. His business experience spans 28 years in product innovation, executive management, and business development in high technology companies both large and small. His clients range from technology vendors and government agencies evaluating voice biometric offerings to enterprises assessing their existing call center security vulnerabilities. Buffum was the founding CEO of Vocent, a voice authentication solutions company, sold to PassMark Security in 2005. Prior to Vocent he lead Nuance's partner development and field technical organizations, managed Tandem's solution programs, and created IBM's call center solutions program, bringing CallPath and an IVR to market in the 1980s.
Bruce Eidsvik - VP of Sales, EMEA, Genesys Telecommunications Labs
Bruce Eidsvik manages the Voice Portal sales for Genesys across EMEA. Prior to Genesys, Eidsvik was a co-founder of VoiceGenie Technologies and ran the global sales force. He is a pioneer in the VoiceXML marketspace, having worked with AT&T since 1996 in the development of the original VoiceXML phoneweb product. Eidsvik was also instrumental in securing VoiceGenie's early lead in the marketplace and devising the focused product strategy that led to early profitability for the company. Prior to VoiceGenie, he worked for several years as VP of Sales and Marketing for Array and as Director of Engineering and Director of Business Development for Sparton of Canada. Eidsvik received his BSc. with Honours in Engineering Physics in 1985.
Dan Faulkner – Director, Product Management and Solution Marketing, Nuance Communications
Dan Faulkner has led core technology and marketing organizations during his tenure in the speech industry. Today, he is responsible for the development, management and marketing of Nuance’s enterprise speech solutions and strategy. Among these solutions are Nuance’s speaker verification applications, driven by the market-leading Nuance Verifier engine. A regular conference speaker, Faulkner has been immersed in the communications technology market for more than ten years, with first-hand experience in the North American and European markets. He has a Bachelors degree from the University of Manchester, and a Masters degree in Speech and Language Processing from the University of Edinburgh.
Brett Feldon - CTO, VeCommerce
Brett Feldon, CTO with VeCommerce, entered the speech industry in March 1996 as software engineer for Voice Link and has been involved ever since with building speech recognition platforms. He assisted with the process of merging VoiceLink into Scitec in 1998. Since becoming CTO in July 2004, Feldon has been involved with almost every speech deployment at VeCommerce and indeed in Australasia, either in a technical or oversight role. He provided assistance and/or oversight for some of the most complex speech applications in the world, including the first commercial deployment of speaker verification in Australia. Feldon's work has been featured in leading industry publications and he is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and user group events worldwide.
Ariel Freidenberg, Executive VP, Global Sales & Business Development, PerSay
Ariel Freidenberg joined PerSay during 2000, shortly after PerSay was founded. Between 2000-2003 he has held various positions within PerSay's sales and business development team and in 2003 was appointed as VP Sales & Business Development and a member of the Persay's management team. Freidenberg holds a B.A. in Law and Economics and an MBA in Business Administration, both from Bar-Ilan University. Prior to joining PerSay, he was an attorney in one of the leading law offices in Israel, following an internship at the Supreme Court of Israel.
Michael Kramer - CEO & Founder, VOICE.TRUST
Michael Kramer founded VOICE.TRUST in 2000, leading the German company to a worldwide player. Today, VOICE.TRUST solutions are deployed in worldwide Fortune 500 companies in the financial services, insurance, automotive and healthcare industries. Kramer succeeded in shifting the company from direct enterprise deployment to a shared service enabler. Numerous international awards have recognized these achievements, including the selection as a Technology Pioneer in 2006 by the World Economic Forum and the Red Herring Europe 100 Award in 2005 and 2006. Kramer has more than 20 years of experience in marketing and sales of producer goods and top quality consumer goods.
Emilio Martinez - CEO, Agnitio
Emilio Martinez founded Agnitio in 2004 with four partners and is currently CEO and Chairman of the board. From 2000 to 2004, he held executive positions in several technology start-ups, such as Viaplus-Tech, a technology Web Portal, and AIA, a company offering unique security solutions based on proprietary Artificial Intelligence algorithms. From 1991 to 2000, Martinez worked in Lucent Technologies Microelectronics, leading engineering and research teams, such as the Interconnect Group in Bell Labs (Murray Hill, USA). Martinez holds a PhD in Physics from Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, where he was assistant professor (1978-1988).
Dan Miller - Senior Analyst, Opus Research
Dan Miller has over 25 years experience in marketing, business development and corporate strategy for telecom service providers, computer manufacturers and application software developers. Dan founded Opus Research in 1985 and helped define the Conversational Access Technologies marketplace by authoring scores of reports, advisories and newsletters addressing business opportunities that reside where automated speech leverages Web services, mobility and enterprise software infrastructure. He also participated in consulting projects in call center-based commerce, voice-based communications and electronic commerce for clients that include top IT, telecommunications and hosted service providers, as well as a number of entrepreneurial firms.
Richard Molenaar - VP, Project Management, ABN AMRO
Richard Molenaar is Vice President of Project Management at ABN AMRO, where his responsibilities include technological and judicial innovations, sales projects, management information, customer contact centres and insurance. Molenaar joined ABN AMRO in 1997 as an Employee Benefits Consultant before taking the position of Project Manager of Insurance. Prior to working at ABN AMRO, he was a trainee at Goudse Verzerkeringen, an insurance company. He was appointed Vice President of Project Management in 2001. Molenaar holds an MBA and a Master of Law at University Groningen in the Netherlands.
Nick Ogden - CEO, Voice Pay
Nick Ogden is currently Chairman and Chief Executive of The Voice Commerce Group Limited and Chief Executive of Voice Pay Limited. He has been at the forefront of financial services technology since 1985. In 1993, he founded Multi Media Investments Limited, a technology research and development company that brought the Internet to the Channel Islands through Interactive Telephony Ltd. This led to the construction of Europe's first online store in October 1994 and the development of one of the first bank-endorsed e-commerce initiatives BarclaySquare in 1995. Ogden founded the multi-currency processor WorldPay and led the company through its growth to over 270 employees with 20,000 merchants in 120 countries and processing transactions in excess of $2bn per annum. He invented the internet payment guarantee in 2001 guaranteeing Internet transactions for consumers and businesses. WorldPay was sold to the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2000.
Mark Pawlewski - Technical Group Leader, British Telecom Group
Mark Pawlewski is a Technical Group Leader working for the BT Security Research Centre. He has worked in various research areas including speech technology, computer vision and security research. He has several years' experience in core algorithm development for automatic speech recognition and speaker verification and holds several patents in these fields. Pawlewski is a member of the International Biometrics Standards Committee (SC37) and is currently working on a new initiative for producing a standardised speaker recognition interchange format.
Christian Pereira - Managing Director, D+S solutions
Christian Pereira is Managing Director of D+S solutions, a company specialized in developing and operating solutions for efficient and effective customer service. Pereira was one of the early visionaries focusing on high quality voice automation projects and hosted service operations. He founded the voice automation and hosted services company dtms Solutions in January 2004 which was acquired by D+S europe-group in 2006 and merged with the ITK integrator beeone to D+S solutions. Before founding dtms Solutions, Pereira headed the Voice Solutions unit as well as the global sales of VoiceObjects. He started his career co-founding and managing a consulting firm within Deutsche Telekom's group from 1990 to 2001.
Marek Rejman-Greene - Senior Biometrics Advisor, Home Office
Marek Rejman-Greene is the Senior Biometrics Advisor at the Home Office where he heads the Biometric Centre of Expertise (BCE), part of the Home Office Scientific Development Branch in the U.K. The aims of the BCE include provision of advice to agencies; work towards technical and operational alignment of programmes; support for assurance initiatives; education about the optimal use of technologies; anticipation of future threats and opportunities; and outreach to the academic and commercial sectors.
Duncan Ross - Voice Solutions Manager, IBM Worldwide
Duncan Ross has European responsibility for the sales and marketing of IBM's Voice Solutions portfolio. IBM Voice Solutions include software products that facilitate self-service and assisted-service access to information and transactions, via telephones and other consumer appliances. Ross led the team that brought IBM's first speech products to market in Europe in the 1990s, the culmination of 30 years of IBM award-winning R&D effort. He joined IBM in 1985 and has worked in various UK, European and Worldwide management roles, in Software Division and previously with global account management. Ross is a mathematics graduate of Oxford University.
Brian Sweeney - Service Desk Manager, Allied Irish Bank
Brian Sweeney has 18 years experience with AIB having initially started his career in retail banking, he has been working within IT for the last 12 years. His background is in the Client Server environment where he has held a number of management roles. He is currently leading a Service Desk transformation program to create a single internal customer gateway for all IT services. As part of this program, Sweeney is looking at streamlining and consolidating services utilizing leading edge technologies, including successfully implementing a biometrics solution for user password reset within AIB.
Derek Top - Director of Research, Opus Research
With 10 years of publishing experience, Derek Top has covered executive-level, IT business trends and the impact of transformative technologies. Most recently, he was with CMP Media, both as events editor with InformationWeek magazine and senior associate editor with Optimize, responsible for editing and writing feature stories on the current topics facing CIOs in the areas of business strategy and execution. Previously, Top was features editor with Streaming Media, Inc., which produced a monthly magazine, daily news online, and in-depth research reports.
Rob Witthoft - Managing Director, UCMSsolutions
Rob Witthoft has over 16 years experience of success in delivering innovative solutions in the Conversational Relationship Management and Telecommunications space in Australia, New Zealand and SE Asian Markets. A chartered accountant, Witthoft has focused his knowledge and experience gained as solution provider into the contact centre space. During this period, he has lead and developed teams to build successful businesses within the APAC region. He has gained experience in both the role of an Independent Entrepreneur and as a Senior Executive within the telecommunications environment.
