Carolyn Leighton
Founder/Chairwoman, WITI
Acting Advisory Board Chair
Carolyn Leighton founded WITI in 1989 as a worldwide e-mail network for women in all technology sectors. At the time WITI was established, Ms. Leighton was President of Criterion Research, a research consulting firm for the high tech industry which she founded in 1984, as well as chair of the Core Competency Database Project at Stanford University.
Due to Ms. Leighton's leadership and vision, WITI has grown to be the premiere brand and worldwide organization dedicated to empowering women worldwide to achieve unimagined possibilities and transformations through technology, leadership and economic prosperity.
Ms. Leighton has 35 years of experience as an educator and entrepreneur. In addition to WITI, she founded four start-ups in the high-tech, legal sectors and, most recently, the pet industry. She attended the University of Michigan and has a bachelor's degree in human development from Pacific Oaks College. Ms. Leighton was named one of the "Top 100 Women in Computing" in 1997 and 2000.
In addition to her continuing work with WITI, Ms. Leighton now runs a dog camp on the central coast of California.
Barbara Annis
Founder, Barbara Annis & Associates
Barbara Annis is an outstanding leading edge thinker who has designed breakthrough workshops and interventions since 1979. She has been studying transformational learning with many exceptional thinkers, including Dr. Flores, Ph.D. Program Director of Linguistics, University of Berkeley. Her programs include workshops for men and women, youth, and couples, as well as her highly acclaimed corporate initiatives. Barbara is recognized throughout Canada and the United States as the authority on Gender Awareness. Her recently published book on the subject titled "Same Words, Different Language" is certain to become required reading for both women and men striving to achieve excellence in the workplace of the future.
Dr. Cheemin Bo-Linn
CEO, Peritus Partners
Dr. Cheemin Bo-Linn, recognized as an innovative hi-tech leader, has held numerous senior level sales and marketing executive leadership positions at startup businesses and global Fortune corporations. Currently,
Bo-Linn is CEO and Senior Partner, Peritus Partner, where she leads the Hi Tech and Emerging Markets/Clean Tech Practice. Prior, she was IBM's Vice- President leading marketing, sales and services teams. Bo-Linn has also served at other Fortune companies as well as start-ups as Chief Marketing executive and other senior executive roles responsible for strategy, operations, sales, alliances, and channels.
With a passionate focus on customer advocacy, she continually leverages information technology and consulting services to optimize the client's business performance. Bo-Linn's leadership ability to create and execute the winning strategy and build teams delivering significant year-to-year revenue and profit growth has earned her corporate and industry recognition. Bo-Linn received the YWCA "Tribute to Women and Industry" award for her exemplary business and financial contribution. AACI of Silicon Valley recognized her with the " Star Award", for her contribution to Technology. Bo-Linn has been named in InfoWorld's" Fast Track: Women on the Move... Women in Technology in America."
Bo-Linn holds a Doctorate Degree in Administration/Management specializing in the "Implementation of Computer-Based Management Information Systems and Organizational Change" from the University of Houston and completed Stanford University's Graduate School of Business Executive Certificate Program in Strategy.
Kelly Carnes
President & CEO, TechVision21
Kelly Carnes is a nationally recognized technology policy expert and thought leader, holding numerous leadership positions in technology business, government and law during her 18 year career in the technology industry. Currently, she is President and CEO of TechVision21, a global technology strategy firm whose clients include global companies, prestigious U.S. research universities, foreign governments and science and technology non-profit organizations.
Previously, Ms. Carnes served eight years at the highest levels of the federal government, first in the White House, and later, as a trusted technology policy advisor to four Secretaries of Commerce. Most recently, Ms. Carnes served as a top national advocate for technology business. As a presidential appointee, confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Ms. Carnes frequently testified before Congress, represented the United States in negotiations with foreign governments, and served as a liaison to, and advocate for, the technology business community. She also directed the National Medal of Technology, America's highest award for technological innovation, and created GetTech, a Telly Award winning national public awareness and information campaign to encourage teens to pursue technology careers.
Ms. Carnes previously enjoyed a highly successful technology business career. As an attorney at a top national law firm, Ms. Carnes structured and negotiated more than $1 billion in technology business transactions. These included joint ventures and strategic alliances, venture capital transactions, technology development, licensing and marketing agreements, systems integration projects, and large-scale computer outsourcing transactions.
Ms. Carnes is known as a dynamic speaker and forceful advocate for industry on technology and competitiveness issues. She is a frequent keynote speaker at national and international technology and business conferences and has been widely quoted in the media. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a Bachelor of Arts degree. She also graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law School, where she served as Topics Editor for the Georgetown Law Journal.
Gayle Crowell
Sr. Information Technology Advisor, E. M. Warburg Pincus & Co.
Gayle A. Crowell is a veteran Silicon Valley executive currently serving as a senior information technology advisor at E. M. Warburg Pincus & Co., one of the leading private equity and venture capital firms in the world. Prior to joining Warburg Pincus, she successfully grew RightPoint, a company where she served as president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board, from a vendor of data mining technology to the industry leader in real time personalization for the Internet and call center markets. In 2000, Rightpoint was acquired by E.piphany, a leader in Customer Relationship Management solutions. Ms. Crowell then served as the President of E.piphany.net and as a member of the E.piphany board before becoming a consultant to Warburg Pincus.
Prior to RightPoint, Ms. Crowell was senior vice president and general manager of worldwide field operations for Mosaix, Inc., which provides enterprise customer relationship management call center solutions to more than 1,300 customers worldwide. Crowell spent the first 14 years of her career in senior executive sales and marketing roles with leading companies, such as Oracle Corporation, Recognition International, DSC, and Cubix Corporation.
Ms. Crowell serves as a director of the Uniscape, EchoPass and the Indus International boards and is active in a number of industry privacy initiatives and standards organizations, including serving as the secretary/treasurer of the Personalization Consortium. She also serves on a number of high-tech start-up advisory boards. She holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Nevada, Reno.
Esther Dyson
Esther Dyson (born 14 July 1951 in Zürich, Switzerland) is an authority on emerging digital technology.
Dyson is the daughter of Freeman Dyson, a physicist, and Verana Huber-Dyson, a mathematician, and the sister of the digital technology historian George Dyson. After graduating from Harvard in economics, she joined Forbes as a fact-checker and quickly rose to reporter. In 1977, she joined New Court Securities as "the research department," following Federal Express and other start-ups. After a stint at Oppenheimer covering software companies, she moved to Rosen Research and in 1983 bought the company from her employer Ben Rosen, renaming it EDventure Holdings. She sold EDventure Holdings to CNET Networks in 2004.
Dyson and EDventure specialize in analyzing the impact of emerging technologies and markets on economies and societies. She is mainly known for the following numbered sequence of media ventures:
* Release 1.0, her monthly technology-industry newsletter, published by EDventure Holdings. Each year, Dyson writes several issues herself and edits the others.
* Release 2.0, her 1997 book on how the Internet affected individuals' lives. Its full title is Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age. The revision Release 2.1 was published in 1998.
* Release 3.0, her bimonthly column for the New York Times, distributed via its syndicate and reprinted in Release 1.0.
* Release 4.0, her weblog. On March 4, 2005, this weblog moved to Dyson's Flickr account ( www.flickr.com/photos/edyson ).
Dyson is an active member of a number of non-profit and advisory organizations. From 1998 to 2000, she was the founding chairman of ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. As of 2004, she sat on its "reform" committee, dedicated to defining a role for individuals in ICANN's decision-making and governance structures. She has followed closely the post-Soviet transition of Eastern Europe, and is a member of the Bulgarian President's IT Advisory Council, along with Vint Cerf, George Sadowsky, and Veni Markovski, among others. She has served as a trustee of, and helped fund, emerging organizations such as Glasses for Humanity, Bridges.org, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the Eurasia Foundation. She is also a member of the board for The Long Now Foundation, and is a part-owner of the First Monday journal.
Cathryn S. Gawne
Attorney, Silicon Valley Law Group
Cathryn S. Gawne, a shareholder of Silicon Valley Law Group, specializes in securities and corporate law. Her practice emphasizes the representation of entrepreneurs and middle market growth companies (both public and private) in connection with financings, mergers and acquisitions, corporate, partnership and joint venture organization and governance, and general business counseling. Her clients include entrepreneurs, corporations, partnerships, joint ventures, investors, and non-profit associations.
An active advocate for women in technology, Ms. Gawne currently chairs The WITI Foundation's Advocates for Women in Science, Engineering and Mathematics (AWSEM) Project in collaboration with The Junior League of San Jose, Inc., a project designed to increase the interest of girls in science and technology. She is also a member of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs. Ms. Gawne is the 2002 Chair of the Executive Committee of the Business Law Section of the Santa Clara County Bar Association. She is a member of the California State Bar Association and the American Bar Association. She is a frequent presenter at WITI events and for the USC School of Business and California AWED.
Ms. Gawne has practiced securities and corporate law since her admission to the California Bar in 1982. She received her A.B. degree in International Relations from Stanford University and her J.D. degree from the UCLA School of Law where she served as a Comment Editor on the UCLA Law Review. She is a Wisconsin native and an enthusiastic, though unskilled, golfer.
Lois Landau
CEO, Reach Communications Inc.
Lois Landau is the CEO of Reach Communications Inc., a pioneer in personal communication software (PCS). After a successful career in real estate sales, Lois founded Reach Communications in 2000 to develop PCS products. Her vision was to use e-mail technology to provide real estate agents with an easy and inexpensive means of maintaining on-going personal contact with their clients. Since then, she has evolved the company into an entirely new component of the customer relationship management (CRM) industry. In the past four years, RCI has invested more than $2 million to create a family of personal communications software (PCS) products. These can be used in multiple industry verticals to sustain professional relationships with personalized messaging.
After careful product development, RCI has established a solid customer base from which it has gathered input for future product offerings. Under Lois's leadership, the company is now positioned for rapid growth in terms of new markets and expanded geography. The keystone product, ReachEach1™, has been purchased by nearly a thousand California real estate professionals, title officers, and mortgage brokers. Reach Everyone™ for small businesses and enterprises will be launched this summer, and wireless applications are in development.
Fifteen years as a top real estate specialist provided Lois both the ideas and the experience to create the RCI product portfolio. She founded and managed the Santa Barbara branch office of Sotheby's International Realty. She earned #1 regional sales honors for both Coldwell Banker and Sotheby's. Lois excelled at providing highly personalized, professional services to buyers and sellers in that trendy community. She was picked by Harry & Linda Thomason to locate and equip their Santa Barbara retreat for just-elected President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary.
Lois earned a BA degree in sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a MA degree in education from San Jose State University. She is the author of: "Too Many Tomatoes and Other Good Things", a Harper/Collins publication about organic vegetables. She is the proud mother of five adult children who live in various locales around the world. A fifth generation Californian, Lois lives in San Francisco with her architect husband Ken Landau.
Hope Miller
Hope Miller recently retired from Raytheon where she was the California Engineering Director for Raytheon Network Centric Systems. Her organization was comprised of up to 1000 engineers developing large-scale, software-intensive systems. She was in the aerospace business for 34 years at Rockwell International, Hughes Electronics and Raytheon Corporation. She has broad experience in software and systems development and management for missile, torpedo, radar, communications, and command and control systems. A key focus in her career has been quality excellence and process improvement. Her Engineering Organization at Raytheon, Fullerton was one of the top in the world in process maturity, having received the highest ratings ever awarded in three back to back assessments. Ms. Miller was a Raytheon Six Sigma Specialist and in 2003 received the Raytheon Distinguished Corporate Quality Award for her activities in process improvement. Her focus now is to help individuals and organizations use industry tools to develop and meet their goals.
At Raytheon, Ms. Miller founded the women's network, Winning Opportunities for Women (WOW!Net), was a champion for the Fullerton Diversity Council and sponsored the Introduce a Girl to Engineering Days. She is currently on the Leadership Council for Information and Computer Science at the University of California at Irvine (UCI) and is on the new Outreach Board whose mission is to encourage women and minorities to pursue careers in computer science. She has been a Mentor for WITI, California State University Fullerton Compass Program, UCI and Orangethorpe Elementary School Leading Ladies. With her husband, Dr. Bruce Miller, Ms. Miller co-owns MILCOM Consulting which specializes in engineering and management services. Hope is active in community service in Orange County, California in many organizations that champion women, minorities, and children, and provide support for the arts and music.
Nadine C. North
Managing Director, Taylor Winfield, Inc.
Nadine North is Managing Director with Taylor Winfield, Inc. a retained executive search firm. Ms. North specializes in building executive management teams in the high technology sector for early stage and mature companies. She has led or partnered in executive searches backed by leading venture capital firms including Sequoia Capital, New Enterprise Associates, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Menlo Ventures, BankAmerica Venture Partners, and Warburg Pincus. Ms. North has brought a unique hands-on operating experience of building management teams and businesses to the Silicon Valley executive search community. She provides 'same side of the table' credentials, while offering 'other side of the table' perspective for her clients.
Prior to joining Taylor Winfield, Ms. North was head of Global Recruiting at Siebel Systems, where she established and led the global recruiting organization to grow the company from 1000 to 8000 employees throughout 35+ countries (and contributing to Fortune Magazine's rating of Siebel as one of the fastest growing U.S.-based companies in 1999, 2000 and 2001). Also with Siebel, Ms. North was an executive in their $300 million financial services organization, with a leadership role in strategic planning, opportunity development, key customer programs and global partner development. Previously, Ms. North was a member of the executive team that built Pegasystems from early stage to 800+ employees and $75mm revenues. Prior to joining the high technology sector, Ms. North was a sales executive in corporate finance with Citicorp and Fleet Financial Group.
Active in the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs (FWE) and TechNet, Ms. North is also a member of Environmental Entrepreneurs, on the Campaign Cabinet of the Entrepreneurs Foundation and on the Advisory Board for EMERGE.
Sheryl Root
Director, Executive Account Management for Business Strategy
HP Product Processes Operation
Sheryl Root is a leader in Stanford's Executive MBA Program, Director of Hewlett Packard's Executive Account Management for Business Strategy, Director of the Strategic Change office at HP, and owns a winery in Napa Valley.
Dr. Pat Selinger
IBM Fellow & VP Data Management Architecture & Technology, IBM
Dr. Pat Selinger is an IBM Fellow and Vice President of Information Management Architecture and Technology, IBM Software Group, at the IBM Silicon Valley Lab in San Jose, California. There, she leads technology development for the next generation of data management systems, responding to customer needs for information systems integration, including both classical database data such as payroll and bank accounts and also less structured data such as email and documents.
After joining IBM Research in 1975, Dr. Selinger became a leading member of the team that built System R, the first proof that relational database technology was practical. Her innovative work on cost-based query optimization for relational databases has now been adopted by nearly all relational database vendors and is now taught in virtually every university database course. In 1986, Dr. Selinger conceived and established the DataBase Technology Institute (DBTI), a joint program between IBM Research and the IBM software development team that accelerated advanced technology into data management products such as DB2 Universal Database. This is one of the most successful examples of a fast technology pipeline from research to development and has become a model other groups try to emulate.
Dr. Selinger was appointed an IBM Fellow in 1994, the corporation's highest technical honor. She moved from IBM Research to the IBM development team in 1997 to lead common technology initiatives across the IBM information management family. In 1999, she was elected into the National Academy of Engineering, among the highest professional distinctions an engineer can attain.
Dr. Ruth J. Simmons
President, Brown University
Dr. Ruth J. Simmons is the 18th president of Brown University, and she is the first African American to lead an Ivy League institution. Previously, she served as president of Smith College, the nation's largest undergraduate women's college and one of the top 25 liberal arts colleges in the country.
Dr. Simmons was the 12th child born to sharecropper family in East Texas. When she was of school age, the family moved to Houston, where her father found employment as a factory worker and her mother worked as a maid while Dr. Simmons entered public school. With strong family and community support, Simmons continued her education, earning her bachelor's degree summa cum laude at Dillard University in New Orleans and her master's and doctorate in Romance languages and literatures at Harvard University. Her effort to understand how her own society could countenance racial cruelty and legally enforced segregation led her to a lifelong interest in humanities and other cultures. She studied in Mexico and France and later served as an interpreter for the U.S. State Department.
Dr. Simmons has had a long and distinguished career in higher education. She has been a member of the faculties of the University of New Orleans, California State University, Northridge, Spelman College and Princeton University. Simmons has worked tirelessly toward opening higher education - particularly elite private institutions - to disadvantaged minorities, a mission she has described as "a matter of national salvation." At Smith, she established the nation's first engineering program at a women's college and started Meridians, a journal focusing on the concerns of minority women. Her achievements in higher education have brought her dozens of honors and awards including Danforth and Fulbright fellowships and nine honorary doctorates.
Dr. Darlene Solomon
R&D/Technology Manager, Life Science and Chemical Analysis
Director, Life Science Tech Labs, Agilent Technologies
Darlene Solomon has a dual role at Agilent Technologies. As Research and Development/Technology Manager for the Life Science and Chemical Analysis group and Director of the Life Science Technologies Laboratory (LSTL) at Agilent Labs, Solomon is responsible for research and development, strategy, investments, and product development processes in the life sciences. Her business expertise spans the life science, bio/pharmaceutical, and chemical industries. She has worked with technologies including mass spectrometry, microanalytical, micro/nanostructures, microfluidics, DNA microarrays, biosensors, separation science, and bioinformatics.
Dr. Solomon serves on the External Advisory Board for National Science Foundation's Nanobiotechnology Center and the Policy Board for DARPA's Center for Biochemical Optoelectronic Microsystems. She is also on the advisory boards for the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at University of California, Davis, and the Ibis Institute for Women's Leadership. In 2001, Dr. Solomon was inducted into the WITI Hall of Fame. She is a member of the American Chemical Society and the California Analytical Separation Science Society, and serves on the executive advisory committee for these organizations, now in their Agilent incarnations.
Dr. Solomon holds a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Stanford University, a doctorate in inorganic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and she has completed Stanford's Executive Development Program. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, and numerous Who's Who editions.
Karenann Terrell
CIO, Baxter International
Karenann Terrell, long time WITI member, corporate supporter and WITI Advisory Board member has been appointed to a new position at Baxter International in Deerfield, IL as the Chief Information Officer. She will begin on April 10, 2007 and is expected to be appointed as a corporate officer of Baxter. In her new global responsibility for information technology, she will be accountable for supporting all of Baxter's business units worldwide, including its manufacturing, science and technology, and supply chain operations.
Karenann's moves to Baxter from DaimlerChrysler Corporation in Auburn Hills, MI, where she most recently served as vice president and chief information officer, Chrysler Group and Mercedes Benz North America. While leaving the automotive industry has been a very difficult decision, the medical/healthcare field is a growing and exciting industry where Karenann's innovation and collaborative skills will certainly find a good match with Baxter. Baxter International Inc., through its subsidiaries, assists healthcare professionals and their patients with treatment of complex medical conditions, including cancer, hemophilia, immune disorders, kidney disease, and trauma. The company applies its expertise in medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology to make a meaningful difference in patients' lives.
Terrell comes to Baxter from DaimlerChrysler Corporation, where she spent the last six years in managerial positions of increasing responsibility. Most recently, she was vice president and chief information officer, Chrysler Group and Mercedes Benz North America. Prior to this, Terrell spent 16 years at General Motors, beginning as an engineer working on hybrid electric vehicles before taking on brand development and e-business management responsibilities.
Terrell received her master's degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University after graduating from General Motors Institute with a bachelor of science degree in the same field.
Marilyn Wilson
President, Wilson-Victor Associates
Marilyn Wilson is President of Wilson-Victor Associates. Her global firm focuses on helping clients dramatically increase profitability by launching new businesses, new divisions and new products. She is a seasoned executive with proven strengths in marketing, sales, product development and general management.
Previously, Ms. Wilson served as the Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and Product Development for Fisher-Price toys, where she contributed to the top-line and bottom-line growth of one of the top four brands in the world today. After leaving Fisher-Price, Ms. Wilson became CEO of Surveyor Corporation, a leading provider of web camera software and services before accepting her current position.
Ms. Wilson is a graduate of Cornell University. She frequently lectures at universities and conferences, and she is a contributor to Reuters and the highly successful management book At The Helm. She serves on The Central Coast Venture Forum.
