Opening Keynote Speaker
Paul Vallas
CEO, School District of Philadelphia

Paul G. Vallas was appointed in July of 2002 as Chief Executive Officer for the School District of Philadelphia. He is implementing sweeping District-wide reforms in Philadelphia, duplicating many of the approaches that changed Chicago's Public School system from one of the worst in the nation to a nationally recognized model for education reform. In Philadelphia, Vallas' reforms are creating safer schools, better-trained teachers, a unified curriculum, more support for students with special needs and a fiscal plan that improves the financial health of the District. His approach to reforming the District is one of inclusion because parents, staff, community organizations, religious institutions and the City of Philadelphia all deserve a say in their schools.

Karen Billings
Vice President, Education Division, SIIA

Karen Billings has over 30 years of experience in the education technology industry with positions in management, development, marketing, sales, and classroom teaching. At SIIA she drives the association's work with its 140 member companies for whom educational publishing is a primary business. Prior to SIIA, Billings, was Vice President, Major Business Initiatives for bigchalk Inc, where she drove relationships with major industry partners to respond to new business opportunities and Vice President and General Manager of its MediaSeek Division. She worked at Microsoft Corporation, managing K-12 Strategic Relations and at Claris Corporation, where she ran the Worldwide K-12 and Higher Education Marketing Programs. She served as Director of Sales at Logo Computer Systems, Inc. and as an Executive Editor in the School Division at Houghton-Mifflin Company.

Richard J. Casabonne
CEO, Casabonne Associates

Richard Casabonne is Founder and CEO of Casabonne Associates Inc. (CAI), a consulting firm providing strategic planning for the publishing community.In his over 35 years in education and trade publishing, he has served as CEO at TestU; President, Education and Training Group at LeapFrog Enterprises; and Senior Vice President of Planning and Business Development for Harcourt, Inc. Casabonne has also held senior management positions at Grolier, Inc., McGraw-Hill Educational Resources, Random House School Division, and consulted with myriad educational and trade publishers. He has consulted for Apple Computer's education initiatives for eight years. Casabonne has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown University and a master of education degree in instructional technology from Boston University. He currently sits on a number of boards of directors for public companies and trade associations.

Kevin Custer
Founding Partner, ARC Capital Development

Kevin Custer offers over 17 years of experience in technology and telecommunications and is a recognized leader in launching and growing successful technology businesses in the online and enterprise markets. He has been the primary architect in the launching of five startups, four of which achieved over $10 million in revenues within their first 3 years. Kevin serves as a Principal in Arc Capital Development who invest in and operate emerging market companies. Previously he took a small Internet company, Brainium Technologies, public through a reverse-takeover of Canada¹s seventh-fastest growing public company. In his previous position at Infonautics, he led the creation of Electric Library, an Internet-based subscription service that grossed over $20 million in its first 30 months. Kevin also served as the chairman of both the e-business and the education section of the Software & Information Industry Association.

Kevin Dwyer
Senior Consultant, MarketingWorks Inc.

Kevin is an experienced educator, executive, consultant and sales development specialist. He has used his expertise in adult learning to lead strategic organizational development, marketing and research initiatives and to author an innovative new sales development program specifically suited to education markets. During his career with MarketingWorks, Kevin has worked with such clients as Prentice Hall, PBS TeacherLine, Davis Publications, All Kinds of Minds, Brookes Publishing and eCollege.com. His work has included project management, market research and the development of sales and marketing programs. Kevin earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Le Moyne College, a Masters in Educational Psychology from Boston University, and a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in Educational Leadership from the University of Massachusetts.

Rita Ferrandino
Founding Princpal, Arc Capital Development

Rita Ferrandino offers more than 20 years of experience building companies and delivering strong revenue in the higher education and K-12 markets. She was a Principal at KnowledgeQuest Education Group and has consulted for over a hundred company clients, including WebCT, Carnegie Learning, Education Publishing Services, and W.H. Freeman Publishers. She has also held roles at Thompson Publishing and Addison Wesley Longman Publishing, a Pearson Education company. Ferrandino is currently CEO for Teacher2Teacher, a professional development technology training media company, and contract CEO at Chicago Educational Publishing Company. She serves as a member of the AEP Government Relations Committee, is a senior fellow for the Center for Digital Government, and chairs the Get Out To Vote committee in Sarasota, FL.

Andy Flanagan
CEO, eSchoolMall

Andy Flanagan is co-founder and chief executive officer of eSchoolMall. He founded the company in November 1998, with partner Daniel Corazzi, to help public entities streamline their procurement process - enabling them to save time and money, and reduce paperwork - by connecting current enterprise systems electronically to suppliers with a complete suite of web-based public sector specific business process automation solutions. Mr. Flanagan's experience with the public sector market extends throughout his career. He has substantial experience, within the United States and internationally, as an advisor, consultant and architect of large-scale e-business transformation projects. These projects relate to wholesale reform and reengineering of existing policies, legislation, business process inclusive of enterprise management systems and infrastructure. As a result, he is a frequent speaker, contributing author and industry panelist.

Cristin Frodella
K-12 Education Outreach, Google

Cristin Frodella heads up the K-12 education efforts at Google, where they've recently launched the Google for Educators site and just conducted the first pilot Google Teacher Academy, hosting more than fifty innovative education leaders from the Bay Area. Cristin has a background in theater but has been working in the interactive space since 1997, and has been at Google since 2001. She's very excited to be able to work on two of her passions - education and technology and looks forward to continue to learn from all of the amazing educators she's been lucky enough to meet.

Jeff Fromm
Partner, Eiseman Levine Lehrhaupt & Kakoyiannis, P.C.

Mr. Fromm, a member of the firm, is a partner in the firm's Corporate and Securities Group. Mr. Fromm received his J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1987 and his M.B.A. from Columbia University in 1998. He practiced in the areas of corporate, securities, venture capital, and mergers & acquisitions law at O'Sullivan Graev & Karabell and Quasha Wessely & Schneider, following which he became Vice President and General Counsel of Quadrant Management, Inc., a New York-based investment group, and then Vice Chairman and General Counsel of Quadrant-Amroq Bottling Company Limited (an international Pepsi-Cola bottling company). Mr. Fromm founded KnowledgeQuest Ventures LLC, a financial advisory and management consulting firm, in 1998, and merged it into MarketingWorks, a leading marketing, sales, research and consulting firm serving the education industry. With extensive transactional experience in the education industry, Mr. Fromm developed the Survey of Education Venture Capital, wrote articles about the industry in the Journal of Private Equity and the Venture Capital Journal, and chaired, moderated or presented at dozens of industry conferences. Mr. Fromm also served as a Board member on the Education Division Board of the Software and Information Industry Association from 2001-2004. Mr. Fromm concentrates his practice in private equity financings, mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, and general corporate representation.

Kurt Gerdenich
Vice President, Director of Technology, Thomson Higher Education

Kurt Gerdenich is Vice President, Director of Technology for Thomson Higher Education, Business and Economics. In Kurt's role, he is responsible for the direction and management of digital educational solution teams within the higher education, K-12, and professional markets. Key product and service models that Kurt oversees include professional education, online assessment, interactive media, learning outcomes reporting, and personalized learning. Kurt has been an employee of Thomson for 12 years, beginning as an associate developmental editor for print textbooks and holding a number of positions within the print and digital product development areas. Kurt holds a master’s degree from Ohio University in English, where he taught writing and composition courses.

Michael E. Johnson
Chief Operating Officer, Follett Digital Resources

Michael is a long time publishing, library, and digital veteran. He has been serving these various communities for over 20 years, the last 16 of which have been with Follett, many of those leading Follett's eBook initiative. With the recent addition of Interactive Constructs, Inc. to Follett Digital Resources, Michael is also leading Follett's entry into the Publisher Solutions marketplace by providing leading edge solutions and services for distributing digital content. Today, Interactive Constructs, Inc. (ICI) provides solutions ranging from web authoring and content management to assessment and complete learning management systems. In addition, ICI has created Lycea™ - a set of web-based development tools that allow content providers to migrate legacy content to the Web and create new interactive content that supports unique personalized experiences based on assessment and individual profiles.

Lillian Kellogg
Vice President, Business Development, ENA

Lillian Kellogg has dedicated her career to education and technology and has more than 20 years of experience in working with school districts and libraries in the field of educational technology. Before joining ENA, Lillian served as Vice President of Strategic Relations for netTrekker, the trusted search engine for schools. Prior to netTrekker Lillian founded The Peak Group, an industry leading consultancy, that published industry analysis reports on emerging technologies in education such as virtual schools and wireless technologies. Lillian started her career as a high school teacher and has held national positions with education and library market leaders such as Encyclopedia Britannica.

Midian Kurland
VP, Technology & Development, Scholastic,Inc.

Midian Kurland is a 25-year veteran of the educational technology industry with a career that has spanned from basic research at the Center for the Study of Reading and Bank Street College to cutting edge development projects as a scientist in the Apple Advanced Technology Group to senior-level executive positions with Computer Curriculum Corporation, Scholastic and various Internet start-up companies. Midian is currently VP Technology and Development for Scholastic Education. In this capacity he manages product development for all technology-based enterprise curriculum products.

George Kane
VP, Strategic Initiatives, Pearson Education

Lillian Kellogg
Vice President, ENA

Melissa Krinzman
Managing Director, Venture Architects

Melissa Krinzman has a fifteen-year history of starting and growing private companies and non-profit organizations and is a frequent speaker on the topic of business plan development. Melissa has led workshops for and presented to entrepreneurs, executives, investors, students, and nonprofit organizations across the country. Ms. Krinzman is the Managing Director of Venture Architects LLC, a business plan development firm for private companies and public sector organizations seeking investment capital. Since 1998, Venture Architects has worked with 300+ companies that have raised approximately $350 million in investment capital from venture firms such as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

Tim Loomer
Publisher, Technology & Learning

Glenn McCandless
President, Focus Marketing

Glen McCandless is principal of Focus Marketing, Inc. with over 20 years of educational technology business management, sales, marketing, and channel development experience. He is also editor of SellingToSchools.com, a free online magazine that provides software publishers with advice and resources to help them market and sell technology products to educators. Since 1995, Focus Marketing has provided strategic marketing and business development services to publishers of curriculum and administrative software and developers of digital media used by educators in K-12 schools, colleges and universities.

Eric Meyer
CEO, QLD Learning and Former CEO, TurnLeaf

Eric-Paul C. Meyer, Chief Executive Officer, has over 17 years serving the U.S. K-12 market with an emphasis on technology and information management. Recently, Eric was President and CEO of TurnLeaf Solutions, Inc. TurnLeaf provided schools with state of the art data mining tools on student testing. TurnLeaf was acquired by McGraw-Hill Companies in August of 2005. Prior to TurnLeaf, Eric was a senior partner at the Center for Educational Leadership & Technology (CELT), a Boston based non-profit organization focused on using technology to assist with organizational reform and decision support in large K12 state departments and districts. Eric was also active in the emergence of the national School Interoperability Framework and has done extensive work with the education divisions of major U.S. technology companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Cisco and 3Com. Eric received his BS from St. Cloud State University and resides in Colorado with his wife Nancy and two sons, Roman and Shadow-Wolf.

Myron Pincomb
CEO-Founder, Educational Tools, Inc.

Michael Ross
Senior Vice President, Education General Manager, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

Michael Ross is the Senior Vice President in charge of worldwide product development/technology and General Manager of Education at Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. Prior to joining Britannica in 2002, he was the Executive Vice President and Publisher of World Book, Inc, and has held executive positions at other publishing companies, including NTC Publishing Group, now a division of McGraw-Hill. He began his publishing career as an editor for Time-Life Books, and worked for three years in their Tokyo bureau. Michael served on the executive committee, as well as the board of directors, of the Association of Educational Publishers, including a term as president from 2002 to 2003. He also serves on the board of Intellisophic, the world's largest provider of taxonomic content. He is a member of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, the Direct Selling Education Foundation, and the Chicago Book Clinic.

Anne Schreiber
Chief Academic Officer, Curriki

Anne Schreiber - has over 20 years experience as a multi-media publisher, product designer and educator. She is currently the Chief Academic Officer of Curriki - Global Education and Learning Community, an organization dedicated to the creation of validated, open source K-12 curricula, which is completely free and available globally. Before joining Curriki, Anne was Vice President of Product at the Grow Network/McGraw-Hill, an assessment and instructional reporting company, providing customized instruction based on summative assessment data. As Publisher of secondary products at Scholastic, Anne was responsible for content and instruction for reading language arts and assessment products for upper elementary and secondary students. As Vice President of Content and Programming at bigchalk, Anne was responsible for the educational programming and the editorial voice of the "bigchalk.com" Web. Anne was the Managing Editor of Time Warner's parenting Web site, "ParentTime". At Sesame Workshop, Anne developed curriculum for the school and community markets utilizing the assets of the flagship science show, "3-2-1 CONTACT".

Farimah Schuerman
Managing Partner, Academic Business Advisors

Farimah Schuerman has successfully introduced innovative educational technology products to the higher education and K-12 markets for more than 20 years. A recognized leader in the industry, Ms. Schuerman works with companies that deliver education via all formats of media, including new and emerging technologies, and has done considerable work with companies that specialize in community building platforms for education. She has also worked with more than one dozen start-up ventures. Her areas of expertise include business development, sales and strategic marketing for e-learning and video-based learning companies. Recently, Ms. Schuerman has extended her scope to include clients in the pharmaceutical and fashion industries. She is an active member of the Teaching and Learning with Technology Group and serves on the editorial board of Learning Times.

Gwen Solomon
author and editor, techlearning.com

Gwen Solomon is Director of techLEARNING.com, the award-winning web site of Technology & Learning magazine. She is also a Contributing Editor to the publication. Prior to this work, Gwen was Senior Analyst in the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology. Gwen also served New York City Public Schools as Coordinator of Instructional Technology Planning and as founding Director of New York City's School of the Future. Before that, Gwen was a teacher and computer coordinator. Gwen writes extensively about educational technology. ISTE will publish her new book New Tools, New Schools next spring. Her most recent books, Connect Online: Web Learning Adventures, and Toward Digital Equity: Bridging the Divide in Education, were published in 2003. Her previous books and software were about using technology to teach writing skills. Her articles, columns, and reviews about educational technology have appeared in many publications. Some have won significant recognition and awards. Gwen also consults with educational technology companies on web and marketing strategies. Gwen was Chair of the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) and a Board member of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).

Robin Warner
Managing Director, The van Tulleken Company

Robin Warner is a partner at The van Tulleken Company, which is a leading international advisor to corporate clients, media executives and entrepreneurs on mergers and acquisitions in the publishing and information industries. With offices in New York and London, its clients include the largest international publishing and media companies as well as many small and medium-sized private firms in the U.S., U.K. and Europe. In the education sector, the Company has completed 16 transactions in the past five years. In addition to her education work, Ms. Warner has successfully handled transactions in sectors including professional information, trade and scientific--several technology based.

Ken Wasch
President, Software & Information Industry Association

Wasch's involvement in SIIA is based on both personal and professional interests. His long-standing interest in computers and software, coupled with the industry's need for a central trade association, led him to establish the Software Publishers Association (SPA) in 1984 with an initial group of 25 software firms. Wasch has led the association from its infancy to its merger with the Information Industry Association in January 1999, resulting in the formation of SIIA.