Richard Campbell

Richard Campbell is one of the co-founders of Strangeloop Networks and part of the team building an appliance to accelerate ASP.NET. Richard has more than 30 years of high-tech experience and is both a Microsoft Regional Director and Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP). He has consulted with a number of leading North American organizations; Barnes&Noble.com, Dow Chemical, Johnson & Johnson Health Care Services, Reuters, Subaru/Isuzu and the U.S. Air Force. In addition to speaking at conferences around the world, Richard is co-host of the ".NET Rocks!, the Internet Audio Talk Show for .NET Developers" (www.dotnetrocks.com) podcast and the host of "RunAs Radio, the Internet Audio Talk Show for IT Professionals" (www.runasradio.com) podcast.

Jay Payette

Jay Payette is a consultant serving public and private organizations in the fields of technology and management. He currently works for the Ottawa office of Accenture in the Systems Integration and Technology practice.

Jay is also a public speaker and university guest lecturer in the fields of the ICT and emerging technologies. Jay graduated from the Sprott School of Business with a Bachelor of Commerce in Information Systems.

Jay has also served on the local Board of the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS) from 2004 to 2007 and has been actively involved with the organization since and currently acts as a Special Advisor to the Office of the Executive Council (OEC).

Lorie Baddock

With an IT career spanning 28 years, Lorie is the Executive Director/ CIO of Information Strategies with Alberta Children and Youth Services. She is accountable for supporting the delivery of the ministry’s business priorities through innovative technology services and effective information management.

Lorie has a wealth of experience in the information management and technology field across a number of Alberta government ministries. She has served as a member of CIO Council and is actively involved in cross-ministry initiatives and directions. She also participated in the Government of Alberta’s Executive Mobility Program to gain greater insights into the business of government and to continue to advance her strategic as well as her leadership skills.

Lee Jacobs - ICTC

Lee Jacobs is the Program Director for Labour Marketing Information at the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC). Over the last 10 years, Lee has been working in the key areas of ICT career information, training, and the Canadian ICT labour market at ICTC. Lee is a technology enthusiast, born from his interest and training in the field of Geomatics and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Lee’s current focus at ICTC is on refreshing the ground breaking supply and demand forecast for ICT occupations in Canada, the Outlook 2008-2015. ICTC released this first ever national forecast in October 2008, which projected supply and demand, by occupation and region, out to 2015. The Outlook highlighted skills and labour shortages and provides strategic recommendations to address the identified issues. The updated Outlook will be released in October 2010. Lee is the co-author of ICTC’s 2001 Provincial Census profiles, and the report entitled “The Information Technology (IT) Labour Market in Canada: Results from the National Survey of IT Occupations – April 2005”.

Scott Hanselman

My name is Scott Hanselman. I work out of my home office for Microsoft as a Principal Program Manager, aiming to spread good information about developing software, usually on the Microsoft stack. Before this I was the Chief Architect at Corillian Corporation, now a part of Checkfree, for 6+ years. I was also involved in a few Microsoft Developer things for many years like the MVP and RD programs and I'll speak about computers (and other passions) whenever someone will listen.

Before Corillian and Microsoft I worked as a Principal Consultant at a local Microsoft Solution Provider called STEP Technology, speaking, writing, consulting, and very much not getting rich during Web 1.0. Even earlier, I worked at a Car Parts Data Warehouse called Chrome Data, and before that I had a small company that specialized in internationalization and thunking. I've also been an Adjunct Professor at OIT, teaching C#. On the side, I created the first PalmPilot Diabetes Management System in 1998 and sold it to a healthcare company five years later. It's now in limbo, but I'm trying to get it released as Open Source.

Andrew Dillane

As Group CIO, Andrew Dillane leads the overall e-business strategy for the Randstad Canada Group of companies including Randstad Canada, Sapphire Canada, ATS Reliance, OriginHR and GMS Canada. Andrew’s management experience in business and technology has focused on client-centered technology solutions. His leadership role in Sapphire Canada’s CONNECT™ technology solutions has resulted in the company being a two time recipient of a Canadian Information Productivity Award (CIPA). Andrew holds a BCOM from Ryerson University, is the National President for the CIO Association of Canada, serves on the Program Advisory Council for Ryerson University’s Information Technology Management (ITM) degree programs and is an expert member of the Canadian Coalition for Tomorrow’s ICT Skills. Andrew also serves on the Advisory Board for Kids Internet Safety Alliance (KINSA).

Nick Corcodilos

Nick Corcodilos is the host of Ask The Headhunter® and author of How to Work with Headhunters (2009). Nick is also the author of Ask The Headhunter: Reinventing The Interview to Win The Job (1997), the #1-selling interview guide on Amazon for 26 consecutive months. Nick started headhunting in 1979 in one of America's most competitive job markets: California's Silicon Valley. Using the methods described in his book and on the ATH blog, he has helped people win management and staff jobs in companies including IBM, GE, Hewlett-Packard and Merrill Lynch. Nick Corcodilos is president of North Bridge Group, Inc. He holds a Bachelors Degree (Phi Beta Kappa) from Rutgers College where he was a Henry Rutgers Scholar, and a Masters in Cognitive Psychology from Stanford University (where his academic bent was quickly corrupted by the Biz School and Silicon Valley). He plays music (keyboard and guitar), and enjoys Chi Gung and T'ai Chi, backpacking and kayaking. He loves his work, but would rather be in Alberta climbing big rocks.

Save $10 on Nick's new book, How to Work with Headhunters with discount code: 'ignite'.

Heather Hamilton

Heather Hamilton manages Microsoft’s Global Competitive Programs Team responsible for competitive research and programs. In this role, she leads Microsoft’s efforts aimed at enabling global research centers to monitor the competitive talent landscape and leverage opportunities to recruit the best technical talent through deliverables such as competitive intelligence, training and opportunistic recruiting programs. Aside from managing a talented team of staffing professionals, Heather is probably best known as a blogger. She is a requested speaker on topics related to candidate outreach and community building and her blog, One Louder, has resulted in significant press interest including The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and Fast Company.

Heather has worked in the staffing industry since 1994 and has been with Microsoft since 1999 in a variety of staffing roles. Prior to joining Microsoft, she worked in finance and technical recruiting. Heather graduated With a BS in Business Administration from the University of Southern California as a member of one of the nation’s top-rated entrepreneur programs. Heather is an enthusiastic college football fan (Go Trojans!) and spends her free time reading, gardening or at the gym. Heather lives outside Seattle with her dog.

She knows why a manhole cover is round but she cannot help you fix your computer.

Rob Howard

An expert in planning and growing Web communities, Mr. Howard is a pioneer in developing enterprise collaboration software. Whether it’s working with organizations such as Dell to plan and implement their single-vendor platform strategy or working with large social community customers such as MySpace.com or Microsoft, Mr. Howard is determined to help organizations of any size apply the value of collaborative work to their business.

Prior to founding Telligent, Rob contributed to the development and adoption of Microsoft’s Web platform technologies where he helped build and grow the popular www.asp.net community. Mr. Howard has authored several books on the topic of software development and speaks around the globe at conferences on the topics of social computing and general software development.

Howard earned his bachelor of business administration degree from Baylor University.

Pedro Cardoso

Pedro Cardoso is the director of IT and e-business at Becton, Dickinson and Co. (BD-Canada), a medical devices company, where he also oversees application development. His areas of expertise include ERP, Business Process Engineering, Business Intelligence, Social Networking, SEO, Continuous Improvement (Lean & Transactional Six Sigma), Change Management, Application Development (MSSQL Server, Stored Procedures, Web Services, .NET, Java, Ruby, Rails, Mobile Devices, RPG II/III/IV, Design Patterns, Software Engineering Concepts). Pedro was educated the University of Toronto and lives in Georgetown, Ont. He is the 2009 winner of ComputerWorld Canada's Blogging Idol competition.

John Oxley

Director Community Evangelism, MS Canada, As the Director of community evangelism, John manages a team of community advisors that reach out and connect with the IT community. The Team is all about community satisfaction and enabling the individual professional. His team of Advisors are Microsoft Canada ambassadors to the IT community, connecting, supporting and enabling the individual IT professional (IT Pros), Developer, User experience designer, Community Leaders, and technical enthusiast. From Academia to Industry his team focuses on driving awareness, education, training and adoption of Microsoft solutions through events, community involvement and direct engagement. John’s dedication to the community stems from his passion for supporting the success of others and his experience in delivering Application, Infrastructure and security solutions. Joining Microsoft in 2000 he spent his first 5 years in the Microsoft Consulting Services group delivering enterprise solutions to many large and medium organizations. John has been a consultant and manager for over 12 years working with many professional services companies. Previous to that, John’s spent many years in the Canadian Air force in technical and leadership roles which have taken him across Canada and around the world. His varied technical experiences have given him a unique insight and fuelled his passion for the IT Industry and community. Technology is not only a career for John, it is a passion and a way to leverage his experiences to reach out and support the community. John, wife and two kids can attest that he is a geek at heart as he is always bringing home some sort of new technology gadget. There are no bounds and no matter if it is the latest software or hardware from Enterprise application, home automation to cool geek device, John will seek it out and share his experiences with other.

Cathy Shaughnessy

Cathy Shaughnessy, a Certified Executive Coach with Perspective In Action, has been working with people as they boost their performance in the workplace for almost 25 years.

She has managed and coordinated corporate learning projects and established an outstanding track record of success as a sought after executive coach, speaker, training consultant and learning design specialist.

Cathy was a founding partner of ShaughnessyHowell, an award winning training organization which earned an unprecedented 6 national gold awards for excellence given by the Canadian Society for Training and Development during her 19 years with the organization.

Certified through the Royal Roads University masters level executive coaching program, and sole practitioner in her coaching firm Perspective In Action, Cathy now works primarily with senior executives, one-on-one as they get traction on their own performance. She has worked as a thinking partner, performance strategist and action catalyst with executives at the Ministry of the Environment, Navantis, Research in Motion, Microsoft Canada, Manulife Financial and the City of Kitchener.