Session Speakers
IAITAM is proud to support these industry professionals and leaders as they push ITAM forward! Each speaker will lead a 60 minute presentation, sharing their expertise through real world experience, case studies, and other means to provide you with the best techniques in the IT Asset Management industry.
Scroll to see a list of confirmed speakers for ACE. Click on a speaker to see their session information! We’re still accepting submissions, so this page will continue to be updated. Use the button below if you’re interested in speaking at our conference!
Aaron Zeper : DMD Systems Recovery, Inc.
Biography:
Aaron Zeper is CEO of DMD Systems Recovery, an IT Asset Disposition company. We provide solutions adhering to the most rigorous environmental and security standards and back our beliefs as a B Corp committed to balance purpose, people, and profit.
Aaron has been an executive leader in the IT services industry over 20 years leading services, sales, marketing, and operations organizations at Insight, IBM, Tech Data, and MDSL.
Stay Tuned for Session Information
Aaron Zeper
Alex Geuken : Xensam
Biography:
Alex Geuken has been active within licensing and SAM since 2008 in various roles, licensing advisory, sam consultant, 365 product owner, licensing sales, and also work for SAP selling SAP solutions.
During these years Alex has had the opportunity to work with all types of companies from all over the world. Learning about challenges, contracts, negotiations, licensing rules, and software asset management.
Stay Tuned for Session Information
Alex Geuken
Beth Kaminski : Dart Container Corporation
Biography:
Beth Kaminski is currently the IT Asset Program Manager at Dart Container in Mason, MI. She has 25+ years of IT Asset Management experience. The skills she brings to ITAM are varied with career experience including merchandising and procurement, marketing and financial management. She started her first SAM team when the discipline was in its infancy and continues to redefine best practices for teams today. Beth regularly provides insight on her experience to the ITAM community and is passionate about SAM’s future. Under Beth’s direction Dart received the 2021 and 2022 Snow Technology Intelligence Awards for Transformation of the Year.
Session Title:
The Future is Now: The Purpose Driven SAM Team
Session Description:
Finding and retaining talent in a hybrid working world is more problematic than ever. This challenge is not new for a SAM program, but the current talent landscape presents additional challenges. Research is showing “work with a purpose” aren’t just buzzwords but are a mandatory requirement to today’s talent pool. In this session we will examine how to articulate that purpose both at a team and individual level. More importantly, we will consider the purposeful SAM program of the future. What are strategies to put in place now to meet the challenge tomorrow? Tomorrow’s purposeful SAM program starts today.
Beth Kaminski
Branislav Potocek : OpenLM
Biography:
In the second half of 2010s I moved from my Network, Windows & Linux administration background into the Software Asset Management territory. I worked as a SAM Manager for one of the biggest players in the Automotive Seating field, being responsible for a full portfolio of software, ranging from the obvious key players such as Microsoft, Oracle, or IBM, all the way to the key players in the Engineering field such as Dassault, Siemens, Autodesk, Altair, Ansys and more. In this capacity, I was also responsible for the deployment of the tools capable of managing, reporting, and automating the day-to-day hurdles of the SAM Manager. This is how my journey crossed paths with OpenLM, whose tool I implemented for creating a working SAM Platform for the Engineering portion of the company’s SAM portfolio.
Two years ago I moved to OpenLM as a regular employee, I was curious to see how the world looked on the side of the barricade. In OpenLM, I became responsible for Support & Managed Services and subsequently expanded my role to take the IT and DevOps under my wing. It’s been great two years of hard work making sure that the product can become even better suited to help people responsible for Software License Management around the world.
I can’t wait to come to ACE again and continue raising awareness on how to best manage your Engineering licenses.
Session Title:
Engineering & Specialty Licensing – How to Manage? – Deep Dive
Session Description:
My session will focus on the world of Engineering & Specialty (As Gartner defines it) licensing. At the 2022 ACE VEGAS session, I established the basics of building a working SAM platform with a focus on Engineering & Specialty software. Now it’s the time to dive deep into several of the myriad topics that come up every day for a Software Asset or Software License Manager when trying to make sense of this type of software.
Together we will explore the different licensing models, and the new trends pushed by key vendors such as Autodesk. We will learn how each model functions, what are the key metrics to track, what are the key pitfalls to be aware of, and what are trends in user behavior.
We will evaluate every aspect of the day-to-day job of the SAM or SLM manager, exploring in detail the actions to be taken every day. We will showcase that there is more to managing the Engineering & Specialty license portfolio than just running a report 30 days before renewal – at least if we want to achieve true optimization.
Last, but not least, we will explore the very intricate world of license compliance for Engineering & Specialty licenses, a world that is completely different from what a SAM Manager would be used to. We will analyze the contractual obligations put forth by vendors, discuss the different, often overlapping nature of these obligations, and find some conclusions about how the COVID pandemic actually altered both the vendor and customer environments from the perspective of compliance.
I can’t wait to speak to everyone again, it will be an interesting ride.
Branislav Potocek
Brian Papay : Anglepoint
Biography:
CEO to Anglepoint, a three time Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for SAM Managed Services with 165+ employees in ten countries. Brian brings 20 years of experience in software licensing, compliance and asset management with a true passion for organizational design and operational excellence.
Session Title:
After 20 Years – Why I Still Love ITAM…
Session Description:
Almost nobody in our industry imagined making a career of SAM & ITAM before we got started but after months , years or decades it starts to become apparent that it’s a unique field with endless opportunity. Come join me to celebrate ITAM and hear why after two decades, I think the best is yet to come.
Brian Papay
Dale Johnson : IC Recovery
Biography:
Mr. Johnson began his career as a lawyer in 1973 and transitioned to business executive in 1995. He has experience in various segments of the electronics industry, including as a member of the start-up team and EVP of Manufacturers’ Services Ltd., a global provider of electronics manufacturing services. He helped grow MSL to $1+ billion in annual revenue and execute a successful IPO in less than six years. He founded Greene Lyon Group in 2007 to pioneer economically attractive and sustainable recycling technologies for historically challenging materials across a wide range of industries.
Session Title:
New ITAD Revenue with Recovery as a Service
Session Description:
While we may be ‘post-pandemic’, we are far from out of the woods on electronics supply chain issues. From an on-going global chip shortage to increasing demands for responsible supply chains and CO2 reduction, electronics OEMs continue to face challenges that their ITAD partners can help to address.
Learn about Recovery as a Service, where ICs are removed from boards in a new highly efficient, low-CO2 process then refurbished, tested and Certified Renewed and returned for reuse. This provides a new revenue stream for ITADs while further securing customer relations by helping OEMs address these post-pandemic challenges.
Dale Johnson
Eric Gohdes : Certero
Biography:
Eric Gohdes is responsible for Certero North America he has over 12 years of experience in helping organizations control their software spend and realizing the value out of their SAM program. He holds an MBA from Minnesota State University and has a passion for building long lasting partnerships and solving real world SAM challenges.
Session Title:
Designing the perfect cocktail; Executing a Total Microsoft Licensing Strategy across on-prem, SaaS & cloud
Session Description:
Protecting your spend with Microsoft now requires a total vendor licensing strategy that spans on-premises and remote assets, SaaS and Cloud. Therefore, it’s a bigger picture problem than traditional ITAM / SAM and it’s a bigger-picture problem than just FinOps. In this presentation, we will explain how to remove the barriers and disconnect between the old and new worlds of asset management, in order to define, optimize and execute your total licensing strategy for Microsoft.
Eric Gohdes
Jan-Christian Björkly-Nordström : Arrow ECS
Biography:
From software end user perspective, towards working for a consultancy, to promotion to a SAM consultancy manager to now represent a well known distributor, the journey across the software lifecycle chain – in reverse is a great way to describe JC Björkly-Nordström! I hope that my journey has given me some valuable insights that I may humbly share with a knowledgeable audience in the best of settings!
N.B. I also love dogs, nature, well written books, Christmas and every time people say it’s impossible!
Session Title:
What is a VAD (Value Adding Distributor), what do they do and what value do they add to whom?
Session Description:
The presenter will attempt to explain the ins and outs of the role of a VAD in the software and cloud lifecycle, which can be an abstract relationship hard to grasp. The idea about a sales channel (as opposed to direct sales) for software & cloud (Iaas & Paas) will be explained with examples around Oracles Cloud Infrastructure and tools. As an avid supporter of the IAITAM world viewpoint I hope that experience of some recent developments in the Cloud (sales) may help intersect these to a sweet spot and an interactive session is guaranteed!
Jan-Christian Björkly-Nordström
Jean Friestad
Biography:
Formally-trained with a Master’s in Library and Information Science, I turned my library skills on end to manage what librarians would call a “special library” pertaining to IT equipment. I prefer hardware management and building appropriate and efficient databases to support asset management efforts.
Stay Tuned for Session Information
Jean Friestad
Joseph Marion : ASCDI - The ITAD Association
Biography:
Joe Marion is President of a not for profit association of ITAD’s and tech resellers know as the Association of Service, Comms, Data and ITAD providers. ASCDI focuses on ethical standards for resellers surrounding intellectual property rights, ownership, rights and the right to repair. ASCDI’s Code of Ethics ensures owners of technology equipment that the ITAD’s they hire are trusted protectors of our environment and customer data.
Joe has a long history in the IT resale industry. From 1975 to 1989 Joe served in various capacities including President of the William Marion Company, Inc. (WMC), a privately held technology resale and service company based in Hackensack, New Jersey. WMC was an IBM Business Partner specializing in leasing and maintaining IBM Mid-Range and Mainframe computers and AT&T telecom products. WMC was sold to Datapoint’s Intelogic Trace Division in 1989 where Joe remained until 1991.
In 1991 Mr. Marion assumed the position of President of the ASCDI.
Session Title:
ITAD Ethics. Trust and Verify.
Session Description:
Today if you search the internet for ITAD’s you come up with 1,940,000 hits. Are all ITAD’s equal? Ask Morgan Stanly who infamously hired the wrong ITAD and ended up egg on their faces and $60 million dollars in fines.
ASCDI has over 50 years experience in identifying and enforcing Ethical Standards in technology resale. In 2023 those standards are more relevant than ever before.
ASCDI is also involved in two international projects designed to track the life cycle of assets. Let’s talk Ethics. Let’s talk ITAD’s. and let’s take a look into the future of asset management with ASCDI.
Joseph Marion
Max Ablimit : Tarim Consulting LLC
Biography:
Tarim Consulting founder and CEO Max Ablimit was a member of Oracle’s License Management Services (LMS) team for six years. He successfully engaged with more than 500 Oracle customers worldwide and started LMS activities in the Greater China area. This program became the highest revenue contributor in the Asia Pacific region. An Oracle licensing expert with 15 years’ experience in license compliance, Max is well positioned to speak about Oracle licensing and strategy, audit management, and cost reduction. He brings a depth of experience and understanding that better equips and enables his audience to handle their Oracle licensing challenges.
Session Title:
Risks to Consider: From Oracle On-Premise to Oracle Cloud
Session Description:
Oracle has been advocating that its customers migrate to Oracle Cloud while also increasing its cloud footprint. However, current and future Oracle customers need to be aware of the four largest risks to consider when migrating from on-premise to Oracle Cloud.
Max Ablimit
Nikki Evans : Ridgeline Coaching
Biography:
Nikki Evans is the Chief Thought Provoker at Ridgeline Coaching. She believes workplaces should allow people to thrive and is on a mission to make workplaces …. work better. She leads group/team programs and one on one programs designed to guide people to achieve greater results as they hack into their strengths and those of their teams to increase productivity, engagement and happiness at work while driving great results. Nikki uses a complex, adaptive systems approach to navigate the complexities of real work environments and helps people put theories into real and effective practice in their own situations.
Session Title:
Is this thing on? How to Communicate so People Will Hear You.
Session Description:
Great leaders know how to leverage and adapt their communication style to effectively work with others with different styles. Join us to discuss strategies to get your message heard, communicate with clarity, and get others to understand and take action on your ideas. Participants learn the primary communication styles and how to recognize effective ways to adapt to each communication style need.
Nikki Evans
Nina Nielsen : Sipi Asset Recovery
Biography:
Nina Nielsen, a Business Development Manager, started her career in the leasing industry as a computer trader and also advising large enterprise clients how to have a successful lease return, which in today’s environment translates to helping clients to securely retire assets from their environment. Keeping the client’s best interests at the forefront, Nina works with clients to put in end-of-life processes that help the clients gain efficiencies, enhance their asset management programs, protect their corporate reputation through data security and EPA compliancy services, while also returning value to their organizations for the IT assets through resale. Nina’s experience, along with her network of IT professionals in the various service areas of the industry, bring much to the table to help clients bring a Tier 1 asset retirement process into their organization.
Session Title:
Finding Gold within our Community
Session Description:
Sipi Asset Recovery recognizes that over 25% of Americans have a disability and the disability community is a labor pool that should not be overlooked. We are proud to be a leader in the e-Stewards Advance + program (http://e-stewards.org/special-programs/) that is demonstrating the value of disability inclusion to the electronic recycling industry.
Nina Nielsen
Patrick Goose Graff : Microsoft
Biography:
Patrick Graff is a Senior Service Engineer and leads the internal Software Asset Management and Governance program at Microsoft. He has worked at Microsoft for over 26 years, driving many successful programs. He plays a key role in the end-to-end management of onboarding and management both repository for first-Party and more importantly non-Microsoft solutions that help drive the Microsoft digital business. For the past 16 years, he has been building and managing the Software Asset Management program and service called Software Licensing Service. A core component of this program has been the creation of procurement processes, policies, and technology requirements to successfully manage the optimization and risk mitigation of both on-premises and cloud-based using both Microsoft and partner technology.
Session Title:
Zero Trust Software Asset Management leveraging Microsoft Processes and technology.
Session Description:
Welcome ya’ll, don’t find yourself in a Rock and a Hard place. Learn how to take your program to the next level. This session is an inside look at Microsoft’s new direction in Software Asset Management from the internal Software Licensing Service Team. We will show how we are driving Suppliers to become secured in their applications and management of data through our Data asset management requirements and licensing reporting. Keep up with how quick things are changing and use the technology offered to you by Microsoft and their partners in M365 and Software Asset Management end to end lifecycle management. We will show you some examples of how we are driving policy, processes, and technology your company may already have to enhance your program through governance and lifecycle controls.
Patrick Graff
Robert Schmurr : Delivery Hero SE
Biography:
I’m new, I’m hungry, and I’m young. Let us give Asset Management the attention it deserves.
By creating an environment with honesty and trust we ensure healthy relationships with employees, departments, vendors, and even auditors for increased impact. Standards need to be challenged, and best practices need to be questioned. Only if we push the boundaries we are really ready for what the future has to offer.
Session Title:
Starting from Scratch in Fast-Growing Industries
Session Description:
Working in a fast pace environment with the newest technology you don’t have to worry about digital transformation but change. Every half year is different, new, exciting, challenging, and exhausting. How does Asset Management keep up? How to even start, plan, implement, regulate, and standardize something that breaks the standards every now and then? Making the journey from a Service Desk working student to the Global IT Asset Manager of Delivery Hero SE I have seen it all, and yet I have seen nothing. Let me take you on a journey we can all learn from. Especially those who still are stuck in a digital transformation that should have been finished years ago.
Robert Schmurr
Ron Brill : Anglepoint
Biography:
Ron Brill is the Chairman of Anglepoint, a global SAM provider serving many of the Fortune 500 and leading the Gartner Magic Quadrant for three consecutive years. Outside of Anglepoint Ron chairs the ISO committee for ITAM standards (also known as Working Group 21) which owns the ISO 19770 family of standards, and co-leads the FinOps & ITAM Special Interest Group as part of the FinOps Foundation, amongst others. Ron is a thought leader, author, and speaker about ITAM, FinOps, and TBM. He holds multiple relevant certifications including CSAM, CHAMP, CAMSE, CITAM, and FOCP.
Session Title:
Future-Proof your ITAM Program & ITAM Career
Session Description:
More than ever, ITAM functions and ITAM professionals must evolve their mindset, skillset, and toolset, if they wish to remain relevant to the business 3-5 years from now. In this session, Ron Brill will discuss how you can adapt to the key industry changes and forces impacting ITAM, including: FinOps; software licensing in various cloud technology scenarios; marketplace software, SaaS & other subscription-based IT assets; composable business & governance models; TBM and evolving CIO needs and expectations; sustainability; and other.
Ron Brill
Scott Bickley : Info-Tech Research Group
Biography:
Scott Bickley is a Practice Lead & Principal Research Director at Info-Tech Research Group focused on Vendor Management and Contract Review. He also has experience in the areas of IT Asset Management (ITAM), Software Asset Management (SAM), and technology procurement along with a deep background in operations, engineering, and quality systems management.
At Info-Tech, Scott provides IT leaders with the guidance, analysis, and tools they need to ensure their technology contracts are thoroughly vetted, benchmarked, and optimized. He has worked with clients to effectively drive down purchase costs and negotiate mutually agreeable terms and conditions resulting in win-win vendor-customer relationships. He also assists clients in developing their approach to vendor management relations and software compliance defense actions, resulting in accountable partner relationships coupled with a defensible IT deployment environment. Prior to joining Info-Tech, Scott was responsible for the global software licensing and procurement at International Game Technology (IGT) and indirect procurement at Amazon.com.
Session Title:
Negotiate SaaS Agreements That Are Built to Last
Session Description:
Internal stakeholders usually have different – and often conflicting – needs and expectations that require careful facilitation and management.
SaaS solutions bring forth a unique form of “switching costs” that can make a decision to migrate solutions financially, technically, and politically painful.
Take control of your SaaS contract negotiations from the beginning.
Look at your contract holistically to find cost savings.
Guide communication between vendors and your organization for the duration of contract negotiations.
Redline the terms and conditions of your SaaS contract.
Prioritize crucial terms and conditions to negotiate.
Scott Bickley
Stefanie Krievins : Stefanie Krievins & Co.
Biography:
I am a trained coach and facilitator with experience in HR consulting, executive and business coaching, nonprofit management, and process and systems design. I am the host of the Hot Mess Hotline, a podcast for ambitious leaders who want to be in the C-suite.
I have collaborated with organizations from 5 to 1,500 employees in all sectors to create and implement business plans, strategic plans and execution, training and development, and CRM design, training, and deployment.
My coach training is in solution-focused methodology from Erickson International and I’m a member of the International Coach Federation. I also hold a Master’s degree and have worked in small business and regional and national nonprofits before starting my business in 2014.
Session Title:
Why Your Big Projects Never Get Finished
Session Description:
What Every Leader Needs to do Differently so the Entire Team Gets More Done, Not Just You
Leaders can find it difficult to share work for a variety of reasons: they think it’s faster to do it themselves; they worry about their direct reports doing it right; they don’t have enough people to delegate to; or they simply don’t know how to without creating more confusion.
During this presentation, we’ll discuss tips and tricks for sharing work and opportunities so you can do your job: manage and lead.
During this talk participants will learn:
How not to do your team’s jobs and prioritize your own work
Why each employee needs to be delegated to in a different way
4 ways to delegate that aren’t micromanagement but you still know the needed results will happen
Stefanie Krievins
Stephanie Baerenwald : Oshkosh Corporation
Biography:
Stephanie Baerenwald is currently the Senior IT Manager of Digital Technology for Oshkosh Corporation in Wisconsin. Steph has nearly 20 years in the Information Technology field, including 15 dedicated to specifically to asset and vendor management. During the past year, she has transitioned her ITAM strategies from a small/medium business to a Fortune 500 global organization. This transformation has given her a unique perspective of asset management and how it continues to bring value to any organization.
Session Title:
Transforming ITAM in the Digital Age of XaaS (Everything as a Service)
Session Description:
Not only will we make fun of the buzzwords we’re all sick of hearing, this session will cover real-world ITAM transformations:
– buzzwords
– agile consumption
– instantaneous business influence
– small ITAM to global ITAM
You should attend this session if you feel your ITAM program needs a refresh or you need new ideas to gather more support.
Stephanie Baerenwald
Sumin Tchen : Belarc, Inc.
Biography:
Sumin has over 30 years of experience in helping to build successful technology firms, such as Belarc (ITAM, Cyber Security), Computer Controls (building control systems), Eliza (telephony-based voice recognition), ProcessTech (dynamic modeling software), and Adaptive Networks (networking over AC power lines). Sumin has a B.S. Electrical Engineering from Cornell University and an M.S. Management from M.I.T.
Session Title:
Reduce Your SaaS Spend Based on Accurate Usage Data
Session Description:
Gartner says that at least 25% of SaaS software is un-used. This is low hanging fruit for SAM managers to reduce SaaS software costs. But to do this you need accurate software usage data. This presentation will discuss the methods available today to discover software usage, their pros and cons and show case study examples
Sumin Tchen
Sunil Chandna : Stellar Data Recovery Inc
Biography:
Sunil is co-founder & CEO of Stellar Data Recovery, makers of BitRaser data eraser software. Sunil is an expert on data security with close to 30 years of experience. He is a speaker at various international events and conferences including NAID, EREUSE, ESCRAP, IAITAM.
Session Title:
Why Should You Stop Destroying Storage Devices and Worry About Secure Data Destruction
Session Description:
Every year tens of thousands of companies continue shredding hard drives, a practice that has a legacy originating from paper shredding. This act ends up generating lots of e-waste and is causing a huge burden on the planet. In the session you will discover the myths surrounding physical device destruction practices and also uncover the associated risks.
With increased focus on Sustainability, organizations are on the lookout to switch to green alternatives. You will learn about proven software based data erasure approach that is SECURE, reduces e-waste and results in device REUSE.
Sunil Chandna