Robert J. Abate
CBIP, CDMP, Solutions Principal, EMC Consulting
As a hands-on, accomplished Information Technology professional, Robert offers more than 28 years of experience in Architecture, Big Data Analytics & Business Intelligence, Applications (CEP, SOA, EDA) and Enterprise Information Management (EIM,DG, MDM). He is credited as one of the first to publish on Services Oriented Architectures (1996), and a respected IT thought leader within the field. He is an EE and a Certified Business Intelligence Professional / Certified Data Management Professional in four disciplines. Mr. Abate chairs and presents at global conferences, is a member of the board of DAMA and is a respected author and industry thought-leader. Mr. Abate frequently can be heard giving talks and webinars on topics such as “Extreme Performance – Big Data Warehousing”, "The Convergence Of SOA & BI,” “Best Practices In Enterprise Information Management,” and “SOA / BI Market Trends.”

Matthew Bryan
Senior Analytics Engineer, WaPo Labs, The Washington Post Company
Matt routinely brags about his use of Netscape Navigator 0.9 and how things were "easy" before Javascript came along. But the truth is that he abandoned all of that to work as an electrical engineer before realizing just how imprecise all the really cool stuff is. That meant a move over to the dark arts of statistics and data mining, where he's promised to use his skills for good (or at least his version of that). He spent the years surrounding the 2008 election cycle building predictive targeting models for the Obama campaign and other large political groups as part of his work at Catalist. From there he moved to a Labs group at the Washington Post Company, where he juggles terabytes of web data to design meaningful metrics, drive interesting widgets and generally try and help make the messy world of the web a little cleaner (his mother would like that).

Caribou Honig
Co-founder & Partner, QED Investors
Caribou Honig began his career at Capital One Financial during its initial hypergrowth years, leading data-driven marketing initiatives in both the telecom and credit card sectors. Responsibilities included directing a $50 mm marketing budget, running a 200 person operation, and leading all online credit card customer acquisitions.

Mr. Honig is cofounder and partner of the boutique venture firm, QED Investors. His investments span an array of marketing and ad technology companies, particularly in the mobile, online display, and social sectors.

Mr. Honig holds a bachelor's degree in Physics and Philosophy from Harvard University, an MBA from the Darden School of Business, and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. He is a member of the Virginia Bar, and serves on several boards including West Cary Group, 33Across, and Spruce Media.

He and his wife have two children and two annoying but lovable dogs.

Jodi McDermott
Vice President, Digital Analytics Product Management, comScore, Inc.
Jodi has been working in Web Analytics since 2002 and joined comScore’s Product Management team in March of 2010 where she is responsible for developing and managing comScore’s Digital Analytix product via their acquisition of Nedstat. Prior to joining comScore, Jodi served as Director of Data Strategy and Analytics for Clearspring Technologies where she was responsible for utilizing data to develop and test business models and drive product strategy for the Clearspring widget platform and AddThis sharing products.

In previous roles Jodi oversaw the Web Analytics team of InPhonic, a multi-hundred million dollar ecommerce website, and also worked in the Consulting Services group of Visual Sciences where she led implementations for leading companies in the airline, retail, financial services and hotel industries. For five years prior to that, Jodi managed the Business Solutions team and oversaw the implementation of the first off-the-shelf Web Analytics package at USATODAY.com.

Rob Thomas
Vice President of Business Development, IBM’s Information Management Software Division
Rob Thomas is Vice President of Business Development in IBM’s Information Management Software Division. He has worked extensively with global businesses and his background includes experience in business and operational strategy, high technology development and engineering, manufacturing operations, and product design and development consulting.

In his current role, Mr. Thomas leads business development for Information Management software, which includes IBM’s enterprise data management and information integration products. He is responsible for mergers & acquisitions, channel strategy and sales, and major ISV and SI partnerships. Recently, Mr. Thomas led IBM’s acquisition of Netezza, the leader in data warehousing and analytical appliances.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Thomas had general management responsibilities for IBM’s engineering services and semiconductor business in Asia Pacific.