Speaker Profiles
Speaker: Ahmer Akhter
Aamer Akhter, CCIE # 4543 (R&S, C&S), has over 10 years of experience in the networking industry and is currently responsible for the deployment and technical marketing of Performance Routing, Wan-Optimization systems, Video systems, Routing Protocols, NBAR and NetFlow. He joined Cisco in the Technical Assistance Centre (TAC), and has worked in various capacities for Cisco, supporting large service provider and enterprise customers by testing, designing and deploying several large Layer 2 and MPLS/VPN networks.
Speaker: Joel Barrett
Joel Barrett is a communications architect with Cisco Systems. Mr. Barrett has attained networking certifications such as Cisco's CCNP and CCDP, Microsoft’s MCSE, and Novell’s Master CNE. For wireless certifications, he holds Cisco's Wireless Design and Support specializations, as well as the CWNP Program’s Wireless#, CWNA, CWSP, CWAP, and CWNE certifications. Mr. Barrett is also certified to instruct Cisco’s Airespace and Mesh Networking courses. Within Cisco, Mr. Barrett consults primarily with large enterprise customers concerning wireless implementations. He is a senior advisor for Cisco’s wireless virtual team. He is also an author and editor for books such as "CWNA Official Study Guide, 4th Edition", "CWNP Dictionary of Terms and Acronyms". "CWNP Wireless# Exam Mega Guide", "Wireless Networks First-Step", "CWSP Official Study Guide", and "Managing and Securing a Cisco Structured Wireless-Aware Network".
Speaker: Luc Bouchard
Luc Bouchard is a Technical Marketing Engineer with the Enterprise Voice Systems Architecture group, and is based in Kanata, Ontario. He is a frequent speaker at the annual Cisco Networkers event.
Speaker: Chris Crosby
Chris Crosby is a Sr. Product Manager in Cisco's Customer Contact Business Unit. His primary focus is setting product and go-to-market strategy for Cisco's next generation Reporting and Analytics products. Chris Crosby was the co-founder and CEO of Latigent which was acquired by Cisco in Oct. 2007.
Speaker: Frank D'Agostino
Frank D'Agostino is a Consulting Systems Architect at Cisco with more than 25 years experience in storage and data centre management. He has been involved in the design and implementation of large mainframe data centres and has designed and built large routed network infrastructures for various companies. Frank currently holds a CCIE certification in Routing and Switching which he has had for more than 10 years. He holds all three of SNIA's original three certifications, as well as various other industry certifications. Frank’s title at Cisco is Data Centre Architect with a specific emphasis on virtualization technologies for unified fabrics, server and storage infrastructure.
Speaker: Mark Dittmer
Mark Dittmer is a Technical Marketing Engineer with Cisco's Application Delivery Business Unit. Mark joined Cisco in 2000 in the Technical Assistance Center (TAC) and spent many years as an escalation engineer resolving customer technical issues, questions and problems regarding implementing Cisco's networking products. Mark has extensive experience in troubleshooting and implementing application delivery products such as the Cisco Application Control Engine (ACE).
Speaker: Charles Duffy
Chuck Duffy is CCIE No. 4008, is a Distinguished Systems Engineer (DSE) in the Cisco US Cable Area. He joined Cisco 11 years ago and has more than 20 years of related experience. Chuck specializes in voice and video technology.
Speaker: Rich Dusome
Ritch Dusome is the Director of Service Provider Product Marketing, for Cisco's Mid-Range Router Business Unit, and has been with the ASR1000 program since its inception. Ritch has been with Cisco for 9 years, and has had his CCIE for over 10 years.
Speaker: Ian Gallagher
Ian Gallagher is a Consulting Systems Engineer in Unified Communications for the Central Banking/Finance and Strategic Accounts regions at Cisco Systems Canada designing and deploying UC solutions. Prior to focusing on Unified Communications, Ian worked with large enterprise customers on overall IP data network architectures and network security solutions. Ian is in his seventh year at Cisco and has over 15 years of experience in networking.
Speaker: Mike Herbert
Mike Herbert is a Technical Leader in the Enterprise Systems Engineering (ESE) group at Cisco Systems. His primary focus is on Campus Architectures including High Availability, Security and Voice integration and together with his colleagues is responsible for development and verification of the best practices designs for Cisco Campus Networks. Prior to his work on the Campus solution Mike was a member of the ESE team which developed the Cisco Unified Communications and Call Centre Design Guides. Before his work on the ESE solutions team Mike worked with Cisco Advanced Services providing design guidance and technical support for large Enterprise customers. He is a Routing and Switching CCIE.
Speaker: Rick Huijbregts
Rick Huijbregts is the Director of Real Estate Solutions for the Emerging Markets theatre at Cisco. Real Estate is the latest addition to Cisco's industry verticals that focuses its Cisco Connected Real Estate program on the design, construction, and real estate industry in the Emerging Markets (Russia, CIS, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America). In his current role, Huijbregts works with the local and regional teams specializing in Real Estate in an effort to scale thought leadership and best practice throughout the Emerging Markets. Prior to assuming this role in 2006, Huijbregts was Strategy and Development Manager where he was part of the core team developing the Cisco Connected Real Estate practice. For more than 12 years, Huijbregts has been at the forefront of real estate innovation through his spearheading of research and implementation of new 'technology and business' models. Huijbregts joined Cisco in 2005, having held several management positions in the field of real estate and technology. From 2001-2004 he was executive director of the Centre for Design Informatics at the Harvard Design School. Prior to joining Harvard University he was co-founder and CEO of Edificium Inc. - a US and European Internet service provider for the design and construction industry. Huijbregts holds a Master degree in real estate development and project management from Delft University in the Netherlands and a Doctorate from Harvard University with a specialization in real estate technology and investment management.
Rick lives with his wife and son in Toronto, Canada yet spends most of his time in the air or in faraway countries.
Speaker: Dan Jerome
Dan Jerome is a Consulting Systems Engineer at Cisco with a specialty in Network Management. Dan joined Cisco in 1999 and is based in Toronto, Canada. He has worked with all of the major service providers in Canada. Prior to joining Cisco, Dan worked as an independent consultant on network management projects with Rogers Cable, Bell Canada and had a brief stint working in Chile. Dan is CCNP certified and holds a Bachelor of Applied Science degree from the University of Toronto and an MBA from the Schulich School of Business in Toronto.
Speaker: Josh Kaya
Joshua Kaya is a Consulting Systems Engineer at Cisco Systems responsible for the support of data centre technologies within the Canadian market. His primary areas of focus include data centre best practices for serverfarm networking, application services, server fabrics, business continuance and storage area networks. Joshua brings more than 10 years of data centre experience ranging from application development to internetworking.
Speaker: Sunny Kumar
Sunny Kumar is a member of the Cisco Voice Technology Group - Business Development team. In that capacity he evangelizes Cisco's Customer Contact solution, especially Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal and it's role in the wider Cisco Unified Communication platform offering. One of Sunny's key responsibilities is to reach out to and empower the worldwide communication developer community to leverage and build on Cisco Unified Communication platform. Sunny is a regular speaker in the industry international events such as Communication Developer Conferences, Cisco Networkers, Cisco Developer Forum and SpeechTEK etc. as well as EBC/CBCs and customer events. Sunny came to Cisco as part of Cisco's Audium acquisition in 2006 and brings over 15 years of experience in the network communications industry.
Speaker: Vince Mammoliti
Vince Mammoliti, CCIE No. 2800, is the Chief Systems Architect for the Cisco Service Exchange Framework. Vince is an expert on carrier architectures, and his current area of focus is wireless service enablement, including Cisco WiMesh and WiMAX system deployments. With Cisco since 1994, Vince has designed and implemented diverse aggregation networks based on Cisco technology and best practices for service provider customers worldwide. Vince has also contributed to the industry as a whole -- authoring IETF RFC, and contributing to multiple DSL Forum Technical Reports. Vince currently sits as a board member for the Toronto Internet Exchange.
Speaker: Stefan Mansson
Stefan Mansson works for Cisco Systems out of RTP in North Carolina as a Technical Marketing Engineer in the ISR 2800/3800 platform & Ethernet LAN/WAN solutions segment of the Access Routing Technology Group. He has over 20 years experience in the Networking industry including, 16 years working with Cisco solutions. Stephan has worked for Cisco for 7 years within Cisco Nordics, Netherlands, and the Middle East before moving to RTP. He is CCIE #3516.
Speaker: Paul McDevitt
As Director of Enterprise Marketing, Paul McDevitt is responsible for driving awareness, understanding and adoption of Cisco's solutions for the retail, energy, manufacturing and finance industries.
Paul brings more than 25 years of communications technology experience to this role. Prior to joining Cisco, he was the Senior Vice President, Service and Support at Avaya Canada for seven years. In this role he was responsible for the growth and management of all services, including the consulting and professional services group.
His broad experience also includes roles such as Vice President, Central & Western Canada at Lucent Technologies and Marketing Manager at AT&T Canada with a focus on enterprise marketing in each of the roles.
Paul is based out of Cisco's Toronto office and lives in the Greater Toronto Area with his wife and two children.
Speaker: Jeff Mossman
Jeff Mossman is a Consulting Systems Engineer with Cisco who works extensively with Cisco channel partners and mutual customers to continually develop and enhance their Unified Communication capabilities, and to design and deploy UC solutions.
Speaker: Brantz Myers
Brantz Myers is the Director of Industry Marketing for Cisco Systems in Canada.
He is responsible for developing and executing marketing activities to raise awareness and drive visibility of Cisco’s leadership and relevance in various vertical industries in Canada.
Mr. Myers joined Cisco in 2000, with over twenty years experience in technology sales and marketing. Previously, he held various positions with Hewlett-Packard, Digital and Compaq.
He has a B.Sc., Mathematics and Computing Science from Dalhousie University, and has completed a Business Management Program from The University of Toronto and The Schulich School of Business. Mr. Myers also holds various other professional development certificates in a number of disciplines.
He lives in Toronto with his wife and two children.
Speaker: Sid Nag
Sid is currently a Global Enterprise Architect for Cisco Systems. Sid is responsible for driving business development, architecture and sales strategy at a CXO level for the United Nations. Prior to his current engagement Sid was a VP of Business Development and an advisor to the CEO at Amedia Networks. Before joining Amedia, Sid was the Founder and CEO of Prominence Networks, a startup company as a provider of products in the Unified Communications Space (IP Telephony and IP Video) in the areas of Assessment, Assurance and Security. Sid is the co-author of 8 patents, which are either issued, published or pending. He is a recognized industry speaker at forums such as IPTV2007, Internet Telephony Conference, BCR/NGN (Next Gen Networks) conference, Cisco IP Telephony User Group (CIPTUG) and Polycom User Group (PUG) conferences. Sid was also a Chair of the Services Management IETF group from 1997-2004 where he authored a number of standards documents (RFCs). Sid has a Bachelor of Engineering degree from IIT Bombay and a Masters Degree in Computer Science from the Pennsylvania State University.
Speaker: Khalid Raja
Khalid Raja started at Cisco in June 1993 in Cisco TAC as a routing protocol engineer, and later joined the ISP group. Khalid has been involved in designing, migrating and supporting some of the largest networks in the world, such as AT&T, Motorola, Sprint, SBC, Wells Fargo, Boeing, DT, and many more. Khaild specializes in routing protocols like OSPF, BGP, ISIS. He has written a book on "Large Scale IP Networks Solutions". Currently, he is working on development and deployment of IPv6.
Speaker: Rod Scotland
Empowered, passionate and inspiring describe technology advocate, Rod Scotland. Mr. Scotland has more than 18 years of experience in the Voice and IP Communications industry. Rod emerged from a Network consulting organization where he developed a skill set for Telecommunications and Data Networking. Throughout his history, Rod has enjoyed working with industry leaders while developing communications solutions.
In early 1999, Rod joined the world’s leading Networking and IP Communications Company - Cisco Systems Inc. Now in his 10th year with Cisco, Rod has gained invaluable expertise while employed on the Engineering side of Cisco’s business and then progressing with that knowledge to fulfill his current role as a Unified Communications Solutions Specialist. As Rod says best, "I love making the technical conversation, very compelling and business relevant!"
Rod clearly demonstrates the power and the promise of what a true Unified Communications strategy will offer to your business.
Speaker: Darryl Sladden
Darryl Sladden is a Product Manager with Cisco's Access Routing Technology Group, and is responsible for the Cisco Unified Border Element; the Session Border Controller functionality of Cisco IOS routers.
Speaker: Ajay Sood
Ajay K. Sood is the Manager of Systems Engineering for IronPort Systems in Canada, and has participated in the architecture and implementation of the largest and most robust messaging environments in Canada and internationally. Ajay holds the CISSP and SANS designations, as well as a B. Eng from Concordia University.
Speaker: Ben Thomas
Ben Thomas has worked at Cisco for 10 years. Ben started at Cisco in 1998 covering the oil & gas, energy, and healthcare verticals. During that time he got a CCIE in Routing & Switching and another in Security. Ben worked as a Consulting Systems Engineer for Security covering the Southern United States working in all aspect of enterprise security with a special focus on large enterprise campus and data center security. Currently Ben is an Enterprise Architect working on the next generation of enterprise security for campus, WAN, and data Centre.
Speaker: Scott Van de Houten
Bio coming soon.
Speaker: Kevin Wollenweber
Kevin is a product manager with the Core Router Business Unit, and has product responsibility for the IPoDWDM solution on the CRS-1. Kevin has been with Cisco for 10 years and is CCIE Number 9972.
Speaker: Chris Yeo
Chris Yeo is a Product Manager responsible for platform features, enhancements and roadmap strategy relative to Cisco Unified Contact Centre Express (CUCCX). Prior to this role, Chris was a technical marketing and software engineer supporting CUCCX. As a technical marketing engineer, Chris worked with Cisco sales and partners on training, demos and deployments of this contact centre product. In his role as a software engineer, Chris helped develop the routing, queuing and agent state management subsystem components of CUCCX.