Visionaries to Inspire Breakaway Attendees

Our Breakaway conference in August in Washington, D.C., is shaping up to have our most robust, in-depth slate of sessions ever.  Beyond substantial channel training, attendees will glean real-world perspectives by thought leaders whose companies are driving the IT market.

The program kicks off Tuesday, August 2, with a keynote by CompTIA President and CEO Todd Thibodeaux on the state of the IT industry.  Then best-selling author and noted business consultant Peter Sheahan gives his cutting-edge insights into workforce trends and generational change. He’ll explain what companies must do today to stay relevant and competitive in the future.

Sheahan is the founder and chief executive officer of ChangeLabs™, a global consultancy delivering large-scale behavioral  range projects for clients. He’s worked with some of the world’s leading brands, such as Apple and IBM, on issues of  generational change, workplace trends and rapidly changing employee and consumer expectations. Sheahan’s latest book, Making It Happen, offers insights on how the best leaders and entrepreneurs execute on their good ideas, and turn them into profitable results.

On Tuesday afternoon, catch how distributors are changing market paradigms.  In the Distributor Power Panel session by Business Solutions magazine, learn about some of the unique offerings distributors are developing to add value for solutions providers. For smaller partners who don't have direct account managers with vendors, some distributors are taking the place of account managers. What are some best practices to make that a successful relationship? What steps can partners take to make themselves more "visible" to distributors, and does using multiple distributors dilute their ability to be seen.

Hear from Gennifer Biggs, network security, storage, and managed services editor, Business Solutions; Joe Quaglia, senior vice president, U.S. marketing, Tech Data Corp.; and Bob Stegner, senior vice president, marketing, North America, Synnex Corp.

Wednesday morning, senior executives from four leading IT companies will share their perspectives on current and future business prospects for the industry. Scheduled to participate in the Channel Chiefs Power Panel are Mike deVente, vice president, North America channels, Motorola; David Kenyon, vice president, worldwide channel marketing, AMD; Gregg Prendergast, vice president, commercials sales and marketing, Acer America; and Frank Vitagliano, senior vice president, partners-America, Juniper Networks.

Moderated by Joe Panettieri, executive vice president, Nine Lives Media Inc., topics expected to be addressed include cloud computing, unified messaging, healthcare IT, security and mobility.

We’ll report about these sessions on our blog during the event, but nothing really replaces hearing the speakers yourself.  Now is the time to sign up for Breakaway.  Plus you can enter to win $350 in American Airline vouchers to help pay your way to attend.  See you in D.C. this August.