Throughout her career, Pelin Wood Thorogood has been in the forefront of emerging technologies and trends. During her more than 15 years as a high technology marketing executive, Pelin has led the go-to-market strategy for WebSideStory's on-demand online marketing suite (acquired by Omniture), extended Peregrine Systems' enterprise software business (acquired by HP) into the web-based employee self service (ESS) category, and in the mid 90s, launched one the very first mobile B2B applications designed for the Windows CE platform. Her success with venture backed start-ups, rewarding creativity and speed, as well as public companies that thrive on process and fiscal discipline underscore the diversity of her skills and the strength of her approach. Currently Pelin sits on boards and advises new media and cloud computing companies focused on solving sales and marketing problems - Online Marketing and Media Company Online Marketing Connect; Sales Intelligence CompanyInsideView; Inbound Marketing Company Eightfold Logic, Content Delivery Network Limelight Networks; Web Analytics Consulting Company Technology Leaders; - and serves a virtual Entrepreneur-in-Residence for Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management. Pelin was also instrumental in defining theSales 2.0 Movement. She is a regular speaker and author on Social Selling, Establishing a Culture of Measurement, and Sales and Marketing Alignment and is recognized for her passion for the subjects by technology analysts and pundits alike. Most recently, Pelin was the Senior Vice President of Marketing for WebSideStory, a leading provider of real-time, multi-channel analytics solutions. Pelin holds a Bachelor of Science in Operations Research, Master of Engineering and MBA degrees, all from Cornell University. Her comments are from the November 2010 Strategic Marketing Conference sponsored by the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University.
Kathleen O'Connor is an Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at Cornell University's Johnson School. She is an organizational psychologist who studies negotiation, teamwork, and decision making. Much of her recent research focuses on how negotiations link together over time. One stream of work shows that past negotiation experiences direct negotiators' choice of tactics and their performance in successive negotiations. A second stream investigates how negotiators' reputations affect them and their potential for success at the bargaining table. As part of this research, she has explored how negotiators' confidence in their skills changes as a function of their negotiation successes or failures, and how it affects their tactical decision making and the quality of their deals.
O'Connor's recent projects investigate the development of individual social capital. She applies theories of individual cognition and interpersonal behavior to study the conditions under which people recognize and exploit opportunities for building social capital. She is a member of a team of networks experts from Cornell University whose work is sponsored by the Institute for the Social Sciences.
Her research has been published in such journals as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Making, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
O'Connor joined the faculty at Cornell University in 1997. She has been a member of the faculty at Rice University, and has been a visiting faculty member at Northwestern University, and at the London Business School.
Kathleen O'Connor earned a BS from Cornell University and an AM and PhD in social and organizational psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Colleen Wainwright is a writer-speaker-illuminator who started calling herself "the communicatrix" when she hit three hyphens. She consults one-on-one with solopreneurs about their online marketing presence and creates content for an alarmingly large number of online outlets.
Wainwright spent 10 years as an award-winning TV copywriter at Young & Rubicam crafting ads for brands like Wheaties, Gatorade and Jell-O, and another 10 acting in them as a performer. Wainwright now spends her time teaching other creative souls how to talk about what they do in a way that wins them attention, work and satisfaction.
Colleen Wainwright is a graduate of Cornell University.
Deborah J. Muller brings more than 20 years of employee relations and workplace investigation experience and expertise to her role as Founder and President of HR Acuity, LLC.
Prior to founding the firm, Muller held HR leadership positions in numerous Fortune 500 companies, including Honeywell, Citibank and Marsh & McLennan, where she developed a seasoned approach to conducting workplace investigations into allegations of misconduct. She has been instrumental in leading fact-finding cases involving a wide range of complex investigations, including sexual harassment, discrimination and inappropriate use of company funds. In her senior HR roles, Muller was also responsible for strategic organization redesigns, extensive change management initiatives, coaching and development of senior executives, and performing due diligence and integration activities for company acquisitions.
Deborah Muller earned a BS degree from Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations and a MA from the University of Maryland.
Marlene Quijano is Director R&D for Cereals, Bars, Better For You Platforms and Open Innovation for the Snacks & Cereal Sector at Kraft. She is responsible for Category Leadership across Growth, Quality and Core Programs across North American Cereal, Bars, Back To Nature and South Beach Diet Categories.
Prior to moving into this assignment, Quijano had prior leadership roles in the Snacks & Cereal Sector. Quijano was the Director for Snacks & Cereal Productivity and Pilot Plant Operations, responsible for Raw & Pack productivity across Biscuit, Snacks, & Confections, involving major product and process cost optimization initiatives and Pilot Plant Operations supporting Growth, Quality and Productivity for the sector. She also served as the Director Packaging and Engineering where she oversaw all of the Packaging and Engineering activities for Biscuit, Snacks & Confections businesses.
Quijano also held a leadership role in Human Resources where she was responsible for guiding the Kraft diversity agenda and focusing on effective strategies to meet quantitative and qualitative goals across the Westchester and New Jersey management sites.
Quijano began her career with the company in 1984 as an intern in the Beverage Division at General Foods Corporation. A year later, she joined the company as a technical researcher in Beverages. She has held numerous positions of increasing responsibility including Senior Engineer for Maxwell House and Asset Planning Manager for Maxwell House Logistics. In 1995, she was named Beverages Operations Quality Manager where she focused on leading and implementing food safety and quality assurance initiatives. A year later, she was named Technology Section Manager for the Beverages Division and then in 1998 became Technology Section Manager for Kraft's Coffee & Cereals Division.
In 1999 Marlene was promoted to Associate Director for Beverages, Desserts & Snacks with overall technical business leadership across two categories - Ready-to-drink beverages and new product development for the entire division. She progressed in that capacity to overseeing the overall technical business leadership across Kraft's Dessert businesses.
Marlene Quijano has a bachelor's of science in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University.
Elizabeth A. Mannix is the Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Management and Vice Provost for Equity and Inclusion at the Johnson School at Cornell University.
Professor Mannix's research and teaching interests include: Effective performance in managerial teams, diversity in organizations and teams, power and alliances, negotiation and conflict, and organizational change and renewal. Recently, she has been studying the effects of informal power in teams, and the multi-faceted effects of diversity on performance in organizational groups.
Elizabeth Mannix received her PhD from the University of Chicago.
Julie Eskay-Eagle is the Managing Director at September Ventures LLC.
Eskay-Eagle was a full time employee of The Wellcome Trust in London, UK from 2001-2004 where she established a formal Direct Investment Program. Prior to joining the Trust she was a Vice President with Lazard Freres in Health Care Investment Banking and a founding member of Lazard Technology Partners.
Before joining Lazard, Eskay-Eagle was a Health Care Specialist with McKinsey & Co. in New York.
Julie Eskay-Eagle has a bachelor's degree in Biomedical Ethics from Cornell University and an MBA from Columbia University.
Anne Loehr is a partner in Riverstone Endeavors. Loehr has owned and managed eco-friendly hotels and safari companies in Kenya for over 15 years. While managing 500 employees there, Loehr could not find seasoned trainers to teach leadership, coaching, and teambuilding skills. She began to study these skills herself, and after selling her properties she returned to the United States to specialize in executive coaching and leadership development.
Loehr has also co-founded Safaris for the Soul, leadership retreats that help senior managers find their organizational values and purpose. These trips take place around the world and have been featured in The Washingtonian, Business Traveler and Body+Soul. Loehr's award-winning book "A Manager's Guide to Coaching: Simple and Effective Ways to Get the Best Out of Your Employees," was published by the American Management Association in 2008. Her work has been covered in Newsweek International, National Geographic Traveler, CNN Money, Sunday Times (UK), Guardian (UK) and other international media.
Anne Loehr is a graduate of Cornell Universityâ€[TM]s School of Hotel Administration.
Melissa C. Thomas-Hunt is an Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at the Johnson School at Cornell University. Professor Thomas-Hunt's research activities focus on conflict management, negotiation, and team management processes. Her current research examines the contribution of expertise within diverse groups and the effects of relationships on negotiation processes and outcomes. Her publications have appeared in Research on Organizational Behavior, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Journal of Social Justice Research, and Research on Managing Groups and Teams. Professor Thomas-Hunt comes to the Johnson School from a position as assistant professor at the Olin School of Business, Washington University. Prior to attending graduate school, she worked as an account marketing representative at IBM. Melissa Thomas-Hunt received her master's and doctoral degrees from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Princeton University.