William Verhelle is the Chief Executive Officer of First American Equipment Finance. First American specializes in leasing high-technology equipment to large corporate borrowers. There are about 4,600 companies offering equipment financing services in the United States. For the fifth consecutive year, First American was recognized as one of the 100 largest equipment finance companies in the U.S. Before founding First American, Bill was Vice President and Western Division Manager of the Tokai Financial Services middle-market leasing company (now, De Lage Landen Financial Services).
Verhelle served as Chairman of the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association (ELFA) in 2008. Prior to that, he was Chairman of the ELFA Government Affairs Council, a member of the ELFA Executive Committee and the ELFA Board of Directors, and chaired the ELFA Middle-Market Independent Business Council Steering Committee.
Bill Verhelle received a Bachelor of General Studies Degree from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, a Master in Business Administration from the Anderson School at UCLA, and a Doctor of Laws from Cornell Law School. He is a member of the New York Bar.
Gerard Van Grinsven is the President and CEO of Henry Ford Health System - West Bloomfield Hospital.
Previously, he was Vice President and Area General Manager of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Dearborn, MI. He also served as vice president and area general manager of The Ritz-Carlton hotels in Cleveland, St. Louis and Philadelphia.
Prior to his time in Dearborn, van Grinsven was a member of the corporate team of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company as vice president of Food and Beverage and vice president of Openings. In this period, he successfully opened 20 Ritz-Carlton hotels worldwide. In addition, he was a key member of the team responsible for the company winning the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1999.
Harry Hill is the President of Oak Lawn Marketing.
Harry Hill's comments are from a panel entitled "Bootstrapping to Success: Starting a Business on a Shoestring and a Prayer" that took place during Entrepreneurship at Cornell Celebration in April 2010.
Harry Hill received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University.
Tien Tzuo is the Chief Executive Officer at Zuora, Inc.
Tien was one of the "original forces" at salesforce.com, which he joined in 1999 as the 11th employee, when the company was still operating out of a house on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. In his 9 years there, Tien held a variety of executive roles in salesforce.com's technology, marketing, and strategy organizations, including building out the product management & marketing organization, serving as salsforce's first Chief Marketing Officer, and most recently as Chief Strategy Officer.
Tien personally oversaw the vision, direction, and design of the first 17 releases of salesforce.com's award winning product line, including overseeing the launch of salesforce.com and the AppExchange. In 2004, Tien was named CMO of the Year Finalist by the CMO Council and BusinessWeek Magazine. Tien is also widely recognized as one of the thought leaders in the software-as-a-service industry. His podcast on the Secrets of Salesforce is widely cited and has been downloaded over 250,000 times.
Tien Tzuo holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Cornell University and a master's in business administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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.
Jim Prevor is the Founder and Editor of the Perishable Pundit which has quickly become the industry's most important forum for the discussion and analysis of issues relevant to the fresh foods industry including the trade's primary forum for discussing food safety and sustainability issues.
Jim Prevor is widely recognized as a leader in understanding and assessing the state of the perishable food industries and analyzing the prospects for the retail and foodservice venues in which perishable foods are sold. His comments and insights on issues such as food safety, sustainability and the competitive dynamics in the food retailing industry have been seen and heard on CNN, the Fox Business Channel, the BBC, National Public Radio and many network affiliates as well as over 100 newspapers and magazines, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal.
The founder and editor-in-chief of both PRODUCE BUSINESS and DELI BUSINESS magazines, Prevor also spearheads substantial trade and consumer research projects focusing on consumer attitudes toward various shopping venues. These research initiatives include the world's largest comparison of perishable food prices between Wal-Mart and competing shopping venues and a project comparing and contrasting consumer attitudes on sustainability in the UK and North America.
Prevor is also the founder of Perishable Solutions, a consultancy specializing in bringing strategic thinking to the fast-moving business of perishables. He travels the world visiting retail, foodservice, wholesale and production organizations and has given keynote addresses, workshops and seminars on every continent save Antarctica.