Panelists

Varun Grover

Varun Grover is the William S. Lee (Duke Energy) Distinguished Professor of IS at Clemson University . Prior to this, he was Business Partnership Foundation Fellow, Distinguished Researcher and Professor of IS at the University of South Carolina . Dr. Grover has published extensively in the information systems field, with over 150 publications in refereed journals. Five recent articles have ranked him in the top three researchers based on publications in the top Information Systems journals over the past decade. His current areas of interest are creating IS value in organizations and business process change. His work has appeared in journals such as ISR, MISQ, JMIS, CACM, Decision Sciences, IEEE Transactions, California Management Review, among others. Dr. Grover has co-edited three books on Business Process Change; the last one (co-edited with Lynne Markus) is forthcoming. He has received numerous awards for his research and teaching from USC, Clemson, the Decision Sciences Institute, the Association for Information Systems, Anbar, and PriceWaterhouse Coopers. Dr. Grover is serving as Senior Editor of the MIS Quarterly and the Journal of the Association of Information Systems.

Maggie Hatfield

Maggie Hatfield has extensive experience in social media and web marketing; brand and product management; sales and partnership management; financial analysis, forecasting and P&L management.

Prior to starting up BigLift Marketing, she was a VP of Marketing at AOL for many years in the online marketing and social media space. She lead marketing teams build audience around AOL’s many properties like AIM, Mapquest, AOL.com and Truveo. Now Maggie is focused on helping business build and launch their Social Media strategies. She is also able to apply her solid foundation of traditional marketing experience and her business acumen to help her clients start with the business strategy in mind and end with a marketing plan focused on delighting the customer and meeting or exceeding the stated financial metrics. Maggie's results-oriented approach has transformed departments into high performing organizations leading to the development and execution of innovative, integrated marketing and brand strategies as well as helping inform the product or service roadmap. She holds an M.B.A degree with a concentration in Marketing from The McGregor School of Business and a B.S. in Accounting from Miami University. Maggie is on the Board for the Loudoun Education Foundation.

Sudhendu Rai

Sudhendu Rai is a Principal Scientist at the Xerox Research Center in Webster, N.Y. He received his PhD. from MIT (1993), MS from Caltech (1989), and BTech from IIT, Kanpur (India) in 1988 – all in Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Rai joined Xerox in 1995 and was promoted to Principal Scientist in 2001. During 1996-97 he demonstrated the feasibility of virtual prototyping of xerographic components. He created, validated and implemented a new methodology for performing quantitative trade-offs in large-system design. Between 1997 and 1998 he developed and implemented a novel distributed control architecture for paper handling systems. He is the lead inventor of the LDP Lean Document Production® solution – (a finalist for the 2008 Franz Edelman award). Starting in 1998 he led a team that developed the algorithms, software toolkit to support the offering and training curriculum for Xerox consultants. He holds 15 patents (with 35 additional pending) and has published over 20 technical papers in conference proceedings and technical journals. He is a member of IIE, ASME and a senior member of IEEE. He is a recipient of the Xerox Excellence in Science and Technology Award and was selected as a finalist for the 2007 Rochester Engineer of the Year award.

Mark Warren

As a Business Process Manager in sales and marketing at Foundation Coal Corporation, Mark is responsible for utilizing new and existing information systems to better optimize and improve the company’s business processes. Since 2004, Mark has had a diverse experience at Foundation Coal, which included work as a Continuous Improvement Coordinator at an affiliated operating mine and work as a Director of Sales Services within Foundation Coal’s affiliated sales unit, Foundation Energy Sales, Inc. In addition, prior to joining Foundation Coal, Mark gained a solid mix of information technology and business process experience while working as a consultant with Accenture. Mark received a chemical engineering degree with honors from the University of Missouri – Columbia in 2000 and will be graduating this May 2008 with a Master of Business Administration with a focus in finance from the University of Maryland – College Park.

Smith School of Business

Howard Frank

Howard Frank is dean of the Robert H. Smith School of Business of the University of Maryland and also professor of Management Sciences at the Smith School. Dean Frank has been a member of seven editorial boards, has been a featured speaker at hundreds of business and professional meetings, and has authored over 190 articles and chapters in books on technology and the management of technology. He is a Fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, and a recipient of its 1999 Eric Sumner Award. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a member of the Strategy Council of the Washington Board of Trade. He also is a member of the Board of Directors of the Macklin Institute of Montgomery College and a member of the Federal Advisory Committee of the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Advanced Technology Program. He has been a Senior Fellow at the Wharton School's SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management and currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Center. He has also been an adjunct professor of decision sciences at the Wharton School and an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California at Berkeley. He received his MS and PhD from Northwestern University.

Debra L. Shapiro

Debra L. Shapiro (Ph.D., Northwestern University) is Clarice Smith Professor of Management and incoming Ph.D. Program Director at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business (and formerly the Willard J. Graham Distinguished Professor at UNC-Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School where she was on the faculty from 1986-2003 and Associate Dean of Ph.D. Programs from 1998-2001). Her research regards strategies-- such as bad news delivery, negotiations, dispute-related interventions including mediation and arbitration-- for managing employees' perceptions of injustice and resistance to organizational change (including team-related changes), and the cultural challenges in doing so. Shapiro's publications, which include the book "Managing Multinational Teams" (published by JAI/Elsevier in 2005), has appeared in Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and elsewhere. Dr. Shapiro is a recipient of "Best Paper Awards" in 1991, 1992, 1996, and 2007 from the Academy of Management's (AOM) Conflict Management Division and from the International Association for Conflict Management in 1999. Shapiro's 2004 AMR publication (“Can we talk, and should we?: Managing emotional conflict in multicultural teams”) was among the handful of articles selected as part of the Workbook for the November 2005 Worldwide Fortune Luminary Series conference (featuring world-renown management thought-leaders such as Jack Welch, Tom Peters, Stephen Covey, Carly Fiorina, Rudy Giuliani, and others). Dr. Shapiro is a Past Chair of the Conflict Management Division of the AOM (after serving in all of its executive board positions), past member of the AOM's Board of Governors (2002-2005), and an Outgoing Associate Editor of The Academy of Management Journal.

David M. Waguespack

David M. Waguespack is Assistant Professor of Management & Organization at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. Dr. Waguespack received his PhD in Political Science, focusing on environmental politics and science and technology policy. Prior to arriving at Maryland he was a research associate at the University of California Los Angeles, and an adjunct political science professor at SUNY Buffalo. Dr. Waguespack's research focuses on non-market influences, such as social networks and political institutions, on innovation and venture performance. His ongoing work pursues these questions in the domains of film production and distribution, internet technology development, international patenting, and environmental management.

Xiaoqing Wang

Xiaoqing Wang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Decision and Information Technologies at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. She holds a Ph.D. in Information Systems from the University of Pittsburgh, M.A. in Economics from Central Michigan University, and B.A. in International Finance from Fudan University, Shanghai, China. Her research focuses on the dynamics of the social, behavioral and technical aspects of online communities in various contexts. Her current research examines the nature of competition among online communities and its impact on membership dynamics.