Speakers at the CIO Agenda Conference

Dr. Allen Butler
Dr. Allen Butler is Director and Chief Information Officer (CIO) for CTS Corporation, a $650M electronics manufacturing company headquartered in Elkhart, Indiana.  Dr. Butler is responsible for directing and coordinating all information systems of the corporation on a worldwide basis. Dr. Butler came to CTS with 21 years of diverse enterprise architecture and system development expertise in print/publishing, manufacturing, healthcare, and financial services industries.  Prior to CTS, he held positions at RR Donnelley as Chief IT Architect and GlaxoSmithKline as Regional CIO.  He has held IT leadership positions at Abbott Laboratories and Boehringer Mannheim Pharmaceuticals, and is acting CIO for Ecor Systems, LLC, a web startup company in Chicago.  Allen is married with two sons and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

William McKnight Farrow
William McKnight Farrow III is EVP and CIO for the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT).  With 25 years in the Chicago business community, Bill Farrow has held several senior management positions before joining the CBOT in 2001.  Former positions include:  Senior Vice-President, Head of Large Corporate eBusiness for Bank One.  Senior Vice-President, Head of Marketing, Commercial Bank, where he developed a workstation platform that won the 1995 Computerworld Smithsonian Award.  Director of Corporate Strategy and Business Development for Dart & Kraft, Inc.  Manager of Acquisitions with G. D. Searle Pharmaceutical.   Mr. Farrow began his career as Senior Technology Consultant with Arthur Andersen & Company, Chicago.  Farrow received a Master of Management degree from Northwestern University’s J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Evanston, Ill., in 1979, and a BA degree in 1977 from Augustana College.  His many awards include:  2004 CIO Magazines Agile 100 IT Leaders, 2004 Computerworld’s Premier 100 IT Leaders for 2004, 2003 “CIO of the Year” by the Executive Club of Chicago and the AITP, 2003 Chicago United as ‘Business Leader of Color’.  He has been a former  board member of numerous civic, community and business associations.

John F. Fisher
As Chief Information Officer for the world’s largest association management and professional services company, John directs the company's information technology (IT) resources as well as its technology investments.John joined SmithBucklin in 1996 as the company's first CIO, and has over 25 years of experience applying technology solutions to critical business problems. Before joining SmithBucklin, he held senior IT management positions at CNA Insurance Companies, and Continental Bank. He is a member of the Society for Information Management (SIM), the Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP) and the Executives Club of Chicago. In 2002, the Windy City Chapter of AITP selected John to receive their CIO of the Year award. John is an adjunct faculty member at DePaul University, where he teaches graduate level courses in IT Strategy and E-Commerce and in 2003 received DePaul’s Alumni Champion Award. John is on the Planning and Evaluation Committee of the American Red Cross of Greater Chicago and a member of the technical advisory board for the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN). John holds an M.S. in Computer Science from DePaul University, a B.S. in Communications from Southern Illinois University, and an M.A. in History of Religions from the University of Ottawa.

David Gillhouse
David is Chief Information Officer for Bimba Manufacturing Company, a leading Industrial Automation manufacturer, based in Monee, Illinois.  In this capacity, David directs Bimba’s Information Technology, e-Commerce and business process reengineering initiatives.  He is also involved with Bimba’s Strategic Planning and Mergers and Acquisitions activities. Prior to joining Bimba in 2006, David served as Vice President of Information Technology for The Chamberlain Group, Inc. and its parent company, Duchossois Industries.  He has also held leadership positions with Monroe Auto Equipment and Accenture.  David’s Information Technology team at Chamberlain was recognized by InformationWeek magazine as one of the Top 100 IT Innovators for five consecutive years.  Chamberlain was ranked the 14^th best IT practitioner in 2003.  David is Founder and President of the CIO Consulting Organization - www.CIO Consulting.org.  David authored InformationWeek column: “Streamline. Innovate. Integrate. Repeat.”  He was the 2002 Chicago CIO of the Year recipient.  He received an MBA from the University of Michigan and received a BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois in 1974.

Divakar (Dave) Kamath
Dave joined IDEX as their CIO in Jan 2004. IDEX is a one billion dollar global manufacturer of pumping, dispensing and other engineered products and provides solutions for diverse markets. Dave is responsible for delivery of IT services across the IDEX portfolio of 34+ companies. Prior to joining IDEX, Kamath was the vice president and Chief information Officer at IMC Global Inc, a global manufacturer with annual revenues over $1.5 billion. Before IMC Global, he served as the VP-IS at SunSource Industrial Services company and VP- Materials/ Logistics Planning at one of its subsidiaries after having progressed through increasingly responsible operational positions.

Vince Kellen
Vince Kellen was appointed Acting Vice President for Information Services at DePaul University in July of 2003, and named Vice President in April of 2004, after having served as a faculty member since 1999. He offers strategic vision to a staff of 116.  Prior to joining DePaul, Kellen was a principal with Blue Wolf, Inc., a company focused on wireless and CRM strategies. Prior to that, Kellen held two positions with Scient, an e-commerce technology consulting firm.  Kellen is a former partner and CRM practice leader at marchFIRST. A national and international speaker on CRM, the Internet and technology issues, Kellen has authored four books on database technology. He became a member of the DePaul community as a student, earning a bachelor’s degree in communication in 1983 and a master’s in e-commerce technology in 2003. He returned to DePaul  as a part-time faculty member in 1999 and full-time in 2003, sharing both faculty and administrative duties.  In addition to his role as vice president, Kellen currently is an adjunct faculty member in DePaul’s master of science in E-Commerce program. He also lectures in DePaul’s Web Commerce program.  He has taught in numerous areas including e-CRM and online marketing, advanced Web information systems, data warehousing and data mining.

Don Kinney
Don has spent over 13 years serving the CIO community, specializing in executive search within the information technology sector.  He began his career in 1992 with a national executive search firm in Chicago. As the Managing Director and Founder of the Information Technology Recruiting Practice, Don was instrumental in developing and managing the largest producing sector in the firm.  Don furthered his experience in technology service as a Management Consultant to a Top 5 International Consulting Organization. In 2000, Don founded a private search firm. Concurrently, Don was Co-founder and President of the Illinois CIO Exchange (ICE), an executive membership organization serving CIOs and IT Executive leadership in the state of Illinois. Don maintains a seat on the Board of Directors of ICE and is an active member of The Society for Information Management (SIM) and the Technology Leaders Association (TLA).  Through Don’s work in the local IT community, his goal is to build a powerful consortium of Illinois IT leaders, who can leverage each other’s networks, best practices, and general wisdom to advance their organizations and most importantly, their careers at the strategic/C-Level. Don earned a B.A. in Economics from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and resides in Chicago, IL with his wife and children.

David Klauser

Tom Lang
Tom Lang is Executive Director, Technology, at Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. and has contributed to the growth of Britannica's digital products since1998. Tom and his team are responsible for the evolution applications and digital products for Britannica's customers around the world. His mission is to ensure that multiple product channels and business applications will scale and integrate seamlessly whether online, client-server, shrink wrapped, or syndicated. Tom directs the systems that respond to the knowledge management demands of the enterprise and the information needs of Britannica's reference and education customers.
Prior to joining Britannica, Tom developed varied business systems for the International Division of Trans Union LLC and for Point Of Sale of Sears Roebuck. Throughout a 15 year career in IT, Tom has taken the lead in business analysis, application development, standards definitions, and team growth and leadership.

Charlie Melidosian 
As VP and CIO of the nation's oldest and most progressive real estate brokerage, Mr. Melidosian heads both the firm’s Information Technology and the e-Business areas. In a unique marriage of marketing and information technology, he has implemented a suite of content-rich, consumer-centric web sites that employ the latest technology to totally empower clients to conduct their real estate research online. Mr. Melidosian speaks nationally on the topics of Real Estate Internet Lead management, Best Practices in the Real Estate industry and Technology Tools for Realtors. Mr. Melidosian sits on the Board of Directors for the Association for Information Technology Professionals, the National Association of REALTORs and the Multiple Listing Service of Northern Illinois. Charlie was born and resides in Park Ridge, Illinois with wife, Susan, two daughters and son.   He earned his B.S. degree in Communications from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Chuck Oler
Chuck Oler is SVP and CIO of Tuthill Corporation, a $500M “lean” manufacturer of industrial equipment headquartered in Burr Ridge, IL. He is responsible for leading a talented team of IT professionals in support of 25 locations in 9 countries worldwide. Current projects include an enterprise rollout of Cognos ReportNet, Business Process Improvement using SAP R/3, a pilot SFA project, and an enterprise wide deployment of VoIP technology. Future strategies include deployment of MYSAP ERP as Tuthill strives to be the supplier of choice for its customers.  Prior to joining Tuthill in 1999, Chuck was the CIO at Stella Foods and at Marks Brothers Jewelers, and a System Development Manager at Kraft Foodservice. Chuck is a Maryland native and attended the University of Maryland where he received a Bachelor of Architecture degree. He and his wife, Debbie, live in Lincolnshire, Illinois. They have two daughters and a German shepherd.

Sheleen Quish
Sheleen Quish is the former VP & CIO for US Can Corporation. There, she was responsible for the global infrastructure, three data centers and a wide variety of applications to support the $750 million company in 24 locations in six countries. Ms. Quish's background is unique in the CIO world. She has 20 years of Marketing and Operations experience in healthcare and insurance. In 1993, Ms. Quish assumed her first position in an IT role as a CIO. Over the last 13 years she has developed a set of IT management principles and techniques that support both the business objectives and create a viable environment in which IT professional can thrive. Some of the business systems solutions she has managed and led include: the development of a paperless claims filing solution in the health insurance industry that developed into a profit center offering services, hardware, and software; and major business systems integration in a national affinity marketing company delivered on time and on budget, avoiding a $1 million a month penalty. Sheleen is currently speaking, writing  and consulting as well as working with a number of IT managers as a coach.

Barry Robinson
Barry Robinson joined Trizec Properties in August 2000 in the position of Director, Information Technology Operations with over twenty years of experience in the Information Services/Systems/Technology industry.  Prior to joining Trizec Barry led Y2K project initiatives for the global law firm Baker & McKenzie.  In addition to his responsibilities within Trizec Properties Barry has been an active participant in Chicago-area industry associations including the Society for Information Management (SIM) and the Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP).  In April 2005 Barry was named one of the top 25 CTO’s of 2005 by InfoWorld for his work within Trizec.  To support distribution of information for Trizec's national security program and other national programs Barry developed a strategic vision for a Trizec corporate Intranet. Barry worked for two years to build the necessary executive level support, design,  implementation and support teams for the successful introduction of the MyTrizec Intranet in mid-2004.