SPEAKER BIO

John Chapman
Editorial Director
IT Europa

John has been in the IT industry for 38 years. In his current position, John oversees the editorial content and provides feature articles for Channel Business Solutions, 8020 EUROPA and the IT Europa Newsletter.

John’s breadth and depth of knowledge on the IT market has enabled him to chair strategy meetings within major IT companies, provide consultancy services to other IT organizations and made him a popular industry speaker providing keynote and seminar presentations to all types of audiences. Over the last seven years he has also written for and edited Channel Business Solutions, the influential IT channel based publication.

Over the course of his 35 years John has held director level roles within manufacturers, distributors, service providers and the reseller channel. Over this period John has been responsible for launching some of today’s major IT brands in the UK as well as introducing many new technologies, which are now at the heart of IT infrastructure used daily by businesses.

During the 1990s John was Managing Director of IT distribution, IT services and solution provider organizations. He has a successful track record of starting up or turning around these organizations and then taking them through to merger or acquisition stage.

Colleen Smith
Director, Software as a Service
Progress Software

Colleen joined Progress Software in 2005 as Director, Software as a Service bringing with her 20 years of software and technology experience. In this role, she works on developing new business opportunities for Progress around the Company’s Software as a Service business initiative.

Prior to joining Progress, Colleen was Senior Vice President of Marketing at Bristol Technology, responsible for the company's marketing, strategy and business development operations, worldwide. Prior to joining Bristol, she was Vice President and General Manager of the Business Process and Technology Practices at AMR Research, a provider of independent analysis and actionable advice to more than 5,000 supply chain and technology executives worldwide. Previously in her career, she held the role of Vice President of Research & Development at Geac Computer Systems, and held other sales and marketing roles at D&B Software/M&D.

Colleen holds a bachelor's degree in Business and Computer Information Systems from Stonehill College, and an MBA from Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts. She has published many research articles on technology best practices and is a frequent guest speaker at Industry events. Her current area of focus/expertise is on Software as a Service (SaaS)—the growth opportunities and technology challenges associated with this new business model.