Past Speakers for July-August 2013

JULY 03	Open Mic
	Testimonies by luncheon attendees.

JULY 10	Will Gifford
	Teacher and Coach, Lambert High School.
	Will graduated from Presbyterian College in 2005 with a degree in Social Studies education. While attending Presbyterian College, he was a member of the men's soccer team. After graduation, Will accepted a job at Shiloh High School teaching social studies and assisting with men's soccer. He has spent the last eight years teaching social studies and coaching soccer, including time at Parkview High School in Gwinnett County, and Lambert High School in Forsyth County. He and his wife, Rebekah, have two children and are expecting their third child in November.

JULY 17	Dan Brown,
	Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President, CredAbility.
	Dan provides direction and leadership to the technology functions and leading the digital strategy group for the Agency. CredAbility, formerly Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Greater Atlanta, is a national leader in nonprofit credit counseling serving as a trusted advisor helping people resolve financial challenges and build economic security for themselves and their families. Prior to joining CredAbility, Dan served as the CIO for Crown Financial Ministries and prior to Crown, he was Senior Vice President of Enterprise Information Technology at SunTrust Bank, a Fortune 100 company and seventh largest bank in the United States. Dan holds a BA degree from Covenant College in Psychology and an MBA in Finance and International Business from Georgia State University.

JULY 24	Doug Grady,
	President of High Achievers,
	and owner of three additional companies. He is an entrepreneur, musician, and author of The Ripple Effect. Doug has been studying and teaching the pathways to personal potential for over 20 years. Exciting, entertaining and enlightening are words invariably used to describe his unique seminars and workshops. His companies, writings, trainings, and music are designed with one purpose: to help people reach their God-given potential. Doug gives a significant portion of his time and money to local and global causes and has been on several mission trips, most recently to Guayaquil, Ecuador, where he was part of a 12-man team building homes for the poor.

JULY 31	Oleg Sinitsin,
	Principal, Red Square Biz Partners, LLC.
	As the Founder and Principal Consultant, Oleg provides professional services to corporate clients in the areas of agile software development, information security, project and vendor management, compliance, and mergers and acquisitions. Before starting his consulting practice, Oleg facilitated the corporate Identity Management program at Equifax focusing on global transformation of user access management across the company. Prior to Equifax, he was a Manager at KPMB, LLP, where he executed numerous risk advisory projects for companies including AT&T, MCI, Bank of America, and GE. Oleg has a Master's degree in Computer Science from Auburn University, his Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Bryan College, and an MBA from the University of Finance and Economics in St. Petersburg, Russia.

AUG 07	Open Mic
	Testimonies by luncheon attendees.

AUG 14	Brian Crow,
	CEO and Co-Founder of Verdeeco,
	a high-tech start up based in Atlanta focused on providing analytic and big data solutions to the utility industry. Verdeeco was one of the first regionally syndicated angel investments securing investment from Atlanta Technology Angels, Upper Carolina Angel Network and the Auburn Angel Network. Brian is an 18-year utility industry veteran, and prior to joining Verdeeco, he worked for the SAS National Utility Practice where he focused on providing utilities with analytic products such as load forecasting and energy trading risk measurement. Brian is a licensed Professional Engineer and received his BSAE degree from the University of Georgia.

AUG 21	Seth Ryan,
	Partner, IT Consulting & Operations, eHire Labs.
	Seth is a founding partner of eHire and eHire Labs. He is responsible for the management and oversight of eHire's technology services practice and for development, architecture and delivery of critical technology solutions for eHire Labs' customers. Seth has a background in both technology and business development roles. Prior to eHire, he held a range of business development and sales positions at companies like Novell, Red Hat, OpenSpan and JBoss. He performed in the top 5% of all business development resources in each company while also winning Top Sales Executive award twice. Seth is a graduate of the University of Virginia where he earned both Bachelor's and Master's degrees, the latter in Management Information Systems.

AUG 28	Woody Long, Sr.
	Director, Business Development, Qualcomm.
	Woody joined Qualcomm in 2006 through their acquisition of Firethorn Mobile where he was responsible for Firethorn's carrier strategic account management and was instrumental in the overall implementation of Firethorn's mobile banking product. Woody developed strategic partner relations including AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless and Sprint. He was also responsible for marketing their new mobile application, SWAGG, and maintaining business development efforts with key partners such as Apple and Google. Woody has over 17 years of experience in executive sales and marketing working with successful technology start-ups and industry leading firms. He is a graduate of Citadel and holds an MBA from Georgia State.

SEPT 04	Open Mic
	Testimonies by luncheon attendees.