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Biographies
Mehdi Aftahi is TEC's chief engineer. His development work on ERGO™, eBestMatch™, WebTESS™, and TESS™ has made TEC's decision support systems (DSS) world-class. Aftahi is an expert in the area of matching customer criteria to software capabilities. He is an industry leader in the field of decision-making processes, and has assessed the requirements of IT decision makers, software vendors, consultants, and governments.
Aftahi handles guidance programs for over twenty software companies, including SAP, QAD, SSA Global, and IFS, and has built business-to-business (B2B) integration tools for Accenture, while also training companies such as Deloitte on how to use TEC's tools.
Aftahi is a graduate of the Middle East Technical University in Ankara (Turkey) and holds an MEng in electrical engineering.
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Josh Chalifour is TEC's Director, Knowledge Services and Internet Publishing. He is responsible for the development, management, and publication of Technology Evaluation Centers' research content. Chalifour writes articles, analyses, and research for TEC's free and open source software space. He coordinates with analysts, industry experts, vendors, consultants, and project leaders to develop and maintain TEC's knowledge bases on enterprise software. Chalifour has managed or assisted numerous software selection and implementation projects.
Prior to working for TEC, he was a member of Intraware's Compariscope software analysis arm, where he researched corporate technology information and trends, designed and set up test environments, and was responsible for coordinating and developing web content (enterprise software research, analyses, case studies, and white papers). Chalifour has also held positions as a system administrator responsible for a wide area network (WAN) spanning five cities, with several hundred computers; and as a telecommunications programmer, in which he was certified for AT&T PBX administration.
He graduated with a BA in philosophy from the University of California at Berkeley (US).
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Sherry Fox is a TEC research analyst with over 20 years of experience in the private sector. Before joining TEC, Fox spent five years as vendor compliance administrator for a large Canadian clothing retail chain. She helped create and manage the department and provide support regarding policies and procedures to vendors all over the world. Fox also helped develop various programs relating to environmental and human rights issues within the apparel industry, and participated in conferences on the subjects of sustainability and climate change.
Fox has been involved with several software implementation projects during her years in the retail industry. From deploying payroll software to integrating a benefits module, she was actively involved in all phases of these implementations.
A proficient writer of articles, online content, guides, and manuals, Fox has comprehensive knowledge in the areas of retail, manufacturing, compliance, and technology. She also has in-depth management experience with various enterprise segments, including payroll, human resources, logistics, and compliance.
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Jorge García is TEC's BI research analyst. He has over 14 years of experience in all phases of application development and database design, as well as 7 years in project management. Prior to joining TEC, Jorge was a project leader and senior analyst developing applications for Oracle, Business Objects, and data integration. As TEC's research analyst, García is also responsible for the business performance management (BPM) knowledge base.
García has been involved in training, consulting, and project management for applications development. He has also worked on projects related to the implementation of BI solutions for the private sector, including the banking and services sectors. García also has experience in technical training and English-Spanish translation.
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Gabriel Gheorghiu is an ERP research analyst with more than five years of experience with ERP systems in Europe and Canada. He was involved in the selection process for a dealer management system (ERP for the automotive industry) for the largest car manufacturer in Romania. Prior to joining TEC, Gabriel was an ERP consultant and corporate trainer for a Montreal, Quebec (Canada)-based ERP vendor for the apparel industry.
Gabriel holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest (Romania), and a master's degree in territorial project management from Paris XII Val de Marne, along with an attestation d'études collégiales (AEC) in Oracle Administration at Herzing College, in Montreal.
He has been involved in training, consulting, and project management in several fields, including transportation/logistics, insurance, car and spare parts manufacturing and distribution, apparel manufacturing and distribution, and real estate.
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Predrag (PJ) Jakovljevic is TEC's principal analyst, with a focus on the enterprise applications market. He has nearly twenty years of industrial experience within the discrete manufacturing sector, including the machinery and equipment, automotive, construction and engineering, and electronics industries.
Prior to joining TEC, Jakovljevic was a senior consultant in the package-based solutions (PBS) group of CAP Gemini in Houston, Texas (United States), with Baan Manufacturing and Logistics modules as his main field of expertise. At CAP Gemini, Jakovljevic was involved in system demonstrations, software gap analysis for prospective clients, and Baan implementation assignments.
Prior to joining CAP Gemini, Jakovljevic was employed as a senior consultant for Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group in Johannesburg (South Africa), where he specialized in Baan Manufacturing and Logistics modules, and engaged in the processes of enterprise resource planning (ERP) package selections, as well as in proposal preparation. Jakovljevic participated as a team lead for manufacturing, and for service and maintenance package system integration. He has also served as a consultant for a Baan implementation of manufacturing modules at a manufacturer of special electronics systems. The following services were provided during the period of implementation: business requirements definition and software gap analysis, business process mapping to software functionality, software configuration and parameter setup, and key user training.
Jakovljevic holds a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Belgrade in Serbia (the former Yugoslavia). He has also been certified in production and inventory management (CPIM) and integrated resources management (CIRM), and is an Association for Operations Management (APICS)-certified supply chain professional (CSCP).
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Khudsiya Quadri brings more than 10 years of industry experience to her role as a supply chain management (SCM) research analyst at Technology Evaluation Centers. Khudsiya is responsible for researching new emerging technologies in the SCM arena. Prior to joining TEC, Khudsiya was a senior business analyst with top original equipment manufacturer (OEM) Celestica. She led Celestica's global supply chain team to the delivery of multiple projects on time for a variety of customer bases. Khudsiya has a genuine talent for identifying supplier and company needs to achieve profitable, long-term win-win solutions. Khudsiya holds a B.Eng in industrial technology from Bemidji State University (Minnesota, US) and a sales and distribution (SD) professional consultant certification from SAP
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Aleksey Osintsev is a research analyst at TEC focusing on the areas of ERP, accounting, and finance, as well as retail solutions. He has over 17 years of experience in private sector IT from both the application user and the corporate software development sides.
Prior to joining TEC, Aleksey was a project manager and CIO at a smart instrumentation engineering, manufacturing, and servicing company. He led the IT department and was responsible for business systems, including ERP selections, implementation projects, and business processes change management. More recently, Aleksey went through a number of successful ERP implementations, system upgrades, and business management projects as a project coordinator and consultant in the food processing, electronic manufacturing, and apparel industries.
Aleksey earned his master's degree in industrial engineering and business administration at South Ural State Technical University (Russia).
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Yu (Kurt) Chen is a TEC research analyst with over 10 years of experience in IT strategy consulting and project management. With extensive experience in planning and realizing enterprise information systems, Kurt conducts software research oriented toward both business needs and market trends.
Before joining TEC, Kurt was a cofounder of a leading product lifecycle management (PLM) developer in China. As one of the early PLM advocators in China, Kurt contributed toward Chinese industry standards for enterprise information system implementations. More recently, as a consultant for a global manufacturer, Kurt was responsible for identifying issues and recommendations related to the management of environmental issues, which he sees as a key element to both manufacturing and IT governance best practices.
Kurt earned his MBA from HEC Montreal (Quebec, Canada), with a concentration in IT management. He is also an SAP-certified consultant.
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Mohammad Esmaeil Mansour is the senior project consultant for TEC's major projects in the Middle East.
Prior to his graduation, Mansour was hired by Invera Inc. to work in the research and development (R&D) department in Montreal. Among his many tasks, he worked in programming and as a senior report writer. He was involved in creating report designs and development standards that were followed by all subsequent developers. Mansour also trained recruits who joined the development team.
After gaining experience in the IT field, Mansour joined the Alexander Group Inc. in the United States as a consultant, and successfully completed a number of projects in different parts of the US prior to joining TEC.
Mansour graduated from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec (Canada) with a BS in computer science.
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Denis Rousseau is the manager for project delivery and project management consultant for TEC's major projects.
Rousseau is a multilingual, planning and project management consultant with extensive international experience. Over the past twenty-five years, he has used planning, project management, and group dynamics to define project start-ups and to troubleshoot difficult situations in order to put projects back on track.
Rousseau is the former senior project management consultant for CANARAIL and Canadian Pacific Consulting Services, two internationally recognized railway consulting firms. In a similar position for Canadian Pacific Limited, the parent company of CP Rail, his experience has covered a wide variety of projects.
He holds a BS in Psychology from l'Université de Montréal in Quebec (Canada), and was educated in Mexico, Lebanon, Argentina, Canada, and France.
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Nasser Tehrani is TEC's training specialist, and is responsible for preparing a variety of training materials for both internal and external purposes, and for carrying out selection project delivery activities. Tehrani has worked on numerous key projects involving business process management (BPM), learning management system (LMS), and enterprise resource planning (ERP).
Tehrani has more than ten years of experience in teaching and in leading seminars at the university and college levels, while performing IT duties as Director for NEFF, a German kitchen appliance manufacturer.
Before joining TEC, Tehrani was Director of the IT faculty at Vienna's Academy College in Montréal.
Tehrani earned a BEng and MEng in electrical engineering from Concordia University in Montréal, Quebec (Canada).
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Sadat Zaman is TEC's consultant for special projects. Zaman works within TEC's consulting team to provide assistance to clients and manage their selection projects. He also advises TEC users on best practices for enterprise software selection, and has worked on several large projects for business intelligence (BI), enterprise content management (ECM), and enterprise resource planning (ERP).
TEC partners he has worked with include Grant Thornton, Alvarez & Marsal, and Tatum. Zaman helped support and advise them throughout their evaluation and selection processes. He has also managed software selection projects for TEC clients, including both governmental and private organizations. His activities with TEC clients range from business process modeling to final vendor selection, covering the complete lifecycle of enterprise software selection.
Zaman earned his BEng and MEng in electrical engineering from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec (Canada). He also completed a Project Management Institute (PMI) Certification Project Management course from McGill University.
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Jalal Mousavi is TEC's ERP selection project manager. He has worked on many evaluation and selection projects with TEC, as well as delivering such additional advisory services as subject-matter expert (SME) interviews and contract/price negotiations.
Mousavi has spent the last three years monitoring selection and implementation projects, including the following deliverables:
- full business process modeling and mapping of existing processes to ERP functional requirements
- creation of technical requests for information (RFIs) and requests for proposals (RFPs)
- organization of vendor site visits and scripted scenario demonstrations
- organization of bidding process
- contract negotiations with winning vendors
Prior to joining TEC, Mousavi worked as a software developer for CAE Inc., where he participated in the development of a digital control system for the navies of the US and the Netherlands. He also trained clients to become self-sufficient on these systems.
Jalal received his bachelor of engineering (computer engineering) from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec (Canada). He later went on to MBA studies at the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University.
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Russell Cooper is TEC's business intelligence (BI) analyst. He has over 15 years of experience in the enterprise software industry, and has a keen interest in how organizations maximize the value of their existing data. During his career, Cooper has worked exclusively for companies that have built their businesses around the storage, movement, and retrieval of data—from electronic data interchange (EDI) to BI, from fourth generation language (4GL) application development to geographic information systems (GISs). This experience has afforded Cooper a broad perspective on data and data management.
Now based in Ireland, Cooper has worked in the UK, Australia, Japan, Canada, South Africa, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the US. His consulting business focuses on helping organizations to understand their technical strengths and differentiators, and to articulate these to prospective customers. For more information, check out www.cherryconsulting.ie.
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Bruce Culbert has over twenty years of experience leading groundbreaking IT solutions and launching new business initiatives for companies, including IBM, BearingPoint, KPMG, and salesforce.com. He is a founding principal and managing director of BPT Partners, a research, training, and education company located in Smyrna, Georgia (US) that focuses on advancing the skills and competency of professionals in the customer relationship management (CRM) industry.
Culbert regularly speaks at industry, customer, and partner events, and currently serves on the board of directors at some of the fastest growing companies in the United States. His articles and commentary appear in leading magazines and periodicals, including the Wall Street Journal, Supply Chain Management Review, Business to Business, VAR Magazine, CRM Magazine, the Atlanta Business Chronicle, Information Week, and others.
Culbert currently serves on the board of directors at Salesnet, a leading provider of on demand sales solutions. He is also a director on the board of the CRM Association and a member of the board of advisors at the Rutgers University CRM Research Center.
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Paul Greenberg is an internationally renowned expert on customer relationship management (CRM), and one of CRM's most influential authors. His best-selling book, CRM at the Speed of Light: Essential Customer Strategies for the 21st Century, is now available in eight languages, and is used as a university textbook in over sixty countries across multiple continents.
Greenberg has years of experience with both CRM and enterprise resource planning (ERP). He has built SAP and People Soft practices, and has deep ties with the CRM and enterprise applications communities. He regularly writes for publications such as CRM Magazine, SearchCRM.com, and CRMGuru. He is a contributor to several other national business magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times, where he is quoted as a subject matter expert. Greenberg is considered one of CRM's leading authorities on strategy and the state of the market. He is a keynote speaker at conferences and seminars in the United States, and across Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Greenberg is the co-chairman of the CRM Research Center at Rutgers University, and is executive vice president of the CRM Association. In addition, he is a member of the board of advisors of Baylor University's MBA CRM Program, Destination CRM Board of Experts, SearchCRM Expert Advisory Panel, and the CRMGuru Expert Guru Panel, among many others.
Greenberg is a founding principal and executive director of BPT Partners, a training and education company located in Smyrna, Georgia (US) that focuses on advancing the skills and competency of professionals in the CRM industry. He is also president of the 56 Group, an enterprise applications consulting services firm focused on CRM strategic services. Greenberg was the executive vice president of Live Wire, Inc., a Massachusetts (US)-based enterprise applications staff augmentation company. Before that, he was vice president of marketing for Atlantic Duncans International (now Optimos), where he was responsible for developing and securing strategic relationships with critical vendors and partners. In addition, Greenberg was the director of strategic relations for Nexgen Solutions, Inc., where he was directly responsible for generating business development, working with Fortune 500 clientele.
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Bob Hartmann has over twenty-five years of extensive domestic and international experience in the selection and implementation of operational system support (OSS) and billing support system (BSS) layer software systems, with emphasis on customer care and billing (CC&B) systems. In the roles of operations manager, consultant, and project manager, he has assisted in developing CC&B requests for proposals (RFPs), evaluating vendor responses, and using and implementing CC&B systems. He has expertise in provisioning, mediation, financials, call centers, data warehousing, and data mining. He has also been an operations manager in the daily operation of CC&B systems.
Hartmann has worked with clients in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Mexico, and Brazil.
Hartmann received both his BBA and an MBA in international finance from Western New England College in Springfield, Massachusetts (US).
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A.B. Maynard has over twenty years of experience in the technology industry, focusing on management consulting and application software. He has executive leadership experience in the software industry, Big 4 consulting, and Fortune 1000 industrial companies, where he gained extensive experience in outsourcing, IT services, enterprise software solutions, and performance metrics.
In addition to directing client outsourcing sites, he has managed offshore outsourcing vendor selection, implementation, and program management projects. Maynard currently serves as the outsourcing analyst for TEC, and is president of Agilocity Consulting, a firm dedicated to helping companies improve their performance and profitability through technology and outsourcing.
Maynard has an MBA from Villanova University in Radnor Township, Pennsylvania (US), and a BE in industrial engineering from Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia (US). He has been production and inventory management (CPIM) certified by the American Production and Inventory Control Society (APICS).
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Don McIntosh has been involved with the development and management of learning for more than thirty years, with e-learning for more than twenty years, and with the evaluation of learning technologies for more than ten years. McIntosh is TEC's analyst responsible for learning management applications, and is president of the consulting firm Trimeritus eLearning Solutions Inc.
From 1972 to 1995 at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario (Canada), McIntosh was engaged in course development in various media including film, audio, video, and computer-based instruction. He served as director of teaching support services from 1990 to 1994, and from 1995 to 1997, McIntosh served as a director and consultant to the Delta Centre for Learning Technologies, where he evaluated current learning technologies. In 1997, he joined BC TEL (now TELUS) as manager of the design team for learning services, where his primary mandate was the implementation of online training. McIntosh is currently a member of the International Society for Performance Improvement and New Media BC, and is a founding member of eLearning BC, a marketing alliance of more than forty e-learning companies in British Columbia.
McIntosh obtained a BS in mathematics and physics from the University of Toronto in Ontario (Canada), an MS in television and radio, and a PhD in instructional technology from Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York (US).
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