John Aiello
Co-Founder and CEO of SAVO Group

Dave Carlquist
Vice President, IBM, Americas

Kevin Dahill
Principal, Phoenix Management Partners

Fred Hoch
President, Illinois Technology Association

Bill Merchantz
Founder, Lakeview Technology

Jack Noonan
President and CEO, SPSS Inc.

John Aiello, Co-Founder and CEO of SAVO Group

Aiello oversees marketing, sales and operations at SAVO and is the firm’s chief evangelist for the concept of marketing and sales collaboration around revenue generation. SAVO is a private equity back software-as-a-service firm. Throughout his career, John has brought his distinct passion for market-driven, results-oriented solutions to marketing and sales challenges for a wide range of organizations, from startup to Fortune 500, not-for-profit to publicly-traded. John holds a BA from the University of Illinois and an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School, and is a frequent speaker for the Strategic Account Management Association and American Marketing Association.

Dave Carlquist, Vice President, IBM, Americas

Carlquist is responsible for sales and support of all IBM products and services in the 14 state central region, and is responsible for the region's overall success. This includes 13,000 employees, revenue growth, market share expansion and profit for the $8 billion region. Before assuming his current position in December 2004, he was vice president, Global Emerging and Competitive Markets beginning in September 1999. In that role, Dave had worldwide responsibility for IBM's sales, marketing and business development of high growth, emerging markets in small and mid-sized enterprises.

Kevin Dahill, Principal, Phoenix Management Partners

Dahill has been the responsible CFO for three Initial Public Offerings: Mobius in 1998; EIS International, Inc., a systems provider to call centers, in 1993; and Iomega Corporation, a removable storage manufacturer, in 1983. Dahill is a Principal of Phoenix Management Partners, a company that evaluates, acquires and manages venture capital investment portfolios originally made by others. Prior to co-founding Phoenix, Mr. Dahill was Vice President of Content Operations for divine, Incorporated, having joined divine when SageMaker Incorporated, a content delivery and management start-up, was acquired by divine in March of 2001. Prior to divine, Mr. Dahill was Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer at Mobius Management Systems, Inc. a total content management software provider.

Fred Hoch, President, Illinois Technology Association

Hoch works regularly with FastRoot CEO Howerton, who was the founding Chairman of the ITA. ITA has now grown to the largest trade association for technology companies in the Midwest, with more than 450 member companies. Mr. Hoch is an industry expert on the business models of the software industry and in particular Software-as-a-Service, having first coined the term and identifying the trend. Prior to his current position, Mr. Hoch was the Vice President of Software Programs at the national Software & Information Industry Association, and worked extensively with the senior management team of leading software companies throughout the country.

Bill Merchantz, Founder, Lakeview Technology

Merchantz recently sold his privately held Lakeview Technology to private equity and retired as CEO. Merchantz founded Lakeview in 1990 to focus on advanced solutions for continuous data and application availability. Prior to Lakeview, Merchantz co-founded Whittman-Hart, a Chicago-based information technology services consultants, and led the company for seven years through growth to a 200-person consultancy.

Jack Noonan, President and CEO, SPSS Inc.

Noonan leads SPSS (NasdaqGS: SPSS), the $550m software company and leading provider of analytical software and services. Since joining the company in 1992, Noonan's technological vision and direction have taken the company from a small, start-up entrepreneurial organization, with a single product offering, to an intelligent, business-minded public company with over 40 product offerings. Noonan's strategy of combining internal development with acquisitions is instrumental in the company's growth.