Ralph J. Szygenda was named GM group vice-president and chief information officer effective January 7, 2000. He is a member of the company's senior most management committee, GM's Automotive Strategy Board and is responsible for the Information Systems & Services organization. Accountable for the management of all information technology efforts within General Motors, he is directly responsible for developing and implementing GM's global digital business strategy. Szygenda is a member of the board of directors of the Handleman Company, a distribution company of music and video entertainment. He joined GM in 1996 as vice president and chief information officer.

Before joining GM, he was vice president and chief information officer at Bell Atlantic Corporation, in Arlington, Virginia, a position he held since June 1993. His main initiatives involved reengineering Bell Atlantic's business processes and delivering information systems to meet the new electronic generation. Szygenda also served as a member of the board of directors of Sodalia Corporation, a joint software business venture of Bell Atlantic and Telecom Italia.

Prior to Bell Atlantic, Szygenda spent 21 years with Texas Instruments Incorporated. In 1989, he was appointed vice president, information systems and services, and chief information officer. In 1991, he also added the responsibility of vice president and general manager of Texas Instruments Enterprise Systems Business Unit, an external software systems integration business supplying information products and services to the Fortune 500.

Szygenda has been active with various education, business, civic and charitable organizations throughout his career. At present, he is a member of the dean's advisory council for Carnegie Mellon's H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, the Information Management Advisory Council of the Business School at the University of Texas, Austin and the Wayne State University Office of Development Campaign Steering Committee He also serves as a member of The Research Board and InformationWeek magazine's editorial board.

Widely recognized for his business and technology leadership, Szygenda has received awards that include Industry Week's 2001 Technology Leader of the Year, InformationWeek's 2002 Chief of the Year, and CIO Magazine's 20/20 Vision Award in 2002, recognizing his contributions in driving the information age. In 2003, he was inducted into the CRN Computer Industry Hall of Fame; in 2005, he received the Computerworld Honors Program Leadership Award; in 2006, he received the Automotive News Industry All Star Award and, in 2007, was inducted into CIO Magazine’s CIO Hall of Fame.

Szygenda received a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from the University of Missouri-Rolla in 1970 and earned a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Texas in 1975. He is also the recipient of an honorary professional degree and honorary doctorate degree in engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla. Szygenda was born on September 6, 1948, in McKeesport, Pennsylvania.

Opening keynote will feature one of the most recognized CIOs who has led major outsourcing initiatives that have fundamentally reshaped organizations. Today outsourcing is seen not only as a strategic instrument for change but also as a lever that can shape an organization’s business strategy. The keynote session will lay a vision for forward thinking firms that wish to adapt to changing economic and business trends by leveraging the power of outsourcing. Drawing from first hand experience at GM, he will provide insights into decision levers, key drivers, innovative techniques and operating strategies that have been behind the company’s strides in recent times.

Olle Jonsson is responsible for IT within SKF, focusing on delivering business value with IT as an important enabler. The case at SKF is to capitalize on the next generation outsourcing (cost efficiency, higher quality and more flexibility) and at the same time strengthen the customer market initiative.

SKF as a company has started an important transformation - from a manufacturing company to a future knowledge company.

Some of the topics that Mr Jonsson has been focusing on this last year are mergers and acquisitions, IT Governance, mobilization/preparations for a concept called the "one face to the customer approach". The CEO-CIO interaction has also been a very important and successful topic.

Before Mr Jonsson joined SKF he worked as a CIO for an international life science company within the private equity environment, for 4 years. Prior to that, as a consultant within the PriceWaterhouseCoopers Management Consultancy, with business unit responsibility (ERP) with a staff of more than 50 consultants. He has also been working as a financial/accounting manager for a Swedish company within utility.

Mr Jonsson has broad international experience of information technology, business administration and of HR related questions. With almost 20 years of experience within the IT area he is also a popular and well established speaker within EMEA, especially in the Nordic countries.

In today’s global economy it is vitally important to have an equally global and agile IT environment that is independent of geographic and technological constraints and yet closely fused together to provide seamless interactivity across dispersed operations and markets. A leading CIO shares the important steps to build a roadmap for a company’s Business and IT goals that move in tandem with the requirements of a global footprint. The key issues covered would be:

• How can a CIO create a global IT operation to align with his organization’s globalization objectives?
• What key challenges are CIO’s facing today in running their IT?
• Is outsourcing a way to future-proof your global organization?
• CIO’s role in aligning IT and BPO initiatives within the company

A former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review, Nicholas Carr writes and speaks on technology, business, and culture. His intriguing 2003 Harvard Business Review article "IT Doesn't Matter," was an instant sensation, setting the stage for the global debate on the strategic value of information technology in business. His 2004 book, Does IT Matter?: Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage, published by Harvard Business School Press, was a bestseller and kept the worldwide business community discussing the role of computers and IT in business. His new 2008 book, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google, examines the future of computing and its implications for business and society. The Wall Street Journal says The Big Switch is "destined to influence CEOs and the boards and investors that support them as companies grapple with the constant change of the digital age."

In Spring 2008 CIO Insight named Carr's Does IT Matter? book one of the all-time "Top 15 Most Groundbreaking Management Books" and Ziff Davis included him as one of only a handful of IT management thought leaders on their "100 Most Influential People in IT" list.

A prolific business thinker, Carr has written more than a dozen other articles and interviews for Harvard Business Review and writes regularly for the Financial Times, Strategy & Business and The Guardian. His articles have also appeared in the New York Times, MIT Sloan Management Review, Wired, Business 2.0, Boston Globe, Industry Standard, The Banker, Director, BusinessWeek Online as well as in his blog, Rough Type. He also edited The Digital Enterprise, a book of HBR writings on the Internet. Carr is a member of the Encyclopaedia Britannica's editorial board of advisors.

Carr has served as a commentator on CNBC, CNN, and other networks and has been a featured speaker worldwide at industry, educational, and government forums. In 2005, Optimize magazine named Carr one of the leading thinkers on information technology, and in 2007 eWeek named him one of the 100 most influential people in IT.

Earlier in his career, Carr was a principal at Mercer Management Consulting. He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.A., in English literature, from Harvard University.

A hundred years ago, the rise of the electric utility changed business forever. Today, we’re in the midst of a similar transformation. This time, it’s computing that’s turning into a utility, supplied through the global grid of the Internet. Nicholas Carr will describe the economic and technological forces driving the rise of "cloud computing" and discuss the strategic implications for outsourcing and business strategy. This keynote by Nicholas Carr will not only discuss the concepts mentioned in his latest book, it will also be an eye opener for everybody from the management to the stakeholders to better understand the interactions between technology and organizational dynamics. This insightful and thought provoking keynote will bring a different perspective on how technology is shaping the future of organizations and how it could be effectively harnessed to deliver positive results in a holistic way.

Steven J. Bandrowczak is chief information officer (CIO) for Nortel.

Bandrowczak is responsible for Nortel's information technology strategy and operations, leading the Information Services group, and overseeing Nortel's internal network infrastructure, business applications and data security.

Bandrowczak will lead Nortel's IT department, leveraging the breadth of the Company's own technology and networking capabilities to transform business networks, remove barriers to efficiency, productivity and growth and create opportunities for new revenues and services.

Prior to joining Nortel, Bandrowczak served as CIO for Lenovo Group, a global producer of PC products and value-added professional services. At Lenovo, he helped lead the company through the initial stages of its $11 billon IBM spin-off in 2005, enacting a 24-month plan to build the company's IT infrastructure. His experience also includes serving as executive vice president and worldwide CIO for DHL Worldwide, a global market leader in the international express and logistics industry. Previously, he spent 14 years with Avnet in a variety of IT roles, culminating as CIO for the electronics distributor.

In 2004, Bandrowczak was named one of the Top 100 CIO's by Computerworld. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Long Island University, C.W. Post and is based at Nortel's New York office.

Globalization is now an imminent reality and companies that succeed have been able to tame this dragon by developing strategies to tap markets and resources globally. Outsourcing can be an effective tool for harnessing globalization, but most organizations are unprepared for the critical question - Is your outsourcing strategy facilitating this change, or is it the ball and chain preventing you from being globally competitive? This session will examine the need for having a globalization roadmap and recommend ways to align outsourcing with organizational goals to achieve sustainable growth. Hear from someone who has seen the ups and downs of globalization and successfully straddled the divide to reap the benefits. This closing keynote will provide strategies and lessons learned backed by specific examples from a CIO who has led the IT strategy of several Fortune 500 firms.