Molly Presley joined Quantum as Vice President, Global Marketing in September 2016. She has more than 15 years of enterprise storage experience, including 12 years as a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). From January 2014 to September 2016, she served as CMO and Executive Vice President of Global Marketing and Product Management at DataDirect Networks, a high performance computing (HPC) and data-intensive enterprise storage provider. Prior to that, Presley spent ten years as CMO and Executive Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and Product Management at Spectra Logic, an archive storage vendor. She also founded the Active Archive Alliance, an industry coalition formed to educate end users on the evolving new technologies that enable reliable, online and efficient access to archived data.

Christine is an independent marketing writer and journalist focused on the business of data storage. She started out as an IT systems administrator for Avery Dennison, moved from there to being editor-in-chief at two technology magazines, and worked as an analyst for Taneja Group for 10 years. Today she writes content for publications and technology clients. She is particularly passionate about the explosive potential of B2B storytelling.

Dr. France is Chief of the Preservation Research and Testing Division at the Library of Congress researching non-destructive imaging techniques, and prevention of environmental degradation to collections. Her current focus is the development of spectral imaging and image processing techniques, and increasing links and access between scientific and scholarly data, developing and providing training workshops to preservation professionals. She received her Ph.D from Otago University, New Zealand. After lecturing at Otago, she was the research scientist for the Star-Spangled Banner project at the Smithsonian Institution. An international specialist on polymer aging and environmental deterioration to cultural objects, she focuses on links between mechanical properties and chemical changes from environmental damage and treatment protocols. Dr. France has worked on projects including the World Trade Center Artifacts, Pre-Columbian mummies and textiles, the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, and lighting standards for the preservation of cultural heritage. With nearly three decades of experience, she serves on a range of standards and professional committees for cultural heritage preservation and maintains close links and collaborations with colleagues from academic, cultural, forensic and federal institutions. In February 2016 Dr. France was appointed the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Distinguished Presidential Fellow.

As a storage expert and director of global strategic alliances for HGST’s Datacenter business unit, Stefaan Vervaet heads up market development strategy in vertical markets such as Media & Entertainment, LifeSciences, Finance and horizontal enterprise workloads such as backup and archive. He also heads the partner ecosystem driving innovation and business growth for HGST’s scale-out cloud and storage solutions.

Stefaan brings 15 years of experience in the data storage and backup industry. As a business-focused technologist with an extensive start-up background, he brings a unique perspective to HGST. His background includes product management and go-to-market positions in the backup space (Veritas), as well as technical sales and support executive positions in the object storage world (AmpliData).

As an innovator with a proven track record, Stefaan successfully helped build startup companies like DataCenter Technologies, a dedupe technology (acquired by Veritas in 2005) and Amplidata, a leading object storage vendor (acquired by HGST in 2015, a Western Digital Company). Immediately before joining HGST, he established and built the US office running operations, technical sales and support world-wide.

Vervaet holds a master’s degree in Applied Informatics from the University of Ghent, Belgium and is currently based out of HGST’s San Jose headquarters.

Floyd Christofferson is the senior vice president of products at StrongBox Data Solutions (SBDS). As a professional involved in content management and storage workflows for more than 25 years, Christofferson has focused on methods and technologies needed to manage massive volumes of data across many different storage types and use cases.

Prior to joining SBDS, Christofferson worked with software and hardware companies in this space, including more than ten years at SGI, where he managed storage and data management products. In that role, he was part of the team that provided solutions used in some of the largest data environments around the world.

Christofferson’s background includes work at Viacom/CBS Television Distribution, where he helped implement file-based content management and syndicated content distribution implementation. He led the team at Pathfire (now ExtremeReach), that developed that platform, a satellite-based Internet Protocol-multicast platform to nearly 1,000 TV stations throughout the U.S., which was implemented by Viacom, WB, ABC, CNN, and multiple other studios and TV networks.

Earlier in his career he ran Potomac Television, a news syndication and production service in Washington DC, and Manhattan Center Studios, an audio, broadcast, and performance facility in New York.

Chris Powers is Vice President of Product Development for Hewlett Packard Enterprise storage division. Chris’ organization is responsible for development and delivery of the mission-critical tier 1 disk array and long-term retention product portfolios.

In his nearly 25 years of experience in the data storage industry, Chris has experience in a broad range of roles spanning finance, strategy development, operations, product development, product management and P&L responsibilities.  Chris’s experience has spanned across a broad range of technologies including disk and tape drives, high-end disk array, tape automation and library products.  Chris has extensive experience in successfully developing and managing complex global development and operational partnerships across the value chain.

Chris holds several technical undergraduate degrees in technology and business and has an MBA from the University of Arizona.

Chris is based in Ft. Collins, CO

Originally from Slovakia, Vladimir joined the CERN IT department in 2001 to work as a service manager for the scientific computing batch farm. Later, he moved into the storage group where he is now responsible for CERN’s data archive, the largest in the domain of High Energy Physics.
He closely collaborates with major tape vendors for beta-testing, commissioning and running their equipment at CERN.

James Cates is Senior Vice President at Oracle Corporation where he has responsibility for the Archive Development organization. His portfolio includes the SL8500, SL3000 and SL150 tape libraries, LTO and T10000 Enterprise tape drives, virtual tape disk products, encryption, Oracle HSM software, and DIVA software including the associated cloud offering. These storage offerings are deployed by customers for data protection and long term digital preservation in diverse areas including cloud, finance, media and entertainment, high performance computing and national libraries.

Previously at Sun Microsystems and StorageTek, James held various management and engineering positions in the storage development organizations. James has a M.S. degree and Ph.D. in physics from the University of Alabama. He holds 23 patents relating to data storage technology.

Jon Toigo is an outspoken technology consumer advocate and vendor watchdog whose articles, columns and blogs are enjoyed by over a million readers per month.  He is CEO and Managing Principal of Toigo Partners International LLC, an independent consultancy and technical research/analysis firm and Chairman of the Data Management Institute LLC, a professional development organization for those who design, plan, manage and administer storage infrastructure and data assets.  Toigo is a 30+ years IT veteran who has worked both as an operative and manager within corporate information systems departments and as a senior consultant with two international systems integrators.  He has supported the development of over 150 disaster recovery plans for a broad range of businesses and non-profit organizations.  He is also a prolific writer with 15 books (five covering disaster recovery planning) and thousands of articles in the technology trade press to his credit.  In 2014, Toigo introduced IT-SENSE.org, a quarterly web publication focused on common sense IT strategy to rave reviews.  The first issue focused on the renaissance of tape technology.

Fred Moore began a 21-year career with StorageTek as the company’s first systems engineer and concluded as Corporate Vice President of Strategic Planning and Marketing. In 1998, Fred founded Horison Information Strategies in Boulder, Colorado, a data storage industry analyst and consulting firm specializing in executive briefings, market success strategy development, and identifying key and emerging technology trends for end-users, storage industry suppliers, and startup ventures.

A sought-after motivator and frequent keynote speaker at storage conferences and IT events worldwide, Fred completed the Berkeley Executive Program in 1997. He currently serves on a few select boards in the storage networking industry.

Fred also served as Editor of Storage for Computer Technology Review magazine and has produced numerous books, articles, research reports, whitepapers, analysis, infomercials and webcasts for the storage industry, analyst groups, and financial groups.

He is a 1989 recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award and a 2004 recipient of the Arts and Science Scholar-In-Residence Award at the University of Missouri, Columbia where he received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a master’s degree in computer applications in physical geography.

A seasoned scientific, technical and computing professional, Sharan has spent over 20+ years implementing many new and pioneering technologies from operating systems (*nix), high performance computing – HPC (Cray, SGI, compute clusters), engineering applications (CAE simulations), optimization, networking (TCP/IP, Infiniband), operations (ITIL, ITSM), scientific domain (BioInformatics) and project management. Sharan looks to increase the professional approach of every individual he interacts with. He enjoys teaching, contributing to STEM activities and publishing. He is a senior member of IEEE, ACM, Emeritus member of Michigan!/usr/group, and recently elected President of SEMCO (one of the pioneer computer user groups in Michigan).

As part of the world of HPC, dealing with massive volumes of data has always been a permanent hallmark of this segment of computational industry. Innovative solutions to dealing with this – different horses for different courses – are always at the forefront.

He is also currently the Chair of the IEEE SE Michigan Education Society Chapter for 2017. He is also a published author on the topic: “UNIX and TCP/IP network security” ISBN: 1581430213, ISBN-13: 9781581430219, Publisher: ProsoftTraining (May 1999), currently he is working hard on writing his next book and building expertise in an emerging new parallel Software Defined Storage system.

Ed Childers is a technologist focused on cold data storage. A career in storage development spanning over 35 years has provided him with both a deep knowledge of storage technologies as well as a unique perspective of the storage industry. Starting with floppy disks, (yes, that long ago), he has worked on HDD, optical, and tape technologies.

He is currently a senior manager responsible for tape drive and LTFS development in IBM’s Tucson Lab. Along the way, he’s accumulated numerous patents, published some papers but the highlight was recognition of his contributions to the Linear Tape File System in the form of an Emmy awarded to IBM in 2011. He has a BSME from the University of Texas Austin and a MSME from the University of Arizona.

Matt Starr’s tenure with Spectra Logic spans 25 years and includes experience in service, hardware design, software development, operating systems, electronic design and management. As CTO, he is responsible for helping define the company’s product vision, and serves as the executive representative for the voice of the market. He leads Spectra’s efforts in high-performance computing, private cloud and other vertical markets.

Matt served as the lead engineering architect for the design and production of Spectra’s TSeries tape library family.

Spectra Logic has secured more than 50 patents under Matt’s direction, establishing the company as the innovative technology leader in the data storage industry.

He holds a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

Tab Butler joined the MLB Network in June of 2008 as part of the Engineering and IT Department, chartered with the facility build-out and the January 1, 2009 MLB Network launch. Currently, Tab manages the Media Management team, software development, and Post Production engineering and operations for the MLB Network. He oversaw the migration of the NHL Network to the MLB Network broadcast facility in 2015, utilizing the MLB Network production core infrastructure, which utilizes the latest IT technologies.

Tab has unique background in problem-solving and convergence within the broadcast media space, with over 26 years of experience in Network TV Broadcast Operations, and 11 years of Sales and Marketing Management with IT and Broadcast manufacturers. He specialized in sales to Broadcast Networks, Station Groups, Government, and Global 2000 clients. Tab spent 18 years at the NBC Network. He worked for NBC News, NBC Sports, and NBC Operations and Technical Services, and received two Emmy Awards while at NBC, and eight Emmy Awards and one Edison Award while at MLB Network. In June of 2012, the DIAMOND System, which is an in-house developed enterprise-wide media asset management system, led by Tab, was nominated for a Sports Technology Emmy.

While in manufacturing, Tab has worked in various capacities for Tektronix (Grass Valley), EMC, VideoBank, SeaChange International, and IBRIX.

David Yu leads the team responsible for the tape storage systems with over 60 PB of scientific data for experiments at Brookhaven’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) ATLAS experiment.  David manages the entire tape storage system, both operations and R&D, including software design and development, 3rd party software administration, hardware installation and management, and is involved in a number of system integration projects with other facilities at BNL.

David and his team have been developing their tape storage system into a reputable storage facility at BNL as well as supporting ATLAS’s worldwide computing network. David joined BNL in 2005 as advanced technology engineer, and has assumed the role as the team leader since 2011.  Prior to his current position, he was a senior software developer for distributed computing for over 15 years.

Ms. Ugrinsky specializes in all aspects of data science adoption. She works with clients to establish the organizational strategy to accelerate business solutions through advanced analytics. She frequently speaks on topics related to the application of advanced analytics to systems modernization and business transformation. She provides strategy and client advisory related to enterprise performance management/corporate performance management in support of solving business issues for finance, operations, sales, and marketing. She currently engages directly in client initiatives to solve systems modernization challenges to drive broader value across the overall technology portfolio, and helping clients link their data science strategy and activity to those initiatives, with specific focus on optimization based upon empirical data.

David is a security veteran with more than 18 years’ experience in conducting Threat Research, Network Penetration testing, Incident Response and Computer Forensics.

David is a regular featured speaker at Security Conferences worldwide, presenting on subjects including security trends, penetration testing, top threats and network security hardening. He is a member of the HTCIA (High Technology Crime Investigation Association), and ISSA (Information Systems Security Association).

At Carbon Black, David is responsible for the presales activities of the Carbon Black portfolio that includes: Cb Defense, Cb Response, Cb Protection, Cb LiveOps & Cb ThreatSight.

George Crump is the founder of Storage Switzerland, the leading storage analyst focused on the subjects of big data, solid state storage, virtualization, cloud computing and data protection. He is widely recognized for his articles, white papers, and videos on such current approaches as all-flash arrays, deduplication, SSDs, software-defined storage, backup appliances, and storage networking. He has over 25 years of experience designing storage solutions for data centers across the US.