Brett Shockley is Avaya’s Vice President of Emerging Products and Technology. His responsibilities include oversight of the research team at Avaya Labs, the world-class research and development arm of Avaya, which began its history as the storied Bell Labs. In addition to his R/D role, Brett leads Avaya’s global professional services team for Contact Center and Unified Communications, which is charged with building and deploying advanced communications applications for customers in the financial services, health care, retail, government and other leading industries.

Brett's 25-year career has included senior leadership positions in the telecommunications and Contact Center markets at Avaya, Cisco and Spanlink Communications. He founded Spanlink Communications in 1988, where he partnered with Bell Labs and pioneered some of the industry’s leading innovations in speech recognition and computer telephony integration. Brett is credited with developing the industry’s first Web-enabled call centers with the launch of WebCall in 1995. 

In addition to holding a patent for a telecommunications device, Brett has an MBA in Marketing from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management and a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Technology. Shockley was a 2007 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award winner.

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Bruce Morse is Vice President, Unified Communication Software, IBM Lotus Software.  In his role, Mr. Morse has overall responsibility for IBM’s Unified Communications and Collaboration software business unit, including setting strategy, delivering innovative  software offerings such as IBM Lotus Sametime, catalyzing associated hardware and services offerings and building key industry alliances.

Mr. Morse has over twenty years of software and hardware experience in the IT industry and has held key IBM executive positions in WebSphere marketing and product management, Pervasive Computing business development and IBM Software Group mergers and acquisitions, and finance.  Prior to his current role, he led IBM’s industry software solutions organization helping clients leverage IBM software to improve their business processes.  Mr. Morse also led IBM’s Contact Center Software and Client Technologies business units, and played a leading role in establishing WebSphere Portal as the market leader.  

Mr. Morse received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Industrial Engineering from Northwestern University, Chicago Illinois, and has participated in graduate courses in business administration.  

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As General Manager in the Unified Communications Group at Microsoft, Eric Swift is responsible for managing customer and industry requirements, product positioning, and marketing strategies for the next generation of Microsoft Unified Communications products and services, including Microsoft Office Communicator and Microsoft Office Communications Server

Eric has been with Microsoft for eight years. Previous to his current position with the Unified Communications Group, he was director of product management in Microsoft’s Application Platform group. Prior to joining Microsoft, Swift held vice president positions at enterprise application integration and CRM software vendors where responsibilities included product management, CRM and Data Warehouse implementations, and technical support operations.

Eric has an MBA from Columbia University in New York, NY.

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Larry Levenberg is Vice President and General Manager, National Channels for NEC Corporation of America. In this role, Larry is responsible for business strategy and development of NEC dealers including National Channel Sales in U.S., Direct Associates, Two-Tier Distribution and Document Solutions.

Larry joined NEC in 1986 and contributed to the growth of NEC through his roles as Vice President and General Manager of Central Region sales for NEC Unified Solutions and Director, Major Accounts & New Business Development.

Larry has been recognized by industry publications including as a Business Leader by VARBusiness magazine in 2006. He was also featured in the accompanying article, “Thirteen VARBusiness 500 executives share their winning business strategies.” 

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Richard McLeod is Senior Director for Cisco’s Worldwide Partner Collaboration Sales and Practice Management.  He is responsible for Cisco’s global channel strategy, business development and partner programs for the Collaboration, Enterprise Social Software, TelePresence, Customer Interaction Solutions and related Unified Communications applications markets. As an executive member of Cisco’s Global Collaboration Architecture Board, McLeod plays a key role in shaping Cisco’s portfolio investment priorities and global go-to-market strategies.

During his 8-year tenure at Cisco, McLeod has led the company’s channel evolution and growth from early IP Telephony start-up to global Unified Communications market share leader and has pioneered numerous channel programs that have enabled partners to transform and grow their businesses, adopt new technologies, and improve their profitability. These channel innovations have led to Cisco’s Unified Communications Partner Program consistently being recognized as the industry leader.

McLeod’s previous background includes extensive senior sales management, channel strategy, business development and marketing leadership positions for a number of industry leading companies in the communications, data networking, contact center and business applications markets. 

Richard is a graduate of Valdosta State University with a BBA in Marketing, and resides in Atlanta, Georgia.

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