George Westerman is a research scientist in MIT Sloan's Center for Information Systems Research and faculty chair for the course IT for the Non-IT Executive. His research and executive presentations focus on senior management challenges such as IT risk, value measurement, and innovation. His work has been published in Sloan Management Review, MIS Quarterly Executive, and IESE Insight, as well as academic journals. George's first book IT Risk: Turning Business Threats Into Competitive Advantage (Harvard Business School Press, co-authored with Richard Hunter), was named one of CIO Insight magazine's Top Ten Books of 2007. His new book The Real Business of IT: How CIOs Create and Communicate Value (also with Richard Hunter) will be published by HBS Press in September 2009. A noted speaker and workshop facilitator, George works regularly with executives to improve the business value of IT. Less   View all posts

Richard Hunter was elected a Gartner Fellow in 2003, and is vice president and research director in Gartner Research, where his recent work has focused on matters of interest to CIOs. Mr. Hunter is the author of "World Without Secrets: Business, Crime and Privacy in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing" (Wiley, NYC, 2002), “IT Risk: Turning Business Threats Into Competitive Advantage” (Harvard Business Press, Boston, 2006), and “The Real Business of IT: How CIOs Create and Communicate Value” (Harvard Business Press, Boston, 2009), the latter two works with co-author George Westerman. Mr. Hunter is in much demand as a speaker and advisor to CIOs. Less   View all posts

Gibson joined Best Western in 2005 as Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President of Distribution. He brings more than 22 years of experience in the hotel industry technology sector to his role, along with a reputation for planning and producing solid technology infrastructures. As CIO and SVP of Distribution, Gibson leads the Information Technology, Global Channel Distribution and Worldwide Delivery departments from the company headquarters in Phoenix. Gibson has held a variety of leadership positions throughout the hospitality industry. Most recently, he served as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Kerzner International Resorts. His primary responsibilities at Kerzner included driving technology leadership for the company's Paradise Island and U.S. operations, including the development of a new reservations system. Gibson also served as a Reservations System Development Director for Red Lion Hotels and Inns, where he also developed and implemented a new central reservations system. He then moved to Cendant Corporation, where he held various director-level technology posts before ultimately being named Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for the company's hotel division. During his time there, Gibson was responsible for delivering the technology needs for the hotel division and its nearly 6,000 franchisees. He also led the technology integration plan supporting the formation of Cendant Travel Group, which brought together all travel-related business units of the company. Gibson began his hotel technology career with Ramada, and followed that with a six-year term with Anasazi, where he managed projects to develop and deliver custom reservation systems to four major hotel companies. Less   View all posts