Gene provides research and advisory services that address the needs of Enterprise Architecture professionals. Gene has been researching best practices in making enterprise architecture programs effective since 1999 and focuses on helping clients implement a pragmatic approach to EA that has clear value to business and IT leaders. Gene has more than 25 years of IT experience, including enterprise architecture planning, infrastructure architecture, IT management, performance management, capacity planning, product strategy, and application development. Gene came to Forrester through its acquisition of Giga Information Group. Prior to joining Giga, he was director of infrastructure architecture and capacity planning at John Hancock Financial Services in Boston. Previously, he held senior IT positions at First Data Corporation and Fidelity Investments and development and marketing management positions at leading software firms. He has published dozens of papers on various topics and has spoken at a variety of conferences in the US and abroad. Less   View all posts

Sheila Jordan is vice president of the Communication and Collaboration IT organization and is primarily responsible for defining the vision, strategy, and execution of the Communication and Collaboration platform at Cisco for its employees, customers, and partners. In addition, she has direct IT responsibility for Cisco.com, Marketing, Finance, HR, and Emerging Technologies (TelePresence). Her purview also includes defining and delivering the vision and strategy that creates alignment and integration of IT initiatives with business goals. She plays a key leadership role in shaping and communicating strategies that deliver increased and sustainable productivity, growth, and an improved user experience by incorporating IT and the business processes via an integrated architectural approach. Sheila’s key focus is the development of Cisco’s Communication and Collaboration strategy and the delivery of a solution that combines the power of social networking and enterprise technology with applications, services, and business processes. In this realm, Sheila oversees the worldwide rollout to 70,000 employees of Cisco Quad, a new enterprise collaboration platform that combines social networking with communications, business information, transactional systems, and content management. In addition, she is responsible for the transformation of the customer experience on Cisco.com, Cisco’s public website, which uses Web 2.0 technologies to create stronger relationships with customers and partners through personalization and collaboration. An evangelist of the power of business intelligence, Sheila also leads Cisco’s Marketing IT initiatives that turn customer data into “insights,” enabling the Cisco marketing and sales teams to better understand customers and partners, and deliver a richer, more personalized, and more relevant experience. Sheila is a frequent spokesperson for Cisco on the topics of collaboration and the “consumerization” of IT. She joined Cisco from Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, where she was Senior Vice President of Destination Disney. A key architect of the strategic planning process, she was responsible for delivering profitable growth. She was instrumental in integrating marketing, sales, and services across the organization as Disney transformed its business from a product-centric to a guest-centric organization. For the past two years, Sheila has served as the co-chair of the South Bay (San Jose, CA) chapter of the March of Dimes “March for Babies.” In this role, she led a fundraising drive that generated more than $1.5 million with approximately $500,000 raised from Cisco alone. Less   View all posts