Business Speakers
The 20+ BizConNH speakers listed below have state-wide and national reputations; a gift for engaging the audience; and decades of experience in their field. They’ll deliver practical advice you can start using right away, handouts you can refer to and an opportunity to trade ideas with your peers. Our experts know what works in marketing, sales, social media, technology, finances, human resources, and strategies for the future.
Mark C. Robinson, Keynote Speaker
See Mark’s feature story in NH Business Review!
Mark has lived in New Hampshire for the past 30 years, working in diverse fields for companies like Honeywell Protection Services in Manchester, Curtis Manufacturing in Peterborough and Jaffrey, and Advanced Energy in Wilton.
He has started several companies of his own including a software publishing business, a computer magazine publishing company in Peterborough (Pico and Portable 100 magazines), Computer and Network Services, Inc. and Computer Empowerment Seminars.
Currently he runs The Energy Grid (a web marketing firm); HandicappedPets.com which manufactures, among other things, his patented wheelchair for dogs; and the Handicapped Pets Foundation, a 501(C)3.
HandicappedPets.com, his largest venture, occupies a 7500 square foot office and warehouse in Nashua and employs 14 people.
Mark holds a degree in Business Management from the University of Southern New Hampshire. He is LEED green buildings accredited, a Microsoft Certified Professional and a licensed master electrician.
His keynote, “The Awwwww Factor” is about engaging your customer base using a flexible mix of old-style “good business” and leading edge technology.
Jon Anderson
Jon Anderson is the Principle Sales Accelerator for Sidehill Consulting, a West Chesterfield NH, based firm that helps people and organizations to sell better. He brings over 25 years of sales repair, revenue turnaround and new business development experience home to New England.
Jon began his career in the high-technology “boom and bust” of the early 1980s. Having served the majority of his career in sales leadership, business development and sales repair roles, he quickly development a reputation as a “fixer” for a wide range of sales problems. Jon has converted underfunded startups into high growth firms, tripled the performance of under-performing sales regions and converted poorly performing sales teams into goal busting over achievers. Read more »
Sharon Bailly
Throughout her decades-long career as a technical and marketing writer, Sharon Bailly has shared practical tips and tricks of the writing trade with business owners and their employees. As the founder and owner of TWP Marketing & Technical Communications, she writes website content, blogs, brochures, print and e-newsletters, success stories, case studies, grant proposals, user manuals, magazine and ezine articles, white papers and blogs for customers throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her B2B and B2C customers range from Robin’s Resumes and Rosaly’s Garden & Farmstand to Microspec, ABTech and MIT’s School of Science.
Sharon began her career at a major publishing house in New York. When she discovered technical and marketing writing, she discovered her passion. Over the next 20 years, she worked as a technical and marketing writer for major corporations such as AT&T Bell Labs; Booz, Allen & Hamilton; and ABB, international providers of industrial software and solutions. Read more »
Annie Card
Annie Card knows her way around the media…online, print, local and national. She believes stories are what get people’s attention and make them care. Annie Card Creative Services was founded on this principal in 2007, after Annie’s tenure as as a photographer and editor at YANKEE Magazine and later as founder of a nationally recognized nonprofit that helped Mississippi residents in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
As Executive Director of Mississippi Home Again, Annie secured millions of dollars in aid for her clients by distributing a steady stream of stories and photographs to television, newspaper, magazine and online media outlets throughout the country. Individual and corporate donations poured in for two years. The nonprofit’s website, newsletters and live talk campaigns were all effective in securing cash donations and hundreds of volunteers.
Using the same strategy, ACCS works with small businesses, schools and nonprofits to identify their target audience and then reach them through a multi-faceted campaign.
ACCS creates branding, print collateral, websites, press releases and publicity services for clients throughout New England. The creative team also creates advertising campaigns that get their clients noticed.
Michael Charney
Michael Charney is a Principal at Charney Coaching & Consulting LLC—an executive, leadership and organizational coaching and consulting company based in Bedford, NH, and focused on helping leaders and organizations realize and reach their highest potential. He has 30 years of corporate experience in a variety of industries including Financial Services, Manufacturing, High-Technology and Customer Service.
For much of the last 15 years Michael has been a Senior Executive in high-technology start-up companies, running both Professional Services and Software Development groups. Most recently he worked as a Vice-President for the ClearForest division of Thomson Reuters where he managed an international software development team and was accountable for the division’s succession management program.
As an expert is small team development, Michael has created teams that emphasize empowerment, personal accountability, objective-centered behaviors and outcome-based evaluations. He has worked with both small, local groups and teams spread across several continents. Read more »
Pam Doyle
Pam Doyle is the owner of Solutions For Today, a company that offers business solutions for small- to medium-sized businesses. As a Certified QuickBooks® ProAdvisor, Pam provides QuickBooks® training in bookkeeping and payroll services throughout the tri-state region. A graduate of Franklin Pierce University with a degree in business management, Pam continually trains with Intuit® as a beta tester to keep up with the latest changes in QuickBooks® software.
Pam is also a Microsoft Partner and a member of the National Advisor Network, a professional group of highly experienced Intuit® Advisors. Prior to founding Solutions For Today, Pam worked for a CPA firm providing consulting, bookkeeping, payroll services and QuickBooks® training. Before relocating to New Hampshire, she was the owner of Pam’s Computer Training which offered personalized or group training in the most popular computer software programs. Read more »
Richard Dufresne
Since 1986, Richard Dufresne has worked with a wide range of businesses and organizations, providing team development programs, workplace mediation and conflict resolution services, individual management and executive coaching, strategic planning, facilitation services, management training programs, employee assistance services and wellness presentations.
In 1992 Richard founded and is the principal of Alliance Consulting for Human Resource Development (HRD). He has an expertise that assists individuals and work groups to address critical issues in a safe and productive manner. Alliance Consulting HRD assists organizations to reach their business goals by Read more »
Robert Edwards
Robert L. Edwards of Antrim recently joined Connecticut River Bank, N.A. in Charlestown, NH as Vice President/Commercial Lending to oversee the bank’s newly opened loan production office at 23 Elm Street in Peterborough. Bob’s commercial lending and business banking experience spans 42 years in the Peterborough and Keene area, beginning with Peterborough Savings Bank in 1969. As a commercial lender directly responsible for maintaining and expanding commercial loan portfolios, Bob has worked closely with his customers who desire cash management and investment services, SBA, BFA and RD loan programs and other deposit and business services offered through Connecticut River Bank.
Bob also volunteers extensively, serving currently as Vice Chairman of the Monadnock Community Hospital in Peterborough, a member of the Antrim-Bennington Lions Club (past President & Treasurer), Read more »
Jane T. Wilson
Jane T. Wilson is a project manager with the New Hampshire Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NH MEP) since 2004. The NH MEP is an affiliate of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) under the U.S. Department of Commerce. The national MEP system is a network of manufacturing extension centers that provide business and technical assistance to smaller manufacturers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
Jane is a strong facilitator who leads teams in Kaizen events, Value Stream Mapping, Problem Solving, Systematic Layout Planning and conducts training in Lean awareness. Her initial focus has been on the Northern three counties of New Hampshire where she has helped businesses involved in a variety of industries, including paper mills, printing companies, machines shops, small contract manufacturers, electronics, foundries, wire companies, lumber mills, and sheet metal fabricators. Her personal style often assists clients to break through their “we’ve always done it this way” paradigm.
Prior to joining the organization, Jane was a plant manager for two NH companies. In these positions, she had overall authority for plant operations, sales/marketing, new product introduction, process engineering and improvements, direct labor management, safety and environmental compliance as well as profit and loss responsibility. Jane brought her lean experience from 13 years with United Technologies Corporation (UTC) to her NH positions. It was in the 1980’s that Jane began her Lean education with Mr. Ito, a Japanese sensei. UTC partnered with Mr. Ito after his retirement from the Matsushita company.
Jane has a BS in Electrical Engineering and a BS in Biomedical Electronic Engineering, both from the University of Rhode Island, and an MBA from Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute. She has recently completed her doctoral course work at Franklin Pierce University and is currently working on her dissertation.
Pamela Gleeson
An early adopter of emerging technologies throughout her career, Pamela has a knack for observing challenging situations and developing creative solutions to them. As Founder, President and CEO, of Consensus Technology, Inc. she brings 25 years of combined management, computer, sales and Internet experience to her web and interactive media clients.
She consults with entrepreneurs, executives, non-profits and artists to develop Internet strategies to compliment their business and marketing plans, and is passionate about finding ways to help them succeed. Consensus Technology, provides social media marketing consulting, custom, visually appealing websites integrated with content management systems, mobile websites, web applications, e-commerce and blogs. In addition to web development ans social media services, Consensus Technology, provides search engine optimization and marketing, e-newsletter and hosting services. Read more »
Jim Grant
C. James “Jim” Grant, executive director of SDE, Inc. (Staff Development for Educators of Peterborough) founded his company in the early 1970s with his wife Lillian, in response to their concern for students who were not succeeding in school. At the time, Jim was a teacher in the Temple school system. He left the classroom in 1986, created Jim Grant Associates, and took his message on the road in the form of seminars and in-services across the country. In 1989 the name of the business was changed to The Society for Developmental Education (SDE) and today is known as Staff Development for Educators. In 1991 it was acquired by education publisher Highlights for Children. Whatever the name, the goal has remained the same, to create classroom environments in which all children can succeed. Read more »
Christine Halvorson
Christine Halvorson founded Halvorson New Media, LLC in Hancock, NH, in 2006, where she provides businesses and nonprofits with training and strategic consultation in using social media—blogging, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and podcasting. She also writes and edits social media content. She is the author of two e-courses on social media, “Social Media for Small Business” and “Advanced Social Media Tools & Tactics for Small Business.” The e-courses can be taken for free at the New Hampshire Small Business Development Center website nhsbdc.org.
John Hamilton
John Hamilton is Vice President of Economic Opportunity at the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, a 28-year old nonprofit that turns investments into loans and education to create opportunity and transform lives across New Hampshire. The Community Loan Fund has loaned more than $140 million for affordable housing, child care and economic opportunities.
He is currently leading the expansion of the Community Loan Fund’s small-business lending program, which supports the creation and retention of quality jobs by offering loans and training to self-employed workers and owners of small businesses, including those considered too small or too risky for other lenders. Read more »
Armand Hebert
Armand Hebert is a referral coach, consultant and trainer with Referral Institute of New Hampshire. He has been affiliated in this position for the past seven years, assisting companies and business professionals to create positive visibility in the work place, with their clients and within their community, by giving them the tools to recognize behavioral styles. These tools enable them to treat everyone as they would like to be treated. Armand believes that your handshake and appearance creates your first impression to someone you meet, and encourages you to make sure it is a great one!
You can find Armand’s blog at http://referralinstitutenh.wordpress.com/. One of the most recent posts is “Referral partners are like a box of chocolates.” He co-chairs the Ambassador committee for the Manchester Chamber of Commerce and has conducted Member Leadership Workshops and breakout at Tri City Expo.
His secret to success is to “Surround myself with great people and always think outside the box.” Read more »
Mike Hoefer
Mike Hoefer has been helping people and organizations communicate and market themselves using Interent technologies for more than 12 years. A classic big-picture thinker and idea guy, Mike loves sketching systems, ideas and interfaces on the whiteboard with his clients. He holds a Master’s degree in Internet Strategy Management from the Marlboro College Graduate School.
Mike has held Internet Marketing Leadership roles at MARKEM, The Hanover Insurance Group and Lucidus.
Hoeferweb is a consultancy that focuses on helping organizations reach their full potential through the application Internet technologies and services to marketing and collaboration challenges. Read more »
Mike Hoiriis
After a 22-year background that included fire/rescue, occupational safety and risk management, Mike Hoiriis got interested in property damage mitigation and joined his uncle’s firm, Paul Davis Restoration of Central New Hampshire. While there, he worked in various capacities until leaving to open Paul Davis Emergency Services of Monadnock. As the area’s premier disaster responders, Mike and his crews respond to property emergencies for commercial and residential clients 24/7. Disasters like fires, floods, storm damage, mold and bio-hazard incidents are all in a day’s work. Mike is especially proud to be the only disaster firm in the Monadnock region to earn the coveted “Certified Firm” designation from the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC)
In an effort to help area business recover from disasters faster, Mike and his team are on a mission to reach out the Monadnock business community and help them establish disaster plans should the worst come to pass.
Heather McKernan
Heather McKernan began her career in advertising sales at a small daily newspaper in Auburn, NY in the late 1980s. She joined the Concord Monitor in 1989 as human resources manager and later became controller.
Heather is currently the publisher of the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, where she first joined the staff in 1995. During an 18-month hiatus from the Ledger-Transcript, Heather was a regional advertising manager for the News & Observer, a large daily newspaper in Raleigh, NC. At this time she also served as ad director of the Chapel Hill News, a twice-weekly newspaper. Heather returned to the Ledger-Transcript in 2005.
Responsible for all aspects of the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript’s operations, she consults with the newsroom editors and oversees business operations including advertising, circulation and accounting. Read more »
Roy Matheson
Roy Matheson, founder and president of Matheson System, sees his life’s calling as “stretching people to learn.” From the thousands of allied professionals that he has trained across the globe, to his nationwide network of instructors, to his staff in Keene, NH, Roy is all about “helping people learn the ropes.” Roy not only learned the ropes in workplace safety and work injury evaluation, but he built the course. Matheson System is the leading provider of training and certification for occupational and physical therapists performing functional capacity evaluation, post-offer testing and ergonomic evaluation services around the world.
Working with his brother Dr. Leonard Matheson, Roy was a pioneer in the development of work evaluation training. He has assembled a team of practitioners and trainers who share his vision of a safe workplace manned by workers whose physical abilities match those of the job. Read more »
Paula Mathews
Paula Mathews began her career as a high school teacher and currently expresses her passion for teaching by working with her clients, bringing them into compliance with OSHA, state and federal regulations. She has over 30 years under her belt in this profession. In September, she will celebrate her 10th year as founder/president of HR Compliance 101, LLC. She founded her company because she believed that even though companies were not large enough to need a full-time Human Resource or Safety Manager, they still needed professional support to keep them safe from OSHA and Department of Labor (DOL) fines. As a strategic partner for her clients, she represents their interests in Workers’ Compensation claims and in OSHA and DOL audits. Her quarterly newsletter is distributed to over 225 employers in NH, serving as an educational tool for her clients and their employees. Read more »
Chris Pyles
Chris Pyles has been practicing employment law in New Hampshire for many years and works at Sulloway & Hollis in Concord. A majority of his practice involves representing and advising employers in all phases of employment law, from implementing policies through consulting, mediation and litigation.
Joanne Randall
Joanne Randall is the owner and CEO of Leap Year Marketing and the host of the NH Women in Business radio show.
Joanne graduated from the Whittemore School of Business and Economics at the University of New Hampshire and has spent the last 25 years working in management and business. Her background includes management, sales, marketing, retail, human resources, and small business social media development. She has been asked to speak to various groups, including Market Place Connections, and has participated in various panel discussions for Women Inspiring Women and the Division of Resources and Economic Development. She has been a guest on radio and television throughout New Hampshire and has had articles written about her and her radio show.
Joanne runs a highly successful networking group for the Greater Pittsfield Chamber of Commerce in Epsom, whose model has been used to launch other networking groups. Read more »
Kit M. Rautio
Kit M. Rautio is the founder of ProMaint Solutions, a facilities and maintenance consulting company, with client locations across New England. ProMaint is dedicated to working with clients to evaluate their current maintenance conditions and systems for the purpose of streamlining how they track assets, parts, consumables and labor.
Kit was educated in Architectural Engineering and has worked with cutting edge technology since the mid 1980s; he spent 17 years working with a local commercial contractor on construction projects from the ground up. Then in 2003 he created Residential Cadd Design Services, LLC, a service working with clients to design primarily homes and additions. Revit design software, a cutting edge technology for Building Information Modeling (BIM), has been a significant contributor to ResCadd efficiency and client satisfaction. Read more »
Tammy A. Richards, AVA, CMAP
Tammy Richards is an Accredited Valuation Analyst (AVA) as designated by the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts (NACVA). In addition to the AVA credential, Tammy also holds a Chartered Merger and Acquisition Professional (CMAP) designation from the Middle Market Investment Banking Association (MMIBA).
After 5 years of performing business valuations of closely held businesses at Pieciak & Company, P.C., Tammy has recently accepted a position with Country Business, Inc. (CBI), a business brokerage firm assisting buyers and sellers throughout New England.
While at Pieciak & Company, Tammy focused primarily on providing business valuations of family-owned and closely held businesses for use in succession planning, estate and gift tax filing, purchase/sale transactions, divorce and shareholder disputes. Tammy completed business valuations in various industries including manufacturing, wholesale/retail distribution, retail, investment management and real estate holding vehicles. Read more »
John W. Roche IV
John W. Roche IV is the founder and proprietor of einfosystems.net, a technology support consultancy with clients across North America. EIS provides technology consulting and products from a business perspective – keeping an eye on the client’s return on their technology investments.
John was educated as a mechanical engineer and spent 20 years in electronics manufacturing, making a career change in 1993 by launching as DataPro Services, Inc., a custom software company focused on desktop productivity applications and database development. The client list consisted mostly of large organizations such as EMC, Computerworld Magazine, Fidelity investments and Herman Miller Design, among others. Read more »
Lisa Sieverts
With over 20 years of project management experience, Lisa Sieverts specializes in improving organizational project success rates. She owns and manages Facilitated Change, an independent project management consulting firm based in Harrisville, NH. Her clients have included Keene State College, Technical Graphics, Inc. and New Hampshire Ball Bearing, in partnership with Sapphire Consulting of Amherst, NH. Previously, she worked for Hewlett-Packard in California and Idaho as a project manager in the HP Services division. Lisa holds an M.B.A. from the Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
Lisa teaches project management at the Masters degree level at Marlboro College Graduate School and Northeastern University College of Professional Studies. Since 2001, she has been certified as a Project Management Professional (PMP) by the Project Management Institute (PMI), a global leader in the development of standards for the practice of project management. Read more »
Richard Snowden
Richard Snowden, Senior Partner of RavenHouse International, specializes in creating breakthrough business performance. Richard is one of the foremost thought leaders on High Performance Sales Systems and has counseled many best-in-class sales organizations concerning the challenges of growth. He has improved the sales performance of thousands of professional sales people around the world. Audiences consistently rank him as one of the most effective and thought provoking consultants in the sales and marketing field.
He is known for his innovative solutions to sales challenges and has developed world class sales systems for both large and small companies in virtually every industry. Richard pioneered the concept of Revenue Improvement Planning (RIP) and Profit Improvement Planning (PIP), which are now used by many successful companies as the core of their business planning process. He consults globally in strategic marketing, sales effectiveness and productivity breakthrough.
Tom Strickland
Tom Strickland started his career in the IT industry in 1978—making him about 287 in computer years. Over that time he has been an applications programmer, systems programmer, operations manager, and consultant.
His programming experience includes developing strategic high-performance, high-availability systems in Assembler, C, C++, and a variety of ancient computer languages. As a technical team leader and operations manager for Oklahoma Gas & Electric during the 1980s, Tom was responsible for the daily operation of 2 corporate mainframe sites and a statewide private network. As a consultant in the 1990s he completed a variety of projects for companies ranging from Read more »
Cynthia L. Stuart
Cynthia L. Stuart, Vice President of Retail Banking at Connecticut River Bank, N.A., works with bank employees and customers alike to expand existing and develop new banking relationships through sales management and bank promotion including marketing, new product development and customer service initiatives. She previously created and implemented a Leadership Program for the bank under a grant from the State of New Hampshire. Cynthia also oversees the bank’s training programs and assists with the deployment of the strategic planning process. She possesses a proven ability in successful project and change management.
Cynthia began her banking career as a Branch Manager with Vermont Federal Bank and as a Relationship Sales Manager at Key Bank, also in Vermont. With an MBA from Plymouth University in Plymouth, New Hampshire, she has a strong background in bank management, financial investment program oversight, business development and bank marketing.
Liz Sumner
Liz Sumner is a change management consultant with E2 Culture and Facilitated Change. Based in southern NH, she helps organizations of all sizes make the cultural shifts necessary to cultivate a collaborative workplace.
Liz recently conducted a survey of the Social Business Council, a group of large companies who are all in various stages of adopting social business technology, and she will present the results at the 2011 E2 Conference in Boston this June.
Liz earned her master’s in organizational change from Antioch University in Seattle. She is formerly the executive director and community manager of Career Management Alliance, a division of Kennedy Information. Along with her work as a facilitator and planning specialist, she is an ICF-certified coach working with teams and individuals to make them more powerful and effective.
Walter Wise
Walter (Walt) Wise is a Business Success Architect and CEO of The BPI Strategy Group, a New England based business development and management consulting firm and licensee of the Value Forward Network. Walt’s firm works with senior management in growth-directed companies seeking to increase corporate revenues, reduce sales and marketing costs and manage risks. He specializes in working with smaller companies (less than $100 million in annual revenue) and those desiring to work in the Public Sector.
Walt has spent over 16 years as a CEO, Senior Vice President, Regional Vice President, Vice President of Business Development, Account Executive, Sales Manager and Program Manager in companies with annual revenues from $5 million to over $100 million. Read more »
