Home

Register

Agenda

Keynotes

Panels

Logistics

Contact

PANEL 3 Biographies » The Commercialization/Monetization of Technology

		Pete Thompson (KSM '96) General Manager of Surface Microsoft Pete Thompson is the General Manager for a new incubation project within E&D as of February 2009. For the last three years, he was responsible for leading the Microsoft Surface business group, from product incubation to launching an end-end new business for Microsoft. Previous to Microsoft, Pete was the Sr. Director of Marketing and Business Development for T-Mobile’s Broadband Data Division, HotSpot. He was responsible for setting the overall strategy for the group and managing sales and marketing activities related to T-Mobile’s HotSpot business. Prior to T-Mobile, Mr. Thompson was the Marketing Director for a pWLAN start-up, Graviton, Inc., in San Diego, CA. Graviton focused on developing the industry for wireless M2M communications and raised over $80 Million in private financing. Prior to Graviton, Mr. Thompson held several marketing positions with Hewlett-Packard and Motorola, Inc. in California, Germany and Illinois. Mr. Thompson began his career in advertising with Foote, Cone & Belding where he held account management positions for clients such as Levi Strauss & Company and Taco Bell. Throughout his career, he has focused on building new product categories ranging from men’s business-casual clothing to multi-function printers to wireless PDAs to wireless ad-hoc networks and to new computer form-factors. Mr. Thompson holds an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and an International Economics undergraduate degree from UCLA.
		Dennis Kearns Dennis Kearns is the son of inventor of intermittent wipers (featured in the movie Flash of Genius). Mr. Kearns is currently a litigation consultant, investigator, and paralegal. He has assisted plaintiff and attorneys in complex multidistrict, 28-party patent litigation, including 5 trials. Mr. Kearns has a Bachelors of Science in Law Enforcement & Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland.
		Mike Milinkovich Executive Director The Eclipse Foundation Mike Milinkovich is a 20-year industry veteran with both hands-on and leadership experience in all aspects of the business including engineering, development management, product management, training and services, business development, marketing, mergers and acquisitions, and intellectual property management and licensing. Currently, he is the Executive Director of The Eclipse Foundation, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation supporting the Eclipse open-source community and commercial ecosystem. Under his leadership, Eclipse has grown into one of the world's most successful open source communities with more than 185 corporate members worldwide, 100+ open source projects, and over 1,000 committers. Most recently, Mr. Milinkovich was a Vice President in Oracle's Development Group, where he led the Application Server Technical Services team, comprised of highly technical experts who support Oracle's application server strategic customers and partners. Prior to Oracle, Mr. Milinkovich was Vice President of Worldwide Services for WebGain and President of WebGain Canada. His career also includes IBM, Object Technology International, and The Object People. Mr. Milinkovich earned his Master of Science degree in Information and Systems Sciences and a Bachelor' of Commerce degree from Carleton University. He lives in Ottawa, Canada.
		John Miniati (KSM '96) Vice President of Analytics INCISENT Technologies John Miniati is a technology executive with operational experience bringing e-commerce, wireless, computer hardware and SaaS products to market. John is VP of Analytics at INCISENT Technologies—ranked #4 software firm on INC 500’s 2008 list of fastest-growing private companies. INCISENT helps traditional companies improve business performance by helping front-line employees make better data-driven decisions. Put differently, INCISENT brings “Moneyball” (statistical analysis) principles to everyday businesses. Previously, as VP of Marketing Services at comScore, John grew comScore’s Retail and Technology practice by leading a team of analysts in providing client companies insight into consumers’ online and multi-channel behavior—becoming a trusted advisor to organizations like HP Shopping, KodakGallery.com and Symantec. John is a ’96 MMM (dual Kellogg MBA/ Northwestern Masters of Engineering Management) with an Operations Research BS from Cornell. He helped Prof. Mohan Sawhney develop and launch Kellogg’s “Technology Marketing” course, guest lecturers in entrepreneurship and technology, and sits on the MMM Alumni Steering Committee. John enjoys reading, good wine and runs the occasional triathlon.

Back to panels