KEY NOTE SPEAKERS:

Louis J. Mercken, MBA, PMP, PMI Fellow

Louis J. Mercken has over 25 years of experience as an executive in large multinational companies, and held positions including European IT Executive for Exxon Chemical, CIO of CSC Europe, and Worldwide CIO of Union Miniere (Suez Group). Currently, he is an international partner and chairman of the board of Threon Group, an organization that provides services in project management consulting, assessment and training throughout Europe. In this role, he worked with large international organizations to promote and introduce a project management culture, and he had more than 4,800 participants in his programs since 1997.

Mr. Mercken is a PMP, holds degrees as Bachelor in Economics, an MBA in Finance/Accountancy and Operations Research and Computer Sciences, the INSEAD Management Program (France) and the IMEDE (Switzerland) extended program for executives.

Since 2002, he has been executive professor in project management at Antwerp Universities Management School (UAMS). From mid-1997 through 1999, he was visiting professor in project management excellence at the International Institute for Project Management at the Leonardo de Vinci University in Paris.

Mr. Mercken was a member of the PMI Board of Directors 2002-2006. During 2002-2005, he was a member of the PMI Governance Committee, two years as secretary/treasurer, one year as PMI vice chair and PMI chair in 2005. Prior to that, he was president of the PMI Benelux Chapter, a chapter that grew from its creation in 1998 to the second largest in Europe at year-end 2001. He was also honored as a PMI fellow in October 2007.

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Joel Koppelman

Joel Koppelman, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Oracle Primavera Global Business Unit (GBU), was a co-founder and the CEO of Primavera Systems for 25 years until its acquisition by Oracle.  The Primavera GBU continues to focus on project, program and portfolio management helping customers to plan, execute and control the projects that grow their enterprise and advance their business strategy. Primavera solutions are used globally by project-centric organizations whose success requires on-time, on-budget and on-scope delivery making the best use of talented and scarce resources.

As a GBU within Oracle, Primavera is now able to deliver Enterprise Project Portfolio Management solutions that tightly integrate with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions including Oracle’s eBusiness Suite, JD Edwards Enterprise One and PeopleSoft, as well as SAP R/3.

Mr. Koppelman co-authored with Quentin Fleming the Project Management Institute (PMI) best seller “Earned Value Project Management”, now in its third edition. Together they have written dozens of articles published in many well known business publications including the Harvard Business Review. He was elected to the Drexel University “100” and has received the prestigious “Award of Merit” from AACE and the “Distinguished Contributor Award” from PMI.  In 2008, Mr. Koppelman was selected as “Entrepreneur of the Year” by Ernst & Young.  He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Drexel University.

Mr. Koppelman holds a BS in Civil Engineering from Drexel University and MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has two daughters and in his spare time is a passionate sculptor and an aspiring sailor.

SPEAKERS:

Alfonso Bucero, PMP

Alfonso Bucero is one of the best-known project management professional leaders in the Spanish-speaking world. Alfonso is an active member of the Project Management Institute (PMI®), of the ALI (Asociación de Licenciados, Ingenieros y Doctores en Informática), and of the Spanish Project Management Association, AEIPRO (afíliate member asociación of the International Project Management Association, IPMA).

Alfonso was the founder, sponsor and President of the Barcelona, Spain Chapter of PMI until April 2005, and he is an IPMA Assessor. He belongs to the LIAG (Leadership Institute Advisory Group) of PMI. He is currently the President of the Madrid Chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMI®), having been elected in December 2007.

Alfonso Bucero is a founder and Managing Partner of BUCERO PM Consulting and a well known PMI leader in Europe, has joined the PM Ambassadors Speakers Bureau. Formerly the office manager in Spain for the International Institute for Learning (IIL), Alfonso was a Senior Project Manager at Hewlett-Packard Spain (Madrid Office) for thirteen years. Mr. Bucero works in and consults from Madrid, Spain.

Alfonso has a Computer Science Engineering degree from Universidad Politécnica in Madrid, and is now studying for his Ph.D. in “Project Management”. He has 28 years of practical experience and has managed and consulted on projects in different countries throughout Europe. Alfonso is the author of the book “Dirección de Proyectos, una nueva vision” published by “LITO GRAPO Editors) in Mexico on June 2003, and of Chapter 7 of the book “Creating the Project Office”, published on February 2003 by Jossey-Bass Editors (San Francisco/California), authored by Robert J. Gram, Paul Dinsmore and Randall L. Englund. Alfonso Bucero is co-authored with Randall L. Englund of the book “Project Sponsorship – Achieving Commitment for Project Success”, published by Jossey-Bass Editors in April 2006.

Alfonso has published articles in national and international PM magazines, in India, Spain, Russia and the USA, and is a Contributing Editor for the PM Network professional magazine (Crossing Borders), published by PMI. Alfonso Bucero, who is an International Correspondent for PMForum and PM World Today in Spain lives in Madrid, Spain and speaks at project management events and meetings throughout Europe and Latin America.

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Stephen Jenner MBA, MSt, BA (Hons), FCMA, FIIA

  A program and finance professional, Steve has extensive experience at senior level in the Public Sector having been a member of the UK Senior Civil Service since 1999.   Previously chief accountant in HM Prison Service, he also enjoyed a year on secondment to the Queensland Treasury in 2001-02. From mid 2006 to 2008 he was Director of Criminal Justice IT, one of the largest IT enabled business change programs in Europe.   He also headed the Criminal Justice System IT Portfolio (a £2 billion investment in modernizing justice) Unit from its establishment in 2005 to 2008.  He is now leading research into Portfolio and Benefits Management for the Cabinet Office as part of the Public Service Reform and Service Transformation agendas. He also provides independent assurance on benefits management on major change programs across government and on the development and application of Portfolio Management.

Steve designed, implemented and operated the CJS IT approach to Portfolio & Benefits Management that has been recognised internationally (in reports to the OECD and European Commission and in a case study published by Gartner) and which won the 2007 Civil Service Financial Management Award.   He was infamously described by the UK Government CIO as, “the rottweiller of benefits management.”

Steve runs Masterclasses in Portfolio and Benefits Management and is a regular speaker at international conferences and writer on the subjects of portfolio and benefits management.  In the last three years he has presented to the OECD (Paris), European Commission (Brussels, Vienna and Geneva) and to conferences in Sydney, Brisbane, Washington, Vancouver, Florida, Rome, Milan and London.   He is the author of numerous articles and the book, ‘Realising Benefits from Government ICT investment – a fool’s errand?’  His book on Value-led Project & Program Portfolio Management is due to be published in Feb 2010 by Gower, and he has also contributed a chapter on benefits realization to, ‘Project Portfolio Management – A View from the Management Trenches’ due to be published by Wiley and the PMI in October 2009.

Steve is a professionally qualified management accountant with an MBA and Masters in Applied Criminology from Cambridge University. 

Contact: e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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Adrian Pyne

Adrian is a highly pragmatic, professional manager and leader. Starting from an IT development background, he has more than 15 years in the successful delivery of business transformation programmes and the build/operation of programme and project governance gained in both commercial and public sectors.

His commercial work has spanned; telecommunications, aviation, finance (retail, investment and lease), e-commerce, nano-technology and energy technologies. Within the public sector Adrian has worked extensively for the Department of Work of Pensions mostly on programme rescue, third party management and enterprise programme and portfolio management. In addition, Adrian has worked for the London Development Agency on programme management.

Adrian has worked to Programme Director level, e.g. at Cable and Wireless where he established and managed the capability for managing an £800m per year customer programme and project portfolio. Adrian is not embarrassed to say that his passion truly is the design, build and operation of effective and professional management that facilitates delivery for his clients. A key challenge he says is to avoid beaurocracy and to find “just the right amount” of management. The right level of management is how you operate your business, too much becomes an overhead cost to be avoided although not enough can become even more costly.

When asked how he his approach to work Adrian says that he likes to build with a team so that they have some “skin in the game” in terms of how they work, after all, as a consultant he will eventually move on. He also prefers to persuade people to work professionally and in co-operation but was also once given a toy baseball bat for Christmas by a client’s third party supplier.

This possible obsession with good management extends beyond his broad and deep experience to the development of the profession he is in - under the principle of enlightened self-interest. Adrian says that as secretary of ProgM - the UK’s programme management special interest group - he feels that he learns at least as much as he gives. Over the years Adrian has written papers and articles on programme and portfolio management and programme offices, and has frequently lectured at conferences in the UK and abroad. In addition he was on the review panel for the Office of Government Commence (OGC) standards on Programme Management and Portfolio Programme and Project Offices (P3O). He is co-author of the Gower Handbook of Programme Management the most thorough reference work on programme management to date and a collection on the experience of its six authors.

When approached about work Adrian will usually choose something new, challenging and preferably with some unusual content. For one client the programme included organising a party on a jumbo jet. Currently, Adrian is working as a consultant to the Energy Technologies Institute in Loughborough. Here he is building their portfolio, programme and project management capability and is also managing one of their programmes. Otherwise, Adrian lives in Kew, Surrey with his partner, an architect.

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George Sifri D.B.A., PMP, CCP, CISA, CCE, CM, PSP, EVP

George R. Sifri is a senior instructor/consultant with ESI International and MT&DC. He has more than 20 years of experience in managing information technology projects. He has given numerous lectures and training courses on project management, strategic information systems, managing software development, relational databases, electronic document management systems, software risk assessment, information systems auditing, project control systems, and knowledge management to practicing professionals around the world. He worked with companies such as Motorola, HP, Dow Jones, bp, Peoplesoft, ABB, Eurotel, and Novartis. He delivered courses and lectures on the six continents of the world. In Poland he delivered courses for leading companies representing variety of branches: Telekomunikacja Polska, Polkomtel, Siemens, KGHM Polska Miedź, Synthos, PKN Orlen i Polpharma.

Dr. Sifri has been working extensively with bp “Projects & Engineering College” since 2004. He has been the lead developer for their flag ship course “Project Management Essentials” currently in its fourth edition, and a subject matter reviewer for several of the other courses. He has been delivering courses for bp in UK, Singapore, China, Egypt, and USA for the last three years. Dr. Sifri has been working as instructor with ABB in Saudi Arabia for the last three years.

Dr. Sifri was the Head of Software Development at Consolidated Contractors International, one of the top 16 firms in the construction industry worldwide, for more than 10 years. He was in charge of the company's information technology systems design and management. He was also responsible for overseeing programming projects as well as evaluating and selecting software products for the company, and devising software development procedures and training courses.

Prior to joining Consolidated Contractors International, Dr. Sifri was the EDP manager for Save the Children Federation; a US based non government organization that works closely with UNICEF, for more than six years. He worked also as the Head of Product Development at Computers and Communication Technology (CCT).

Dr. Sifri has a D.B.A. Dr. Sifri holds a Master’s Certificate in Project Management, a Master’s Certificate in Information Technology Project Management, and an Advanced Master’s Certificate in Project Management. Dr. Sifri also holds a Master's degree in Engineering Management, and a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering. He is a Certified Information System Auditor. He is a Certified Computer Professional. He holds the Project Management Professional certification. He is a Certified Cost Engineer, an Earned Value Professional, and a Certified Planning and Scheduling Professional. He is a certified Professional Manager.  He is also a member of several professional associations such as: Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers; and International Who's Who of Professionals.

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Jerzy Stawicki, Ph.D, PMP

Jerzy Stawicki is independent, freelance consultant and university teacher managing his own firm JS PROJECT. Graduated from Warsaw University of Technology (Poland), doctor’s degree in organization and management from Wroclaw Technical University (Poland).

He specializes in consulting and training in the area of project management, project portfolio and program management, and building project-based organizations. The other areas of his professional activities are: ERP/MRP II systems and Theory of Constraints. He is member of the „Synergy Network” international group of consultants.

Dr. Stawicki has over 20 years of experience in project management. Prior to his current activities he worked (1992-2003) for large IT companies (Siemens-Nixdorf, ICL, SAP Poland) at various positions including: consulting manager, project manager of various SAP implementation projects and business projects, member of steering committees and project auditor.

Dr. Stawicki is author of more than 30 publications on project management, implementation of ERP integrated management systems, logistics and supply chain in journals and conference papers. He is co-author of a book “Strategic Project Management”.

He is PMP® certified (PMI 2003) , CPMP: Certified Project Management Professional, Level C (IPMA 2004), and also CPIM: Certified in Production Inventory Management, (APICS – Educational Society for Resource Management 2002).

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Thomas Walenta

Thomas Walenta has held a variety of positions with IBM in Germany since 1983. His professional experience includes the application of Information Technology to implement Business Solutions, the support of  a variety of IBM clients in managing their IT Delivery and the design and implementation of Organizational Change regarding process, project, program and quality management. Mr. Walenta served clients from the areas of government, banking, insurance, utility, retail and manufacturing.

 Since 1988, Mr. Walenta was responsible for several System Integration projects including architectural design, application development, education and rollout of systems, as well as the delivery of Outsourcing projects. For about 5 years starting 1995, Mr. Walenta defined and implemented Project Management Offices (PMO) in order to support organizations and companies in enhancing their proposals, projects, processes and quality as well as their project managers’ performance. As Program Manager, Mr. Walenta was responsible to deliver business benefits to clients of IBM by managing programs comprised of multiple projects from a wholistic view, with a focus on stakeholder management, client satisfaction and business benefits realization.

 Outside IBM, Mr. Walenta has worked as trainer and consultant for Project Management and holds lectures in project management for a MBA program at the University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt, Germany. He also is a lecturer at Steinbeis Institute.

 Mr. Walenta is a long standing member of both the German Project Management association GPM (since 1995)  and the Project Management Institute, PMI (since 1992). He served as President of the PMI Frankfurt Chapter from 1998 to 2005 and  participated in various international volunteer PMI activities. In his presidency the Chapter grew more than five times in terms of membership and more than 100 times in terms of budget. Mr. Walenta is a honary member of the PMI Frankfurt Chapter.

 In 2005, Mr. Walenta was elected by PMI’s membership as a Director in the global PMI Board of Directors, for a 3 years term from 2006 to 2008. He served as Chair of  the Board Standing Committee for External Relationships and Volunteer Involvement (ERVI), being responsible for strategy and policies regarding stakeholder relationships and development of volunteers. PMI has an outstanding volunteer support program, including a leadership institute.

 On global level, Thomas Walenta held a variety of volunteer positions with PMI, e.g. as final juror of the PMI Project of the Year award, member of the PMI Board nomination committee, auditor for PMI’s Registered Education Provider Program, writer/reviewer of PMP Exam questions and as a contributing member to PMI’s standards about Program Management and Portfolio Management.

 Thomas Walenta is a frequent speaker at various events for his employer IBM and for PMI, for which he made his first public speech 2000 in USA at the Global Assembly. As a Chapter President, he was also invited as a keynote speaker to Chapter events in Moscow, Russia and Sao Paolo, Brazil.  As a Board member, Thomas Walenta represented PMI at various outreach events as keynote speaker, e.g. in Dublin, Ireland, Zagreb, Croatia, Tokyo, Japan and Lausanne, Switzerland as well at business roundtables in London, UK and Frankfurt, Germany.

 Thomas Walenta wrote a monthly editorial memo in the PMI Frankfurt Chapter’s Newsletter for 8 years, he published articles in the German online publications Projektmagazin and Competence Center and is author of the Chapter on Strategic Project Management in a compendium about project management (2005, Hanser).

 Mr. Walenta received a degree as Diplom Mathematiker from University of Mainz, Germany (equivalent to Masters degree in Mathematics) and is a certified Project Manager (PMP) since 1997. His personal interests include his wife, his dog, biking and travelling.  Mr. Walenta was born 1954 in Wiesbaden, Germany.

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Henning Zeumer

Focus

-         Program and project audits, recovery, coaching and supervision

-         Organizations’ development  and advisory promoting Operational Excellence in portfolio, program and project management

-         Management of complex and/or troubled projects and programs

-         Business IT implementation and service organization (ERP, CRM, SCM, EAI, mobile applications, Webshops, GIS, offshore development)

-         Analysis, strategic orientation, planning, implementation, improvement and rationalization of IT and project based organizations and processes

-         Category Management

-         Brand, result, process and organization optimization

-         Program or project manager at Goldwell, Carlsberg Breweries, Lufthansa, Praktiker, GE Energy, Arcor, Swisscom, MVV etc. and many mid sized companies

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Beata Wróbel

Beata Wróbel holds Master’s degree in Marketing and Management (Jagiellonian Universty). She was a scholarship holder from Bordeaux Ecole de Management (France) where she studied Management. She also finished postgraduate courses on Teaching (Jagiellonian University) and Project Management (Tischner European University). Currently Beata Wróbel is a PhD student (Jagiellonian University, Department of Management). She is working on PhD thesis on project portfolio management in polish public institutions. Professionally she is involved in marketing projects, previously in IT industry; currently she works for a Dutch outsourcing centre in Kraków where she is responsible for marketing activities on polish market.

Szymon Jałocha

Szymon Jałocha is a certified Project Manager (Prince2 Practitioner) and holds Master’s degree in Marketing and Management (Jagiellonian University), he was also a scholarship holder (Social Sciences) from Friedrich-Alexander Universität in Nuremberg (Germany). For over six years he has been involved in IT projects, first as a Implementation Specialist, then as a Project Manager, and currently he holds a position of a Project Portfolio Coordinator in Project Management Office in Comarch, polish IT company. During his career he has managed implementation projects for Public Administration and Financial Institutions. He has managed projects such as implementation of ERP systems and workflow management applications.

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