Keynote Speaker: Christian Verstraete

We are pleased to announce that Mr. Christian Verstraete, Chief Technologist – Cloud Strategy Team, HP, will speak at the 4th International Symposium on Information Management in a Changing World to be held in Limerick, Ireland, from September 4 to 6, 2013.

Bio

Christian Verstraete, CTO for HP’s Cloud Strategy Team Worldwide. His responsibilities include the definition of HP’s Cloud functional and reference architectures and the coordination of cloud activities across HP. He is the linkage to the CTO community both inside HP and with our customers and partners.

Prior to his current position, as CTO for the Manufacturing & Distribution industries, Verstraete was responsible for thought leadership and innovation – scanning industry and technology trends, assessing their mid/longer term effect on emerging MDI business opportunities and defining how to capitalize on these. Prior to that, he led the development of solutions, managed HP’s global High-Tech Industry Group and its manufacturing industries Supply Chain go-to-market strategy where he was responsible for growing the company’s $300 million consulting and system integration business.

After having participated in the planning of the HP/Compaq merger, he headed HP’s manufacturing practice within the Consulting and Integration business unit from 2002 to 2004. The 1200 consultants he led created and delivered solutions in the areas of supply chain, procurement and sourcing, product lifecycle collaboration, demand chain and collaborative business integration in all segments of the Manufacturing Industry.

Prior to that, Verstraete served as the Global Lead in the Extended Manufacturing Practice and the Supply Chain Infrastructure and EAI. From his first HP job as a systems engineer through project, regional, district and global management, Verstraete has concentrated on developing, marketing and advancing infrastructure services.

Frequently published in periodicals, Verstraete is a featured speaker at global supply chain events and runs HP’s Manufacturing-Distribution blog. He is one of the authors of “Connected Manufacturing, Thought-provoking essays from industry leaders” and of “Collaborative Sourcing, Strategic Value Creation through Collaborative Supplier Relationship Management”. He is member of the board of the Supply Chain Council and a 2007 DCVelocity Rainmaker.

Verstraete holds a mechanical engineering degree from the Universite Catholique de Louvain in Belgium and a degree in industrial management from Katholieke Universiteit van Leuven, also in Belgium. He is based in Brussels, Belgium.