Speakers

Junior Ali

Sony

Junior Ali is the Sr. Marketing Director for Portable Audio and Mobile products. Junior has held positions in Product Management, Supply Chain Management and Marketing. In his most recent role he led the implementation of an Advance Planning application and process to support advanced planning. He established CPFR relationships with major customers which have contributed to SonyÂ’s leadership position in the Canadian market. In his current role, his portfolio includes digital music players, portable and automotive audio systems and eBook Digital Reader.

Neelan Choksi

Lexcycle

Neelan Choksi is the COO of Lexcycle, the company behind the highest rated and most popular electronic book reader for the iPhone and iPod Touch, Stanza. At Lexcycle, Neelan is responsible for marketing, business development and corporate strategy. Prior to joining Lexcycle, Neelan was the COO at SpringSource, the company behind the popular open source Spring Framework. At SpringSource, Neelan helped grow the company 5x in 18 months. Neelan has extensive technology management experience, having served most recently as the co-founder and President at SolarMetric, a leading object relational mapping provider, which was acquired by BEA Systems (NASDAQ: BEAS) in 2005. Prior to SolarMetric, Neelan worked for TechTrader, Andersen Consulting Strategic Services (NYSE: ACN) and Exxon Research & Engineering (NYSE: XOM). Neelan currently serves on the board of SpringSource and Tasktop Technologies. Neelan is a graduate of MIT (and was part of the often-publicized MIT Blackjack team) and the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Gary Cosimini

Adobe

Gary Cosimini joined Adobe as its first Business Development Manager in 1992, responsible for the introduction of Acrobat to the publishing industry. He currently works on InDesign and related cross-media technologies, and serves as a liaison to the professional publishing industry. Prior to joining Adobe, Mr. Cosimini spent 16 years at the New York Times, most recently as a senior art director. During his tenure at the newspaper, he led the company's transition from traditional techniques for creating editorial graphics to computer-based methods that took advantage of Adobe application products and PostScript output devices. Cosimini won many awards from national graphic arts and design associations, and was a member of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism. Gary is a frequent and popular presenter at industry events.

Susan Danziger

Daily Lit

Susan Danziger is the CEO of Daily Lit, which is the leading publisher of serialized books in digital form. DailyLit currently features over 1000 classic and contemporary books available for free or for a small fee. Short book installments are sent via e-mail or RSS feed and arrive in a reader's inbox (or RSS feedreader), which can be read on a desktop, laptop or mobile device according to the schedule set by each reader. Danziger brings over 15 years of publishing and licensing experience to DailyLit. She was the head of Business Affairs for one of the divisions at Random House and also joined a team to spearhead Random House's digital book program. Danziger graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Cornell University where she studied Comparative Literature and Art History. She also received her J.D. from New York University School of Law.

Neil DeYoung

Hachette Book Group

Neil DeYoung is Director of Digital Media for Hachette Book Group USA. His responsibilities include Digital Business Development and Strategy, eBook development and strategy as well as website project management. Prior to Hachette Book Group USA, Neil held various positions at Scholastic, Inc. including Corporate Product Data Manager, Internet Marketing Manager and National Accounts Sales Coordinator. Neil is actively involved in standards development and has participated in IDPF .epub standards committees (OPS, OCF) and BISG Search & Discovery Standards.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Tor Books

Patrick Nielsen Hayden is Senior Editor, Manager of Science Fiction, at Tor Books. He has worked in the science fiction field as an editor, reviewer, publisher, and in other capacities, since the mid-1970s.

Hugh McGuire

LibriVox

Hugh McGuire is the founder of LibriVox, an all-volunteer project to make free public domain audiobooks. LibriVox was once called “perhaps the most interesting collaborative cultural project this side of Wikipedia,” and it’s one of the most prolific audiobook publishers in the world, with a catalog of 1,900+ books, in 26 languages. He writes about about books, open content, collaboration, and how digital media is changing the publishing business for the Huffington Post. His new project, Book Oven, will explore ways to use the collaborative models successful in LibriVox in book publishing. You can read more about the project at bookoven.com, and more about Hugh at his personal site, hughmcguire.net.

Mike O'Connor

Insomniac Press

Bio coming soon

Aideen O'Leary

Harlequin Entreprises

Aideen OÂ’Leary-Chung is the Manager, Digital Commerce for Harlequin Enterprises Ltd. Following 6 years in Marketing at Harlequin, she moved to the digital side of things in 2007. She currently manages Sales and Marketing for eBooks and other digital product

Brian O'Leary

Magellan Consulting Partners

A publishing veteran with 25 years of consulting, management and operational experience, Mr. OÂ’Leary is founder and principal of Magellan Consulting Partners, whose clients include major media firms as well as smaller and not-for-profit entities with significant publishing and media commitments. Prior to starting Magellan Media, Mr. OÂ’Leary served as senior VP and associate publisher with Hammond Inc., an internationally recognized geographic reference publisher. Before Hammond, Mr. OÂ’Leary directed operations at several of Time Inc.Â’s weekly magazines and was part of the team that launched Entertainment Weekly. He joined the firm in 1983, after earning an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. Mr. OÂ’Leary also holds an A.B. in chemistry from Harvard College.

Jeffrey Paleczny

eReader Outfitters

Jeffrey Palecnzy is President and Founder of Sextant Technology Inc. a business development and manufactures representative firm. Sextant Technology represents iRex Technology in the US and Canada and is responsible for business development of the electronic reading marketplace.

Steve Paxhia

The Gilbane Group

At the Gilbane Group, Steve leads a consulting practice focused upon the strategies and technologies employed by commercial and enterprise publishing professionals. In the past ten years, Steve has worked with more than 30 companies by helping refine their strategic plans, raise capital, devise go-to-market plans, and make and integrate acquisitions.Before joining the Gilbane Group, Steve founded several successful consulting practices and served as Chairman of Rovia - a start-up that developed secure fully featured e-books for the college market. He was the founder of the publishing industry's Pubnet e-commerce and information system. Steve is the co-author of the Gilbane Group research report on Digital Magazine and Newspapers Editions: Growth, Trends, and Best Practice, as well as the Gilbane Group research report on Collaboration and Social Media – 2008, and the in-production Gilbane Group research report on Digital Platforms and Technologies for Book Publishers: Implementations Beyond ‘eBook’.

Craig Riggs

Turner-Riggs Workspace

Craig Riggs is a partner in the consulting firm Turner-Riggs Workspace. Based in Vancouver, he has led major market development initiatives in Canada, Asia, and South America. Previously the New Markets Manager for Harbour Publishing, he led the marketing team for the Encyclopedia of British Columbia, a unique reference published in print and electronic editions and one of the largest publishing projects ever undertaken in Western Canada. The author of three national studies on the Canadian publishing industry, he holds a Masters in Publishing and is an adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University.

Andrew Savikas

O'Reilly Media

Andrew Savikas is the Director of Publishing Technology at O'Reilly Media, and is the General Manager of O'Reilly's Tools of Change for Publishing division, which spreads the knowledge of publishing innovators in person, online, and in print. He blogs at toc.oreilly.com, and is also a regular contributor to the O'Reilly Radar blog. In addition to serving as Program Chair for O'Reilly's TOC Conference, Andrew has worked on several key publishing technology initiatives at O'Reilly, including the design and deployment of an open-standards-based XML content distribution platform. Andrew is an advisor to Safari Books Online, O'Reilly's joint venture with Pearson Technology Group. His recent work has also included helping to plan O'Reilly's ebook and digital publishing strategy. Andrew holds a B.S. in Media Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an MBA from Northeastern University in Boston. He is a frequent speaker at publishing and content management conferences, and is also the author of "Word Hacks: Tips & Tools for Taming your Text".

Michael Serbinis

Indigo Books & Music

Michael Serbinis joined Indigo in February 2006 and is responsible for information technology, corporate strategy, chapters.indigo.ca, and IndigoÂ’s new Digital Venture. Prior to Indigo, he was the Chief Technology Officer and EVP Marketing at Critical Path Inc., a leading provider of messaging software and services. Michael was the founder and CTO of Docspace, which was sold to Critical Path for $580 million in 2000. He also worked on the first Internet based local search engine at Zip2 Inc., later acquired by Altavista; smart network routing technology at Microsoft Inc.; and high-temperature superconductor technology research, recognized internationally by Intel and NASA. Michael holds a BSc degree in engineering physics from Queens University and an MSc degree in financial engineering from the University of Toronto. He is also the author of several patents in the area of Internet security, communications and mobile technology.

Michael Smith

International Digital Publishing Forum

Michael Smith is Executive Director of the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). Michael aims to help advance the interests of publishers, technologists, and readers by evangelizing the adoption of IDPF standards for electronic reading applications and products. Michael has over 20 years of book publishing and print production expertise. Prior to joining the IDPF, Michael was employed by Toronto based romance publisher Harlequin Enterprises Ltd. where he managed eBook and book production servicing North America, UK and Australian markets.

Michael Tamblyn

BookNet Canada

As the President and CEO of the supply chain agency BookNet Canada, Michael Tamblyn has a role at a familiar intersection of culture, trade and technology. From a start in independent bookselling, in 1996 he co-founded Bookshelf.ca, one of Canada's first book-related e-commerce ventures, which was purchased by Indigo Books & Music. Mr. Tamblyn moved to the chain as vice-president of online operations. He went on to help found the software firm CompanyDNA and provide strategic consulting in technology and media sectors before founding BookNet Canada in March of 2003.

Amy Wilkins

Harlequin Enterprises

Amy Wilkins is a graduate of the University of Toronto, earning a BA in History and English, as well as Centennial CollegeÂ’s Book and Magazine Publishing program. After starting at Harlequin Enterprises as a summer student in 2006, and following an internship at Penguin Group (Canada) in Editorial Services, Amy returned to Harlequin as Digital Production Coordinator in May, 2008. She currently manages HarlequinÂ’s eBook program and official blogs.