Featured Speakers
Executive Symposium:
From Economic Turbulence to Business Triumph
Larry Burns, CEO
StartSampling, Inc.
Since assuming the role of President and CEO of StartSampling in 1999, Burns has built the company from an online sampling pioneer to a digital marketing services force that regularly connects more than 200 brands with millions of interested and engaged consumers across the StartSampling network.
Burns brings more than twenty five years of research and packaged goods experience to his role at StartSampling. He was previously Executive Vice President of Product Management at Information Resources, Inc., a Chicago-based information services firm. While at IRI, Larry had responsibility for overseeing the InfoScan™ brand, the premier market share-tracking product at the time. Before IRI, Larry worked as a marketing research professional for several major consumer product companies, including Heinz USA, Cadbury Beverages, Pepperidge Farm and General Foods. He began his career in the trenches of the marketing research industry, with junior analyst positions and an early job as a telephone and mall interviewer.
Burns earned his B.S. in chemistry from Alfred University. He lives in Wheaton, Ill. with his wife and four children.
Paul Cronin, Senior Vice President
HSBC Bank USA, N.A.
Paul Cronin is HSBC Bank USA’s senior vice president and regional commercial executive of the Midwest. With more than 18 years of international and domestic banking expertise, he manages a team of Chicago-based commercial bankers serving the international needs of Midwest companies with $250 million to $5 billion and more in sales. Under Cronin’s leadership, the team provides Midwest companies with access to HSBC's commercial banking network in 64 countries and territories.
Prior to joining HSBC Bank USA, Cronin held senior-level positions with the Royal Banking of Scotland (RBS Citizens N.A.) and LaSalle Bank N.A. He also spent 10 years at ABN AMRO Bank in a variety of roles including corporate finance, leveraged finance and asset management before joining LaSalle Bank. A native of Ireland, Cronin holds a master's degree in business finance from the Graduate School of Business at the University College Dublin and a bachelor's degree in commerce from the University College Dublin. He is also an Illinois C.P.A. and Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland. An active and prominent figure in Chicago, Cronin serves on a variety of boards, including the Newman Center Board and the Founding board of Lumen Institute in Chicago. Cronin also assists in fund raising for Mercy Home for Boys and Girls and for Misericordia.
Rob Figliulo, CEO
SPR Companies
Rob Figliulo serves as the CEO of SPR, a position he has held since 1992. Rob was Chairman & CEO of SPR during its tenure as a public company from 1997 to 2002 (Nasdaq: SPRI). He held numerous positions within the company starting out as a software developer and engineer. He became a branch manager and executive during the dramatic growth and many retooling cycles over the last 33 years in the technology industry.
Rob earned an MBA from the University of Chicago in 1987 and received his undergraduate degree from St. Mary's University in Minnesota. Rob currently serves as Past-Chair of the Board of Trustees at St. Mary's University. He is a past member of the Advisory Board for DePaul University's Charles H. Kellstadt Graduate School of Business. He is a member of the Board of Directors for Misericordia Homes for disabled children and young adults in Chicago where his daughter Katie is a resident. Rob has been married for 30 years, has seven children and lives in Burr Ridge, Illinois.
Matt Kietzman, AVP of IT Finance & Governance
Horace Mann Service Corporation
Matt Kietzman is an Assistant Vice President and Officer of Horace Mann Educators Corporation. Kietzman joined Horace Mann in 2008. He began his insurance career at Priority Health Managed Benefits in 2000 where he held a variety of strategic planning and IT Leadership positions. He also has extensive IT and Logistics experience from his tenure at Gordon Food Service and Tenant Company. Kietzman earned his Bachelor of Business Administration and Economics from Ferris State University and has over 20 years of experience in the IT industry.
Kathie Topel, Author
POWERSHIP®
Kathie Topel is the Vice President of Management Consulting for MPS Partners, LLC. In this position she is responsible for overseeing the Business Alignment Model, Delivery Functions and Governance Standards. Kathie's teams ensure high quality delivery, maximized customer service, strategy execution and ongoing governance for final solutions.
She has leveraged her leadership and change management skills to develop a business management model titled POWERSHIP®. The model is outlined in detail in her book by the same title as the model. POWERSHIP® focuses on strategic execution and how everyone from the receptionist to the CEO has a role in the implementation of the strategic plan. The POWERSHIP® model creates the focus for the company that blends together Sales, Marketing, Financial, Leadership and Employee growth. The POWERSHIP® model provides a roadmap of indicators and sets the direction that leads companies toward the achievement of their mission and vision.
A founding partner in 1988 of Scheyer-Austin, Ltd a former 15 year Midwest based System Integration firm. Kathie served as the Chief Executive Officer responsible for building and implementing corporate organizational change to provide financial balance, strategic growth and company-wide motivation.
Kathie's past experience has utilized her Supply Chain knowledge, De Paul University Operations Degree and her APICS (American Production and Control Society) certification to build a supply chain focus into the leading business practice for her previous company. During her Practice leader tenor she implemented numerous solutions that helped Kraft Foods, Oscar Meyer, and Entenmanns Bakery achieve maximum Supply Chain operational efficiency. As technology initiatives began dotting the landscape she also quickly mastered (Electronic Data Interchange) EDI and Business Intelligence solutions and leveraged their strength.
In addition to Supply Chain focus, she built the Project Management group from a disparate group of standards into a focused team of leaders leveraging and building on best practices and adjusting to industry change. The Project Management group sets its standards to deliver streamlined efficiency and cost effectiveness while leveraging the appropriate technology.
As a leader and speaker she has managed and presented on a variety of topics surrounding Employee Growth, Leadership, and Motivation. Kathie joined SPR Companies in January 2007 as the vice president of Management Consulting for MPS Partners.
Robert Topel, Professor of Economics
University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Robert H. Topel conducts research on many areas of economics including labor economics, industrial organization and antitrust, business strategy, health economics, national security economics, economic growth, and public policy.
Topel and fellow Chicago Booth faculty member Kevin Murphy won the 2007 Kenneth J. Arrow Award for the best research paper in health economics. The award is given annually by the International Health Economics Association. They were cited for their paper "The Value of Health and Longevity," published in the Journal of Political Economy. In their paper, Murphy and Topel found that cumulative gains in life expectancy after 1900 were worth more than $1.2 million to the average American in 2000, whereas post-1970 gains added about $3.2 trillion per year to national wealth, equal to about half of gross domestic product (GDP). Potential gains from future health improvements are also large, they found. For example, a one percent reduction in cancer mortality would be worth $500 billion.
Topel is the author of several books. These include The Welfare State in Transition with Richard Freeman and Birgitta Swedenborg, Labor Market Data and Measurement with John Haltiwanger and Marilyn Manser, and Measuring the Gains from Medical Research: An Economic Approach with Kevin M. Murphy. Topel has written more than 60 articles and monographs in professional journals.
Topel is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, an elected member of the Conference for Research on Income and Wealth, an elected founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, and a member of the Brookings Panel on Economic Activity. He has held visiting and research positions at a number of institutions, including the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the World Bank, the Economics Research Center of the National Opinion Research Center, and the Rand Corporation.
From 1993 to 2003 he served as editor of the Journal of Political Economy, and from 1991 to 1993 he was a member of the editorial board of the American Economic Review, the two leading professional journals in economics. Topel was also a founding editor of the Journal of Labor Economics. In 2004, he was elected an inaugural Honorary Fellow of the Society of Labor Economists, and the following year he received the Research America Eugene Garfield Prize for Medical and Health Research.
Topel has been at the University of Chicago since 1983, with the exception of an appointment as a professor of economics at UCLA in 1986. In 2006, he was the Kirby Distinguished Visiting Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University. He is also a founding partner of Chicago Partners, LLC.
He received a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1974 and a PhD in economics from UCLA in 1980.
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