Closing Keynote Addresses

Thursday, April 16, 11:00 a.m. – Noon

Vercie Lark, CIO, Embarq
Vercie Lark is back. He has moved up in the world since he joined our opening plenary panel last year. His ideas then and his new role as CIO of the largest independent operator in the country make him an important keynote speaker for the B/OSS audience. Lark has been on both the carrier and vendor sides of IT by virtue of stints with HP and Compaq Computer Corp. He currently serves on the technical advisory councils for Prairie View A&M and Florida A&M. His company has faced unique challenges this year and when companies are challenged, IT must respond.

Lark is the CIO of EMBARQ Corp., which operates in 18 states offering voice, data, high-speed Internet, wireless and entertainment services to more than 5 million customers. EMBARQ generates more than $6 billion in revenue annually and is included in the Fortune 500 list of America’s largest corporations. Lark is responsible for strategy, planning and operations of internal IT systems, applications and communication services. Prior to becoming CIO, Lark was vice president of IT infrastructure services at EMBARQ, where he led teams responsible for IT data centers, voice and data communication services and computing platforms. He began work at EMBARQ during November 2005. Prior to joining EMBARQ, Lark worked for four years at Hewlett Packard and approximately 12 years for Compaq Computer Corp., where he held several executive leadership positions in IT and HP Managed Services. He currently serves on the technical advisory councils for Prairie View A&M and Florida A&M and is an active board member of the Boys Hope Girls Hope organization in Kansas City. Lark earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical systems engineering from Wright State University of Ohio in 1985 and subsequently began his career in technology as an electrical systems engineer at Monsanto Research Corp.

Karl Whitelock, senior consulting analyst at Stratecast, a division of Frost and Sullivan
Karl Whitelock is a deep diver. He thinks of all the business and technology angles so you don’t have to. Here, Whitelock dissects something we all thought we knew inside and out: billing. It turns out we were wrong. His latest research reveals much about how this most fundamental yet critical element of the business has evolved and how that evolution must be directed to secure the industry’s future.