Dr. Klaus Harisch
CEO
varetis AG

Dr. Klaus Harisch, engineer with a degree in physics, is the Chairman of the Executive Board at varetis AG since January 1, 2004. Dr. Harisch is responsible for Research & Development as well as Finance and Controlling.

Klaus Harisch was the long-time executive board chairman of telegate AG, which he founded together with Peter Wünsch and former Postmaster General Dr. Christian Schwarz-Schilling in 1996. Under his guidance, telegate AG quickly grew to employ 3,000 professionals and occupy a prominent position in the European directory services branch. Klaus Harisch began his career as a technical project manager for Schwarz-Schilling & Partner in 1992.

Matt’s works focuses on business strategy, regulation and economics of telecommunications, working for both operators and regulators. Recent work in directory services includes:

• For the European Commission Matt researched and analysed directory services markets and made recommendations with regard to appropriate EU regulatory framework. For this purpose, the directory services market in all EU and EEA Member States was examined in detail through desk research, as well as through an extensive interview programme with regulators, incumbents, alternative telecoms operators, directory service providers and industry organizations.
   

• For the Dutch Ministry, Matt examined the markets for five universal services including telephone directories and directory enquiry services to explore the possibility of introducing competition into these markets. The work focused on the supply sides of the services and included analysing barriers to entry using international comparisons, business modeling and interviews.

Dr. Nils Lenke
Application Manager Directory Assistance
Scansoft

Nils Lenke holds degrees in computer science and in phonetics and a Ph.D. in computational linguistics. He joined Philips Speech Processing, now part of ScanSoft, in 1995. He has filled various roles; since 1999 he has been in charge of Directory Assistance Automation and has been involved in several projects of this application with customers around the world. Currently he is responsible for the EMEA Professional Services Organization of ScanSoft as well as ADA on a global basis.

Mr. Christopher P. Matson
Alliance & Channel Manager, DA Vertical Specialists
Nuance Communications

Chris Matson has been with Nuance since October of 2000, during which time he has focused on working with the leading DA solution providers to incorporate speech recognition into their solutions. Chris has also spent much of his time increasing the awareness and understanding of the benefits and business case of speech recognition within the DA industry. During his tenure at Nuance, Chris has been directly involved in the deployment of 12 DA automation solutions, and is currently involved in 3 more large scale DA automation deployments that will be rolling out in 2004.

Before joining Nuance, Chris spent several years with The Paisley Group where he worked with wireline and wireless directory assistance call centers providing the process by which the national directory assistance database is audited for customer fulfillment and database accuracy. He conducted an array of directory assistance audits (i.e. customer care, competitive, and experiential audits) that provided customers with strategic intelligence concerning not only their own data and processes, but those of their competitors as well. He also helped develop training for call centers to increase productivity, skills, and awareness of operators. While at The Paisley Group, Chris created and maintained several proprietary database programs that have streamlined the operations and auditing processes.

Chris Matson holds a Bachelors Degree in the area of International Business from the University of Colorado.

Mr. Gareth J. Morgan
Head of Voice Services
BT Directories

Having been part of the team that created the new Directories business unit within BT Retail, Gareth has now taken on responsibility for all aspects of the operator delivered products and services. This includes operator and emergency assistance as well as the existing and new suite of directory enquiry products.

Gareth joined BT shortly after privatization in the mid '80s. He has broad experience of BT's portfolio although has been focused on Operator and Directory Services for much of the past 10 years. Prior to joining BT he worked in a variety of FMCG and Industrial sales and marketing roles.

Gareth has a degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and postgraduate qualifications from the University of Westminster, London and the International Institute of Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Prior to joining Zelos Group as a Partner and Senior Consultant, Mark headed up the Pervasive Communications practice at The Kelsey Group, where he managed programs in speech recognition, wireless data, and the DA/DQ industry.

Prior to that, Mark worked at Strategic TeleMedia, where he instituted the first published coverage of the outsourced teleservices agency business, directory assistance market, as well as conducted proprietary research into voice messaging, wireless directory assistance, premium rate and toll-free services, billing operations, and personal assistants.

He is a frequent speaker at telecommunications industry events, including V-World and SpeechTek, and a contributing columnist to Speech Technology magazine. He has been quoted in publications such as Businessweek, Fortune, Forbes, the New York Times, Wired, and the Wall Street Journal. He is a graduate of Yale University and is a long-time resident of Greenwich Village.