Deborah Smallwood:
"I grew up in the insurance industry and have experienced the shackles that traditional monolithic technology solutions have places on business operations… Today, I really do believe those shackles can finally be removed with the right alignment of strategy to process to technology, and leveraging the right enablers like SOA… I want to be out front in making this happen."

Deb is currently a co founder of Smallwood Maike Associates – which offers the insurance industry a new breed of strategic advisory services focused on guiding their clients – both insurers and vendors - to harness the full power of infinite possibilities and realize their full potential by achieving business agility and positioning for marketing dominance and financial strength.

Deb Smallwood has held leadership roles at Liberty Mutual, ICW Group, KPMG LLP and TowerGroup, where she consistently found new ways to leverage technology in achieving optimal business performance. Her skill set includes business and IT strategy, the development of business and IT roadmaps, and the planning and delivery of enterprise solutions to the business.

Akshay Sabhikhi is the Program Director for Industry SOA for IBM Software Group. He leads product management for a business unit that is responsible for driving IBM’s strategy and growth around industry-specific SOA middleware products and services.

Prior to his current position at IBM, Mr. Sabhikhi served as Director of Products for Webify Solutions Inc., where he drove product strategy and execution that built Webify as a leader in industry-specific SOA software leading to its acquisition by IBM in August 2006.

Mr. Sabhikhi is accomplished software professional who has held multiple roles in the enterprise software industry with a strong focus on financial services markets. Prior to Webify, Akshay managed products for Trilogy Software Inc. within the financial services business unit. He holds a Masters in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. He also holds an Acton MBA in Entrepreneurship from the Acton MBA School in Austin, Texas.