| Karen Sobel Lojeski, Ph.D. Chief Executive Officer Dr. Karen Sobel Lojeski is a Professor in the Department of Technology and Society at Stony Brook University and Founder of Virtual Distance International (VDI), an advisory firm helping organizations boost productivity and innovation in the virtual workforce. Karen is a leading expert on virtual teams, leadership, and collaboration. She is the co-author of “Uniting the Virtual Workforce: Transforming Leadership and Innovation in the Globally Integrated Enterprise”, John Wiley & Sons, 2008. Her upcoming book, “Leading the Virtual Workforce: How Great Leaders Transform Organizations in the 21st Century”, showcases interviews with executives from IBM, Merck, HP, AT&T, Alcatel-Lucent, Crayola, and others. In it she shares best practices on how great leaders successfully leverage the growing virtual workforce. Both books are part of the Microsoft Executive Leadership Series. Karen is the pioneer who discovered Virtual Distance, a measurable, Digital Age phenomenon that strongly impacts innovation, financial performance, job satisfaction, leader effectiveness, and more. Karen created the Virtual Distance Index, which provides quantitative, tangible, and practical metrics on virtual team dynamics and organizational outcomes. When Virtual Distance is managed properly innovation improves by over 90%, project success increases by over 50% and customer satisfaction also rises by almost 60%. And here’s what executives really need to know: Virtual Distance can be just as high among co-located workers as it is among those who work thousands of miles apart making the need for Virtual Distance management an urgent imperative for growth and competitive advantage. Distance management is urgent imperative for growth and competitive advantage. Karen works with worldwide organizations including Sun Microsystems, the US Navy and Center for Naval Analysis, Merck, Alcatel-Lucent, Microsoft, J&J, National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions, Genentech, Western Union, and more. Karen is a highly sought-after keynote speaker on the topic of managing virtual teams, collaboration, leadership, and strategic change. Karen has held leadership positions at Stratus Computer, Inc., Chase Manhattan Bank N.A., and Mercer Consulting Group. She was Chief Operating Officer for Prolifics, a JYACC company, and Vice President of North America for Xansa. Karen holds degrees in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics and recently completed her Ph.D. at Stevens Institute of Technology where her dissertation, “Virtual Distance: A New Model for the Study of Virtual Work,” won the award for Best Dissertation of 2006. Karen is a Visitor at the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton University, a Collaborator at Stanford University’s MediaX Lab, and a Presidential Fellow at NYU/Polytechnic University. Karen leads the Virtual Work Forum at Ciozone.com and her groundbreaking work on Virtual Distance has been featured in major business publications and TV appearances including Business Week, The New York Times, Entrepreneur magazine, The Los Angeles Times, ABC News, Reuters.com, Forbes.com, Inside Supply Chain Management, CIOInsight, and more. Leaders from around the globe are hailing Uniting the Virtual Workforce. Said Jerry MacArthur Hultin, former Undersecretary of the United States Navy and President, NYU/Polytechnic University, “Uniting the Virtual Workforce charts the course for competing in the 21st Century by tapping into the powers of virtual work. Any manager who ignores the virtual workforce is underperforming and any company or organization that does not appreciate virtual work is already at a competitive disadvantage.” | | Richard R. Reilly, Ph.D. Chief Technology Officer Dr. Richard R. Reilly, is Chief Technology Officer of VDI, and Emeritus Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. Richard has spent his career helping organizations build better ways to lead and manage employees. As a leading research psychologist for Bell Laboratories, AT&T, and Educational Testing Service, Richard developed leading edge methods for assessing team performance and analyzing complex sets of diverse data about organizational dynamics and their effects. As an expert and thought leader on research methods and statistical analysis, Richard has created some of the most sophisticated data modeling techniques for organizational and industrial assessments. Richard specializes in virtual teams as well as innovation and new product development. His first book, “Blockbusters: The Five Keys to Developing Great New Products”, HarperCollins, 2002, was sold worldwide and became an instant must-read for those working in and around new product development. Richard is the co-author of “Uniting the Virtual Workforce: Transforming Leadership and Innovation in the Globally Integrated Enterprise”, Wiley, 2008. In addition to his work with VDI and Stevens Institute of Technology, Richard is also on the advisory board of the Institute for Innovation & Information Productivity and is an advisor to the National Board of Medical Examiners on physician behavior. Richard is also certified with the American Board of Professional Psychology, is on the Editorial Board of Personnel Psychology and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society. Richard earned his Bachelor of Science from Fordham University and his Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology from the University of Tennessee. Richard has also authored several other books including: The Human Side of Project Leadership published by the Project Management Institute in 2006. He has authored hundreds of academic papers including: Trust and Organizational Citizenship in Virtual and Collocated Dyads, (2008), Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (with M. Yakovleva). "Do Localized Clusters Enhance Creativity?" (2006). "Creativity and Innovation Management," 15, 410-418. (with S. Ibriham; H. Fallah). "Knowledge Management in New Product Teams: Practices and Outcomes," (2000). IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 47, 221-231 (with G. Lynn, A. Akgun). "Measuring Team Performance," (2000), Research Technology Management. 43, 48-56. (with G. Lynn). "Does Performance Improve Following Multisource Feedback?" A theoretical model, meta-analysis and review of empirical findings. Personnel Psychology, 58, 33-66 (with J. Smither, M. London). 
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