Chris Malecek

Chris is an Executive Vice President with Weber Shandwick.  He has more than 25 years of experience in corporate, marketing and financial communications. Chris currently oversees corporate and financial communications assignments for clients including Syngenta Seeds, Hutchinson Technology, The Toro Company and Opus Group. He has recently overseen communications related to settlement of an antitrust matter, resolution of a whistleblower complaint filed against a client in the pharmacy benefit management industry and litigation related to a dispute among partners in a commercial real estate development project. Chris has previously handled communications related to labor relations issues for companies including Northwest Airlines and The Coca-Cola Company. He has also served as a speech and op-ed writer for executives at Northwest Airlines, Eastman Kodak, The Coca-Cola Company and Hutchinson Technology.

Chris is a member of the National Investor Relations Institute and has previously served as president and a member of the board of directors of its Twin Cities chapter. He currently serves as an at-large member of the board of directors for Open Book Minnesota the state’s center for the literary and book arts. He has previously served as a board member for Milkweed Editions, a nonprofit literary publisher, and for ThreeSixty Journalism, a youth journalism program.  He earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Jim Notarnicola

Jim is a partner with Brock Capital in New York, a corporate advisory and investment banking firm. Brock partners are current and former CEOs, board members, investment bankers, investors, and lawyers. He is also the Founder and CEO of Nicely Bros. Ice Cream, Distribution. Mr. Notarnicola is the former Chief Marketing Officer of Blockbuster, Inc. and spent 20 years at 7-Eleven, Inc. in various operating and marketing positions.

As a volunteer, Jim has done work for the St. Matthews Conference of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation. Jim holds a B.S. from the University of Maryland and is a graduate of the University of Texas Advanced Marketing Program.

Karl Schubert

Karl D. Schubert, Ph.D. is the Managing Partner for TechNova Consulting specializing in innovative ideas for technology and management development, electronic evidence discovery technology, computer and storage systems strategy, technology, and architecture, and IS/IT strategies.  Karl is also an Associate Partner with LGEExecs, a team of former C-level executives and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Make A Wish Minnesota Foundation.

Karl is the former CTO and Corporate VP of R&D at Lifetouch where he was responsible for providing the vision, leadership and guidance to shape Lifetouch's technology roadmap for the future.  Prior to Lifetouch, Karl was CTO and Corporate VP at Xiotech Corp. and also served as Chairman of Xiotech India Pvt., Ltd.  Prior to Xiotech, he was a technology consultant to start-up companies with Austin Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Kleiner Perkins, and Sierra Ventures and he also served as VP & CTO of Dell, where he architected Dell's entry into the storage business.  Prior to Dell, Karl spent almost 15 years at IBM, with technical & management assignments in IBM Research, Corporate Headquarters, & several product divisions.

Karl is a frequently invited conference speaker and has authored articles for internal & technology presses. He has been awarded a number of technology patents. Karl has a Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of Arkansas and in 2008 was received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Engineering.  He is the author of The CIO Survival Guide, published April 2004 by John Wiley, and is a co-author of CIO Best Practices: Enabling Strategic Value with Information Technology published February 2007 also by John Wiley and is working on new chapters of this book for its forth-coming second edition.  And, Karl is an editor for Citizendium in the specialties of Engineering and Computers.

Marcia Smith

Bringing over 20 years of health services delivery management and senior level experience to her role as Chief Executive Officer of Evercare, Marcia Smith led this company during its seminal years from 1995-2002.  She guided the initial stages of Evercare’s development from a federal demonstration project serving frail elderly to a national organization with operations in 13 cities.

During her tenure, Evercare enjoyed twenty fold growth and gained a new presence in community health care for the chronically ill through the acquisition of Lifemark, a government-funded company.  Additionally, Marcia’s successful lobbying of the US Congress ensured the continuation of the Evercare program and its future growth.  Internally, her organization ranked the highest at United Health Group in employee satisfaction and manager proficiency based on objective, externally administered measurement tools.

From 2002-2005, Marcia spearheaded the Evercare pilot in England under a contract with the National Health Service.  This pilot resulted in new national policy for the care of those with chronic conditions. Ms. Smith holds a BSN from the University of Colorado and a MSN in Long-Term Care from George Mason University in Virginia.

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