Kevin Petersen is senior vice president of AT&T Digital Life for AT&T Services. Kevin is responsible for leading the launch of AT&T’s connected digital home services including Home Security, Home Monitoring, Home Control, Home Healthcare and Personal Energy Management.

Prior to this role, Kevin served as senior vice president of Consumer & Wireless Strategy for AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets, leading cross-functional teams to develop, analyze and present long-term strategies for AT&T.

Kevin also served as vice president and general manager for Wireless Operations in Illinois and Wisconsin. He was appointed to the position in June 2008 and oversaw all wireless financial and operational matters, including all company-owned retail stores, in his two-state territory.

Previously, he led a team of 850 employees that provided voice and data solutions to 35,000 customers in the Midwest and East regions. These business customers, which typically range in size from 10 to 300 employees, generate several hundred million dollars in annual revenue for AT&T.

A 17-year veteran of the industry, Kevin began his career with SBC Communications Inc. in 1993 in the company’s Leadership Development Program. He later worked as finance director for Dell Computer Corp. in Austin, Texas. He returned to AT&T in 2000 and served for three years as vice president of Corporate Finance and another two years as vice president of Corporate Planning in San Antonio. Since then, Kevin was the vice president and general manager of AT&T Ohio and vice president National Business Markets for AT&T Midwest and East regions.

Kevin currently serves on the board of directors of United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, The Wireless Foundation and GSM Association. A native of St. Louis, Kevin holds a bachelor’s degree from Missouri State University and a master’s degree from St. Louis University. He and his wife Nora have five children.

Mike Ritter is chief marketing officer for Verizon’s wireline consumer and mass business markets. He is responsible for leading national marketing and product platform management of the voice, broadband and video portfolio; channel marketing and development to serve that customer base.

Previously, Ritter has held several senior manager posts in Verizon Wireless and one of its predecessor companies, GTE. Most recently, Mike Ritter was vice president – Marketing and Sales Operations Midwest Area for Verizon Wireless, where he was responsible for the strategic/tactical direction of the Midwest Area including advertising, pricing and product support, customer relationship management, consumer and business marketing, distribution, training, sales operations and telesales operations.

Prior to becoming an area vice president in April 2001, Ritter had been president of the company’s Virginia Region. Prior to joining Verizon Wireless at the time of merger in 2000, Ritter was the region president for GTE’s Midwest Region. He entered the wireless communication industry in 1991 when he joined Contel Cellular in Richmond, Va., which merged with GTE in 1994.

Ritter held a number of management and marketing positions in the firm’s Virginia and Midwest Regions before moving to Chicago with Verizon Wireless Midwest area in 2002.

A graduate of James Madison University, Ritter holds a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Management.

Art Lancaster co-founded Affinegy in March 2003 and has served as CTO since, where he is responsible for technology strategy and product development. Affinegy provides unique software solutions that have been architected to easily connect, secure and manage Digital Lifestyle Networks. Spanning – for the first time – both emerging devices and previously installed, networking gear in the consumer home. Affinegy software has been deployed by some of the world’s largest broadband service providers, who use our solutions to deliver “it just works” Digital Lifestyle experiences to their end customers. Prior to Affinegy Art was director of strategy and business development for Motorola's Streamaster business where Art established strategies leading to the world's most advanced interactive broadband gateway system. He has a BSEE, cum laude, from the University of Missouri, an MSEE from the University of Southern California, and an MBA from the University of Texas.

Marty Roberts, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, thePlatform Marty Roberts’ diverse leadership background includes 14 years of product management and marketing. His experience developing strategy, building relationships with development organizations, and creating new products and services helped increase the customer base and profitability for organizations such as GiftCertificates.com and RealNetworks. As senior vice president of sales and marketing, Marty leads worldwide sales and account management, overseeing all revenue generation, business development, product management, marketing, public relations, and thePlatform’s extensive partner program. He previously served as vice president of sales and marketing, and as vice president of marketing at thePlatform. His contributions to the company’s success include repositioning the company and products, increasing the brand awareness through advertising, PR and the website, building an ecosystem with 80 partners and driving the product strategy for initiatives such as TV Everywhere.

Loren Shade has 25+ years experience in the embedded industry, and has worked with many industrial, military and commercial customers to adopt standards based communications into their embedded products. A long standing networking evangelist, Loren has delivered presentations on various networking and security topics at industry events, to customers, partners and technology forums and is excited about enabling connectivity and embedded device security with intelligent embedded devices.

Ben Weinberger is the co-founder and CEO of Digitalsmiths, the technology leader in the field of video search and recommendations. Under his leadership, Digitalsmiths continues to develop game-changing video discovery solutions that are being adopted by several of the biggest names in cable, satellite, telco and broadcast media. The company’s product, Seamless Discovery, revolutionized the speed and ease with which consumers can find personally relevant, engaging video content across multiple sources of entertainment and devices. Ben graduated with honors from Southern Illinois University, and serves on the board of directors for the Southern Illinois University Alumni Association.

Paul is Senior Vice President and General Manager, Advanced Advertising for Nagra-OpenTV. Paul is tasked with evolving the company’s advanced advertising business both in the US and internationally. Paul has more than 30 years of cable and broadcast experience and was previously with Comcast Spotlight, where he was charged with creating technology standards and best practices across the company's footprint of more than 90 markets.

Prior to Comcast Spotlight, Paul was Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Adlink, the nation's leading digital cable interconnect. He has served on various industry committees including those of the Cable Advertising Bureau and CableLabs. He currently chairs the SCTE Digital Video Subcommittee's "Working Group Five (DPI)" which has played a leading role in the development of international digital program and advertising insertion standards. In January 2012, at the CES Show, the group received the Technology & Engineering Emmy Award for “Local Cable Ad Insertion Technology - Cable Digital Standards for Local Cable Advertising.”

A frequent industry speaker, Paul is the recipient of the Cable Advertising Bureau’s 2002 Advertising Technology Award, for the development of AdTag™ and AdCopy™ and of the SCTE’s 2006 Excellence in Standards Award.

Jennifer Kent is part of the Digital Health and Mobile Product research team. She studies mobile industry trends including wireless carrier strategies, next-generation networking, and mobile consumer devices. Her digital health research focuses on digital health records and devices, fitness and wellness applications, and mobile healthcare trends. Since joining Parks Associates in 2009, Jennifer has also worked on the consumer research team, analyzing consumer data related to various areas of the digital home and consumer electronics industries.

Jennifer earned her BA in politics from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and her MA in church-state studies from Baylor University in Waco, TX. She is currently a doctoral candidate at Baylor University for a PhD in Religion, Politics and Society.

INDUSTRY EXPERTISE: Digital Health Products and Services, Portable and Mobile Access Platforms and Applications

Tom has been a client of Parks Associates’ REM service (2010) while serving Lennox Industries as Corporate Director, Advanced Engineering and as Director of Product Management.

Tom has previously worked in the utilities industry, the consumer goods industry and for Motorola in the telecom industry.

He holds a MS in Software Engineering from the University of Texas and a BS in Systems Engineering from the Unites States Naval Academy.

His roles in product strategy for a home controls company as well as experience in the utilities industry and the telecom space provides him with very strong qualifications to serve our energy and home controls clients’ needs.

Pietro Macchiarella joined Parks Associates following an international career in the wireless industry. He has worked in management-level positions throughout Europe and the U.S.

In his role as a research analyst, Pietro covers home entertainment media with specific focus on video gaming, digital music, 3DTV, and connected CE devices. Pietro’s research interests also include global residential energy management, with a particular focus on international deployments.

He earned his degree in business administration from Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi in Milan, Italy. He also has an MBA from Iona College in New Rochelle, NY.

INDUSTRY EXPERTISE: Video Gaming, Digital Music, Connected CE devices, Mobile Services, 3DTV, Residential Energy Management

As a director of research at Parks Associates, Brett Sappington is an expert in worldwide television and broadband services. His research focuses on the activities and trends among operators and the market forces affecting their businesses. Brett is a regular speaker and moderator at international industry events.

Brett has spent over eighteen years in the industry as an analyst, executive manager and entrepreneur. At Parks Associates, he tracks television and broadband services and leads a team of analysts that examines digital media services. Previously, he founded and served as vice president for Teligy, a software company specializing in software for wired and wireless communications systems. Brett established new divisions for networking and audio/multimedia software for Intelligraphics. He has also been involved in the development and marketing of early-market products for 802.11 wireless networking, VoIP, and other technologies.

Brett holds an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin with a concentration in high-tech marketing and a BA in physics from Baylor University.

INDUSTRY EXPERTISE: International Digital Living Trends, Television Services (IPTV, cable, satellite/DTH, terrestrial/DTT), Broadband Services, Multiscreen Services, Value-added Services, Cloud-based Consumer Services, Set-top Boxes, Residential Gateways, Electronic Program Guides, Video Search and Recommendation, Video Metadata, Middleware

Kurt Scherf studies developments in home networks, residential gateways, digital entertainment services, consumer electronics, and digital home technical support services. Kurt is the sole author or contributing author/analyst to more than 80 research reports and studies produced by Parks Associates since 1998.

Kurt joined Parks Associates following a career in political research and multi-tenant dwelling management. He earned his BA from The University of Iowa.

INDUSTRY EXPERTISE: Home Networks & Residential Gateways, Home Networking Media (Wi-Fi, UWB, HomePlug, HomePNA, MoCA, etc.), Media Center PCs, Set-top Boxes, Networked Consumer Electronics, Consumer Storage, Media Server Hardware and Software, Consumers and Digital Entertainment, Television Services, Broadband Video, Digital Home Customer Support Issues

Stuart Sikes is the president of Parks Associates, a market research firm specializing in consumer adoption of technology products and services. Stuart and team assist clients around the world by predicting trends in consumer technologies and identifying evolving business models. The Parks Associates team serves the world’s leading semiconductor, software, consumer electronics, telecom equipment, and entertainment companies, providing them with industry analysis, consumer research, and go-to-market recommendations. Stuart’s recent industry presentations include the outlook for residential energy management, new business models for the connected home, and the evolution of new video services.

Stuart has served technology companies for over twenty years, designing technical service, software, and hardware solutions for companies ranging from global semiconductor manufacturers to one of the nation’s largest airlines. In his positions with companies including AT&T, NCR, OpenConnect Systems, and Intelligraphics, Stuart’s roles have included sales, product marketing, marketing communications, and executive management.

Stuart holds an MBA from SMU and a BA in economics from Vanderbilt University.

Harry Wang studies the consumer electronics and entertainment service industries with a focus on portable CE hardware, software, and associated applications and services. He is also the lead analyst for Parks Associates’ digital health research program. Harry has presented his research in numerous industry events including CES, Digital Hollywood, Photo Marketing Association Annual Show, American Telemedicine Association Annual Show, World Health Congress, and Parks Associates’ CONNECTIONS™ conferences.

Harry earned his MS degree in marketing research from the University of Texas at Arlington. He also holds an MBA degree in finance from Texas Christian University and a BA degree in international business from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, P.R. China.

INDUSTRY EXPERTISE: Digital Health Products and Services, Portable and Mobile Access Platforms and Applications, Digital Imaging Products and Services

Heather Way studies digital media advertising services and platforms as well as consumer research focusing on digital entertainment, digital media habits, and consumer purchase processes.

Prior to joining Parks Associates, Heather worked in the Dallas-Fort Worth media market for thirteen years, holding positions as Director of Advertising, media planner and buyer, national sales representative, and training coordinator. Most recently, Heather taught as an adjunct professor in the Department of Radio, Television, and Film at the University of North Texas.

Heather earned an MS degree in Radio, Television, and Film from the University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, and holds a BS in Mass Communications from East Central University, Ada, Oklahoma.

INDUSTRY EXPERTISE: Digital Media, Emerging Advertising Technologies, and Digital Video Advertising