Andrea Di Maio is a vice president in Gartner Research, where he focuses on the public sector, with particular reference to the business value of IT, e-government strategies, open-source software policies and regulatory aspects of e-business.

Prior to joining Gartner, Mr. Di Maio was with the European Commission, where he was responsible for part of the R&D framework program, as well as for all activities on the impact of the year 2000 problem and the IT impact of the EMU. Before the European Commission, he held management and technical positions in the systems and software industry. He has more than 20 years of experience in IT.

My constant interaction with clients all around the world produces a feeling of being able to help them better understand their issues. I love helping them choose the most adequate solutions; often offering counter-intuitive advice. I also love the collaboration with colleagues in different geographies, who have a wealth of complementary expertise in technology and business issues. By challenging me and my beliefs, they help me go the extra mile in providing value to our clients.

Ms. Fitzgerald has 28 years of experience in the IT industry. Before joining Gartner, she started her career in finance, where she was responsible for the portfolio of development projects (both engineer and IT). She has set up PMOs, built communities of practice and run an agile development shop. She was also a product manager for two software companies, where she was responsible for the development of their project and portfolio management software.

Mr. Hestermann has more than 20 years of experience in product management and development for a range of ERP systems. Most recently he spent five years as the director of development for midmarket ERP systems and two years as director of product management for three Europe-based ERP systems at Infor Global Solutions. Mr. Hestermann spent four years in academic research as a research fellow at the University of Wuerzburg and three years as lead manager of a project in advanced planning and scheduling systems. He also built up a development and support organization from 20 to 200 developers for one of the leading European midmarket ERP system providers.

Joseph Feiman, Ph.D., is a research vice president in Gartner Research. Dr. Feiman focuses on applications’ security: technologies and methodologies enabling secure software lifecycle. His interests are application in both technological and organizational aspects of IT.

Dr. Feiman’s research in application development outsourcing and enterprise performance assessments earned him Gartner Thought Leadership Award for two consecutive years — 2003 and 2004. His background includes system and application programming, research and development, management and consulting. Prior to joining Gartner, Dr. Feiman was manager of advanced technologies at American Greetings.

The most exciting part of my job is bringing structure to chaotic issues by creating quantitative models and decision frameworks like the Application Development Sourcing Cost Model, the Geopolitical Risk Model and the Enterprise Personality Profile Model. I love to write prescriptive rather than descriptive research, and to give data-driven advice to our clients.

Matt Light is a research director in Gartner Research, where he advises on applications development and project and process management. He leads Gartner's project portfolio management research community, and is a popular speaker at Gartner events and in other forums around the world, and is widely quoted in the American and worldwide press. He has more than 20 years of experience in the industry.

Prior to joining Gartner, Mr. Light managed economic research publication at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. He also worked as a project manager and in other development and research roles for Select Information and American Videotex Systems -- providers of desktop productivity tools in the first wave of PC software, and of a pre-Web consumer information dial-up service. He also managed Auerbach Publishers' line of Product/Process Innovation and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing publications.

I love going out on client calls with account executives, especially when I meet clients who've read my research over the last few years and want to exchange ideas at an advanced level. A new age of application development is dawning that will support enterprises in whole new ways. It's thrilling to be at Gartner, helping to shape this major socioeconomic change.

Lars Mieritz is a vice president in Gartner Research. As part of the IT Asset Management Group, his focus area is hardware asset management, covering topics such as acquisition and procurement strategies, financing, and hardware life cycle management issues, including TCO, cost justification and ROI. Mr. Mieritz’s published research covers models and frameworks, such as TCO or TVO, for IT and business communications and alignment through scorecards, dashboards or other performance management initiatives, as well as demonstrating the business value of IT.

Before his current position, Mr. Mieritz was responsible for the Gartner Measurement EMEA Research Services Centre, leveraging the synergies of Gartner Measurement data and Gartner Research. Mr. Mieritz joined Gartner Research in 1994 as a senior analyst covering distributed computing procurement and acquisition, asset management, and total cost of ownership. Prior to joining Gartner, Mr. Mieritz was responsible for providing research and consulting services to vendor and user communities for International Data Corporation.

The best part of being an analyst is the moment something you say triggers a chain reaction in the head of the client you are speaking with. You know that you helped to crystallize a client's issue and assisted in the decision-making process.

Bill Rosser is a vice president and distinguished analyst with Gartner Research's Business Process Management team. Mr. Rosser pays particular attention to the realm of business process modelling and its languages and notations, as well as making the case for justification and payoff. He continues to support enterprise architecture, strategic planning for IT, including portfolio management and aligning IT with the business.

Prior to joining Gartner, Mr. Rosser was manager of strategic planning for ventures in the high-technology components group at Exxon Enterprises. As an entrepreneur, he co-founded and was president of a firm providing point-of-sale devices and processing services.

Absorbing and analyzing information technology and the resultant speed of knowledge growth provides endless intellectual stimulation and is fun to do -- especially in the company of so many superb colleagues. Plus we get to help our clients every day, and on top of all that, we have a chance to express our most deeply-held opinions before interested audiences. It is a ball.

Daniel Stang is a principal analyst in Gartner Research, covering project and portfolio management (PPM) applications. His expertise is specifically centered on product knowledge, in which he provides in-depth research on the R&D efforts and resulting products of the software vendors in his coverage area. As part of his duties, Mr. Stang helps Gartner clients define their specific product needs and helps them build product shortlists based on these needs. His complementary, detailed product research is designed to provide overviews of PM and PPM technologies and to help Gartner clients compare prospective vendor offerings while making software investment decisions.

Prior to joining Gartner, Mr. Stang worked for a niche IT-based research company, tracking a variety of software technologies, including ERP applications, AD tools, project management systems, document management systems, and Web authoring and development. Mr. Stang also worked for a New Jersey-based distributor of scientific supplies, apparatus, chemicals and reagents, where he was an editor for the company's 2,000+ page product catalog.

There are two things I love about my job. One: I get to work with clients everyday. Two: analyzing a software market requires constant education and presents new challenges everyday. My job is never boring and I love that aspect of it most of all.