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Keynote Speakers:
Gregory L. Taylor
Supply Chain Management Executive, Bank of America
 Mr. Taylor joined Bank of America in October 2003. Taylor took on the leadership of the company’s Supply Chain Management operations which include technology and operations and indirect sourcing, supplier risk and supplier performance management. Taylor is a member of the Management Operating Committee and the Global Diversity and Inclusion Council.
He most recently served as Vice President of Global Business Services at Scientific Atlanta in Atlanta, GA. He was responsible for global procurement, information technology, sales operations, customer support, facilities and real estate along with supervising company-wide functions such as credit and collection, quality, legal and creative media services. Taylor has also held various leadership positions in companies such as DuPont and Zenith.
Taylor graduated from Yale University where he majored in Sociology. He later earned a masters degree in Management from Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois with a major in Finance. Taylor is a Certified Public Accountant.
While in Georgia, Taylor was a member of the board of the Gwinnett Hospital Systems, the Gwinnett Technology Foundation, board member and President of the Gwinnett County Boys and Girls Clubs. He was also a mentor in the Georgia 100 Mentoring Program.
Currently, Taylor is active on multiple boards in the Charlotte area. He is a member of the Board of Director’s for the Levine Museum and serves as trustee of the North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center and the National Kidney Foundation of North Carolina. He is also a board member of the DOWD YMCA and a member of the Executive Committee. In addition, Taylor is Co-Chair of the Advisory Board of the Business School at Clark Atlanta University.
Jason Busch
Managing Director, Azul Partners
& Editor, Spend Matters
 Jason Busch is Founder and Managing Director of Azul Partners, a boutique advisory firm. He is also Editor of the highly trafficked sourcing and supply chain blog www.spendmatters.com and is co-founder of the procurement and supply chain research hub: Spend Matters Navigator. Jason is regarded as one of the leading pundits and thought leaders in the procurement and operations worlds and has worked with hundreds of practitioners and providers to help define and sell next generation products and solutions.
His current research and interest areas include the future of global sourcing, supply risk management, supplier performance management, and the growth of communities of interest and online social networking within the procurement and operations worlds. Previously, he spent five years at FreeMarkets leading a variety of corporate development, marketing, product strategy and sourcing initiatives. He started his career in consulting and finance and holds a graduate degree in history from the University of Pennsylvania.
Panelists:
Edna Conway
Sr. Director, Advanced Compliance & Social Responsibility
Global Supply Chain Management, Cisco Systems
 Edna M. Conway is Senior Director, Advanced Compliance & Social Responsibility for Cisco’s Global Supply Chain Management organization. She and her team are responsible for assuring product compliance (environmental, tax, duties, customs, etc.), supplier diversity, supplier social responsibility (e.g., labor, health and safety, environmental sustainability), and contracts management across Cisco’s supply chain. In addition, Conway drives the Green Supply Chain initiative for Cisco and serves as the Supply Chain Strategist for Cisco’s EcoBoard, the cross-functional council setting Cisco’s long-term green vision and strategy. She also serves on the company’s Patent Review Committee.
In December 2007, Conway’s Diversity group organized the annual Supplier Diversity EMS Forum, co-sponsored by AT&T and Dell. Cisco realizes that developing and enhancing relationships with a diverse supplier community results in greater flexibility, drives innovation, and delivers more value to a diverse customer base. Conway’s previous roles at Cisco include leading business development, product and technical marketing for Cisco’s Government Solutions group, with a focus on the civilian and defense communications markets; and from 2000-2004, serving on Cisco’s Legal team as Senior Director of Worldwide Technology Licensing overseeing the creation, preservation, licensure and implementation of legal strategies for the full spectrum of Cisco’s portfolio.
Prior to Cisco, Conway worked in an international private legal practice counseling private and public technology clients on a range of business, technology, employment, and litigation issues.
Conway pursued her undergraduate training in Bio-medical Engineering and Medieval & Renaissance Literature at Columbia University and earned her law degree at the University of Virginia. She is a frequent guest speaker for national technology, legal, business and manufacturing organizations such as the United States Patent & Trademark Office; the National Human Resources Association; AeA; MIT’s Sloan School of Management; Stanford’s Graduate School of Business; and the University of New Hampshire, School of Business.
Fred Schachter
Global Supply Chain Management,
Wachovia
Fred Schachter, our panelist from Wachovia, is no stranger to the sourcing profession. He held various jobs before joining Seiko Corporation of America where he worked for 17 years. Fred took a position involving a single division’s transactional purchasing and developed it into a corporate, nationwide/international function with ability to assess, recommend, and implement solutions to best meet the organization’s needs for a wide cross-section of commodities.
In 1996, Fred moved to American Express to become a senior manager for several areas within his expertise, eventually transitioning to a corporate procurement operational management role for the Americas. He established cohesive, consistent worldwide procurement policies and procedures with associated metrics for measuring staff and organizational performance.
Fred then served as a management consultant for a variety of clients, from the Fortune 100 to the Public Sector in a wide range of supply chain, finance & accounting outsourcing management capacities.
In 2004 he joined JP Morgan Chase and then in 2006 Wachovia, where he is today: having lead and contributed to Wachovia Sourcing activities for various Corporate Service commodities including international and merger-related perspectives.
Fred’s commitment to the sourcing profession is paralleled by his commitment to family: wife Marlene and their two adult children, Michael & Paula and five year old grand-daughter Emily. He is also an amateur military history buff, an interest with which he was so taken it resulted in his briefly being an intermediate school social studies teacher in New York City before devoting himself to a business career.
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