Date Published December 19, 2022 - Last Updated January 20, 2023
Each year, a dedicated group of leaders in the IT service and support industry provide lessons and wisdom from hard-won experience in the field. HDI’s featured contributors agree to contribute at least six articles a year for our industry blog. Please join us in thanking those who have agreed to take part in 2023!
Pierre Bernard
Global ITSM Process Manager, IKO Industries Ltd.
Pierre is a published author and experienced expert in the world of ITIL, with experience across IT practices. He works to transform best practice concepts into reality and explain theoretical concepts in plain language. He combines extensive experience, with knowledge and expertise in service management, organizational change, business management, and continual service improvement.
Phyllis Drucker
Professional Speaker and Writer, EZ2BGR8
A veteran contributor and speaker to HDI, Phyllis focuses on helping others provide customers a great experience and build incredibly effective teams. She’s an Enterprise Service Management guru with extensive management experience in governance, customer service and support, process design and implementation, project management, and team building. In addition, she’s an accomplished and experienced speaker on Service Management, Metrics Service Desk and HR Automation.
Tim Elgunn
Principal Analyst and Editorial Manager, HDI and ICMI at Informa Tech
Tim produces and manages content and events for our community of contact center and technical support professionals. A skilled analyst, strategic advisor, writer and editor, he has extensive experience researching, synthesizing and explaining strategic, regulatory, technology, and service trends. Before joining the Informa Tech team, Tim held senior editorial and analysis roles at Bloomberg Law, Stratecast Partners/Frost & Sullivan, and Gartner.
Dennis Gershowitz
Principal, DG Associates
A longtime contributor to HDI, Dennis specializes in working with B2B clients on challenges such as delivering customer success, customer outcomes and adoption, customer journey mapping, and more. He is experienced in strengthening sustainable competitive leadership and financial performance, defining/aligning business strategy with processes, and building a high-performance culture and work team.
Valence Howden
Principal Research Director, Infotech Research Group
Howden helps organizations by optimizing the way they are designed, the way they build effective strategies, how they improve their ways of working through effective practices, and the way they enable success through governance. He has spent more than 25 years in a variety of roles, from coding and support to driving business value and successful transformation. He is passionate about a world that understands true inclusion and equity as people find the core value in diversity.
Jason Hunt
Help Desk Analyst, RCIS
Jason has been involved with Information Technology for over 25 years. Beginning his career on the phone with a large computer manufacturer, he branched off to support mainly small-sized and mid-sized businesses before returned to become a network engineer and software developer. Now, for the last 15 years, he has supported a diverse and geographically spread-out team of 20+ techs with the largest crop insurance company in the world.
Nancy Louisnord
Global Chief Marketing Officer, MANTA
Nancy is a strategic marketing executive with more than 15 years of global marketing and sales leadership experience in the B2B SaaS industry, bringing numerous software companies into new markets, integrating acquisitions, and driving exponential growth with a focus on profitability through business transformations.
Delcia Marrs
Senior Technical & Functional Analyst, Service Management, BC Ferries
Delcia’s professional motto is ”'Serving for Success". An IT professional with extensive experience in customer services support, she has demonstrated successes in shaping positive customer service journeys, systems support, customer training, and documentation. Her goal is to push the positive boundaries of success for organizations.
Ric Mims
Director, SDI Presence
Ric Mims has more than 28 years of experience in service desk management, ITSM, consulting, and operations. He has held various positions throughout his career, from team leader to help desk manager to ITSM consultant. He’s also served in many capacities for HDI, including as a member of the HDI Faculty, a frequent speaker at HDI conferences, and a former local chapter president.
April Miller
Senior Writer, ReHack Magazine
April Miller is a senior writer at ReHack Magazine who enjoys discussing various types of IT and business technology. You can find her work on publications such as IT Chronicles and the Society of Women Engineers.
Stephen Paskel
Senior Vice President Of Operations, Principal, CMIT Solutions of Biltmore
Stephen has a track record of developing high performing teams and resolving the most complex issues facing his customers and fellow team members. He is a certified instructor, public speaker, corporate executive, board member of multiple national non-profit organizations, and entrepreneur. Stephen also serves on the HDI Advisory Board and enjoys learning and sharing with the community.
Judith Platz
Chief Customer Officer, SupportLogic
Judith is an executive support leader with extensive experience in creating and transforming global support delivery organizations. Experienced in managing all aspects of the support business, she is also a main stage presenter, author, and motivator. She believes it's important to share thoughts, ideas, and learnings with her peers and those new to the industry to move forward collectively and provide the ideal customer and employee experience.
Doug Rabold
Senior Manager of Customer Support, Amwell
A respected leader in the support and success industry, Doug opted into the featured contributor program to share key learnings, practices and capabilities for the industry to move forward collectively and provide the ideal customer and employee experience. He is an experienced, certified and multiple award-winning service management, process, operations, project, relationship, major account and territory leader with a passion for public speaking and developing people.
Patrycja Sobera
Global Vice President, EUX, Digital Workplace Solutions, Unisys
An HDI community enthusiast and Experience Management evangelist, Patrycja is an award-winning leader whose goal is to share the principles of delivering strong, experience-focused customer satisfaction to ensure client, shareholder, and community success. She is a passionate Diversity, Equity & Inclusion champion and Lean in Ambassador for EMEA Women in Tech.
David Stewart
IT Consultant - Opimise
David is ITIL v.3 Expert trained, a contributor to ITSM’s main blog site, experienced across seven service and team management positions, and proficient at ITSM tool development. He has developed a 25-lesson microlearning course called “IT Support Service High Performance Principles”.
Doug Tedder
Owner and Principal Consultant of Tedder Consulting, LLC.
An author, blogger, and frequent speaker and contributor, Doug is a recognized industry thought leader whose passion is in helping IT organizations move from “good” to “great”. He holds numerous industry certifications in disciplines ranging from ITIL, COBIT, Lean IT, KCS, DevOps, VeriSM, SIAM, and Organizational Change Management.