Alan Masarek is President and Chief Executive Officer, bringing over 30 years of software and cloud-based business experience to Avaya. He is an industry innovator with deep expertise in enterprise communications, information technology and business services.

Prior to Avaya, Alan was CEO of Vonage, leading its transformation from a VoIP-based residential phone provider to a global enterprise cloud communications company. He’s also served as Director of Chrome & Apps at Google, and was co-founder and CEO of Quickoffice, one of the world’s most widely used mobile productivity software solutions. Alan earned his MBA, with distinction, from Harvard Business School and his BBA, magna cum laude, from the University of Georgia.

Colleen Jamieson is Executive Director of the International Avaya User Group (IAUG). In her role, she supports the Board of Directors in advancing the mission of IAUG to provide networking, education, and advocacy opportunities to Avaya customers around the world.

Prior to assuming this position, Colleen has supported IAUG in various capacities, including being responsible for membership, events and program planning and execution, operations management, and annual strategic planning. She has worked with technology associations and user groups for over fifteen years.

Soren Abildgaard is EVP and Chief Technology Officer at Avaya, with more than two decades of experience in global software development and engineering at high-growth SaaS companies. He brings to Avaya his strong focus and deep expertise in delivering platforms and products that enable customers to design and deliver great digital experiences.

Soren came to Avaya from Contentful where he was EVP of Engineering, helping scale the platform to service many of the world’s largest brands. He served as EVP of Engineering at Zendesk, and for Adobe Advertising Cloud, and has held several senior product development positions. Soren has a Master of Science in Engineering from Technical University in Demark.

ML Maco is Chief Revenue and Customer Experience Officer at Avaya. She brings over 25 years of experience driving go-to-market strategy, sales channels, customer success, and field operations at high-growth software and cloud companies. ML served as EVP of Worldwide Sales and Field Operations at Genesys, where she led the GTM SaaS transformation to consecutive years of high growth.

Before Genesys, she served in several sales executive leadership positions, including at Anaplan, CognitiveScale, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Oracle, and Cisco Systems. ML attended Penn State University, majoring in Management and Related Support Services.

Josh Mueller is the SVP, Chief Marketing Officer, and General Manager of Hardware at Avaya. He brings 20 years of experience in driving growth and leading go-to-market strategies, with a focus on delivering experiences that matter for customers. Before joining Avaya, he served as the SVP and Chief Digital Officer, and GM of the Portfolio Business Unit, at NI (National Instruments).

He has also held key positions as Chief Digital Officer at Vonage, Chief Marketing Officer at Dun & Bradstreet, and multiple leadership roles at Dell Technologies. Josh holds a master’s degree in business administration from The University of Texas at Austin and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Texas A&M University.

Lori is a Unified Communications professional with 25 years of experience in the industry that includes working on both the partner and customer side of the technologies. She currently works at Amerisure Insurance as a Senior Systems Engineer with a focus on voice and data networks along with a wide range of collaboration products.

Previous experiences include project management, training, User Experience and CCNA certification. She currently serves as the IAUG Board of Directors President and has been a longtime member and volunteer of IAUG.

Arianna Huffington is the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, the founder of The Huffington Post, and the author of 15 books, including Thrive and The Sleep Revolution. In 2016, she launched Thrive Global, a behavior change technology company with the mission of improving productivity and health outcomes.

She has been named to Time Magazine's list of the world’s 100 most influential people and the Forbes Most Powerful Women list. Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an M.A. in economics. At 21, she became president of the famed debating society, the Cambridge Union.

Her last two books, Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder and The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night At A Time, both became instant international bestsellers. Most recently, she wrote the foreword to Thrive Global's first book Your Time to Thrive: End Burnout, Increase Well-being, and Unlock Your Full Potential with the New Science of Microsteps.

Dr. Ayanna Howard is an innovator, entrepreneur, leader, and international expert in robotics and AI. She is also the author of the best-selling audiobook, “Sex, Race, and Robots : How to be Human in the Age of AI.” Currently, Dr. Howard is the Dean of Engineering at The Ohio State University and Monte Ahuja Endowed Dean's Chair. In addition, she serves on the Board of Directors for Autodesk and Motorola Solutions.

Prior to Ohio State, Dr. Howard was the Linda J. and Mark C. Smith Endowed Chair in Bioengineering and Chair of the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Previously, she was at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory where she held the title of Senior Robotics Researcher and Deputy Manager in the Office of the Chief Scientist. Her research encompasses advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), assistive technologies, and robotics, and has resulted in over 275 publications. Now, she works on projects ranging from healthcare robots to developing methods to mitigate bias and trust in AI.

To date, Dr. Howard’s unique accomplishments have been highlighted through a number of awards and articles, as well as being recognized as one of the 23 most powerful women engineers in the world by Business Insider.

Scott spent almost 10 years as a nightclub promoter in New York City before leaving to volunteer on a hospital ship off the coast of Liberia, West Africa as a volunteer photojournalist.

Returning home to New York City two years later, he founded the non-profit organization charity: water in 2006. Turning his full attention to the global water crisis and the world’s (then) 1.1 billion people without clean water to drink, he created public installations and innovative online fundraising platforms to spread international awareness of the issue.

In 17 years, with the help of more than 1 million donors worldwide, charity: water has raised more than $850 million and funded over 138,000 water projects in 29 countries. When completed, those projects will provide 17.5 million people with clean, safe drinking water.

Scott has been recognized on Fortune magazine’s list of 40 Under 40, Forbes’ Impact 30, and Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business, where he earned the #10 spot.

He’s a recipient of the Martin Luther King Center Salute to Greatness humanitarian award and the author of the New York Times Bestselling book Thirst. Scott and his wife Viktoria have three children, Jackson, Emma, and Luke.

Katie has contributed hundreds of written pieces for top outlets and can regularly be seen on TV and digital segments such as the TODAY Show, Rachael Ray, The Weather Channel and CBS Sports Radio, just to name a few.  

She’s been named a Silicon Valley Visionary and leads an active lifestyle while also devoting a large percentage of her time to select philanthropic causes in healthcare, retired K9s, and US veterans. She’s also a country music artist whose songs and videos have hit the charts.

Governor Jared Polis began his career as an entrepreneur and brought that unique perspective to his career in public service. Prior to becoming Governor, Polis launched several successful companies, founded schools for at-risk students and new immigrants, served on the State Board of Education, and represented Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District.

As Governor, Polis is focused on keeping our economy strong, supporting Colorado businesses, and creating new jobs. Thanks to the Governor’s leadership, Colorado experienced one of the strongest economic recoveries in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During his time in office, the Governor passed historic property tax relief and the business personal property tax exemption, reduced the assessment rate for businesses, and invested in the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund.

The Governor is also focused on strengthening Colorado’s workforce through programs like Career Advance Colorado, which provides zero-cost training at our community and technical colleges for in demand jobs, and the creation of the new State Apprenticeship Agency. He is also working to expand apprenticeships and on-the-job training, create regional training opportunities, support local workforce centers, increase disability employment opportunities, and adopt skills-based hiring practices.

Hear Governor Polis speak at Avaya ENGAGE during the Tuesday, May 14 General Session.

R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Founder, Chairman and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley based Constellation Research Inc., He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast that averages 50,000 views per episode and authors a business strategy and technology blog that has received millions of page views per month. Wang also serves as a non-resident Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council's GeoTech Center.

Since 2003, Ray has delivered thousands of live and On-demand keynotes around the world that are inspiring and legendary. Wang has spoken at almost every major tech conference. His ground-breaking best selling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015. Ray's new book about Digital Giants and the future of business titled, Everybody Wants to Rule The World was released July 2021 by Harper Collins Leadership.

Wang is well quoted and frequently interviewed in media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business News, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Cheddar, CGTN America, Bloomberg, Tech Crunch, ZDNet, Forbes, and Fortune. He is one of the top technology analysts in the world.