Executive Leadership

Kenneth Plunk, CEO

Steve Glagow, VP of Sales & Marketing

Deedra Fithian, VP Operations

Adam Whaley, VP Sales and Marketing

Mr. Plunk has 20 years of experience in Information Systems focusing on creation and implementation of developer programs, project management, analysis, design and business management. With his extensive experience implementing and upgrading web systems and infrastructure projects, Mr. Plunk is highly skilled in wireless developer program management and design. Mr. Plunk and the KPI team support and maintain developer programs for the wireless industry in the US, Europe, Asia and South America.

Relevant Experience

• While serving the leaders in the wireless industry, Mr. Plunk designs, develops and implements developer community programs. Under Mr. Plunk’s leadership, the KPI Consulting team designed and developed programs for six of the world’s top ten developer programs. KPI currently supports three of the top five developer programs including the program rated number one in the industry. He has 20 years of experience in application development background and insight to KPI clients. By reviewing trends in the area of applications development and web technologies, Mr. Plunk consults with his clients on an annual basis to assist and guide them in the evolving wireless industry.
• Mr. Plunk acted as V.P. of Product Development for an Internet startup company, where his responsibilities included strategic direction for the company operations, product strategies, and product development activities. His teams built the infrastructure for both internal IT systems as well as the ASP business. His team was responsible for implementing and managing multiple web sites for clients, and providing internal IT support to employees.
• Mr. Plunk acted as practice leader for Ernst & Young consulting in the Austin area. Many of his clients still work with KPI.
• Mr. Plunk acted as V.P. of Information Services for a global medicinal device manufacture. In that role, he developed and implemented the long range static Information Services plan. The Information Services organization under Mr. Plunk’s leadership was recognized as a show case organization by Oracle Corporation.
• Mr. Plunk acted as Projects Administrator for the worlds’ two largest international airports. In this role, Mr. Plunk implemented many IT systems that support large values of traffic with stringent fault tolerant requirements.

Mr. Plunk holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Information Systems and Quantitative Sciences from Abilene Christian University.

Mr. Plunk served on the Oracle Applications User Group Board of Directors, chaired The Archive and Purge Customer Council, and chaired the Oracle Applications Upgrade User Group.

Publications

• Fact-Based Decision Making in Crafting Developer Programs - 2007
• Project Management: Successfully Installing Release 10SC - 1997
• Project Management: Special Considerations for an Oracle Smart Client Implementation of a Manufacturing and Financials Database – 1996

Relevant Experience

• Steve held the position of VP Marketing for Orange Group for six years, with P&L accountability for over $50 million, and responsibility for three groups within Orange: Orange Partner, Project Management and Implementation and Commercial Operations. During this time he built the Orange Partner developer program from nothing to a membership base of 55,000 members, and managed a team looking after all aspects of partner management, API distribution, full technical and commercial developer support and marketing communications (including the award-winning Orange Partner Camp events).
• Prior to joining Orange, Steve was Director of HP’s international Software Developer & Partner Program, and grew HP’s software developer program from 1k registered developers to over 30k in 15 months resulting in the creation of over 150 applications using HPs developer tools that interface into OpenView and OpenCall. He developed a partnership with leading application (middleware) partner developer programs (BEA, Microsoft, Oracle...) and drove a minimum of 60 qualified leads per quarter, converting enterprise customer and partner application development into OpenView/OpenCall sales
• Steve has also held senior positions with Bluestone Software, Informix Software, Silicon Graphics, Sequent Computer systems and GIGA, with responsibility in each case for managing, motivating and streamlining the sales and marketing operations, through the development and management of developer communities.
• Starting his career with eight years at Coopers & Lybrand with responsibility for delivering market research and end-user consulting on electronic messaging, office information systems and telecommunication services and products, Steve has worked in large, mid-sized and start-up organizations and is now a world-renowned telecoms industry speaker and spokesperson.

Relevant Experience

• Mrs. Fithian blends her technical knowledge, communication skills, and sound business judgment in her role as VP of Operations role with KPI consulting.  Deedra successfully manages the KPI implementation team.  Her team consists of Development, Database Administration, Information Technology, Content and Design, and Quality Assurance.  KPI Consulting’s on-time project delivery and outstanding response time speak volumes to this team’s success.
• Mrs. Fithian initially served in the roles of Senior Account Management and Senior Project Management for KPI Consulting.  She developed extensive knowledge in web standards and developer program best practices.  Deedra successfully created and managed several developer community programs for global leaders in the wireless industry.
• Mrs. Fithian formerly acted as Product Manager in the Managed Developer Program at Metrowerks.  Her responsibilities included managing the development of Web Portals for clients around the globe.  In addition to her management role, Deedra acted as an Account Manager and Project Manager for key Metrowerks clients, and was instrumental in her contribution to the development of quality solutions.
• Deedra held a Business Analyst/Account Manager position with an internet e-Learning startup company.  Initial responsibilities included working with a large team identifying client specific requirements; designing and documenting an e-learning web product; assisting with data warehouse design and implementation; and overall product quality assurance.  Mrs. Fithian outstanding leadership was recognized, and she received a management position assuming responsibility for DBA, Data Warehousing, and IT staff members.
• At Sulzer Orthopedics, Mrs. Fithian served as a Senior System Analyst, where her primary responsibilities included companywide Oracle ERP application upgrades and training; Oracle data warehouse design and implementation; Business Objects reporting system installation, implementation and companywide training; and the coding maintenance for Oracle Sales module customizations.    

Mrs. Fithian holds a Bachelor of Computer Science degree from University of Missouri in Kansas City.

Relevant Experience

• To meet the needs of clients in the dynamic wireless industry, Mr. Whaley’s team continuously works with design agencies all over the world rapidly re-branding sites hosted by KPI Consulting.  Mr. Whaley successfully managed the implementation and customization of content management systems for leaders in the wireless communication industry.  Mr. Whaley’s insight into the latest trends on the internet and his ability to synthesize those ideas into useful business tools is in high demand by all of the clients he works with. Mr. Whaley also works closely with KPI Consulting’s clients to leverage his diverse creative skills in creating world-class user interfaces and web designs that are both on-brand and targeted to the unique audience KPI Consulting services.
• Mr. Whaley recently lead an architecture team designing and implementing a worldwide product demand forecasting and financial analysis system for Dell Computer. He was responsible for the overall application design and architecture; specifying hardware; designing a backup and recovery scheme; performance tuning; code reviews/developer mentoring; and scalability testing.  Leading this team required a high degree of cross-functional technical and leadership skills as well as effective communication skills to ensure the business requirements were possible within the technical architecture.
• At Sulzer Orthopedics, Mr. Whaley designed and implemented a custom database that integrated forecasting, planning, cost, sales, and inventory information pulled from the Oracle Applications and other custom systems.  Mr. Whaley also worked with the Oracle Applications manufacturing and planning modules.
• Mr. Whaley has been an active member of the independent arts community for over 15 years - working on projects spanning such diverse areas as print media, web design, photography, and music production.

Mr. Whaley holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin.