Speakers
Karl Graf
Founder/CEO
Karl Graf is recognized nationally as a business development expert, specializing in executive sales consulting and sales productivity training. He is an authentic, enthusiastic speaker who can inform as well as entertain and motivate Presidents, CEO's, other Senior Managers and Sales Professionals.
He helps industry leaders formulate successful management and sales and prospecting strategies daily. Top executives from DirecTV, Sprint, and Aquila have benefited from Karl's expertise and experience, especially in the areas of new account acquisition and recruiting an effective sales winner. By focusing on buyer's and seller's attitudes and behaviors, not just techniques, Karl's clients are able to achieve "superior selling" results.
Gerry Gadoury
Principal
Gerry is a fifteen year veteran of sales, sales management, and operational management with extensive experience within the IT staffing and professional services industries. Gerry has designed and delivered IT sales training curriculum for multiple IT staffing firms and has experience working in all operational facets of the IT staffing and professional services industry. With "hands-on" experience as a technical recruiter, sales person, branch manager, district manager, and trainer Gerry brings not only the perspective of the person working the role but invaluable experience in developing, delivering, and following through with training programs and change management initiatives.
Prior to Menemsha Group Gerry worked for Softworld Inc, Kelly IT Resources, GenTech, and the United States Marine Corps in a full range of roles spanning from award winning sales person to close combat instructor.
Shameer A. Soni
JD, LLM, Senior Associate
Shameer's emerging company practice focuses on the representation of startups and venture capital funds from formation, through various stages of investment, and at exit. He has worked on over 50 rounds of funding for clients, and currently represents startups nationwide. His venture capital practice includes the representation of funds based in the US and in India, as well as high net worth individuals and investment groups. Shameer was on the founding team of TiE Angels Dallas, a local angel investor group.
Shameer's corporate practice focuses on business transactions, including corporate formations, employment agreements, and mergers and acquisitions. Shameer has drafted numerous agreements, including company agreements, independent contractor agreements, merger agreements and purchase-sale agreements. He takes a particular interest in technology companies, and has extensive experience with iOS/Android developers, website developers and software-as-a-service vendors in drafting and negotiating Master Service Agreements, SaaS Agreements, Software License agreements, and Terms of Use/Privacy Policies.
Suresh Ketha
CEO
Suresh Ketha, lead GEMS Inc. to become a successful SAP system integrator, further acquired by HP-EDS in 2006. He a serial entrepreneur, thought leader in enterprise best business practices, promoter of businesses in Healthcare, Education, Real Estate, Software, IT and Business Services.
Suresh champions through PROMOTE STEM (503(1)(c) volunteerism, corporate contribution and student to student collaboration for enhancing quality of K-12 STEM education in US and India. He is the CEO at RISE Group of Companies, Dallas based company with global focus on On Demand Applications, Cloud computing, Data Management and Services providing solution for an integrated enterprise in partnership with SAP, Microsoft and Google.
RISE leverages its "Platform-as-a-service" All-in-one solution to help companies which deploy the entirety of their business processes to the cloud. It also provides "Head in the cloud, Feet on the ground" company a quick and cost effective integrated solution in data and application space with a full stack of software and services.
Emily Neumann is an immigration attorney dealing with employment-based cases in both nonimmigrant and immigrant areas.
She spends much of her time conducting research on the constantly changing maze of immigration laws and uses this information to respond effectively to various requests for evidence. She represents corporate clients in many industries, particularly Engineering, Oil and Gas, Information Technology, and Healthcare.
Rakesh's business practice focuses on helping businesses of all sizes ensure their legal protection. He also reviews leases, sets up company agreements, assists in structuring the business so that his clients are protected, negotiates purchases and sales and most other issues associated with a business transaction.
Rakesh's immigration practice focuses on both employment based immigration and family based immigration. From the employment side, Rakesh represents several companies across the US with their business and immigration needs. He works as general counsel for these companies and processes all of their immigration needs including H1B applications, PERM process for Green Cards, L1 applications, in house audits, investor visas and many other immigration needs. Rakesh has taken a keen interest in representing IT Consulting companies and ensuring they are following the ever changing immigration laws. Also, Rakesh represents clients from all across the country in family based immigration matters. Whether it is for naturalization, Green Cards, spouse visas, family applications or visitor visas, Rakesh has an expertise in representing his clients when it comes to family based applications.
Ms. Kan has established a national H-2B program for a premier golf course construction company, developed an international immigration policy for multinational employers, established blanket programs for multinational companies, implemented and conducted I-9 training programs for Fortune 100 companies, obtained O-1s for artists, scientists, engineers and executives, and developed PERM programs for IT companies.
Memberships
Ms. Kan is a member of the State Bar of Texas, the Dallas Bar Association, the Dallas Asian American Bar Association, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and the Greater Dallas Asian-American Chamber of Commerce.
Kathryn "Kate" H. Brady is an Senior Immigration attorney at Akula & Associates with more than 9 years exclusively practicing Immigration and Nationality Law. She is an experienced attorney who has devoted her career to employment-based and family-based Immigration, as well as US Citizenship application before multiple agencies including the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Labor, Department of State and Administrative Appeals Office. She also previously practiced before the Executive Office of Immigration Review and Board of Immigration Appeals.
Ms. Brady has extensive experience in a wide variety of employment-based immigration focusing on non-immigrant visas H-1B specialty occupation employees, TN workers under NAFTA, E-2 treaty investors & essential employees, L-1A executives and managers, L-1B specialized knowledge employees, as well as solutions to acquire permanent residence through the PERM and EB-5.
The law firm of Harrison-Donaldson, Attorney at Law, is a boutique law firm focused primarily on the field of business and family based immigration. Founder, Attorney Kimberly Harrison-Donaldson is known for determining creative solutions to the broad range of your immigration-related legal needs. She is licensed to practice law in the state of Ohio, where she has been a member of the bar since November 2003. The firm currently operates from two office locations, one in Columbus, Ohio and another in Dallas, Texas in order to better meet her clients’ needs. As a business owner herself, Kimberly is familiar with the challenges that many companies encounter. From starting a business to protecting one, her business acumen and proven marketing abilities has served her and her clients well.
Over the years, Kimberly has helped hundreds of individuals obtain employment-based visas, family-based visas, green cards, and citizenship. She has represented clients before the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the U.S. Department of Labor, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Board of Immigration Appeals.
Shridhar is the CEO of Zimperium. Previously he was the GM of the Application Delivery business unit at CA Technologies (CA), where he was responsible for creating the DevOps vision and establishing CA as a leader in the high-growth space. At CA, Shridhar ran a global organization and led the acquisition of Nolio; an Israel based company focused on Continuous Delivery. Shridhar came to CA with the successful $330M acquisition of ITKO. Prior to ITKO, Shridhar had an 11 year career with i2 Technologies in various roles including presales leadership, sales leadership, and various marketing and general management positions. His finished his career with i2 as the Chief Marketing Officer.
Tahir is a seasoned entrepreneur, investor, inventor and a technologist. As a founder and managing partner of Collide Village, a milestone driven technology accelerator, Tahir has a deep passion to change the local technology startup landscape by investing and coaching entrepreneurs on how to build a successful, repeatable and scalable business model through data-driven entrepreneurial.
Tahir serves as General Partner of an investment firm where he focuses on Angle and Private Equity Investing in startup companies in a variety of industries. Tahir has a passion for taking start-up ideas and converting them to businesses. Tahir enjoys helping entrepreneurs through a structured process of mentorship.
Tahir founded Fusion Solutions in 2002 to serve the specialized technical consulting, mobile solution development and staffing needs of large telecom companies.Prior to founding Fusion Solutions, Tahir served in a number of technical and management positions with Ericsson.
Bhaskar Krishnamsetty is a serial entrepreneur and has experience in the launch of emerging technology start-ups. Bhaskar is a venture partner, board member and chief advisor for multiple start-ups focusing on Cloud, Big Data and IoT markets. Bhaskar brings a depth of experience in entrepreneurship, technology leadership, corporate strategic direction and product development having launched multiple startups himself. Bhaskar co-founded one of the successful Cloud computing startups that was acquired by Cisco Systems. Bhaskar has held technical leadership and senior engineering positions at Fortune 100 companies. Bhaskar is actively involved in several non-profits and also spearheaded empowerment initiatives such as CodeForAP.
Kristin Lyon
Knowledge Manager and Research Consultant
Kristin Lyon specializes in non-traditional black matter sourcing. She uses innovative tools, techniques and targeted intelligence gathering to find and attract high-caliber candidates. For over a decade, Kristin has partnered with staffing agencies, Fortune 500 organizations and RPOs to deliver critical human capital solutions on a global scale. Previously, Kristin was the Sr. Director of Strategic Sourcing at Modis, leading a team of researchers, sourcers and recruiters. She was also a Sr. National Trainer for AIRS for more than four years, where she aided in curriculum design and facilitated customized human capital solution trainings for 70 percent of the Fortune 500 talent acquisitions teams.
The Posey Law Firm, P.C., led by Jake Posey, is a law firm offering a full range of legal and government relations services to its clients. The firm’s work encompasses many major areas of business law, including formation and dissolution of partnerships, LLCs and closely held corporations, employment agreements, vendor agreements, shareholder agreements, breach of contract claims, partnership and shareholder disputes, trade secret litigation, non-compete litigation, and employment litigation. The firm's lawyers have also handled diverse, complex disputes involving commercial claims, insurance disputes, administrative hearings and consumer related litigation.
Despite the firm’s broad experience, they are perhaps best known for their dedicated service to the retail IT industry where they regularly assist clients in the protection of physical and intellectual assets, collection of bad debt, and the continued retention of human capital.
