Advisory Board
Carrie Burns
Senior Managing Editor
Insurance Networking News
Burns has worked as an editor in business-to-business publishing for eight years and worked in consumer publishing prior to that. She coordinates Insurance Networking News’ annual Women in Insurance Leadership awards program. She also is active in the Insurance Accounting and Systems Association as a member of the Career Skills Development committee and serves as a judge for the association’s Technology Achievement Award.
Karen Furtado
Partner
Strategy Meets Action
A partner at SMA, Karen Furtado has more than 25 years of technical and business experience within the insurance industry. While her specific areas of expertise include application development, complex system implementations, vendor selection processes, project management, and business process outsourcing and technical outsourcing, throughout her career she has focused on delivering high-value solutions for core issues facing insurance carriers. Her focus has been on the joining of business and IT strategy, Technology road maps, solution selling concepts that drive value to the enterprise.
Deborah Smallwood
Founder
Strategy Meets Action
A co-founder of SMA, Deb Smallwood has held leadership roles in a premier insurance company, professional services firm, and research advisory, where she consistently found new ways to leverage technology in achieving optimal business performance. Her skill set includes business strategy, the development of business and IT road maps, and the delivery of enterprise solutions and systems to the business.
Pat Speer
Editor-in-Chief
Insurance Networking News
Pat is an award-winning business journalist who has covered a spectrum of products and technologies that pertain to the insurance sector. With a 20-year career that includes an extensive background in business-to-business communications, Pat has held leadership positions in a number of trade publishing organizations and has reported on software systems and management issues that apply to companies of all sizes in a variety of vertical markets.