Member Profiles

Marty Schoenthaler

Marty Schoenthaler, of ConocoPhillips has taken on a newly created role as General Manager of Information Services. He is responsible now for the Information Services functions and has four business IT leads reporting into him. The four leads fall under the following areas; Upstream , Downstream , Commercial, and Corporate Staffs. Marty is responsible for the strategy and overall functional excellence for the Information Services function. This include strategic staffing, strategy development, enterprise architecture, relationship management and other items necessary to have run an excellent function.

The Information Services function is unique in that they are trying to separate it into three different areas. The first function is to have all the leveraged services reporting into one area. The second function is a business partner function designed to drive stronger alignment and a better strategic focus with the key business lines within ConocoPhillips. And the third area is the functional leadership role which provides information services strategy and functional leadership.

ConocoPhillips has a lot going on right now with the integration of Burlington Resources, which has evolved into an 18-month project. . This integration project includes implementing key systems such as SAP, their Common Operating Environment, Common Technical Environment and consolidating their data center into the existing ConocoPhillips data center. In addition, ConocoPhillips has been working directly with The Concours Group on the next evolution of their Information Services Strategy as well as helping them develop their enterprise architecture.

Marty found that the most important benefit he has gained form the LDP was the importance of networking and how networking can enable positive changes. In addition, he learned the importance of planning the first 90-120 days within a new position.

On a personal level, Marty’s passion is athletics, which is especially beneficial since he has coached over 25 sporting activities through the years thanks to his three children shared interest. Coaching allows him to spend time with his children while doing something he loves. Marty and his wife, Kim, live in Bartlesville, OK with their son, Jamie, who is a sophomore at Oklahoma State University; their daughter, Camie, a junior at Bartlesville High School; and their daughter, Kirby, who is in 8th grade. As a family, in addition to athletics, they enjoy taking a Caribbean Cruise every spring break.


Laura Bouvier

Exciting transformations are taking place at Marriott with their announcement of the creation of a Property Systems Services Organization. Leading this initiative is our very own Laura Bouvier who will focus on strengthening Marriott’s ability to deliver effective technology products and services to properties globally, Information Resources. Laura’s new title is Senior Vice President, Property Systems Services and Business Consultancy, while still remaining at her previous role as Marriott’s IR Business Consultancy. Under Laura’s leadership, the organization will manage the governance and planning process for property technology and deliver clear, timely communications to Marriott’s business stakeholders. The new organization will also evaluate methods to foster property systems innovation and develop integrated plans to identify technology changes and their impact to properties. .To achieve its priorities, the Property Systems Services organization will partner closely with IR Global Field Services, which will continue in its role of supporting all property-based technologies.

In addition to the exciting changes at Marriott, Laura also has an eventful life outside of work. She has three children, two in middle-school and a 7 year old. Laura has worked hard to plan her daughter’s Bat Mitzvah which her family celebrated in October. In addition, she is also looking forward to a family vacation in Hawaii this Spring. She enjoys being in the hospitality industry and taking advantage of as many opportunities to travel as possible. Laura’s family has been to many exciting places in Europe as well. Her favorites include London and Zurich.


Charlie White

LDP 2004 participant Charlie White is doing well and selling real estate in the desert areas of California. We recently caught up with Charlie and learned that he’s having a fantastic time. He sent us the link to his website, www.ilovethedesert.com and his phone number (760) 218-5270, and says that he would love to hear from any of our LDP alumni. If you are in the area, or are looking for real estate near Palm Springs, please contact Charlie!


Bennie Peek

Bennie PeekMr. Bennie Peek
Bell Helicopter

Bennie Peek is the Vice President of Information Technology and CIO at Bell Helicopter, a position he has held for just over a year. Bennie has had a successful career at Textron. Prior to Bell Helicopter, Bennie was with Textron InformationServices as VP of Enterprise Systems, and before that with Textron Industrial Products Segment, where he was CIO. Textron is a multi-industry corporation with businesses serving the general aviation, aerospace and defense, industrial and commercial finance markets.

Bell Helicopter is growing at an amazing rate with revenues jumping to $800 million over the past three years. This growth is one of the many challenges that Bennie is facing in his position. One of Bennie’s major foci is on the Business Systems Modernization that Bell Helicopter is implementing in which they are transitioning half of their Business Systems from a fragmented legacy environment to a modern, integrated set of business systems. Another major challenge is the management of the compliance and regulatory practices and ensuring that there is appropriate discipline within the IT business and corporate procedures.

In reflecting on the LDP program, Bennie said that he found that the program reinforced the importance of good business relationships; helped to define the true meaning of Leadership; and created more awareness about the breadth of leadership skills needed to be successful in today’s ever-changing world. In addition, through the Reflective Best Self Exercise with Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts, Bennie felt he got a better sense of his own strengths and a clearer understanding of how others perceived him.

In addition to Bennie’s hectic work life, he always finds time to enjoy his wife and young children. He particularly enjoys traveling and boating with his family. Last Spring Bennie took his family to Cozumel, Mexico where, instead of staying at a popular resort, the Peek’s stayed among the local people where his children got first-hand exposure to cultural differences. The experience gave the whole family insight and a more comprehensive view of the world. Bennie is clearly making a difference in his field as well as with his children.


Mary Finlay

Mary FinlayMs. Mary Finlay
Partners Healthcare

Mary Finlay, the Deputy CIO at Partners Healthcare, leads the daily management of the 1,200 person IT department for Partners Healthcare. Some major areas of focus include rolling out an electronic medical record to the entire physician community, building the infrastructure to support the area of genetics and genomics, and planning for a full replacement of all front end systems for their 10 hospital organization.

In addition to Mary’s tremendous responsibility within the workplace, she is also an active member of the community. Mary is a member of the Executive Board of the Massachusetts Technology Leader Council as well as the Boston Society for Information Management. She has been teaching for two years at the Simmons School of Management’s MBA program, and enjoys teaching so much that when asked by her Alma Mata, Allegheny College, to participate in their Executive-in-Residence Program, she gladly accepted this great honor.

When looking back at Mary’s experience with Concours’ Leadership Development Programs, she is very appreciative for the extensive networking opportunities during the program. She felt that networking with people in similar positions but in very different industries allowed for greater perspective and also acknowledgement that she is experiencing many of the same challenges. Networking also helped her to gain perspective on the different roles in different industries.

Based on Mary’s experience at the last LDP Alumni meeting in Las Vegas, she has determined that professional gambling is not in her future! This works out well because she thoroughly enjoys her position at Partners Healthcare where they are constantly pushing the envelope with new technology.


Hima Patel

Hima PatelMs. Hima Patel
Merck & Co., Inc.

Hima Patel, one of the fi rst graduates of the Leadership Development Program, is going through an exciting time as she transitions from her role as the director responsible for the IT portfolio of Managed Care and Customer Service into her new role as Senior Director of Marketing, Sales, and Customer Strategy, Process and Programs at Merck. In this role, Hima is a major contributor to critical operational change. Part of her responsibility is to manage Merck’s market access strategy, which is migrating from a focus on product to a focus on the customer.

It sounds like Professor Narayanadas’s customer management sessions made quite an impact on her. Hima’s past experiences have prepared her well for this responsibility as she has been involved in many diff erent capacities in managed care. Her previous experiences include manufacturing, operations and sales/marketing. Although she has been at Merck for about 10 years, she spent 9 years at IBM, most recently as a manager for IBM global solutionsrecently solutions, a role that required signifi cant experience with outsourcing. Throughout her career, she has led major transformational changes in prominent companies, such as IBM, where she took part in an ambitious redefi nition of the company, and Blue Cross & Blue Shield where she participated in the design of major process and methodology change. One of Hima’s big successes during this conversion was being able to transition Blue Cross Blue Shield from a CMMl-1 organization to a CMM-3 organization in less than 18 months.

Although it’s hard to believe that Hima actually has time to vacation, one of her biggest passions is traveling and exposing her two young daughters to diff erent places and cultures throughout the world, including Costa Rica, Italy, India and France.


David Zanca

David Zanca
FedEx

What more could a 2005 LDP alumni ask for? David is currently in a newly created position as the Senior Vice President of Information Technology at FedEx Freight, a rapidly growing $3.3 billion subsidiary of FedEx. If you were to ask David what was his most important responsibility is in his new position, he would tell you it is one that most of his peers are also facing: to continue to push the IT organization and business associates to innovate and differentiate using technology. David has done this in his role by ensuring that business and IT professionals are investing the appropriate time and resources into looking at new technology and potential game changers, such as dimension scanning, futuristic forms, and RFID technology. David fi nds it useful to block off weeks of time for business and IT professionals to jointly pilot and experiment with creative and innovative technologies and processes to find a breakthrough for prototyping.

According to David, “The LDP transition plan has been extremely benefi cial in helping
me with my new role as it allowed me to appropriately prepare for the upcoming
changes. In addition, I’m finding many applications of the governance and prioritization management theories and strategies we learned in the program, especially the materials from Peter Weill.”

Leading the technology for a subsidiary that is projecting high growth has kept David on
the move. In addition to leading product innovation, David often meets with customers
to see their process fi rst hand. “This allows me to understand what the customer really needs and how I can best support their business.”