Connected Corporation and Acquis Consulting Group to Speak At Enterprise Storage Strategies Conference

Tom Hickman is the senior engineering operations manager at Connected Corporation, where he is a key driver of product direction and vision for the Connected TLM product line. Hickman draws on a broad range of experiences from a substantial career in networking and information technology. Before joining Connected, Hickman worked on Mergers and Acquisitions at Cisco Systems, where he evaluated technology related to converged networks and Voice over IP. Prior to that, he was responsible for New Product Introduction at Cisco for a broadband provisioning application used by major cable service providers such as AT&T and MediaOne. Several positions back, Hickman got his start in Information Technology working as part of the front-line technical support team in a large university setting. Hickman holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech University.

Randall Kane is partner and COO of Acquis Consulting Group.

Randall Kane has extensive experience with a large number of corporations (including Fortune 500) in financial modeling, improvement initiatives, cost analysis, sourcing strategies, vendor management, process flows and product segmentation. He is one of the most fluent managers of the strategic sourcing process utilized by management consulting firms today and has been performing both large and small scale sourcing studies since 1992. With regard to a foundation of overall operations and corporate procedures, Mr. Kane has built strong relationships with senior-level management at major vendors in numerous industries ranging from travel to commercial printing to technology and office services. He has advised many of these companies on how to set up their internal practices to deal with sourcing and consulting companies as well as created and implemented solutions that have allowed clients to more advantageously utilize their internal procurement strength.

Kane brings his acquired knowledge in project management, product pricing and forecasting strategies, corporate procurement and process flows to every Acquis client. Prior to co-founding Acquis Consulting Group, Mr. Kane started his career at American Express Company where he held several positions in Corporate Finance from 1985 through 1989. In mid 1989 he joined Morgan Stanley & Company as an Associate Vice President in the Equity Capital Markets Group with a specialty in high technology. Creating financing strategies for clients in the context of merger and acquisition activity and public market restructurings allowed him to develop critical strategic vision and the ability to consider much beyond what a company does and what market it competes in. Mr. Kane left Morgan Stanley during 1992 to start a consulting practice focusing on strategic sourcing and corporate development. The experience and knowledge base developed through this practice led to the founding of Acquis. Mr. Kane holds a Bachelor of Science degree in finance and international business from New York University.