Ned Riaz is a Certified IBM Cognos Planning expert and principal partner at Agile Strategic Business Consulting, a consulting company that specializes in IBM Cognos Planning and Business Intelligence implementations.
Ned has obtained a B.S. degree in Accounting and Management Information Systems, and he passed the CPA (Certified Public Accountant) exam after finishing his degree. After finishing his education, Ned worked as an auditor, accountant, and finance director in many industries, such as banks, software reselling, and entertainment. He became involved in system development work in the late nineties, and deployed various medium-sized accounting and general ledger systems.
Ned joined Adaytum Software, the original manufacturer of Planning products, in late 1999 when Adaytum had less than 50 employees. He has been working with Planning products since Contributor 1.1 and Analyst 2.2 were released in early 2000. While working with Adaytum, Ned designed and built many Planning models for a wide range of customers.
During his days in Adaytum and Cognos, Ned designed and deployed models and systems for many large fortune 500 companies in various industries, such as pharmaceutical, hospital, aircraft operations, and retailers.
As a partner/employee of Agile Strategic Business Consulting, Ned has been involved in designing and deploying various models and systems at a large information delivery corporation since 2006.
Ned and his wife live in Central Minnesota. He enjoys cycling, badminton, and volunteering with rescued rabbits. He can be contacted at <[email protected]> and on the Web at www.agilestrategic.com.
Jason Edwards is a Certified IBM Cognos Planning expert and founding partner at Agile Strategic Business Consulting, a consulting company that specializes in IBM Cognos Planning and Business Intelligence implementations.
Jason has ten years of experience in application design and development by using corporate performance planning software in a broad range of industries, such as telecommunications, retail, pharmaceutical, and entertainment. He specializes in all phases of the development life cycle including requirements gathering, design, development, and deployment. With efficiency and resourcefulness, Jason has effectively led and managed highly successful IBM Cognos Planning implementations for clients in Europe and the United States.
Jason holds a Bachelor's degree in accounting and finance from Kingston Business School in the U.K. He started his career by modeling complex financial systems in spreadsheets. It was while working as an International Business Analyst for a global interactive games publisher a decade ago that he acquired his experience of the dynamic and powerful corporate performance planning software Adaytum (IBM Cognos Planning). From then on, Jason's passion for modeling sophisticated forecasting systems led him into a career of consultancy devoted to helping clients utilize the power of IBM Cognos Planning to achieve their organizational goals.
Jason believes that his dual expertise and experience in finance and information technology and his ability in building strong client relationships has helped him develop highly successful user accepted software solutions using IBM Cognos Planning.
Jason lives with his wife and daughter in Philadelphia. He enjoys recreational sports, such as cycling, soccer, and tennis and takes pleasure in exploring the great restaurants and parks of Philadelphia with his family and friends.
Jason is continually looking for new opportunities and challenges and can be contacted at <[email protected]> and on the Web at www.agilestrategic.com.
Rich Babaran has over 20 years of experience in financial modeling and analysis, corporate planning, performance measurement development, workflow modeling, and process improvement. He has spent the last 9 years helping Fortune 500 companies improve their planning processes using IBM Cognos Planning. In addition to architecting complete end-to-end planning solutions, Rich has helped clients turnaround critical implementations by applying innovative techniques learned from years of working in challenging environments. Rich has a degree in Management Economics at the Ateneo de Manila University and an MBA at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Rich can be contacted at <[email protected]>.