ISG Leadership Team

Mr. Connors is Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of ISG, a leading global technology research and advisory services firm. Mr. Connors is responsible for the global strategy and operations of ISG and is an expert in helping clients achieve operational excellence in their organizations. Under his leadership, ISG has been named annually as one of Forbes’ Best Management Consulting Firms, among many other industry accolades.

Prior to ISG, he served as Chairman & CEO of the Media Measurement & Information (MMI) group of VNU, now The Nielsen Company, a leading global information and media company.

In 2001, he led the formation of the MMI group, comprised of VNU’s media information, entertainment, software and Internet businesses, including Nielsen Media Research, NetRatings and Nielsen Entertainment. He also served as Chairman of VNU World Directories business, a leading Yellow Pages Directories company operating in seven countries. Before joining VNU, Mr. Connors was Vice Chairman of ACNielsen Corporation, the world leader in marketing information services, where he helped lead the turnaround of ACNielsen into a profitable company.

During his leadership, ACNielsen’s equity value grew from $893 million, its market capitalization immediately following its spin-off from the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation in November, 1996, to $2.3 billion, its sales price to VNU in February, 2001. Mr. Connors also led the integration of ACNielsen into VNU after the acquisition. Earlier, Mr. Connors was Senior Vice President with The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation, which owned such companies as Moody’s Investors Service, Reuben H. Donnelley, IMS Health, ACNielsen, Nielsen Media Research, D&B Credit Services and a majority stake in Gartner Group. He played a leading role in D&B’s break-up into three separate publicly traded companies in 1996.

Mr. Connors is the Lead Director of Chubb Ltd. (NYSE: CB) and was a Director of Eastman Chemical Company (NYSE: EMN) until 2020. He has appeared on CNBC Power Lunch, CNBC Fast Money and is quoted in the New York Times and other leading publications on media, information services and the Special Purpose Acquisition Company investment vehicle.

What he does at ISG

John was named Partner and President of ISG Research in January 2024 and is responsible for the ISG Research business globally, including such products as ISG Provider Lens™, ISG ProBenchmark™, ISG Momentum® and ISG Events.

Past achievements for clients

John serves enterprises, technology and software companies globally to help them achieve operational excellence and accelerate growth. John joined ISG in 2019 and most recently was Partner and Chief Sales Officer, ISG Research. John is the creator and co-host of the ISG John and Ola Show, a LinkedIn Live broadcast. John has twenty-five years of executive and sales management experience working in the retail and data analytics industries.
 

What she does at ISG

Lois Coatney has been the ideal guiding advocate for her Fortune 500 clients, whom she has consistently helped get the most value out of their service providers and supply bases. That’s because, for more than two decades, Lois was the service provider. Today, as Partner and President EMEA Sales and Consulting, she is central to driving the firm’s revenue and growth.

Past achievements for clients

Throughout her career, Lois has advised clients on the operating models and organizational designs that will enable them to work most effectively. She brings that experience to her current role, where she considers how the firm can put its best foot forward to sell its services across the European market. Pairing her expertise in contracting and supplier management and her deep understanding of clients’ needs with the unique breadth and depth of ISG capabilities, Lois works to strengthen client relationships and enhance the firm’s offerings.

Todd Dreger is Partner and President, ISG GovernX®, at ISG. A business strategist and turnaround expert, Todd has more than 20 years of internal and external sourcing experience that spans all aspects of information technology and business processes. His perspective has been shaped by stints as a sourcing procurer, service provider and advisor. He develops creative yet practical strategies and solutions that preserve a corporation’s culture while navigating challenging economic conditions. He has served clients in India, Israel, Eastern Europe and Central, North and South America. Todd has a bachelor’s degree in strategic management from the University of North Texas and an MBA from the University of Texas at Dallas.

What he does at ISG

As the leader of ISG’s business in EMEA and an Executive Board Member, Steve provides strategic insight and advice to help ISG’s clients solve their most critical business challenges, helping them adopt and optimize the technology and operating models they need to compete successfully. In particular, he uses his long experience and broad expertise to challenge and inspire them to think about their risks and opportunities in new and unexpected ways.

Past achievements for clients

Steve leads his team’s engagement with clients with an industry-recognized and highly valued perspective on the most important trends in business and technology. He asks and answers the big questions: Why do you need to transform? What’s your best way forward? What do you need to accelerate? And where should you invest your technology dollars to make it all happen?

Among his many client success stories, his ability to take in the big picture, define the problem and connect the dots to the right solutions helped one legacy postal and shipping giant transform itself into a modern logistics powerhouse. He also guided a global energy industry leader through a complex operating model and IT provider transition, helping them see past the obvious cost cutting measures to identify the root causes of their challenges—and delivering savings far beyond what they had imagined.

Prashant Kelker is Chief Strategy Officer of ISG, Partner of ISG Americas Consulting and a member of the ISG Executive Board (IEB). He was named to the IEB in January 2023. Prashant was appointed Chief Strategy Officer in 2018, responsible for developing the firm’s three-year strategic blueprint, and he was instrumental in the development of our highly successful ISG NEXT operating model in 2020.

In January 2023, he was named to the expanded role of Partner, Americas Consulting, bringing together all our advisory capabilities in the region to support our commercial and public sector clients in response to the growing convergence of digital technology and enterprise operating models, business processes and revenue-generating connected products and services.

Prashant joined ISG in 2012 from Accenture, initially working for our DACH business and based in Germany. He moved with his family to the United States in 2018. Prashant earned his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore and a BE in electronics from Bangalore University in India.

Tom Kucinski is responsible for the firm’s overall human resources function, with a particular focus on strategic talent management, leadership development and organizational change initiatives.

An accomplished global Human Resource leader with more than 30 years of experience in the professional services, finance and consumer products industries, Tom joined ISG in 2013 as its Global Leader – Total Rewards and HR Operations and was named to his current post in 2017. Prior to ISG, Tom held HR leadership roles at NASDAQ OMX, Nielsen and American Express, with a particular emphasis on compensation and benefits strategy and design.

An avid distance runner, Tom holds a Master’s Degree in Human Resources Management from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., and a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Psychology from the University of Scranton, Scranton, Pa.

Todd Lavieri is Vice Chairman of ISG, working closely with the executive leadership team on corporate strategy and governance matters. He also is responsible for ISG Americas – the firm’s largest region, encompassing half of ISG’s revenues – and ISG Asia Pacific. He joined ISG in July 2014. 

Previously, Todd was with IBM, where he served as general manager of IBM Global Consulting and more recently as general manager, Global Business Services, IBM Canada. Before joining IBM in 2010, Todd was president and CEO of Archstone Consulting, a strategy and operations advisory firm he founded in 2003 and sold to The Hackett Group in 2009. Earlier, he was a partner at Deloitte Consulting and a member of its Global Management Committee during a distinguished 13-year career with the firm. 

An expert on business transformation and cost optimization services, he has personally advised Global 1000 clients across such sectors as manufacturing, retail, life sciences, healthcare, energy and consumer products. Todd is a graduate of Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, and holds an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Kathy Rudy is Chief Data and Analytics Officer of ISG and a member of the ISG Executive Board. She was named to this post in January 2020. Kathy is responsible for the development of ISG data solutions and platforms to deliver new and even more valuable insights to our clients, as part of the overall ISG Platform strategy. She is working across the firm to enhance our data products, develop data-driven consulting assets, and increase our go-to-market effectiveness. Throughout her 20 years with the firm, Kathy has supported hundreds of client organizations as they leverage data to drive greater efficiency and effectiveness in their IT operations, build measurement programs and support critical sourcing decisions. She was responsible for the development of ISG Inform™, the firm’s next-generation data-as-a-service platform solution, launched in 2019. Before joining ISG in 2000, Kathy, a graduate of Michigan State University, was part of the Unisys team that managed the transition from internally delivered IT services to an outsourced environment for the City of Chicago.

Michael Sherrick is Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, responsible for Finance, Investor Relations, M&A and Legal Affairs. Sherrick joined ISG in August 2023 from Cognizant, the global IT, consulting and business services company, where he was COO of Cognizant Software & Platform Engineering, and before that COO of Cognizant Americas and COO of Cognizant Digital Systems and Technology.  Before joining Cognizant, in 2013 Sherrick co-founded Scoria Capital Partners, where, as a portfolio manager, he managed the firm’s investments in the technology, business services and consumer sectors. Earlier in his career, he held positions with S.A.C. Capital, Morgan Stanley and PwC, among others. Sherrick holds a B.A. degree in economics from Bucknell University and is both a licensed certified public accountant (CPA) and a chartered financial analyst (CFA).

Dieter Thompson is President, ISG Network and Software Advisory (NaSa), and was named a member of the ISG Executive Board in January 2023. Dieter joined ISG in 2016 with the firm’s acquisition of Alsbridge and has since built NaSa into a key advisory business supporting clients that are increasingly looking to modernize their networks and software as the backbone of their digital transformations. ISG expects this business to continue to grow in size and importance as the number of connected systems and devices continues to multiply. Dieter spent his early career with AT&T before founding Thompson Advisory Group (TAG), focused on telecommunications procurement and vendor management, in 1999 and later acquired by Alsbridge. Under TAG, he helped pioneer the development of an asset exchange approach using telecommunications credits and “non-performing” assets for Fortune 500 companies. After selling TAG, Dieter served as president of Alsbridge before helping to orchestrate the sale of the firm to ISG. Dieter earned his bachelor’s degree in Marketing from the University of Memphis.