Deepak Advani, Vice President, Predictive Analytics and SPSS CEO, IBM

Mr. Advani heads IBM’s predictive analytics group, which includes the recent $1.2B SPSS acquisition. He is responsible for all aspects of the business - from R&D to sales and marketing. SPSS is a leader in the fast growing advanced analytics category, and has over 1200 employees in over a dozen countries around the world. From 2005 to 2009, Mr. Advani was the Chief Marketing Officer and SVP of eCommerce for Lenovo. As CMO, he was responsible for building the global brand and generating demand. He was responsible for activating global sponsorships such as Olympics, Formula 1 and NBA. To maximize marketing effectiveness and efficiency, he relied heavily on web marketing, and also centralized marketing functions in a global hub based in India. As the head of Lenovo’s global eCommerce business, he grew revenue by 45% to $400m, and profits by 300%. Before joining Lenovo, Mr. Advani worked at IBM for 13 years where he held several global executive positions -

General Manager, High End Intel Servers. Under his leadership, IBM’s market share went from #3 to #1.
Vice President, Linux Strategy. He helped craft the early strategies around Linux and Open Source.
Director, High Performance Computing. He was part of the team that built a $1b business in 4 years.
Member, Senior Leadership Team, comprised of the top 300 global executives.
Member, Global Marketing Board, comprised of the top 6 marketing executives.

Mr. Advani has an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business. He has an M.S. in Computer Engineering from Wright State University. He has a B.S. in Computer Science from Michigan State University. He currently serves on the advisory board at the Michigan State College of Engineering.