Workshop Leader Biographies

Sheila Mello
Principal Consultant
Product Development Consulting , Inc.

Sheila Mello is the author of the best selling book Customer-Centric Product Definition: The Key to Great Product Development and co-author of Value Innovation Portfolio Management: Achieving Double-Digit Growth Through Customer Value. Sheila is the managing partner of Product Development Consulting, Inc. (PDC), and is a widely known, well-respected expert in the field of product development. Her clients benefit from her many years of executive and hands-on experience in product development, software and hardware, engineering, marketing, quality, manufacturing, sales and service. Sheila has done extensive research in processes for defining customer requirements and is an expert in helping companies implement and institutionalize market-driven product definition programs and value based portfolio management processes.

Sheila has helped scores of companies -- Fortune 500 companies in diverse industries and smaller high growth organizations -- to speed time-to-profit and market acceptance, achieve greater product predictability and profitability, identify improvement opportunities, and build capabilities that directly impact bottom line results. Sheila helps clients identify their "inch-wide, mile-deep" opportunities, build consensus, and implement the most effective solution. PDC has implemented the Market-Driven Product Definition (MDPD,) process discussed in the book at over 60 companies.

In addition to her consulting experience, Sheila is a frequent speaker at seminars and conferences on product development and is a recognized speaker on industry topics ranging from improving business performance and value-based portfolio management, to team management and organizational structure.
PDC focuses exclusively on product development, helping clients to optimize the process of developing products and services. PDC’s unique approach in providing collaborative product development solutions that speed time-to-market and increase customer acceptance enables their clients to stay competitive and run efficiently.
Before joining PDC, Sheila held director and vice president positions at Bolt, Beranek & Newman, Wang Laboratories, Palladian Software and Distribution Management Systems, and was a principal consultant with Arthur D. Little, Inc.

Sheila earned a Bachelor of Science degree, magna cum laude, in mathematics from Tufts University. She is a member of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA), and the American Marketing Association.

Richard H. Tait, PhD
Principal
Product Development Consulting , Inc.

Richard is a principal with Product Development Consulting, Inc. Richard's accomplishments are highlighted by a 22 year research, management and consulting career with DuPont that included positions as senior research physicist for DuPont Central Research and Development, planning manager for DuPont Corp R&D Planning, and R&D lab director for DuPont Diagnostic Imaging. He was also a founding member and innovation manager for the DuPont Center for Creativity and Innovation.

Richard brings a wide range of consulting insights and expertise to his work with clients. He was a principal consultant with DuPont Consulting Solutions where he led DuPont's Corporate New Product Network and implemented rapid cycle-time product development processes in several DuPont business units. Richard helped lead the effort to develop and implement DuPont's Business Initiative Process for managing business growth initiatives, and he was instrumental in establishing DuPont's Asia-Pacific Venture Support Team. With PDC, Richard focuses on Market Driven Product Definition (MDPD) projects, Portfolio Management and Product Development Management. He has done extensive work with companies in the chemicals industry.

Richard has a Ph.D. in physics from Cornell and a B.S. in physics from the University of Virginia. He is a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) and the Commercial Development and Marketing Association (CDMA). He is a certified New Product Development Professional (by the PDMA) and was a co-developer of the "Institute for Inventive Thinking" for the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Recent publications include: "Innovation - Taking Ideas to Market" (published in the book Total Creativity in Business and Industry: Roadmap to Building a More Innovative Organization); "Better New Business Development at DuPont" (co-author with Robin Karol and Ross Loeser - published in Research Technology Management); and the book Value Innovation Portfolio Management (co-author with Sheila Mello, Wayne Mackey and Ron Lasser published by J. Ross.)

Gerry Katz
Executive Vice President
Applied Marketing Science, Inc.

Gerry Katz is a recognized authority in the areas of new product development, design of new services, product marketing, and market research, with nearly 35 years of consulting experience. At AMS, he has led more than 100 major client engagements employing The Voice of the Customer (VOC), Quality Function Deployment (QFD), and a large number of other marketing science applications. His client assignments have covered a wide variety of industries, with particular emphasis on healthcare and medical technology. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Product Development & Management Association (PDMA), the world's leading professional society devoted to the study and practice of developing and commercializing new products and services. He is also certified as a New Product Development Professional (NPDP) and is a contributing editor to Visions Magazine.

Prior to joining AMS, Gerry's experience included twelve years as a management consultant in marketing and market research with Management Decision Systems, Inc., five years in the computer software industry as Senior Vice President of Information Resources, Inc., and two years as Vice President and General Manager of Image Presentations, Inc., a specialized marketing communications firm.

He is the author of several award-winning papers, and received the William O'Dell Prize from the American Marketing Association in 1988. His articles have appeared in The Journal of Product Innovation Management, The European Management Journal, The Journal of Marketing Research, and Interfaces. He has lectured frequently at the business schools of MIT (Sloan), the University of Pennsylvania (Wharton), Dartmouth College (Tuck), Carnegie-Mellon University, and Harvard University. Gerry has appeared twice on the NBC Today Show and in The Wall Street Journal. His outside interests are in music and education, and he has served on a number of Committees and Boards of Directors at the University of Rochester, the Eastman School of Music, the Longy School of Music, and the Boston Higashi School.

Gerry received his B.S. in Management Science from the University of Rochester in 1970 and his S.M. in Management from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1972.

John C. Mitchell
Principal
Applied Marketing Science, Inc.

John Mitchell is part of AMS’ Product & Service Design practice, where he is responsible for client relationship management and business development. Although he works across industries, his emphasis has been on high-technology, software, aerospace, and medical devices.

Since arriving at AMS, John has managed several VOCALYST® engagements, as well as projects involving ideation and concept testing. He has also trained and coached dozens of AMS clients in creating and implementing an in-house Voice of the Customer program, with particular focus on using VOC with the Design for Six Sigma (DfSS) methodology.

John joined AMS from WebCT, Inc., a global provider of e-learning software and services for higher-education institutions. He has also held management consulting positions in the information technology strategy practice of Booz·Allen & Hamilton, Inc. and the Business Solution Delivery group at Andersen Consulting LLP. (now Accenture, Inc.), His prior engagement experience encompasses technology strategy and implementation projects in educational publishing, LTL shipping, and both state and municipal government.
John holds an AB from Harvard College, and an MBA in management and finance, with Distinction, from New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business. He is also a member of the Building Committee of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Lowell, a volunteer organization dedicated to construction of affordable homes in Boston's northwest suburbs.

Ruth Sando, Ph.D.
Cultural Anthropologist
Barbara Pery Associates

Dr. Ruth Sando is a Senior Associate with Barbara Perry Associates, a firm that has brought the perspective and methods of cultural anthropology to Fortune 500 companies across a broad variety of industries. They are pioneers in the use of ethnographic methods, both internally for managing change and externally for getting closer to the customer. The company’s emphasis is on developing internal, cross-functional capability to go out into the consumer’s environment and see with new eyes the underlying values and assumptions
that give meaning to their experience and drive their behavior. Her proprietary methodology is being applied in a variety of ways including:

Barbara Perry Associates’ clients include: Colgate, NPR, Travel Channel, Fannie Mae, General Mills, Hershey Foods, Hewlett-Packard, Johnson and Johnson, Kellogg, Kimberly-Clark, Kraft Canada, Maytag, National Tabletop and Giftware Association, Pillsbury, Procter and Gamble, Rich Products, Vanity Fair Corp., S.C. Johnson, Starbucks Coffee Company, Unilever, and Yamaha.