The Vanguard team has experience in all aspects of the communications industry, from programming to high-tech marketing, from call center management to multimedia design. We are proud of the creative strength we draw from our professional diversity. In addition to our own consulting staff, we partner with experts from affiliated companies to provide our clients with the best talent in the industry.
Don Van Doren
Don founded Vanguard in 1980 and, as President, provides overall management and direction for the firm. His client work focuses on strategy and planning for external customer interactions through contact center capabilities, on internal collaboration through unified communications, and on the growing convergence of internal and external communications capabilities. He is recognized internationally as a leading authority on emerging communications capabilities and is a featured speaker at conferences and author in trade publications. Don holds a B.A. from Yale University and a M.B.A. from the University of Michigan.
Elaine Cascio
Elaine is a Vice President, and manages projects in customer contact self-service strategy, voice response, and electronic commerce. She assists clients with planning, marketing, and customer research for voice response and web implementations. Elaine has extensive experience in customer contact assessment, voice response application development, user interface design, and project management. She has been employed in high technology and communications since 1983. Elaine conducts workshops on IVR design, speaks at conferences, and writes articles on self service strategy and design. She has a B.A. from Dickinson College, and an M.A. from the University of Virginia.
Lisa Stockberger
Lisa is a Vice President and oversees engagements involving strategic plan development, process redesign, and implementation. She frequently works with clients as project manager for long term, complex contact center implementations, and acts as a liaison to senior management. Lisa has held management positions in the communications industry since 1980. She speaks at conferences and authors articles on customer contact. Lisa has a B.A. from Indiana University.
Sergio Caserta
Sergio heads Vanguard’s Rome office, and is well acquainted with the call center and telecommunications environment in Italy. His twenty plus years in the industry includes work in software, international consulting, and IVR and CTI systems. His work with Vanguard has involved a variety of projects in strategic planning, call center management, call center assessment, vendor selection, IVR application design and testing, reporting system design, and business case development. He is a regular speaker at the Italian branch of the International Institute of Research (IIR) and Il Sole 24 Ore. Sergio holds a degree in Electronic Engineering from Università di Roma.
Dale Graff
Dale has expertise in project management, business case development, technology planning and implementation, and acceptance testing. He has 20 years experience in telecommunications as a project manager and a technical manager of large international projects. Dale holds an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, a B.S. in Engineering Science and an M.S. in Nuclear Engineering from Purdue University. He has made presentations on managing international projects and is a certified Project Management Professional with the Project Management Institute.
Marty Parker
Marty contributes to Vanguard projects with his in-depth experience and understanding of unified communications issues and capabilities. Marty is a founding partner of UniComm Consulting and an expert in messaging, unified communications, collaboration, mobility and related applications for employee effectiveness and business process improvement. Prior to his consulting work, he held senior product and strategy positions with suppliers of messaging and collaboration products. Marty received his BS from the Haas Business School of the University of California, Berkeley.
Maryann Walsh Wolff
Maryann is president of ProMark Solutions, and concentrates on call center technology, operations assessments, and customer relationship management consulting. During her twenty years in the telecommunications and customer contact industries, including five years as President of Aurora Systems, Inc., Maryann developed a widespread reputation for technology leadership and innovation. She holds three U.S. patents for Computer Telephony Integration inventions, and has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Brown University and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University.
Caroline Shahbaz
Caroline is a trained clinical psychologist and behavioral scientist. She assists Vanguard clients in organizational transformation, design, and planning issues. This work draws on her experience as founder and president of Shahbaz & Associates and Corporate Power, two organizational development consultancies based in Australia. For Vanguard, she participates in client projects where the implementation of technology or processes impacts the client’s organizational structure. In such projects, Caroline designs and helps implement the change leadership needed to enable clients to achieve full value of Vanguard’s recommendations. Caroline earned a Bachelors degree in Behavioral Science and a Masters degree in Psychology from La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia.