Darius Vaskelis
position:CEO
Darius Vaskelis is sakonent's Chief Executive Officer and has been since sakonent's start in 2009. His responsibilities draw on his extensive professional experience which include managing all areas of the company and promoting a unique forward-thinking culture.
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Formerly the CEO of Safepole, he continues to be responsible for the management and growth of various practice areas and strategic client relationships, just as he was at several consulting firms: Cognizant, Hambra Consulting, and Inforte. These roles have all included managing and developing the leadership, delivery and sales capabilities of several business units, and as part of Inforte's executive leadership team, integrating a major acquisition after helping drive the firm towards a successful IPO. While leading a team of various industry experts at Inforte, he collaborated with Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter and was a contributor to Porter's Harvard Business Review article, "Strategy and the Internet", which won the 2001 McKinsey Award. Additionally, under his leadership, Inforte's e-commerce practice was a finalist in 1999 for Microsoft's Best Electronic Commerce Solution of the Year for its work with Platinum Healthcare.
Darius previously served as Director of Information Systems at Hospitality Resources Incorporated (HRI), where he was responsible for strategic planning and operations management systems implementations. He started his career at IBM and worked at the University of Illinois Hospital and Clinics; he has also worked with other leading companies in various management and consulting positions. Darius is frequently cited as an expert in technology and business strategy and has been published and quoted in various business and trade publications. He is also a frequent speaker at industry conferences and tradeshows.
Darius holds a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Illinois. He resides in Chicago, where he enjoys baseball games and the opera.
Akif Rahman
position:COO
Akif Rahman is sakonent's Chief Operating Officer since the company's inception in 2009. His responsibilities include overseeing and directing the company's global operations which includes Consulting, HR, and Administration for sakonent. He works to ensure that sakonent's strategic goals are turned into reality.
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During his time at sakonent, the company has grown to over 150 consultants with multiple offices. He also is involved in ensuring that sakonent maintains high levels of client satisfaction. He has been instrumental in creating an environment that is scalable due to our growth while maintaining high standards of delivery and ensuring our clients receive access to our resident crm knowledge and expertise. He has spearheaded sakonent's global expansion by leading the delivery of crm projects to some of Asia's biggest companies.
Prior to joining sakonent Akif founded Hambra Consulting, a CRM technology consulting firm specializing in an integrated delivery methodology which blends onshore and offshore resources to execute projects. There he refined their global delivery process specifically for CRM project implementations for clients including Weber Grills and Life Time Fitness. Previous to forming Hambra Consulting, Akif was with Inforte Corp. (INFT), a publicly held technology consulting firm, where he led large-scale projects for companies like Alcatel, Inuit and Peregrine Systems. He also spent years at Ernst & Young as a member of the Center for Technology Enablement practice area, where he delivered leading-edge solutions to companies like Sun Microsystems, DEC, Nationwide, GE and AT&T Cable. Prior to Ernst & Young, Akif worked on technology projects at Trase Miller Solutions, a travel consulting company that helped corporations like Royal Caribbean, Resort Condominiums International, and American Airlines Vacations to utilize technology to create efficiencies and a better customer experience.
Akif holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science with an emphasis in Theoretical Computer Science from Northern Illinois University. He resides in the west suburbs of Chicago with his wife and four kids, where he enjoys traveling, biking, swimming and playing basketball.
Joel Fitzgerald
position:Practice Director
Joel is a key leader in Sakonent's CRM practice areas. For nearly 15 years, he's been designing interactions, information, and business processes that create a smarter and more effective workplace. An expert in CRM tools and technologies, Joel has helped companies transform at the intersection of people, processes and technologies by deconstructing how organizations manage their complex relationships.
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Prior to joining Sakonent in early 2010, Joel performed in various business and technology leadership roles at Hewitt, Whittman-Hart, 1SYNC, Trading Technologies & Eaton Corporation. While at Trading Technologies, Joel built and operationalized a team of managed services onboarding professionals who together connected dozens of the world's largest financial institutions to TT's global high frequency trading network, TTNET. This accomplishment resulted in a 40% reduction in time- to-market from previous client rollouts.
A graduate of Ohio University in Management Information Systems, Joel started his career as an entrepreneur repairing school bus seats for local school districts , but soon discovered the power of the web while working as an intern unix admin at Ohio University's Computer Science department during the early 1990s. He hasn't repaired a bus seat since. Joel and his wife reside in the western suburbs of Chicago with their two children and Portuguese water dog.
Noaman Khan
position:Practice Director
As a Director in practice management, Noaman Khan leads the Salesforce.com practice development efforts for Sakonent. Noaman joined Sakonent in 2010 bringing over 14 years of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) experience across various industries.
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From partner relationship management to new business development, Noaman covers a variety of practice development responsibilities, ultimately positioning Sakonent as a trusted advisor and strategic partner to our customers.
Over his career Noaman has led the advancement of solutions and supporting client engagement models for multiple organizations that connect client business objectives and financial goals to technology solutions driving measurable outcomes consistently over time. Prior to joining Sakonent, Noaman held an experienced management position at Model Metrics (a Salesforce.com company) leading several strategic client and internal enterprise initiatives. Noaman also spent a significant portion of his career in the consulting space, where he served in various roles for BIg 4 Consulting Companies such as Deloitte and Accenture.
Noaman earned his Bachelors of Science Degree with honors from DePaul University in Computer Information Systems. Noaman is a resident of Chicago Illinois, where he thoroughly enjoys the sports culture and the plethora of activities that the city has to offer.