Our Crowd

Bob Howe's experience spans over thirty years in information technology, consulting and services. Bob founded the IBM Consulting practice. Starting the group in 1991, Bob created the strategy and built a worldwide network of consulting practices, which supported all industries. When he left the group in 1994, it had grown to $250 million in revenues and today is one of the largest consulting organizations worldwide. At IBM, Bob also served as the General Manager of IBM's Global Banking, Financial and Securities business, a $12 billion division of IBM, where he was responsible for sales, strategy, and solutions. Following IBM, Bob was the chairman of Scient Incorporated, where he helped start the company as its CEO and built it to over 2000 professionals in less than 3 years. Currently, he is the Chairman of OpenCrowd.

Bob also had a distinguished career with Booz, Allen & Hamilton starting in 1976, where he consulted extensively in information technology. He was elected senior vice president in 1986, and served as a member of the Board of Directors and a member of the firm's executive committee. In addition, he serves on the Boards of ipIQ, JohnsonDiversey, NorthStar, and Symphony Services. He also started Montgomery Goodwin Investments, LLC. Bob holds a BBA from Southern Methodist University and an MBA from Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.

Sushil is a Founder and CEO of OpenCrowd. Sushil has over 19 years of experience in IT consulting. As CEO, Sushil spends a significant part of his time consulting with clients on the benefits of open source technologies to produce economic results. Prior to joining OpenCrowd, Sushil was Head of Professional Services at CXO Systems responsible for managing client delivery. Before CXO Systems, Sushil was Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Scient Inc, the fastest growing Internet Professional Services Company of the 90's. In this role at Scient, Sushil delivered enterprise e-Business solutions for many leading companies around the world. Prior to Scient, Sushil was Director of Technology for Cambridge Technology Partners (CTP). In this five-year tenure at CTP he was also Group Technology Manager for the company's Financial Services Practice.

Shawn Traynor is a Founder and heads up the Design and Engineering group. He has over 20 years of extensive experience managing technology services within large enterprises and start-up firms. At OpenCrowd, Shawn helps clients plan and deliver innovative solutions based on emerging technologies. Prior to joining OpenCrowd, Shawn had been consulting for leading Financial Services firms, holding senior positions at CXO Systems, Scient and Cambridge Technology Partners. Prior to Cambridge Technology Partners, Shawn worked for over 8 years at Nasdaq developing advanced technology solutions within their Compliance and Trading departments.

Brad Buck is a Founder, and a senior member of the Strategy and Engineering group. He has over 20 years of experience successfully leading project teams and delivering diverse large-scale enterprise technology solutions including technology strategy, multi-channel architectures, customer management, and enterprise architecture design and implementation. Prior to joining OpenCrowd he was a Technology Director at Avenue A Razorfish working for clients such as JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and TIAA-CREF. Earlier he was a Managing Director at Scient were he was part of the CTO council, lead large technical teams delivering eBusiness systems, and helped start Scient's London office. Brad worked at Salomon Smith Barney where he architected and built a variety of transactional systems supporting Fixed Income, Equity, and Derivative trading and operations. In addition, he has worked in the Aerospace industry and helped start a small consulting company. Brad has an MS from the University of Oregon in Computer and Information Science.

Nadir Jaffer is a Founder and currently leads the Emerging Technology Lab. The lab’s primary focus is to research and apply emerging technologies in innovative ways solve our client’s problems. Over the last 10 years, he has led many efforts in designing and building web based transactional systems. He has been a primary advisor to our clients assisting them with making enterprise-wide decisions on technologies like RIA, SOA and messaging middleware. Prior to OpenCrowd, Nadir was at CXO Systems and Scient where he architected and delivered application for clients such as Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Development Bank of Singapore, Thomas Weisel Partners, JPMorgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Royal & Sun Alliance.

Hemanth has over ten years of technology and project management experience in the IT industry and has managed small and large project teams. Hemanth has experience in collaboration systems, rich internet applications, mobile applications and content management systems for both enterprise and consumer services. Hemanth's experience includes real-time data management, reporting systems, database management, scalable systems, payment systems, e-commerce storefronts and web user experience design. Prior work delivered for: Bank of America, UBS, Blue Cross Blue Shield of IL, Deloitte, NotWired, BuildView, PatentFreedom

Wyeth has over 10 experience in User Interface designing and Web graphics creation with a superior working knowledge of cutting-edge design tools and applications. Spearheaded creative initiative for projects dealing with Rich Internet Applications, Client Dashboards, Social Networking sites and Web and Mobile Applications. Wyeth was involved in numerous projects working on luxury car brands designing user interfaces and enhancing their Web presence. Prior work delivered for IBM, BMW-ME, Mini-ME, Audi-ME, Porsche-ME, Credit Suisse, Press Ganey, Diversey, College Fanz, Allied Security Trust, Patent Freedom, ShoppersWorld and PlumLife.