Thomas Werner
Thomas is the author of the books The Business of Fine Art Photography, Routledge, New York, and The Fashion Image for Bloomsbury Publishing, London. He is also an Editor at Large for IRKmagazine, a Paris based print publication and website, Board Member for the Santa Fe CENTER for Photographic Art, and past Photography Program Director at Parsons School of Design in New York. He is the former owner of Thomas Werner Gallery in Manhattan’s Chelsea Art District, and a former National Board member and New York Chapter President for the American Society of Media Photographers. As well as a former Advisory Board Member for Ithaca College’s Executive Education Program, contributor to Adobe’s Lightroom Academy, and a photography consultant for COACH, among others. As an exhibiting artist Thomas was represented by galleries in New York and Los Angeles, and his work reviewed in The New Yorker Magazine.
Werner led a team developing a media and literacy website for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations/UNESCO and was a recurring instructor for the United Nations Education First Summer School. From 2005 – 2019 he worked with the United States Department of State on cultural projects in Russia partnering with 32 cultural, educational, and governmental organizations to develop projects in 29 cities. Partners have included; The State Hermitage Museum, the National Center of Contemporary Art, Perm Regional Government, The Moscow Biennale for Young Art, National Centre of Photography for the Russian Federation, The Central State Archive of Film, Photographic and Phonographic Documents, The Moscow Biennale, and others. His private collection of Russian photographs and artifacts have been exhibited internationally.
Currently a creative consultant, Thomas works one on one with students, creatives, businesses, cultural institutions, and not for profits, helping them with career development, team management, innovation, education, and the development of effective communication across multiple media platforms.
Derrick Connel
Derrick is one of the world’s leading software executives in the fields of Search and AI. He is the holder of multiple US patents and has multiple patents pending, including one with Bill Gates and others with several of the world’s leading information retrieval computer scientists. He was a founding member of the team who created the Bing search engine in 2009, the technology powering Microsoft’s search and AI engines. Derrick also led the development of many new search and AI features in Microsoft Windows, Office and xBox. Over the course of his career at Microsoft he worked directly with all three of the company’s CEO’s, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Satya Nadella.
From 2011 to 2020 he was the Corporate Vice President for Microsoft’s Search and AI business and one of the leading advisors to the current CEO Satya Nadella on the company’s AI strategy. During this period, he created a profitable multi-billion-dollar business for the company. Derrick also led global product and engineering teams comprised of 4,000 of the world’s best product managers, machine learning scientists, software developers and designers, tasked with delivering global products and services directly to consumers via partners such as Apple, Amazon, Meta, Twitter and Yahoo, or through Microsoft products such as Windows, Office, Azure and xBox. He also co-created products with companies such as Apple with the integration of Microsoft’s core AI service as part of Siri, Facebook with the co-development of a social search service, and a number of collaborations with Twitter, Amazon and Yahoo.
Derrick currently works as an advisor to many companies around the world, including the UK based Ocado. Advising them on their technology investments in robotics and AI. He also advises innovation start-ups in the field of mixed reality, helping them deliver on their vision of Spatial and AI services to deliver products across multiple fields. One company, NeuRealities, recently launched a joint venture with the Mayo Clinic.