Leadership
Robert Figliulo
President, SPR
Rob Figliulo serves as the CEO of SPR, a position he has held since 1992. Rob was Chairman & CEO of SPR during its tenure as a public company from 1997 to 2002 (Nasdaq: SPRI). He held numerous positions within the company starting out as a software developer and engineer. He became a branch manager and executive during the dramatic growth and many retooling cycles over the last 33 years in the technology industry.
Rob earned an MBA from the University of Chicago in 1987 and received his undergraduate degree from St. Mary's University in Minnesota. Rob currently serves as Past-Chair of the Board of Trustees at St. Mary's University. He is a past member of the Advisory Board for DePaul University's Charles H. Kellstadt Graduate School of Business. He is a member of the Board of Directors for Misericordia Homes for disabled children and young adults in Chicago where his daughter Katie is a resident. Rob has been married for 30 years, has seven children and lives in Burr Ridge, Illinois.
Douglas Rossier
Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, SPR
Douglas provides SPR with more than 23 years of proven business development, practice development and business operations experience focused in IT consulting, outsourcing and the Internet. Douglas is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the company, including P&L management, sales, recruiting and consulting functions across all companies and locations.
In 1998, Douglas began his career at SPR as the Midwest Director of Sales. He also served as the Vice President of Sales for Leapnet, Inc., a merged Web development consultancy. In 2002 Douglas restored SPR to a privately held IT Professional Services consultancy by developing the strategic plan and leading the tactical execution of the major initiative.
Prior to joining SPR, Douglas held key sales and management positions with EDS, Oracle and Automatic Data Processing (ADP). Douglas holds a degree in business from Rider University and graduated from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business Executive Institute in 2009.
Matthew T. Mead
Managing Director and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Redpoint
As the first principal consultant, Matthew helped start Redpoint Technologies in 1999 and has been instrumental in the growth of Redpoint and its evolution into a leading agile software services firm. Matthew is passionate about technology and has more than 16 years of experience designing and delivering complex, mission-critical technology solutions using a broad spectrum of technologies. He is energetic and has a proven track record providing technology direction to IT and business executives in a variety of industries such as energy, financial services/trading, travel & transportation, software product development, e-commerce/security, HR, retail, wireless communications, insurance, manufacturing and content management/publishing. Matthew provides technology, methodology and process direction for key clients and is ultimately accountable for all project deliveries.
With experience designing and building both J2EE- and .NET-based systems, Matthew is able to design innovative architectures for mission-critical systems across disparate platforms. He is an advocate for lightweight, streamlined architectures that provide a robust runtime environment while reducing system complexity and development effort. Recent designs have focused on SOA and web services to bridge the gap between incompatible technologies and the use of AJAX to drastically enhance the end-user experience. By leveraging industry best practices, open source initiatives, and agile methodologies, Matthew is able to reduce the cost and risk for large software development initiatives.
He is a member of the SPR Executive Leadership Team and leads the Redpoint company. At Redpoint, Matthew sets the technical vision for Redpoint and is instrumental in the development of all open source initiatives and Redpoint intellectual property. Internally, Matthew is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Redpoint business including sales, recruiting and HR.
Prior to joining Redpoint, Matthew was a founder of an Internet Consulting Group, Pilotstone, in the Chicagoland area. In addition, Matthew designed, built and lead an agile development team building front-, middle- and back-office systems for BP's energy trading business unit. He started his career as a consultant for Arthur Andersen.
Matthew has been a repeat guest graduate-level instructor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and has presented at several national conferences. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Information Decision Sciences from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Bill Topel
President, MPS Partners
Bill has been in the Consulting Services industry for over 20 years. He has successfully held positions as VP of Corporate Development, VP of Sales, VP of Channel Management and has had Operational & P/L responsibility for technical practices with over 100 consultants.
Bill brings hands on management style to all the positions he has held and accelerates working with direct reports. His background and experience enables him to mentor directors and managers accomplishing the tasks at hand, while implementing best practices and standards. He acts with a no nonsense style that is refreshingly clear and straight forward. His non political style enables business decisions to be made quickly with unclouded vision. He has managed teams of people comprised of internal and external personnel, built and launched new service lines that compliment existing business directions, and integrated channel strategies.
Bill has a full understanding of the process required to engage channel partners, internal and external sales, marketing functions and delivery teams. His hands on approach with customers provide instant creditability in the solutions and products being positioned. His diverse technical and business background enables him to fully understand Return On Investment models and leverage all available intellectual property to successfully sell and deliver.
Bill has built strong relationships with several Software companies specifically Microsoft's regional leadership. He is regarded as a person that fully understands the complex Internal and External Microsoft Eco-System. Additionally, he is fully briefed on several Microsoft strategic Product, Marketing and Business Initiatives.
His over 20 years of IT Services experience has provided him a vast knowledge of technology and business trends which in turn has given him all the experience required to identify and capitalize on future business changes and challenges.
Bill joined SPR, Inc. in January 2007 as the president of MPS Partners.
Patrick Maher
nAblement Director, nAblement
Pat Maher has an extensive sales and marketing background and has also served the disability community extensively since the onset of his spinal cord injury in 1981. He was injured while studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and returned to complete his B.S. from the College of Commerce & Business Administration following his rehabilitation at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.
Pat has represented a wide breadth of organizations during his career as a sales executive, including a Fortune 500 healthcare organization, a rehabilitation technology start-up, and both the durable medical equipment and assistive technology industries. Of note, he joined Sigmedics, Inc., a 1988 venture capital supported rehabilitation technology firm, as Director of Sales Support and remained with the organization as they launched the development, marketing, and implementation of the Parastep-I® System to the rehabilitation community.
Currently serving as the President of the Board of Directors for The National Spinal Cord Injury Association (NSCIA), he also served as Chair of the SCI Hall of Fame selection committee in 2006. Founded in 1948, the National Spinal Cord Injury Association is the nation's oldest and largest civilian organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of Americans living with the results of spinal cord injury and disease (SCI/D) and their families.He has also served on and chaired a Chicago area Center for Independent Living (CIL) board as well as on the IL SCI Association's board. In 1994, he co-founded Moving Mountains, a unique outdoor-based growth and adventure program for individuals with spinal cord injury or other disabilities and the healthcare professionals who work with them. Over the years, he has been an avid adapted-sports competitor and coach.
Todd T. Nilson
Director, Talent Acquisition Partners
Todd brings over twelve years of Information Technology recruiting and leadership expertise both in consulting and executive placement. As director of Talent Acquisition Partners, he works directly with customers on new search approaches, engages in top-level searches, and deploys the SPR recruiting team on all direct hire business. Todd helps his customers hire more effectively by bringing a vigorous focus and disciplined, deliverable-driven approach to all of his searches.
In 2001, Todd began his career with SPR as the senior technical recruiter and employment manager of the Milwaukee SPR office, where he sourced, screened, and placed Information Technology professionals in a wide variety of technical disciplines.
Prior to SPR, Todd has been a senior Information Technology recruiter for Olsten Professional Staffing and Adecco and a consultant specialized in Information Technology recruiting projects, contingency and retained hire search, and recruiting process. He has served as the director of Internet Research and led IT focused searches and consulting engagements with the acclaimed boutique retained search firm Spano Pratt.
He holds a bachelor's degree in Print Journalism and English from Penn State University, a master's degree in English literature from Duquesne University, and is all-but-dissertation towards a Ph.D. in English from the University of Kentucky. Throughout his academic career, he incorporated heavy use of computers in the classroom as a research tool.
Todd is a published writer on recruiting process and is a professional speaker on the topics of recruiting, web technologies as they impact the recruiting process, effective job search techniques, and networking. Todd currently serves as president of the Wisconsin Professional Recruiters Resource; as president of eInnovate, a Milwaukee tech sector non-profit; and as chair of the placement committee at AbilITyConnection, a Goodwill Industries organization dedicated to finding meaningful employment in IT for persons with disabilities. He is also a board member of Milwaukee's Bucketworks, a meeting place for technology, business, the arts, and leadership excellence. Finally, he is an active member of the Illinois Recruiters Network, the Chicago Skilled Recruiters Network, and Web414.