Allen Brown is the President and CEO of The Open Group.

He has been with the company since 1993, when he joined the then X/Open Company Limited with the dual responsibility of Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Business Development. In this position he played a significant role in the development of the certification of conformance to the Single UNIX Specification and the licensing of the UNIX® trade mark. In 1994 he assumed the role of Chief Operating Officer and was actively involved in the merger of X/Open Company Limited with the Open Software Foundation. After the merger, as part of the integration activities, he was appointed Senior Vice President. In 1998 he was named Acting President and CEO, and later in the same year he was confirmed in his current position of the President and CEO of The Open Group.

Prior to joining The Open Group, Mr. Brown managed a consulting firm in London, which he founded in 1987. He enjoyed a mix of financial management and general management assignments, which included advising venture capitalists on investment decisions, and consulting on IT systems design and implementation. His clients included a broad range of companies and organizations in start-up, turn-around and growth situations, in a variety of industries including manufacturing, and distribution and retail.

In 1984 Mr. Brown co-founded Cambridge Venture Management Ltd, a consulting firm specializing in the provision of experienced management to small and developing companies on a part-time basis, based in Cambridge, England. During this time he led a number of general management and financial management assignments. From 1972 to 1984 Mr. Brown worked in various financial and management accounting positions for Unilever plc and Unilever Computer Services Ltd.

Mr. Brown holds an MBA from London Business School. He is married and resides in San Francisco, California and Colchester, England.

Presentation
The Emerging Role Of An Enterprise Architect

In 1999, Peter Drucker wrote that, so far, the focus of the IT revolution has not been on information at all, but on technology. Now, the next information revolution is under way and information is a company’s most important business asset. This includes business processes and architectures required to best leverage information within and across multiple enterprises.

As a result, IT has now evolved to a place where the CIO can’t handle it alone. To make sure that IT is always aligned with business you need Enterprise Architects - people and firms whose focus is no longer on the "T" in IT, but on the "I." Today, Enterprise Architecture is maturing into a true profession, and the role of the architect is constantly evolving.

In this presentation, Allen Brown, President and CEO of The Open Group, a vendor- and technology-neutral consortium focused on open standards and global interoperability, will address the following:

• The evolution of the enterprise architect
• New demands on enterprise architecture professionals, including when barriers are broken down within and between enterprises, a city planner perspective of enterprise architecture must be taken;
• The role of industry certification programs in helping both architects and companies meet these challenges and find the right talent.

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