Anu Shukla, Founder and CEO, MyOfferPal Inc., will discuss the thrill of starting your own venture.

Ms. Shukla has provided the vision and strategy for several successful Silicon Valley software companies. Most recently, she was the founder and CEO of Rubric, a pioneer in Enterprise Marketing Automation, which was acquired for $366M. Prior to Rubric Ms. Shukla held a variety of positions, including VP of Product Strategy and Marketing at Versata, COO at mFactory, and VP of Marketing at Uniface, which was acquired for $433M by Compuware. She also held senior marketing positions at Unify and California Micro Devices. Ms. Shukla received a BA from St. Stephens College and an MBA from Youngstown State University. She serves on the Board of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs (FWE), the Advisory Board for the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University and was recently named to the Technology Industry's "Dream Team" by Business 2.0 magazine.

Colleen Noll, President, Montessori School, will talk about how a teaching job can provide a springboard to workforce re-entry for young families.

Colleen founded Calaveras Montessori School in 2002 and opened South Bay Teachers College in 2000. She has an extensive background in early childhood education (15 years), Montessori formal education and teacher training. Colleen is also an active member of the Milpitas community and is incoming President of the Milpitas Rotary Club. Her dedication to the community afforded her a nomination as Business Person of the Year in 2006. While her Infant Community through Kindergarten Program remains full each year with an extensive waiting list, the teachers college is always looking for new Montessori teachers and educators. Colleen also created an outdoor children’s garden which she runs year round. In her spare time, Colleen spends time with her two boys who are 6 and 7 years old.

Monica Kumar, Senior Director, Oracle, will share her secret of how to succeed in the business world and maintain work-life balance.

Monica Kumar is senior director of product marketing at Oracle Corporation. She leads a team responsible for driving the product marketing, business development, and customer and sales strategies for Linux and Open Source at Oracle. She is also responsible for Linux and open source focused strategic partnerships with hardware and software vendors. As an evangelist for Linux and open source, Ms. Kumar often represents Oracle in customer, partner and industry events.

Prior to her role in the Linux Program Office, Ms. Kumar managed global partner alliances as well as worked in Oracle’s Database Product Marketing and Server Technologies Division in various product marketing and product management roles.

Prior to joining Oracle ten years ago, Ms. Kumar spent five years in various roles within the Product Marketing division at Informix Corp. Ms. Kumar has a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a master’s degree in Business Administration.

Clare Frank, Milpitas Fire Chief, will talk about how she came to choose a non-traditional career path.

Chief Frank began her fire service career in 1982. Starting as a firefighter, she promoted through the ranks, gaining experience in all aspects of fire and rescue operations, including emergency medical services, hazardous material responses, heavy and technical rescue operations, structure fires and wildland-urban-interface conflagrations. She also held specialized assignments in training, prevention, and administration. Chief Frank has served in line or command positions in many of the most notable major disasters that have befallen California during the past twenty-three years.

Chief Frank was valedictorian of her graduating class at the National Fire Academy’s Bachelors Degree program at Cogswell Polytechnic. She also graduated with honors from the Santa Clara University School of Law and is a member of the California Bar. Chief Frank is an instructor and a consultant on curriculum development for the National Fire Academy’s higher education program.

Dilip Saraf, Career and Life Coach, will share his experiences working with professionals who want to get back into the workforce.

Dilip Saraf is an author, speaker, career, and life coach and has himself gone through four reinventions. Starting as an engineer and technologist, Dilip became a marketing consultant, working with Fortune-500 clients showing them how to dramatically improve their global accounts. Later on he became a leadership effectiveness consultant showing major corporations such as Boeing and HP how to increase their leadership effectiveness through personal power. His most recent experience has been as a career counselor and life coach, where he leveraged his own learning to help over 3,000 clients reinvent themselves globally. He has published five books on career management based on that experience. He frequently appears on CNN Headline News/Comcast Local Edition and other media and is published in the Harvard Business Review, Chief Executive, and San Francisco Chronicle and Marquis Who’s Who. Dilip resides is in the Silicon Valley and serves clients globally. He also teaches at the University of California, Santa Cruz Extension. For more information visit: www.7keys.org.

Moderator: Deepka Lalwani