We are very pleased to announce that Steven Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computers, will be our keynote speaker at the 33rd edition of the SIG Global Conference in Newport Beach, CA on May 7th. Mr. Wozniak will be the capstone to an exciting and informative agenda packed with topics of interest presented by industry experts during the Global Conference from May 6th-9th in Newport Beach. We will be publishing more details in the near future. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn, exchange ideas, network and build relationships. Please be sure and visit the SIG web site (www.sourcinginterests.org) to register soon so that you can get a room at the Marriott for the group rate.

At SIG we are interested in member input to help make SIG membership a beneficial and productive experience. In order to help accomplish this we are pleased to announce two advisory bodies: The SIG Advisory Board and the SIG Advisory Council.

Advisory Board		Advisory Council
Carol Britton	Regions Bank	Linda Cantwell	IBM
Deborah Conroy	Network Appliance	Ross Docksey	Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthall LLP
Ned Cooper	Comprehensive Health Services	Michele Flynn	Expense Management Solutions
Wendell Jones	Technology Outsourcing - Author	Bill Huber	TPI
Lawrence Loop	Manulife Financial	Jonathan James	Syntel
Robert McCormack	Aramark Uniforms	Timothy Minahan	Ariba
Kathleen Murray	Pricewaterhouse Coopers (user)	Vincent Sanchez	DLA Piper
		Robert Scheier	Pricewaterhouse Coopers

The SIG Advisory Board is a standing group of senior executives from the SIG User member community that helps further the aims of SIG and the industry by providing input on strategic issues. The SIG Advisory Council is a two year rotational group made up of the Advisory Board and members from the provider (e.g. service providers, advisory firms, law firms and consultants) community to assist SIG in identifying additional avenues to educate, inform and digest critical issues facing our member and to review content for the Global Conferences. These groups will conduct a formal meeting at the Global Conference.

Our new webinar series has been very well received. So much in fact, that we are now offering it 3 times a month beginning in March. With Michele Flynn kicking it off with over 120 attendees, to now averaging between 100-200 registrants for the events. I hope you take the time to join in…we fixed our audio issue from the first webinar in case you were there for that one.

We have set a goal of increasing the User side of our membership base to 75% from our current rate of 64%. To do so, we are allowing one new provider member for every 4 new users that join. We are aggressively looking at the remaining Fortune 500 companies that are not represented and will be campaigning for their membership.

In closing, the year has started off with a bang; I am excited every day by the impact our organization can have in creating the footprint for change and the recipe for success for all members. Our goals need to be your goals, our success is dependent upon yours.