Frank O’Connell
Leveraging Silicon Valley Innovation To Drive Business Success
Ivy J. Millman, CEO
• Stanford MBA
• Former “Big 4” CPA
Mission: Enable executives to understand the consequences of their business decisions
Contact Info
Email: ivy.millman@gmail.com
Click To Schedule A Phone Meeting With Ivy
OVERVIEW
Ivy J. Millman is WHIZDOM, Inc.’s CEO and leads its strategy development, business development and strategic partner relationships efforts.
In addition, Ivy personally conducts discussions with executives of a Company’s Business Customers for WHIZDOM’s Clients’ B2B Customer Due Diligence and Customer Intelligence engagements.
She has over 25 years of leadership and business experience working with a wide range of companies from Silicon Valley tech startups to global corporations.
Ivy is an expert at developing strategic relationships and conducting engaging discussions with business executives. She is also a specialist in B2B business development and market development. And she is a creative and critical thinker in fast-paced environments.
FOUNDING WHIZDOM
Ivy founded WHIZDOM in Silicon Valley CA in 1995; And incorporated the company in California in 2003.
WHIZDOM’s mission was to develop leading-edge business simulation solutions that enabled executives to understand the consequences of their business decisions.
BEFORE WHIZDOM
Prior to founding WHIZDOM, Ivy led business units at Apple, Inc. focused on business customers.
Earlier in her career Ivy was a financial executive at multiple companies including 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation and 20th Century-Fox Video Games. She began her career with a “Big 4” CPA firm.
EXPERIENCE
Ivy is an expert at developing strategic relationships and conducting engaging discussions with business executives. She is also a specialist in B2B business development and market development. And she is a creative and critical thinker in fast-paced environments.
MASTERY
While managing strategic business units at Apple, Inc. Ivy honed her mastery to develop strong relationships from conversations with C-level executives of Fortune 500 companies including Boeing, Coca-Cola, Dow, Monsanto, Motorola, P&G and United Airlines.
From these numerous interactions Ivy obtained valuable feedback and developed insights on customer needs to drive new product requirements and market strategies.
EXPERTISE
Ivy is known for her ability to open doors to senior-level executives and leading them in dynamic, thought- provoking brainstorming sessions to imagine new and different ways of doing business by adopting and deploying new technology solutions.
With her strong business acumen, she enables senior-level executives to understand the financial consequences of business decisions including how implementing new technology can increase revenues, reduce costs, increase productivity, gain differentiation and competitive advantage and increase shareholder value.
EDUCATION
- MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business
- BS in Accounting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
MENTORING
Ivy has mentored:
- Entrepreneurs at Stanford University
- Business women on career advancement, negotiating compensation, etc.
GUEST SPEAKER/BUSINESS EXPERT/SEASONED LECTURER
Ivy is a well-received speaker, author and lecturer on strategic business issues. Examples:
- Created and delivered a new course Continuous Innovation: The Strategic Ingredient for Corporate Success at Stanford University. Invited the Chairman of the Board of Cisco Systems, the Vice President of Marketing of Palm and the Contributing Editor of the business magazine Forbes ASAP as guest speakers.
- Developed and delivered a new course Women In Business Moving Into Management at UCLA and invited M*A*S*H TV show actress Loretta Swit to be a Guest Speaker.
- Presented a paper on Flight Simulators for Business at a conference co-sponsored by Accenture that was subsequently published as a chapter in the book Innovation in Economics and Business in 2002 by Kluwer Publishers in The Netherlands.
- Developed the white paper titled Intranet Solutions as a Competitive Strategy that was published at the Fifth International World Wide Web Conference
- Guest speaker at American Management Association conference on Economic Value Added (EVA) to identify how to deploy technology to increase shareholder value
- Developed and delivered workshop for Co-Development Learning Alliance to identify technology-based solutions to improve employee and business outcomes
- Delivered speech on deploying the Internet to manage relationships with customers, suppliers, strategic alliances and partners at the Internet Commerce Enterprises Conference and the International Quality and Productivity Center (IQPC) Conference
- Delivered speech on leveraging Internet technology to increase customer satisfaction at the Support Services Conference and the IQPC Conference
- Delivered speech on improving workforce productivity and business performance through Intranet and Extranet solutions at the IQPC Conference
- Delivered speech on using the Internet to build institutional knowledge and gain competitive advantage in the global knowledge economy at the Performance Support Conference
A Perspective On Ivy Millman, CEO, WHIZDOM, Inc., From Frank O’Connell, Co-Founder and Advisor, Tuckerman Capital
Early in her career, I had the opportunity to work with Ivy Millman when she was a rising star. I always looked for a streak of brilliance in people with whom I work, and Ivy certainly had it. As her career continued to ascend, I have been able to observe her continued rise and achievements. Equipped with a Stanford MBA and Big 4 CPA credentials gives her a wide lens but also the ability to be laser focused.
What is unique about Ivy Millman’s approach and her success with WHIZDOM is first, her ability to convince owners to let an independent firm contact their valued customers. Secondly, it is the customers’ willingness to talk to an independent third party and reveal sensitive information. The greatest fear is irritating a customer and damaging a valuable relationship. Ivy and her team have been able to instill trust that WHIZDOM knows how to approach customers in a positive manner and ask the right questions to extract vital predictive information. Ivy and her team at WHIZDOM possess the right sensitivity to quickly build rapport. They use excellent guideline tools, they know what questions to ask, and can leave the customer feeling empowered, and with the feeling that their input is important. They can capitalize on the opportunity to gain valuable ideas as to how to improve the customer experience or new products and services the Customer desires.
Ivy and her team at WHIZDOM are skilled at uncovering Customer problems and, not only providing possible solutions, but identifying strategic flaws that are not easily solved. A key differentiating factor is the WHIZDOM team’s ability to analyze the resulting data, providing insights that may not be so obvious from just replaying interview results. Often their experience conducting hundreds of interviews with business Customers comes into play surfacing insights.
From my consulting experience and acquisitions, it is my experience that Due Diligence is not a normal skill set in most consulting companies be it strategic or other. It is a specialized skill with uniquely trained interviewers. WHIZDOM’s team is uniquely equipped to be flexible and alter their questioning, especially if they uncover an unanticipated issue at the beginning of the interview process that requires more in-depth probing.
Under the direction of Ivy Millman, WHIZDOM is a uniquely qualified specialized experienced resource capable of performing Customer Due Diligence. If looking for real strategic value from a Customer Due Diligence study, but not merely checking the box, Ivy Millman and WHIZDOM should be given serious consideration.