About Us

Sapientia GmbH and Strategy Partners International

Sapientia GmbH organizes conferences and events covering critical and innovative IT-strategies and technologies. Sapientia GmbH is the event partner of Strategy Partners International, a partnership of very experienced senior analysts concentrating on ERP, related services, and document and content management. Founded in 1996 by ex-Gartner analysts, Strategy Partners are located in Switzerland, Germany, U.K., France, Benelux, Scandinavia and the U.S.  For Sapience 2009, Sapientia GmbH has entered a joint venture agreement with Ontrack Communications.

Key People

Helmuth Guembel, Managing Partner. He was named by Computerwoche one of the top 100 IT-influencers in Germany and in his twenty years as an analyst with both Gartner and Strategy Partners he has provided strategic consulting for board members and top managers of many international vendors and users. He is a highly regarded speaker and has spoken at many user- and vendor events. Famous for his pointed and open statements he is one of the most independent opinion leaders in the market. Therefore he is often quoted from journalists from IT and business press.  In over 15 years before his career as an analyst, Helmuth has held a variety of management positions in R&D, marketing, and support with computer and software vendors including Digital, Siemens, Nixdorf, and Software AG. Helmuth has a M.A. degree from Heidelberg university in political economics.

Karin Henkel, Senior Research Director and Managing Director of sapientia GmbH. In her almost twenty years in IT, Karin has gained considerable expertise in the ERP-, CRM- and IT-services markets. She has authored and co-authored studies and white papers in these areas.  As critical market reseach analysts she counts large international companies and as well Venture Capital firms to her customers.  She contributes market reseach and consulting to them.  Business and IT media likes her objective and openes in her assesments and statements.  In 1995, Karin organized the first vendor-independent data warehouse conference in Germany. Recently, leveraging past experience in the events management area, Karin founded Sapientia GmbH. Based on a concept from Strategy Partners, Karin launched sapientia 2009, the pioneer event for independently minded SAP users in Berlin in spring 2009.

OnTrack Communications

OnTrack  is a full service conference and event management company, based in New Canaan, CT.  OnTrack's Management Team has over 40 years combined experience in the development, production, marketing and management of world-class conferences and events in the US and internationally.

Key People

Kathy Foreman, founding partner, has over 17 years experience developing and producing world class events. As group vice president of Worldwide Events at Gartner, she lead the growth of events revenue from $10 million in 1995 to over $130 million in 2004. During Kathy's tenure at Gartner she was responsible for creating multiple "industry defining events," that continue to thrive and generate maximum revenue for Gartner today. She was responsible for developing Gartner's mastermind Keynote program, bringing in such industry luminaries as Bill Gates, Lou Gerstner, Scott McNealy, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and many more. Kathy was instrumental in expanding Gartner's international business by leveraging event brands and resources worldwide, which helped to maximize corporate revenue and profit. She was the driving force in creating several strategic alliances which allowed for further expansion into new markets. Among her accomplishments, Kathy successfully maintained the firm's revenue and profit during tough economic environments. She also successfully negotiated multimillion dollar contracts, and developed methodologies that contributed to the operational excellence that Gartner is known for.

Karen Healy, founding partner, has over twenty years experience in developing, marketing and producing events. As Vice President of Worldwide Events at Gartner, (a leading IT research and advisory firm with close to a billion dollars in revenue) she pioneered the "tradeshow alternative" — powerful events with educational content that attract senior-level decision makers and provide level playing field opportunities for vendors relevant to the market. In her 16 years at Gartner, she created the flagship Gartner Symposium and ITxpo which since 1991 have grown to be unrivalled in their reach and reputation, as well as a series of targeted theme conferences which are still widely attended some 15-20 years after their inception. Following Gartner, she went on to create GigaWorld IT Forum now in its 7th year for Giga Information Group in her position as Vice President, Worldwide Events and until forming OnTrack Communications with Ms Foreman was Vice President of North American Events for Forrester Research after it's acquisition of Giga in 2003.