EAST LANSING, Mich.  – Virginia Rometty, IBM’s senior vice president for global sales and distribution, will be the keynote speaker at this year’s Michigan State University Eli Board College of Business 44th annual Broad Executive Forum.

The event will be held Tuesday, Dec. 1, at the MSU Management Education Center in Troy, Mich. The day’s topic will be “Smart Planet | Local Growth.”

Rometty will discuss how a smarter planet – more interconnected, instrumented and intelligent – is driving organizations around the world to transform their workplaces, not only by managing their processes more efficiently, but also by unleashing the genius and creativity of the work force itself.

“The Internet and digital technologies,” Rometty said, “along with rapid marketplace shifts, are transforming how we work today – how we share information, build relationships and make decisions,”

The event will begin with concurrent afternoon workshop sessions that offer a foundational look at these trends:

Workshop I – Monetizing Social Networks – Workshop presenters Derek Mehraban, adjunct instructor at MSU and CEO of Ingenex Digital Marketing, and Ryan Schram, regional vice president at ePrize, will share strategies and techniques for making your online presence go to work to generate buzz about your products or services, build brand relationships and create customer loyalty.

Workshop II – Demand-Driven Supply Chain – In a highly interactive professor and practitioner format, David Closs, chairperson of the Broad school’s No. 2 ranked supply chain program and Mike Klaus, of EDS/HP, describe the enterprise and profit potential earned through supply chains that deliver what customers demand.

The workshop sessions start at 3:45 p.m., followed by a networking reception at 5 p.m. and dinner. Rometty will give her keynote address at 7 p.m. The conference fee is $95. 

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