Learn Today! Online Class - Leading Digital Transformation

Meredith Sasser

Affiliate, The Feld Group Institute

Deep expertise in IT and customer experience strategy.

About Meredith

Meredith Sasser is an Affiliate of The Feld Group Institute and the founder of 1L Consulting, which provides clients with a holistic approach to aligning business goals and capabilities to IT strategy, ensuring that technology solutions enable integrated transformation.

Meredith has 25 years of experience in IT operations and consulting. Throughout her career, she has assisted large, complex corporations in successfully aligning IT strategy and customer experience goals with overall business objectives. She has worked with an exceptional list of clients that includes JetBlue Airways, Republic Services, Southwest Airlines, VMware, Delta Air Lines, Marriott International, and Cubic Corporation.

With a relentless focus on ensuring that an organization’s information and technology are enablers of stakeholder value, Meredith is an expert in diagnosing pain points to identify the root causes of a company’s current state challenges. She then works with clients to determine the future vision for customer and employee experiences, assess and articulate the capabilities necessary to achieve that vision, and develop and carry out the appropriate plan for multi-year investment and change.

Prior to founding 1L Consulting in 2009, Meredith served in a number of key roles at EDS, including Director of IT Strategy, Director of Enterprise and Industry Frameworks, and Director of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Framework. In her role as Director of IT Strategy, Meredith was responsible for enhancing and expanding the firm’s proprietary IT strategy framework; this framework was built upon the work of The Feld Group and evolved into principles and mechanisms featured in Charlie Feld’s The Blind Spot: A Leader’s Guide to IT-Enabled Business Transformation.

Prior to joining EDS in 2005, Meredith served in a number of IT strategic consulting roles at Delta Technology and Marriott International. Meredith started her career at Epsilon in 1991 (a data-driven marketing company) before moving in 1995 to Tessera Enterprise Systems (a customer data warehouse and analytics company).

Meredith received a BA in Sociology and a Certificate in Markets and Management from Duke University, with special interests in organizational behavior and statistics. She has also completed the Program for Leadership Development at Harvard Business School, as well as the electives Leading Professional Service Firms and Strategic Negotiations – Dealmaking for the Long Term.

Insights from The Feld Group Institute

Digital Transformation: The Challenge of Company-Wide Alignment

The Value of Business Architecture

post-it-notes for information technology project names. Learn to achieve real business value by aligning strategy with capabilities.

Aligning Business Value: We Need A Common Language

Connect with Russell Villemez

Russell Villemez

Affiliate, The Feld Group Institute

Head of Technology Strategy, Dialexa – a Feld Group Institute partner

Highly regarded CTO and change agent with IT strategy and enterprise architecture expertise.

Russell Villemez is an Affiliate with the Feld Group Institute and the head of Technology Strategy at Dialexa, a Technology Research, Design and Creation firm that works with organizations on initiatives such as Operational Transformation, Business Growth, and New Venture Creation.

During 17 years in operational roles and 15 years in consulting roles, Russell has worked across a variety of industries in both executive leadership positions and as a subject matter expert. Russell thrives on the scale and complexity of leading major change agendas in large corporate environments.

Recent consulting clients include AmerisourceBergen, the American Automobile Association, Brinker International, Cubic, Equifax, and Cox Automotive. A common thread is the client’s need for strong leadership during a period of change—whether motivated by acquisitions, spin-offs, competitive pressures, or other factors. Clients also benefit from Russell’s expertise in enterprise architecture, agile development, application portfolio rationalization, technology and architecture strategy, as well as business strategy and commercial software product development.

Recognized as a versatile IT executive, adept at solving complex problems with innovative solutions, Russell’s capabilities and achievements span a continuum from business-strategy formation to hands-on IT solution development. His extensive career achievements include pioneering the first use of relational databases in high-volume transaction systems in the ‘80s, applying voice recognition DSPs in public intelligent network services for consumer markets in the ‘90s, and leading large-scale adoptions of open systems, object technology, and middleware frameworks in complex business environments, often in advance of commercially available software products.

Prior to joining Dialexa, Russell served at HP as Enterprise Services Chief Technology Officer for the Americas, leading a global capability for embedded Account CTOs in large enterprises. Russell began his career at Accenture, where he first crafted his consultative problem-solving approach, later honed at A.T. Kearny and the Feld Group. Russell’s deep telecom experience is built upon numerous director and enterprise architect positions at AT&T, Bell Atlantic, Telstra, US West, Pacific Bell, and Sprint, and as V.P. and CIO for WebLink Wireless.

Russell has a BS in Business Administration from Louisiana State University and an MBA from Vanderbilt University. In his spare time, Russell participates in amateur auto racing, and is a driving instructor with the Porsche Club of America.