John Calkins leads the Digital Front Office initiative within the Strategy and Transformation Center of Competence for IBM. In this global role, he leads a team focused on helping clients across multiple industries develop strategies to address the challenges and opportunities raised as consumers and businesses increasingly interact in a multi-channel, interactive environment, with expectations for personalized marketing and highly intuitive, consistently world class usage of data to support the customer experience wherever it occurs.

Prior to joining IBM, he was Executive Vice President, Global Digital and Commercial Innovation for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, responsible for the digital transactional exploitation of SPE's film and television properties around the world, as well as developing and helping to implement an integrated approach to the home entertainment market across both digital and physical channels of distribution.

Previously at Sony he served as Executive Vice President of Corporate Development for Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE), responsible for driving corporate initiatives in emerging business areas, coordinating corporate and divisional investments and divestitures and overseeing the implementation of the SPE mid range planning process. Prior to coming to Sony Pictures, he was President of Warren N. Lieberfarb & Associates (WNLA), charged with day to day responsibility for the company’s operations in its consulting practice and in its exploration and pursuit of opportunities in broadband video distribution, with backing from Microsoft, Intel and others. He came to WNLA from Warner Bros, where he ultimately held the post of Senior Vice President of Corporate Business Development and Strategy. In this role, Mr. Calkins became intimately involved in the Studio’s entry into such technology-driven aspects of the entertainment industry as wireless distribution, multi-player video gaming, and Video-on-Demand. He was instrumental in the creation of Movielink, the five-studio joint venture to distribute theatrically-released motion pictures on the Internet. He joined Warner Bros. as its Vice President of New Media Business Development in 2000.

Prior to joining Warner Bros, Calkins was with McKinsey & Company, as an Associate Principal in its Los Angeles office. During his four years at McKinsey, he developed strategic recommendations for companies in such diverse industries as theme parks, the Internet and retailing. He has also held positions with Trammell Crow Company and Pepsico’s Taco Bell restaurant division, and received his MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business as a Fuqua Scholar, awarded to the top 5% of the class. He has also been active on a number of private company and charity boards of directors.