Management Team

Crawford Del Prete was appointed President of IDC in February 2019. Prior to his current role, he served as IDC’s Chief Operating Officer. Through his leadership, IDC has established a leading position as the world's most prominent and trusted technology market intelligence provider.

Crawford joined IDC in 1989 as a research analyst. Throughout his IDC career, he has grown multiple IDC businesses to industry leadership positions. He was instrumental in creating IDC’s high visibility research and data tracking products which are used daily in the IT industry for strategic planning.

Crawford is a leading authority on the IT industry and has completed extensive research on the structure and evolution of the information technology industry. He advises technology and business leaders on how to adapt and change in a time when technology is changing the world. He is frequently quoted in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The New York Times and other leading media sources. He is a regular guest on Bloomberg Technology TV, offering insight and perspective on daily technology events.

He was awarded The Patrick J. McGovern Award for Management Excellence in 2014. In 1995, he was awarded IDC's James Peacock Award for research excellence, IDC's highest research honor.

He holds a B.A. from Michigan State University and in 2012, he was named a Distinguished Alumni of the University.

Eva Au is the Managing Director of IDC Asia/Pacific, with over 20 years of international expertise in sales, marketing, business development and general management across North America and Asia. In her current leadership role, Eva oversees business operations across 14 countries in the APeJ region, managing core functional areas such as Research, Consulting, Events, Sales, Marketing, & Finance.

Since joining IDC, Eva has further entrenched IDC's thought leadership position in the industry, spearheading the development of strategic research themes and go-to-market solutions for a comprehensive perspective of the diverse IT market.

Eva was instrumental in launching IDC's Emerging Technology Advisory Service, an incubator program to identify new ICT areas of interest. Eva's focus on evolving research, outstanding customer service and satisfaction, and deeper geographic insights through leveraging synergies has seen the expansion of IDC's end-user research and advisory influence in Asia/Pacific, as well as stronger growth and capability in custom research by industry. Her direction has fast-tracked the growth of regional and country-level research and insights about Asia/Pacific’s readiness, maturity and adoption of 3rd Platform technologies to propel digital transformation (DX) within organizations.

Prior to joining IDC, Eva was Managing Director of LexisNexi's Asia, a global legal and information publishing house in Canada and Asia. Under her leadership, business development, customer loyalty, corporate branding, global account management, and product customization initiatives catapulted LexisNexi’s as the premier content provider in its key markets. Eva was awarded LexisNexi's "Passion for Winning" and "Circle of Excellence" awards seven times in total in recognition of her outstanding contributions, strong enthusiasm and commitment to her work.

Ms. Bernardi leads IDC’s Human Resources function worldwide and is an active part of IDC's senior management team. Through strategic leadership, Ms. Bernardi drives the planning and implementation of quality-based, integrated human resources programs throughout the US and international workforce. Her mission is to take care of IDC’s most valuable resource, the “People”.

Ms. Bernardi's recent focus has been on delivering a high quality and unique IDC employee experience, including building a robust online presence through branding initiatives, the recruitment of top talent, programs and initiatives that highlight IDC’s unique global culture, women and diversity initiatives, the IDC Mentoring and Wellness Programs, as well as the IDC employee led IDC Cares Committee dedicated to giving back both locally and globally. She leads her innovative HR team to hire, assimilate, develop and grow an organization of long tenured, creative, entrepreneurial employees. IDC boasts a high percentage of “boomerang” employees who return to IDC while maintaining lower than industry turnover rates. Ms. Bernardi creates strategy and initiatives to drive worldwide change, such as selection and adoption of IDC’s WW database, ATS tool and Engagement Survey vendor. She is responsible for IDC’s Affirmative Action Plan and compliance issues.

Ms. Bernardi joined IDG in 1989 and was responsible for creating the first collaborative training program for all IDG business units. Shortly after, she began work in the Human Resources Service Division (HRSD), providing HR generalist services to a variety of smaller IDG business units, including IDC. In September 1991, Ms. Bernardi was hired as an HR Manager at IDC. At that time, IDC employed only 85 people. IDC now boasts a U.S. workforce of 500+ US employees and 1,200 international employees. Ms. Bernardi was promoted to Vice President of Human Resources & Education in 1998, and again to IDC’s Chief Human Resources Officer in 2016.

Before joining IDC, Ms. Bernardi worked in recruiting and training at Massachusetts General Hospital as well as York Hospital in Maine. Ms. Bernardi earned a Bachelor's degree from the University of New Hampshire and a Master's degree from Lesley University. She is also a graduate of the American Society of Training and Development's Train the Trainer program. She is certified in Myers Briggs Type Indicator, the Results System, Motivation Factor as well as a graduate of the Center of Creative Leaderships 360 feedback tools.

Matt Eastwood is Senior Vice President of IDC’s enterprise infrastructure, cloud, telecom, security, developers, channels and enabling technology research groups. Mr. Eastwood and his team research people, process and technology trends affecting the enterprise technology marketplace worldwide.

Mr. Eastwood first joined IDC in 2000 as part of the server team and his responsibilities have evolved and expanded during his tenure. In his current role, he leads a team of more than 100 analysts providing insights and analysis to IT suppliers, buyers, investors, and distributors through more than 75 syndicated research programs. Mr. Eastwood also leads IDC's BuyerView primary research programs which are focused on defining emerging trends in cloud, developers, service providers, edge, AI and security.

Follow Matt on Twitter @MattEastwood

Steven Frantzen is a long-time specialist on the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) markets of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), with a particular focus on emerging markets. As Senior Vice President for Research, Mr. Frantzen oversees the planning and execution of IDC's standard research programs and consulting across some 74 countries in Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East and Africa.

Mr. Frantzen is also responsible for managing IDC’s business units in Central and Eastern Europe, and Middle East and Africa (CEMA), overseeing the planning, development, implementation, and coordination of the full range of IDC's operations and activities across 21 IDC offices located throughout these regions. Moreover, he has management responsibility for IDC offices in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (DACH).

Mr. Frantzen joined IDC in 1990 as the company’s first dedicated employee for the region of Central and Eastern Europe, overseeing office and product development ranging from new country studies and various technology reports to consulting work on IT hardware, vertical markets, channels, telecommunications, software, and services, among others. He received subsequent responsibility for the Middle East and Africa region in 1999. Under Mr. Frantzen’s leadership for the past twenty years, IDC’s combined operations in the CEMA region have grown to 280 employees with research coverage in nearly 60 countries and conference and event activities in 40 countries.

Frantzen's experience in the ICT field reflects a combination of study, travel, and work activities. He holds undergraduate degrees in Political Science, History and German from the University of Iowa, which included several years of study abroad in Germany (Universities of Trier and Bonn) and Hungary. He also attended the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Boston, Massachusetts for a Masters degree, where his studies focused on international business and trade and Soviet and Eastern European studies. He is fluent in German and proficient in Russian and Czech.

Mr. Frantzen was awarded IDG’s Chairman’s Cup for Overall Management Excellence in 2013.

Lars Goransson is responsible for IDC's Canadian operation as Managing Director. IDC Canada's product and services offerings provide the Canadian IT community with market intelligence and market based research across the value continuum of budgeting & planning, marketing awareness and lead generation, and measurement and performance management.

Prior to his role as Managing Director, Lars has held a number of senior analyst and management roles since joining IDC in 1996, most recently as General Manager & Group VP. Previously, Lars managed IDC Canada’s Custom Solutions Group providing proprietary advisory services to Canadian clients. Lars started his career with IDC in the IT outsourcing space and successfully built a very a large IT Services Research Group in Canada.

Mr. Goransson is a graduate of the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Lars is a board member at the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC). He is also a board member at the Canadian Channel Chiefs Council (C4) and chairs the Research Committee. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and a member of the Canadian Association of Management Consultants (CAMC).

Shunsuke Murahashi was appointed Managing Director for IDC Japan in June 2022. Shunsuke has responsibilities for providing guidance and contributing to the development and execution of IDC Japan business strategies across product and functional lines as well as leading sales teams.

Since joining IDC in 1999, Shunsuke started to develop new business among strategic accounts and financial firms as account manager, and he successfully expanded subscriptions with Japanese printer vendors, having dedicated support from analysts based in the US. He also led event business in Tokyo and held technology and CIO events collaborating with global colleagues. He was promoted to Sales Vice President in 2010.

Prior to joining IDC, Shunsuke worked for Japanese electric device company as overseas sales and domestic channel sales. He also experienced sales in system integrator as major account manager and global alliance sales with international partners. He managed projects to replace tens of thousands of PC for large global companies.

He holds a B.A. in Foreign Studies (Spanish and Latin American Studies) from Nanzan University. He promotes global collaborations by understanding challenges of intercultural communications and making use of his experience of an exchange student.

Bob Parker is a Senior Vice President responsible for several areas of research at IDC. He leads the global industry research teams which includes coverage of healthcare, government, retail, resources, manufacturing, and financial services. Bob also leads our teams covering the enterprise applications and services domain as well as analysts covering customer experience, consumer research, and devices. His group covers a range of emerging technology areas such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, payment systems, IoT, and AR/VR.

Bob has been conducting industry research for over twenty years including five years at AMR Research before joining IDC. Prior to entering the research field, Bob spent over fifteen years in various technology and operational roles including serving as Chief Information Officer at Eastern Technologies, a defense contractor.

Bob received his MBA with a certification in artificial intelligence from New Hampshire College and a B.S. from Rivier University with a dual major in finance and computer science.

Bob speaks at numerous industry conferences and is often quoted in the technology, industry, and business press.

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Eric Prothero is IDC’s SVP of Data & Analytics and a member of IDC’s senior management team. He is responsible for managing IDC's global Data & Analytics organization with a team that spans eight regions and 44 countries.

Mr. Prothero oversees the data product teams that define, design, build, and lead the variety of data solutions that IDC develops within the market, vendor, buyer and partner intelligence areas. This includes IDC’s Tracker, Spending Guide, Black Book, Wallet, Contract Database, and Channel Partner Ecosystem products as well as IDC's Knowledge Platform that provides the only 360-degree view of the tech industry.

In addition to leading the product teams, Mr. Prothero oversees the teams that assure data quality and consistency, taxonomy development, tools and data platform evolution, and client satisfaction. These include our data engineering, data analytics, data science, forecast, and web scraping teams, as well as our business development, production, and data delivery teams.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Prothero was responsible for setting up the Latin America business unit for IDC, building business operations across seven countries in the region, and managing the areas of research, consulting, events, sales, marketing, and finance. He joined IDC in 1993 and under his leadership the Latin America region grew to over 120 employees with research coverage in 15 countries in the region.

Prior to IDC, Mr. Prothero was a senior consultant at Windermere Associates, a San Francisco-based strategic planning consulting firm. Mr. Prothero received his M.B.A. in Finance from the University of California at Berkeley and his B.A. in Economics from Swarthmore College. He speaks Portuguese and Spanish and some Japanese.

As Senior Vice President of Custom Solutions, Jonathan Share leads the IDC global business unit providing clients with influential content marketing and actionable market intelligence solutions. His team provides custom analytics, market insight, content marketing, interactive tools, thought leadership, and sales enablement programs to help clients plan, market, sell, and succeed. Jonathan has extensive experience working with clients to design and apply market intelligence to inform strategic planning, guide decisions, manage operations, and improve performance.

Mr. Share has been a member of the IDC Custom Solutions team since 2006. An experienced market researcher, he has employed both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to study the IT industry. Originally located in the UK, with responsibility for European Consulting, he transferred to IDC headquarters in 2010 managing worldwide engagements for US based IT suppliers. Mr. Share was promoted Group Vice President, Custom Solutions in 2019 before assuming responsibility for the global business unit in 2022.

Mr. Share has acted as an executive mentor to social entrepreneurs as part of Santa Clara University’s Global Social Benefit Institute and is a graduate of Leeds Becket University in England. Prior to IDC, Jonathan held senior research and business intelligence positions with a leading financial publisher.

As Chief Operating Officer, Mark Sullivan is responsible for IDC’s worldwide financial reporting, analysis, and planning. He is a member of IDC’s senior management committee.

Mr. Sullivan joined IDC in 1992 as director of finance. He was named vice president, finance in 1998, and CFO in 1999.

Prior to joining IDC, Mr. Sullivan served as controller from 1988 –1992 for CW Publishing, publisher of Computerworld. He joined International Data Group in 1987 as a financial analyst.

Prior to his IDG tenure, he held various financial analyst positions at General Electric Company manufacturing operations in Michigan, Ohio, and Massachusetts. He completed, with honors, General Electric’s Financial Management Program.

Mr. Sullivan earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in finance from Michigan State University.

As Chief Sales Officer, Brad Thorpe has responsibility for leading all IDC direct sales and customer service to the ICT Vendor, Financial, and End User communities, as well as indirect sales including partnerships. He is IDC's chief customer advocate.

Prior to joining IDC in 1986 Mr. Thorpe was employed at NCR Corporation in both Commercial and Federal Accounts Sales, and before that he held sales positions with Western Microtechnology, a distributor of semiconductors, computer systems, and peripherals.

Mr. Thorpe's first role in 1986 at IDC was as a Unix research analyst and product champion. He then moved into sales, first in California where he was responsible for Western regional and major accounts sales. He was promoted to Director of Major Accounts and relocated to the East Coast to develop IDC's first major account focus, building and implementing its now renowned global account management program. In the NYC area, he led the selling effort for IDC's entry into providing its technology research to equity analysts and investment bankers following technology companies through its successful Investment Research Services.

Most recently, Mr. Thorpe was Group Vice President and General Manager of Enterprise Major, Financial, and Sector Sales, leading sales to IDC's largest ICT vendor clients, the financial community, and emerging ICT vendors and supply chain.

In addition to earning a BA in English from Kenyon College, Mr. Thorpe has participated in numerous sales, sales management, and negotiation courses, including the Sales Management and Global Account Management programs at the Columbia University Business School.

As Group Vice President, Worldwide Research, Rick Villars guides IDC's research into broad ICT industry trends, particularly the strategic adoption of technology by Global 2000 businesses and the industries in which they compete. He is a member of IDC's worldwide management team, as the leader of IDC's Future of Digital Infrastructure research practice.

Mr. Villars leads IDC's global cloud research team, driving the ongoing development of IDC's widely-used cloud services forecasts and the tracking of cloud services adoption. He also leads the development of IDC's annual Worldwide FutureScapes themes and predictions that focuses on the transformation of the IT industry (and other industries) in this time of accelerated innovation.

Over the past decade, he has been a keynote speaker at IDC's annual Directions conferences in the U.S. and in many other countries as well as at CIO and Partner Summits and other major industry events. He also regularly interacts with buy-side, sell-side and private equity financial analysts to discuss the implications of emerging ICT trends on leading ICT companies.

Prior to taking on this role, Mr. Villars has spent over 30 years assessing the evolution of network, storage, and server infrastructure as well as advising companies on the impact of the cloud on existing IT practices. The role included developing IDC's viewpoints on the workloads driving the adoption of converged and software defined IT solutions as well as public and private cloud solutions. He also led IDC's ongoing assessment of the evolution of datacenter design, placement, and management strategies. And advised clients on the impact of new IT consumption models and technologies on organizations' infrastructure, deployment, procurement, and management practices.

Mr. Villars holds a Bachelor's of Science in Foreign Service (B.S.F.S.) from Georgetown University with a concentration in science, technology, and international affairs.

Meredith Whalen is IDC’s Chief Research Officer and member of the senior management team. She leads IDC's worldwide research organization, product management, marketing and client services functions. Ms. Whalen sets the direction and agenda for IDC's worldwide research products, fosters innovation, and ensures IDC clients have a valuable, personalized, and engaging experience.

Ms. Whalen’s international team of 1,300 analysts leverage research and advisory services to empower business transformation for the Global 2000, and counsel technology suppliers on creating effective offerings for the digital economy.

Ms. Whalen regularly presents at CIO and CXO summits in North America, EMEA, Asia Pacific and Latin America. She oversees the CIO Executive Council, which provides strategic leadership development for transforming the C-suite at the world’s most influential and evolving organizations.

Ms. Whalen was previously Senior Vice President of IT Executive, Industry, Software and Services Research & CIO Executive Council. In her 20 years at IDC, Ms. Whalen has innovated industry research practices with such offerings as the Industry Insights business units, advising vertical industry advising on technology strategy, and IDC's DecisionScape methodology, a portfolio of decision-making methodologies that enable professionals to better plan, deploy and optimize their technology initiatives. Ms. Whalen founded IDC's IT Executive Research programs and architected the industry's first and most comprehensive business use case taxonomy. She holds a B.A. with honors from Wellesley College and an M.B.A. with honors with from Babson's F.W. Olin Graduate School of Management.

As Chief Operating Officer of IDC Western Europe, Robert White is responsible for the Western Europe Country operations and the European Sales team. He is also responsible for the Finance function in IDC EMEA.

Mr. White joined IDC in 1992 as Financial Controller of IDC UK. He was appointed IDC European Finance director in 1997 and later took on responsibility for managing other European support functions.

Prior to joining IDC, Mr. White held a number of accounting positions within different manufacturing companies and later joined Groupe Bull, where he served as business manager from 1989 until he joined IDC in 1992.

Mr. White graduated from the University of York with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics.