Adrian Cho

Adrian Cho is well-qualified to draw parallels between the worlds of jazz, business, and software. A leader and innovative collaborator in the arts, he performs as a bassist and conductor and directs the Ottawa Jazz Orchestra, a unique, critically acclaimed symphonic jazz ensemble that brings together an impressive array of professional jazz and symphony musicians. Doug Fischer of the Ottawa Citizen labeled him "a musical missionary" while Melanie Scott of WHERE Ottawa described him as "one of our city's most adventurous musical renaissance men."

As a software development manager he applies over twenty years of experience to help teams deliver innovative solutions on-time. Early in his career he consulted to a wide range of organizations including retail and commercial banks and research and development labs at Fujitsu and IBM. For the past fifteen years he has helped to produce multiple class-leading and award-winning software engineering and team collaboration tools. At IBM he manages the global development of Rational® Team Concert™ and Rational's Collaborative Application Lifecycle Management project. As a manager of intellectual property for over ten years, he has played a key role in the Eclipse and Jazz™ initiatives of open innovation.

Dubbed "a cool guide to hot jazz" by Alex Hutchinson of the Ottawa Citizen, Adrian is a passionate educator who loves to write, speak and perform. John Kelman of All About Jazz wrote, "Cho's intentions were clearly to educate as much as entertain, and he succeeded on both fronts." Combining his experiences in arts and business with a strong interest in collaboration, Adrian developed the Jazz Process, an execution-oriented framework for collaboration, innovation and agility that can help teams in any domain improve their performance. Adrian speaks and blogs regularly about high-performance teamwork and his book, The Jazz Process: Collaboration, Innovation and Agility, has been endorsed by a diverse collection of thought leaders.