"Howard Systems International - Executive Committee"

The collective leadership behind Howard Systems’ (HSI) people, processes, products, and organizational structure is our Executive Committee. The Executive Committee is comprised of the company's President, and it's four Senior Vice Presidents. Taking under advisement staff suggestions, they make the decisions that transform and effect positive change on the business, its employees, and clients.

Each member of the Executive Committee is an expert in their specific scope of responsibility at HSI, and brings to the table years of IT and vertical industry experience. Their innovative thinking, effective communication, and successful deployment of business strategy, are representative of true leadership in action.






Howard Systems International's (HSI) President, Howard Persky, founded the company in 1975. A former math teacher in the New York City school system, he saw his future in technology. Nearly 30 years ago, Howard began his technical career as an Account Manager for Computer Horizons Corporation (CHC), where he quickly became the highest producing salesperson. Realizing the potential in the IT services industry, he left CHC, honored his one-year non-compete agreement and with three clients, HSI was created. Howard’s original three clients remain business partners with HSI.

Howard is a graduate of City College in New York. He is married with one son.





Mike McMahon joined Howard Systems International (HSI) in 1982 and is the second most senior employee next to Howard Persky. Mike began his career at HSI as Technical Director, moving up through the ranks of Branch Management to his current position of Executive Vice President where he is responsible for the operations of the company. Mike has over 40 years of experience in the IT industry ranging from Programmer to Sales to Sr. Management.

A former United States Marine, Mike is a graduate of Monroe Community College and University of Buffalo.







As Vice President of Business Development of Questcon Technologies, Nicole Baird-Perrelle has responsibility for the sales and marketing of all solutions. Nicole leads a customer focused team in delivering a superior experience for client and alliance partners. She spearheads the strategic growth and expansion plans for the sales organization. Under Nicole's leadership, the sales and marketing functions work to leverage and extend Questcon's portfolio of enterprise solutions to help clients succeed.

Throughout her career, Nicole has been a leader in development and implementation of solution selling. She has extensive experience in sales, executive management and banking solutions at Deloitte Consulting, Hewlett-Packard and NP Consulting. She has a proven track record in developing new business opportunities, managing large complex multinational teams as well as nurturing and growing existing relationships at all levels of large organizations.

Prior to joining Questcon, Nicole was Managing Director of NP Consulting, where she was responsible for all new business development. In her role there she serviced small and medium businesses to provide sales and marketing strategies, staffing, training, and support. Previous to that, Nicole was a Senior Manager at Deloitte Consulting in global sales for their elite group of Senior Relationship Managers in Deloitte Consulting one billion dollar financial services vertical. In this role, she helped serve one of Deloitte's largest clients handling business development as well as client satisfaction for delivery. Nicole joined Deloitte from HP where she spent more than a decade serving in a number of senior positions with increased responsibility. The balance of her career there was spent in business development, sales management and sales operations. She last served as Account Manager for Citigroup where she managed a large global sales team and combined brought in over $500 million in IT service, software, and hardware revenue. She was recognized consistently as being in the top 1% of the company for sales each year.



Brett Messimer has more than 20 years of experience in all aspects of IT and has worked in various industries including Aerospace, Financial, Insurance, Industry, and Transportation, for private entities, government entities, and Fortune 500 companies.

Combining his experience and leadership skills with the needs of industry, Brett has built and led organizations to realizing their quality assurance and delivery goals while working within budgetary and organizational constraints. His approach to building quality across the entire IT spectrum has enabled companies to realize shorter development times and increased quality, while improving customer satisfaction and reducing costs.

Brett has consistently used his experience and vision to deliver highly skilled and knowledgeable quality assurance processes and teams to companies, creating programs flexible enough to handle all challenges from small changes to enterprise wide systems. He has also implemented and managed remote testing sites and Testing Centers of Excellence, offering enterprise wide testing solutions; solutions that have management and business support.

Brett is a member of the Conference Program Board of the Software Test Professionals conference.