Stephanie Atkinson is a seasoned high-tech analyst, specializing in vertical markets, technology segmentation, and overall business/enterprise research and consulting for telecommunications, information technology, network infrastructure, and other high tech industries. Ms. Atkinson maintains unique insight and research expertise by having worked within the telecom equipment and service provider market prior to working as an analyst/consultant. By analyzing market segmentation, vertical industries, and business telephony trends and customer behavior for the telecom, network and infrastructure industries, she provides a 360 degree view of customer-driven markets.

In June 2005, Ms. Atkinson became a founding partner of Compass Intelligence, a research-driven strategic consulting company specializing in the optimization of go-to-market strategies for businesses in a variety of industries.Ms. Atkinson has become a well-known and respected analyst in Vertical Market research and consulting, and is widely recognized as a market expert in the implementation and evaluation of vertical market programs in the telecom/IT industry. She has been quoted in numerous business and trade publications including Washington Technology, EE Times, The Congressional Quarterly, CNN Money, Network World, Healthcare Informatics, Appliance Manufacturer, Finance News, America's Network, Wireless Fidelity Magazine, CEO Magazine, and many others. She has also conducted numerous custom and consulting projects targeted around vertical markets in the telecom and IT industries including Homeland Security, Broadband in Public Safety, Wireless Vertical Opportunities, Wireless Healthcare, and Municipalization of Telecom Services.

Prior to founding Compass Intelligence, Ms. Atkinson held a position as Senior Analyst with In-Stat. There she managed the Vertical Market Deep Dive services, as well as drove many large initiatives around business intelligence and new market research services. Prior to In-Stat, Ms. Atkinson was employed with Frost & Sullivan as an Industry Analyst and Program Leader within the Telecom Services Division. There she developed and initiated one of the first Vertical Market research programs, in which she was the Senior Analyst. Ms. Atkinson also held a position as an Information Services Manager with a Texas-based CLEC, Tex-link Communications (Formerly Taylor Communications Group, Inc). There she managed the development of a custom billing and OSS system. Prior to Tex-Link, she worked for Alcatel USA, where she served as an Engineering and Production Planner in the Lightwave Products Division. At Alcatel, Ms. Atkinson coordinated with electrical, design, process, manufacturing, software, product, ASIC and PCB engineers for the research and development of the Alcatel 1680 Optical Gateway Manager project.

Ms. Atkinson holds a B.S. in Industrial Distribution from the College of Engineering at Texas A&M University (College Station, TX), and an M.B.A. with a concentration in Management of Technology from the University of Texas at San Antonio.