Chris Walker Email Address

Strategist + Scientist + Storyteller

About Convoy Corporation Founded in 1993, Convoy Corporation (http://www.convoy.com), based in Emeryville, California, is the leader in providing cost-effective, application-aware tools and solutions for interfacing and data conversion for the Enterprise Application Integration market. Convoy's flagship product, Convoy/DM, is a graphical tool for rapid development and management of data interfacing between enterprise applications. Convoy/DM simplifies the task of developing and maintaining application interfaces by generating all interfacing code automatically through a powerful transformation engine, and through the ability to extract and manage metadata from both the source and target applications. Convoy/DM has extensions to make it even easier to create interfaces for popular applications such as PeopleSoft and Legacy/COBOL-based applications.

I began my career as a scientist and engineer, doing microbiology and genomics research. Spent some time in Yellowstone sampling hot springs. Built a few pretty cool bioreactors. Grew lots of bugs. Played with (back-in-the-day) cutting-edge molecular tools. Talked about genes. Made communication models. Got permission to learn a whole ton about how things like carbon, sulfur, nitrogen, and phosphorus move through the environment. Earned some letters. Decided academia wasn’t for me, so jumped over to the private sector. Worked as an environmental consultant and tried to help clients clean up old messes. Visited landfills, mines, and military bases. Became fascinated with water and how to use less of it. Got exposed to renewable energy. Saw the seeds of a connected city. Most importantly, began understanding how to lead people. Went back to school a third time. Heard awesome speakers. Became intimately familiar with dozens of companies. Led an angel investment. Gave lots of talks. Found mentors. Forced myself to do the hard job of figuring out what really gets me excited. Met the folks at iF. Hit the jackpot. Joined them as an intern and never really left. Now? I’m fortunate enough to work where people, science and mobile technologies all meet together. I get to think. A lot. Ask ‘why’. Create a story from disparate ideas. Envision what might be. Meet amazing people. But mostly, I get to be myself with a group of thoughtful people driven to do things simply and beautifully. @WalkerChrisB