Our Leadership Team

James A. (Jim) Baker
Chairman & Secretary
Jim Baker is a long-time resident of Houston, Texas. He received his B.S. from the University of Rochester, his certification in Behavioral Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology, an M.S. from the State University of New York, and attended South Texas College of Law in Houston, Texas. Jim is a co-founder of the National Center for Dispute Settlement of the American Arbitration Association, a past instructor for the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University and an Adjunct Professor for the University of Houston. Jim remains an active sponsor and author with "The Anger Busting Workbook", the "Anger Busting™ Training and Counseling Guide" “TeleSales Marketing” and “Negotiations Tactics For Professionals” are a few of his recent publications. Jim also has a monthly column on Anger Related issues which appears in Recovery Today Magazine.
 

Walter Rogers
President & CEO
Walter Rogers is President and CEO of Baker Communications. He has created and led businesses in 13 countries on 3 continents. He was a finalist for the 2000 and 2001 Texas eCommerce Awards, is a guest instructor on the topics of entrepreneurship, sales and marketing at the University of Texas and has been interviewed on ABC News, CNN, CBS, Sales Rep Radio and WF Radio on the topic of Sales and Marketing Integration. He currently hosts a segment on CBS650 Radio focused on Sales Effectiveness and CRM. During his time with Baker Communications he has increased sales by over 1000% in and pushed the organization into new products, services and markets. Baker Communications partners with 1000 active clients per year, including 50% of the F500.
 

Lawne Gerhardt
Chief Operating Officer
As Chief Operating Officer, Lawne Gerhardt is responsible for the Design, Sale Delivery and Support of Baker Communications product and services. He brings leadership and entrepreneurial expertise to the Baker Team with more than 20 years of sales, marketing and operations experience in the technology and training fields. Prior to coming to BCI, he was Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Communispond, a division of InformaUSA, where he was responsible for both national and international sales. Prior to Communispond, he was Vice President of Sales for the Northeast region of Element K. He is a former Army officer that started his corporate career managing national accounts at IBM Global Services.
 

Christie Bissias
Chief Technology Officer
As Chief Technology Officer, Christie Bissias is responsible for both internal and customer facing cloud applications. She leads a Business Optimization and Software Development team focused on helping clients optimize the use of their CRM systems. She is currently leading the development of several productivity cloud apps including GoalTracker, SkillBurst and HomeRun! while also supporting the optimization process of CRM systems for some of the world’s largest companies. She joined Baker in 2004 after working on the SAP deployment teams at both HP and Reliant Energy. Christie graduated from The University of Houston with a degrees in Business and Computer Information Systems.

 

Tyler Dorsey

Vice President, Information Technology and Services Industries
Tyler Dorsey is Vice President of the Information Technology and Services (ITS) vertical division. He originally joined Baker in 2010 as Senior Director of Client Enablement to lead the global relationships with clients such as Dell and VMware. Prior to joining the Baker leadership team, Tyler enjoyed 12 years at Dell, where he held numerous leadership positions in sales, marketing, and strategy. He spearheaded critical Go-to-Market efforts for Dell’s Large Enterprise segment that included the design and deployment of coverage models as well as the creation and implementation of sales motions for complex pursuits such as Flexible Computing, Unix Migration, and Cloud Services. Tyler is a former Army officer, holds an M.B.A. from the University Texas at Austin and is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame (Go Irish!).