About Us
Infernotions is a consulting firm headquartered in Toronto. We help our clients grow sales and profits by using customer data to direct business strategy. Since our inception in 2005, we have designed and participated in initiatives that have yielded dramatic returns on client investment and improved our clients' relationships with their customers.
In the next phase of our journey, starting 2008, we are assimilating our past experiences, standardizing the solution design and rolling out on demand software business products. These products are the culmination of our several service engagements that have yielded measurable and sustainable value.
Delivery Team
Varun Madhok: Head, Client Services
Varun Madhok is an entrepreneur, a business consultant, an engineer and a scientist with fourteen years of professional experience. Most recently, he led Infernotions' relationship with a knowledge process outsourcing company who needed to penetrate the US market. He opened, transitioned and stabilized relationships in the manufacturing, insurance and retail industry verticals in a three year relationship with his client.
Prior to Infernotions Varun has worked for IBM Business Consulting Services, Purdue University and Los Alamos National Laboratory in a career that has spanned management consulting, software development and engineering research. His business consulting solutions suite comprises offerings for customer segmentation, fraud detection, churn reduction, targeted marketing, promotions optimization, customer loyalty management and analytical data mart delivery. His engineering research has been used by the US Army Research Office and NASA.
Varun holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University. He enjoys the outdoors and spends his spare time backcountry camping in Northern Ontario.
John Dillender: Executive Consultant, Consumer Electronics reverse logistics processes
John Dillender is an executive consultant on Infernotions’ client services team with a focus on the consumer electronics industry. He has over 30 years’ domestic and international experience in high technology, outsourcing and manufacturing support services. His expertise, gained while working in multinational corporate environments, is focused on team building and maximizing operational efficiencies.
Through 2006 John served as Vice President of Service & Support for Epson America, Inc. with responsibility for over 600 employees in the US, Canada and Latin America. He implemented strategies resulting in cost reductions of more than $20 million over his four year term as Vice President. He also planned and managed the construction of a 750,000 sq ft repair depot and distribution for the American region, with anticipated savings of $7.1 million over five years. Prior to Epson, John worked in various management positions for Microdyne, Digital Equipment Corporation, Wang Laboratories, Tektronix Inc. and Honeywell. For Infernotions, John consults the clients’ service and support leadership on the benefits case for ClaimsGator deployment. He also guides the delivery team to ensure the benefits realization.
John is a veteran who served with the US Marines. He resides in LaQuinta, California with his wife and when he’s not working, plays golf every chance he gets.
Roger Schmedlen, CPP, CFE, CII, MIPI: Practice Lead, Field Audit Services
Roger leads field investigation effort on suspect claims for Infernotions' claims processing offering.
He is a security consultant and international investigator with over 35 years private sector field experience. The author of about 75 published investigative/security articles and a founding member of two investigative associations, he began his career at Pinkertons Inc. in 1965, where he eventually became the youngest investigations supervisor in this legendary agency's history. In 1971 he joined a fledgling investigative agency, World Investigations & Security Engineers, Inc. where he became a major stockholder and vice president. He remained until 1985, at which time this was the largest private investigative agency in Michigan. It was here, in about 1975, that he conducted his first major warranty fraud investigation. In 1985 he formed Loss Prevention Concepts, Ltd., and expanded his security consulting work and international investigation activities. He is part of Infernotions' executive team since Fall 2008 and has guided the development of its claims processing offering.
In addition to developing various other investigative and protective specialties, Mr. Schmedlen pioneered warranty fraud investigations and has successfully conducted dozens of these operations over the years, mostly in North America. While most clients have been manufacturing businesses, one comprehensive warranty fraud investigation was conducted for the United State Department of Justice. Mr. Schmedlen, who occasionally lectures at industry seminars and colleges, has served as an expert witness on over 70 litigation matters.
John Pinto: Executive Consultant, Service & Support operations
John Pinto is an executive consultant on Infernotions’ client services team. His expertise is in service and support operations for the consumer electronics sector with a special focus on loss prevention in reverse logistics.
Prior to joining Infernotions, John led the service and support operations for a major multinational consumer electronics manufacturer where he led the repair, warranty administration, service program management, returns and customer care services for the product division’s relationships across the USA and Latin America. He delivers practical common sense solutions based on his Six Sigma Master Black Belt data driven analysis. He has produced multi-million dollar cost savings and greatly improved customer satisfaction in his 20 plus years in the industry.
John is part of Infernotions’ executive team since Spring 2009. He consults clients on maximizing the cost savings using ClaimsGator to audit their reverse logistics processes. He also provides thought leadership to Infernotions’ technical team on leading practices in warranty management.
Kate Gregory: Director, Software Development
Kate leads Infernotions' software development team. She has almost three decades of scientific and engineering programming experience in a variety of programming languages including Fortran, PL/I, C++, Java, Visual Basic, and C#. Since 1995 Kate has authored over ten books on programming and related topics including XML, most recently Microsoft Visual C++ .Net 2003 Kick Start. She is also a standup instructor, teaching Microsoft .NET, XML, C++ programming, Object Oriented concepts, and UML for several training companies and selected clients.
Since January 2002 she has been Microsoft Regional Director for Toronto and in January 2004 she was awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional designation for Visual C++. She was named an Outstanding Regional Director in 2004 for her press work and Regional Director of the Year in 2005.
Kate is a founding member of the Toronto .NET User Group the East of Toronto .NET Users Group, and the Kawartha Software Developers Association. She is also an adjunct faculty member of the Department of Computer and Information Systems at Trent University, teaching Object Oriented Design and C++. She wrote the Visual C++ column at CodeGuru, covering topics such as Managed and Unmanaged C++, migration and integration, interop, and more.
Huy Pham: Team Lead, CRM solutions
Huy is a software engineer with experience in developing on demand business solutions using the ASP.NET application framework.
In addition to being a senior developer, Huy is the solution lead on Infernotions' Social CRM solution suite. Most recently, he led the successful implementation of our Social CRM application for canvassing, fund raising and voter registration in a parliamentary election campaign.
Huy holds an MSc in Computer Science from Ryerson University and is working towards his PhD at the University of Guelph.
