Christopher Behme is a Vice President and senior partner with IBM’ s Communication practice, focused on leading sustainability, energy, environment and utility strategy with the North American practice.  His expertise spans strategy, ERP integration, business development, personnel and operations management, customer care, M&A, deregulation, finance and Smart Grid. He has helped deliver new business capabilities and support technologies for energy, utility and chemical companies around the world.   He has also been recognized as an IBM Industry Academy member.

Mr. Behme has extensive executive management and leadership experience with Fortune 500 companies in a variety of industries over the past 30 years. Within IBM he has led Smarter Commerce group and served as region lead and senior client partner.  Prior to joining IBM, Chris served as a region executive and client partner across key accounts at Accenture. He was also employed at Dow-Elanco, a joint venture between Eli Lilly and Dow Chemical Companies.  He serves on the boards of several non-profit and fundraising organizations. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois, a master’s degree from Texas A&M University and Harvard Business School Executive Management short course. Post-graduate studies led Chris overseas where he gained experience in environmental consulting for the city of London.  

As a consultant, Chris has focused on the natural resources area which has afforded him the opportunity to work with major energy companies and governmental agencies throughout the world.  His experiences have built skills in resource and financial management, contract negotiation, regulatory organization. His accomplishments include mergers of some of the biggest energy companies, enabling smart meters to improve the lives of millions, SAP rollout across Finance, CIS, Supply Chain and EAM and negotiation of multiple $80 -150 Million IT arrangements. 

When not traveling, Chris can be found with his family at the family farm homesteaded in 1836 where he continues to be actively involved including cultivating a vineyard.  He has been active in organizations such as Houston YMCA, CERA (Cambridge Energy Research Associates), IlliDell Educational Foundation, Gulf Coast Power, Knights of Columbus, University of Illinois groups, church councils and various local young professional organizations.  Chris’ beautiful wife and partner in life and business, Kelly have been married 19 years and have two very active children Mary and Charles.