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Trusted 15 IBM Cognos Consultants for Hire

cognos consultants - Trusted 15 IBM Cognos Consultants for Hire

IBM Cognos Analytics has a vibrant ecosystem of expert consultants who combine technical prowess with community leadership.

The “best” Cognos consultants are distinguished by equally-weighted factors: contributions to open-source or third-party tools, founding or leading tech companies while remaining hands-on, influential blogging or speaking in the Cognos community, roles at major firms delivering Cognos solutions, and accolades in international forums or competitions. Below is an updated list of 15 outstanding Cognos Analytics professionals worldwide, each with a brief profile highlighting their background, achievements, current projects, and why they stand out in the Cognos arena.

  1. Shashank Garg

  2. Lance Hankins

  3. Heather L. Cole

  4. Rich Chester

  5. Corey Mendelsohn

  6. Mike Bernaiche

  7. Paul Mendelson

  8. Rikke Jacobsen

  9. Dan Volitich

  10. Robb Sinclair

  11. Dustin Adkison

  12. Patrick Neveu

  13. Ursula Flade-Ruf

  14. Andrew Copeland

  15. Ryan Dolley

Now, let’s delve deeper into their remarkable careers and contributions.

Shashank Garg

YouTube Video

Nationality: Indian

Shashank Garg is the co-founder and CEO of InfoCepts, one of the world’s largest analytics services firms with roots in IBM Cognos. An entrepreneur and thought leader, Shashank helped scale InfoCepts from a 2-person startup in 2004 to a Gartner-recognized global BI powerhouse. Under his guidance, InfoCepts delivered hundreds of successful Cognos implementations and innovative BI solutions. In 2023, Shashank was named among the Top 50 Consulting Firm CEOs by The Consulting Report, underscoring his influence in the data analytics industry. He is also known for his vision of bridging the gap between business needs and analytics technology.

As CEO, Shashank drives InfoCepts’ strategy and service offerings, which include Cognos Analytics modernization, cloud migration, and AI-infused BI. He remains involved in solution innovation – for example, championing the development of InfoCepts’ Cognos-to-PowerBI migration accelerator and a library of best-practice Cognos report templates. Shashank frequently shares insights via blogs and panel discussions (e.g., on the future of BI and AI). He also mentors startups in the data space.

Lance Hankins

Nationality: American

Lance Hankins is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Motio, Inc. (based in Texas, USA). A software engineer at heart, Lance helped start Motio in 1999 with the aim of improving the Cognos BI development experience. He played a key role in inventing MotioCI, a real-time version control and deployment tool for Cognos that has become an industry-standard add-on. Under Lance’s technical leadership, Motio expanded its suite to include automated testing (MotioPI) and administration tools that save Cognos admins countless hours. Motio’s solutions (co-created by Lance) are even available on the IBM Marketplace, reflecting their value to the Cognos ecosystem.

As CTO, Lance still actively architects Motio’s product enhancements – from ensuring compatibility with each new Cognos release to exploring support for other BI platforms. He leads a development team focusing on cutting-edge features, such as integrating CI/CD pipelines for Cognos (so BI content can be promoted as code) and adding AI-driven testing in Motio’s tools. Lance also engages directly with Cognos user communities – he frequently attends and sponsors IBM user group events, gathering feedback from consultants and clients to drive product improvements.

Heather L. Cole

Heather L. Cole - Trusted 15 IBM Cognos Consultants for Hire

Nationality: American

Heather Cole is a veteran BI consultant and the President of Lodestar Solutions (USA). With a Cognos career dating back to the early 2000s, she became a 5-time IBM Information Champion (now Lifetime IBM Champion) for Analytics. Heather has advised countless clients on IBM Cognos and Planning Analytics, co-authored a bestselling book on BI, and even hosts educational podcasts and webinars for the Cognos community.

As Lodestar’s CEO and CFO, Heather stays hands-on – her firm delivers Cognos Analytics solutions and user training. She is a sought-after speaker and coach, guiding organizations on modernizing analytics and driving user adoption. Heather’s recent focus includes coaching BI professionals on soft skills and launching a podcast to share insights.

Rich Chester

Nationality: American

Rich Chester is the Director of Business Intelligence at Senturus, Inc. and an IBM Certified Solution Expert in Cognos BI. He has been working with Cognos since the late 1990s, initially as a developer and later as a solution architect. Rich gained wide recognition through his engaging Senturus webinar series, where he shares “Tips & Tricks” and deep dives like “Cognos Performance Tuning: Tips & Tricks.” He has a talent for breaking down complex topics into straightforward guidance. Rich’s extensive experience ranges from the technical to the managerial. He’s also an active participant on IBM community forums, often contributing expert answers.

At Senturus, Rich oversees the BI consulting practice, ensuring project delivery quality. He personally still consults for key clients – for example, he recently helped a large healthcare provider fine-tune their Cognos environment, resulting in 40% faster report executions by adjusting queries and upgrading hardware. Rich also leads Senturus’s internal product development for analytics connectors – he was instrumental in creating the Senturus Analytics Connector for Tableau. Besides, he stays on the pulse of industry trends, advising clients on how Cognos can coexist with or complement other tools like Power BI or Tableau. Rich’s breadth of knowledge often sees him invited to speak at user groups and IBM events.

Corey Mendelsohn

Corey Mendelsohn - Trusted 15 IBM Cognos Consultants for Hire

Nationality: Canadian

Corey Mendelsohn is a 30-year veteran of Cognos and the President of NewIntelligence (Montreal, Canada). Having started with Cognos in the 1990s, Corey led BI projects through multiple generations of the platform. In 2024 he was honored as an IBM Champion, joining the cohort of top global advocates. Under his leadership, NewIntelligence became a premier IBM partner focused on Cognos Analytics, Planning Analytics, and AI-driven BI solutions. Corey is frequently cited in IBM community news for his dedication to Cognos technology.

As NewIntelligence’s president, Corey remains technically engaged – he has overseen the development of NI Visualization (an enhanced dashboard toolkit) and migration accelerators for Cognos upgrades. He mentors his team of consultants and regularly speaks at IBM TechXchange and user groups. Corey also collaborates with IBM’s product teams as a customer advisor, ensuring real-world needs shape Cognos’s future.

Mike Bernaiche

Nationality: American

Mike Bernaiche is a Senior Solutions Architect and IBM Champion at Lodestar Solutions, where he has spent over 10 years leading Cognos and Planning Analytics projects. Mike brings a practitioner’s eye to his consulting – he was a former finance leader before moving into BI and knows how to align analytics with real business impact. He is a prolific blogger and presenter, contributing regularly to Lodestar’s blog and webinars. Mike’s content is known for being practical, clear, and packed with screenshots and demos – making him a favorite among Cognos learners.

Mike continues to consult on Cognos migrations, modeling, and dashboard design. His recent focus is helping clients transition to Cognos Analytics 12, where he’s advocated for embracing the new user experience and leveraging enhanced visualization features. He also mentors junior consultants at Lodestar and co-hosts their “Analytics Roadmap” series. Internally, Mike is also testing Watsonx integrations and using AI-generated insights to speed up Cognos report creation. He remains an active IBM Champion, offering insights in TechXchange events and on LinkedIn.

Paul Mendelson

You don’t need to be a developer to make Cognos dance. You just need to understand how it thinks.

Nationality: American

Paul Mendelson (widely known by his handle “CognosPaul”) is a Senior Solutions Architect at PMsquare and one of the most prolific Cognos Analytics contributors. With 15+ years in BI, Paul has been an IBM Champion for 6 consecutive years. He actively contributes to the community under the alias “CognosPaul” through blogs, forum solutions, and technical articles, even co-founding the AI and Data Analytics User Group (AIDAUG). Notably, Paul developed a suite of Cognos add-ons called CogBox – free and paid utilities that enhance Cognos Analytics’ usability.

At PMsquare (a global IBM partner), Paul splits his time between client engagements and product development. He consults on complex Cognos implementations (from data modeling to interactive dashboards) and continuously expands CogBox with new features (recently adding a user interface enhancer for report authors). Paul also speaks at IBM TechXchange events and writes “CognosPaul’s Bag o’ Tricks,” a blog series sharing advanced techniques. In his spare time, he experiments with integrating Cognos with modern AI (e.g. using Watson APIs to automate report insights).

Rikke Jacobsen

Rikke Jacobsen - Trusted 15 IBM Cognos Consultants for Hire

Nationality: Danish

Rikke Jacobsen (nicknamed “Mrs. Cognos”) is the CEO of CogniTech A/S in Denmark and an IBM Champion for the past three years. She built her reputation by championing IBM Cognos Analytics across Scandinavia. In 2019, Rikke co-founded CogniTech with Cognos and Planning Analytics as the core offerings – since then, the firm has grown from 12 to 26 employees by 2023. Rikke is a dynamic speaker at IBM conferences (including TechXchange EMEA) and a social media evangelist for Cognos. Her passion for data-driven decision-making earned her the affectionate title “Mrs. Cognos.”

As CEO and lead analytics architect, Rikke splits her time between managing CogniTech’s operations and consulting on key projects. She actively advises clients on upgrading to Cognos Analytics 12, integrating Cognos with Planning Analytics, and leveraging the new AI (Watsonx) features. Rikke also drives internal innovation – for example, CogniTech has developed a Cognos Analytics accelerator package for fast dashboard deployments, a project she oversaw. She continues to host webinars and local user group meetups to share success stories and practical tips for Cognos users.

Dan Volitich

Nationality: American

Dan Volitich is a luminary in the Cognos world, known for co-authoring “IBM Cognos Business Intelligence 10: The Official Guide.” As President and co-founder of John Daniel Associates (JDA) since 1996, Dan has over 25 years of BI experience. He led JDA to become an Accredited IBM Cognos Partner, delivering solutions across manufacturing, finance, and other industries. Dan’s contributions include developing best practices for Framework Manager modeling (some of which were incorporated into IBM’s training) and mentoring a generation of Cognos professionals.

Dan continues to helm JDA (based in Pittsburgh, USA), focusing on modernizing clients from legacy Cognos 10/11 to the latest Cognos Analytics 12. He is actively involved in projects that integrate Cognos with data science platforms and open-source tools (e.g., embedding Python analytics into Cognos reports). Dan also speaks at regional Cognos user groups, often sharing insights on performance tuning and “back to basics” data modeling. Internally, he’s guiding JDA’s development of a Cognos Analytics cloud migration toolkit, drawing on his deep knowledge of the platform’s internals.

Robb Sinclair

Nationality: Canadian

Robb Sinclair is a seasoned Cognos expert and IBM Analytics Champion since 2017. Formerly CTO at CoEnterprise (an IBM Platinum Partner) and now an executive at Converge Technology Solutions, Robb has led pioneering solutions across data analytics and AI. He first worked with Cognos in the late 1990s and even joined Cognos (the company) during its IBM acquisition era. Over 25+ years, Robb has delivered Cognos projects in finance, supply chain, and public sector.

As of 2025, Robb serves as VP of Analytics at Converge. He continues to architect enterprise Cognos solutions – for example, designing a multi-cloud Cognos deployment for a global manufacturer to ensure near-zero downtime reporting. Robb is also driving Converge’s initiatives in AI-infused BI: integrating IBM Watson Studio with Cognos for augmented analytics. In the community, he stays active by mentoring new IBM Champions and contributing to IBM’s Cognos Advisory Council with feedback on features like the Cognos Assistant.

Dustin Adkison

Dustin Adkison - Trusted 15 IBM Cognos Consultants for Hire

Nationality: American

Dustin Adkison is a Managing Partner at PMsquare and an active member of the IBM Cognos community. He began his BI career as a power user at a major Cognos customer, quickly becoming the go-to Cognos developer internally. In 2013, Dustin authored the book “IBM Cognos Business Intelligence” (Packt), covering the breadth of the Cognos 10 toolset. He is an IBM Certified Solution Expert in Cognos BI and has contributed numerous tutorials and presentations for the community.

At PMsquare, Dustin oversees business operations but remains deeply technical. He mentors the consulting team on best practices and often steps in as solution architect for complex projects. Currently, he’s involved in developing PMsquare’s Cognos Analytics accelerator on AWS, a pre-packaged cloud deployment with automation – an initiative combining his business and technical acumen. Dustin also continues to share knowledge: he writes on PMsquare’s blog about Cognos new features and hosts a series of YouTube videos titled “Cognos Espresso Shots” for quick tips.

Patrick Neveu

Nationality: French

Patrick Neveu is a Senior Cognos Analytics Expert at BSL Consulting in France and has been an IBM Champion from 2023 through 2025. With over 20 years in BI, Patrick is known for his mastery of Cognos reporting and dashboarding, especially in financial and logistics domains. He often shares technical tips on LinkedIn and the IBM Community, helping others troubleshoot issues like framework modeling and complex prompts. Patrick’s influential presence on social platforms – where he emphasizes “Collaboration betters the world” – reflects his advocacy for knowledge sharing. He has also authored internal whitepapers at BSL on Cognos performance tuning.

As a principal consultant, Patrick currently leads a Cognos Analytics 12 migration for a European retail group, ensuring a smooth transition from older versions and leveraging new features like Explorations and AI Assistant. He’s also involved in building a Cognos/Maximo integrated reporting solution for asset management – fitting since he has Maximo expertise as well. Patrick remains active in user communities: he recently presented at IBM Virtual Community Day on “15 Reasons to Upgrade to Cognos Analytics 12”. Always striving for improvement, Patrick mentors junior consultants and even contributes code samples on GitHub for Cognos API usage.

Ursula Flade-Ruf

Ursula Flade Ruf - Trusted 15 IBM Cognos Consultants for Hire

Nationality: German

Ursula Flade-Ruf is the Chief Executive Officer of mip Management Informations Partner GmbH in Germany. With a background in economics and database technologies, Ursula has over two decades of experience bridging business strategy and analytics solutions. Under her leadership, mip GmbH has delivered complex Cognos Analytics and Planning Analytics projects for large European clients. Ursula has been recognized as an IBM Champion in Analytics and served on IBM’s advisory councils for Business Analytics software, providing strategic input on product improvements.

As CEO, Ursula manages a team of consultants and data scientists at mip. She remains involved in solution design – for example, advising on a Cognos Controller consolidation system for an international manufacturer and overseeing an AI pilot integrating IBM Watson Assistant with Cognos for natural language Q&A. Ursula also leads mip’s research into sustainability analytics, applying Cognos reporting to ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) metrics. She is a proponent of continuous learning, encouraging her consultants to obtain IBM Cognos certifications and hosting internal hackathons to spur innovation.

Andrew Copeland

Nationality: British

Andrew Copeland is a Principal Consultant and Cognos Analytics Tech Lead at Sempre Analytics in the UK. An IBM Business Analytics Champion, Andrew is known for his in-depth technical blogging on Cognos (“All Things Cognos” blog) and contributions to open-source examples. He has 15+ years of BI experience and is an Informatica practitioner as well. Andrew gained prominence through his independent blog, where he documented solutions for Cognos configuration, performance, and integration. One highlight was his article on Concurrent Query Execution in Cognos, which demonstrated advanced tuning and was widely shared.

At Sempre, Andrew serves as the Cognos technical lead, designing architectures and resolving the toughest technical challenges for clients. Recently, he spearheaded a project to implement Concurrent Query Execution settings for a large Cognos deployment, reducing report run times significantly (knowledge he had previously shared publicly). He is exploring integration of Cognos with Azure services for a hybrid cloud setup at a client, involving Cognos Analytics on Microsoft Azure with seamless authentication – a pioneering effort. Andrew also mentors colleagues on Cognos data modeling and has delivered training sessions to client teams, embodying the role of a teacher.

Ryan Dolley

Nationality: American

Ryan Dolley is a Senior Solution Architect and Product Manager at PMsquare and was selected as an IBM Champion in 2019. Coming from a family of Cognos developers, Ryan has Cognos in his DNA – his father worked at Cognos/IBM, and Ryan followed suit into BI. He spent years as a report developer and Transformer (PowerPlay) modeler, giving him a strong foundation in both reporting and OLAP. Ryan emerged as a prominent blogger through his “IBM Blueview” blog, where he offers practical advice to maximize ROI from IBM Analytics technologies.

Within PMsquare, Ryan wears two hats: as a solution architect, he designs BI implementations for clients; as a product manager, he guides the development of PMsquare’s internal tools and offerings. One project under his oversight is PMsquare’s ReportWorq for Cognos, where he works with the dev team to refine features. Ryan remains active in the community – he often presents in the Ask the Experts panels at IBM events and is not shy about debunking misconceptions (he recently rebutted a competitor’s claim that “Cognos is a dead-end product,” vigorously defending Cognos’s roadmap with real examples).

Wrap Up

These legends represent exceptional talent, making them extremely challenging to headhunt. However, there are thousands of other highly skilled IT professionals available to hire with our help. Contact us, and we will be happy to discuss your hiring needs.

Note: We’ve dedicated significant time and effort to creating and verifying this curated list of top talent. However, if you believe a correction or addition is needed, feel free to reach out. We’ll gladly review and update the page.

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