Alex Rodriguez is a businessman and the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of A-Rod Corp, a broad-based investment firm that bets on world-class startups and partners with leading global companies across the real estate, health and wellness, technology, and sports & entertainment industries. While best known as one of the world’s greatest athletes (a 14x MLB All-Star and a 2009 World Series Champion with the New York Yankees), for more than 25 years, Alex leads a team of experts building high-growth businesses and enhancing the value of more than 30 companies in the A-Rod Corp portfolio.

Alex founded A-Rod Corp in 1995, purchasing a duplex apartment on the theory that investing his MLB earnings wisely would protect him from the kinds of financial struggles that afflict too many professional athletes. While he racked up extraordinary stats on the field (696 home runs and more grand slams than any other MLB player in history), Alex simultaneously assembled an impressive team at A-Rod Corp, bought apartment units across the southeastern U.S., and built a fully integrat-ed real estate and development company. In 2020, Alex joined CGI Merchant Group’s hotel invest-ment fund to acquire and develop properties across North America and the Caribbean.

Following his success in real estate, Alex has invested in a variety of sectors where he has expertise. He looks for long-term opportunities to provide financial capital, work alongside founders and leadership, and amplify the growth of each company. In addition to leading A-Rod Corp, Alex is CEO of Slam Corp, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) with Antara Capital Chairman Himanshu Gulati as equal partner. Slam Corp is seeking to acquire a leader in the consumer tech, media, entertainment, and health and wellness sectors. Alex is also the co-founder and a board member of JLo Beauty, a global skincare company.

Alex co-founded VCP Ventures, an incubator-venture fund, in partnership with serial entrepreneur Marc Lore, with a mission to invest outsized amounts of early-stage capital in a concentrated portfolio of companies and visionary founders.

In 2021, Alex joined the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx ownership group. In the same year, Alex formed A-Rod Media, a strategic pillar within the organization to house all media activity. A-Rod Media offers scalable, multi-media capabilities, including original content creation, compelling narrative storytelling, and audience engagement across all marketing platforms.

Alex is an Emmy Award-winning MLB analyst for Fox Sports and ESPN. He has been a judge and investor on ABC’s Shark Tank, mentored financially distressed ex-athletes on CNBC’s Back in the Game, and currently co-hosts the podcast The Corp with Barstool Sports’ Dan Katz, interviewing CEOs, entrepreneurs, and sports legends. Committed to creating opportunities for young people to succeed, Alex serves on the Board of Directors of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Miami-Dade where he is an Alumni Hall of Fame Honoree, the Boards of Trustees of the University of Miami, and The Paley Center for Media. His gifts to the University of Miami and Florida International University have provid-ed scholarships to dozens of students. Alex resides in Miami with his daughters, Natasha and Ella.

Matthew Ball is the CEO of Epyllion, a diversified holding company which makes angel investments, provides advisory services, and produces television, films, and video games. 

Ball is also a Venture Partner at Makers Fund, Senior Advisor to KKR, Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Company, and sits on the board of numerous start-ups. His first book, “The Metaverse and How it Will Revolutionize Everything”, was published in July 2022 and became an instant national and international bestseller. Ball is also an “Occasional Contributor” to The Economist, holds bylines at Bloomberg, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and wrote the August 8, 2022 cover story for Time Magazine.

Epyllion’s start-up portfolio includes Genvid Technologies, The Athletic, Dapper Labs, Polygon, Antenna, Dave’s Hot Chicken, Parrot Analytics, Pushkin Industries, Blaseball, Headspace, Mirror.XYZ, One More Multiverse, LivingCities.XYZ, LightForge Games, Noodle Cat Games, RSTLSS, and many other unannounced companies.

Epyllion is the majority shareholder in Ball Metaverse Research Partners, which provides the Index behind the world’s largest gaming and/or Metaverse-themed ETF, the Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF, which can be found on the New York Stock Exchange (Ticker: METV), and was also the largest sector ETF launch of 2021. Epyllion is also a co-founding partner in the Ball Multicoin Bitwise Metaverse Index Fund, the world’s largest crypto-focused thematic Metaverse fund.

Epyllion Entertainment produced Rival Peak and The Walking Dead: The Last Mile, and is producing a large TV adaptation of a globally popular video game franchise, as well as games set in various comicbook, video game shooter, and video game horror franchises.

Ball was previously the Head of Strategy for Amazon Studios, and an executive at The Chernin Group’s Otter Media and Accenture. In the 2000s, he was a full-time wildfire fighter in Canada.

Baratunde Thurston is an Emmy-nominated, multi platforms toryteller and producer operating at the intersection of race, tech, democracy, and climate. He is the host of the PBS television series America Outdoors with Baratunde Thurston [pbs.org], creator and host of How To Citizen with Baratunde [baratunde.com]which Apple named one of its favorite podcasts of 2020, and a founding partner of the new media startup Puck [puck.news].

His comedic memoir, How To Be Black, is a New York Times best-seller. In 2019, he delivered what MSNBC’s Brian Williams called “one of the greatest TED [baratunde.com]talks of all time.” Baratunde is unique in his ability to integrate and synthesize themes of race, culture, politics, and technology to explain where our nation is and where we can take it. Baratunde serves on the boards of BUILD.org [build.org]and the Brooklyn Public Library [bklynlibrary.org]and lives in Los Angeles, California.

Erin Egan leads the global privacy and data public policy team at Meta, formerly Facebook. She collaborates with policymakers, regulators, advocates, academics, and other experts on issues related to privacy and data protection, ensuring Meta’s products and features reflect input from people around the world. She also works with experts around the world to help shape legislation on data use issues, including AI, youth, and data localization. She previously served as the company’s VP of US Public Policy, where she led federal and state public policy efforts. Prior to joining Meta, Erin was a partner and co-chair of Covington & Burling’s global data protection practice, where she represented technology and media companies on privacy and consumer protection matters.

Feras is Assistant General Counsel, Privacy at Dotdash Meredith, the largest digital and print publisher in America. Dotdash Meredith’s over 40 iconic brands include PEOPLE, Better Homes & Gardens, Verywell, Food & Wine, The Spruce, Allrecipes, Byrdie, REAL SIMPLE, Investopedia, and Southern Living. Feras leads the privacy function that aims to maintain trust with Dotdash Meredith’s 200 million monthly readers. Before joining Dotdash Meredith, Feras was the privacy lead at several startups in the AR/VR, healthcare, facial recognition, and location data industries respectively. Feras holds a J.D. from the University of Miami School of Law and a B.A. from Florida Gulf Coast University.

President of Vayner3, Avery Akkineni, is leading the mission to guide the world’s largest enterprises and intellectual property owners in navigating the next iteration of consumer behavior, Web3.

In July 2021, Akkineni launched the VaynerX consultancy, Vayner3 (previously known as VaynerNFT), alongside serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk. In less than twelve months, Akkineni successfully led the expansion of the consultancy to 50+ global Web3 experts in a remote-first environment. Partnering with dozens of Fortune 500 corporations across industries, Vayner3 has successfully advised organizations on strategic Web3 initiatives across cryptocurrency applications, NFT program development, and immersive digital experiences.

A leader, mentor, and investor in pioneering Web3 projects and communities, Akkineni is also an active advisor for several tech platforms; serving on the Board of Advisors of OneOf and Tracer, on the Web3 Advisory Board for Salesforce, Meta Creative X, and Facebook’s Metaverse Council, in addition to being a founding BFF member.

Akkineni has appeared as a featured keynote speaker at global events including Cannes Lions, SXSW, Consensus, Permissionless, VeeCon, IAB, C2, and others. In addition, she is frequently featured in publications across the business (WSJ, CNBC, Forbes), advertising (AdAge, The Drum, Campaign), and crypto industries (Decrypt, CoinDesk, CoinTelegraph), sharing her knowledge from inside the burgeoning space.

Before the launch of Vayner3, Avery spearheaded VaynerMedia’s expansion into the Asia-Pacific region, building a team of 150 people and opening VaynerMedia offices in Singapore, Bangkok, Tokyo, and Sydney, while securing 2021 Independent Agency of the Year (Gold) within two years. Additionally, Avery has been honored on the “Woman to Watch” by Campaign, on “NFT100” by NFTNow, and on “30 Under 30” by The Drum. Before VaynerX, Avery spent her early career at Google in Silicon Valley, while she now resides in Miami, FL.

Tammy Ammon is the Sr. Director of Thought Leadership for Acxiom, where she leads the company’s strategic content and market research team. She combines her unique background of technical and creative expertise to create insights and stories, helping make sense of our complex marketing and advertising world. Her approach is rooted in the belief that curiosity, understanding, and connection not only make great stories, but are how we challenge and change the industry we love.

Over her 25-year career, Tammy has held a variety of leadership roles in product management, client strategy, and marketing across enterprises, start-ups, and service providers, working for some of the largest brands including Verizon, Nokia, and Hearst. Her passion for storytelling led to her current role, where she operates from the intersection of data, technology, and creativity.

Tammy earned her B.A. in English Composition and Language from the University of North Texas and resides on a farm in the Texas hill country with her husband and their gaggle of fur-kids. When she’s not working on Acxiom’s brand stories and strategies, she spends her time as an aspiring novelist.

LaKita Anderson is the creator of Simply LaKita, a food blog that shares simple weekly recipes with a modern twist on comfort food. She began blogging as a way to share her family recipes and love of food photography. What began as a creative hobby, developed into a small business—and with the help of online advertising tools, she was able to grow her creative passion into a full-time business and leave her corporate career in 2016.

Sheri Bachstein currently serves as CEO of The Weather Company, an IBM Business, and general manager of IBM Watson Advertising.

Bachstein joined The Weather Company in 2007, previously serving as global head of the consumer business and V.P. of product operations. During her tenure, she created an innovative customer subscription model, developed a new advertising strategy leveraging Artificial Intelligence, and spearheaded the company’s bias in advertising initiative.

Her prior experience includes serving as a producer for The Weather Channel television network, V.P. of product and content at RMS Networks in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and as a producer for WGNX-TV. She has won multiple media awards, including an Emmy Award and an AP Award. She is a member of WIT, Digital Content Next, IAB, and WICT.

Paul is the Chief Strategy Officer at CafeMedia, the world’s largest ad management service, providing the technology and services that help the highest quality publishers grow their businesses and maximize success. The company serves over 3,600 independent publishers whose distinctive voices are shaping the open web. The company’s collective of creators reaches more than 170 million monthly unique visitors, ranking as the 8th largest digital entity and as #1 in Food, Family, and Home.

Paul focuses on new product innovation, strategic partnerships, and corporate development at CafeMedia. Paul is a board member of the IAB Tech Lab and has worked in digital media and advertising since the mid-90s, starting a major video game website out of his parent’s basement.

Rob Beeler brings 20+ years of digital media and ad tech experience to his current role as Founder and CEO of Beeler.Tech, the meeting place for all things publisher revenue operations.  He began his career at Advance Local where he became head of ad operations and worked for 10 years. Rob is a trusted resource in the community through training, consulting, events and research. Rob also served as Chairman and Editor in Chief of AdMonsters for over 14 years.

Krishan Bhatia serves as President & Chief Business Officer for NBCUniversal’s Advertising and Partnerships division, reporting to Linda Yaccarino, Chairman, Global Advertising & Partnerships. Bhatia oversees Advertising Sales for all Streaming & Data Products as well as the division’s One Platform Strategy, Partnerships, Data, Product, Technology, Measurement, and Operations functions — spanning a portfolio of TV, CTV and digital assets that reaches 1B viewers globally, including the company’s ad-supported streaming platform Peacock.

In 2021, Bhatia launched the company’s Enterprise Data unit to develop NBCUnified, the first-party data platform that serves NBCUniversal’s portfolio of industry-leading consumer businesses — including the company’s TV & streaming properties, the NBC News Group, Universal Filmed Entertainment and Universal Parks & Resorts.

Bhatia also manages the corporate partnerships with Comcast Advertising, Freewheel and Sky Media, as well NBCU’s advertising partnerships with Amazon, Apple, Google/YouTube, Roku, Snap, The Trade Desk, TikTok, Twitter and others.

Bhatia took on his role at NBCUniversal after Comcast acquired the company in 2011 and led the integration of the two companies’ advertising businesses. He joined Comcast in 2005 as a founding executive team member of Comcast Interactive Media, where he played an instrumental role in creating and growing the digital media business for Comcast through acquisitions and partnerships.

Prior to Comcast, Bhatia was a Principal with Booz Allen Hamilton’s Global Media & Entertainment Practice in New York, advising many of the world’s leading media and technology companies.

Bhatia serves on the Executive Committee of the IAB, as a board member of OpenAP and a board observer for the company’s investments in Anzu and TVScientific.

Alysia Borsa is President of Meredith Digital of Meredith Corporation’s National Media Group, the leading multi-platform media company focused on women – reaching 95% of all U.S. women and more than 190 million unduplicated American consumers every month. Borsa oversees all digital strategy, content, products, technology, sales, marketing, e-commerce and operations for the company’s 40+ iconic brands, including PEOPLE, Better Homes & Gardens, Allrecipes, Southern Living and REAL SIMPLE.

Since joining Meredith a decade ago, Borsa has served in several executive roles, including EVP/Chief Data Officer, Chief Business Officer and Chief Marketing Officer. Her distinguished record and forward-thinking approach have been instrumental in Meredith achieving many key milestones, including the establishment of the Meredith Data Studio. This suite of advertising solutions leverages the company’s rich, proprietary first-party data and predictive insights capabilities, helping to inform its partners’ marketing, product and business strategies. Under Borsa’s leadership, Meredith has also expanded its business partnerships with a wide array of retailers and blue chip marketers.

Prior to Meredith, Borsa held senior positions in the technology, telecommunications and consulting sectors. She worked at Nokia, Comcast and Accenture, developing and executing strategies to grow new and legacy businesses.

Borsa serves on the ANA’s Data & Technology Growth Council and the boards of directors of the Interactive Advertising Bureau; AdLedger, an industry blockchain trade group; and 4-H, a nonprofit youth development organization.

Scott Both is the Vice President of Programmatic Monetization & Operations at Hearst Magazines.

Deva is a media industry veteran, with over 25 years of experience in both traditional and digital marketing and media.

In her role as EVP, Head of Brand Assurance, Deva leads Brand Assurance and Responsible Media Standards & Practices across dentsu agencies in the US.  She also works with client teams across the Network to drive thought leadership and maintain consistency around best practices.

A true digital native, Deva spent several years within GroupM and Publicis agencies, with client experience spanning the Technology, Pharmaceutical, CPG, Retail, Financial Services and B2B verticals. Deva also spent three years on the client side within the KFC Corporation and was responsible for the development and launch of the brand’s digital marketing discipline. 

Deva graduated from Smith College, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Government (Political Science).  She lives in the New York City area with her husband and son.

Mike Brunick is the VP, Head of Ad Partnerships at Yahoo, guiding the monetization and strategy for managed supply partners for the company. He works with Microsoft across their Xbox, MSN and Outlook business lines, and is leading the expansion of Verizon Media’s DOOH and Connected TV partnerships.

Mike also oversees the Verizon Integrated Partnerships team – working to enhance and evolve how the multiple divisions of Verizon work together to deepen customer relationships and develop strategic business solutions – as well as Verizon Media’s SMB offering.

Spanning over 20 years of industry experience, Mike has worked in the agency, consulting and media spaces, providing strategic guidance to help better connect brands to their customers through the application of data. He is a pioneer in the evolution of data-driven marketing, and has led partnerships and business creation across a variety of categories.

Maggie Burke is Meta’s Global Director of Client Councils and Industry Initiatives. The team’s mission is to foster a “customer first, customer best” culture throughout Meta. The Global Client Councils are made up of top marketing and agency executives from Meta’s key clients and the major agency holding companies and are an indispensable part of Meta’s commitment to listening to their customers and building deep relationships grounded in trust. Maggie and her team are also responsible for leading key strategic initiatives with the industry based on feedback from our largest advertisers and agency partners. Maggie has been at Meta for 12 years, and previously held roles within the company in sales focused on building out the Travel vertical business. Prior to joining Meta in 2010, Maggie held senior marketing positions at Expedia, Google and Verizon. Maggie is based in Dallas, Texas where she lives with her husband and two children, and received a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Finance from the University of Texas.

Jeffrey Bustos is the VP, MAD+Commerce (Measurement Addressability Data) at the IAB where he develops industry standards and guides for measurement and addressability solutions to enable revenue growth, efficiency, and scale with a focus in Retail Media Networks, Video / Advanced Television, and Privacy Enhancing Technology. Key projects include: Categorization & Definitions Buyers Guide for Retail Media, Data Clean Rooms and Privacy Preserving Solutions Research, and Attention & Engagement Metrics Standards. Previously Jeffrey worked at GroupM where he led Data & Audience Strategy for eCommerce clients, consulting them on cookieless solutions, audience strategy & activation, and data taxonomy & identity resolution for CDP and Data Clean Room activations.

Joanna sets the strategy for ID5, the independent identity infrastructure for digital advertising. ID5’s technology enables publishers to increase programmatic revenues and improve user experience with privacy by design, and allows ad tech platforms to operate more efficiently and to maximise the value of data and inventory.

She joined from SpotX which works with publishers and broadcasters across Europe to monetise their premium video content across desktop, mobile and connected TV.

Over the past 25 years, Joanna has worked for a range of advertising companies from Microsoft and AOL to AppNexus, Draft FCB, EW Scripps, Omniture and Rubicon Project.

Dan Callahan serves as Senior Vice President of Data Strategy and Sales Innovation for Fox Ad Sales. He is based in New York and reports to Marianne Gambelli, President of Fox Ad Sales.

In this role, Callahan leads a team that is focused on the ‘next generation’ of advertising capabilities, notably around audience and programmatic advertising solutions and driving their widespread adoption by marketers and agencies. This includes efforts around the company’s cutting-edge tools, using data, and automation called FOX Next, that deliver precision and drives impact for the company’s advertising partners. Additionally, Callahan leads various business development and strategy initiatives that focus on growing FOX’s digital footprint and building partnerships that evolve ways the company can target and measure advertising campaign performance.

Callahan serves as FOX’s board member of OpenAP an industry consortium focused on developing new industry standards around data driven advertising.

A 15-year veteran of the company, Callahan joined Fox in 2007 and has held a multitude of ascending positions within the Ad Sales Division. In 2014, he was elevated to VP of Programmatic Sales for FOX Sports and his role expanded the following year to the Fox Networks Group. In 2019, he was promoted to his current position.

Callahan graduated from Wake Forest University with a bachelor’s in Communications. He was also a member of the school’s ACC Championship football team. He currently resides in New Jersey with his wife Brittany and three children, Riley, Declan and Liam.

Christa Carone is a strategic and operational leader with global experience developing new economy businesses, building brands, monetizing intellectual property, energizing teams and harnessing data and insights to generate profitable revenue. She is a trusted advisor to C-suites and boards of directors on revenue diversification, global expansion, digital and performance marketing, consumer experience, and reputation management for Fortune 250 enterprises, privately-held firms and start-up ventures.

As the president of an advertising technology and a media company as well as a tech and finance CMO/CCO, Christa is respected as a transformational change agent who builds high-performing teams. She has led multi-stakeholder engagement initiatives from $200+ million brand transformations and customer acquisition programs to multi-billion-dollar mergers and complex client retention initiatives.

Christa is currently president of Infillion, a private portfolio company of advertising/marketing technology and data solutions that enable connected commerce through omnichannel consumer experiences. She was most recently president of CSM Sport and Entertainment North America, a PE-backed global marketing consultancy that partners with major sport leagues like PGA, NFL, and NASCAR and brands, including Citi, Unilever and Coca-Cola, to engage consumers through live experiences.

Prior to this role, Christa was president of Group Nine Media, leading business operations and revenue strategies for one of the world’s largest digital media companies, which produces content for more than 30 platforms through its Thrillist, NowThis, POPSUGAR, The Dodo and Seeker brands. She led the integration of revenue-generating centralized operations, including sales, marketing, audience development, data insights, product, technology and new business development, developing a talented, diverse team that supported the entire Group Nine portfolio and delivered double-digit revenue growth as well as an 18% increase in deal size while improving operating margin.

Christa’s operational leadership roles are shaped by her extensive experience in senior marketing and communication positions. She was the executive vice president of communications and brand marketing at Fidelity Investments, responsible for developing enterprise-wide communication strategies and leading Fidelity’s brand messaging, corporate affairs and digital content strategies. She served as the lead communication strategist and board advisor on risk-mitigation matters including cybersecurity and regulatory reforms as well as for the firm’s historic CEO succession.

Before joining Fidelity, Christa spent 17 years in increasingly senior roles at Xerox Corporation, most recently serving as chief marketing officer. Her responsibilities included stewarding Xerox’s brand in 160 countries and leading the integration of brand management, data and digital, advertising, experiential marketing, communications, social marketing, citizenship and the Xerox Foundation. During her tenure, Christa developed the company’s first omnichannel strategy for sales, brand and reputation management; she also served as the corporation’s lead communication counsel on Xerox’s storied turnaround, M&A activities and leadership succession initiatives.


Christa is known for offering points of view for the Forbes CMO network, Fast Company, Harvard Business Review and Ad Age. She has been honored as a corporate visionary by Cynopisis, best digital marketer by Campaign, best marketer of the year by BtoB Magazine and named among the most influential marketing and communication professionals in business by Forbes. Christa also served as the chief marketing officer for the Boston 2024 Partnership, the organization charged with developing Boston’s bid for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
She is a board director of real estate equity company, Unison, and a founding member of the mentoring organization, WOMEN in America. A transplant from Buffalo to Ridgefield, Conn., Christa is a graduate of the State University of New York-College at Geneseo, an avid runner and lifelong, long-suffering Bills fan.

As the Chief Connectivity & Ecosystem Officer at LiveRamp, Travis Clinger leads activation partnerships spanning martech, commerce, customer service, along with the company’s global digital advertising ecosystem strategy: driving strategic initiatives, advancing global partnerships, and overseeing the business development and go-to-market strategies for key addressability and activations products and initiatives.

David Cohen joined IAB in April 2020 as President and was named Chief Executive Officer in September 2020. Cohen is a widely respected advertising agency leader who, prior to IAB, served as President, North America for MAGNA, Interpublic Group’s (IPG) centralized media intelligence, investment, and innovation arm. In this role, Cohen was responsible for more than $20 billion in media spend. During his tenure, Cohen structured and executed large global transactions on behalf of IPG and its clients, with such major IAB member companies as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Spotify, Twitter, and Verizon Media.

Prior to MAGNA, Cohen served as Chief Investment Officer of UM, ensuring that digital innovation, data, and technology acumen flowed throughout the agency to drive performance. From 2001 to 2011, Cohen served in critical, transformational roles at UM during the explosive growth of digital advertising, including Chief Media Officer, Chief Digital Officer, and Executive Vice President, U.S. Director of Digital Communications. In the late 1990’s, Cohen was responsible for launching and building IPG’s digital practice.

Cohen has a long history of working with trade organizations including IAB and 4As, where he served as chairman of the Interactive Marketing Committee from 2009-2013. He has also been instrumental in initiating several vital industry-wide programs, including the Future of Television, facilitated by EY. Cohen is a Queens native, with a bachelor’s degree in communications from Adelphi University. He was recognized by Adweek as a “Media All Star” and was part of the “Adweek 50” in 2012.

In 2016, David was elected to the Board of Directors of Partnership with Children a non-profit whose mission is to strengthen the emotional, social, and cognitive skills of vulnerable children in New York City to help them succeed in school, society, and life.

David enjoys spending time with his wife and two teenage daughters. A self-described gadget-geek and sometimes fitness fanatic – he ran the NYC Marathon in 2014 and 2019 and Boston Marathon in 2016.

Jeffrey Cole has been at the forefront of media and communication technology issues both in the United States and internationally for the past three decades. An expert in the field of technology and emerging media, Cole serves as an adviser to governments and leading companies around the world as they craft digital strategies. He is Director of the Center for the Digital Future and a Research Professor at the USC Annenberg School.

Cole founded and directs the World Internet Project, a long-term longitudinal look at the effects of Internet technology conducted in more than 30 countries. He has worked with both the Clinton and George W. Bush White House on media and telecommunications issues and regularly makes presentations across the U.S. and in Europe, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.

Sean is responsible for growing and managing the U.S. Mediahub offices in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and North Carolina, overseeing a team of 850+ people. Previously, Sean helped drive the digital vision for Mediahub using his expertise in online advertising, social marketing, emerging media, ad technology, analytics, and agency relationships and structure. Prior to joining Mediahub, Sean spearheaded social media and digital research at Forrester. 

Celinda Cruz-Arce began her career as a cake and floral designer when the pandemic forced her university to close. Social media helped her launch Celly’s Sweets & Arrangements – expanding her network, providing a platform to showcase her creations, and advertise to potential clients. Today, Celly serves local restaurants in Los Angeles, partners with online influencers, and teaches others how to use digital tools to start their own businesses.

Robyn Delmonte of @girlbosstown is your PR guru and TikTok creator originally from Nashua, New Hampshire. After graduating college, Robyn settled down in Boston where she worked multiple 9-5 jobs while pursuing a traditional career in PR. Robyn quickly realized that the corporate world left her feeling unfulfilled and decided to join TikTok in 2021. In a matter of eight months, Robyn had successfully branded herself as “The Internet’s Agent” and launched a full fledged consulting business from her iconic couch — giving PR moves to brands such as Dunkin, Bliss, Xfinity and more. When she’s not giving innovative, specialized, Gen-Z driven advice to brands, she spends her time trend forecasting, rating red carpet looks and even grabbing the attention of E! News by filling in as a host.

Robyn continues to prove time and time again that she has her finger on the pulse of what’s relevant. Her innate savviness allows her to expand beyond the boundaries of being simply a content creator, and she hopes to use her instincts and expertise to bridge the gap between brands, creators and consumers to reinvent the way culture looks at PR and marketing. Robyn will continue to manifest this career as she grows her media empire. Don’t blink, you might miss her next PR move!

Stephanie Dobbs Brown is the Chief Marketing Officer at Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), a Fortune 500 data and technology company and parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. At ICE, Dobbs Brown is responsible for all components of marketing and brand management, inclusive of digital, creative, advertising, events, and marketing operations.

In 2022, Dobbs Brown led all aspects of ICE’s rebrand, a cohesive repositioning that links the company’s global expertise in designing, building, and operating digital marketplaces and networks that connect people to opportunity. As part of the rebrand, she launched ICE’s commercial campaign and facilitated strategic partnerships with McLaren Racing and CNBC’s Mad Money. She also forged a partnership with fashion house Balenciaga to debut its spring 2023 collection on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange, an unexpected move to reach new audiences and further cement its place at the heart of the cultural zeitgeist.

Dobbs Brown has spent her career building brands and global enterprises. For over two decades, she has led marketing, branding and PR across various fintech and data services companies. Prior to joining ICE, she held leadership roles at Dow Jones where she led corporate marketing, and at Thomson Reuters where she was Head of Brand and Public Relations Strategy. She graduated with a degree in Public Relations from the University of Tennessee.

Mari Docter is a Group Director, Data Strategy and Analytics at Mindshare, and the client data lead for Discover Financial Services. In this role, she focuses on future-proofing Discover’s marketing tech stack, enhances Mindshare’s analytics/measurement practices, and elevates data strategy for a cookie-less world. Prior to this, Mari served as the Managing Director – Data and Innovation at The Pharm, a bespoke WPP agency servicing Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA), where she oversaw consumer insights that fed creative, communications, and POE media investment strategies for omnichannel audience-first activations. Mari continues to lead teams that design and deploy martech solutions using the data assets and services that sit within WPP’s Choreograph. These solutions helped her clients generate revenue and EBIT ROI that exceeded their targets by more than 2x. Mari and her team also won a Gold Effie for Data Driven Media Plan for her work on the Walgreens COVID Vaccine campaign in 2022, a program that helped lay the foundation for the development of WPP’s future-fit geospatial data unification product, to deliver hyper-relevant, performance-driving media without sole reliance on PII. She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her two young daughters, Olivia and Claire, her husband Cameron, and dog Ralph (named after Ralph Lauren).

As the Head of Digital, Media and E-Commerce for Beauty & Well-Being for Unilever, Soumya Donkada leads the digital and commerce transformation agenda for Unilever for a $2Bn business portfolio. She oversees P&L, end-to-end media deployment, measurement and performance marketing across national media and retail media. She also drives audience and personalization strategies, data strategy, content, PRM/CRM, new business model/capability building and E-commerce.

In her 14+ year, diverse career spanning three continents (South Asia, Europe and North America) , Soumya has held varied roles across business operations, product innovation and brand marketing; has a proven record of inspiring business teams to deliver on bold ambitions and turbocharge growth (10/15X) and recently catapulting growth on eCommerce by 10X and ROI by +50%.

Soumya is passionate about creating a more diverse and inclusive advertising and brand marketing industry. She co-founded the brand Emerge, a brand for Gen-Z women of color. And during her role in London, she led the Cannes Lions award-winning digital viral campaigns to land Dove’s purpose around “Real Beauty” globally.

Soumya holds an MBA degree from the India Institute of Technology – Bombay, and holds a Computer Science Engineering degree. Over the years, Soumya’s work has been recognized in case studies by Meta, Amazon, Twitter and she’s won awards for advertising excellence and effectiveness including Cannes and the Compass Award (the highest recognition for business excellence at Unilever. She’s prominent speaker at events held by Bloomberg, Amazon, the IAB, the 4A’s, World Forum Disrupt and more.

In a true Renaissance spirit, Soumya loves travelling, reading Victorian literature, studying Classical Art, collecting antiques and practicing mindfulness.

As President of Americas & Global Partners at Google, Sean leads the company’s advertising business in North and South America. Before this role he served as the Vice President of the Google Marketing Platform for the Americas, helping Marketers, Agencies and Partners leverage data and technology to advance their Digital Marketing Maturity and buy and measure media more efficiently. 

Prior to joining Google in 2008, Sean was the Vice President of Buy Side Sales at DoubleClick, where he led their agency and advertiser business. Sean has also worked in various ad technology and software startups, and over the course of his career has brought various evolving advertising technologies to market such as rich media and programmatic buying and analytics.

Sean earned his BS in Business Administration from the State University of New York College at Fredonia. He lives in the Greater Boston area where he is raising three children.

A seasoned executive with 24+ years of digital media, marketing and operations experience, Angelina Eng has focused her career on supporting agencies and brands to define, build and manage digital media and marketing efforts while enabling teams to operationally work efficiently and effectively with both internal and external partners and platforms. She’s been responsible for the development and management of internal systems and workflow, establishment of deliverable standards, designing ad trafficking and tracking guidelines, implementation of emerging platforms, as well as establishing best practices at companies such as Morgan Stanley, Merkle, Dentsu Aegis and Publicis Modem.

Over the years, She has been involved with multiple organizations and events to help define, establish and advocate some of the industry standards that we see in today’s digital media ecosystem (such as ad verification/brand safety, ad fraud, viewability and programmatic, social, etc)

Angelina has been awarded the AdMonsters 2018 Power List, IAB Data Rockstar 2016 and AdMonsters Digital Media Leadership Award 2016.

Chad Engelgau serves as Acxiom’s President and Chief Executive Officer, providing strategic leadership to the organization, which focuses on helping brands better use data, identity and technology solutions to understand people and create growth for their businesses. Chad is also a founding member of Acxiom’s IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Awareness) Council and the executive sponsor for two of Acxiom’s Business Resource Groups, Acxiom Women LEAD and Acxiom Black Employee Network.

Previously, Chad served as Global Chief Data Strategist at Kinesso, the marketing intelligence unit of The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. (IPG), Acxiom’s parent company. Chad joined Kinesso after spending 13 years at Acxiom, where he held a variety of key leadership roles, including Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Strategy. Over his tenure he was responsible for leading data and identity product management and strategy as well as product marketing.

Before joining Acxiom, Chad spent nine years at Dell Inc., rising from product engineering manager to corporate strategist for the Texas-based technology company. Prior to his years at Dell, Chad held various product management and technical roles at other enterprise companies.

Bethany Evans is the VP, Media and Channel Marketing at The North Face. Prior to moving home to CO to join TNF, Bethany worked at Southwest Airlines in Dallas. She holds a Bachelor’s from Washington and Lee University and an MBA from Southern Methodist University. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling with her family, reading, and teaching barre fitness.

Trevor Fellows serves as Executive Vice President, Digital Sales and Strategy for NBCUniversal and oversees the monetization of the company’s digital advertising inventory and partnerships. Based in New York, Fellows also works closely with NBCUniversal’s Digital Enterprises team on a variety of digital opportunities across the portfolio. 

Previously, Fellows served as Executive Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer of the Wall Street Journal from 2013-2017 and as Head of Global Advertising Sales for Bloomberg, LP, from 2000-2013.  

Prior to his role at Bloomberg, LP, Fellows served a variety of senior publishing roles based in London. Additionally, he served four years in the British Army’s Parachute Regiment. Currently, Fellows resides in Old Greenwich, CT with his spouse and two children. 

Michele Fino, head of branded entertainment at Crackle Plus, a Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment company and one of the largest operators of advertising-supported video on demand (AVOD) streaming services, oversees the company’s Branded Content Studio, which is designed to create new opportunities for advertisers to reach and connect with new audiences more effectively.

With over 20 years of experience, Michele is an industry veteran whose career journey includes Branded Entertainment for American Idol at a global production company, content strategy at a national retailer and marketing at various highly regarded non-profits, including The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Her superpower is mixing the detailed intricacies of content production with the complex KPIs of a brand and sprinkling in the power of right time / right audience / right message with the right platform partner. 

Michele lives in Manhattan, is an active Mom of three kids, and is too old to be a millennial. She is user-friendly, very direct and has a wide collection of gym shoes but does not currently belong to a gym.

Sara Fischer is a media reporter for Axios. She joined the company in 2016 as a founding staff member. She was also recently named to Forbes “30 Under 30” Media list and to the 2019 Folio 100 in their “Creator” category. Beyond her weekly newsletter, Fischer oversees Axios’ media coverage for the newsroom, and steers the company’s products and events around that topic. Her coverage spans corporate media, advertising and marketing, technology, social media, deals, entertainment, media regulation, policy and consumer habits. She frequently appears on “Axios on HBO.”

Nilufar leads WPP’s Strategic Partnerships function. The Strategic Partnerships team drive and manage WPP’s largest strategic partner relationships across martech, adtech, cloud, commerce, AI and channels, including Adobe, Sitecore, Salesforce, Google, Amazon and Microsoft. They work with operating companies and business units across WPP on complex strategic partnership implementation, new capability building, growth initiatives (organic and net new business), technology and data acquisition/licensing, and other highly-visible, industry leading projects.  Prior to taking on this role in 2022, Nilufar spent 15 years with Mindshare, a WPP media agency within GroupM, fulfilling various roles, including CEO of their Thailand operation, Global Client Lead for Team Unilever, CEO of the Worldwide office, and most recently Global Chief Client Officer. 

As the marketing lead for eCommerce at Coca-Cola North America, Lauren Freedman sets the vision for digital commerce across Coca-Cola’s portfolio of brands. She brings 15+ years of marketing experience to eCommerce, engaging strategic partners to develop holistic marketing programs that provide consumer value and drive brand growth. Her team’s digital marketing best practices and thought leadership has been recognized and implemented across the global Coca-Cola system. Lauren’s consumer-first mindset was honed while working in brand management on seven different billion-dollar brands at Coca-Cola, Georgia-Pacific, and Campbell Soup Company. Previously, she held marketing and public affairs roles, both in-agency and in professional services. Lauren earned an MBA from Vanderbilt University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.

Paul Gelb is the Sr. Director and NA Head of Media Activation and Investment at Bayer. In this role, he leads relationships with all major ad marketplace platforms and creates the strategy, tactics, targeting, advanced optimizations, and ad operations process across all media channels and brands. He built and manages the preeminent digital in-house ad-buying function in North America. Bayer’s media activation was recognized by AdExchanger, winning 2021 Best in Show award and the Best In-house Media Team in 2020 and 2021. 

Previously, Paul was the Head of Programmatic at Twitter, overseeing the company’s worldwide programmatic agency trading desk business. Before that, he was the Head of Strategy and Marketplace Development at MoPub, the largest mobile exchange, which Twitter acquired in 2013. Paul began his digital media career at Razorfish as the Vice President and Founder of the mobile practice, which was ranked #2 by Ad Age for agency mobile revenue. He was the youngest executive to receive Mediaweek’s Media All-Star award. Forrester recognized the global mobile practice he founded as a mobile marketing agency Industry Leader, their top rating. Paul’s clients included Mercedes, Disney, Samsung, Unilever, Starwood, and Citibank. His innovative work won mobile marketer of the year, luxury mobile marketer of the year, and a Cannes Lion shortlist selection.

Robert Gibbs is global CEO of Nomology, the video ad tech platform for advanced contextual advertising. Since his degree in Computer Science, Robert’s mission has been to build a better advertising industry by combining new technology and data with intuitive strategy and design.

Prior to Nomology, Robert held agency leadership positions such as Head of Precision Media at IPG, Global Digital Media at Publicis Groupe, and Chief Digital Officer at Media Assembly. Robert got his start in Advertising when he joined an independent agency in Germany, where he helped turn it into one of the fastest growing agencies in Europe. After working in Singapore and moving to Chicago, Robert then co-founded his own integrated agency. Five years later, he joined Publicis when they established the first Programmatic agency trading desk, VivaKi. The rest is Programmatic history.

Sheryl Goldstein is the Executive Vice President, Chief Industry Growth Officer at the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau). In her role, she oversees engaging the IAB’s 650+ members across all of the IAB’s vast initiatives, activities and thought leadership programs. Under Sheryl’s watch are the Member Engagement, Centers of Excellence, Research and L&D teams. She also spearheads talent development, diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and runs the IAB CRO Council.

Sheryl Goldstein is a “net vet” with over 20 years of driving meaningful revenue growth through consultative selling in the dynamic digital landscape (Yahoo, AOL, About.com). She is adept at building successful teams, developing go-to-market strategies and gaining consensus across key stakeholders. Her background includes a wide variety of digital media platforms and technologies and numerous leadership roles.

In addition to her experience as a sales leader, Sheryl brings years of talent development and training to her role and is committed to making the digital media landscape a great industry for diverse talent to thrive and have a long and exciting career.

Sheryl is a current board member for 212NYC, Makers and was a past Board member of She Runs It. She serves on the Rutgers Business School Advisory Board for Marketing and is helping RBS craft a digital marketing graduate program. In addition, she has served on Boards and Committees for the NY Ad Club, Women in Communications, Inc. and the IAB and is a member of Chief. She is an award-winning sales leader (Yahoo Accelerator Award, AOL Best Media Partner presented by Verizon, AOL Presidents Club, AWNY Crystal Award Winner).

Sheryl is a graduate of Syracuse University Newhouse School and lives in New Jersey with her partner Cindy and dogs Pancho and Camden. On the weekends, you can catch her on the pickleball court or riding around the Jersey Shore on her new electric bike. Her daughter Sarah-Jaana lives in the Boston area with her husband Michael.

Jeremi is an experienced Sr. Executive in the media business, where she has spent her career, first on the client side at Monster.com, and then in various business leadership positions at Yahoo!, Amazon, and Snap Inc., where she was the Chief Business Officer from 2018 – 2022. Gorman joined Netflix as the President of Worldwide Advertising in September of 2022. The team is responsible for the Ad Supported tier, which launched in early November in 12 markets. Her team’s remit at Netflix is inclusive of sales and sales operations, advertising product, measurement strategy, and go-to-market plans for this newly launched tier. She is actively engaged in the Advertising Community, serving on the Board of Directors for the Advertising Council and MMA. To serve communities closer to her heart, Jeremi sits on the Board of Directors for Women-for-Women International, which invests in women survivors of war and conflict, providing them with social and economic skills to transform their own lives. In addition, she is a founding investor in the Los Angeles Women’s Soccer Team, Angel City Football Club. She is an avid traveler and adrenaline junkie, so when she’s not at her laptop, she can be found hangliding, zip-lining, jet-skiing, or just reading on a beach. Gorman holds a Bachelor’s degree from UCLA and remains a loyal Bruin. She is a Southern California native, and current resident of Hermosa Beach.

Michael Hahn is Executive Vice President & General Counsel at IAB and IAB Tech Lab. Michael has responsibility for all legal matters, including the direction of legal strategy, privacy compliance, antitrust compliance, intellectual property rights issues, and general corporate matters. Michael is also responsible for serving as an advocate for the digital advertising industry on common legal issues affecting member companies.

Michael joined IAB and IAB Tech Lab from Lowenstein Sandler LLP where he served as Vice Chair of the firm’s Antitrust Practice Group. In that role, he provided clients with strategic counsel around competition, distribution and governance issues. In the area of litigation, Michael’s matters have included multiparty class action antitrust defense representation.

Michael served previously as Co-Chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association Antitrust Law Committee. He also previously served on the Editorial Advisory Board of Competition Law 360 and the Advisory Board of the American Bar Association Antitrust Section’s Civil Torts & RICO Committee. Michael frequently publishes on a range of legal and policy issues.

Michael earned his B.A. in History and Political Science from Rutgers University, M.P.P. from Georgetown University and J.D. for Georgetown University Law Center.

Sandie Hawkins is the Head of US E-Commerce Operations at TikTok where she is focused on turning TikTok into a shopping destination.

Prior to this role, Sandie spent 2.5 years as the General Manager of North American Global Business Solutions at TikTok where she oversaw the strategic business direction of the Global Business Solutions teams across the region. During this time, she built a world class team helping brands and agencies meaningfully grow their business on TikTok. Before TikTok, Sandie held an executive role at Adobe as VP and Head of America’s for Adobe’s Advertising Cloud. Prior to Adobe, she held leadership roles at Varick, Underdog Media and Rocket Fuel.

Sandie graduated with honors from Brown University, where she still holds the school record for the javelin. She resides in Fairfield, CT with her husband, Charlie, 10-year-old daughter, Dylan, and her new puppy, Maverick.

Alex Heath is deputy editor for The Verge and the author of Command Line, a weekly newsletter about the tech industry’s inside conversation. Since joining The Verge in 2021, he has broken agenda-setting scoops like Facebook’s rebrand to Meta. He was a co-host for the sixth season of Land of the Giants, Vox Media’s award-winning podcast series about the most influential tech companies. He was also part of the reporting team behind “Extremely Hardcore,” New York Magazine’s cover story about Elon Musk’s chaotic takeover of Twitter.

Heath has been covering the technology industry for more than a decade in previous roles at The Information, Insider, and other outlets. His work has been cited by Congress and recognized by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. He has appeared as an expert voice on The Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN, NPR, among other programs. He is based in Los Angeles.

Scott Howe is the Chief Executive Officer of LiveRamp (NYSE: RAMP), a technology company that provides the data connectivity platform leveraged by brands and their partners to make it safe and easy to use data effectively. Howe has led LiveRamp toward an unwavering commitment to performance, fueling industry adoption of the Authenticated Traffic Solution (ATS), revitalizing the company’s core subscription business, landing the global potential of Safe Haven, and empowering a culture of diversity, inclusion, and belonging.

From 2011 to Sept. 2018, Howe served as CEO and president of LiveRamp’s former parent company, Acxiom—a technology and services company dedicated to providing the data foundation for the world’s best marketers. Throughout his tenure, Acxiom won countless industry awards and accolades, including recognition for the industry’s Best Innovation, Partner of the Year by the one of the world’s largest financial services companies and Supplier of the Year by the world’s largest retailer. In 2014, Fast Company named Howe one of the world’s Most Creative People.
Before taking the reins at Acxiom in 2011, Howe held executive roles at Microsoft and aQuantive, where his teams built the world’s largest digital agency (Avenue A|Razorfish); pioneered people-based media buying (DRIVE Performance Media, aka the Microsoft Media Network); and developed the systems utilized for ad serving and attribution (Atlas International). He began his career at The Boston Consulting Group and Kidder, Peabody & Company, Inc.

When he’s not helping LiveRamp deploy the world’s most advanced and trusted offline and digital identity resolution technologies, Howe can be found serving as scout master for Troop 28 in Burlingame, Calif., canvassing the country in his refurbished 1956 vintage Airstream trailer or designing and building furniture in his garage workshop. A native of Milwaukee, he is a proud fan and part-owner of the Green Bay Packers.

Scott graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a degree in economics and earned an MBA from Harvard University. He most recently served on the board of directors of Blue Nile, the largest online retailer of certified diamonds and fine jewelry, and is a former director of the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Turn, Inc., a digital advertising company.

Eric John leads the IAB Media Center, a dedicated unit within the IAB whose mission is to simplify the video and audio supply chain, providing best practices and education for brands, agencies, and media companies. Eric drives the center’s efforts in the development of market-making research, industry standards, best practices and buyer/seller terms and conditions. Before joining the IAB, Eric served as VP of Digital Services and Strategy at the Alliance for Audited Media and as Global Director of Publisher / Developer marketing at Nokia, managing the company’s world-wide mobile app developer ecosystem. Prior to Nokia, Eric launched and led advertiser brand engagement solutions for Yahoo!, creating advanced, data-driven video, mobile and interactive campaigns for brands such as Pepsi, L’Oréal, GM, Audio and Nikon. Eric began his career at internet advertising pioneer DoubleClick (Google) where he led product development and marketing within the DART for Publishers (DFP) and DART for Advertisers (DFA) business units where he launched the industry’s first post-click measurement tools. Eric is an alumnus of Miami of Ohio (BA) and Indiana University (MA) and is a graduate of Columbia University’s Product Management Program.

Jonathan Joseph leads Solutions and Marketing at Ketch, a platform for programmatic privacy, governance, and security. Passionate about innovation, his career is focused on data and disruptive technology. Prior to Ketch, Jonathan held strategy and innovation roles at Salesforce and Krux, a data management platform.

Michael E. Kassan is the founder and CEO of MediaLink, a leading strategic advisory firm. Described as the “ultimate power broker,” he is a trusted advisor on speed dial with every major executive in the media, marketing, entertainment and technology C-Suite. MediaLink is a part of UTA, which acquired the firm from Ascential plc in 2021. In 2019, Kassan was inducted into the American Advertising Federation’s Hall of Fame, which is considered the highest honor in advertising.

Anthony Katsur is a digital media veteran with more than twenty-five years of executive leadership at the intersection of technology innovation, business strategy, and growth. As Chief Executive Officer for IAB Tech Lab, Katsur is responsible for overseeing product, engineering, membership, and operations teams for the digital advertising industry’s global technical standards-setting organization.

Katsur has previously held business and technology leadership positions at companies including DoubleClick, MediaMath, Rubicon, Sonoboi, and most recently Nexstar Media Group, and more. A sought-after speaker, he has appeared at events including the National Association of Broadcasters, AdAge’s Brand Summit, and Advertising Week and has been quoted in AdAge, Adweek, AdExchanger, Digiday and The Wall Street Journal.

Terence Kawaja is Founder and CEO of LUMA Partners, a strategic advisory firm focused at the intersection of media, marketing and technology. He is a seasoned investment banker with more than 25 years of experience and has advised on over $300 billion of transactions, including some of the most pivotal deals in the media and tech industries.

Terry is both a recognized expert in digital media and a popular speaker at leading industry conferences, frequently using humor to aid substantive presentations.

Hass Khalife is the Global Director of Marketing Technology, Performance Driven Marketing at General Motors where he is responsible for the strategy, development, and roll-out of marketing tools and technologies globally.

Prior to GM, Hass was the Head of Content Platforms, Digital Channel at Apple. Prior to that, Hass spent his career as a consultant working with various Fortune 100 brands in the Marketing Technology space.

Hass holds a bachelor’s degree in IT and Business Administration from the University of Michigan

Shayna Kossove joined Future in 2022 and leads the newly formed Fashion, Beauty, and Homes revenue team as Commercial President. Shayna oversees direct sales and custom partnerships across Future’s Women and Home Interest portfolio of brands.

Shayna joined Future via the acquisition of Who What Wear, where Shayna was a founding member and CRO. Shayna has an extensive record of leading revenue-generating teams for digital media companies. Shyana has led commercial divisions at LX.TV, NBCUniversal, Conde Nast, the Hollywood Reporter and LA Confidential Magazines

Mike Laband is the Senior Vice President of the CTV Platform at Magnite. Mike’s team at Magnite is focused on cultivating relationships and partnerships with media owners to leverage the Magnite video platform for ad serving, programmatic yield optimization, and data enablement. Mike joined Magnite via the acquisition of SpotX in May 2021, where he worked for 10 years leading publisher platform sales, growth and advanced TV solutions. Mike graduated from the University of Colorado, Leeds School of Business with an emphasis in Marketing.

Rowena brings years of experience in product development of ad-supported casual games on mobile and web. Most recently, she led product at Jump Ramp Games where she was responsible for the strategic direction and vision of the consumer-facing mobile apps. This included the development and launch of several games, supporting internal tools, and ad monetization services. In addition to product leadership, Rowena also has a background in digital marketing. In her spare time, Rowena enjoys trying out new recipes and traveling.

Director, joined CVC in 2018. Yicong is a member of the CVC Technology and Telecoms team and based in New York. Prior to joining CVC, she worked at M/C Partners, Silver Lake and Morgan Stanley. Yicong holds a BS in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

As Chief Marketing officer of Shake Shack, Jay is responsible for marketing, product (culinary / menu / supply chain) and the digital experience (Shack App / shakeshack.com / kiosks / delivery). Prior to Shake Shack, Jay served as Chief Marketing Officer of BARK, makers of BarkBox. Before BARK, Jay was Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at Bank of America where he held senior marketing roles across the corporation during his twenty-year career. Jay is also an active angel investor in over thirty startups, has executive produced several feature films, and is a founding member of Unite America. Jay is from Knoxville, Tennessee and lives in New York City.

As SVP of Sales, Dean leads revenue generation and go-to-market product strategy. Dean has 15 years of experience working with Fortune 500 companies solving their business needs with enterprise software solutions. He also has 17 years producing media and measurement solutions for brand marketers. He has helped build profitable businesses at companies, such as Comcast, Amazon, Yahoo!, Dell/EMC, and Precise Software

Stephen joined GTCR in 2008 and became a Managing Director in 2022. Prior to joining GTCR, Stephen worked as an Analyst in the Telecommunications and Mergers & Acquisitions groups at UBS Investment Bank. He holds an MBA with honors from the University of Chicago and a BA summa cum laude from Northwestern University in mathematical methods in the social sciences and economics.

He is currently a Director of Dreamscape, Lexipol and Simpli.fi and played an instrumental role in GTCR’s investment in Landmark Aviation. He was previously a Director of Beeline, Cision, Inteliquent, Protection 1 and Park Place.

Five-time entrepreneur and winner of the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Tyler was part of the founding team that brought digital advertising to the Web in 1997, where he helped build the first ad server and digital agency that was eventually sold to Microsoft for $6B, and then again, re-sold to Facebook. Today, he is CEO/CTO of SmartMedia Technologies, where his team of 100+ globally has spent the last five years fusing adtech with blockchain. SMT is the foremost technical leader in providing Web 3.0 marketing solutions to agencies, brands and creators. Tyler believes the ethos of Web3 is power to the people, through decentralization.

Since founding Lotame in 2006, Andy has been focused on building the world’s leading data management technology. Andy led Lotame’s successful ad network for several years, targeting thousands of campaigns valued at millions of dollars, all delivered and executed through the Lotame platform. In 2011 he shuttered the ad network to focus the company on its original vision: a full featured, SaaS based DMP. Under Monfried’s leadership, Lotame has grown into 100+ person company with offices in the U.S., E.U. and APAC. Prior to founding Lotame, Andy was an executive with Advertising.com from 1999-2005.

Ryan Moore is the Global Chief Revenue Officer at SuperAwesome, an Epic Games company. He leads the company’s revenue, marketing, insights & partnerships teams in helping brands and content creators have safe, meaningful interactions with audiences online. Part of Epic Games, he and his teams are focused on helping create a version of the metaverse that is designed particularly with the needs of younger audiences and families online. He also leads Epic Games’ broader Agency Partnerships team across the wider Epic portfolio. On the personal front, Ryan is deeply passionate about helping non profit organizations leverage digital platforms to scale and amplify the reach of their work. He is on the Board of Directors of the Google-born SIY Global Institute and advises multiple companies that seek to use technology to make people happier, healthier and more resilient in their personal and professional lives.

Brian O’Kelley is CEO and co-founder of Scope3, the source of truth for supply chain emissions data.
A respected entrepreneur and executive with a track record of building companies that have defined and led multi-billion dollar categories, Brian was the co-founder and CEO of AppNexus through its $1.6B sale to AT&T in 2018. He co-founded Waybridge, a supply chain technology company, and served as CTO of Right Media through its successful acquisition by Yahoo.
Credited with the invention of programmatic advertising and the online ad exchange, Brian is deeply committed to technology-driven innovations that benefit society while improving the health of the planet.
Brian is an active board member of Tech:NYC. Brian has been named to Crain’s 40 Under 40, Adweek 50 and Silicon Alley 100 lists, holds multiple patents, and was recognized as an E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year in the New York region in 2012. Brian was an early supporter of Girls Who Code and the Marshall Plan for Moms and is deeply committed to making the technology industry more inclusive.
Brian has a B.S.E. in Computer Science from Princeton University. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, two daughters, and two cats.

As Global COO, Kate leads the company’s growth strategy and execution across SuperAwesome, the company that powers the youth digital media ecosystem. Used by hundreds of brands and content owners, SuperAwesome’s award-winning technology provides the tools for safer, responsible digital engagement with almost half a billion kids and teens worldwide every month.

SuperAwesome was acquired by Epic Games in 2020. Previously, Kate was employee number three at Tapad (acquired by Telenor) and led the company’s advertising business as SVP and General Manager. Before Tapad, Kate was Product Director at MediaMath and a Lockheed Martin Senior Systems Engineer. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Systems Engineering from University of Virginia and a Masters of Science in eBusiness Technology from Carnegie Mellon University

Ian Orefice is a three-time Emmy and two-time Peabody award winning producer, currently serving as President & COO of TIME and TIME Studios.

Under Ian’s leadership, the Emmy award-winning TIME Studios, which barely existed two years ago, has become TIME’s fastest-growing business, generating more than $70M in revenue. With over 19 Emmy ® nominations, including three wins to date, TIME Studios has become home for the world’s most impactful storytelling and top creative voices. More than 20 projects from TIME Studios have been sold to streaming services, including Netflix, Amazon, Paramount+, as well as to TV networks and other distributors, including HBO, Showtime, Nickelodeon, CBS, PBS, ABC, NBC, A&E, Magnolia and CNN Films.

Previously, Ian was the Head of Video at Time Inc. where he oversaw an in-house team of over 275, leading TIME Inc. and its iconic brands (TIME, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, People) to 12 consecutive quarters of record ratings across all platforms and numerous industry awards.

In addition, Ian has directly executive produced more than 75 hours of premium documentary and unscripted television including critically acclaimed hits such as jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy (Netflix), Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space (Netflix), 89 Blocks (FOX) alongside EP LeBron James, The Story of Diana (ABC), Emmy Award-winning A Year In Space (PBS), The Mars Generation (Netflix), and the Emmy Award-winning A Boy Helps A Town Heal.

John Osborn is Director of Ad Net Zero USA. John is a transformational leader, with a demonstrated track record as an energetic, positive and passionate leader with a proven ability to build strong industry relationships, cultivate inclusive cultures and deliver extraordinary business results. John was recently appointed to lead Ad Net Zero USA as the Director of the coalition, with focus on establishing and growing its supporter base and delivering on its mission to unify the advertising industry action around actions that will drive towards net zero carbon emissions from the development, production and media placement of advertising. Prior to this, John served as Chief Executive Officer of OMD USA over the past five years, during which OMD Worldwide was crowned as “Global Media Agency of the Year” consecutively in 2019 and 2020 by AdWeek and as “Global Media Network of the Year” by Cannes Lions this past June. Prior to OMD, John served as President & CEO of BBDO NY for 13 years of his over 25 years at the creative agency.   

Josh is currently the SVP of Growth Marketing and Media for LendingTree developing integrated acquisition marketing plans and channel strategies across multiple business lines. In addition to this, he leads the In-House team overseeing Search, Social, Programmatic, Native, Affiliate, and Media Partnerships.  

Prior to LendingTree, he was the Chief Media Officer for PHD Media leading their go-to-market approach to activation. Josh also built an award-winning In-House Media and Analytics team at Bayer that oversaw strategy, investment, and measurement across all channels. In addition to this he’s held leadership roles at Johnson & Johnson Consumer Products, Comcast, and Razorfish.

On the personal side, Josh lives in a Hallmark movie-esque small town spending his time reading, running, and buying sneakers. For the past 8 years, his family organizes a pediatric cancer fundraising event for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation which has raised over $1.2MM. 

Catherine Patterson is General Manager, Publisher Development at The Trade Desk. In this role, she is responsible for consulting with key partners on their supply strategy. This includes innovation in areas such as identity, channel expansion, supply paths, transparency, advertiser/agency partnerships and deal strategy.

Carryl Pierre-Drews is EVP, Chief Marketing Officer at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) where she is responsible for providing executive leadership and management of the IAB marketing and communications organization and activities to forward the IAB’s position as a digital, marketing, and media industry thought leader and agenda-setter. Carryl has stewardship of the IAB Brand inclusive of Events, Marketing, PR, Digital, Social, Mobile, Video, and Audio channels with the goal of elevating IAB’s profile with media and tech CEOs, CMOs, and the marketing and advertising industry at large.

Previously, Carryl held the title of Vice President of Marketing at Fullscreen, a next-gen social marketing agency, where she built and led the agency’s brand marketing, PR, digital/social channels, influencer engagements, and global industry activations featuring marketers from American Eagle, AT&T, HP, Marriott, Mars, Mattel, Visa and more. Carryl was instrumental in catalyzing key strategic decisions that drove business growth, elevated visibility, and increased shareholder value positioning Fullscreen for the AT&T acquisition in 2018 and eventual WarnerMedia integration in 2019. Prior to Fullscreen, Carryl was Senior Vice President of Strategic Marketing at USA Network, a division of NBCUniversal, where she led the integrated marketing, communications strategy, and client experiences teams.

Carryl serves as Chair of the Marketing & Communications Committee of Pet Partners Board of Directors, where she helps devise strategies to further communicate and expand the vital role of therapy animals in our lives. As a therapy animal team with her dog Mika, Carryl has seen firsthand the effect therapy animals have on overall health and well-being. Carryl is also passionate about creating a culture of inclusion and diversity in the advertising, marketing, and media industry and has been an active member of She Runs It, an organization invested in women’s achievement, for 19 years, with six spent on the Board (2012-2018). She was honored twice by CableFax Magazine as one of the most influential minorities in cable — in 2013 “The Leaders” and in 2012 “The Influentials.” In 2019 Carryl was nominated and became a founding member of Chief, a private network focused on connecting and supporting women leaders.

Bob Pittman is the Chairman and CEO and cofounder of iHeartMedia, Inc., the leading audio company in America, with the largest audience in broadcast radio, streaming radio and podcasting.

Pittman led the creation of iHeartMedia, transforming a broadcast radio company into the number one audio company in America. He was also the co-founder and programmer who led the team that created MTV, and has led well-known industry transformations in television, music, real estate, internet, advertising and audio as CEO of MTV Networks, AOL Networks, Six Flags Theme Parks, Quantum Media, Century 21 Real Estate, Time Warner Enterprises and Clear Channel Outdoor; and as COO of America Online, Inc. and later AOL Time Warner.  Pittman was also a founding member of the New York-based Pilot Group investment firm and was the cofounder and original lead investor in Casa Dragones tequila.

Pittman has also served on the boards of Cendant; Realogy; Electronic Arts; and Excite, in addition to MTV Networks; America Online; AOL Time Warner; and Clear Channel.

Among many honors, Pittman has been inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame, the Cable hall of fame  and the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame; received AdWeek’s first ‘Media Visionary’ award; was named one of Advertising Age’s “50 Pioneers and Visionaries of TV” and “10 Marketers Who Changed American Culture”; and received the International Radio and Television Society’s Gold Medal, the Robert F. Kennedy Ripple of Hope Award and a Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Award.  He was also recognized in Life’s “Five Original Thinkers of the ’80s” and as the eighth of Life Magazine’s “50 Most Influential Boomers.”  

Pittman is a committed philanthropist, including serving on the boards of the poverty-fighting Robin Hood Foundation, where he also served as Chairman; the Parker Institute for Cancer lmmunotherapy (PICI); and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He previously served as a founding board member of the Lupus Research Alliance and was also on the boards of the New York Public Theater, where he also served as Chairman; the New York City Ballet; New York University Medical Center; the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum; and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.  

Pittman began his career at 15 as a radio announcer in his native Mississippi.  

Christena Pyle is Chief Equity Officer of dentsu Americas. She has been a driving force in creating diversity and battling gender inequality in creative industries, most recently as Executive Director, Advertising at TIME’S UP. In this role, she drove cross-industry impact beyond advertising and marketing, spearheading the development of TIME’S UP’s Guide to Equity and Inclusion During Crisis, which was lauded in Fast Company as “guidance disrupting leadership’s reaction to crisis.”

Prior to joining TIME’S UP, Christena was Omnicom Group’s Director of Diversity and Inclusion, responsible for accelerating diversity, equity, and inclusion outcomes for underrepresented communities across the global network and carrying forward the company’s cultural vision: becoming an example of sustainable diversity and inclusion for corporations worldwide.
In addition to her role at Omnicom, Christena pushed to expand and deepen the conversation around inclusion in her role as Director of ADCOLOR, where she helped to launch the ADCOLOR Conference, ADCOLOR Awards, and ADCOLOR Futures programs, all of which spotlight the importance of diversity and community in the creative and tech industries. Through these efforts, along with her involvement in organizations like the 4A’s MAIP and Ad Club of New York as well as speaking engagements at Cannes, Advertising Week, Ad Age, and 3% Conference, she has been deeply involved in shaping the direction creative industries have now adopted around inclusion.

Over the course of her career, Christena has received numerous awards and recognition for her leadership, activism, and diversity efforts. She was recently named to the Black List 100 and was presented The AD Club of New York Icons, Rockstar & Innovators Award. Christena was named to Adweek’s 2019 Women Trailblazers list, which celebrates women who are breaking down barriers and opening up opportunities for others, and received the first-ever Advertising Week “Future Is Female” Award for her proven achievements, demonstrated ability to effect organizational change, commitment to external impact, and capacity to mentor others. Christena was also listed as Adweek’s 2018 Young Influentials, which celebrates media, marketing, and tech talents innovating from AR to Activism, Data to Diversity.

Christena’s passion, optimism, and drive to inspire change propel her tireless work to improve creative industries by making it safer, more welcoming, and equitable to people of all kinds — and ultimately, more successful. She is most proud of running all 26.2 miles of the 2019 New York City Marathon alongside her partner and on behalf of the TIME’S UP Foundation.

Bharad Ramesh is executive director, research & investment analytics for GroupM US. His team is responsible for supporting the investment group with audience insights & measurement & trends in the media marketplace. 

Bharad previously led the digital investment team at PHD Media US, managing $1bil in digital spend across brand and performance media. Prior to that, he set-up VivaKi Media Exchange for Publicis South East Asia, & held a variety of research & trading roles at GroupM in China & Singapore. A winner of the WPP Atticus Award for thought-leadership, Bharad has a M.S. in TV, Radio & Film from Syracuse University, a Master’s in Marketing Communications from MICA, India & a Bachelor’s in Commerce from University of Madras, India.

Karthik Rao was named Chief Executive Officer of Nielsen, the global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics, in September, 2023.

Prior to being named CEO, Rao, a 23-year veteran of Nielsen, held a variety of leadership roles across the company and around the world. Most recently, he served as Chief Executive Officer of Nielsen Audience Measurement, responsible for driving and evolving Nielsen’s core business in the midst of unprecedented disruption and transition. His primary focus was on enabling a currency across all media distribution and consumption models globally.

Rao was named Nielsen’s Chief Operating Officer in 2020, where he oversaw a global product-driven technology transformation. Prior to that, he served as Chief Product & Technology Officer for Nielsen Global Media, where he led the International Media product and
technology teams. He also served as CEO of Nielsen Portfolio, leading the fully independent division, comprising Nielsen Entertainment, Nielsen Gracenote, Nielsen Brandbank and the Nielsen Telecom businesses across all global markets. He led Gracenote during its acquisition and integration by Nielsen, which included building Gracenote’s management team, aligning its strategy, and driving growth across key markets and segments.

In his earliest days at Nielsen, Rao held roles in a variety of divisions, including Expanded Verticals, Digital Enablement, and Nielsen’s Media Analytics business. As head of Nielsen China, he led one of the company’s fastest growing global markets. Rao began his career as an account executive at Ogilvy & Mather in India. He serves on the Board of Directors of Avantax, a comprehensive financial services company. Rao holds a degree in Economics from Loyola University in Chennai and an MBA from Illinois State University.

Reed Rayman is a Partner in private equity at Apollo and focuses on investments primarily in the technology and media sectors. Mr. Rayman serves as Chairman of the Board of Yahoo! and additionally sits on the Board of Directors of Shutterfly, ADT, Coinstar, EcoATM, and CareerBuilder, and previously served as a director of Redbox, Mood Media and Verso Paper. Mr. Rayman was also involved in Apollo’s April 2020 COVID-period investments in Expedia and Cimpress. Prior to joining Apollo in 2010, Mr. Rayman was a member of the Principal Strategies Group at Goldman Sachs, and previously was a member of the Industrials Investment Banking group at Goldman Sachs. He lives in New York with his wife and 3 kids.

Hamid is SVP of Digital Retail at Liquid Death, where he oversees revenue growth across a wide range of digital partners. Hamid was the first VP of Marketing at Liquid Death and helped drive the rapid rise of the brand as the fastest growing beverage brand in history.

Prior to Liquid Death, Hamid worked in advertising, working on brands like Nestle, PlayStation, Volkswagen, Taco Bell, Zillow, and many others.

Enrique Santos is President and Chief Creative Officer of iHeartLatino. He heads iHeartMedia’s Latin direction and strategy. His daily signature morning show, The Enrique Santos Show, originates from iHeartMedia’s TÚ 94.9 in Miami and broadcasts weekday mornings from 6 -10 a.m. local time. He also hosts the On The Move with Enrique Santos, a two-hour, music-intensive CHR weekend program. Both programs are syndicated nationally via Premiere Networks.

In his role at iHeartMedia, Enrique has helped grow the iHeartLatino multi-platform brand that now connects and engages with tens of millions of Hispanic listeners every month through the company’s broadcast radio stations and digital platforms. He leads the development of iHeartMedia’s Latin-focused content for TV specials and other multimedia platforms. He also advances iHeartMedia’s efforts to activate the Latin audience across all of the company’s platforms; develops new Latin-focused programming; identifies and develops new talent for the company in the Latin arena; and plays a major role in iHeartMedia’s marquee live events – including the iHeartRadio Music Awards and the iHeartRadio Music Festival – and hosts iHeartLatino’s signature event, the iHeartRadio Fiesta Latina.

Born to Cuban parents in Chicago, Illinois, Santos gravitates fluidly between the Hispanic and mainstream American radio landscapes. His bilingual broadcasts are a crossover hit combining humor, social satire, and political commentary to bridge the cultural and generational divide of a diverse cosmopolitan audience. Santos has built an enthusiastic following with a comedic repertoire consisting of phone pranks, interviews and a trademark form of fresh and unique interaction amongst celebrities. Enrique’s extravagant radio persona has made him one of the most popular Hispanic radio hosts in America and earned him unprecedented access to some of the biggest names in pop culture.

No matter how busy his schedule, Santos has never lost his community ties and continues volunteering as a Reserve Police officer for The City of Miami Police Department. 

The winner of the 2017 iHeartRadio “Latin Personality of The Year” Award is part of the exclusive roster of Marc Anthony’s talent agency MAGNUS Media. In 2015, Santos was named National/Syndicated Radio Personality of the Year by Radio Ink and was awarded the prestigious Medallas de Cortez Medal. In 2014, Santos was also named “My Favorite DJ” at Univision’s Premios Juventud, and he’s been named to Billboard’s Latin Power Player’s List multiple times. He is frequently invited to present and host some of the top award ceremonies of the music industry including ASCAP Latin Music Awards, Billboard Latin Music Awards and more.

For more information, please visit www.enriquesantos.com, or follow Santos on Instagram and Twitter @enriquesantos, or on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/enriquesantosradio/.

Lisa Sherman is an innovative leader and accomplished operating executive with deep experience in the private and non-profit sectors. She has over 35 years of experience building, transforming and growing organizations. As president and CEO of the Ad Council, she leads all aspects of this national institution. Working at the intersection of media, marketing, technology, entertainment and advertising, the Ad Council convenes the world’s best marketers to create public engagement campaigns. By leveraging cutting-edge products, approaches and digital technologies, the organization tackles the most pressing issues facing the country.
Prior to the Ad Council, Lisa was at Viacom, where she built a powerful media business, launching and leading Logo TV, the first cable network for LGBTQ audiences. She also held a number of senior operating roles at Verizon, IPG agency Hill Holliday and the Women’s Sports Network, the VC-backed marketing company she co-founded.

Lisa a board director of My Code Media, a privately held company and the largest tech enabled multicultural digital marketplace. She also serves as an advisor to Guild Education, an EdTech Unicorn preparing the workforce of today for the jobs of tomorrow. In additon to her accomplishments in the commercial world, she is an experienced non-profit board member and serves as a Trustee at her alma mater Dickinson College, and is on the World Economic Forum Stewards Board.

Lisa is a thought leader, frequent public speaker, and was recognized as the 2020 Marketer of the Year by the American Marketing Association, and in 2021 was named one of Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business.”

David Skinner serves as Chief Strategy Officer at Acxiom. In his role, David leads corporate strategy and platform partnerships with the objective to drive growth for Acxiom’s global business. David also serves as the executive sponsor for Acxiom Dis-ABILITY Champions, one of Acxiom’s Business Resource Groups.

David has 25 years of experience, with more than 17 years in marketing and advertising. Prior to joining Acxiom, David was Senior Vice President, Head of Strategic Alliances for Merkle in a global role. Previously, David has been successful leading teams at Rocket Fuel Inc., Marketing Management Analytics, Inc., and holding key consulting roles at Andersen Consulting and KPMG Consulting.

David is a finance graduate of the University of Notre Dame. Outside of Acxiom David is an active distance runner and has raised money for several disability-related charities via his races.

Zoe Soon has 10+ years of experience building products in technology-driven businesses with a heavy focus on mobile. Six years ago Zoe flew 21 hours from Sydney to NYC for a 30min coffee meeting which led to her first job in NYC. Since then she’s worked with three major New York based media companies, The New York Times, Condé Nast and Business Insider on projects ranging from location-based apps to paywalls. Zoe began her career as a user researcher and UX design consultant working with three of the top five banks in Australia. She was then hired to establish a user insights practice at Fairfax Media, a leading Australian news and media conglomerate. Here she led the user research for the flagship news apps which won Best Mobile News Product at the 2012 Australian Mobile Awards and went on to become product lead for the news sites. In this role she launched a content paywall and a unified user data system to diversify revenue and enable more targeted marketing.

Prior to joining the IAB Zoe was General Manager of apps and email at Business Insider where she was charged with defining the go-to market strategy for these platforms. In this role Zoe launched Insider Inc’s first OTT apps across Apple, Amazon Fire and Roku offering advertisers cross-platform video digital distribution and access to an audience that generates over 2 billion views each month.

Zoe has a Masters in Organizational Psychology and lives in New York. She enjoys burning pancakes, Cuban salsa dancing and talking to strangers in line.

Stephanopoulos joined CNN after more than nine years at NowThis, where he served as president and led the brand to become one of the largest and fastest growing digital news outlets for a Gen Z and Millennial audience. In his role as president, Stephanopoulos oversaw all operations of the brand — including editorial, revenue, product and technology strategy, audience development and data insights. He helped guide the brand through its acquisition and integration into Group Nine Media in 2019, where he sat on the executive leadership team and helped lead key strategic initiatives and partnerships. He again guided the brand during its integration into Vox Media following the acquisition of Group Nine in early 2022.

During his tenure at NowThis, Stephanopoulos was responsible for launching several content verticals for the brand, which included coverage across politics, entertainment, sports, female empowerment (NowThis Her), science and technology (NowThis Future), climate and sustainability (NowThis Earth), justice and equity (NowThis Justice), financial literacy (NowThis Money), gaming and pop culture (NowThis Nerd). He also expanded the brand offering internationally with the launch of NowThis Español, NowThis India and NowThis Mandarin (offering NowThis programming in mainland China across all their major social platforms).

Under Stephanopoulos’ leadership, the company launched NowThis Originals in 2017 to develop, produce, and co-produce various limited series, documentaries and short films, that were sold to TV and streaming buyers. Stephanopoulos served as an Executive Producer on several projects including Empty Net (NBC Sports), Virginia 12th (Facebook Watch), Generation Columbine (Starz), A Secret Love (Netflix), Uprooted (Discovery+), and Two Distant Strangers (Netflix), which won an Academy Award for Best Short Live Action Film in 2021.

In 2019, Stephanopoulos launched NowThis Impact, a division of the brand that is dedicated to covering and fostering engagement on the issues most important to young audiences. The effort launched with a partnership with Emerson Collective, in order to develop and distribute content on key issues — from the climate crisis and voting rights to immigration and gun reform — that not only informed and inspired young audiences but gave them clear ways to meaningfully engage on the issue.

Prior to NowThis, Stephanopoulos was the Founder and CEO of a Cliptamatic, a social video distribution platform that was acquired by NowThis in 2014. A long list of media companies utilized the technology platform to distribute videos across the social web — including Paramount Pictures, HBO, ABC News, AMC Networks, MTV, Starz and Saturday Night Live.

Stephanopoulos is a graduate of Willamette University with a bachelor’s degree in political science and religious studies and holds an MBA in Communications & Media Management from Fordham University’s Graduate School of Business. He has served on the board of advisors for Fordham’s School of Business and also served as an adjunct professor teaching courses on media entrepreneurship and social media. He is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations.

Stephanopoulos lives in New York with his wife and two children.

As Vice President and GM of Lowe’s retail media network, Abi Subramanian leads Lowe’s One Roof Media Network, the company’s in-house omni-channel advertising services program, overseeing the growth of its revenue, products and organization. He serves as the bridge between the advertising community and Lowe’s engineering/product team and sales and marketing team, while working with clients and industry partners to build the business.

Abi joined Lowe’s from Sam’s Club, where he served as senior director and head of Sam’s Club Media Group, building the ad business and growing ad revenue 15x in the last four years. His 15+ year career has focused on the intersection of technology and customer engagement, with leadership roles both at retail establishments and leading consulting organizations, where his clients included Staples, Walmart, Dell and Microsoft. Abi was also a finalist for the Path to Purchase Institute’s “E-Commerce Innovator of the Year” award in 2021.

Abi’s 15+-year career has focused on the intersection of technology and customer engagement, with leadership roles both at leading consulting organizations, where his clients included Staples, Walmart, Dell and Microsoft, and big-box retail establishments. He joined Lowe’s from Sam’s Club, where he served as senior director and head of Sam’s Club Media Group, building the ad business from the ground up and growing ad revenue 15x in just four years. Abi was a finalist for the Path to Purchase Institute’s “E-Commerce Innovator of the Year” award in 2021.

Gabe Tartaglia is the Vice President of Revenue Operations for SXM Media’s Podcast and Satellite Platforms. Gabe’s media career has spanned three decades, with leadership positions across the entire audio ecosystem including broadcast, streaming, podcast and satellite. Gabe holds undergraduate degrees in Marketing and Management Information Systems from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. His other professional interests include mentoring and guest instructor work at YearUp Chicago

Brendan is IAB’s Vice President of Policy Communications, helping to create greater awareness among policy makers and the press of digital advertising’s importance to technological and economic progress, creativity, and the ad-supported internet.

He works closely with IAB’s legal and public policy experts, as well as more than 700 IAB members, to enhance public understanding of digital marketing and advertising’s value to small businesses and their customers, and the industry’s innovations to online commerce, personal data protection and privacy, and more.

Prior to joining IAB, Brendan directed policy communications for members of Congress and for a major trade association. A graduate of Northwestern University, he received his Master’s Degree from University of Southern California and worked as a reporter and producer in the news and entertainment industries in New York and Los Angeles.

Lartease Tiffith is the Executive Vice President for Public Policy at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). He leads IAB’s public policy team, which is responsible for advocating on behalf of IAB’s more than 700 member companies on complex issues, including consumer privacy, data security, global trade, international data transfer rules, and more. Lartease also leads IAB’s Public Policy Council, the marketing and media industry’s largest legislative and regulatory advisory group, with senior executives from more than 200 companies contributing to solutions to advance consumer benefits and economic growth. He also plays an important role in supporting IAB Tech Labs efforts to align the industry’s technical development and best practices. 

Lartease joined IAB from Amazon, where he led the company’s public policy work around advertising, privacy, security, data governance, cross-border data flows, and consumer protection issues. In his role, he provided counsel to internal legal and business partners on global public policy matters to help guide the development of products, services, and internal policies. During his tenure at Amazon, INSIDER named him as one of the key players in politics and the tech world. 

Prior to joining Amazon, Lartease served as Senior Counsel to then-U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, and Counsel to U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein. Before working in the Senate, he practiced law at two international law firms (Kirkland & Ellis LLP and O’Melveny & Myers LLP) and the U.S. Department of Justice. Lartease began his legal career as a Law Clerk to the Honorable Roger L. Gregory, Circuit Judge, on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. 

Lartease earned his B.A., J.D., and M.B.A. from Northwestern University.

Britt is currently the Co-Lead of Video Investment at Eversana, a health and wellness agency, where she helped established the Video Center of Excellence & has pushed pharma clients beyond traditional video advertising. Prior to joining Eversana, Britt’s career has afforded her an opportunity to touch different media touchpoints including linear, OTT, cinema, audio, branded entertainment, & experiential executions, & across a variety of categories including Auto, CPG, Luxury, Finance, & more. She’s also one of the early adapters within the Advanced TV space, having launched the first Addressable, CTV, and Interactive Ads at her former agency & is excited to be at the IAB to collaborate efforts to push the industry forward.

Matt Trotta is responsible for strengthening and developing relationships with advertiser and agency clients for Future across North America. Matt joined Future in 2022 and is responsible for the commercial teams within Future’s key Games, Entertainment, Technology, and Sports verticals.

Matt has over 20 year’s worth of experience in generating revenue for digital media companies and developing ground-breaking advertiser partnerships. Prior to joining Future, Matt has held several senior commercial roles including GM, North America at EX.CO and SVP, Agency Strategy at Buzzfeed. Matt was one of the original members of the Federated Media team in New York and additionally held senior research roles at Turner Broadcasting.

Armando Turco is Executive Director of Brand & Creative at Oatly North America. In his role leading the Oatly Department of Mind Control in North America, Armando is responsible for all regional brand and creative development – and ultimately activating the company’s mission to make it easy for people to eat better and live healthier lives by providing options that are less taxing on the planet – through brand voice, creativity, influence, partnerships, and other marketing-type things.

Prior to joining Oatly, Armando was the SVP of Content at Vox Media for five years, where he helped connect hundreds of brands to audiences through the things they care about. He oversaw development of all branded content including several original podcasts, events, and two documentary films: A Woman’s Place with KitchenAid (Hulu, 2020) and The Beauty of Blackness with Sephora (HBO Max, 2022).

Before landing at Vox Media, Armando spent 15 years at creative agencies like BBH and McCann in various management positions, partnering with brands including Sony PlayStation, Axe, Johnny Walker and ABSOLUT.

He lives in New York City with his husband Matt and rescue mutt Andre Johnson.

Priscilla Valls is Vice President, Agency, Advertiser, and Industry Development at SXM Media, the combined advertising revenue organization of Sirius XM Holdings Inc. Priscilla leads the company’s collaborations with advertising agencies and brands, providing strategic counsel to marketers on how to maximize the power of audio across SiriusXM, Pandora, and the expansive SiriusXM Podcast Network. By leveraging feedback from partners, she advises internal teams on marketplace needs to help build innovative products and customized advertising solutions that drive measurable business results further supporting SXM Media’s billion dollar advertising business.

Having been with Pandora since the company’s formative moments over a decade ago, she also acts as a public-facing spokesperson on behalf of Pandora by engaging heavily with key industry associations and partners.

Priscilla joined Pandora in 2008 and most recently was the VP of Vertical Sales leading national sales teams across CPG, Financial Services, Retail, and Political Categories which drove over $150M in annual revenue across local, regional, national, digital, audio, and experiential programming. Prior to joining Pandora, she was hand-picked by the CEO of Answers.com, to be the Director of Sales as a part of their inaugural direct sales team efforts. During her tenure she was the top revenue producer and was instrumental in helping build out WikiAnswers, a community-based question and answer site. Priscilla began her career at iVillage in 1998, launched her own business, MyUrbanAuctioneer, Hoboken’s first eBay drop-off store in 2005, and has been an enthusiastic entrepreneur within high growth companies ever since.

In her spare time, Priscilla is an active participant on the IAB Audio Board providing business insights, education, and guidance for how to build brands within the digital audio space and serves as an Executive Committee Board Member of She Runs It as Treasurer. Priscilla holds a B.A. in English from Lynchburg College, is the proud mom of two girls, and at any given moment can often be found rocking out to artists from Dua Lipa to Foo Fighters or Laid Back Beach Music to Kidz Bop.

Neil Vogel is the CEO of Dotdash Meredith. Prior to its acquisition of Meredith, Neil was the CEO of Dotdash, where he led the company’s transformation from a general information website to a vibrant collection of branded properties.

Prior to Dotdash, Neil was the Founder and CEO of Recognition Media. Before starting Recognition Media, Neil was Chief Corporate Development Officer at Alloy Media + Marketing.

Neil is on the Board of Directors of the Philadelphia Inquirer and serves as a venture partner at FirstMark Capital. Neil received a BS in Finance from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Deborah Wahl is the global CMO of General Motors.

Previously, Ms. Wahl served as the global CMO of Cadillac and, prior to joining General Motors, as the SVP and CMO for McDonald’s. Additionally, Ms. Wahl has held a number of CMO and marketing leadership positions, including at PulteGroup, Chrysler, and Lexus.

Ms. Wahl earned a bachelor’s in economics from Wellesley College and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She also has a master’s from The Lauder Institute.

Tara Walpert Levy leads the Americas’ business organization for YouTube and is also responsible for YouTube’s global content verticals, ranging from Shopping to Gaming to News. Tara previously led Agency and Brand Solutions for Google and YouTube and was responsible for Google’s advertising and technology business with the third-party ecosystem: agencies, consultants, channel marketing partners, and trade associations. Tara came to Google in 2011 to help bridge Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley by leading Ads Marketing.

Prior to Google, Tara was the President of Visible World (acquired by Comcast NBCU), building the technology infrastructure and SaaS company into the leading addressable TV platform. She was also a leader of the Global Media & Entertainment and Sales & Marketing practices at McKinsey & Company.

Tara currently chairs the Advisory Board for Next Gen Board Leaders and serves on the boards of Bloomin’ Brands, Inc., a restaurant chain holding company, and Braze, a SaaS marketing technology business. She is committed to giving back to the industry and is an active board member of the Ad Council, MAKERS, and The Female Quotient. She is also a past Chair of the Board of Directors of the American Advertising Federation (AAF) and a member of the board of the John Reisenbach Foundation.

Tara writes and speaks frequently on the shifting marketing, media, and technology landscape, the evolving responsibility and impact of private and public boards, and the value of diversity and inclusion in the workplace. She has been inducted into the AAF Advertising Hall of Achievement, identified as a dMexco Global Trailblazer, and named one of Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business.”

Tara is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School. She lives in New York City with her husband and three children.

Kevin Warren is Executive Vice President (EVP) and Chief Marketing Officer at UPS. In this role he’s responsible for U.S. and International Marketing, The UPS Store, Digital Channels, Revenue Enablement, Business Planning, Forecasting and Pricing, Digital Marketing, Customer Experience, Brand Relevancy and the company’s Ware2Go subsidiary. His highly developed perspective on data-centric business and non-traditional engagement channels is driving change at UPS and setting new standards in digitally enabled customer experience. As the e-commerce business era takes shape, Kevin is shaping those critical aspects of UPS strategy that will deliver the business of the future.


Most recently, Kevin served as Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer for Xerox Corporation, where he was responsible for marketing, worldwide channel strategy, salesforce effectiveness and global client engagement for the company’s diverse portfolio of hardware, software and services.

Previously, Kevin served as president of Global Growth Opportunities, responsible for accelerating revenue growth outside the United States. In addition, he had strategic oversight for two Xerox operating units, Global Imaging Systems and Xerox Canada, as well as leading the company’s 3-D printing strategy.


He also led the integration activity surrounding Xerox’s $1.5-billion purchase of Global Imaging Systems. In 2007, he was named chairman, president and chief executive officer of Xerox Canada and in 2010, was named president of U.S. Client Operations. Kevin joined Xerox in 1984 as a sales trainee in Washington, D.C.

Kevin is a board member for Fiserv, Georgetown University and The UPS Foundation. He is also a current member of the Executive Leadership Council and a founding member of the Black Executive CMO Alliance (BECA). Previously, Kevin served on the board of Illinois Tool Works and the national board of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.

A native of Washington, D.C., Kevin received his Bachelor of Science in finance from Georgetown University and is an alumnus of the Harvard Business School, having completed the Advanced Management Program.

Maria Weaver serves as President of WMX, Warner Music Group’s next generation services division that connects artists with fans and amplifies brands in creative, immersive, and engaging ways. Weaver oversees the vast array of resources and areas of expertise under the WMX umbrella, including Artist & Fan Experiences, streaming account management & playlisting, direct-to-fan and merchandising operations, consumer acquisition, content creation, legal & business affairs, and finance. In addition, she leads the growth of Warner’s network of owned-and-operated consumer brands, which encompasses EMP, the merchandising e-tailer; and the company’s Media and Content division, which includes UPROXX, the youth culture & music destination; Songkick, the live music app; and HipHopDX, a leading hip-hop media platform, among other digital destinations. 

Prior to WMX, Weaver was Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer at Comcast Advertising where she oversaw the company’s advertising sales division, Effectv, including leading its rebrand from Comcast Spotlight. She also oversaw Comcast’s full-service creative agency Mnemonic, as well as FreeWheel, which provides advertising software and solutions for the television ecosystem. Previously, Weaver was one of the founders of Interactive One, the digital division of Urban One (formerly Radio One) and held senior marketing and creative services posts at HBO and Showtime.  

Lauren Weinberg is an experienced and goal-oriented marketing executive with over 20 years of experience. She’s an expert in finding insights in data and using them to drive strategic marketing plans that fuel revenue growth.
 
She is currently the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Square,  driving marketing and comms strategy globally, which includes investment decisions, optimization of marketing channels, brand strategy, analytics, marketing technology, creative execution and communications.  As part of her remit, she is responsible for managing Square’s entire marketing budget to ensure the company achieves its revenue and brand goals.  She also directs the channel and creative strategy across all of Square’s marketing channels including search, online display, organic social and content, email, television, audio and digital video. Prior to Square, Lauren was the founder of LMW Consulting, a strategic advisory firm assisting startups and established businesses alike in marketing strategy.  Before consulting, Lauren served as Yahoo’s Vice President of Marketing Strategy and Insights, where she oversaw media planning and buying, brand and marketing effectiveness research, consumer analytics and industry research. Prior to Yahoo, Lauren was Vice President of Digital Insights and Research at Viacom. She spent the three previous years at Advertising.com as Director of Research and worked at Nielsen and comScore as a Media Analyst and Product Manager, respectively.

Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg are co-founders and co-CEOs of theSkimm, a digital media company dedicated to succinctly giving women the information they need to make confident decisions and helping them live smarter. The former news producers disrupted the media landscape a decade ago with the launch of theSkimm, and have built a brand that continues to be a trusted source for a community of millions. Today theSkimm ecosystem includes the Daily Skimm, the Daily Skimm: Weekend, Skimm Money and Skimm Your Life newsletters, top-rated podcasts: “Skimm This” and “9 to 5ish with theSkimm,” theSkimm mobile app, virtual course series SkimmU, and Skimm Studios which creates innovative in-house video and audio content. theSkimm’s first book, How to Skimm Your Life, was released in June 2019 and debuted at #1 on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Carly and Danielle have been featured on a number of prominent lists including: Forbes 30 Under 30 in Media, Vanity Fair’s The Next Establishment, Fortune’s 40 Under 40, Variety’s Power of Women and Adweek’s Young Influentials; and have received numerous accolades including the Goldman Sachs Builders and Innovators Summit as one of the most 100 Intriguing Entrepreneurs. Carly is a Henry Crown Fellow with the Aspen Institute.

Brad currently serves as Director – Privacy and Public Policy at Meta. Prior to joining Meta, Brad served as Vice President of Public Policy for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). Earlier in his career, Brad served as senior advisor to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and as a fellow on the Senate HELP Committee.

As Chief Diversity Officer of Publicis Groupe US, Geraldine White is tasked with leading Publicis Groupe’s DE&I work, with a focus on elevating talent experiences; improving systems, policies and practices to create more equity in our employee base; and continually enabling an inclusive environment for all identities and communities within the Publicis Groupe network.

Having spent the last 13 years with Publicis Groupe, Geraldine was most recently the Head of Diversity & Inclusion in North America for Publicis Sapient, where led the development & implement of a global DE&I strategy, helping to change behaviors and create more inclusive mindsets and leadership; launched and led the organization’s Business Resource Groupe (BRG) landscape for North America and its Global Black Talent Taskforce; advanced organizational equity; and served as member of the Braintrust leadership team for the Publicis Groupe’s TEI Council. She additionally led Sapient in garnering external industry recognition for NA including NAFE Top Companies for Executive Women 2019 & 2020, 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers and Fathers 2019 and 2020 and 2019 HRC CEI Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality.

Geraldine has consistently made significant contributions to culture, diversity and people growth as part of Global Culture and Community and Corporate Social Responsibility teams. In her tenure, she has also served as an Executive Sponsor for Internship, Multicultural & Diversity hiring engagements and as NY co-lead for Viva Women of Color, Publicis Groupe’s business resource group dedicated to the professional development of women of color.

Prior to her role as Head of Diversity & Inclusion in North America for Publicis Sapient, she served as Program Management Discipline lead, positively impacting the success of client engagements, process & methodology optimization, hiring & capacity efficiency and business growth. With over 21 years of digital and traditional marketing and advertising experience spanning business consulting, client services and program management disciplines, Geraldine has successfully managed programs across a diverse portfolio of industries and brands. She has spent her career supporting cross-capability integration, productivity and overall profitability of the lines of business she’s overseen.

A valued subject matter expert and trusted leader, Geraldine has the ability to navigate the ever-changing needs of business and inclusion during crisis, delivering impactful DE&I programming that serves the needs of talent, clients, and communities.

As one of few marketers to work at both YouTube and Instagram, Jon Youshaei has been featured in Inc Magazine for “cracking the code to going viral.”

During five years at YouTube, Jon was Head of Creator Product Marketing where he worked with creators and brands to build their audience and their business. During the past three years, Jon worked at Instagram where he helped build their creator team to empower a new generation of stars to grow and monetize.

Jon is now a writer for Forbes where he covers the Creator Economy and Web3 and has a popular weekly show where he’s interviewed Paris Hilton, Logan Paul, Charli D’Amelio, George Lopez and Danny DeVito.

He’s also a sought-after advisor, investor, and speaker who serves as a Creator-In-Residence for Origin Protocol (top NFT platform with $20M+ in sales), Head Creator Advisor for TubeBuddy (analytics platform used by 9M creators), and recognized by NPR as one of the best commencement speakers since 1774 alongside Steve Jobs, Oprah and John F. Kennedy. Jon has also been named Forbes 30 Under 30 and LinkedIn honored him as one of their Top Voices on the platform.

Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg are co-founders and co-CEOs of theSkimm, a digital media company dedicated to succinctly giving women the information they need to make confident decisions and helping them live smarter. The former news producers disrupted the media landscape a decade ago with the launch of theSkimm, and have built a brand that continues to be a trusted source for a community of millions. Today theSkimm ecosystem includes the Daily Skimm, the Daily Skimm: Weekend, Skimm Money and Skimm Your Life newsletters, top-rated podcasts: “Skimm This” and “9 to 5ish with theSkimm,” theSkimm mobile app, virtual course series SkimmU, and Skimm Studios which creates innovative in-house video and audio content. theSkimm’s first book, How to Skimm Your Life, was released in June 2019 and debuted at #1 on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Carly and Danielle have been featured on a number of prominent lists including: Forbes 30 Under 30 in Media, Vanity Fair’s The Next Establishment, Fortune’s 40 Under 40, Variety’s Power of Women and Adweek’s Young Influentials; and have received numerous accolades including the Goldman Sachs Builders and Innovators Summit as one of the most 100 Intriguing Entrepreneurs. Carly is a Henry Crown Fellow with the Aspen Institute.

Tamara Zubatiy is the CEO and co-founder of Barometer, an AI company building AI measurement solutions for brand suitability in audio advertising. Tamara has over 10 years of experience working in applied machine learning across both academic and industry roles. Tamara started her career at the Salk Institute where she worked on computational neurobiology problems under the guidance of world class science faculty including Tatyana Sharpee. She studied Cognitive Science with specialization in Machine Learning and Neural Computation at UC San Diego and Human Centered Computing at Georgia Tech. She graduated with distinction from the UC San Diego honors program for Cognitive Science and defended her undergraduate thesis about her research on human centered design for open an open sourced hearing aid. In her time out of office Tamara enjoys cooking gourmet vegan food, reading, running, as well as practicing and teaching yoga.

Pam is a 30+ year veteran of the media and marketing industry who is a proven media strategist across digital, programmatic, and traditional platforms. Known for innovative approaches to media and marketing challenges that turn the complex media eco system into understandable ideas for both the C-Suite and day-to-day tacticians. Pam sees the world as a white board – empty, boundless space to create, transform and innovate for growth; to re-imagine how media and marketing can work to grow brands and build companies. Pam believes winning at the intersection of data, content, marketplace, and technology means refusing to let the status quo be good enough and being humble enough to know true transformation takes collaboration, iteration, willpower, and trust.

Pam spent her first 25 years on the agency side at Publicis Media leading clients such as Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, Activision, Yahoo and others. In addition to client leadership Pam built new practices for the agency including Advanced TV and Experience Design. To broaden her experience, Pam also spent 3 years leading Media for Starcom Mediavest Group in Russia when that market first opened to media in the mid-1990s. This taught Pam that anything is possible to create in the marketplace with some ingenuity, marketplace knowledge, and a relentless push creates win – win – win experiences for consumers, marketers and publishers. Following her work on the agency side, Pam spent five years consulting for the media and technology companies (NBCU, Fox, Viacom, Double Verify) helping them design custom programs and market their digital assets for growth. For the past fifteen months, Pam has been at Amobee, an Ad Tech firm, leading their marketing and sales strategy efforts to bring new identity, performance and new targeting techniques to the DSP and cross channel planning marketplace.

Pam lives in Hastings on Hudson, NY with her two sons.