FEATURED SPEAKERS
Thomas is Chairman and CEO of ISIAH International LLC, a certified minority owned investment holdings company. For over 30 years, he has been investing in new and existing businesses. He is the owner of several companies involving sports and entertainment, real estate, waste management, hemp and cannabis.
Heather Rae stars on the hit Netflix docu-soap “Selling Sunset,” as one of the elite agents at The Oppenheim Group selling the luxe life to affluent buyers in LA. When she is not modeling, filming or showing million-dollar estates, Heather Rae’s personal passions of health, fitness, beauty and fashion take center stage. As a fitness enthusiast and former Pilates instructor, Heather Rae regularly shares her fitness routines, plant-based diet, and wellness tips with her two million plus social media followers. As a dedicated vegan, she is always experimenting and sharing her latest plant-based recipes, all-natural skin care and cosmetic products.On October 23, 2021, Heather Rae married HGTV star, real estate entrepreneur and house flipping expert, Tarek El Moussa. Together, they live in Newport Beach, California with their two young children, Taylor and Brayden, and their dogs Harley and Bugzy.
Henry is the driving force behind ZoomInfo’s annual employee donation drive, helping raise nearly $3.5 million for youth- and family-focused charities close to his heart in the communities where ZoomInfo employees live and work.
Henry is a cum laude with honors graduate of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas with a B.S. in Business Administration and a second B.S. in Hospitality Administration and holds a J.D., cum laude, from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. Henry was named to Fortune’s “40 Under 40” Class of 2020 list.
In 2021, TIME’s web3 strategy produced eight figures of revenue as the brand expanded from NFTs to community building to partnering with several NFT creators to develop their unique IP into animated series for TV with TIME Studios.
Previously, Grossman served as the Global Chief Revenue Officer for Bloomberg Media where he was responsible for the growth of their various media platforms. He was also part of the core team to launch QuickTake by Bloomberg, a 24/7 social, mobile news platform. Prior to Bloomberg, Grossman was the Associate Publisher of WIRED as well as Ars Technica where he won two Project Isaac Awards for best Digital Inventions for his work on the WIRED Tablet Edition and Ars Accelerator.
He is a Board Member of New York Cares, New York's largest volunteer network connecting individuals within their philanthropic passions and, previously, was an Adjunct Professor at NYU.
Grossman is a graduate of Cornell University and currently resides in New York City with his wife, Catherine, and daughter, Ellie.
At Mastercard, Raja is responsible for successfully leading the company’s marketing evolution, including the development of its Priceless experiential platforms, pioneering Mastercard’s move to become a symbol brand and launching its breakthrough sonic brand platform, recognized as the best in the world. This world class work has been developed into case studies at Harvard Business School and Yale School of Management and being taught in top academic institutions around the world.
Jené most recently served as Chief Growth Officer for Athletes First Partners, a NY-based sports marketing agency representing sports properties, including the National Basketball Players Association, the National Basketball Retired Players Association, and the US Olympic & Paralympic Committee.
Before Athletes First Partners, Jené spent several years living in London, where she worked for the National Basketball Association (NBA.) There, she developed and led the first international marketing operation for the league, overseeing teams in eleven offices worldwide. Earlier in her tenure, she also led marketing, events, and communications for NBA Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Before NBA, Jene served in a variety of senior roles across media, including Vice President of Commercial Development for the NBC Universal International Television Distribution group; Vice President of International Sales & Strategic Planning for Comcast International; Vice President of Programming & Acquisitions at Tennis Channel.
Jené serves on the boards of Zeta Global, Varsity Brands, Inc., and Public Radio Exchange (PRX.) She has served as an advisor to several early-stage companies and serves as a senior advisor to Mindspring Capital, an early-stage venture partner.
Jené holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in sociology, both from Stanford University, where she was also an All-American and co-captain of the women’s gymnastics team.
Recognized by Business Insider as one of the “Top 25 Most Innovative CMOs in the World”, Kaplan has brought a disruptive, unapologetic, and culture-forward perspective to Pepsi that has been foundational to re-energizing the brand. Since Fall of 2018, he has infused a challenger mindset into Pepsi and has brought the brand back into the cultural zeitgeist – from reinvigorating the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show platform with historic performances from JLo & Shakira, Dr Dre, Snoop, Eminem, The Weeknd and many more, to developing disruptive new products like Nitro Pepsi, to putting out some of the boldest and most talked about brand creative the Pepsi brand has ever seen. Kaplan has also been instrumental in establishing Pepsi as an industry leader around the development of new content models, pushing the brand into new spaces including the creation of multiple television shows, long form films, and NFT projects.
Prior to joining Comcast Ventures as Managing Partner, she was a Partner at VC fund Saints Capital Media Ventures, a buyout of her strategic venture portfolio from Time Warner, and a Venture Partner at Touchdown Ventures. Prior to that, she was a Partner at Advancit Capital, focusing on early-stage investments in consumer and media technology companies. She previously served as Group Managing Director & Senior Vice President of Time Warner Investments, where she ran the group focused on investing up to $25MM in private companies to generate both strategic value and financial returns for Time Warner Inc. Prior to joining Time Warner in July 2001, Allison was an Associate at Groupe Arnault, investing in and managing new media and technology equity investments for the private holding company of the Chairman of LVMH. Allison started her career in the Global Media Group, Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley.
Allison received a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in NYC with her husband and two daughters.
Erika is currently at General Mills working on some of their biggest brands: Pillsbury, Betty Crocker, Old El Paso, Annie's and Box Tops for Education. Her team is advancing GMI’s growth through data + strategy + technology; and by utilizing their brand experience platforms, they look to unleash their scale to become the CPG leader in the data and analytics space.
Taboola serves personalized content recommendations, partnering with the world’s top publishers, brands, and marketers to drive audience development, engagement, and monetization. Taboola also empowers editorial, product, and sales teams with solutions built around real-time page optimization, robust native advertising offerings, and more.
Singolda has spoken on stage at TEDx, Collision, Kaltura Connect, Business Insider’s IGNITION, ClickZ LIVE, Advertising Week, 360i Marketing Summit, Web Summit, Landmark Ventures Media Technology Summit, Streaming Media, NAB, NewTeeVee, ELEVATE, Meetup, and MIT (Sloan). He has also appeared in broadcast TV interviews on Bloomberg West, CNBC, and Fox Business.
Over the last two decades, Velazquez has played an integral role in the planning and production of Telemundo Deportes’ marquee sports events including Olympic Games, Premier League, Confederations Cup and FIFA World Cup, among other FIFA tournaments. He spearheaded the production of Telemundo’s historic coverage of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia, 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup and Copa America Brazil 2019, that delivered record audiences across Telemundo’s linear and digital platforms. Under his leadership, Telemundo Deportes continues to establish itself as the destination for the biggest, best global sports programming in Spanish-language.
Previously, Velazquez served as Senior Vice President, Sports, Telemundo, where he oversaw all sports programming and operations for the network, and led the strategic initiatives related to domestic growth, integration of the department’s content beyond broadcast, and helping to develop new and innovative ways to evolve the sports brand across multiple platforms.
Velazquez joined Telemundo in 1999 as a producer for Boxeo Telemundo and was the first to produce Titulares Telemundo.
Her expertise includes personalization, CRM, MarTech, publisher data products, customer data platform (CDP), DMPs, onboarding tools, DSPs, personas, predictive models, and contextual targeting.
Knight holds a BBA in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA in General Management from the Anderson School at UCLA. She lives in Woodland Hills, CA.
Previously, as the President of Advertising Revenue for Fox Networks Group, Marchese oversaw advertising revenue for FOX Broadcast, FX, National Geographic and FOX Sports, which included tentpole advertising events such as the World Series and Super Bowl.
Prior to Fox, Marchese served as CEO of true[X], a leader in advertising technologies, which was acquired by Fox in 2015.
Marchese is a widely recognized leader in the media and technology industries and was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Achievement in 2016. He has served as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Paley Center for Media and is currently a member of the Board of Directors for Human Ventures, the Tribeca Film Festival, Team Rubicon, Cox Media Group and Clear Channel Outdoor.
He graduated from Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts with a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Finance.
Nathan has spent much of his 25 years career as an equity & options trader first at hedge funds (SAC, Cheyne, & Exis Capital), within the equity derivatives group of Merrill Lynch, and as a sole proprietor.
Nathan was a regular panelist on CNBC’s Options Action from 2009 through 2019 and has been a regular panelist on CNBC’s Fast Money since 2011.
Nathan is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, originally from Syracuse, New York, he lives in New York City with his wife and two daughters.
In addition, Fisher spent several years at The Walt Disney Company working on various new growth initiatives to expand the Disney brand within the emerging fintech and digital wallets space. Prior to joining The Walt Disney Company, Fisher spent over six years in investment banking where she advised media, entertainment, and telecom companies on strategic mergers & acquisitions and capital structure transactions.
Recognized by her peers as an innovative sales executive and brand marketer, Sibley is responsible for Forbes’ industry-leading BrandVoice, Insights and ForbesLive platforms, as well as the company’s direct digital advertising sales, programmatic, ad operations, paid social, brand strategy, integrated marketing, strategic partnerships, licensing, and client-specific lead generation.
Sibley consistently leads her team to new heights. Under her direction, the revenue team achieved three consecutive years of growth from 2018 to 2020 in overall revenue, the number of premium custom-content campaigns executed on behalf of top tier clients, and proliferation of ForbesLive and custom events, which have generated significant new and recurring revenue streams. In 2020, Sibley established Forbes Virtual, which in six months hosted more than 100 virtual events built around 300 speakers and attracted over 50,000 attendees from 188 countries.
Before being appointed Chief Operating Officer, Sibley served as Forbes’ Chief Revenue Officer, and as Senior Vice President of U.S. and Europe and Chief Sales Officer prior to taking the CRO helm. Sibley has also held senior leadership positions at The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Condé Nast. Sibley is also co-chair of IAB’s CRO Council, serves on the board of directors for The Ad Council, The Business Marketing Association and is a Member of the Board of Advisors at Chief, Her Campus Media and Prota Fiori, a sustainable luxury footwear startup. When she’s not helping the world’s largest business media brand break records, she’s an avid runner and supportive mother of two. Sibley is a graduate of Hobart and William Smith Colleges and resides in New York City.
Fitzgerald has a background in Hospitality distribution and technology, as well as third party distribution, with key roles at two OTAs. Digital Marketing and eCommerce.
Named one of Brand Innovators Top 100 Women in Brand Marketing and featured in Adweek’s Women Trailblazers, Anisha holds a strong passion for disruption through technology and advocates to integrate purpose into every touchpoint of her work. Her expertise spans brand and digital marketing as well as general management, having started her career at Grey Advertising and previously holding leadership roles at CPG giants Unilever and PepsiCo as well as direct-to-consumer beauty brand, Rodan + Fields.
Anisha earned her MBA from Harvard Business School and her BSBA from Washington University in St. Louis. She resides in New York and in her free time teaches Bollywood dancing, serves as a volunteer researcher for Monterey Bay Whale Watching Company, and enjoys hiking and traveling with her family.
Dave Spector is the Co-Founder & President of ThirdLove. Started in his living room with his wife Heidi, ThirdLove has grown to become the third largest online bra and underwear company in America, according to NPD. Spector has always been an entrepreneur, starting his first company in college and another during business school. Prior to founding ThirdLove, he focused on consumer internet, e-commerce, and analytics investing as a Partner at Sequoia Capital. Before Sequoia, Spector was at IBM and Google, where he helped lead Google’s first efforts in commerce with the launch of Google Checkout, Product Search, and Google Analytics. Outside of ThirdLove, he’s an angel investor in two dozen companies and an advisor to others.
Dave has been recognized as: National Retail Federation Disruptors, Goldman Sachs' 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs and EY Entrepreneur of the Year in Northern California. He is also a certified pilot, enthusiastically very unaccomplished as a triathlete and, during the pandemic, has become rather obsessed with pickleball.
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David co-founded Zeta and has been on the board of directors since 2007. With over 30+ years of achievement as an entrepreneur and as CEO of five successful companies, Steinberg has an impressive track record of scaling businesses in the technology industry. Before Zeta, he was the founder and CEO of InPhonic, a seller of wireless phones and communications products and service, as well as the Chairman and CEO of Sterling Cellular. Steinberg is Chairman and an active participant of the David Steinberg Family Foundation, which focuses on supporting disadvantaged children. He holds a BA in Economics from Washington & Jefferson College.
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Steven Gerber is the President and Chief Operating Officer of Zeta Global. Gerber joined Zeta in 2009 as Chief Operating Officer and was elevated to President in 2014. In this role, he is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day management of the Company and a team of more than 1,300 professionals, ranging from product development, business development, customer success and operations. Gerberhas more than 20 years of experience in data-driven digital technology.
Prior to Zeta, he served as Senior Vice President at Tranzact LLC, with a focus on building the company’s digital business. He also served on the Executive Team during its sale to Veronis Suhler in 2008. He has held management positions at Digitas prior to its sale to Publicis and Bain & Co. Gerber has a long history of entrepreneurial successes dating back to 1999 when he served as co-founder and COO of HotSocket, a RedHerring Top 100 company in 2000. He sits on the boards of Kinetic Data System and JoyRide Fitness LLC. Gerber holds a BA from Northwestern University and an MBA from Columbia University. He is based in New York.
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I oversee Very’s customer relationships and drive efforts to assess and elevate experiences at each touchpoint across the customer journey. My team and I are focused on building, growing, and nurturing relationships with customers through a deep understanding of customers needs and expectations and building a customer value proposition and engagement programmes which add real value to our customers lives.
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Chad Hickey is Founder and CEO of Givsly. Headquartered in New York City, Givsly is a purpose-led advertising and marketing solutions with one goal: to help companies increase business results while fulfilling their social and environmental commitments. It is Givsly's belief that giving back can easily be integrated into any marketers strategy and produce more efficient results. Through Givsly’s platform solutions and experiences, Givsly provides turnkey solutions that impact your bottom line and communities in need. Prior to launching Givsly, Chad spent 17 years of his career in the advertising industry leading revenue-driven sales teams with a focus on mobile, location data and measurement. Most recently, Chad led sales at Placed, the leader in offline attribution and a company acquired by Snap, Inc. in 2017. Before joining Placed, Chad spent over five years leading global revenue at GroundTruth (formerly xAd). During his time at GroundTruth, Chad launched the national sales team and grew revenues to over $100 million annually across North America, Europe and Asia. Other previous employers include IAC and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s digital division, ajc.com.
One of the “50 vital leaders in tech, media, and marketing,” according to Adweek, Kirk McDonald is the CEO of GroupM North America leading 6,500 people passionate about shaping the next era of media where advertising works better for people.
Kirk joined GroupM from WarnerMedia’s Xandr where he served as Chief Business Officer in charge of the go-to-market functions including sales, communications, product marketing, and marketing strategy/execution after holding the role of Chief Marketing Officer for nearly two years.
Prior to AT&T, Kirk was President of PubMatic, the marketing automation software company, and held roles with Time Inc., Fortune|Money Group and CNET Networks, among others.
Over the past 28 years, Sylke has held a number of roles, including: Operational Excellence & Business Transformation (Business Tech & transformation, strategy, product planning, quality & customer excellence, capability building, @ eBay, Credit Suisse, General Electric; Partner Mgmt. & Sales Lead (Driving growth & business strategy, product development, pricing, partner Management) @ ebay and GE partnering with Dell Technologies Inc.; Operations Head (Efficiency & effectiveness of multiple operations teams cross EU/India @ General Electric; Certified Lean & Six Sigma Master Belt @ General Electric; Chief of Staff & Trainee Program @ DaimlerChrysler
Mr. Brown has 20+ years of combined advertising and marketing experience, over 17 of which are dedicated to the hospitality industry. He began his marketing career at the Las Vegas Review Journal newspaper as a Graphic Production Artist. He then enlisted in the United States Army and is a Veteran of Foreign War. Upon his return to Las Vegas Chad spent 4 years with Coin Machine Services, Inc., a casino gaming manufacturer. Mr. Brown then began a 15-year tenure with MGM Resorts International where he spent time at Treasure Island Hotel & Casino, Bellagio Resort, Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, Luxor Hotel & Casino and ascended to Corporate Vice President of Marketing Operations overseeing 22 resorts nationwide. During his tenure, Mr. Brown launched multiple successful national brand campaigns, opened Delano Las Vegas, managed multimillion-dollar marketing budgets and was responsible for the marketing operations of new technologies such as mobile check-in and digital key.
In his current role as Chief Marketing Officer at JC Hospitality LLC, Mr. Brown is responsible for leading the marketing and advertising strategy across the multi-operator environment of Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. This includes the brand launch of the first licensed and fully integrated Virgin Hotels resort brand in the world. Working in full collaboration with Virgin Group, Mr. Brown initiated a nationwide omnichannel advertising campaign introducing Virgin Hotels Las Vegas as the newest resort destination in the Las Vegas Strip corridor. In addition, Mr. Brown lead the brand launch strategy for the largest resort in the Hilton Worldwide Curio Collection portfolio. This included the integration of Hilton Honors into the marketing ecosystem in close cooperation with the Hilton Worldwide Commercial Team. Mr. Brown served an integral role in the advertising & marketing integration of Mohegan Sun Casino Las Vegas, the first Native American gaming operator in Las Vegas, along with the implementation of the Momentum loyalty program across the integrated resort model. Other notable brand launches lead by Mr. Brown include the long-awaited return of Todd English’s Olives, Night + Market, 24 Oxford, and Elia Beach Club.
Mr. Brown oversees brand growth and marketing penetration for JC Hospitality LLC. He leads the development of new brands, marketing, and promotional strategy for the company’s growing portfolio of investment, development, and management initiatives.
Mr. Brown earned a BS in Marketing from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and earned an MBA from the University of Phoenix.
Chad is also a graduate of the MGM Resorts International 12-month Executive Leadership Institute, serves on the Volunteer Committee at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, is an Executive Committee Member of the SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl, serves on the Board of Trustees of Olive Crest and serves as a Mentor in the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Executive Mentor program.
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David Wells leads the Media and Advertising Vertical on the Snowflake Marketplace and works with the Snowflake Media & Advertising Industry Team on Snowflake's Media Data Cloud partnerships and overall strategy. He is a data and identity executive with over 15 years of success in data strategy, data sales, and global management of partnerships across agency holding companies, programmatic platforms and publishers.
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Karen McDonnell leads innovation and optimization across the enterprise MarTech stake for Synchrony Financial. With over 20 years of experience, Karen brings transformational change, innovation, optimization, process improvement and Omni-Channel enablement to organizations. Karen has managed large strategic initiatives at Cendant, MSN and General Electric where she drove increased efficiency and revenue. Karen lives in Southern California with her husband and two daughters.
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Jen Wong is Reddit’s Chief Operating Officer, overseeing business strategy and related teams from Reddit’s New York office. Previously, Jen was Chief Operating Officer and President of Digital at Time, Inc., where she led the company’s digital and interactive strategies as well as its operations, consumer marketing, and revenue teams. Prior to Time, she worked as Chief Business Officer for PopSugar and Global Head of Business Operations for AOL. Jen earned her M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, her M.S. in Engineering Economic Systems & Operations from Stanford University, and her B.S. in Applied Mathematics from Yale University.
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Jann Parish, Chief Marketing Officer of Francesca’s, is an experienced marketing executive in the consumer and lifestyle space. With over 20 years of proven-leadership working for global consumer brands such as Victoria’s Secret, Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, Parish has cultivated brand development by building multi-faceted teams that deliver world-class results.
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