Brian Solis is principal at Altimeter Group, a research-based advisory firm. Solis is globally recognized as one of the most prominent thought leaders and published authors in new media. A digital analyst, sociologist, and futurist, Solis has studied and influenced the effects of emerging media on business, marketing, publishing, and culture. His new book, The End Of Business As Usual, looks at the changing consumer landscape, it’s impact on business & what companies can do to adapt & lead. Solis’ previous book, Engage, is regarded as the industry reference guide to build and measure success in the social web.

When Josh Kilmer- Purcell and Dr. Brent Ridge bought the Beekman Farm in upstate New York in 2008, they didn’t just start a farm, they started a movement. A mere five years later they already have a hit TV show, bestselling books, product lines in leading retailers, a massive social following, and a James Beard nominated lifestyle website. They have been featured in most major media outlets, including The New York Times, USA Today, Vanity Fair, The Martha Steward Show, Rolling Stone, Dr. Oz, Vogue, The Rosie O’Donnell Show, O Magazine, and more.

Known best as “The Fabulous Beekman Boys” from their hit television reality show, the duo has put their stylish stamp on seasonal living. Their farm and surrounding community services as the inspiration for their lifestyle brand, “Beekman 1802.” The brand’s signature beauty, home & food products can be found on the shelves of Henri Bendel, Anthropologie, Williams-Sonoma and other national retail partners. THe Beekman 1802 cookbook was launched on QVC to record sales, and the memoir of their farm life, The Bucolic Plague, was a national best seller. The 2011 launch of their Beekman 1802 Blaak Cheese resulted in a wait-list of over 7,500 people.

Dan Greenberg is the co-founder and CEO of Sharethrough, the leading native video advertising company. Powered by technology built to drive maximum sharing and social impact, Sharethrough’s platform enables major brands to distribute video content across natively-integrated ad placements across the web and beyond. Dan has been at the cutting edge of web video since 2005, bringing together unique expertise in viral engineering, persuasive technology, and native monetization. A Stanford graduate, Dan was recently named to the Forbes “30 Under 30″ list and has been honored as an Ad Age Media Maven. He is a regular speaker at advertising and technology conferences and contributes to industry publications including Forbes, AdAge, and TechCrunch.

Scott is a clinical professor at the NYU Stern School of Business where he teaches brand strategy and luxury marketing and is the founder of L2, a think tank for digital innovation. Scott is also the founder of Firebrand Partners, an operational activist firm that has invested more than $1 billion in U.S. consumer and media companies. In 1997, he founded Red Envelope, an Internet-based branded consumer gift retailer. In 1992, Scott founded Prophet, a brand strategy consultancy that employs more than 120 professionals in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Scott was elected to the World Economic Forum’s “Global Leaders of Tomorrow,” which recognizes 100 individuals under the age of 40 “whose accomplishments have had impact on a global level.”

Scott has served on the boards of directors of Eddie Bauer (Nasdaq: EBHI), The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), Gateway Computer, eco-America, and UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. He received a B.A. from UCLA and an M.B.A. from UC Berkeley.

Grace Helbig is the creator and host of the long-running, hit My Damn Channel series “Daily Grace.” Grace is a correspondent for G4′s “Attack of the Show.” She can be seen on the upcoming season of “Celebrity Apprentice” on NBC and “Money From Strangers” on MTV. Grace has featured roles on Comedy Central’s “Michael & Michael Have Issues” and in the web series “My Music,” created and produced by The Fine Bros. Grace performs regularly at the Peoples Improv Theater in NYC.  Grace also hosts the Tuesday editions of My Damn Channel LIVE, a live daily comedy show that airs weekdays at 4pm ET on www.MyDamnChannel.com/LIVE and on YouTube.com/MyDamnChannel

Racquel Mason is the Assistant Vice President of Marketing Strategy and Innovation for Coca-Cola North America.  Her responsibilities include identifying and leading strategic projects that drive value for the category business units as well as identifying marketing communication innovation projects to test, incubate and scale across the North American brand portfolio.

Prior to this role, Racquel was selected to be one of the leaders of the North American Business Integration Team which orchestrated the merger of Coca-Cola North America with its largest US bottler, Coca-Cola Enterprises.  Before the integration, Racquel was responsible for various brand portfolios in Coca-Cola North America including Powerade sports drink, Dasani water, and various energy, water and coffee brands.

Before joining Coca-Cola, Racquel was the Division Vice President of Marketing for the Pediatric Business Unit of Abbott Laboratories Nutritionals Group.  She developed strong retail experience while serving as Vice President of Marketing and Vice President of Strategy for the Bi-Lo/Bruno’s Division of Ahold USA.  Racquel has held positions of increasing responsibility in brand management at Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble.

Racquel received her Bachelor of Science in Economics from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and her Masters in Business Administration from The Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

Racquel is married to Dr. R. Amadeus Mason and they have been blessed with three wonderful children, Jaedon, Hailey, and Chelsea.

Rebecca Lieb is an analyst at Altimeter Group where she covers digital advertising and media, an area that encompasses brands, publishers, agencies, and technology vendors.

Rebecca previously launched and oversaw Econsultancy’s US operations. She was VP and editor-in-chief of The ClickZ Network for over seven years. For a portion of that time, she also ran Search Engine Watch.

Earlier, Rebecca held executive marketing and communications positions at strategic consultancies, including Siegel+Gale, and has worked in the same capacity for global entertainment and media companies, including Universal Television & Networks Group (formerly USA Networks International) and Bertelsmann’s RTL Television.As a journalist, she’s written on media for numerous publications, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. She spent five years as Variety’s Berlin-based German/Eastern European bureau chief. Until recently, Rebecca taught at New York University’s Center for Publishing, where she served on the Electronic Publishing Advisory Group.

Her book, The Truth About Search Engine Optimization, published by FT Press, instantly became a best-seller on Amazon.com. It remains a top-10 title in several Internet marketing categories. Her most recent book, Content Marketing, published in October 2011.

Based in New York City, Rebecca is a former film critic who still spends way too much time watching hyper-obscure movies — when she’s not scouring the outer boroughs for southeast Asian cuisine.

As CEO, Peyman Nilforoush is responsible for the company’s overall vision, mission and strategic direction. Under his leadership, NetShelter has become the category leader in tech media and brought to market inPowered, a breakthrough “Earned Advertising” platform that combines the credibility of word-of-mouth or earned media with the scalability of advertising to influence consumers purchase decisions. The company’s fast growth has earned numerous distinctions in the Inc 500|1000, Deloitte Technology Fast 500, Profit 100 and the San Francisco Business Times Fast 100.

A media entrepreneur and visionary Peyman has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes and was named to the 2010 Who’s Who in Business Publishing by BtoBOnline’s Media Business Magazine. He was also a recipient of Profit 100’s Young Entrepreneur Award for being the youngest CEO on the Profit 100 list of fastest growing companies in 2009. Peyman is also a Charter Member of C100, which supports and mentors Canadian entrepreneurs.

Pamela Russo is vice president of digital media at Discovery Communications, the world’s number one nonfiction media company. In this capacity, Russo oversees digital and social media for Discovery Channel, TLC and Discovery Fit & Health. Previously, she led TLC’s digital media efforts, extending audience engagement for popular series including Cake Boss, Sister Wives, What Not to Wear and Say Yes to the Dress.

Russo joined Discovery Communications in November 2011 after most recently serving as the General Manager for TMZ, overseeing business operations, development and strategy & brand media presence. She previously held the position of VP of Interactive Operations, responsible for the publisher’s digital strategy for popular brands including Shape, Star and Men’s Fitness, for American Media Inc. Russo is a graduate of Syracuse University and is based in Discovery’s New York office.

In April of 2011, Karmin’s Amy Heidemann and Nick Noonan ignited the blogosphere when they posted a cover of Chris Brown’s “Look At Me Now” on YouTube. The clip instantly went viral, racking up millions of views after being Tweeted by such hip-hop heavy hitters as The Roots’ Questlove, producers Diplo and Jermaine Dupree, and rapper The Game, each of whom marveled at the astonishing spectacle of Amy spitting Brown’s, Lil Wayne’s, and Busta Rhymes’ raps at warp speed.

Although they are already adored by fans around the world for the pop and hip-hop covers they have posted on their YouTube Channel Karmincovers (178 million views and more than 780,000 subscribers as of February), Karmin are ready to show the world what they can do with their own original music.

Jeff Jarvis, author of Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live (Simon & Schuster, 2011) and What Would Google Do? (HarperCollins 2009), blogs about media and news at Buzzmachine.com. He is associate professor and director of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism. He is consulting editor and a partner at Daylife, a news startup. He consults for media companies and is a public speaker. Until 2005, he was president and creative director of Advance.net, the online arm of Advance Publications. Prior to that, Jarvis was creator and founding editor of Entertainment Weekly; Sunday editor and associate publisher of the New York Daily News; TV critic for TV Guide and People; a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner; assistant city editor and reporter for the Chicago Tribune; reporter for Chicago Today.

Hank Wasiak is a communications industry leader who has worked with the corporate elite of global businesses and the former Vice Chairman of McCann-Erickson. He is a co-founding partner at The Concept Farm, best selling author, teacher, keynote speaker, three time Emmy award winning television host and a Reiki Master.

Hank teamed up with Dr. Kathryn D. Cramer, Ph.D. to create a best selling business – self help book series based on Asset-Based Thinking. Running Press has published three books in the series including the lead title ”Change The Way You See Everything”

A “Mad Man Turned Twitterholic”, Hank has seen and done it all in a marketing communications career that spans five decades. Today he is a leading advocate for harnessing the positive, disruptive power of digital communications and social media to build a new generation of “Open Brands”. Hank is a frequent speaker at interactive conferences, guest writer for Mashable and authors columns on Technorati’s blogcritics.org. Hank is an Adjunct Professor at USC’s Marshall School of Business and a member of the national board of directors of the American Heart Association.

Prior to Mass Relevance, Sam Decker was founding Chief Marketing Officer at Bazaarvoice, the leader in Software as a Service (SaaS) social commerce technologies serving over 1,000 brands. Decker was responsible for building the company’s brand, products and platform. Before joining Bazaarvoice, Decker spent seven years of leadership at Dell, Inc. in marketing, online, CRM, and customer-centricity strategy. From 1999-2003, he led Dell’s consumer web site, building Dell.com into the largest consumer eCommerce site at $3.5B in annual sales, and established global best practices in merchandising, analytics, product management, and operations. Sam pioneered Dell’s customer-centricity strategy and customer segmentation using Six Sigma methodology.

Before Dell, Decker spent more than six years in the Bay Area leading marketing, sales and product strategy at B2B and media startups. Decker has authored two books on word of mouth marketing and serves on the digital advisory board for P&G.

Brandon Evans is a Founder and CEO of Crowdtap, the Influencer Marketing Platform that enables leading brands and agencies to identify and collaborate with their passionate consumers.

Brandon’s work has spanned three successful startups, most recently Brandon was Managing Partner and Chief Strategy Officer of Mr Youth which was sold in 2011 to LBi. Brandon is well known as a pioneer and leading expert in social marketing. His vision and thought leadership helped transform Mr Youth into one of the leading social marketing agencies in the country. Brandon’s exposure to the digital space began at this start of his career in the late 90s in the strategy group at Sapient. He also spent time managing brands at SKYY Spirits before starting his first company in 2002 at the age of 25.

David serves as managing director for the social-digital practice of one of Edelman’s largest hub offices within the global network. Widely known as both a digital veteran as well as an internationally recognized thought leader and speaker, David leads one of the most talented teams of social strategists, community managers, technologists and creative minds in the industry.

David is considered to be a highly influential voice on the subject of social media for business and has over 75,000 subscribers to hisblog and Twitter stream. Prior to Edelman, David was a part of the founding team of social business consultancy Dachis Group, helping launch the business from stealth mode into the marketplace. In his career, David has pioneered digital and social solutions for clients such as HP, eBay, adidas, WW Grainger, the US Dairy industry and has held senior positions with digital outfits such asagency.com and Digitas. He also writes regular industry perspectives for the Harvard Business Review, advises several start-ups and co-founded the “Allhat” event billed by SXSW as being populated by “the most respected voices in digital.”  A “design thinker” at heart, David graduated cum laude from the prestigious Pratt Institute with a dual major of visual communications/computer graphics.

Vala Afshar is Chief Customer Officer for Enterasys Networks. Afshar is responsible for worldwide customer service and support operations. An award winning inventor of social technologies and customer services operations, Afshar is considered a pioneer in cloud computing, social collaboration, business intelligence and customer relationship management (CRM). Afshar is the author of the recently published book “The Pursuit of Social Business Excellence.” Afshar’s teams have been recognized numerous times for their customer satisfaction, net promoter score and service innovation achievements. Enterasys customer service and support is universally recognized as true company differentiation.

Vince Broady is co-founder of thismoment, inc, a San Francisco-based social media management company, and GameSpot, the industry-leading video gaming website acquired by CNET Networks in 2008. While at CNET, Vince served as senior vice president of entertainment where he was responsible for CNET’s portfolio of entertainment brands, including MP3.com, TV.com andMetacritic.com. Following CNET, Vince joined Yahoo! as senior vice president, head of games and entertainment properties. Before launching GameSpot, Broady was executive editor at IDG’s Multimedia World magazine. Vince holds a B.A. from Brown University and is a frequent speaker at technology industry events and educational institutions, including CES, E3, MIT Media Labs and the Haas School of Business.

Kris Duggan is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for building innovative, fast-growing SaaS companies with thousands of delighted customers. He is dedicated to helping brands on the web increase user engagement by leveraging proven techniques in social gaming and loyalty. A sought-after speaker on gamification, analytics and user engagement, Kris is a thought leader of innovative ways to incorporate game mechanics and social loyalty programs into web and mobile experiences. Prior to founding Badgeville, Kris Duggan worked in leadership roles at a variety of successful companies, including WebEx, and across a wide variety of verticals.

Jeff French is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of LoudDoor LLC, a data-intelligence and analytics company that helps the world’s leading brands develop actionable insights and strategies to identify and reach their ideal customers on Facebook. Jeff is responsible for LoudDoor’s overall strategy and leads the firm’s product development.

Previously, Jeff was the founder of ReachSmart Interactive (holding company of the AdDrive Affiliate Network), and served as the company’s CEO where he scaled operations and created over $100M in revenues and substantial EBITDA margins while directly generating over $1 billion in sales for the company’s advertising clients, all from a single $750,000 round of angel financing raised in 2000.

Prior to his entrepreneurial endeavors, Jeff was an AVP of Risk Analysis & Management for Netbank, one of the first Internet-only banks, and was a Senior Associate with PricewaterhouseCoopers in the firm’s Financial Services practice.

Porter Gale is a marketing expert with over 20 years of experience working in branding, social media, advertising and filmmaking. Her first book, Your Network Is Your Net Worth will be published by Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster in 2013.  Ms. Gale is an advisor for several companies including; Dollarshaveclub.com, WePay.com, The Michael Mina Group, Rocket Fuel, Kred, Zozi.com and Zuberance.

From 2007 to 2011, Ms. Gale was Vice President of Marketing at Virgin America. Prior to Virgin America, she held the post of General Manager at Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners San Francisco. She was awarded the Changing The Game Award, by The Advertising Women of New York (AWNY), was on AdAge’s Digital Hotlist, iMedia Top 25-Digital Marketers and named a Digital Passionista by The Huffington Post.

In the independent film world, Ms. Gale produced or directed documentaries that aired on Lifetime, PBS, Channel 4/England and in film festivals around the globe. Porter’s film work has been honored by the Directors Guild of America, The Academy of Motion Pictures & Sciences and Filmmaker Magazine. Porter has a BSBA from Boston University and a Masters in Documentary Film and Video from Stanford University.

Porter’s has been quoted or interviewed in over 500 online, print and broadcast press outlets, including; The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and more. She can be reached at @portergale or via portergale.com.

In addition to being the author of the best-selling CRM at the Speed of Light, Paul Greenberg is the Managing Principal of The 56 Group, LLC, a customer strategy consulting firm, focused on cutting edge CRM and Social CRM strategic services. He is a founding partner of the CRM training company, BPT Partners, LLC, a training and consulting venture composed of a number of CRM luminaries that has quickly become the authoritative training for the CRM industry.

His book, CRM at the Speed of Light: Social CRM Strategy, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Your Customers, now in its fourth edition, is in 9 languages and been called “the bible of the CRM industry”. It has been used by more than 70 universities as a primary text. The Asian edition of CIO Magazine named it one of the 12 most important books an Asian CEO will ever read. Paul has also authored two other books including “E-Government for Public Officials” (Thompson Publishing, 2003).

Paul is the Executive Vice President of the CRM Association. He currently is the Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management CRM Centre of Excellence. He has been a Board of Advisors member of the Baylor University MBA Program for CRM majors, and the co-chairman of Rutgers University’s CRM Research Center.

He is a member of the Board of Advisors for the Center for American Progress, the leading policy think tank in Washington D.C.

Paul has developed strategies and helped define CRM and social CRM products for all the major vendors in CRM and in social media.  He has developed broad CRM strategies and programs for a significant number of larger enterprises and worked with them from inception of the idea of a CRM strategy through vendor selection when needed.

Paul is considered a thought leader in CRM, having been published in numerous industry and business publications over the years and having traveled the world speaking on cutting edge CRM and topics geared to the contemporary social customer. He has been called “the dean of CRM” and “the godfather of CRM” and even the “Bob Dylan of CRM” by analysts and organizations throughout the industry. In fact, at the end of 2007, he was the #1 non-vendor influencer, by InsideCRM in their annual “25 Most Influential CRM People” announcement.  He was also named one of the most influential CRM leaders in 2008 and again in 2012 by CRM Magazine and was elected to magazine’s CRM Hall of Fame in 2010 – the first non-vendor related thought leader in its history.

He is known particularly for his work on the use of social media, such as blogs, podcasts and wikis and social networks in CRM as tools for customer collaboration with a company. He is seen often as the “voice of the customer” and is well known within the CRM industry for this work. His blog, PGreenblog (the56group.typepad.com) was named the winner of the first annual CRM “Blog of the Year” in 2005 by SearchCRM and the 2007 “Whatis” Award for CRM Blogs, by their parent company, TechTarget.  He also received the #1 CRM Blog Award from InsideCRM at the end of 2007 and in 2008 and was named #1 CRM blogger by ForecastingClouds in January 2010. He now also writes the CRM blog, “Social CRM: The Conversation” for high profile CBS-owned technology media property, ZDNET (http://blogs.zdnet.com/crm)

He is also the founder of the very popular CRM Idol competition, first held in 2011, now in its second season.

In 2012, Paul was named as one of the “Top 50 Sales and Marketing Influencers” by Top Sales Magazine.

Greenberg also thinks that a sense of humor is necessary when it comes to CRM and its social antecedent so he is the host of an edgy podcast called Experience on the Edge and co-hosts the totally insane “CRM Playaz” with fellow thought leader Brent Leary.

He is a member of the Destination CRM Board of Experts, the SearchCRM Expert Advisory Panel, and the Enterprise 2.0 Advisory Board as well as a member of the Board of Advisors for GreaterChinaCEM for many years among many others.

Currently, Paul lives in Manassas, Virginia with his wife and five (yes five!) cats. To reach Paul, please email him at paul-greenberg3@the56group.com, if you are a live human being who wants to talk, not pitch.  You can follow him at Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/pgreenbe or join up with him on LinkedIn or Facebook.

Aaron Ray is a Partner in the Beverly Hills based Management/Production company – The Collective. In addition to traditional management, Aaron oversees all New Media initiatives including those for clients Linkin Park, Enrique Iglesias, Counting Crows, Slash, Alanis Morissette, Eddie Izzard and others. The goal is to stay on top of ever changing technologies and identifying, aggregating and servicing the clients’ fanbases. Aaron believes that letting the artist control that relationship will lead to new models for distribution and monetization.

Aaron has an extensive background in all types of media including film, television, live events, Broadway, publishing and financing. Aaron also oversees the world’s largest horror portal (www.bloodydisgusting.com) which not only has a huge impact on the culture, but is the only genre site that has its own community (over 100k members) and powers MySpace Horror.

As vice president, weather analytics for The Weather Channel Companies, Paul helps companies integrate weather and climate information into their business processes. Since 1997, he has helped business leaders in large corporations – as well as investors and analysts – use weather and climate intelligence to increase sales and maximize profits. His client experience includes Wal*Mart, The Home Depot, Sears, Merrill Lynch, Citibank and numerous hedge funds.

Prior to joining The Weather Channel Companies, Paul served as senior vice president, business solutions at Atmospheric and Environmental Research (a Verisk Analytics company), chief strategy officer at Storm Exchange, Inc., and senior vice president, client services/analytics at Planalytics, Inc.

Paul’s observations on weather impacts on consumers and business have been featured on CNBC, The Weather Channel, NBC Nightly News, Fox Business News, Bloomberg Television/Radio, and in dozens of publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, USA Today, and The New York Times.

Prior to 1997, as a meteorologist in the United States Air Force, Paul provided weather-based intelligence support to war fighters and mission planners and served as the chief

Leslie leads Weber Shandwick’s global reputation consulting services and thought leadership development. She is the architect of groundbreaking, award-winning research into CEO and corporate reputation, CEO transitions, corporate rankings, online reputation, executive visibility, and reputation sustainability and recovery. Leslie is a member of the firm’s global senior management team.

Leslie is one of the world’s most widely recognized experts on reputation — how reputations are built, enhanced and protected. She spearheaded the first comprehensive research on CEO reputation and its impact on company reputation and business performance. She developed Weber Shandwick’s global corporate reputation studies–Safeguarding Reputation, Risky Business: Reputations Online, Socializing Your CEO, and The Company behind the Brand: In Reputation We Trust. Her article, Reputation Warfare, was published in Harvard Business Review. It describes how companies are increasingly finding themselves under attack from online detractors and what they can do to defend their good names from online assault.

Leslie is the author of two books, CEO Capital: A Guide to Building CEO Reputation and Company Success and Corporate Reputation: 12 Steps to Safeguarding and Recovering Reputation.

Before joining Weber Shandwick, Leslie was Chief Knowledge & Research Officer Worldwide at Burson-Marsteller and Marketing & Communications Director at Fortune. Leslie’s work has been widely covered online and in many top-tier global publications.

Leslie is a frequent public speaker on CEO and corporate reputation management.  She is a member of Ethical Corporation’s Advisory Board, serves on the Executive Advisory Panel of Corporate Reputation Review and was named one of the “100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics” by Ethisphere Magazine as well as one of the 2010 Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior by Trust Across America.

Leslie’s blog can be found at reputationXchange.com  and you can follow her at @ReputationRx. She also has a blog on Social CEOs…social4ceos.tumblr.com.

Justin delivers Global Marketing Strategy & Insights for The Coca-Cola Company. His focus is on Coke’s “Liquid & Linked” integrated marketing campaigns, where he is responsible for the consumer research for all components of campaign ideation, evaluation and results monitoring.

Before making the move to The Real Thing, Justin was responsible for Global Media Insights at Unilever. It’s here where he began diving into social media insights while leading research for Unilever’s key global media partnerships with companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple and Viacom.

In addition to his insights capabilities, Justin has accurately been described by many as “tall” and “very thin”. Although Justin now resides in Atlanta, he is a native Michigander and a graduate of the Haworth College of Business at Western Michigan University.

Maggie Fox is the founder, CEO and Chief Marketing Officer of Social Media Group, established in 2006 and one of the world’s most highly respected independent agencies helping business navigate the socially engaged Web. Pioneers in their field, Social Media Group has helped some of the best-known brands in Europe and North America get social, including Ford Motor Company, SAP, RBC, 3M and Thomson Reuters. Maggie has been interviewed aboutsocial media by Fast Company, Inc. Magazine, The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, CBC News and The Financial Post, among others. In 2009 she was named one of the Top 100 Marketers in Marketing Magazine’s 100th Anniversary Edition, and in 2011 The National Post named her one of Canada’s Top Innovators.

Jason Breed is the Social Media Practice lead at Accenture with over 10 years of direct experience in Social Media and 16 years of interactive marketing experience. As an advanced digital strategist, he has worked with many of the largest companies in the world & his expertise spans both online and mobile. Jason’s focus is on the enterprise and the effects that social has in transforming entire businesses. While social media is relatively new, Jason has methodologies that are proven in most industries and government. His success stems from an ability to combine applied Social Media strategies in to business processes and maintain an in-depth understanding of emerging technologies and their commercial applications.

Rob Harles is Global Head of Social Media for Bloomberg LP responsible for developing and managing Bloomberg’s social media strategy and initiatives around the world. He joined Bloomberg in 2010 from Sears Holdings where he was Vice President of Social Media and built Sears’ social media platform and customer communities. Before joining Sears Holdings, Rob was SVP for comScore Networks, in charge of the Retail, Auto, Travel and Technology client services practices and a member of the Senior Operating team that took the company public. Rob started his career as a Senior Consultant in the financial services practice of McKinsey & Co.

Tim Reis leads Google’s mobile and social solutions teams in the Americas. He is a 30 year veteran of media sales serving in roles that have spanned print, television and online.

Prior to his current assignment, Tim held a variety of roles at Google, leading the Mobile Display (formerly Admob) advertising team for the finance, entertainment, auto and travel industry verticals, leading Google’s Consumer Packaged Goods practice in the eastern region and managing one of Google’s financial services advertising teams.  He has been with Google for five years.

Tim came to Google from Plum TV where he was Director of Network Sales.  Prior to Plum, Tim was President of Forbes Custom Media and Forbes’ Vice President of Sales Development.  He was Southeast Manager for Fortune magazine and founder & president of an independent media sales firm.

Tim is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Promotion Marketing Association and co-chair of the PMA’s Digital Center of Excellence.

For the past decade, my work has been social tools and their impact on media, business, and society, and in recent years, a growing concentration on the future of work and the rise of the social business. I divide my attention across research, design, and media activities, working with a diverse set of companies and collaborators.

My approach to work has grown from my background as a programmer and developer, and in combination with my natural tendency to look over the near horizon to envision adjacent and nascent technologies, I have come to think of myself as a speculative designer (more here, At Large In The Post-Normal: Beyond Futurism).

In 2012 I consolidated my research activities under Work Talk Research, an independent research cooperative that I head. 2012 projects include these:

• Innovation Cultures (in collaboration with Teresa Di Cairano of Intervista), 
• Social Network Science (in collaboration with Claude Theoret of Nexalogy),
• The Business of Social Business (a long format writing project),
• Media Futures (in collaboration with Gerd Leonhard of The FuturesAgency),
• various research reports with GigaOM Pro, and
• Work Media Reports, occasional reviews on work media tools (a follow-on to the former workmedia.ly).

I serve as an advisor to a short list of innovative social tools and media companies, principally focused on product direction and strategy. These have included giants like AOL, Microsoft and IBM, and start-ups like Bitly, Yammer and Wander. I also consult to large enterprises grappling with the challenges of applying social tools to their operations.

I started my career (if that’s what this is) as a software researcher working in programming tools and software environments. I have served as adjunct computer science faculty, an inadvertent entrepreneur, an software analyst, a newsletter editor, a columnist, president of a blog media company, and mostly as a commentator and advisor. I have served in other roles and appointments, far too many to enumerate.

I have presented at numerous conferences and events worldwide, including Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, GigaOM Net:Work, Reboot, Next, Mesh, Shift, Lift, SIBOS, Defrag, and TEDxMidAtlantic.

I post most of my research work here, on this site. My broader technology writing is found at StoweBoyd.com, and I write about things not technical at Underpaid Genius.

Derek Gottfrid is the VP of Product at Tumblr, where he manages the Mobile, Product Engineering, Insights, Sales and Marketing and Strategic Partnership teams. As part of Tumblr’s mission to deliver creativity worldwide, Derek’s teams help keep Tumblr fast, fun and forward-thinking. Previously, Derek spent a decade at NYTimes.com, where he led various efforts to build a news and information platform. He is fond of four-letter words, including “code” and “ship.”

Carol Cone is internationally recognized for her work in the cause branding, corporate citizenship and strategic philanthropy arenas and is credited as the leading pioneer in Purpose strategy.  For over 25 years, she has embraced a steadfast commitment to building substantive and sustainable partnerships between companies and social issues. Her recognitions include: 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics, Ethisphere Magazine, 2007; 25 Most Powerful Professionals in the Communications Industry, PRWeek, 2007; Changing the Game Award, Advertising Women of  New York, 2007; Lifetime Achievement Award, PR News, 2005; 50 Most Powerful Women in Public Relations, PRWeek; and Entrepreneur of the Year, Arthur Young/Venture Magazine.

As Global Practice Chair of Edelman’s Business + Social Purpose practice, Carol provides strategic counsel to clients on the development of purpose, social issues and public engagement strategies, as well as corporate and brand citizenship. She has a deep commitment to innovative research with consumers, executives and employees. She works with the firm’s leadership to apply insights from Edelman’s annual goodpurpose™ global consumer study and its Trust and Health Engagement Barometers to client assignments, reports and proprietary methodologies.

From 1980–2010 she was the Founder, CEO and Chairman of Cone, Inc.  There she led the development of signature cause branding programs for forward-thinking Fortune 500 companies and not-for-profit organizations, including: the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade, ConAgra Foods’ Feeding Children Better, PNC Grow Up Great, the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women Movement, P & G’s Live, Learn and Thrive, ITT Watermark, Western Union’s Our World, Our Family and Reebok’s Human Rights programs. She also created groundbreaking research reports to advance the strategic practice of social issues engagement.

Overall, Cone’s signature cause programs have raised more than $1.2 billion for various social causes.

A global speaker and commentator on the topic of cause branding and corporate citizenship, she also provides insights to business and industry press, including: USA Today, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, the Washington Post, BusinessWeek and Ad Age. In 2007, PR Week called her “arguably the most powerful and visible figure in the world of cause branding.“ Carol is a published author , and released Breakthrough Nonprofit Branding: Seven Principles to Power Extraordinary Results in 2011.

As Billboard’s Editorial Director, Bill Werde leads the editorial strategy and vision for the brand, which includes the weekly print publication, leading music fan site Billboard.com, business site Billboard.biz and other digital content offerings, as well as industry-leading conferences and events.

In the first year under the new ownership of Prometheus Global Media, Mr. Werde and his team have enhanced editorial coverage with interactive access to artists and exclusive reports, and increased full year web traffic on Billboard.com by 65% over the year prior as reported on Google Analytics.  The recently upgraded consumer site won the 2010 National Magazine Award for Digital Media, New Design.  New charts have been added to capture artists’ reach all over the Internet, including the new Uncharted ranking for undiscovered musicians.

Mr. Werde joined Billboard in July 2005 as Senior News Editor and has steadily climbed the ranks of the organization, having been promoted to Deputy Editor and later Executive Editor of the brand.

Prior to Billboard, Mr. Werde was the Associate Editor for Rolling Stone. Before that he worked as a freelance journalist for a number of publications including the New York Times, Washington Post, Village Voice and Wired Magazine writing about culture, politics, business and technology.

Mr. Werde frequently appears as a guest expert on the music industry for CNN, NPR, Today show, The Early Show, NBC Nightly News, Nightline, MSNBC, Fox Business, the O’Reilly Factor and others.

Greg Gerik is the Social Media Leader for the Global eTransformation Team at 3M. His team is charged with driving world-class online interaction, content, strategy and customer experience to 3M and 3M global partners. His role is to infuse social business into all aspects of the eTransformation program, lead corporate initiatives and develop a social business roadmap for global replication. Before moving into this role, he was the Global Lead for the 3M Consumer & Office Business working with brands such as Post-it®, Scotch® and Nexcare™.
Greg came to 3M from Thomson Reuters where he assisted in the development of best practices, blogging programs and a foundation for social interaction with customers in their Legal Division. He built their first customer education blogging program based on customer insights and business intelligence leveraging and leading their team of 20 editorial writers. He holds a law degree from Michigan State University College of Law and a Communications degree from Texas A&M University.

As Creative Director for Digital Brand Design at Philips, based at Philips Design in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Thomas’s work focuses on digital brand design across the company. Working with counterparts at Global Marketing & Communications as well as the Philips sectors Consumer Lifestyle, Lighting and Healthcare. Together these teams are responsible for establishing the Philips brand in the hearts and minds of its stake holders and championing the activation of Brand strategy across all touch points.

He began his career at Philips in 1998 as an audio designer. He widened his area of expertise into the digital world, and moved on to New Media Design in 2000, working on product and interface design as well as online communications. From here he then decided to focus on online, and worked as Senior Art Director as of 2005.

Within two years, Thomas moved on as Senior Consultant in Innovation Design, and developed research to support innovation design and was also responsible for enriching design concepts using input from business, marketing and technology experts. He took a leading role in various Philips strategic projects, including a number of simplicity-led design innovations that were shown at the Philips Simplicity Events of 2005, 2006 and 2007 in Paris, London, New York and Hong Kong.

Ranked by Forbes as one of the top 10 influencers in social media, Scott Monty has been called “an unstoppable force of nature,” “the best corporate social media lead on the planet,”and Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford Motor Company, called him “a visionary.” At Ford, Scott heads up the social media function and holds the title Global Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager. He is a strategic advisor on all social media activities across the company, from blogger relations to marketing support, customer service to internal communications and more, as social media is being integrated into many facets of Ford business.

Prior to joining Ford in 2008, Scott served as Consigliere for crayon, a strategic marketing firm, and with PJA Advertising + Marketing, a boutique BtoB agency.

In addition to his professional responsibilities, Scott is an active blogger and podcaster. He writes about the intersection of advertising, marketing and PR at The Social Media Marketing Blog (www.scottmonty.com) and also writes The Baker Street Blog and I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, two literary undertakings. Scott has been featured in hundreds of news and business publications in print and on the web, in dozens of books, and on a variety of mainstream media, including NBC, NPR, CNN and The Wall Street Journal. Scott is a recognized thought leader in the social media industry and frequently speaks at industry events. Scott received his Master’s in Medical Science from Boston University’s School of Medicine concurrently with his MBA from BU’s Graduate School of Management. He lives in Michigan with his wife and two young sons, golfs all too infrequently, and has a hidden talent for voice

over work. Oh, and one last little-known fact: Scott coined the Oxford Dictionary of English-accepted term “tweetup.”

Sarah Hofstetter is President of 360i. During her seven years at the agency, 360i has developed industry leading practices that have helped cement its reputation as “A-List” agency and one of the “Best Places to Work” in Media & Marketing, per Advertising Age. Sarah’s expertise is in providing strategic counsel to clients such as Kraft Foods, Coca-Cola, jcpenney, NBC Universal and Reckitt Benckiser on utilizing digital to help marketers foster relationships and form emotional bonds between brands and consumers. In 2011, she was named a “Social Media All-Star” by the Social Media Society.

Sarah previously served as Senior Vice President of Brand Strategy & Emerging Media, building 360i’s Brand Strategy, Consumer Insights, Social Media and Mobile practices from the ground up and establishing 360i as a pioneer in recognizing the social revolution that has placed consumers at the center of marketing strategy. Prior to joining 360i, Sarah was President and Founder of Kayak Communications, a boutique marketing agency focused on developing brand strategy and communications plans for new media brands such as Adobe Systems, Vibrant Media and Covad. Before starting her own agency, Sarah spent ten years at Net2Phone, one of the world’s first providers of VoIP technology.

Sarah lives on Long Island with her husband and two kids. To blow off steam, she enjoys painting, cooking and kickboxing.

In his capacity as Senior Director of Interactive Media for the Boston Celtics, Peter Stringer is responsible for crafting the team’s interactive and social media strategy. He joined the team as Internet Operations Manager in November 2005.

Stringer overhauled Celtics.com in the summer of 2010, integrating video and social media content for a more interactive and engaging fan experience.  Celtics.com was recognized as a top team website at the NBA’s annual marketing meetings in 2007, and over the past four seasons, Celtics.com has consistently ranked among the top three trafficked team websites in the NBA.

Stringer launched and cultivated the Celtics’ social media channels over the past two seasons, building an audience of over 6.4 million ”Likes” on Facebook (currently the second-largest audience among North American professional sports teams) and over 470,000 followers on Twitter.  The team also delivers behind-the-scenes footage and exclusive video content to both Celtics.com and YouTube. The team’s “Pin It to Win It” contest on Pinterest is believed to be a first in professional sports on the emerging social media platform.

In 2009, Stringer conceptualized and developed GameTimeLive, an interactive game-tracking and blogging experience that combines up-to-the-second stats and scores with a live fan blog and Twitter feed.  GameTimeLive was met with wild success and drew more than 50,000 unique fans to Celtics.com during the epic triple-overtime Game 6 tilt vs. the Chicago Bulls in the 2009 postseason. He also conceptualized and managed the development of Celtics 3-Point Play, a first-of-its-kind Facebook application that allowed Celtics fans to predict statistics for their favorite players while collecting valuable fan data for the team’s marketing efforts.

Stringer has served as a panelist at and presenter at digital marketing conferences around the United States as well as abroad. He also writes content for the team’s digital channels and fan magazine.  A 1998 graduate of Boston University with a Bachelor’s degree in Print Journalism, Stringer currently resides in Boston, MA.

Michael Dubin is the Founder & CEO of DollarShaveClub.com; a great shave for a few bucks a month.

Michael has spent over 10 years in Media & Digital Marketing.  He began his career as an NBC page, moving on to write & produce news at MSNBC.  He left to begin a career in Digital Marketing; first working for a small client services firm in NYC, then moving on to develop custom content for brand advertisers including Gatorade, EA, and Reebok on behalf of Time Inc properties LIFE.com and SI.com.

Just prior to Dollar Shave Club, Michael worked in the video seeding space; a fancy term for driving views to branded social videos made by the likes of LG, Ford, Capital One, Taco Bell and other major brands.

He is passionate about comedy and entertainment, having studied Improv and Sketch for over 8 years at UCB NY.  He has a BA in History from Emory University. Dollar Shave Club is his second successful entrepreneurial adventure.

As Bravo Media’s Senior Vice President, Marketing, Ellen Stone oversees the development of all brand strategy, creative, consumer advertising, ad sales, digital marketing and licensing/merchandising and talent relations for the network. She also serves as a member of Bravo’s senior management team shaping the network’s overall strategy.

Under Stone’s leadership, Bravo has enjoyed great success, with multi-million dollar campaigns for franchises such as “The Real Housewives,” “Top Chef” and “Flipping Out.” She has also spearheaded the network’s innovative digital marketing partnerships with sites including YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. Stone is the mastermind behind some of Bravo Media’s most successful ventures, including the best-selling Top Chef Cookbook series, two Real Housewives books, “Top Chef: The Tour,” the nationwide promotional tour that features a customized traveling “Top Chef” 18-wheeler semi-truck, currently in its fourth cycle, as well as numerous other “Top Chef” brand extensions including wine, knives, and cookware. Additionally, under Stone’s watch, her team has earned an IMA Outstanding Achievement Award, multiple cablefaxies and CTAM Mark Awards.

Stone joined Bravo in 2006 as Vice President, Consumer Marketing. Previously, she served as Director, Consumer Marketing at Lifetime Entertainment Services, where she was responsible for managing all off-air consumer marketing efforts for Lifetime Television.

Additionally, Stone worked at Bozell Worldwide, where she served as Partner and Management Supervisor of the National Fluid Milk Program, overseeing strategic and creative operations of the Dairy Management Milk Board. Earlier, Stone worked at J. Walter Thompson, first as Senior Account Executive for the Bell Atlantic Corporation and then, as Partner, Account Supervisor on Unilever Pepsi-Lipton Tea Partnership, Lipton, Lever 2000, and Wisk.

Stone joined Bozell Worldwide from Wells Rich Greene BDDP, where she served as Senior Account Executive for International Business Machines. She began her career at Margeotes Fertitta & Partners where she served as Sr. Media Planner, before being made an Account Executive.

Stone holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing and a minor in French from Lehigh University School of Business and is a graduate of CTAM University, Harvard School of Business. She currently resides in New York City.

Alison Hillhouse is the Vice President of Insights Innovation at MTV, where she focuses exclusively on understanding the behaviors and psychological underpinnings of Millennials. She decodes everything from the intricacies of hashtag culture to high school cliques to the creative ethos of the generation. The insights her team uncover help MTV fulfill its research imperative for “radical audience intimacy.”

Prior to MTV, Alison spent 12 years at advertising and public relations agencies such as JWT, garnering insights and developing campaigns for brands such as Xbox360, Jose Cuervo and Huggies.

Kare Anderson is co-founder of Say it Better Center, and an Emmy-winning former NBC and Wall Street Journal reporter who translates behavioral research into ways to connect, be frequently quoted or make a place or event more meaningful by storyboarding the moments in it. She’s a speaker, columnist for Harvard Business Review and Forbes, and author of Moving From Me to We, Walk Your Talk, Getting What You Want and Resolving Conflict Sooner.

As Chief Creative Officer, Nick is responsible for the creative vision of R/GA. He guides teams of visual designers, copywriters, and interaction designers as they create award-winning work for many Fortune 500 companies. He also ensures that R/GA stays true to the company’s unique legacy of collaboration between world-class creative and groundbreaking technology.

Nick’s work has won numerous international awards and has been widely published in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Asia-Pacific. Within a year of joining the company, he was promoted to Vice President of Visual Design and shortly thereafter named Executive Creative Director on Nike, an account responsible for some of the industry’s most innovative and high-profile work.

Nick’s background is extensive and diverse, spanning multiple marketing disciplines during 20 years at agencies in the United States and abroad. He began his career in branding and corporate identity and design before switching to advertising and then ultimately, focusing on digital marketing.

Nick has won every major industry award including a Titanium Lion and Grand Prix Cyber Lion at Cannes and a prestigious Black Pencil from D&AD. In the last two years, he has been included in Creativity magazine’s “Creativity 50,” a list of the world’s most influential creatives.

Neil Young is the founder and CEO of iPhone-game maker ngmoco, which he started in June of 2008. Young started the company after 11 years working at Electronic Arts, most recently as the Group General Manager of the EA|Blueprint Studio group that included Maxis (creators of Sporeâ„¢ & The Simsâ„¢) and EA’s collaborative partnership with Steven Spielberg. Neil joined Electronic Arts in 1997 as the General Manager of EA’s Origin Systems subsidiary, where he supervised the launch of the world’s first Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing game, UltimaOnlineâ„¢.

Donna Sturgess is a senior marketer and innovator who focuses on thought leadership to drive vibrant and viable solutions to business and product challenges. She has been recognized as one of the Top 15 Women in Business by Ernst & Young and Pink Magazine and is the recipient of The Quantum Leap Award by the Advertising Women of New York (AWNY). She operates at a C-level having held positions as Vice President of Marketing & Strategy and Global Head of Innovation for GlaxoSmithKline. She has a proven track record in growing and managing brand portfolios and bringing remarkable innovation to the marketplace.

Donna is a strategist and marketer with over 25 years of both US and global experience at GSK. She has hands-on experience in using marketing neuroscience to advance brands and understands how the science, in the context of attention, engagement and persuasion, can leverage both rational and emotional elements in packaging and advertising.

She is a frequent public speaker on the power of building emotional strategies for brands and creates a sense of excitement about marketing and the urgency in responding to the changing consumer landscape. Donna is a popular writer; her work appears in books and publications such as Harvard Business Review and Advertising Age. She is a co-author of “The Big Moo,” by the Group of 33, edited by Seth Godin and the upcoming book, “Spectacular.”

Donna actively supports the Think Remarkable community and awards to honor remarkable thinking in the world (www.thinkremarkable.com).

Paul works as Global Head of Brand Design at Facebook. He is widely recognized as a leading thinker on designing social interactions and spent the past four years leading user research for Google’s social projects including Google+, Gmail, Mobile and YouTube. Before Google, Paul worked as a User Experience Consultant at Flow, leading research and design projects for clients including the BBC, The Guardian, Vodafone, UK Government and Betfair. Before Flow, he worked as an Industrial Designer, designing electronic appliances at Dyson and car interiors at Faurecia. Paul holds a Master of Science in Interactive Media and a Bachelor of Industrial Design. He writes a popular blog at ThinkOutsideIn.com.

Baratunde Thurston is a politically-active, technology-loving comedian from the future. He co-founded the black political blog, Jack and Jill Politics and served as Director of Digital for The Onion. He has written for Vanity Fair, hosted Popular Science’s Future Of on Discovery Science and appears on cable news regularly to say smart things in funny ways. Then-candidate Barack Obama called him “someone I need to know.” Baratunde travels the world speaking and advising and performs standup regularly in NYC. He resides in Brooklyn, lives on Twitter and has over 30 years experience being black. His first book, How To Be Black, is a New York Times best-seller.

George was an early pioneer of digital marketing. By 1995, he started one of Euro RSCG’s first digital agencies in Australia and then built Euro RSCG’s digital network in Asia from a Singapore base. In 1997, George became the Global Director of Euro RSCG Interaction, responsible for the worldwide development of the digital network. He moved to New York in 1998 and took on the additional responsibility of running the Intel account, Euro RSCG’s largest client at the time. He was based in New York for seven years.

While in New York, George launched Euro RSCG 4D, which was ranked by Adweek as the largest global digital network five years in a row.

He has served on many juries and was President of the Jury for the Cannes Cyber Lions in 2002. George is a recognized industry speaker. He made the digital keynote at Cannes in 2001. Moreover, he has spoken in the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, Israel, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, and India.

From 2005 to 2008, George was the Regional CEO of Euro RSCG in Asia-Pacific and India, based in Shanghai, and was promoted to the Global Chairman position of Euro RSCG 4D. In addition to driving Euro RSCG’s growth in Asia-Pacific, he managed the Dell and Volvo engagements. Three years ago, he returned to New York, where his focus has been the management of the Euro RSCG 4D network as well as Euro RSCG’s technology and B2B clients. Upon his return to New York, George led Euro RSCG’s successful pitch for IBM’s global digital business, a venture he now oversees.

Charlene Li is founder of the Altimeter Group and the author of the New York Times bestseller, Open Leadership. She is also the coauthor of the critically acclaimed, bestselling book Groundswell, which was named one of the best business books in 2008.

She is one of the foremost experts on social media and technologies and a consultant and independent thought leader on leadership, strategy, social technologies, interactive media and marketing. Formerly Li was vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research and a consultant with Monitor Group. She was named one of the 100 most creative people in business by Fast Company in 2010 and one of the most influential women in technology 2009.

Charlene is a frequently-quoted expert and has appeared on 60 Minutes, The McNeil NewsHour, ABC News, CNN, and CNBC. She is also frequently quoted by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist, Businessweek, USAToday, Reuters, and The Associated Press. She is a much-sought after public speaker and will be appearing at the World Business Forum in Radio City Music hall in October 2010. She has also presented frequently at top conferences such the American Society of Association Executives, SXSW, Web 2.0 Expo, and Search Engine Strategies.

Charlene is a graduate of Harvard Business School and received a magna cum laude degree from Harvard College. You can follow her blog or on Twitter.

Mr. Briggs is known as one of the world’s leading experts in media effectiveness measurement. His expertise comes from direct experience measuring and improving the performance of a wide range of marketing programs on and offline. The firm’s services help clients achieve insight from advertising and marketing measurement and increase ROI for their marketing spend. Recent clients include Ford, Kraft, Colgate, McDonald’s, Nestle, Procter & Gamble, and Kimberly-Clark.

Rex was named one of the dozen “Best and Brightest” in Media and Technology by Ad Week, and one of the people to “watch and learn from” according to BrandWeek. He has been honored with the Atticus Award for his work in Direct Marketing, the Tenagra Award for outstanding contribution to branding and the Fernanda Monti award for his work in CRM. Rex has also won international research awards for his work in understanding website effectiveness and online advertising. Most recently his work in understanding the effects of advertising in television, magazine and online was nominated for the prestigious John and Mary Goodyear award for best international research. Rex has consulted in over twenty countries worldwide. His research has been translated into a half dozen languages and taught at leading universities around the world.

Rex has published What Sticks, a book that reviews a five year research project that tracked $1 billion in advertising expenditure by 36 major marketers. The studies were designed to track media expenditure in real-time, and offer solutions on how marketers can improve ad effectiveness.

Simon Bond is the CMO of BBDO & Proximity Worldwide. Simon has worked at BBDO for over 13 years and has helped establish their digital operations in Europe, Middle East & North Africa, Asia Pacific and now North America

Simon spent the first 10 years with BBDO between London, Paris, Dubai, Singapore and Japan and is now based in NY responsible for driving innovation and business development across BBDO’s international client base and exploring new ways to expand and grow the network globally.

Simon is as seasoned global marketer and has been heavily engaged in building global brands like P&G, J&J, PepsiCo, Campbell’s and Mars and advising them on their global digital, social and mobile strategies.

Phoebe focuses on driving initiatives related to collaboration, engagement, culture change, and digital and social platforms. She’s big fan of new media – they help us tell our stories in new ways.

While she began her career at a small high-tech startup, Phoebe continues to hone her craft at large global organizations such as Johnson & Johnson, Merrill Lynch and Bloomberg. In November 2010, Phoebe joined Tyco International as a marketing communications manager for its Fire & Security business segment and helped drive internal and executive communications for the 70,000-person business. Phoebe also served as the first-ever community manager for Tyco’s enterprise social network, a platform that she helped drive the launch and adoption of. She still thinks it’s the coolest job that Tyco’s ever had!

Phoebe recently relocated from New Jersey to Florida to join ADT, the security industry’s top brand, as its director of digital and social media communications. In this new role, Phoebe is responsible for driving corporate presence on ADT.com and InsideADT, ADT’s intranet. She will also be launching an enterprise social network and partnering with IT to create corporate mobile apps.

Holla at your girl!

Paul Wilmore heads up the Open Market business for Barclaycard US, the payments business of Barclays in the U.S. – based in Wilmington, Delaware. In this capacity, Paul is responsible for the Barclaycard-branded card business in the U.S. Barclaycard offers credit cards to consumers that feature low rate and rewards.

Most recently, he oversaw the US Cards acquisition and business strategy at Barclaycard US.

Paul has more than 20 years of financial services experience and has held various positions with Barclaycard US Marketing and US Cards.

He joined Juniper (purchased by Barclays) in 2000 as a senior director to head up the Business Analytics group, where he was instrumental in helping create Juniper’s products and marketing strategy. Paul also helped establish the partnership management business, managing the financial institution and T & E segments.

Paul began his career with Reliance Insurance Company where he held numerous management positions in both the finance and product departments. He holds a B.A. from Swarthmore College and an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Michael is a serial entrepreneur who has co-founded four successful internet-based media companies. He has a passion for creating, managing and growing companies from the ground up. Michael is currently Chairman and CEO of Buddy Media, Inc., a New York-based company whose social enterprise management system, the Buddy Media Social Marketing Suite, is used by eight out of the top ten global advertisers.

Before Buddy Media, Michael founded University Wire, an Associated Press-like network of more than 700 student-run newspapers, now owned by CBS Corp, and GOLF.com, a profitable online golf media company purchased by Time Warner’s Time Inc. in January 2006. In February 2007, he started Lazerow Consulting, which helps finance, launch, manage and grow numerous digital media businesses.

Michael is widely recognized as a thought leader on digital media and marketing trends and is a contributing writer to Advertising Age, AllThingsD, MediaPost, Business Insider and Fortune, among other publications. He regularly speaks at conferences including the Monaco Media Forum, the Consumer Electronics Show, South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi), Bloomberg Empowered Entrepreneur Summit, Mashable Connect, MediaPost OMMA Global, Web 2.0 Expo and iMedia Brand Summit.

Michael and his companies have won numerous industry awards and accolades. In June 2011, Michael was named the New York region Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Buddy Media was named to Advertising Age’s 2011 “Digital A-list”, Ad Week’s 2010 “Insurgent of the Year” and won the “Best Enterprise” application honor at the 2011 TechCrunch Crunchie Awards.

Michael is an active investor in digital media companies through Lazerow Ventures, a $10 million family partnership and co-investment fund he launched in 2011. Current investments include Village Vines, Saving Star, Social Flow, Social Leverage, tagman and Copious. He serves on the board of directors of Village Vines and Saving Star.

Michael lives in New York City with his wife, Kass, two sons, Myles and Cole, and daughter Vivian. He graduated from Northwestern University with a B.S. and M.S. in Journalism in 1996.

Martin Nisenholtz retired from The New York Times Company in January 2012 after almost 17 years with the organization. In February 2005, Mr. Nisenholtz was named corporate senior vice president, digital operations for The New York Times Company, responsible for the strategy development, operations and management of The New York Times Company’s digital properties.

Mr. Nisenholtz was chief executive officer of New York Times Digital from 1999 to 2005. Previously, he was president of The New York Times Electronic Media Company from 1995 to 1999. In that role, he was the founding leader at NYTimes.com.

Prior to joining the Times Company, Mr. Nisenholtz was director of content strategy for Ameritech Corporation, where he was responsible for guiding development of new video programming opportunities and interactive information and advertising services. From 1983 to 1994, Mr. Nisenholtz worked at The Ogilvy Group, where he was a senior vice president and member of the operating committee at Ogilvy & Mather Direct. In 1983 he founded the Interactive Marketing Group (IMG), the first full service unit at a major U.S. advertising agency devoted specifically to interactive communication.

Mr. Nisenholtz began his career in 1979 as an assistant professor and research scientist at New York University, where he participated on the founding faculty of the Interactive Telecommunications Program and worked on pioneering interactive media efforts in the areas of education, healthcare and public information.

Mr. Nisenholtz is an active leader in the advertising and publishing industry and founded the Online Publishers Association in 2002. He continues to serve on the board of the OPA. He is also a board member at the Center for Communication and serves on the audit committee for the Ad Council.

Mr. Nisenholtz is a Director of Yellow Media Inc., a publicly traded Canadian company. He also serves on the boards of Exelate, a privately held data and analytics company based in New York, and Sulia, a privately held expert network.

Mr. Nisenholtz received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School of Communication.

Boff is responsible for setting GE’s digital marketing, social media, content and commercial strategy globally. Additionally, she leads experiential marketing, user experience, and sponsorship for GE.

Previously, Boff was CMO of iVillage Properties, part of the NBC Universal. Boff joined GE in early 2004 with 18 years of experience in marketing, advertising and communications including senior roles at Citigroup, the American Museum of Natural History and Porter Novelli.

Boff was named B2B Magazine’s 2012 Digital Marketer of Year. She is a frequent speaker at digital and social media industry events.

Boff earned a BA in Political Science and Psychology from Union College. She lives in Irvington, NY with her husband and two children.

Jermaine Dupri has established a successful career as a hip-hop artist, producer, songwriter, author, and CEO of So So Def Recordings, which he founded in 1989. He has collaborated with artists such as Usher, Mariah Carey, and Nelly. In 2011, Jermaine launched Global 14, which consists of more than 1,100 groups who share common interests such as fashion, hip-hop, and R&B.

According to Jermaine, “Global 14 is about redefining the meaning of online friends as members of diverse groups who share their interests and care about each other instead of just accumulating Followers and Likes. Anyone who joins Global 14 knows I’m the most active participant, whether I’m responding to members personally or sharing myself with you.”

His career milestones include the release of several platinum recordings as CEO of So So Def, winning a Grammy for Best R&B Song, and being honored with an ASCAP Golden Note Award, given to composers and songwriters who have achieved extraordinary milestones. He is one of only a few producers in music history to garner four positions in the Top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart at one time. He is also the first recipient of the Billboard Otis Redding Excellence Award for his achievements both in and outside the studio.

In 2012, Jermaine entered into an innovative co-branding relationship with global digital marketing agency iCrossing in order to build a more connected brand for Global 14 and co-create thought leadership.

Engage with Jermaine Dupri on Global 14, on Twitter, via his iPhone app, and through his YouTube channel.

Frank Eliason, Citibank’s Senior Vice President of Social Media, has been described as the “most famous customer service manager in the U.S., possibly the world.” By expanding the reach of customer service via social media, and taking the simple approach of asking “Can we help?” he repositioned the relationship between Comcast and its customers. His efforts at Comcast inspired a global wave of innovation in the way businesses communicate and engage with their customers—using new communication channels to improve customer experience.

In April 2012, Wiley published his first book, @YourService. The book is a look at the intersection of Customer Service, PR and marketing.

Prior to joining Citibank, Frank was best known to many as the voice behind @ComcastCares, one of the earliest examples of how a business can use social networks to proactively listen and respond to customer concerns in real-time. His work with Comcast’s customers is one of the top case studies proving that social media can play a positive role for corporations. This work has been recognized by many news organizations such as ABC News, CNN, The New York Times, Business Week, and many others. He is also one of the most sought-after thought leaders on social media and customer experience, and regularly participates in panels and speaking engagements.

At Citibank, Frank and his team are helping to change the way a global financial institution manages its relationships with a diverse community of consumer, small business and corporate customers—to serve and exceed their expectations and helping build a lifetime of trust between Citibank and its customers.
Prior to joining Comcast in 2007, Frank worked in customer Service management for Advanta Bank and Vanguard Investments.

Frank is a board member for both the Council of Better Business Bureaus and SOCAP (Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals). He also serves on the advisory board for Drexel University’s Center for Corporate Reputation Management.

Deanna Brown is FMP’s chief executive officer and is responsible for overseeing all strategic business goals and day-to-day operations for the company. Prior to joining FMP in 2009, she served as President at Scripps Networks Digital, where she led the charge on bringing Scripps more fully into the digital space. In 1995 she co-founded CondeNet, the digital division of publisher CondeNast.

She has also held VP and General Manager titles at Yahoo and AOL, and founded other successful media companies including Powerful Media/Inside.com (acquired by Primedia) and Gaming Industry News (acquired by Ziff Davis).

Brown began her career as a founding member of a small L.A. advertising agency upon graduation from the University of Southern California. She has more than twenty-five years experience as a seasoned media executive, entrepreneur and Fortune 500 executive.

David Rogers is a widely-recognized leader on brands and digital strategy, known for his unique insights into customer networks. He is the author, most recently, of The Network Is Your Customer: 5 Strategies to Thrive in a Digital Age. 

David advises companies and speaks at conferences worldwide on the ways that customer networks are transforming brands and business strategy. He has consulted on marketing and digital strategy for global companies such as Visa, Lily, SAP, Kohler, China Eastern Airlines, and many others. He has appeared on CNN, CNBC, Marketplace, Reuters, MSN Money, and Channel NewsAsia.

At Columbia Business School, David is the faculty director of the executive program in Digital Marketing Strategy, and the founder of the acclaimed BRITE conference on brands, innovation, and technology.

His latest research, and next book, will be on how companies can link digital strategies to clear business objectives in an era of constant disruptive change.

David Berkowitz is Vice President of Emerging Media with digital marketing agency 360i, where he develops social media and mobile marketing programs for Fortune 500 businesses and leading brands such as Kraft, JCPenney, and Bravo. He writes the weekly Social Media Insider for MediaPost, with more than 350 columns published to date, and contributes to 360i’s Digital Connections, Ad Age’s Digital Next Blog, and his own MarketersStudio.com. He has spoken at more than 150 events including SXSW, Web 2.0 Expo, Blog World Expo, ThinkMobile, and iMedia, with guest lectures at Yale, MIT, Google, and Coca-Cola. You can also find him mentioned regularly in the press, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and USA Today.

Before the summer of 2011 Daria Musk was a young singer/songwriter with big dreams, an entrepreneurial streak, and a global-sized heart. A weekend of lugging her guitar amps through the rain and an invitation to Google+ sparked the idea to perform a live concert via Google+’s video chat feature, “Hangouts”.

Girl in the woods of Connecticut turned early-adopter and went global overnight. Daria is breaking new ground, pushing the boundaries in music, tech and social media, and she’s doing it in a grass-roots, heart-driven way with her “G+niuses” – The global community gathering around her music. It’s her genuine enthusiasm, passion, voice and songs that seem to inspire and engage fans all over the world.

She’s been featured by Billboard Magazine, Entertainment Tonight and Good Morning America. She gave her first TED Talk, hit stages and panels for SXSW, CMJ, BMI, MIDEM, BAFTA, GRAMMY, Google and more. She’s now taking her online connection to the live stage – creating interactive global concerts everywhere she goes.

Britta Schell is an independent consultant for hire specializing in insights, strategy and innovation. She brings nearly a decade in insights, strategy, brands and advertising to the table, as well as a lifetime of being a digital native and gamer. Passionate about developing and implementing great strategy and innovative insights to help brands and business achieve, Britta also has a special expertise in the digital and social space.

Britta has worked on digital, brand and innovation insights and strategy as well as creative campaigns and a few launches for a diverse group of brands including Coca-Cola, American Express, MTV, HBO, eos, P&G, Virgin America, Agent Provocateur, Jawbone, and the nonprofit Nanhi Kali. Most recently serving as Director, Digital Strategic Insights at MTV, Britta has also worked at Anomaly, StrawberryFrog and Digitas.

Jesse Redniss is senior vice president, digital, for USA Network where he spearheads the channel’s Social TV initiatives, technology innovations, monetization strategies and content development for its digital properties. He is also responsible for expanding successful network executions to other NBCU properties with a focus on gaming.
With his vision and leadership, and the help of the USA digital team, Redniss has firmly established the channel as a trailblazer on several fronts: defining SocialTV and demonstrating best practices with the creation of Character Chatter, the network’s proprietary SocialTV messaging platform; creating USA Anywhere, the network’s second screen companion app; applying gaming mechanics site-wide as best exemplified by the award winning Club Psych; expanding the broadcast narrative off-channel via transmedia storytelling like the award winning graphic novel Burn Notice: A New Day; and launching standalone social games, such as the Emmy nominated PSYCH’s HashTag Killer, which won the Shorty Award for Best Social Media Campaign for Television and the Social TV Summit Award for Best Cable Network Social TV Award.
Under Redniss’ leadership, the digital team has also gained industry recognition through various awards, including the interactive Emmy for two AdAge Media Vanguard Awards, Web Marketing Association for the Broadcast and TV web site of the year, for more than three years running (2007, 2008 and 2009), the 2008 Beacon Award, and two Addy awards. Redniss was named Social TV Marketer of the year by the Social TV Summit and Multichannel News ranked him as one of the 40 under 40 to watch in the digital world.
Before joining USA, Redniss worked at Tangible Media on the Atari and Midway games accounts and several leading advertising agencies specializing in media planning, buying and interactive strategy. He also held positions within the music industry at Volatile Media and SONY 550DMV.

Jonah Peretti is Founder and CEO of BuzzFeed, the first true social news organization that provides a pioneering mix of breaking news, entertainment and shareable content. Mr. Peretti, known for creating viral hits, tracking online social behavior and building technology to amplify buzz is also a co-founder of The Huffington Post. He has been called a “viral marketing hotdog” by the New York Times, “the poster boy of guerilla media” by AlterNet and a “computer-whiz” by The New Yorker.  Fast Company named Mr. Peretti one of the “New Faces of Social Media” and Business Insider listed him as one of the “11 Rising Tech Stars to Watch in 2012.”

Mr. Peretti is a graduate of the MIT Media Lab and has taught at NYU and the Parsons School of Design. His work has been covered by Time, the Economist, Fortune, and Business Insider and he has appeared as a guest on the Today Show, Good Morning America and CNN.

In 2012, Mr. Peretti launched five new verticals on BuzzFeed: including Politics, a tech vertical called FWD,  a lifestyle vertical called Shift, Sports and Animals. Ben Smith of POLITICO was hired in January 2012 to lead as Editor-in-Chief. BuzzFeed reaches over 20 million monthly unique visitors and gets the majority of its traffic from social sources like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and more.

Raina Kumra, is the founder of the Agency for Holistic Branding / Juggernaut, a strategic design firm focused on creating cultural impact.

She also serves as Director of Innovation at the Broadcasting Board of Governors, along with Robert Bole. The new leadership team are taking the federal agency responsible for international media and updating its content, access and distribution for the digital age, collaborating with private sector partners and BBG Networks: the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio and TV Marti, Radio Free Asia, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.

Prior to the BBG served as Senior New Media Advisor in the State Department’s Office of eDiplomacy, Diplomatic Innovation Division.  Previously, Raina led the conversion of Wieden+Kennedy New York to a full-service digital agency in her role as Director of Digital Strategies.

Raina was recently featured on the cover of Fast Company magazine, dubbed as a pioneer of the new and chaotic frontier of business known as Generation Flux. Raina holds degrees from Harvard (MDesS: Design, Digital & Planning), New York University (MPS: Interactive Telecommunications) & Boston University (BS: Film & Television Production). She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a longtime TED attendee.

She serves on the Advisory Boards for MedicMobile, (open source mobile health), SMS:Credit (open source micro-finance tools), EpidemIQ (open data for health) and Sanjhi (media literacy for Indian youth).

Raina has worked with HP, Microsoft, Burberry, Nike, Nokia, Levi’s, Unilever, Nestle, Avaya, IBM, Intel, Cantor Fitzgerald, Johnnie Walker, Match.com, ING Direct, ONE.org, Mentos, JWT, ABC Family, EA, ESPN, Brand Jordan, and several others blue-chip brands to help drive creative and innovative strategies across media.

Danna Vetter is Vice President, Consumer Strategy for ARAMARK. An executive stakeholder, thought-leader and consumer marketer,  Vetter has built a diverse team of subject matter experts that play an integral role in developing the platforms, practices and implementation standards that engage consumers in more meaningful ways to increase demand, foster advocacy and accelerate profitable growth.   Under her leadership, the organization leverages insights and analytics to drive profitable growth by optimizing the entire consumer experience through quality products, environments, promotions and service.

Translating market insights and transaction-level data into actionable business decisions to create an exceptional consumer experience; constructing integrated engagement and promotion platforms that create awareness, interest and demand; activating vendor brand relationships to enhance the consumer experience; leveraging digital technology and social channels to listen, learn, engage and measure; incorporating modern conveniences and sensory experiences to amplify the environment; developing customer service standards of excellence; implementing disciplined execution standards and compliance mechanisms; and deploying tools that measure performance against key consumer satisfaction drivers are all components of ARAMARK’s comprehensive consumer-centric platform.

Vetter is responsible for translating consumer strategies into actionable and scalable platforms while managing a closed-loop accountability process including business unit adoption and field compliance.

Prior to joining ARAMARK in 2008, Danna served as Vice President of Business Development for Alloy Media + Marketing, one of the country’s largest providers of targeted non-traditional media and marketing solutions. While at Alloy, Danna was responsible for developing and implementing integrated consumer marketing plans for key brands including Verizon Wireless, myspace.com, mtv, Citibank, Sprint, Pokemon, XM Satellite Radio, Maybelline, Cox Communications and AOL.

Wendy Lea is the CEO of Get Satisfaction, a community-based platform that helps companies engage their customers through open and transparent conversations that increase customer satisfaction, product insight and enhance customer loyalty. Wendy founded The Chatham Group, where she currently serves as an angel investor, strategic advisor and board member for a long list of startup companies. Wendy chairs the board for The Forum of Women Entrepreneurs & Executives (FWE&E.org) and serves on the board of Silicon Valley Social Venture Capital (SV2.org). She has been recognized as a Top 100 Woman of Influence in Silicon Valley.

Bridget Dolan is Sephora’s Vice President of Interactive Media running Social Media, Mobile, Digital Store Experience and Business Development.  Bridget has led Sephora’s direct marketing efforts for the last 11 years, launching social site features such as Ratings & Reviews, BeautyTalk, SephoraTV and Pinterest, as well as expanding Sephora’s social presence and engagement in Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram. Bridget is driving the vision for Sephora’s mobile strategy, for which Sephora secured the top spot in L2’s first Prestige Mobile IQ report.  Prior to Sephora, Bridget directed online marketing at Eve.com, an early beauty start-up, and at the Left Field agency driving online advertising for clients such as Amazon, drugstore.com and Hotmail. Before she crossed into the online sector, Bridget worked in brand management for Castrol Sports, pioneering a co-branded line with Trek bicycles.  Bridget started her career in marketing and research for Walgreens, testing store concepts and forecasting sales for the chain. She holds a BS in Accounting and an MBA in Marketing.

As the chief marketing officer (CMO) of SAP, Jonathan Becher oversees the development and execution of marketing strategy across the globe. He champions SAP’s focus on customers and world-class innovations, while continuing Marketing’s focus on building the SAP brand. Jonathan reports to Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe, co-CEOs of SAP AG. He is also part of the Global Customer Organization (GCO) leadership team.

Prior to taking the role of CMO, Jonathan most recently served as executive vice president of regional, solution, and partner marketing, during which he laid the foundation to enhance Marketing’s impact on pipeline and revenue.

Jonathan joined SAP from its 2007 acquisition of Pilot Software, where he was president and chief executive officer. Prior to leading Pilot Software, he was CEO and president of Accrue Software, a publically-traded Web site analytics company, and president, CEO, and co-founder of NeoVista Software, a pioneer in the predictive analytics and data mining markets. Earlier in his career, he held a variety of senior roles at MasPar Computer Corporation.

Jonathan is a frequent speaker at industry events, an active member of the enterprise applications community, and author of multiple papers on a wide range of subjects, including a popular blog.

Jonathan holds a master’s degree in computer science from Duke University in North Carolina, and a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the University of Virginia.

Ron Faris is the Head of Brand Marketing at Virgin Mobile USA. He is responsible for managing all of Virgin Mobile USA’s events and sponsorships, mobile advertising, and cause-related marketing initiatives (including The RE*Generation, Virgin Mobile’s pro-social initiative committed to ending youth homelessness). His branded content initiatives span both broadcast and digital media, focusing primarily on social networking and short-form viral videos. He is also responsible for the Virgin Mobile Festival franchise, Virgin Mobile’s largest marketing initiative. The festival, now the largest on the East Coast, boasts the largest acts in the nation, including Kanye West, Bob Dylan, Foofighters, and Jack Johnson.

Prior to joining Virgin Mobile, Ron was director of strategic partnerships at Atari, the video game company. There, he was instrumental in building content licensing deals focusing on mobile platforms, interactive TV, and in-game music development. Ron also served as brand director, building robust multi-platform marketing programs for games such as “The Matrix: Path of Neo”. Ron began his career working at Accenture for six years in their telecommunications and media & entertainment consulting practices. He then joined Scient Corporation (now SBI Razorfish) where he spent four years managing digital marketing initiatives, including the re-launch of several web portals in the financial services sector. Ron is a native New Yorker and an award-winning short filmmaker. His films and documentaries have exhibited at several film festivals and cable networks, including HBO. He lives in Manhattan with his wife Danielle, and his daughter, Austen Layla.

Ellen McGirt is a senior writer with Fast Company, where she writes the type of long form profiles that everyone says will soon go the way of the dodo. She hopes everyone is wrong on this one. During the past five years, she’s had the time to explore and explain the people, technology and companies who are shaping the world, among them Mark Zuckerberg, Al Gore, Jack Dorsey, Maria Eitel, Chris Hughes, Ursula Burns, and Nike’s Mark Parker.  Her love of digital remains strong, however, and she started Fast Company’s 30 Second MBA series in 2009.  She’s also written for Fortune, Time and Money, which rings more like a Dickensian law firm than magazines she loved. Previously, when the web was young, she was the founder of a financial website for women called Cassandra’s Revenge.

After leaving Germany, Nils Gums attended Berklee school of Music (where he is now a contributing member on the board of trustees) before founding RAWsession and subsequently The Complex Group.

The Complex Group specializes in a progressive and comprehensive approach to music management, distribution and production in an ever-changing, multi-media landscape. By incorporating video production and approaching the media world with a disruptive vision and a inclusive approach to emerging audio and video techniques, the Complex Group have been able to provide artists with complimentary synergies that drive the monetization of creative properties.

Most recently, Complex was essential in breaking Karmin by applying a formula created by Nils Gums while progressing the viral artists development platform, RAWsession. This multitiered online viral strategy utilizes free-forms of media to mature and propagate artists.

As Director of Social Media Planning & Integration at Hilton Worldwide, Vanessa leads global social strategy, working closely with the company’s ten brands, loyalty program, and various departments with a stake in social. Strategic initiatives under Vanessa’s leadership include the Guest Assistance Social Media Response Team and Hilton Suggests. Prior to this role, Vanessa was on the marketing team for the opening of the first-ever newly built Waldorf Astoria. Vanessa holds an MBA from the Crummer Graduate School of Business. She is a self-proclaimed foodie and in her spare time blogs about her cooking adventures at http://cookingconsal.wordpress.com

John is an American actor, television personality and stand-up comedian. He has been on stage and screen, been a host and a presenter and a political commentator. John has a new show on Current TV called ”John Fugelsang: So That Happened” that has an aim to “provide laughs and an irreverent tone, while discussing some serious issues and substantive topics.”

Sharifali is the Executive Director of Scientists Without Borders, (scientistswithoutborders.org) a global partnership that aims to improve the quality of life in the developing world by linking, mobilizing, and coordinating science-based activities, initiatives, and resources. For example, via web-based technology the group has posted challenges to find strategies and solutions to combat child malnutrition, infant mortality, water pollution and more.

Ask Russ about his first experience with branding and without hesitation he’ll mention a Coca-Cola promotional chalkboard that he bought when he was a youngster. “I coveted that chalkboard,” he says, “and I still own it today.” Even at an early age, Russ recognized the power of branded communications to engage the emotions.

Since becoming a marketing professional, Russ’s focus has been helping companies across the globe deliver remarkably clear and unexpectedly fresh brand experiences. His expertise includes corporate and brand positioning, communications strategy, account management as well as new product ideation and formulation.

Before joining us Russ was the chief strategy officer for Landor Associates. In this role he worked with teams around the world to drive business growth for leading companies such as Disney, DreamWorks, Barclays Bank, H&R Block, FedEx, Procter & Gamble, Wolfgang Puck and Yahoo! Russ held several other roles at Landor including brand group leader and executive director of Strategic Services.

Russ is a frequent commentator on brands, business and sustainability, and has been a guest lecturer at the University of California’s Haas School of Business and San Francisco State University. He has been quoted in Advertising Age, the New York Daily News, BusinessWeek, CMOmagazine, and has appeared on CBS’s MarketWatch and CNBC’s Squawk Box. As an expert on brands and sustainability, Russ blogs for Fast Company magazine.

Russ earned his BA from the University of Minnesota and holds an MFA in design from Northwestern University. He also graduated from the Kellogg School of Management with a master’s degree in management.

Brian holds a baccalaureate in math and physics, but ask him which teacher influenced his life most and he’ll mention the comp lit instructor who changed the way he thought about language. It’s that appetite for information across all arenas—as a child, his broad intellectual curiosity made him want to be an inventor—that makes Brian the ideal leader of our overall Research practice. His team digs into the facts and figures of our clients’ industries to mine powerful insights that build world-class brands. They translate complex data into clear, simple, purposeful ideas with the precision of—well, of physicists.

Brian has worked extensively for over a decade in marketing strategy, brand positioning, and quantitative and qualitative research, serving clients big and small across a variety of industries: financial services, professional services, high technology, retail, consumer goods, non-profit, health care and biotechnology.

Before joining Siegel+Gale, he spent four years as managing director of research and strategy at The Brand Union overseeing research and strategy projects for BlackRock, Pernod Ricard, Johnson & Johnson, Cadbury, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, HP, Coca-Cola, Alcatel-Lucent and others. Before that, he served as co-principal and managing director of boutique research and consulting firm Plaid, where he led business and product growth strategies for the United States Postal Service, Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Voss Artesian Water. He also worked as a research and planning manager for New York ad agency Ferrell Calvillo, and as a senior executive for research consultancy Summus.

Brian was born and raised in France. In addition to his baccalaureate in math and physics from France’s Lycée Pasteur, he’s a graduate of Princeton University.

Shane Steele is Twitter’s head of global sales marketing, where she leads sales enablement, client education, and integrated marketing for Twitter’s advertising business. She joined the company in February 2011 from Yahoo!, where she served as the company’s vice president of global marketing. Before Yahoo!, Shane held a variety of marketing positions at companies including Coca-Cola, Sapient, and Tremor Video.  Shane is a graduate of Cornell University and currently resides in San Francisco, CA.

Linda Holliday is a media, internet and marketing veteran, serial-entrepreneur and active angel investor in digital media companies including Comixology, ScrollMotion and Organized Wisdom. She recently formed a start-up to publish serious non-fiction mobile apps. Founder and former president of Medical Broadcasting Company, now Digitas Health, a Publicis Company.

The company, a digital pioneer, built more than 1000 web sites, ran complex relationship programs on and off-line, designed robust educational programs and led industry efforts with major media and search companies. In addition to general executive responsibilities as President of MBC, Linda also led marketing, media, innovation, and business development. Digitas Health now operates with more that 500 employees out of 4 cities.

Linda’s digital communications passions include search, user experience and information architecture. A contributor to TED conference founder Richard Wurman’s Understanding series, she has been recognized for bringing fresh thinking to traditional and new media. Linda is an active advisor-consultant whose interests still center on the intersection between old and new media.

In addition to helping clients such as Johnson and Johnson launch various new products and businesses, She also successfully created and exited a thought-leading internet business intelligence company (ePharmaceuticals) as well as a production business that produced syndicated television programs (including Bodysense hosted by Mike Rowe.)

After receiving a BFA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from the Wharton School, Linda led marketing for a nationally known commercial, film and Imax film production company and for several Cablevision sports channels.

Ian Schafer, CEO and Founder of Deep Focus (a part of Engine USA), is one of advertising’s most influential voices in interactive marketing and social media. Prior to founding Deep Focus in 2002, Ian was Vice President of the New Media division of Miramax Films.
Deep Focus is an award-winning engagement and innovation agency boasting a client roster that includes brands such as AMC, Microsoft, Capital One, WellPoint, The National Association of Realtors, Samsung, and MoMA.
Under Ian’s guidance, Deep Focus has been lauded for its expertise and excellence at using digital media, technology, creative, and communications strategies to create engaging, value-driven experiences that get people talking. The Emmy®-nominated firm has been responsible for many memorable, award-winning efforts over the years including 2009’s MadMenYourself.com, and has been the recipient of numerous distinctions, including several Webby Awards and a Cannes Gold Lion.
Named a ‘Media Maven’ by Advertising Age and one of Adweek’s “Young Ones”, Ian has been featured in Wired, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Adweek, Advertising Age, USA Today, New York Magazine, Variety, CNN, Fortune, The Hollywood Reporter and The Harvard Business Review. Ian also sits on the executive board of the Social Media Advertising Consortium, and the Global Advisory Board of Global Social Media Week.
An avid technologist, Ian blogs at http://www.ianschafer.com and can be followed on Twitter athttp://www.twitter.com/ischafer.

Andrew Herwitz is president of The Film Sales Company, the New York based sales agent/financier. Recent completed fiction films sold and/or financed include  Meet Monica Velour starring Kim Cattrell, Serious Moonlight starring Meg Ryan and Timothy Hutton, sold to Magnolia/Lifetime, Sundance Film Festival sensations Adam and  Waitress (both sold to Fox Searchlight ),  and The Poughkeepsie Tapes (MGM).

The Company has particular expertise in financing and selling documentary films. Among the more notable documentary films the Company has financed and/or sold are Sundance sensations Room 237, Stacy Peralta’s The Bones Brigade:An Autobiography,  and Pennebaker/Hegedus’ The Kings of Pastry, War Dance (Academy Award Nominee), Iraq in Fragments ( Academy Award Nominee), Born Into Brothels (Academy Award Winner, Best Documentary), My Architect (Academy Award Nominee) and Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11.

Prior to establishing this company in 2002, Herwitz was at Miramax for six years where he served  as head of the film acquisitions department. Before that he practiced entertainment law at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison in New York City. Herwitz  is a graduate of Harvard College, Columbia Business School and Harvard Law School and lives in New York City with his wife and three children.

Maria Poveromo is the Senior Director of Social Media, Analyst Relations and Public Relations at Adobe Systems Inc..  She is responsible for driving social media strategy and influencer relation programs for the company.  Her team established the organizational framework and strategic direction for social media activities worldwide.  Prior to this role, Maria led the Global Public Relations team at Adobe for nine years.   Before Joining Adobe, Maria held numerous marketing and communications positions at high technology companies located in Silicon Valley and in Europe.

Jimmy Soni is the Managing Editor of the Huffington Post Media Group. He has worked as a speech writer and policy aide in Washington, DC. He is also the co-author of a forthcoming biography on Cato the Younger and the ancient Roman republic, set for release in 2012.

Travis Walter Donovan is Executive Products Editor for The Huffington Post and was formerly editor of HuffPost Green. He currently resides in New York, NY.

Sam Napolitano is the Head of Social Media at the Huffington Post. He joined the team in June of 2011 after 6 years with Lawyers.com where he was the Manager of Web Services Technology. He is an open source contributor and an active member in the web development community.

Bob has dedicated his career to removing obstacles between artists and fans. He’s managed bands and events and created artist web sites. In 1996, he created one of the web’s first licensed streaming music sites. Prior to Topspin, Bob worked at Yahoo! Music, founded the media agency Closed System, and worked closely with the Sundance Institute and the NEA to help musicians, filmmakers and educators connect with fans online. Bob holds degrees from KU and Carnegie Mellon, and teaches Digital Media Strategy in Carnegie Mellon’s Master of Entertainment Industry Management program.

Julie Blattberg is Director, Marketing Content, at HarperCollins Publishers, responsible for the company’s corporate-branded social media, and leading the development of strategies, products, and programs to increase digital reach for house authors and brands. A book-industry veteran, she works closely with internal marketing teams — locally and globally — to create platforms that foster discoverability and conversations around all things bookish.

Standing at the crossroads of digital, editorial, and marketing, Julie is a self-proclaimed Twitter junkie, social media evangelist, data enthusiast, communications philosopher, storyteller, reader, and author; she thinks in keywords, counts her clicks, and watches her Klout score.

Dean Praetorius is the Director of Trends & Social Media at the Huffington Post, overseeing the site’s social media team as well as a team of editors focused on viral content and breaking news. Originally from Long Island, he now lives in Brooklyn, NY.