Speakers Include:

Randall Beard serves as global head of advertiser solutions for The Nielsen Company. Appointed to this role in 2010, Randall is responsible for helping clients build brand equity and ROI via improved advertising and media programs. His responsibilities are global and include the CPG, technology, financial services, automotive, telecom, network and other sectors. Prior to this role, he worked as the global evp and general manager at Nielsen Advertiser Solutions, responsible for consumer packaged goods. Randall has 25-plus years of global experience across consumer packaged goods, financial services and high-touch service brands, including Procter & Gamble, American Express and UBS.

Christina Bennett is the manager of public relations and social media for Elizabeth Arden, Inc. In this role, she is responsible for U.S. publicity efforts and global PR strategy for the namesake Arden skincare, color and fragrance portfolios. Additionally, she leads U.S. social media strategy and execution for the Elizabeth Arden brand. Previously, she held several positions in both U.S. and global public relations at Avon Products. Christina began her career in the beauty division of LaForce + Stevens

David Berkowitz is Vice President of Emerging Media at digital agency 360i. A frequent speaker and media pundit, he has been published hundreds of times in Digiday, Ad Age, MediaPost, eMarketer, Mashable and elsewhere. David has spoken at 150+ events including, but not limited to, ad tech, SXSW, iMedia and DMA.

Linda 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, she was CMO of iVillage Properties, part of NBC Universal. She 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. Linda was named B2B Magazine’s 2012 Digital Marketer of the Year.

Tim Brown has more than 13 years experience in the digital advertising industry. Prior to his role at Exponential, he was EU general manager of Tribal Fusion. He was previously vp of ad products and platforms, Europe, at Yahoo, following the company’s acquisition of behavioral online advertising provider BlueLithium, where he was European managing director. He is a non-executive director at MymCart, a self-service mobile commerce platform, sits on the advisory panel at mobile demand-side advertising platform StrikeAd and non-executive director at Rippll, an in-app location-based marketing technology company.

As head of digital for Puma, Remi is responsible for developing the company’s digital marketing creative and content strategy, while overseeing the digital technology strategy, driving traffic to Puma’s on-line owned and earned marketing and commerce sites. Additionally, he is responsible for curating Puma’s digital footprint, working with sports and product managers to drive marketing campaigns, and proving the brand as a digital marketing and communications innovator and leader within the industry. Previously, he was editor-in-chief at the Museum Magazine in Boston

Neil Chase consults for publishers, marketers and technology companies, with expertise in journalism, content strategy and social media. He has worked as an editor at The New York Times, CBS MarketWatch, The Arizona Republic, and The San Francisco Examiner, was a journalism professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, and most recently was svp for editorial and publishing at Federated Media.

Albert Chung is CEO and co-founder of Pictorious, a mobile app development company that helps brands use photo-sharing to engage with their customers. Using the platform, brands can cost-efficiently create customized photo-sharing apps complete with contests, promotions and game mechanics. Brands use these apps to engage with their customer base and get real people sharing photos of themselves interacting with the brand’s products.

Carmen D’Ascendis is the director of global marketing for Jack Daniel’s brands at Brown-Forman Corporation. The first task he received, after he was promoted to his current role early in 2011, was to direct the introduction campaign of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey, which has since become the most successful line extension in Brown-Forman history. Carmen previously held marketing posts on four continents after joining Brown-Forman in 1992. Under his direction, the Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey roll-out has been driven by a well-crafted campaign of innovative digital and television advertising. It  became the first alcoholic beverage brand to buy ad space on Twitter, and the Tennessee Honey campaign utilizes many additional elements of mobile marketing and social networking.

Linda is president and CEO of Women & Co., a service of Citi that brings women relevant financial content and thoughtful commentary to get them thinking and talking about money. Linda also serves as a managing director and head of partnerships and branded content for North America Marketing at Citi. In this role, Linda is responsible for managing Citi’s key digital partnerships, from strategy to execution, to drive brand health and customer engagement goals. Previously, Linda was a director and portfolio manager in Citi’s Private Portfolio Group, where she co-managed customized investment portfolios for individuals and institutions and oversaw the firm’s socially responsible investment program. Before that, she served as svp and director of environmental affairs for Citi predecessor’s company, Salomon Inc., which she joined in 1994. Prior to embarking on a career in finance, Linda spent several years working in environmental consulting.  Linda is a member of the CFA  Institute,  New York Women in Communications and the Forbes Executive Women Board, among other.

Driven by his passion for disruptive technologies, Srini Dharmaji has been at the forefront of mobile, voice, data and multimedia innovations for more than 15 years. As GoldSpot’s CEO, he is the company’s key innovator, responsible for setting strategic direction and overseeing the company’s rapid growth and leadership in interactive advertising solutions for mobile media applications including video and broadcast. Srini is the inventor of scores of patents in mobile interactive advertising that covers the gamut from interactive ad unit creation, targeting and campaign scheduling to dynamic ad-insertion, call-to-action enablement and fulfillment, and measurements.

As a vp and principal analyst serving interactive marketing professionals, Nate Elliott helps companies develop interactive marketing strategies for global and emerging markets, with a special focus on branding channels such as social media and online video advertising. His clients come from nearly every industry — including consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, and financial services — and from all over the world. Nate worked at DoubleClick from 1997 until 2001, managing the DoubleClick Studio advertising design team and serving as the company’s senior manager for rich media products. In 2001, he founded the US IAB’s Rich Media Task Force and set the first industry standards for rich media and video ads. He’s also worked for Macromedia (now Adobe) developing rich media products and standards, and has been with Forrester since 2003.

Aubrey Flynn is the brand content director for The Blue Flame Agency. Since joining the team, he has served as Sean Combs Enterprises’ chief architect on digital initiatives for accounts including Universal Pictures, Interscope Records, Macy’s, Estee Lauder and Diageo. In addition, he has been instrumental in strategically aligning client objectives with digital programming among leading online outlets. In this role, he offers forward-thinking strategy for website development and design, social media engagement, mobile marketing, database management and email marketing campaigns. Flynn has led the agency in pushing the envelope in the social media space and has set the bar for branded entertainment consumed online. Prior to Blue Flame Agency, Aubrey managed multi-million dollar projects for leading pharmaceutical company Pfizer. Flynn ensured all deliverables including copy, design and programming development were of the highest quality for products including Aciphex, Xarelto and others. He also led his own interactive agency in Midtown Manhattan, helping secure and direct accounts for Toyota, Pepsi, and Iconix Brands, as well as coordinating e-commerce projects for Carolines.com and SundialCreations.com

Adam is director, digital marketing and social media at The Campbell Soup Company. In his role he is responsible for developing a global digital marketing and social media strategy that encompasses both consumer-facing communications and corporate initiatives to make Campbell one of the most digitally fit organizations in the world. Adam’s career spans both the client and agency sides of the marketing and advertising industry, covering stops at  Fallon, Leo Burnett, and ConAgra Foods. His focus has always been on solving business problems by leveraging consumer driven insights to fuel creative ideation.

Carol Kruse spearheads all aspects of development, management and expansion of the ESPN brand, including the marketing of ESPN’s television, broadband, digital, mobile, radio and print assets, including studio and live sports programming. She also drives ESPN’s social networking strategies. In addition, Carol oversees ESPN’s internal creative services team, events team, customer care and fan relationship marketing, while also driving the brand development and marketing of ESPN consumer products, the Winter and Summer X Games, ESPN Films and Grantland.com. Carol previously spent nine years at The Coca-Cola Company, leading its global interactive marketing team as vice president. She joined Coca-Cola North America in 2001, when the company acquired RocketCash, an online payments and consumer promotions start-up she co-founded. While at Coke, Carol led her team in the development of the “My Coke Rewards” loyalty and relationship marketing program, which debuted in 2006 and currently has more than 16 million members. Prior to co-founding RocketCash, she worked in brand management at The Clorox Company and was vice president at Storm Technologies, a maker of consumer digital imaging products in Mountain View, Calif. An avid athlete and sports fan, Carol was recently named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business in 2011.

Cordell Lawrence is the global community manager for Jack Daniel’s Family of Brands (Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey, Gentleman Jack and Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel). In this role, he has led the growth of Jack Daniel’s into the top brand page on Facebook in the spirits/wine category. Cordell joined Brown-Forman from Doe-Anderson, where he was an account manager, responsible for guiding communications initiatives as well as managing marketing, advertising and brand campaigns.

Anthony joined Coca-Cola in July 2011. He’s responsible for designing thoughtful communications strategy across owned, shared, earned and paid media channels for vitaminwater and smartwater brands. Prior to this role, Anthony worked at American Express, where he led digital and social media strategy development for its entertainment access portfolio.

In his role at Nissan North America, Erich Marx is responsible for the strategy, planning and execution of the Nissanusa.com Website, as well as all social media marketing/PR for the Nissan division. In this leadership role, he guides Nissan’s online messaging and brand stewardship through customer-facing and press-facing channels. He’s been with Nissan for 21 years, working in a variety of disciplines including sales, marketing, distribution and research.

Neil’s inspiration for nRelate came as he scoured a favorite blog for additional information about a particular topic. Unsuccessful, he ended up searching Google, which turned up the exact posts he was looking for — from the site he was just on. Thinking there had to be a better way for bloggers to surface their troves of great content and more effectively engage readers, he founded nRelate, a content discovery platform now serving 35,000 publishers, empowering them to both increase traffic and drive revenue through sponsored article recommendations. As CEO, Neil oversees all business operations, working to ensure nRelate’s products continue to push the technological envelope and deliver publishers the results for which they’re looking. Prior to nRelate, Neil spent several years as an independent software consultant and was a part of the technology group at McKinsey & Company.

Joshua is a digital brand manager at PepsiCo, where he drives the digital marketing agenda for the Pepsi Lipton Partnership, North American Coffee Partnership with Starbucks and Pepsi Next, Diet Pepsi and Pepsi Max brands.

Ian Schafer is one of advertising’s most influential voices in interactive marketing and social media. Prior to founding Deep Focus in 2002, Ian was vp of the New Media division of Miramax Films. Deep Focus is an award-winning integrated digital agency, powered by social media boasting a client roster that includes brands such as Pepsi, Microsoft, Capital One, WellPoint, NestlePurina and The National Association of Realtors. 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 Award-winning 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 IAB & Webby Awards and a Cannes Gold Lion.

As CEO of InferSystems, interactive veteran Sunil Sharma is responsible for setting and executing the company’s strategic vision and delivering its math-based optimization products to clients across the media and advertising supply chain. Prior to InferSystems, Sunil was director of trading at Adnetik, where he launched and oversaw the Global Trading Group and helped guide the development of Adnetik’s industry-leading demand-side platform. Sunil has also innovated on the supply side of the equation, providing executive-level consultation in pricing, yield, strategy, sales and organizational design to premium publishers. He possesses a deep understanding of key issues impacting all facets of today’s complicated media ecosystem.

Elena Sukacheva joined The Economist as vp, strategy and client solutions. She oversees the marketing department, focusing on integrated client solutions based on unique capabilities of the Economist Group in print, digital and content space. Elena has a wide variety of strategy and marketing experiences. She came from Kraft Foods where she worked as a sr. director of strategy for the beverages unit, responsible for key strategic initiatives on such brands as Maxwell House, Capri Sun, Gevalia and Kool Aid. She also ran the e-commerce coffee business for Kraft. Prior, Elena worked at McKinsey for five years, most recently as an associate partner, serving retail and consumer packaged goods clients. Elena worked at Leo Burnett’s Detroit office as a vp of brand strategy on Cadillac and Pontiac accounts and at Publicis United’s Moscow office as an account director. She started her career as a broadcast journalist in Moscow on a First National channel.

Tim Suther leads Acxiom’s strategy for innovation and transformation. His teams drive growth involving new products and services, markets, geographies, partnerships and acquisitions. Tim is responsible for the company’s global product marketing, marketing communications, sales support, strategy and business development activities. Previously, Tim served as senior vice president of Acxiom’s Global Multichannel Marketing Services business. He also served as leader of Acxiom’s Multi-Industry Client Services Organization, encompassing multiple industry segments. Tim joined Acxiom in 2005 as leader of Acxiom’s retail and consumer markets industries. Prior to Acxiom, Tim served for three years at Metavante, a leading provider of banking and payment technology solutions, lastly as senior vice president and general manager of its Response Data Corporation subsidiary. Prior to that, he was president of Protagona Worldwide, a then publicly traded global provider of enterprise marketing software, and served in various leadership positions at Unisys, a global information services provider.

Ophir Tanz is the CEO and founder of GumGum, an in-image advertising platform for publishers and brands. Credited with developing the first in-image ads in early 2008, Ophir has since received the Siemer Summit’s Innovation in Advertising Award and has been featured on the cover of Entrepreneur magazine. Prior to launching GumGum, Ophir was the CEO and co-founder of Mojungle.com, a mobile media-sharing platform that was sold to Shozu.com in 2007. Prior to Mojungle, Ophir co-founded and sold Fluidesign, an award-winning interactive and branding agency. Outside of GumGum, Ophir is an active member of the Los Angeles technology community, where he acts as an advisor to several incubators and startup media and technology companies.

As a senior manager of social media for the Digital Marketing Business at Adobe
Systems Incorporated, Chad is responsible for driving social media strategy for Adobe’s Digital Marketing business unit. He sets strategic direction and guides execution of the business’ social media initiatives. He also supports the ongoing development of Adobe’s own social media management application, Adobe Social. For more than a decade, Chad has helped design and execute highly successful digital marketing and social media strategy for a variety of major brands, including Walt Disney Parks & Resorts, Best Buy, Microsoft, Expedia and Levi’s. He has helped brands focus on how to reorient around consumers with the evolution of digital and social media.