Alexis Ohanian
Co-Founder, reddit

Alexis Ohanian is a startup founder and investor in Brooklyn, NY. After graduating from UVA in 2005, Alexis and his co-founder Steve Huffman started reddit, now a top 100 website. Now a reddit board member, Alexis focuses on social enterprise Breadpig, publishing authors like xkcd and SMBC -- profits donated to worthy causes.

Alexis helped launch hipmunk and ran marketing/pr/community before becoming an advisor and joining the fight against SOPA & PIPA. Alexis invests and advises over fifty tech startups. He's Y Combinator's Ambassador to the East, co-founder of the non-profit IHAS, and is writing a book, Without Your Permission. Along the way, Alexis spoke at TED, volunteered in Armenia as a Kiva Fellow, and was named on Forbes and Inc Magazine 30 Under 30 lists.

He proudly doodled the logos for all three of his startups and loves his cat, Karma.

Ben Huh
CEO & Founder, Cheezburger

Ben Huh is the CEO and founder of Cheezburger - home to sites such as FAIL blog,
I Can Has Cheezburger and others.

The Cheezburger Network includes a user base of 16.5M people who upload more than 500,000 pictures and videos as well as view 375 million pages and 110 million videos each month.

Ben is a former journalist turned dot com entrepreneur who has a knack for nailing the zeitgeist and has been credited with bringing Internet memes to the mainstream and popularizing Internet culture. The success of Cheezburger is attributed to Ben’s knowledge of memes, viral content, and crowd sourcing.

Paul Bettner
Creator, Words with Friends

Paul has been creating interactive entertainment for 20 years. At Microsoft Game Studios Paul helped create the blockbuster hits, Halo Wars and Age of Empires. In 2008, Paul and his brother David left Microsoft and founded Newtoy Inc., created the smash hit Words with Friends, and changed mobile social gaming forever. In December 2010, Newtoy joined forces with Zynga and the studio became Zynga with Friends. Paul led the With Friends studio as Vice President and General Manager until recently, but has moved on to pursue other passions and personal goals.

David Perry
Business Development Executive, Software & Services, Google
David Perry is a business development executive within Google's software and services vertical. He helps global B2B software and services companies leverage Google’s advertising technologies to generate demand and build awareness of their solutions. Prior to joining Google in 2010, David was a business development executive at IBM, where he focused on creating a partnership “ecosystem” by recruiting six leading software companies to enhance complex global IBM solutions. As a senior consultant, also at IBM, he worked across several industries including electronics, financial services, telecommunications, aerospace & defense and automotive. David earned his bachelor’s degree at Colgate University and his MBA at the Johnson School at Cornell University.

Brent Herd
Director of Southeast, Twitter

Brent is The Director of Southeastern U.S Sales for Twitter and is responsible for all Southeastern revenue and business partnerships on the Twitter platform.
Most recently, Brent served as Senior Vice President at ShareThis where he was responsible for North American revenue generation activities as well as business development partnerships for the company. Previously, Brent established himself as a leader in the South as he helped grow online revenue and introduced innovative partnerships for the combined AOL – Advertising.com entity.
Brent began his career at Yahoo! In 1998 in NYC. In 1999 Brent moved to Atlanta with Yahoo! and was given the Yahoo! Super Star Award in 2001, the highest distinction a Yahoo! Employee can earn.

Currently, Brent lives in Atlanta with his wife Carolina, his three year old son Sammy, his one year old son Dylan and his 130lb Bull Mastiff, Marshall. Brent enjoys spending time with his family, golfing and general aviation.

Lawrence M. Kimmel
Executive Director, hawkeye

Larry is a renowned marketing thought leader. He led one of the world’s leading direct/interactive agencies to 10 years of unprecedented success. He restored the Direct Marketing Association to economic health. He built several organizations from scratch and drove business for a myriad of Fortune 500 companies. Larry has keynoted at events around the globe and has been featured in countless publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek. Larry recently joined hawkeye, after leading the DMA as CEO. Previously, he spent ten years as Chairman/CEO of the Grey Direct Global Network.

Haroon Mokhtarzada
Vice President of Global Digital Product, Vistaprint

Haroon Mokhtarzada is the co-founder of Webs, an innovative technology company based in the Washington D.C. area, and acquired by Vistaprint in December 2011, where he now serves as Vice President of Global Digital Product. The Webs Family of Products includes Sitebuilder3, one of the world's largest DIY website builders with over one million unique site visitors a day.

Haroon received his received his B.A. in Economics from the University of Maryland in College Park, graduating Summa Cum Laude in 2001. Haroon then proceeded to Harvard Law School where he received his J.D. in 2005.

Today, Haroon runs Webs, along with the other members of the Webs Family of Products Pagemodo.com, and Contactme.com. In late
2011 Webs was acquired by Vistaprint, the world's leading microbusiness solutions provider, for more than $117 million.

Melanie Phung
Director of New Media, PBS

Melanie Phung is the Director of New Media at PBS, where she works with producers, copywriters, and web developers to generate increased visibility for the depth and breadth of PBS’s online content. She started her journey into search engine optimization (SEO) at Wirefly.com, where she drove revenue growth in the organic search sales channel, and has since worked with a wide range of organizations to improve their search engine visibility. Melanie believes great SEO strategy helps to bridge the divide between content, technology, and user experience.

Simon Heseltine
Director of SEO, AOL/Huffington Post

Simon Heseltine is the Director in charge of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) at AOL Inc. In this role Simon and his team are responsible for organic search and training across all AOL and Huffington Post Media Group properties. In his previous position as Director of Search at a Washington D.C. based agency, Simon was responsible for developing and implementing organic search and social media strategies. He also developed and delivered organic search and social media training programs for clients.

Simon writes a regular column for SearchEngineWatch.com on a variety of topics within the marketing industry, and has previously written for other industry sites, such as SearchEngineLand.com (for their in-house marketing column). Simon teaches SEO at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. as part of their Digital Media Management program.

Courtney Wiley
Director of Digital Marketing Strategy & Innovation, Oracle

Courtney Wiley currently serves as Director of Digital Marketing Strategy & Innovation at Oracle. In her present role, she is responsible for driving business forward by establishing integrated marketing best practices. Most recently, her leadership in digital demand generation and new business acquisition at RightNow Technologies was instrumental in Oracle’s $1.45B acquisition of the company. Her thought-leadership articles can be found on leading sites such as ChiefMarketer.com, MarketingProfs.com, iMediaConnection.com, and others.

She was recently named a "Top #Nifty50 Women in Technology on Twitter” and enjoys sharing best practices with her fellow marketers. Courtney is an SMU and UT-Dallas alumna and mother to a Junior Olympian.

Jack Krawczyk
Head of Monetization, StumbleUpon

As Head of Product Monetization at StumbleUpon, Jack Krawczyk is responsible for the product management of advertising and partnership solutions. Focused on Paid Discovery, StumbleUpon’s social media marketing platform, Jack has been working closely with brands to understand how to better engage brand promise with consumers who are in the mindset of discovery. Jack is also responsible for the distribution of StumbleUpon publishers solutions, which enable site owners to more deeply engage and grow their audience.

Prior to joining StumbleUpon, Jack was at Google where he worked on the development of Google+, and previously industry marketing management of Fortune 500 advertising relationships in the media & entertainment, financial services, travel and local services sectors. He has also worked as an analyst at Banc of America Securities. Jack holds a BS in Information Systems from Carnegie Mellon University.

Akhil Uniyal
Practice Director, Global Business Consulting, Dell

Akhil is a senior member of Dell’s Business consulting practice. His experience ranges from positioning and launching products and services for several blue chip companies to helping companies run and manage large business and technology programs. Akhil has extensive experience in Marketing and Digital Strategy (including Social Media), Go to market planning, Business/IT Transformation, Benchmarking Studies, Operations Management, M&A Strategy, and Program Governance, and draws on exceptional business and technical acumen to turnaround situations and drive new initiatives. Akhil also co-chairs the technology committee of Super Bowl Host Committee of New Orleans.

Beth Jacobs
General Manager, Mobile, The Washington Post

Beth Jacobs is General Manager of Mobile at The Washington Post. As GM for mobile at The Post, Jacobs is responsible for the company’s mobile business and strategy including the creation and monetization of a suite of mobile products and services. She manages a variety of wireless products and services on all mobile platforms and oversees strategic mobile partnerships with Apple, Google, Facebook, US carriers and other leading mobile companies.

Prior to The Washington Post, Jacobs served as Vice President of Mobile Business Development at AOL, where she was responsible for global, mobile communications strategic partnerships and transactions, managing $60+MM partnerships with US Tier 1, Tier 2 carriers, OEMs, ISVs, global mobile operators and third-party technology vendors, as well as overseeing partnerships with Apple, Google, RIM, Nokia and other partners.

Jacobs has a BA in International Relations and Japanese Studies from Bucknell University; and studied abroad in Kyoto, Japan; and an MBA in Marketing and International Business from New York University’s Stern School of Business.

She is active in several industry associations including The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), CTIA The Wireless Association, and The Online Publishers Association (OPA) and is a native of Washington, DC. Jacobs was named to Mobile Marketer’s Mobile Woman To Watch 2012 list.

Yoel Leinwand
Account Executive, YouTube

Yoel Leinwand is a Sales Consultant at Google. Yoel works with top advertising clients and their agencies to develop digital solutions across all platforms that build his clients' businesses and brands. Prior to Google, Yoel was a senior account executive at the Katz Media Group. Prior to the Katz Media Group, Yoel served in both the US Air Force and Indiana Air National Guard as a Broadcast Journalist. Yoel earned his BA from Indiana University. He has lived in 18 different cities and three countries but now calls Atlanta home.

Renee Irion
Manager, Digital Marketing Strategy, AMD

Renee Irion manages web, social, mobile, UX and search strategy for AMD as the Manager of Digital Marketing Strategy. She has held a variety of digital marketing roles at AMD since 2003. Prior to AMD, Renee consulted to small and medium businesses in e-commerce, analytics, customer experience and SEO. Her early career began at Dell in the 1990’s, helping Dell achieve its first $1m/day in online sales. Renee has a passion for understanding customer needs and behavior, and creating relevant digital experiences.

Dallas Lawrence
Chief Global Digital Strategist, Burson-Marsteller

Dallas Lawrence is the Chief Global Digital Strategist for Burson-Marsteller, the world’s leading global public relations and communications firm. An industry veteran with more than a dozen years of experience creating award winning integrated communications programs, Dallas leads Burson- Marsteller’s worldwide digital team of more than 140 social and digital media strategists throughout the United States, Latin America, Asia, Europe, India and Africa.

Dallas is a frequent speaker at industry events and is a recurring digital commentator for CNN. His columns on social and digital issue advocacy, crisis communications and public affairs appear regularly on Forbes.com and he is a contributor to Mashable.com. The recipient of multiple industry awards throughout his career, in 2011 his work was recognized with the top honors for online campaign of the year, digital public affairs program of the year and crisis communications program of the year. In 2011 he was named the “Crisis Manager of the Year” by PR News for his leadership in and expertise in online and offline crisis management.

Dallas is a commissioned public affairs officer in the United States Navy (Reserve) and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley and a Master of Arts in Government from The Johns Hopkins University.

Darrell Brown
Manager, U.S. Interactive Consumer Marketing, Mary Kay Inc.

Darrell is the Manager of Interactive Consumer Marketing for Mary Kay’s US based digital channels. Three and a half years ago, he was hired to help Mary Kay elevate its presence in digital marketing and on social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube. The company’s social presence has now grown to include Twitter and Pinterest.

In addition to social media, his team manages MaryKay.com and Personal Web Sites for all of Mary Kay’s Independent Beauty Consultants. He is tasked with the responsibility of making it easier for sales force members to grow their business by ensuring they have competitive online marketing tools to provide great service to their customers. In doing so, Mary Kay has recently been recognized on L2’s Digital IQ Index as “Gifted” in the Beauty category.

Daniel Maloney
CEO & Co-Founder, PinLeague

Danny Maloney is an internet entrepreneur who has spent his career building consumer internet businesses that connect consumers to each other and to brands more effectively. Currently, Danny is CEO and Co-founder of PinLeague.com, the world's largest Pinterest Influencer Network, helping brands large and small build a prolific and highly targeted marketing channel on the world's hottest social network. Previously, Danny lead the New Initiatives team at YouTube and Google Maps/ Local Search, rebuilt AOL's Video business from #13 to #2 in US online video and co-Founded BridesView.com, an online community that enables engaged couples to style and plan their dream wedding through real wedding photography. Danny is an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania's Jerome Fisher M&T Program.

J.R. Wilton
Director of Analytics, Hilton Worldwide

J.R. Wilton is the Director of Analytics at Hilton Worldwide where he is currently implementing a new analytic infrastructure and strategies for a new program to advance the hospitality industry. This current implementation includes migrating multiple data engines, producing a single source of truth and developing reporting and metrics that are based on industry standards. J.R. has developed and implemented analytics platforms for the last 12 years for various high profile organizations ranging from telecommunications, to travel, life style and the hospitality industry. With a wide variety of expertise, J.R. has become a subject matter expert in statistical analysis, development, marketing, and eCommerce. J.R. has developed several platforms, ranging from analytics intranet, telecommunication CRM based tracking, scalable data warehousing, and flexible reporting environments.

Alexander Muse
Co-Founder, ShopSavvy Inc.

Alexander Muse is the founder of ShopSavvy, the leading mobile shopping assistant with more than 40 million downloads and 10 million unique users. Muse, a proven business leader with more than a decade of startup experience, speaks at conferences and universities throughout the U.S. and Europe on topics ranging from mobile shopping to entrepreneurship. Alexander is a co-founder of Architel, one of the largest cloud management companies in North Texas. Alexander also founded LayerOne, a neutral interconnection and colocation provider.

Matt Peters
Co-Founder & Creative Director, Pandemic Labs

Matt Peters is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of Pandemic Labs, the nation's leading social media marketing and analytics agency. Since the agency's inception, Matt has been one of the primary creative and strategic forces behind campaigns with clients such as The Ritz-Carlton, Puma, Canon, The WILD Foundation, Au Bon Pain, and DirecTV. Matt speaks frequently at social media conferences, and is often brought in by companies, think tanks, and traditional ad agencies to provide education and consulting on social media marketing.

David Favero
Southeast Sales Director, Shoutlet

David is a passionate digital veteran with over 15 years of sales, marketing, technical consulting, and product development experience. He specializes in enterprise software-as-a-service marketing technology and has consulted with some of the world's largest and most recognized brands in healthcare, insurance, finance, retail, agencies, and non-profits. With an early start as a software programmer with IBM, David learned to appreciate the complexities of product design and development. With the proliferation of the social web, David discovered a new passion for digital marketing and social media. His experiences in software development, digital media, and email marketing lend themselves nicely to David's role as Southeast Sales Director for Shoutlet. In his spare time, David plays and coaches soccer and volunteers with a number of local organizations, including a board position with the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association and committee leadership within Social Media Club Atlanta.

Robert Riggs
Senior Account Manager, Speakeasy

Corrupt politicians and business scoundrels knew they were in for a bad day upon hearing the ominous announcement, “Robert Riggs is here to see you!”
“Here to see you”, meant that the Peabody Award winning television reporter had a deep grasp of facts that were likely to make them appear to be the crook that that really were.

Riggs’ mastery of the art of story telling earned him three Alfred I. duPont Columbia University Journalism Awards. The premier magazine shows of Sixty Minutes and Nightline have featured his stories. During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he was embedded with the lead Army ground and was hit by friendly fire. Riggs covered the White House, Congress, Pentagon, terrorist attacks, and countless disasters during his journalism career.

Today, Riggs leads the video team at Speakeasy in designing content marketing strategies. Likes are cool. But Speakeasy believes compelling video that converts social media users into cash paying customers is much cooler.

Adam Landrum
President & CEO, Merge

Adam Landrum is the President & CEO of Merge, a 10 year old Digital Strategy Agency headquartered in Greenville, SC. He is a former Arthur Andersen consultant and CPA, bringing a unique, business results first approach to the digital strategies he develops for Merge clients. His passion is to help clients reach their organizational goals by navigating and leveraging the digital world.

Tom Edwards
Vice President, Digital Strategy, The Marketing Arm (Omnicom)

Tom oversees digital/social strategy and emerging technology for The Marketing Arm, the 2012 Promo/Chief Marketer Agency of the Year.

Over the last decade, Tom has ranked among the most notable executives within the social media industry, developing a significant base of experience while providing strategic consulting for a number of Fortune 500 organizations, including Microsoft, Chevron, Walt Disney, Citigroup, Dell and Intel.

Michael Treon
Sales & Strategy Director for the Central Region, Advertising.com

As Sales and Strategy Director for the Central Region, Michael Treon manages non-reserved display strategies for top advertisers and agencies at Advertising.com, the #1 display network, technology, data and insights arm of AOL Advertising. Treon oversees a team focused on product and sales strategy that designs and manages solutions and technology implementations built around the Advertising.com platform. Treon focuses on solutions and education within the non-reserved display landscape including topics such as networks, RTB, DSPs as well as insights into attribution, performance and personalization tactics.

In this role, Treon also works closely with the product, marketing and business development teams to expand product development, create go-to-market strategies and enhance value propositions for new technologies.

Rebecca Watson
Vice President, Business Development, RadiumOne, Inc.

Rebecca Watson has been launching digital media startups and building monetization strategies for the past eleven years. She serves as vice president of business development at RadiumOne, which uses social data to target advertising. She leads two business units: re.Po.st, a URL shortener that captures social engagement, and Po.st, a sharing tool for publishers that increases shares, clickbacks, and pageviews while also generating a new ad revenue stream. Previously, Rebecca was the director of business development at Real Girls Media where she co-launched DivineCaroline.com, founded the Real Girls Ad Network, and helped position the company for its sale to Meredith Corporation. Prior to that, Rebecca produced the iMedia Summits and consulted for Match.com and eHarmony. She regularly speaks at BlogWorld, Socialize, ad:tech, App Developers Conference and Women 2.0.

Adrian Parker
Social, Mobile & Emerging Media, Intuit

Adrian D. Parker leads Social, Mobile and Emerging Media for Intuit's Accounting Professionals Division, a global leader in financial and business software. He directs the strategic vision for leveraging influence and innovation to improve customer’s financial lives. Previously, Adrian served as Director of Social Media and Digital Strategy at RadioShack where he launched the social practice across 35,000 employees in 27 countries. Parker's pioneering work with Twitter, foursquare, Facebook, Apple and other tech platforms has been regularly featured in Forbes, Wall Street Journal, AdAge, PC World, AdWeek, USA Today and other publications. In 2011 he accepted a Forrester Groundswell award as recognition for top-performing B2C digital campaigns.

Parker’s work has spanned client and agency-side strategies for Foot Locker, ESPN, Nike, adidas, Liz Claiborne and Body Shop. A graduate of Florida A&M University, he and his wife Alisha reside in Plano, Texas.

Ryan Moss
Deliverability Manager, Yesmail

Ryan has been with the Yesmail deliverability team for almost five years, where he has witnessed it grow from a small team, to one of the biggest teams in the industry. During his tenure at Yesmail he has helped many small and fortune 500 companies build their deliverability strategies, improve performance and increase ROI. Currently, Ryan is focused on educating clients and industry members on the negative effects of poor deliverability strategies, and stressing the importance of proper monitoring. Ryan currently holds the of title of Deliverability Manager, where he focuses on many of Yesmail’s biggest clients such as HP, eBay, Valassis, and Sony.

Stephen Monaco
Founder & CEO, Evolve Adaptive Marketing, LLC

Stephen Monaco was instrumental in developing online communities back in the days of the BBS, and CompuServe. In 1987 he was using the strategies and tactics that are now considered best practices for social media marketing. Monaco led Datastorm Technologies from a raw start-up, through 40 consecutive profitable quarters of growth, to $50 million in annual revenue, and negotiated Datastorm’s acquisition by a publicly-traded company, which was then acquired by Symantec.

Stephen’s marketing prowess was the driving force behind the world's best-selling PC data communications program of all time, the software mega brand, ProComm, which was published in 11 languages and obtained 70% global market share. Today, Monaco works where high tech and integrated marketing intersect - driving strategies and leveraging new media to effectively realize business goals for international Fortune 500 companies, mid-market firms, early stage ventures, and funded start-ups.

Mike Merrill
Director of Marketing, ReachLocal

Mike Merrill is currently the Director of Marketing for ReachLocal, a company that helps local businesses acquire, manage and retain customers online. He has leveraged his more than 14 years of sales and marketing experience to become a business leader, community builder, speaker and author focused on social media and online marketing. Recognized by Fortune as a self-made social media master, Mike's social media and marketing expertise makes him much in demand as a speake r at industry conferences such as SXSW, Explore, Digital Dealer and as an expert on Dallas television news programs. Mike founded the Social Media Club of Dallas and serves as Chairman. Past companies he's worked at include NetApp, Dell, Intel and two venture-backed startups. He pursued his MBA at University of Michigan.

Jonathan Kaufman
President, Advice Interactive Group

Jonathan Kaufman is President of Advice Interactive Group a global interactive advertising agency with strategic focus on Search, Social, Design and Localized Search Technologies. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas and with offices in California and Florida, Advice Interactive Group was recently named to the Inc 500 as one of the nations fastest growing companies.

Prior to joining Advice Interactive, Jon was the Senior Vice President of social media technology ZooLoo.com and Kablog.com and SVP and COO of Zog Media, Inc. (Now Zog Digital, Inc.). He currently serves as the Chairman of Synesis Technology, a global gaming technology firm with offices in Arizona and The United Kingdom. He is a graduate of the University of Arizona (Go Wildcats) and enjoys spending time with his family and his greatest passion, aviation.

Alfred Van Hoven
Managing Director, Conversion Architecture, Sq1

As Managing Director of Conversion Architecture at Sq1, Alfred is responsible for the strategy & planning of client programs to ensure that Sq1 meets client KPIs and delivers powerful corporate insights while providing world-class client service that continually exceeds expectations. Select clients include Michaels, Dr. Pepper, Jiffy Lube, Wholly Guacamole, and Direct Energy.

Previous to joining Sq1, Alfred led performance marketing programs at iProspect for clients such as adidas, Reebok, Finish Line, Dick Sporting Goods, TaylorMade, adidas Golf, and multiple Estee Lauder brands. His cross channel experience with these clients includes paid search, SEO, display, social, & mobile.

Alfred holds a B.A. in Marketing from the University of Texas at Arlington. In addition, Alfred currently serves on the board of the DFW Interactive Marketing Association.

Michael Marshall
CEO, Internet Marketing Analysts, LLC

Michael Marshall is one of the most respected and well regarded technologists in the search engine marketing community. Having helped craft and execute advanced SEO strategies for many of the Internet's top brands over the years (including AOL, 1800Flowers, Alcatel-Lucent, and Drs. Foster & Smith), Michael's SEO articles have been featured in numerous media outlets such as Direct Magazine, WebPro News, DM News, Forbes, LA Times, Investor's Business Daily, PRWeek, SearchNewz and eWeek. Michael is a recurring author for SEOToday.com, the premier website for SEM professionals, and a contributor to "Building Your Business With Google for Dummies."

He is a frequent presenter at Ultra Advanced SEO Symposiums, a meeting of select masters of the search engine marketing industry, and frequent speaker at Search Engine Workshops conferences. Michael is lead instructor at the Search Engine Academy (and helped to create the curriculum) and has been an instructor for search engine technologies at the U.S. Patent Office.

Matt Kaplan
Vice President, Sales, Mail Online

Matt Kaplan is a long time digital media vet with over 14 years experience in the space. Over those 14 years Matt has managed every aspect of a digital media operation, having spent the last 7 years focused on advertising sales, marketing and product development. Matt has worked on big brands for big companies such as Parents, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Redbook and Maxim as well as working for start ups such as eGreetings and My Damn Channel. Currently Matt is the Vice President Sales for Mail Online, one of the largest content Sites in the world.

Justin Howley
SEO Product Manager, Travelocity

Justin Howley is SEO Product Manager for Travelocity and IgoUgo (a social travel site owned by Travelocity). Prior to Travelocity, Justin served as SEO Product Manager within the New York Times Media Group for ConsumerSearch.com. Justin is completely self-taught and started his career in digital media in 1995 where he obsessively studied HTML and hand coded his first website in notepad. Those years of firsthand experience primed Justin for a career in web marketing. Justin also runs his own digital media agency "Art Science Web" providing services in the Dallas area.

Dan Ferguson
Founder & Vice President of Creative Services, Blockdot

For more than two decades, Dan Ferguson has been a creative, passionate leader and an award-winning designer. His strong business acumen in the digital space has led to the establishment of three successful, nationally recognized agencies. He is often considered one of the forefathers of Advergaming and Brandweek Magazine named Dan a “Marketer of the Next Generation” for his work.

As a Founder and Vice President of Creative Services at Blockdot, Dan is responsible for ensuringthat the digital work is strategic, compelling, visually impactful, and move the end user toward action. He is the senior creative force of the company, representing the heart, soul, entrepreneurship, and humor of the Blockdot crew. While Dan “draws outside the line,” he always stays on the page.

Blockdot has created over 40 mobile apps for a broad-range of world-class companies, including American Airlines, Cinemark, Kraft, LEGO, Microsoft, Rockwell Collins, Scholastic, Unilever, and Universal Pictures. Blockdot’s work is featured in Apple commercials, achieved several #1 download rankings and has earned over 40,000 4 star ratings on the Apple Store. Time Magazine recently named Chicktionary one of the Top 25 Best Kids Educational apps.

Michael Fein
Director of Research and Analytics, Fanscape

Michael Fein is the Director of Research and Analytics for Fanscape, the social media “arm” of The Marketing Arm. Mike works closely with clients to provide business insights on how to improve ROI by integrating social media into marketing initiatives. His passion for evidence-based decision making comes from his days working in online dating and in online politics, where every marketing decision or site change was A:B tested to optimize KPIs. Mike’s scope of digital experience includes shopper marketing, retail, entertainment and CPG brands. He received his MBA from Pepperdine University and his undergraduate degree from UCDavis. He sits on the WOMMA Research and Measurement Council, which recently published a guidebook detailing how to measure ROI in word-of-mouth marketing.

As a new father, Mike is looking forward to the days when he can teach his daughter how to use excel to perform everyday tasks.

Josh McCoy
SEO Lead Strategist, Vizion Interactive

Josh McCoy, a Lead Strategist at Vizion Interactive, possesses a strong dedication and passion into the understanding and execution of successful search marketing campaigns. Deeply ingraining himself into "all things search," Josh's years of expertise in search marketing help him to concentrate on how to effectively harness all areas of online marketing. These include SEO, Social Media and Paid Search to help create an encapsulating approach to search engine marketing ideation as the online landscape continues to evolve.

Beyond his involvement with Vizion Interactive, Josh is a monthly columnist for the leading search engine marketing news site Search Engine Watch, a speaking contributor for the Search Engine Strategies conference series and the ClickZ Training Academy and Josh also manages the Kansas City Search Engine Marketing Association.

Phil Ayres
Director, Online Marketing, Hotels.com

Phil is the Director of Online Marketing for Hotels.com, one of the top providers of online accommodations covering over 145,000 properties worldwide.

Phil has a proven track record of developing and executing creative online strategies and solutions that drive growth for online businesses, using diverse online skills to build a robust online web presence, drive sales, and generate high volume leads.

John G. "Graeme" Noseworthy
Marketing Director, Digital Media, IBM Netezza & Big Data Solutions, IBM

Graeme Noseworthy is a marketer on a mission. Graeme’s sole focus is to develop and deliver the messaging and marketing that demonstrate the value that IBM’s PureData platforms deliver to big data driven digital media professionals and CMOs around the world. Before becoming an IBMer, Graeme worked as a Client Engagement Director at a Massachusetts based advertising agency where he lead the charge in opening up new lines of business and creating innovative web projects across a variety of industries and client types. Prior to working on the agency side, Graeme created and implemented the strategic marketing plans and programs for the Staffing Industry Segment at Monster Worldwide. Graeme is a graduate of Bridgewater State College and he has built a career by serving on the front lines of sales, business development and marketing operations for a series of industry leading high tech companies and marketing service providers.

Brian Wiechowski
Business Development Director, Advertising and Mobile, TRUSTe

Brian serves as Director of Business Development, Mobile Solutions, at TRUSTe, the leading online privacy company - responsible for growing strategic accounts and expanding data privacy solutions across the advertising and mobile ecosystems.
Brian is also a former aviator for the US Navy with 9+ years of business and technology experience.

Ryan P. Phelan
VP, Strategic Services, BlueHornet

Ryan works with BlueHornet's most successful client brands to help them maximize the potential of their email programs.

With over 13 years of online marketing experience, Ryan most recently served as director of email marketing and acquisition at Sears Holdings, where he oversaw the email marketing efforts for their Sears and Kmart brands. In this position, he developed and implemented a comprehensive lifecycle marketing strategy for delivery of relevant messaging to new and existing customers. Prior to Sears Holdings, Ryan was in charge of East Coast Professional Services for Responsys and Director of Email & Online Advertising for infoGROUP. He holds a Bachelor Degree in Psychology.

Jeremy Johnson
Director of Experience Design, Travelocity

Jeremy Johnson has been working in the User Experience field for years at a variety of companies and industries, including: travel, gaming, B2B, e-comm, startups - you name it!

He's passionate about Design, mobile, travel, gaming, photography and how our future will be shaped by technology. He’s spoken at multiple conferences, where his style has been described as “a firehose of information”. He enjoys solving complex problems, and simplifying experiences. Currently he’s exploring how to get large organizations to move faster - and how product, technology and Design should work together to create great experiences.

Sarah Jane Semrad
Marketing & Membership Manager, KXT 91.7

Sarah Jane Semrad is an award winning artist, social entrepreneur and community organizer committed to cultivating creativity in Dallas. She is the co-founder and trusted consigliere for all things Art Conspiracy - a nonprofit connecting artists and musicians with each other for the benefit of the local art economy. In 2006, Semrad co-founded La Reunion TX, a nonprofit creating an artist residency program in Dallas. Past entrepreneurial ventures include IR Gallery, Pigeon-Stone Project, Magnolia Gallery and CorinthPark. Semrad is currently employed by KERA as Membership and Marketing Manager of KXT 91.7. She is earning a Masters of Liberal Studies at SMU and holds a BA in chemistry from University of Dallas.

David Suliburk
Senior Solutions Consultant, ExactTarget

Dave Suliburk is a Senior Solutions Consultant with ExactTarget, a global leader in cross-channel digital marketing solutions (email/social/mobile/sites). He is an expert in technology solutions with a focus on cross-channel Digital Marketing. Mr. Suliburk has worked with a wide variety of clients developing technology and strategic solutions for Cross Channel Marketing programs including media, finance, retail, and non-profit organizations. A native of Oklahoma, he has worked in the New York City metro area for the past 12 years. He also brings extensive experience in large, highly sophisticated enterprise clients as well as working with interactive agencies to develop cutting-edge marketing solutions.

Lee Blaylock
Founder & CEO, Who@

Lee Blaylock is the founder and CEO of Who@. Starting his career at Dell (badge #244) for 7 years he was their 2nd ex-pat and worked two years in Dell Germany then to Oracle, where he left as a practice director in the high technology consulting group. His first company, ServiceLane, was funded by Austin Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank and sold to Owens Corning (NYSE: OC). He later co-founded Annandale Capital, an investment advisor managing ~$500 million in institutional and private client assets. Who@ is a mobile centric app helping professionals, and the companies they work, for maximize the value of their relationships in a unique and private way.

Sean-Michael Daley
CEO & Founder, PayTap

Sean-Michael brings more than 20 years of consulting, design and digital production experience spread across stints in Asia, Europe and the USA and his homeland Australia.

He most recently served as Group Account Director for Definition 6, an integrated interactive marketing agency based in Atlanta where he ran the Dallas office. His first start-up, digital asset management company Rumble Group in Sydney, Australia joint ventured with Silicon Graphics and Hitachi Data Systems to deliver services to Viacom, Lucas Films and Oxford Scientific. He was CEO of kannuu, Inc., a mobile search optimization start-up that won the prestigious “2008 Nokia Mobile Rules!” award for technology innovation.

Aniq Rahman
President, Moat

Aniq Rahman is an entrepreneur based in New York, NY. Currently, Aniq is the President of Moat, an analytics and market intelligence company focused on digital advertising. Prior to Moat, Aniq was CEO of Instinctiv (acquired by SoundCloud), a venture backed technology company which produced desktop and mobile multimedia software. Aniq is also an active investor and advisor to startups. Aniq studied Computer Science at Cornell University and took a leave of absence to pursue entrepreneurial ventures.

Brent Gleeson
Co-Founder & CMO, Internet Marketing Inc.

Brent Gleeson is the co-founder and CMO at Internet Marketing Inc. (IMI), based in San Diego. He oversees digital marketing, branding, communications, strategic planning,
thought leadership, recruitment and business development. IMI was recently ranked #185 on the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing private companies in the country.

Brent is a Navy SEAL combat veteran, serving in more than 150 missions in Iraq and Africa as part of SEAL Team 5. He is passionate about leadership, entrepreneurship and fitness. He writes about all of these topics weekly as a contributor to Forbes, Inc. and CMO.com. He also is a popular keynote speaker on these subjects.

Before IMI, Brent co-founded an international real estate marketing company that is still one of the most highly trafficked real estate search engines in the world.

Eric Swayne
VP, Director of Insights, GolinHarris

Eric Swayne is the VP, Director of Insights for GolinHarris, a published author in marketing and business, award-winning frontend developer and guest blogger for AdAge. He provides strategic thinking in all forms of digital media, as well as frameworks that leverage these channels to gain deeper insight from and relationship with consumers. He has worked with clients across verticals including Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Sam’s Club, Walmart, Best Buy, HP, Bank of America, HEB, SuperValu, Bicycle Playing Cards, Famous Footwear, Texas Instruments, American Airlines and the U.S. Treasury. Eric is also on the board of Digital Dallas, a collective group of 850+ members created to showcase great digital work within the DFW metroplex and connect together the digital talent making it happen. Eric graduated from Harding University with a BA in Communication Management, and lives in Denton, TX with his wife and three children. Eric is passionate about holistic online marketing, TweetDeck, Google Chrome, Starcraft and original recipe Dr Pepper.

Jeremy Vest
Senior SEM & Online Manager, Wasp Barcode

Jeremy is the Senior SEM & Online Manager of Wasp Barcode. Jeremy Vest is an author, speaker, web designer, teacher and video marketing nerd. He founded Emmy award winning video training company xTrain.com that created training videos for companies like Adobe, Corel, Wiley and Safari Books Online. Jeremy is the author of “Exploring Web Design”. Jeremy’s latest venture is the Video Marketing Guild an association dedicated to video marketing education.

John Keehler
Director, Digital Strategy and Emerging Platforms, The Richards Group

As Director of Digital Strategy and Emerging Platforms, John is instrumental in the planning and execution of digital work at The Richards Group. He leads an incredible team that works tirelessly to set directions for brands across any variety of digital touchpoint, including websites, online ads, search, social, mobile and other emerging technology, ensuring that digital and traditional strategies are aligned. John has worked acro ss a broad array of client challenges and has been involved in groundbreaking digital work for clients such as The Home Depot, Walmart, Travelocity and Nokia, to name a few.

Justin Goodman
Owner, ElectricMice

Justin Goodman is one of the brightest young minds in digital analytics. He is passionate about mining big data for actionable insights that lead to profitability. Justin is technically sophisticated with strong communications skills. His specialty is multi-attribution analytics and he is an expert on the new tool MAT (multi-attribution tool). Justin has more than six years experience in digital marketing and Google Analytics. He has individual qualification certificates for Google Analytics and AdWords. Justin graduated from San Diego State University with a BS in marketing and an emphasis in integrated marketing communications. He has returned to his alma mater to talk to the current students about digital marketing. He also was recently a featured speaker on integrated analytics for the International Association of Business Communicators. He owns and operates ElectricMice, a company created to provide integrated digital marketing for small businesses.

J. Schuh
Executive Producer, Toons-N-Design

J. Schuh has been doing 2D animation, design, games, multimedia, and motion graphics since 1996 and has owned his own company Toons-N-Design since 1998. In addition to being one of the founders of A Bunch of Short Guys, he also is a member of a number of community organizations including the DFW User Experience Professionals' Association. He has served on the planning committee and was chair of the Multimedia/ Film track of the Big Design 2012 conference.

J. is an adjunct professor at Collin College and Texas A&M Commerce downtown Dallas. He is an award winning animator, cartoonist, designer, illustrator and producer. J’s clients include American Heart Association, American Standard, AVON, Cingular, Circle R Media, Comedy Central, FedEx Kinko’s, JCPenny’s, Mary Kay Inc, MTV, RadioShack, Sherwin Williams, Shore Deary, Toyota, and Uniden.

Eric Gregg
Co-Founder, TechMedia

Eric co-founded TechMedia, which produces technology and entrepreneurial events including Dallas Digital Summit, Internet Summit, Digital Summit, Digital East, and the upcoming Southeast Venture Conference. Eric brings his previous experience in venture capital and the startup community to help continue to foster entrepreneurship in the southeast and mid-atlantic along with the rest of the TechMedia team. He also serves as Publisher for TechJournal.org, covering the latest trends and best practices in the digital world.