Simon Dumenco
Editor-at-large and "Media Guy" media columnist, Advertising Age and Executive Director, Media Vanguard Awards
Simon Dumenco has worked at and/or consulted for a wide range of media companies, including Condé Nast, Hearst, IAC, New York Media, Time Warner, Viacom, and Wenner Media. In the new-media realm, he was founding editorial director of both seventeen.com and nymag.com (New York magazine's website), and was the founding editor-in-chief of VeryShortList.com (since acquired by the New York Observer). At New York magazine, he was business/technology editor, editor of the National Magazine Award-winning media column, and advertising critic and pop-culture columnist. Dumenco was also editor of Colors, the international culture magazine; consulting executive editor on the launch of O: The Oprah Magazine; executive editor (then acting editor-in-chief) of Seventeen magazine; and managing editor (and media/culture columnist) at Baltimore's City Paper, among various other jobs.

Catherine Cook
Co-Founder, myYearbook
Catherine co-founded myYearbook with her brother, Dave, at the age of 15. In just six years, Catherine has helped grow myYearbook to more than 25 million registered members and has helped raise more than $17M in venture capital for the site. myYearbook is now one of the top 30 most trafficked sites in the U.S., according to comScore, with 15,000 new users joining every day. Catherine is currently finishing her senior year at Georgetown University, majoring in Marketing and Operations & Information Management.

UPDATE: myyearbook just sold to Quepasa for $100 million. Get key insight from Catherine on what it takes to build grow and build your Internet firm.

Bryan Monroe
Editor, CNNPolitics.com
Bryan Monroe is the Editor of CNNPolitics.com, based in Washington D.C. He had been a Visiting Professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and the CEO of The Monroe Media Group, is the former vice president and editorial director of Ebony and Jet Magazines at Johnson Publishing Co and is a regular contributor to ongoing coverage for CNN. Formerly the assistant vice president/news of Knight Ridder and the president of the National Association of Black Journalists, Bryan, who shared part of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service for coverage of Hurricane Katrina, led the transformation of the legendary Ebony and Jet magazines from 2006 to 2009. He revitalized the publications as well as developed new platforms online and in digital media for JPC. Bryan also writes regularly about technology, health and other issues and serves on the Board of Advisors for www.rrripple.com, a Silicon Valley tech startup company, and Urban Access Media Group, a Chicago-based private digital television network.

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 Google, at IBM, Mr. Perry was a business development executive. As a Senior Consultant, also at IBM, Mr. Perry worked across several industries including electronics, financial services, telecommunications, aerospace & defense, and automotive.

Anil Panguluri
Product Director, Mobile Search & Discovery, Yahoo!
Anil Panguluri leads the development for Mobile Search and Discovery products. Panguluri is responsible for mobile Web search experiences, across smart phones and feature phones, and vertical search apps – with the goal of bringing mobile relevance to PC search experiences through local and social data from across the Web. He has previously worked on Yahoo!’s open strategy and social media platforms, and led HotJobs product management. Prior to joining Yahoo!, Panguluri worked on search and natural language processing products at Verity, and Web publishing and content management products at Interwoven and FileNet.

Andy Ellwood
Director of Business Development, Gowalla
Andy Ellwood is director of business development for Gowalla. Born with the gift of gab, raised with an overdeveloped self-esteem, Andy consistently finds himself on the road less traveled. With his outside the box background, training, and top-notch global network, Andy works hard to connect Good People with Great Opportunities. He has been privileged to work with high-caliber individuals throughout his career and most recently has brought his broad skill set and unbridled determination to Gowalla.

A native of Dallas, Texas, Andy attended Texas A&M University and received his degree in Corporate Finance. His mounting track record of success has grown to include working with world class organizations such as Marquis Jet, TIGER 21, One Key, and Northwestern Mutual. His breadth of experience in luxury sales, business development, and entrepreneurial endeavors has consistently positioned Andy to be in the right place at the right time.

Andy lives in New York and thrives on the city that doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t slow down much, but when he does he enjoys mastering social media, black coffee, filling his passport, doting on his girlfriend Annie, and blogging at www.andyellwood.com.

Derrick Ashong
Television Host, The Stream, Al Jazeera English
Derrick Ashong is the television host of "The Stream" on Al Jazeera English. "The Stream" is a program that integrates new and traditional media, tapping into the extraordinary potential of social media to disseminate news. This show aggregates on-line sources and discussion, while seeking out unheard voices, for new perspectives from people on the ground. Derrick is also the radio host of "The Derrick Ashong Experience" on SIRIUS XM's Oprah Radio.

Ashong has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Mo'Nique Show, and lectured on five continents on the use of media as a tool for human development. He is a member of the internationally recognized Americas Business Council (*abc) Fellowship and has been a TED Global Fellow, a participant in the Arts & Entertainment task force of the U.S.-Islamic World Forum and is the CITI Performing Arts Center's first Spectrum Boston Fellow. He is the founder of Take Back the Mic, a youth-centered cultural movement that leverages the power of artistry & technology to empower young people. Ashong is also on the Board of Advisors for Children Mending Hearts, an organization dedicated to the global arts exchange between at-risk children in the United States and children living in conflict zones around the world.

Liz Strauss
Co-Founder, SOBcon, LizStrauss.com
Liz Strauss is a business strategist, product analyst, and master teacher who works with international corporations small business, and entrepreneurs to create high-growth strategy based on influence, impact, and irresistible difference. She's a dynamic speaker and a maven at engaging with the people who help a business thrive. Liz is co-founder of SOBCon the business strategy workshop event that grew out of her popular Successful-Blog.com - a online publication which carries 4300 articles and 94,000 reader comments. She has built strategies and products with a international network of businesses on four continents and teaches a yearly course session at the Masters Degree Level for Digital Publishing Program at City University of London.

In 2011, Liz Strauss was the awarded the prestigious title of Titan of Web 2.0 at the World Forum “Communication on Top” in Davos, Switzerland and is the highest ranked woman on Dun and Bradstreet's 68 Most Influential Small Business People on Twitter. Liz has been named twice to the Top 100 Social Media & Internet Marketing Bloggers the Top 100 Most Influential Marketersand to Top Social Media Strategists To Watch In 2010 You can find Liz on Twitter as @LizStrauss

Patrick Svenburg
Director, Platform Strategy, Microsoft Corporation
His team is responsible for driving early adoption and awareness of next-generation technologies among customers and partners. He is particularly passionate about community and technologies related to cloud, social and mobility. Patrick is the co-founder of “Random Hacks of Kindness,” a collaborative effort between industry leaders Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Google, NASA and the World Bank seeking to harness the power global volunteer technical communities (VTC) to create interoperable solutions and approaches to mitigate the impact of humanitarian crisis.

He has over 15 years’ experience within the international software industry and have previously held executive positions at Precise Biometrics, Oracle Corporation and the Swedish Trade Council.

Jon Carpenter
Director of Marketing, LivingSocial
Jon Carpenter serves as Director of Marketing for LivingSocial, the most-funded DC-area consumer start-up since AOL. LivingSocial is the premier local activity discovery engine, encouraging people to explore the best of their city by offering daily deals. After signing up for free, members receive 50-90% off on restaurants, spas, sporting events, hotels, and other attractions in their city. The company currently operates in 52 markets in 3 countries.

Before joining LivingSocial, Jon worked in digital strategy for clients such as the U.S. Department of Energy, Bombardier Transportation, smartUSA, and DARPA. He was also an early product manager at Steve Case’s Revolution Health.

Simon Heseltine
Director of SEO, AOL Inc.
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.

Eric Ludwig
Senior Director of Online Marketing, Rosetta Stone
Eric Ludwig is the Senior Director of Online Marketing at Rosetta Stone. Before joining Rosetta Stone, Eric was President & COO of Peekyou.com, a People Search start-up based in NYC. Prior to that, he led AOL's Search Engine Marketing (SEM) program, where he managed one of the largest PPC budgets in the world. Since 2007, he’s leveraged hundreds of millions of dollars in Search and Social spend to drive growth and engagement at AOL sites like MapQuest, Moviefone, and AOL News. Eric also led AOL's Renewal and Payment Marketing team, a $200 million P&L tasked with retaining AOL's most-at-risk customers. Early in his career he worked in research and product management at NASA's NTTC and at VeriSign, and led marketing efforts at start-ups such as CustomInk.com, ThinkGeek.com, and Procapslabs.com.

Jodi McDermott
Vice President, Digital Analytics Product Management, comScore, Inc.
Jodi has been working in Web Analytics since 2002 and joined comScore’s Product Management team in March of 2010 where she is responsible for developing and managing comScore’s Digital Analytix product via their acquisition of Nedstat. Prior to joining comScore, Jodi served as Director of Data Strategy and Analytics for Clearspring Technologies where she was responsible for utilizing data to develop and test business models and drive product strategy for the Clearspring widget platform and AddThis sharing products.

In previous roles Jodi oversaw the Web Analytics team of InPhonic, a multi-hundred million dollar ecommerce website, and also worked in the Consulting Services group of Visual Sciences where she led implementations for leading companies in the airline, retail, financial services and hotel industries. For five years prior to that, Jodi managed the Business Solutions team and oversaw the implementation of the first off-the-shelf Web Analytics package at USATODAY.com.

Reggie Aggarwal
CEO & Founder of Cvent
Cvent is the world’s largest provider of event management technology. Reggie has led the company from a two-person person startup facing bankruptcy to an 850-person company that has been profitable for 34 straight quarters. Cvent has helped manage 350,000 events in 50 countries, and thousands of Cvent customers will send $4 billion in group business to hotels and venues in 2011 through the Cvent Supplier Network, the company’s online marketplace that connects meeting planners with venues. In July 2011, Reggie led the company’s first round of funding in over a decade—a $136 million investment—which, according to the Wall Street Journal, is the biggest U.S. software funding deal since 2007 and the largest in the history of the events technology industry.

Reggie was named Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year® for Greater Washington in 2010, selected as one of Washingtonian Magazine’s 100 Top Tech Titans in 2011, and named a rising star of Washington by Forbes Magazine. In addition, Cvent was honored for the 2010 “Management Team of the Year” by the American Business Awards, and voted one of the “50 Best Places to Work” in Washington three years in a row by the Washington Business Journal. He has been featured in over 100 articles in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Businessweek, USA Today, Forbes, and The Washington Post, and has appeared on ABC News, CBS News, NBC News and CNN. Reggie is also Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Indian CEO High Tech Council (now the DC Chapter of TiE).

Bryan Brown
VP of Business Development/Creative Director, RMM Online Advertising
Bryan Brown is responsible for RMM's corporate marketing and the development of strategic partnerships with advertising agencies. Brown also provides creative and technical leadership and art direction for RMM's creative department. Before joining RMM, he served as the creative director for advertising agencies and has worked extensively in the areas of graphic design and UI/UX development.

Bryan eats, sleeps, and breathes online technology, and is a true technology evangelist, applying his expertise to create solutions for client’s brands. Bryan studied fine art serigraphy and graphic design at the University of Texas and lives happily in Austin, Texas with his wife, 2 kids, and black standard poodle Chachi.

Dan Siroker
CEO, Optimizely
Dan Siroker is the CEO & Co-Founder of Optimizely, a tool that makes it dramatically easier to improve your website through A/B testing. The original inspiration for Optimizely came out of Dan's experience as the Director of Analytics for the Obama 2008 presidential campaign. In this talk, Dan will describe how the campaign used data to win the presidential election. He will share the lessons his team learned along the way and how you can apply them to any data-driven decision you need to make-- whether you are a developer, designer, or even a marketer. If you are building a product or selling an idea, you can use data to do it better.

Kevin Dando
Director, Digital Marketing & Communications, PBS
Kevin Dando oversees social media promotions of PBS’s broadcast and online content. As part of this work, he manages PBS's social media venues, including its Twitter and Facebook pages, which together have nearly 2 million followers. He also oversees PBS’s YouTube channel, which recently had its 100 millionth video view. Kevin was recently featured in the book “Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business” (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.).

Patrick McLean
Vice President, Digital Marketing, Capital One
Patrick McLean is Vice President, Digital Marketing at Capital One. He is responsible for Capital One’s digital brand strategy and bringing the brand’s personality to life through social, mobile and web channels. Patrick joined Capital One from Verizon Communications where he led the interactive marketing organization for the consumer and small business segments. Patrick also spent 7 years with Sympatico, Canada’s largest internet service provider where he led their marketing organization. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, he was a pioneer in the digital media industry having launched and served in senior marketing roles for a number of start up/early stage technology and media companies.

Colin Hynes
Senior VP of User Experience, Rue La La
Rue La La is an invitation-only online shopping destination offering a selection of premier brands across fashion, home, beauty, travel and more in its 48-hour private sale boutiques. Since launching in 2008, Rue La La has attracted almost 4 million members and partnered with more than 700 brands. Mr. Hynes is an expert in designing user-centric experiences for electronic and physical environments, with nearly two decades of experience in the field. Previous to Rue La La, Mr. Hynes founded the usability group at Staples, Inc. He has also led information architecture and website user experience strategies for FedEx, AT&T, Fidelity Investments, SmithKline Beecham, and Seagram Americas, among others.

Maggie McGary
Online Community & Social Media Manager, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)
Maggie is responsible for developing and implementing the association's social media strategy, as well as managing their online communities. She was named the Angerosa Research Foundation’s 2011 Publishing Trendsetter, an award recognizing innovation that advances association publishing. Maggie is a member of ASAE's Technology Section Council, as well as an active member of The Community Roundtable, a peer network of community, social media and social business practitioner. In addition to over 10 years experience in the association world, Maggie is a blogger whose guest posts have been featured on numerous blogs including The Washington Post, SocialFishing and Social Media Today. Maggie blogs about social media at Mizzinformation.com.

Donna DeMarco
Co-Founder & Vice President, Viddler, Inc.
Donna’s expertise in understanding clients requirements and exceeding their expectations has helped build Viddler to service 1,000 + clients. Donna has over 20 years providing management, software engineering and team building mentoring to Fortune 100 clients. She worked with and guided clients in the analysis and design of their systems, the adoption of software methods, and building successful teams. Viddler successfully fulfills clients needs that include integrating video into their website, private viewing of video, subscription video service, video contests and monetization through advertising. Viddler is the online video platform focused on helping you grow your brand, and business, through your online video presence.

Rogelio (Ro) Choy
COO, Formspring
Formspring is a question-and-answer-based social website. Ro was previously the CEO of Peerpong, a Q&A service using NLP/semantics for identifying interests and knowledge from social streams. Prior to Peerpong, Ro was Chief Revenue Officer for RockYou and responsible for leading all the business efforts for the company and Director at eBay Motors, leading the online parts business. Prior to eBay, Ro co-founded Cima Systems, a leading VOIP software provider for auto dealers. Ro serves as an advisor to a number of social media focused startups including Applifer, Nanigans, Wildfire Interactive, Project Slice, Adnectar, 500 Friends, Guestmob, Facepad, Replybuy, J2Play, GamesthatGive and Groupcard.

Danielle Brigida
Digital Marketing Manager, National Wildlife Federation
Danielle Brigida is a self-proclaimed wildlife geek and she actively engages a wide range of constituents using a mixture of online tools and social networking sites. An early adopter of social media with creative, engaging campaigns, Danielle has been recognized as: 10 Green Women We Love by Greenopia; one of the 75 Environmentalists to follow by Mashable; Top 50 green people to follow on Twitter by Greenopolis; A featured Changemaker by Change.org; A Measurement Maven of the Month by Katie Paine. By tracking emerging trends and measuring impact, she consistently finds the most effective ways to drive traffic and engagement for NWF's campaigns.

Dallas Lawrence
Chief Global Digital Strategist, Burson-Marsteller
Dallas Lawrence counsels companies and organizations on effective reputation management solutions. Burson-Marsteller’s global digital capability includes more than 100 social and digital media strategists throughout the world. Dallas is a recurring commentator for CNN on emerging media. 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.

Before joining Burson-Marsteller, Dallas chaired the social and digital media practice for crisis communications firm Levick Strategic Communications. Previously, Dallas served as the first Vice President for New Media for the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), and he served for more than four years as a trusted member of President Bush’s communications team, representing the White House in more than a dozen countries as the director of the Office of Community Relations and Public Liaison for the United States Department of Defense for Secretaries Rumsfeld and Gates. Prior to his Pentagon service, Dallas was appointed by the President as the Director of Regional Media Outreach and spokesperson for Ambassador L. Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq. Dallas spent several years managing state and local political campaigns, working on Capitol Hill as a communications director, and advising dozens of House and Senate candidates on effective campaign and message strategies.

John Alderman
Publisher, Slate
John Alderman is general manager of the Slate Group and publisher of Slate. Previously, Alderman has served as vice president of business development for WashingtonpostNewsweek Interactive and vice president of business and product development at the Away Network. Prior to these roles, he served in various editorial and business development roles at Outside magazine. Alderman serves on the board of Grist, a Seattle-based nonprofit Web site that focuses on environmental news and commentary. He received his MBA at Columbia Business School and undergraduate degree from Harvard College.

Lindsay Wassell
Partner & Consultant, KeyphraSEOlogy
Lindsay is a Partner & Consultant at Keyphraseology, a Florida-based SEO consultancy. Prior to Keyphraseology, she led the SEOmoz SEO Consulting Team. Lindsay has helped companies from the Fortune 500s to small and medium businesses succeed on the web. Lindsay writes about SEO and Site Auditing at seomoz.org and keyphraseology.com. She has spoken to advanced Internet Marketing and SEO audiences at SMX, SEOmoz Training, SHARE and the Microsoft Speaker Series.

Rob Noyes
Web Manager, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
Rob Noyes currently works as the Web Manager for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Acquisition Enterprise websites, and is an Internet entrepreneur and president of the e-commerce website, LetterRep.com. Previously, Rob worked for 22 years in DoD IT in data and web communications. Most recently, Rob served as CIO for Primed Ventures, Web Metrics consultant for Concert Technologies, New Media and Metrics Analyst for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Web Developer and Site Analyst for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) National Background Check Program.

Jack Krawczyk
Senior Product Marketing Manager, StumbleUpon
As Senior Product Marketing Manager at StumbleUpon, Jack Krawczyk is responsible for the product marketing development of advertising and partnership solutions. Focused on Paid Discovery, StumbleUpon’s social media marketing platform, Jack has been working closely with marketers 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 traffic 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.

Shashi Bellamkonda
Social Media Swami, Network Solutions
Shashi Bellamkonda is the Director Social Media and Public Relations for Network Solutions a company that provides domain names and online tools for small business customers and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and serves as a member of the Marketing Advisory Board of SCORE . The employees gave him the title of "Social Media Swami".

Recognized as one of the Top 100 Tech Titans by the Washingtonian magazine in 2009 & 2011 and awarded the honor of being in The 100 Small Business Influencer 2011 Champion List by Small Business Trends and Smallbiztechnology.com. Featured as a speaker at national and regional small business, communications and marketing at conferences such as Digital East 2010, SXSW, IABC, PRSA, and Affiliate Summit.

Timothy Markey
President, Visual Bridge
Prior to his new appointment at Visual Bridge, Tim was Director for Cisco's Global Professional Services for Business Video. Previous to that position in Cisco, Tim was responsible for all Services for the Americas Region as part of TANDBERG. TANDBERG was the leading manufacturer of video conferencing and collaboration infrastructure and endpoints prior to being acquired by Cisco. Tim joined TANDBERG from Amdocs, where he was the Vice President of 4G Wireless and was responsible for the successful deployment of Sprint/Clearwire’s 4G Wireless back office suite of systems. Prior to Amdocs, Tim held executive level positions in AOL Time Warner’s Video and Digital Services organization and MCI in the IT Department.

Brian Williams
Co-Founder & CEO, Viget Labs
Brian Williams helped establish Viget Labs, a leading web consulting firm, in 1999, growing the business serving clients ranging from startups like Squidoo, Opower, and Posterous to notable brands like Aol, Network Solutions, and PUMA.. In 2009, Brian was named one of Washington's top 100 tech leaders by Washingtonian Magazine. In 2010, Brian made the Washington Business Journal's "40 Under 40" list of successful business leaders.

Andrea Baker
Chief Social Engineer, ARBpr
Andrea Baker is a professional speaker, business development leader, and project manager for Social Business and innovation. She has authored the Social Business Roadmap and speaks internationally on social media for business and Government. She has trained thousands on how to properly use Social Media for Business, along with internal collaboration business practices under the name of Enterprise 2.0. Andrea was the Vice President of Social Media Club in Washington DC from 2009-2011. She currently runs her own freelancing consulting business in which she assists entities in how to follow the social business roadmap to achieve internal business communication harmony to complete customer engagement externally.

Larissa Fair
Senior Marketing Manager, Avectra
Larissa is a seasoned marketing and communications professional with extensive experience working with companies of all sizes from start-ups to mid-size to Fortune 500, in a wide range of industries such as IT, healthcare, entertainment, federal, nonprofit, and consumer packaged goods. Her strength is in designing and implementing integrated marketing and communications campaigns that leverage online, social, and traditional media channels for branding and messaging. She has served as President and Advisory Board Chair of Social Media Club DC (SMC-DC) for the past four years.

Matthew Bryan
Senior Analytics Engineer, WaPo Labs, The Washington Post Company
Matt routinely brags about his use of Netscape Navigator 0.9 and how things were "easy" before Javascript came along. But the truth is that he abandoned all of that to work as an electrical engineer before realizing just how imprecise all the really cool stuff is. That meant a move over to the dark arts of statistics and data mining, where he's promised to use his skills for good (or at least his version of that). He spent the years surrounding the 2008 election cycle building predictive targeting models for the Obama campaign and other large political groups as part of his work at Catalist. From there he moved to a Labs group at the Washington Post Company, where he juggles terabytes of web data to design meaningful metrics, drive interesting widgets and generally try and help make the messy world of the web a little cleaner (his mother would like that).

Liana “Li” Evans
Co-Founder & CEO, LiBeck Integrated Marketing
Li is the author of “Social Media Marketing: Engaging Strategies for Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media” as well as an adjunct professor for Rutgers University’s Mini MBA Program. Liana has also been featured in the books Online Marketing Heroes and Video Marketing An Hour a Day. As an established online marketing industry veteran with over 15 years’ experience she’s focused her unique skillset to specialize in Integrated Marketing and how companies can successfully strategize integrating all online marketing channels as well as offline traditional media. Li was the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Marketing architect for such companies as QVC, Comcast (Fancast) and has consulted with other companies such as AOL MovieFone.

Jim Halling
Interactive Sales Manager, Comcast Spotlight
Comcast Spotlight is the advertising sales division of Comcast and provides targeted On Air, On Demand, Online and On Site advertising solutions. Jim manages interactive, multi-platform sales strategies for Local, Regional and National businesses wishing to advertise in the Washington metro area – and his territory spans 3 states plus the District of Columbia and over 60 account executives.

With more than twenty-five years experience in sales, marketing, promotion and research, Jim has also served as Senior Manager of Cross-Platform Sales for AOL and as an Account Executive for NewsChannel 8 in Washington D.C. Former posts include Director of Marketing for the America’s Voice Cable Network, WKRN-TV in Nashville, TN and WJTV in Jackson, MS as well as on-air promotion positions at KTSP-TV Phoenix, KDFW-TV Dallas and WCCO-TV in Minneapolis, MN.

Mary Fletcher Jones
Marketing Consultant, Fletcher Prince
With more than 250 YouTube videos to her credit, Mary Fletcher Jones has used YouTube to inform and educate online audiences for the past four years. In addition to developing branded YouTube Channels and optimized videos for her Fletcher Prince clients, Mary produces “Conversations in Public Relations,” a YouTube video program featuring interviews with DC area thought leaders in communications.

Enthusiastic about all things digital, Mary enjoys blogging on topics ranging from social media to holiday celebrations to parenting children with autism. Before founding Fletcher Prince in 2006, Mary worked as the marketing communications manager for the American Red Cross.

Don Bruns
Director of Application Design, Navigation Arts
NavigationArts, is a Washington, DC based digital consultancy. Bruns has fifteen years of experience in delivering web-based solutions with a focus on information architecture, rapid prototyping, and user research. As a veteran of Razorfish and Aquilent, Bruns has led client engagements for such high profile clients as KPMG, Pershing, AARP, U.S. Department of State, and USA.gov, the official web portal of the United States federal government. He has been a featured speaker at KMWorld and Gilbane conferences.

Lindsay Woodworth
Director of Marketing, 2ergo
Lindsay Woodworth has over a decade of experience in the mobile industry. As 2ergo's Director of Marketing, she is responsible for corporate positioning, product marketing, and consultant services in the North American region. Prior to joining 2ergo, Lindsay spent seven years at Handango, a pioneering smartphone content publisher. While there, she drove marketing, product management and operations efforts and executed programs with industry leaders such as Microsoft, RIM and Nokia, helping to grow the company from a small Internet start-up into a multi-million dollar, global software provider. Prior speaking experience includes AdTech and Mobile Shopping Summit. She was named one of 2010's Mobile Women to Watch and is often quoted in industry publications like Mobile Marketer.

Ken Eisner
VP Policy & Business Development, One Economy
One Economy is a global NGO that leverages technology to help low-income individuals enter the economic mainstream. Ken heads up business development with private sector partners, launches social ventures, guides the company's expansion into the mobile arena, and leads technology policy efforts. Ken has led the largest U.S. public private partnerships to tackle the broadband adoption gap facing low-income Americans, joining forces with companies such as Microsoft, Intel, Dell, Amazon, Comcast and AT&T, along with support from the Department of Education, Federal Communications Commission, and other agencies.

Ken brings two decades of experience, along with a decade as a senior executive for online, e-commerce, and wireless companies, to the One Economy team. Select roles include: vp of marketing for VarsityBooks.com, helping to drive them to their IPO; strategic advisor to Nextel; head of e-commerce and operations for a multi-carrier wireless company; and head of marketing and sales for the largest global e-commerce association. Ken serves as an advisor to various early-to-mid stage new media / e-commerce companies and philanthropic endeavors, has served as an expert witness on Internet issues, and is a Gerson Lehrman Group Leader.

Kevin Lee
Founder & CEO, Didit
Kevin Lee has been an acknowledged SEM expert since 1995. He is a founding board member of SEMPO.org and its first elected Chairman. Didit has proprietary Maestro technology for SEM and Display, and provides client services in the SEM and Display areas. Didit was part of the 2007 Inc 500 (#137), and has received a #12 position on Deloitte’s Fast 500 for 3 years in a row. Kevin authors a “Paid Search Strategies” column for ClickZ and has written several books, his most recent is Search Engine Advertising. Kevin was recognized as an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2008, and he presently serves on several industry and company boards. In 2008 Didit launched a subsidiary, PowerProfiles.com, Online Business Directory.

Also in 2008, Kevin Lee and partner David Pasternack launched a social entrepreneurship venture, www.We-Care.com a web technology that generates millions of dollars of passive donation revenue for non-profit causes including schools, universities, associations, clubs and houses of worship.

Arnie Kuenn
President, Vertical Measures
Arnie Kuenn is the president of Vertical Measures and author of Accelerate! Move Your Business Forward Through the Convergence of Search, Social & Content Marketing. Vertical Measures specializes in providing strategic search, social and content marketing services, designed to help businesses grow by obtaining more traffic and conversions. Arnie has held executive positions in the world of new technologies and marketing for more than 20 years. He served on the 2008 Arizona Super Bowl Marketing Committee and is a founder and past president of the Arizona Interactive Marketing Association (AZIMA).

Arnie is a frequent speaker at conferences such as PubCon, SMX, SES, American Marketing Association, Online Marketing Summit, Social Media AZ, and the ASU Cronkite School of Journalism. Arnie is also an instructor for the Online Marketing Institute.

Jessica Bowman
Founder & CEO, SEOinhouse
Jessica is a leading expert and advocate for in-house SEO. She is known for getting in-house SEO programs up and running quickly, systematically and profitably. Identified as one of the industry’s top in-house SEOs by Natural Search Blog, Jessica has built in-house SEO programs for Yahoo! Inc., Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Business.com. Jessica is a marketer who comes from an IT background, which gives her a different perspective on how to execute SEO by integrating into existing systems and processes.

Eric Boggs
CEO, Argyle Social
Eric Boggs is the Founder & CEO of Argyle Social, a social media marketing software provider. He leads Argyle in its mission to make social a measurable, addressable marketing channel.

Prior to launching Argyle, Eric was employee #1 and part of the senior leadership team at Bronto Software. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned an MBA from UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School, where he was a Dean’s Fellow.

Marty Weintraub
CEO, aimClear®
Marty is author of "Killer Facebook Ads" (Wiley/Sybex 2011) and CEO of aimClear®, an online marketing agency that has managed Facebook ad campaigns generating over 10 billion impressions internationally. Client credits include MarthaStewart.com, Siemens, Second Life, Budget Direct, and other global brands. The aimClear Blog (aimclearblog.com) has been cited as among the Technorati Top 10 Small Business Blogs, Cison Top Ten Social Media Blogs, PRWeb’s 25 Essential Public Relations Blogs You Should Be Reading, and listed in the AdAge Power150. aimClear has become internationally recognized for its work in demographic research, especially as pertains to search, Facebook, and LInkedIn.

Tom Critchlow
Director of Operations, Distilled
Tom joined Distilled over 4 years ago when the company was starting out. During his time at Distilled, his role has shifted from hands-on SEO for local companies to SEO consulting for fortune 500 brands. Tom started out as Head of Search for Distilled but in June 2011 moved to New York to become VP Operations for the new Distilled NYC office. On a typical day Tom’s time is spent hiring smart people, living and breathing SEO, diving head first into data and managing the NYC team.

Roy Schwartz
CRO, POLITICO
Roy Schwartz is POLITICO’s Chief Revenue Officer and is responsible for POLITICO’s overall revenue and sales strategy. Roy manages POLITICO’s sales teams and executes POLITICO’s long-term business development strategy, partnerships and explores new revenue possibilities. Roy comes to POLITICO from The Gallup Organization where he was a Partner responsible for the management and growth of Gallup’s Los Angeles Division. While at Gallup, Roy consulted with Fortune 500 organizations to achieve better management of human capital, increase employee and customer engagement, and drive sustainable financial performance.

Prior to joining Gallup, Roy worked for MCI, WGCF, (DC based venture capital firm) and Estee Lauder.

Tara Lewis
Southeast Regional Marketing Director, Yelp.com
A native to the Washington DC area, Tara Lewis is currently the Southeast Regional Marketing Director for Yelp.com, a website that connects people with great local business via real reviews, written by real people. In July 2011, over 53 million unique visitors came to the website, with over 20 million reviews written. Yelp has a presence in over 8 countries (and counting) in North America and Europe.

Prior to her current role at Yelp, Tara was the Washington, DC Community Manager for the company, executing all local marketing efforts for the site. A graduate of Cornell University, Tara was previously the Director of Partner Marketing at Revolution Health before joining Yelp in 2009.

Geoff Allen
Founder & CEO, ZipList
Geoff is Founder & CEO of ZipList, and a serial entrepreneur who finally got fed up buying the wrong items, wandering the aisles like an aimless nomad and forgetting his shopping list. Founder of several media technology firms including Anystream and Echo360, ZipList was envisioned to make the tedious process of grocery shopping simpler and easier. He attended George Mason University’s Computer Science program and the Birthing of Giants Entrepreneurial Management Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is a member of Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO).

Dr. Satyam Priyadarshy
Adjunct Faculty, Georgetown University & George Mason University
Dr. Priyadarshy is a Venture Idealist, who transforms businesses using technology solutions, analytics and competitive intelligence. Some of his recent associations include established company like BellSystem24 in Tokyo, mPortal (Virginia) and Internet Startups like Enformed (San Francisco), Foodem, Sustainable Star, and Innoengineer (in the DC Metro area). He also is an subject matter expert for investment firms interested in M&A and investment in technology companies.

Previously, he was at Network Solutions as the Chief Knowledge officer and VP of Analytics. Satyam led the transformation of the ecommerce storefront, from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 technologies, and he provided leadership to web analytics, marketing analytics and custom analytics teams. Prior to Network Solutions, Satyam led RKR Group, a boutique consulting company, focused on CEOs and CTOs of a variety of public (comScore) and private Internet and telecom companies. Before RKR Group, Satyam spent 9 years at AOL, a leading Internet and media company, in various roles: as Co-Founder and Senior Research Scientist of AOL Labs, as Head of Research Labs-India, and as Technical Expert for real-time performance and customer experience and product improvement. Previous to AOL, Dr. Priyadarshy held various scientific and academic positions at Rutgers, University of Pittsburgh, and University of Sydney, Australia. He is an Adjunct Faculty at Georgetown University, George Mason University and Advisory Board Member of Norther Virginia Community College's Information Technology Courses. He is also a Charter Member of TIE, a global entrepreneurship network.

Janet Driscoll Miller
President & CEO, Search Mojo
Janet Driscoll Miller is the President and CEO of Search Mojo, a leading search engine marketing firm headquartered in Charlottesville, Va. She is a frequent speaker at search engine conferences including SMX Advanced and Pubcon and she also participates in webinars as a speaker on SEO and PPC for MarketingProfs. Janet has worked with many B2B, B2C, non-profit and government clients on PPC initiatives, including Mazda USA, Share Our Strength, Raxco Software and Reston-based ScienceLogic. She is a graduate James Madison University with a degree in Communications and Graphic Arts and a certified Google AdWords Professional.

Duke Chung
Co-founder, Parature
Duke Chung co-founded Parature with a vision to provide superior customer service and social engagement software accessible via the Internet. Today, Parature’s cloud-based product supports nearly 35 million end users worldwide in diverse industries from associations, federal and educational institutions, gaming, services, and technology companies.

Duke is recognized as one of the top entrepreneurs in the Greater Washington Metropolitan region and has been widely recognized for pioneering innovation with such honors as being named The Washingtonian magazine’s Power 150 as a ‘rising star’ and most recently to the Bisnow on Business ‘Top 35 under 35 Entrepreneur’ in the Washington region.

Adam Archer
General Manager, Vitrue Games
Prior to being CEO and Co-Founder of GamesThatGive (Acquired by Vitrue in July, 2011), Archer was a senior software engineer at Apple, working on many aspects of Mac OS X. He also worked as a software engineer for Microsoft MSN. Archer is an experienced organic farmer and has backpacked extensively around the world. He holds a B.S.E. in Computer Engineering from Arizona State University.

Colin O'Malley
Chief Strategy Officer, Co-founder, Evidon
Colin leads Evidon's strategy and policy teams, and spear-headed the Design Partner Program, which included agency holding companies, advertisers, networks and associations. An expert in privacy matters, he was the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships & Programs at TRUSTe from 2003 to 2009, where he developed and launched self-regulatory programs for email (Bonded Sender Program, Email Privacy Seal) and Software (Trusted Download Program). Execution across these programs drove the transition of TRUSTe to for-profit status and an A-Round from Accel Partners.

Earlier he was the Manager of Product Development at NetCreations from 1999 to 2002. Colin is a published author and has a BS in Economics and Human and Organizational Development from Vanderbilt University.

Stewart Allen
Chief Technology Officer, Clearspring
Stewart leads platform development efforts at Clearspring and is responsible for Clearspring's platform design and implementation. He has been an early or founding member, of six technology start-ups. Most recently, he was CTO and VP Engineering at WebMethods. His work has led to the foundational web standards such as XML-RPC and SOAP, laying the groundwork for Web 2.0.

Kathleen DeBenedictis
Director of Product Management, Advanced Advertising, Comcast Spotlight
Kathleen DeBenedictis joined Comcast in 2007 as Director of Product Management. She is responsible for driving the development and deployment of Comcast Spotlight’s interactive (ITV) advertising products across Comcast’s footprint. In addition to overseeing a suite of Spotlight’s iTV products, she is also the Comcast product lead working with Canoe Ventures. Prior to joining Comcast, she was the product lead on AOL’s Video Search, IPTV and AOL Video for TV products. She holds a B.S in Engineering from Lehigh University, a MBA from Fordham University as well as a Masters in International Business from Thunderbird.

Tony Haile
General Manager, Chartbeat
Tony Haile is the General Manager of Chartbeat, the real-time analytics service used by everyone from the New York Times to Groupon. Tony was an early employee at, and now acts as an advisor to, Betaworks, the company behind Summize (now Twitter Search), Bit.ly and Tweetdeck, where he led Twitterfeed, the largest publisher to Twitter. Prior to moving headlong into the world of digital startups, Tony spent time leading and managing polar expeditions and acting as bowman for Team Logica on a Round-the-world yacht race. Startups are apparently similarly exciting with less risk of losing a limb.

Leigh George, PhD
Sr. Digital Marketing Strategist, R2integrated
Leigh George is passionate about finding new ways social technology can help organizations connect with the audiences they are trying to reach. As senior digital marketing strategist at R2integrated, Leigh helps clients develop, implement and track strategic plans for brand awareness, customer and member acquisition, relationship management, online engagement and community management using a combination of tactics, including websites, social media, microsites and blogs, online communities, mobile marketing, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, banner and display advertising and email marketing.

Brianne Keating Forst
Director of Ecommerce, Plow & Hearth, Inc.
Serving as the Director of Ecommerce, Brianne Keating Forst manages the e-commerce marketing initiatives for six titles under the Plow & Hearth multi-channel umbrella. Brianne has focused her entire career around ecommerce, previously developing and executing email marketing and web development for multi-billion dollar organizations, leading and directing all marketing efforts for ecommerce only start-up brands, and driving all ecommerce initiatives for a variety of B2B and B2C titles.

David Dowd
General Manager of Lifestyle Sales, Buddy Media
David brings to Buddy Media vast experience in content and business development and will oversee sales across its lifestyle business with verticals such as retail, fashion, healthcare, real estate and beauty services. Prior to Buddy Media, he led Content Development and Acquisition Strategy for the Branded Entertainment team at Google, Inc. David also was the Team Manager of Publisher Solutions at Google, Inc. working with major partners such as Hearst, Bloomberg/Business Week, Martha Stewart and Conde Nast Digital. Previously, he was CEO and founder of ViewPlay Media.

Rachael King
Social Media Account Executive, iostudio
Rachael King is a social media strategist, community manager, and Gen Y blogger. She is currently traveling the country, speaking to and teaching the 54 states and territories of the National Guard how to use social media as a marketing and recruitment tool. She has been at the forefront of the social media marketing space since it first launched, and was sought out by MTV to be one of 20 contestants to compete to be their first Twitter Jockey in 2010. She is the President of D.C.'s Social Media Club chapter, Event Manager for a digital community of 18,000+ called 20 Something Bloggers, and a co-organizer of the annual meet up Bloggers in Sin City.

Stacie Saunders
Social Media Strategist, Communications, AICPA
In January 2011, Stacie came to the AICPA to lead and guide their social media strategy and have oversight of the Institute’s social networking properties. She serves as key contact for all social media initiatives; manages main AICPA LinkedIn groups and Facebook page; and leads staff and member education and training on social media. A 10 year news media veteran, Stacie took her marketing efforts into the social space in 2009, creating one of the largest social media presences for a local television station in the country.

Greg Gunn
VP of Business Development, HootSuite
Gregory Gunn launched the HootSuite Enterprise Sales team and currently heads up partnerships, integrations and international expansion for the social media dashboard leader. His passion for people, technology & data has driven his career towards developing successful SaaS business solutions where the three intersect. Greg earned both a BCOM from the University of Victoria and an MBA at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. Combining practical experience with comprehensive research, Greg was the lead on projects focused around digital strategy, online commerce and hybrid business models.

Robert J. Abate
CBIP, CDMP, Solutions Principal, EMC Consulting
As a hands-on, accomplished Information Technology professional, Robert offers more than 28 years of experience in Architecture, Big Data Analytics & Business Intelligence, Applications (CEP, SOA, EDA) and Enterprise Information Management (EIM,DG, MDM). He is credited as one of the first to publish on Services Oriented Architectures (1996), and a respected IT thought leader within the field. He is an EE and a Certified Business Intelligence Professional / Certified Data Management Professional in four disciplines. Mr. Abate chairs and presents at global conferences, is a member of the board of DAMA and is a respected author and industry thought-leader. Mr. Abate frequently can be heard giving talks and webinars on topics such as “Extreme Performance – Big Data Warehousing”, "The Convergence Of SOA & BI,” “Best Practices In Enterprise Information Management,” and “SOA / BI Market Trends.”

Chris Brozenick
Vice President of Consumer Products, WeatherBug
Chris Brozenick is the vice president of consumer products for WeatherBug, the consumer brand of Earth Networks. In this role, Brozenick leads business development, marketing and product for the rapidly expanding mobile and online businesses of the company.

Under Brozenick’s leadership, WeatherBug mobile applications have received numerous distinctions and awards, including “The Top 10 Free BlackBerry Apps 2010” from PCMag.com; “Top Travel Apps of 2010” from Travel & Leisure magazine; “Top 10 iPhone Apps” from Wireless Week; and “10 Must-Have iPhone Apps for Seniors” from U.S. News & World Report.

Mark Stencel
Managing Editor, Digital News, NPR
Mark Stencel is managing editor for digital news at NPR, where he is responsible for overseeing all content on NPR.org and other online platforms and gizmos. Stencel began his career at the Washington Post as an assistant to syndicated columnist David S. Broder. Later, as a senior editor on the breaking news desk, he served as a liaison between the Post's print and online newsrooms, coordinating coverage of the 2003 Iraq invasion, the 2004 election and other major stories. Before leaving the Post, Stencel was a vice president at the Post Company’s online division, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive.

In addition to his work at the Post, Stencel was the managing editor at CQ, and the executive editor and deputy publisher at GOVERNING, a monthly magazine and website written for leaders in state and local government and published by Congressional Quarterly. Stencel is also the co-author of two books on media and politics — Peep Show: Media and Politics and in an Age of Scandal, written with political scientists Larry J. Sabato and S. Robert Lichter; and On the Line: The New Road to the White House, written with CNN's Larry King.

Rick Robinson
Contributing Editor, The Social Media Monthly magazine
Rick Robinson is a founder, entrepreneur, writer and former executive with AOL/AOLTW, Webs.com, Sprint, XOHM and YES 4G. He was a founder of Digital City (AOL Local) in the mid-1990s after several years as editor in chief of BBS Magazine where he chronicled the early online movement. Through the years Robinson has led product, content, innovation and consumer experience groups in areas such as mobile, local and social. Recently his site locl.ly, which focused on hyperlocal and geosocial companies, was purchased by Street Fight where he now serves as adviser and columnist. Currently Robinson advises startups such as Urgnt.ly, is contributing editor to The Social Media Monthly magazine, and is head of emerging technology for Blue Beacon Consulting.

John Nicholson
Attorney, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
Mr. Nicholson is an attorney in Pillsbury's Global Sourcing group. Mr. Nicholson helps clients structure, negotiate and document complex sourcing transactions. He is also a lead member of the firm's Privacy and Data Protection practice and an active member of the firm’s multidisciplinary Social Media, Entertainment & Technology team.

Mr. Nicholson's practice includes negotiating and preparing software licensing, development, and implementation agreements; data center, information technology (IT), and business process (BPO) outsourcing relationships, including help desk and back office outsourcings; offshore outsourcing arrangements; IT consulting agreements; software, hardware, and outsourcing requests for proposals (RFPs); hardware and software procurement transactions; enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation and licensing agreements (e.g., SAP and Oracle); and Internet technology matters, including web site hosting, cloud computing, content, and Terms of Use agreements.

Nick Hayes
Director of Compute & Storage, Savvis
Nick Hayes is a Director of Compute & Storage within Savvis' Solutions Consulting Practice. Nick’s and the practice's role is to provide advisory services to enterprise customers and help create a strategic roadmap for infrastructure optimization opportunities leveraging technology solutions such as Virtualization, ILM and Cloud Computing.

Prior to joining Savvis, Nick’s 20+ year career has seen him hold leadership and lead architect positions at IBM, Tyco, Siemens, Morgan Stanley and the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

Jeff Parsons
Director of Multi-platform News Projects, Sinclair Broadcasting Group
Jeff is a digital media strategist with hands-on experience in strategy development, distribution, marketing, revenue growth and content development to match local and national brands. From his experience leading a national video news network for the Associated Press to developing strategy and content for local websites with Internet Broadcasting, Jeff has a background of more than 17 years in digital and media strategies.

Jeff currently own Digital Strategy Specialists in Washington, and serves as director of multi-platform news projects for Sinclair Broadcasting Group. Prior to the Associated Press, Jeff was the Senior Director of Strategic Content and News for Internet Broadcasting which develops and maintains web sites for almost 100 media properties. Jeff managed teams that developed video and text content as well as micro-sites in key vertical areas such as entertainment, travel, automotive and business. Jeff has an extensive background in local content development including web sites in four local media markets.

Dan Dawes
SVP Digital Operations, Euro RSCG Discovery
Dan is a seasoned advertising and marketing professional with 18 years of experience with the past 12 focused on leveraging digital in integrated marketing plans. Dan's experience covers many industries including financial services, pharmaceuticals, technology, CPG, transportation, healthcare, retail/franchise, education and associations. Clients include SONIC Drive-Ins, Sprint, CHASE Card Services and Sears, among other smaller/regional clients.

As SVP of Digital Operations, Dan is responsible overall digital strategy and implementation oversight, while partnering with internal and external Teams to create fully integrated marketing solutions.

Euro RSCG Discovery is the data analytics, CRM and behavioral marketing agency network of Euro RSCG Worldwide. The agency combines research – behavioral, attitudinal and lifestyle data – to develop actionable insights that help clients build loyalty, increase share and create personal connections to their brands.

Caribou Honig
Co-founder & Partner, QED Investors
Caribou Honig began his career at Capital One Financial during its initial hypergrowth years, leading data-driven marketing initiatives in both the telecom and credit card sectors. Responsibilities included directing a $50 mm marketing budget, running a 200 person operation, and leading all online credit card customer acquisitions.

Mr. Honig is cofounder and partner of the boutique venture firm, QED Investors. His investments span an array of marketing and ad technology companies, particularly in the mobile, online display, and social sectors.

Mr. Honig holds a bachelor's degree in Physics and Philosophy from Harvard University, an MBA from the Darden School of Business, and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. He is a member of the Virginia Bar, and serves on several boards including West Cary Group, 33Across, and Spruce Media.

He and his wife have two children and two annoying but lovable dogs.

Mack McGee
Lead Consultant, Groove Commerce
Mack McGee has served as VP of Sales and Marketing for Groove Commerce for three years. Currently, Mack manages Groove's ongoing partnership with Magento and serves as a lead consultant for many of Groove's clients.

Working alongside CEO and founder of Groove, Ethan Giffin, Mack works with companies to increase the KPIs of their eCommerce site through usability and online marketing initiatives. “Defining the user and the ideal experience is critical to succeeding in eCommerce, it's amazing how many e-tailers fail to step back and think about this concept at a higher level.

Eric Gregg
Co-Founder, TechMedia
Eric co-founded TechMedia, which produces technology and entrepreneurial events such as Digital East here, Internet Summit in Raleigh, NC, Digital Summit in Atlanta and the Southeast Venture Conference which will again be hosted at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner early 2012. 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, which covers the latest trends and best practices in the digital world.

Rob Thomas
Vice President of Business Development, IBM’s Information Management Software Division
Rob Thomas is Vice President of Business Development in IBM’s Information Management Software Division. He has worked extensively with global businesses and his background includes experience in business and operational strategy, high technology development and engineering, manufacturing operations, and product design and development consulting.

In his current role, Mr. Thomas leads business development for Information Management software, which includes IBM’s enterprise data management and information integration products. He is responsible for mergers & acquisitions, channel strategy and sales, and major ISV and SI partnerships. Recently, Mr. Thomas led IBM’s acquisition of Netezza, the leader in data warehousing and analytical appliances.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Thomas had general management responsibilities for IBM’s engineering services and semiconductor business in Asia Pacific.

Rolfe Swinton
Co-Founder & Director, Lumi Mobile
Rolfe Swinton is Co-Founder and Director of Lumi Mobile, a mobile technology company based in New York City, London and Finland. Lumi Mobile has built the world’s most powerful technology platform for businesses across sectors to create interactive, instant experiences operating across all mobile devices and PCs via applications and HTML5.

Prior to founding Lumi, Rolfe was the Director of Development at CPI and COO at CPI Publishing Solutions. Rolfe created CPI's digital publishing, led development initiatives in a number of markets including Eastern Europe, Southern Europe and North America, and executed multiple acquisition deals. 

Prior to CPI, he worked at Monitor Company where he led projects across a range of corporate, government, and nonprofit clients in North America, Central America and South Africa. Rolfe was trained as an architect and philosopher at Yale University. He earned his M.Phil at Cambridge, and his MBA at INSEAD. Rolfe continues to be actively involved at INSEAD where he has served as Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship and created one of INSEAD's most popular MBA electives - Your First One Hundred Days.

Kapil Bakshi
Chief Architect & Strategist, Cisco Systems
Kapil Bakshi works for Cisco Systems Inc. Kapil is responsible for leading and driving data center and cloud computing strategy and initiatives in Cisco Public Sector. Kapil has extensive experience in strategizing, architecting, managing, and delivering data center and cloud solution. During his career, he has held several architectural, consulting, and managerial positions within the industry. Prior to Cisco, Kapil worked for Sun Microsystems (now Oracle), where he spent a decade working with U.S. federal government and service provider customers. Prior to SUN Microsystems, he worked for Hewlett-Packard and several government system integrators in consulting and product development roles. He also holds U.S. patents for data center and related solution sets.

Sean Glass
Venture Partner, Novak Biddle
Prior to joining Novak Biddle, Sean was the founder and Chairman of Pikum Holdings, which was backed by Virgin and First Round Capital, and which was acquired by The Football Pools. Prior to Pikum, Sean was the founding President and then Chief Marketing Officer at Higher One (NYSE: ONE), where he led the marketing and positioning strategy that helped the firm reach profitability while becoming recognized as one of the fastest growing private companies in the U.S. by INC. and Fast Company. Higher One went public in June 2010 in an offering led by Goldman Sachs. Sean co-founded Higher One while a student at Yale where he earned a B.S. in Engineering Sciences. He also has an M.A. in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Janice Ryan
Director, Online Marketing, Publishers Clearing House
Janice Ryan joined Publishers Clearing House in 2007 and has been the driving force behind the expansion of PCH's online efforts in the gaming and entertainment space. On the heels of PCH's acquisition of casual gaming portal, Candystand.com, Janice oversees the newly-formed PCH Play&Win group which also includes PCHgames, PCHlotto, and the recently launched PCHslots. Janice has expertly leveraged a cutting-edge email marketing strategy to propel the Play&Win network to a combined reach of over 6MM consumers.

Prior to her time at PCH, Janice led multi-channel consumer marketing and retention efforts at Bookspan, Time Inc., Scholastic, Inc. and American Express Publishing.

Mark Sabec
Product Marketing Manager, YouTube
Mark Sabec is a YouTube Product Marketing Manager focusing on agency and large advertiser outreach and education. Approaching his fourth year at Google, Mark has lead several successful high-profile product launches and campaigns, including the launch of Google Chrome, Chrome Artist Themes,ChromeExperiments.com, and most recently the launch of YouTube Show & Tell. Mark is a graduate of Stanford University, where he received a B.A. in Psychology and a M.A. in Digital Media Studies in the Department of Communication. He recently moved from San Francisco to NYC and currently lives in the West Village.

Toby Russell
VP, Enterprise Mobile & Emerging Channels, Capital One
Toby Russell received his PhD in International Relations from Oxford University in 2004 after several intern assignments with the World Bank and a US Senator. He joined the Boston Consulting Group for 3 years and then helped found 'Taxi Magic' - the nation's first taxi booking service that is directly integrated taxi dispatch systems. In 2009, Toby joined the US Dept. of Energy to head up a $12 Billion renewable energy program and in April 2011, he joined Capital One as VP, Enterprise Mobile and Emerging Channels. Toby works in forming the new Enterprise Digital team in building an integrated online and mobile strategy.

Ben Bullock
Director of Analytics & Advertising, Blue State Digital
As Director of Analytics and Advertising, Ben works closely with Blue State Digital clients to define digital strategy based on the interpretation of data. Ben joins us from Google, where he was a Metrics Analyst responsible for developing, presenting and implementing data-driven recommendations to top Fortune 500 partners in the entertainment industry. His expertise in web analytics, search marketing, multi-variate testing and data analysis has helped to improve clients' online performance in the corporate and non-profit sectors.