Sean Shadmand’s official title is the CSO and co-founder of PointAbout, Inc. In other words, he is the visionary behind AppMakr.com, which has altered the mobile application industry. Previously, Sean was instrumental in growing Tagged.com from a startup with 2 million users to a profitable company with 40 million users. He has experience in viral tuning, user acquisition, large scale systems, and product development. Additionally, Sean is a co-founder of FamilyOven.com, one of the largest recipe-oriented social networking sites. He oversaw its growth of half a million members as it became operationally
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Hiten started on the Internet by founding a Internet marketing consultancy, ACS. He then went on to create Crazy Egg, an analytics tool that visualizes the user experience on a website. Now with KISSmetrics he is building a data driven solution for to help online businesses make better business decisions. Hiten is passionate about helping other entrepreneurs and startup people.
As CEO and CTO of Ifbyphone, Irv Shapiro is responsible for overall business strategy and corporate leadership. Irv’s successful entrepreneurial experience includes founding Metamor Technologies in 1985 and Edventions in 1999. Under Irv’s leadership, Metamor was named an Inc. 500 company for two consecutive years, growing to over 500 employees and $32 million in revenues. His business success earned him inductee status with the "Chicago Area Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame.”
Ivan manages Americas business development for NAVTEQ.
Since joining NAVTEQ in 2004 as a Product Manager, Ivan has initiated the $28.5M acquisition of a map company in South Korea, led the product integration of a Mexican acquisition, managed the development of a new map database in Australia and launched the first map product optimized for pedestrians using mobile phones and consumer electronics (Discover Cities). Products that he managed are used by Porsche, Toyota, Yahoo, AOL/Mapquest, IAC, Microsoft, Garmin, Sony, Verizon, Nokia and others.
Products that Ivan helped create
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Andrew founded kCura in February 2001 as the President and CEO. During his tenure with kCura, he has transformed the group from a consulting firm to a software company providing electronic discovery solutions for the legal community. Prior to kCura, he was a senior consultant at Lante, Inc., an e-business consulting firm. At Lante, he led development and was a project manager working with clients such as Microsoft. From 1995 to 1999, Andrew served as the Messaging System Architect for Siemens Build Technology, where he was responsible for the messaging infrastructure of the North American region. Andrew
... Read moreBlane Sims is VP of Products at BrightTag, a company focused on helping marketers create rich first-party datasets that can be instantly connected with any partner or application. Blane comes to BrightTag with 15 years e-commerce and enterprise software experience, including senior product management roles at Orbitz and Vignette.
Arvind is a serial entrepreneur with experience in building global businesses for the last 20 years. He believes in boot strapping start-ups and has done that successfully twice with no external funding. Prior to co-founding Utopia in 2003, Arvind was the CEO of Value Communications Corporation (ValuCom), a company he founded in 1996. Under his leadership, ValuCom grew to be one of the most recognized brand names in prepaid telecom in the US. The company was acquired by Rediff.com (NASDAQ: REDF) in 2001. Arvind began his corporate career in sales & marketing with IDM (an IBM spin-off) in India
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Ved leads Elance's customer acquisition and retention across online channels including paid search, SEO, affiliates, display and CRM. Prior to this role, Ved led product management for Elance, and drove the product strategy and design for the Elance user experience. Ved has been with Elance since the company's inception.
Prior to Elance, Ved was a consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton. Ved began his career at Oracle, where he led technical pre-sales for an Oracle business unit and developed software applications for Oracle clients.
Ved holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and a BA with a do
Jeff is responsible for Marketing, Client Services, and Operations at Vizu, with a focus on growing revenue from both new and existing customers. Prior to joining Vizu, Jeff was Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Keibi Technologies, a leading provider of social media optimization solutions for companies leveraging user generated content to drive consumer engagement, where he tripled the company's revenues and helped create a new paradigm for deriving value from and monetizing social media. Jeff's accomplishments, which range from managing new product launches into domestic and international
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Vivek is the Co-Founder of Rapleaf, a technology based consumer data company. Rapleaf supports the business-to-consumer ecosystem by empowering businesses with data on their existing consumers, enabling for more personalization in every interaction with the consumer. Rapleaf currently has demographic, lifestyle, behavioral, intent, purchase, influencer, and other data on over 500 million individuals.
Rovi Corporation, Product Manager, Rovi Cloud Services
Rahim Sonawalla is product manager at Rovi Corporation, where he is responsible for helping guide the strategic direction and development of the Rovi Cloud Services API, a suite of web-based solutions designed to help businesses build innovative new digital entertainment products, services and applications for the connected consumer. Rahim joined Rovi in 2011. Prior to this, Rahim held the position of developer evangelist at Twilio and previous to this, was a software engineer at IBM. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of California, Irvine, and a Master of Science degree in Informatics from University
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Brad Spirrison is the Managing Editor of Appolicious and AndroidApps.com, where consumers find mobile apps they'll love. The Appolicious family of sites (which also includes video review service AppVee.com) and mobile apps for the iPhone, and Android are discovery tools to help consumers browse, search and share recommendations for the hundreds of thousands of apps available on the iOS and Android platforms. Spirrison manages an editorial operation that publishes dozens of daily articles including app reviews and compilations, as well as industry news and buyers guides. Appolicious is a content
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Barry is the global practice leader of media strategy for Acxiom Corporation (ACXM), where he leads brands to success by mastering the new and emerging media and marketing ecosystem.
With more than 13 years of experience in omni-channel integration (on/offline), Barry has consulted over 100 of the Fortune 500 (all sectors, markets and industries). Before joining Acxiom in 2008, Barry was Chief Strategist of Responsys and Founder & Chief Strategy Officer of INBOX Marketing (acquired by Responsys in 2006).
Barry founded the Emerging Media Forum (EMF), a peer-powered network for sharing
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Joe is a Senior Analyst at Forrester Research, serving Customer Intelligence professionals. He is a leading expert on Web analytics, online testing and targeting, and mobile measurement. His research focuses on the generation and application of Web intelligence to deliver highly relevant and engaging online and multichannel customer experiences.
Prior to joining Forrester, Joe was the vice president of Platform Strategy at Alterian, where he focused on product strategy, product marketing, analyst relations, and corporate development. Joe graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Cha
Kelly Stickel, Director Vendor Relations, Acquity Group
Kelly has 12 years of experience building teams that execute digital agency and consulting projects. For the past 5 years, she has managed Acquity Group’s service vendors nationally across all of the digital channels while researching new and emerging technology. She has also successfully organized collaborative mobile-related educational events including the first Start Up Showcase for Mobile Monday – Chicago in 2009, the first Mobile University event for the Heartland Mobile Council in 2010, and the first Bricks + Mobile event for Remodista March of 2011.For the past 15 years, Kelly has
... Read moreVice President and Director, Integrated Media
Colman Brohan Davis
Dick heads up Colman Brohan Davis’s integrated media practice and is expert on the growing influence of mobile marketing. He has planned media campaigns that use the mobile channel, and has championed its use with the agency’s clients. He joined Colman Brohan Davis with over twenty years of experience fostering innovative thinking enriching the strategic planning process and seeking key market opportunities for clients to exploit and improve market share. He is responsible for executions integrating every media channel and has worked on both BtoC and BtoB campaigns, including for new product
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Philip Tadros's, founder and CEO of Doejo, entrepreneurship started exceptionally early; at nineteen he dropped out of school and began his carer as a serial-problem solver. He procured a $20,000 loan to purchase his first retail location: Don’s Coffee Club, a floundering coffee shop. Working hard everyday with a smile on his face, the shop gained popularity quickly and sold for $34,000 ten months later. He used the profit from that transaction to put a down payment on a larger retail space and opened the doors of his next coffee shop: The Chase Cafe. Now thirty-one years old, Tadros owns six
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Josh provides capital to creative entrepreneurs as the founder and CEO of 33needs, an investment platform that connects social entrepreneurs to micro-investors.
Tom Tierney joined NAVTEQ in October 2005 as developer alliances manager, responsible for serving developers’ interests in location enabling new and existing mobile applications using NAVTEQ® map data. He was promoted to director of partner and developer programs in April 2010.
Before joining NAVTEQ, Tom acquired and ran a middle-market business brokerage firm, helping entrepreneurs buy and sell manufacturing operations in the Midwest. Previously, he was the U.S. director of business development for the Financial-Times online. Prior to that Tom was an account executive with Reuters New Med
Johnny Todd is the Chicago Community Manager for Yelp.com. His reach includes local brand marketing, pr, event planning, writing, building relationships with local businesses, and leading the growth of the Chicago community — from Northside, to Southside to Westside. Yelp communities have taken root in major metros across the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, The Netherlands, and Spain; Yelp drew an audience of more than 50 million unique visitors in May 2011. Yelpers have written more than 17 million local reviews, making Yelp the leading US local guide for real word of mouth
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As a UX lead, Alice is involved throughout the entire SDLC from concept to release, bringing user-centric design and concerns to all stages of a project. She has a Master’s of Architecture from Virginia Tech and a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University. She’s currently found advocating for the user as a Director of Interaction Design at Arc Worldwide in Chicago, and is thrilled to be working with a team that values both experience design and strategy.
Glenn Trout is President and CEO of MSDSonline, a leading provider of on-demand Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) management and compliance products and services for the Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) industry. Glenn has more than 10 years of experience in the rapidly expanding Software as a Service (SaaS) Industry. Prior to his experience at MSDSonline, Glenn worked at Ernst & Young LLP in their Mergers and Acquisitions Advisory Group and at Mead Publishing Paper, where he led sales, marketing and strategic planning efforts and was responsible for more than $500 million in revenues. Prior
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Penelope Trunk is CEO of Brazen Careerist, a career management tool for next-generation professionals. This is her third startup. Each company Penelope built was focused on a community. Her own career path has had twists and turns and in a world where straight, safe career paths are nowhere to be had, Penelope appreciates the power of managing oneself through community.
Penelope started writing career advice for a new generation of workers. Today Penelope is the author of a bestselling career advice book for generation y and the number one career blog.
Penelope is dedicated to helping people
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Director of videogame franchises from Tony Hawk to Mortal Kombat. You've played what I've made.
Hermione Way is a journalist and new media entrepreneur.
She started her first venture, Newspepper.com in the second year of her degree, using money from her student loan to buy the first piece of equipment. Newspepper began essentially as a “citizen journalism” video production company with one key difference; it employed student and graduate filmmakers and journalists enabling them to get much-needed paid vocational media work experience.
Her latest venture, Techfluff.tv is an online video channel which reports on European Internet culture in a light-hearted irreverent manner. T
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Megan is part of the Interactive Marketing department within Global Marketing at ConAgra Foods. She is responsible for leading digital strategy and execution for several brands, including Chef Boyardee, Hunt’s, RO*TEL, Wolf Chili, DAVID Seeds and the ConAgraFoods.com website. She also leads the coordination and process development for measurement and analytics for our integrated digital marketing campaigns, including websites, eCRM, digital media, mobile digital promotions, and other channels.
The ConAgra Interactive Marketing team has partnered with internal peers and agencies to bring g
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Billy is responsible for managing design, front-end development and content strategy at 8th Light, Inc. He's a web design generalist, but likes the perspective it grants him. He is passionate about typography, web standards and the future of CSS3 and HTML5. When not in front of a computer, Billy enjoys reading, making soap, building model airplanes, gardening and taking hikes with his wife Aemelia and a scruffy little dog named George.
Alex currently writes full time for The Next Web, where he serves as their Mid-West editor and heads the publication's coverage of Microsoft. At the same time, but not for money, Alex has contributed on the matter of religion for the HuffingtonPost and SecularNewsDaily.
Mimi Wotring is SVP Strategic Development & Operations at quadrantONE.
Prior to her current position, she was Director of Ad Network Solutions for Tribune Interactive (TI), a division of the Tribune Company. Before that she was Director of Business Development at IAC Advertising Solutions, a division of IAC Search & Media. In that role she was General Manager for MaxOnline, a media network that generated more than $10 million in revenue, and managed a national business development account team.
Mimi has had additional management experience in sales and affiliate relations for companies such as A
Desiree Vargas Wrigley is co-founder and CEO of GiveForward, which is a crowdfunding site for out-of-pocket medical costs. Prior to launching GiveForward, she worked as a specialist in collegiate entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City and as an independent consultant for Arabella Philanthropic Investment Advisors. She was recently named one of 2011′s Women to Watch by Crain's.
Rob is a Founder at CauseVox, a fundraising platform for the non-profit non-techie to design their own campaigns. Prior to CauseVox, he specialized in management consulting for government agencies and non-profits. Rob is also a certified beancounter (CPA) and on leadership with Synergy Ministries (a non-profit consultancy).
Judi Wunderlich has long been a leading digital recruiter Chicago. In 2009 she co-founded WunderLand, which focuses on contract and full time job opportunities. WunderLand has grown from 2 people in Chicago to 19 people in three offices including both coasts.
For four years Judi has run the 1,200+ member Chicago Interactive Design & Development Meetup group featuring top digital talent as presenters.
Judi’s position allows her a unique view of digital hiring trends around the country and she has spoken at conferences on hiring, careers, and education in interactive design and techn
Mike Zeman is vice president of Marketing Solutions at comScore, Inc. In this role, Mike leads partnership development among industry-leading CPG marketers, advertising agencies and media agencies. To help clients maximize the return of digital marketing investments, Mike supports a variety of custom solutions ranging from media planning tools to offline sales impact measurement.
Prior to joining comScore, Mike managed strategic CPG & Retail advertising partnerships for Yahoo!. He also spent time in the Audience Strategy function, working with top Yahoo! advertisers to design highly customized