#SMWLA

Marwan Soghaier, Chief Product Officer of advertising technology company SteelHouse, is a product visionary who has worked in leadership positions for over a decade with many highly successful brands. At SteelHouse, Marwan inspires and builds pivotal products that make marketers’ jobs easier. His entire professional life has been spent building emerging platforms, from early Blackberry apps the PDQ smartphone by Qualcomm in first days of mobile, to Ticketmaster’s ticket exchange platform when the web-based application boom began. He’s always been ahead of market shifts and consumer demands. Previously, Marwan was VP of Marketing at mobileStorm, Inc. and VP of Product Marketing at the Rubicon Project.

Scott Norville is currently Vice President of Digital Audience Development at 21st Century Fox. He is responsible for leading Twentieth Century Fox and Fox Network Group’s cross-division initiatives regarding short-form video creation and distribution, and audience development on YouTube and other social video platforms. Before Fox, Scott worked at Google in YouTube’s Content Partnerships Group where he was responsible for managing some of YouTube’s highest value relationships with Digital Content companies.

Before Google Scott worked at the Walt Disney Company in strategy/business development roles in both their Consumer Products and ABC News divisions.

Scott began his career at the Central Intelligence Agency focused on counter-terrorism and covert influence. He earned his undergraduate degree in Political Science from Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania and his MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden Business School.

Jarrett Moreno is the Co-Founder of ATTN:, an LA-based media company that entertains and informs. ATTN: is the leader when it comes to breaking down important societal topics across all platforms and reaching people who want context on the issues and conversations that matter to them. Jarrett oversees the audience growth, insights, technology, and operations teams, and leads business strategy. He has been instrumental in ATTN:’s fundraising and investor strategy and has led business partnerships with Facebook, Tribune Media and ABC News. Under Jarrett’s leadership, ATTN: has grown to over 130 employees.

Jarrett previously co-founded and led business development at OurTime.org, where he formulated and oversaw strategic partnerships with brands such as The Huffington Post, Tumblr, Yahoo, Starbucks, and Upworthy to encourage voter registration and civic engagement among millennials. Jarrett grew up in Washington D.C. and graduated from Kenyon College in 2008, where he served as student body president.

Anita Maiella is the SVP of Sales at Brit + Co where she leads the brand partnerships, pre-sale marketing, and ad-ops teams. Anita has over 20 years of experience in media sales, and is an expert in consultative solution based selling, creating cross platform brand opportunities that result in consistent sales revenue increases year-over-year.

Prior to Brit + Co, Anita was the SVP of Sales and Marketing at Style Coalition, an influencer marketing platform helping brands tell stories by engaging its network of influencers. At Style Coalition, Anita was responsible for further developing and executing the company’s revenue growth strategy, including custom content, video, social and premium display or native advertising.

Earlier in her career, Anita managed the sales and marketing teams at YouBeauty, a digital media property founded by Dr. Oz. She also spent several years at Condé Nast where she served as an Associate Publisher at Self and Self.com, and at Vogue as the Director of Beauty and American Fashion. Originally from Chicago, Anita started her career in media sales at Cosmopolitan. Anita currently lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

For almost two decades, Kendra Bracken-Ferguson has helped to define and navigate the digital space as a creative force for brands and influencers, becoming a recognized and soughtafter business innovator and global digital architect.

Now the Chief Digital Officer of CAA-GBG, the largest brand management agency in the world with 24 offices in over 20 countries, Kendra leads a global team of digital marketing experts and social media natives. The BrainTrust, the social media agency that Kendra founded in 2016, joined CAA-GBG which is a joint venture between Global Brands Group Holding Limited (“Global Brands”), and Creative Artists Agency (“CAA”).

Prior to BrainTrust gaining notoriety and success, Kendra saw an opening in the market for digital, social and influencer marketing, and she co-founded Digital Brand Architects. Now in its sixth year, DBA grew quickly from an idea at a kitchen table into the go-to firm for influencer management.

Drawing on over 12 years of experience as a digital media executive, Sybil serves as US Head of Influencer Strategy and Programming at Edelman. She oversees all US influencer teams, creating top quality integrated influencer programs for clients, leveraging all tiers of talent, from micro-influencers to top-tier creators, and has built collaborations across Edelman to amplify influencer content across owned, earned and paid media.

Prior to joining Edelman, Sybil was Head of Digital Influencer and Brand Integrations at William Morris Endeavor, creating custom campaigns for brands and agencies across social media.

Sybil launched her digital career at ZAM Network (now Tencent) from 2005-2010 where she built and ran both the Ad Sales and Ad Operations teams, dramatically increasing advertising revenue across US and international. She was Head of Ad Sales and Ad Operations at OTTER Media’s Crunchyroll Network which included huge gaming networks SoloMid and MobaFire, as well as top eSports teams -Team SoloMid and Cloud9.

Her clients have included NBC, Lionsgate, Starbucks, Barilla, Kellogg’s, Activision Blizzard, Dell, AMD, Square Enix, Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation, Nickelodeon, and many more.

Julia leads Facebook’s relationship with political and issue news publishers as part of Facebook’s news partnerships team. In her role, she helps publishers tell incredible stories, build and deepen the relationship with their audience, and develop sustainable business models across Facebook Inc. products. Prior to Facebook, Julia worked in political campaigns and digital marketing advocacy – a career that brought her to Washington DC, where she is still based.

Mickey Meyer is the President of Group Nine’s Network and a cofounder of JASH, a comedy studio with roots in both the digital and television world and featuring such clients as Adam Carolla, Norm Macdonald, Sarah Silverman, Tim & Eric, Reggie Watts and Michael Cera. He has also met with President Obama and various other White House officials such as Joe Biden and Valerie Jarrett as part of the White House’s Entertainment advisory group. Mickey has been named to Forbes Magazine’s “30 under 30” list as well as the Hollywood Reporter’s “Next Gen executives under 35” list. He has also won Sundance, multiple Cannes Lion’s in the advertising space, a Streamy for his work with the White House, and a Gold Record. Prior to JASH, Mickey was the head of the Comedy Network and then Executive Producer at Maker Studios, where he Executive Produced YouTube channels like Epic Rap Battles of History, Bad Lip Reading, Good Neighbor and Kassem G. He also loves dogs, and the color blue.

Emily White has spent the last two decades helping build and operate some of technology’s most notable companies including Google, Facebook, Instagram and Snap. Currently Emily is a board member and advisor to companies including lululemon, a public athletic apparel retailer, Zayo, a public communications infrastructure company, and Virgin Hyperloop One, a privately-held company out to reinvent transportation. Emily is also a wife, mother, artist, horseback rider, very bad guitar player and breast cancer survivor.

Emily was Chief Operating Officer at Snapchat, Inc., from 2014-2015. Prior to joining Snapchat in January 2014, Emily was at Facebook where she held several key roles, most notably running Business Operations at Instagram where she built and launched monetization. From 2001–2010 Emily worked at Google, where she ran North America Online Sales and Operations, Asia Pacific & Latin America Online Sales & Operations and the Emerging Businesses channel.

She serves on the boards of publicly-traded lululemon, Inc., Zayo, Inc., and Graco, Inc., is a board advisor & observer at Virgin Hyperloop One, and an advisor at Anthos Capital. She is also an advisor and former board member of the National Center for Women in I.T., a non-profit coalition working to increase the participation of girls and women in computing and technology. Emily received her B.A. in Art History from Vanderbilt University.

Alex has spent the last 10 years heavily invested in digital media, focusing his efforts on selling digital media and custom content partnerships to Fortune 100 companies. Alex spent 4.5 years mastering mobile during the Smartphone boom from 2012 – 2015 at Millennial Media & was tapped by Red Bull Media House to help advance brand partnerships. At Red Bull he’s been assigned to lead the eSports partnerships business as the vertical is experiencing tremendous growth & shows no signs of slowing down. Alex is responsible for curating relationships and structuring deals across top tier clients that include Honda, Pepsi, Google, Beats by Dre, Nike, Apple, Tesla, etc.

As Chief Innovation Officer for ad agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day LA, John is charged with furthering the agency’s digital and content capabilities as well as implementing inventive platforms and processes to ensure that innovation is woven into the very fabric of the agency. John recently served as CEO of Ogilvy Malaysia, overseeing several agencies and helping the agency group grow and develop their digital and content capabilities. Prior to joining Ogilvy, he spent four years at Deutsch LA, rising to the role of EVP, Executive Director go the agency’s digital account management group.

Hasan Piker is a political commentator on TYT Network and the creator of “The Breakdown” for The Young Turks on Facebook. His viral clips breaking down the corruption and hypocrisies of US politics have been seen by millions of young people worldwide.

Hasan covers everything that can be looped under Republican propaganda but his main focus is on talking about immigration, income inequality, Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights, Muslim rights, intersectional feminism, gun control, and foreign policy’s impact in the Middle East.

His achievements range from making Charlie Kirk sweat on stage at Politicon in front of a packed auditorium, to appearances on BuzzFeed, C-SPAN, TMZ, and CNBC. Hasan has also led panels on gun control, climate change, Islam’s portrayal in the western world, women’s rights in the workplace, and racism in sports.

Rik is leading strategy, marketing and innovations for Axe/Lynx, the world’s largest Male Grooming brand for young guys. With his team he is helping young men look, feel and smell more attractive across more than 90 countries, from the Americas to Asia. At Unilever in different geographies since 2002, Rik is a true global marketing leader with experience across numerous Home and Personal Care businesses. Within his roles he has driven brand turnarounds and digital transformations including the launch of Cleanipedia.com in Home Care and Axe’s global ‘Find Your Magic’ campaign.

Dana Wade is the Vice President of Culture and Creative Insights at Velocity, Viacom’s branded content studio. In this position Dana is responsible for developing Velocity’s creative strategy offering and leads a team of culture and youth marketing strategist who are focused on uncovering insights and cultural trends that help position Viacom as a thought leader and valued communications partner to the broad marketing and advertising community. Prior to joining Viacom Dana served as the Head of Data Driven Marketing at Red Fuse and has held other leadership roles within ad agencies to include, Y&R, SpikeDDB, McCann and others.

Markus Frieske is a video creator who began working at Electronic Arts 6 years ago alongside the boom of social media, with the goal of ushering in EA’s digital transformation. He played a key role in the ideation, creation and development of EA’s social media channel and content strategies, as well as in Game Changers (EA’s gaming influencer program). With the recent success of EA’s user generated content programs, Markus is now Head of Social Influencer Content across all HD games published by Electronic Arts. With a profound focus on creative storytelling, he has a deep strategic and practical passion for creating, as he continues to do so to this day in his free time. Markus refers to himself as an experienced creator who just so happens to work for a Fortune 500 company, charged with developing relationships and innovative content with the top creators on the internet.