Great Minds: Recent Episodes
Advertising Week
Advertising Week Co-Founder and Chairman Matt Scheckner sits down with Great Minds from all walks of life from across the globe.
On this very special episode of Great Minds, we’re pleased to welcome the legendary Smokey Robinson to the show. Smokey walks us through his incredible career in this must-listen episode.
Longtime friend of Advertising Week and Founder of creative agency Gravity Road, Mark Eaves, joins Great Minds for a lively discussion about his career, the industry, and much, much more. This is a don’t miss episode of Great Minds.
Victoria is the founder and CEO of GingerMay, a multi-award winning global B2B PR and digital marketing agency for blue-chip, technology, advertising, media, and fast-growth disruptive businesses. GingerMay works with leading global companies including Comcast, Global and Oath. Our numerous industry accolades are driven by our reputation for rigour, remarkable thinking, and strong relationships with clients and journalists.
Rachel Shechtman is a fourth-generation retail entrepreneur and founder of STORY, a concept store known for its editorial, ever-changing approach to retail. Prior to opening STORY, Rachel built a career in consulting, founding Cube Ventures in 2002 – an independent firm known for its skill of strategically combining business models.
When Rachel launched STORY in 2011 she did so with the belief that retail held the potential to be about more than the transaction – it could serve as a channel for branded, community-based storytelling – retail media. STORY offered the point of a magazine, changed like a gallery, and sold things like a store. After seven years and 44 different ‘themes’, in April 2018, Rachel sold STORY to Macy’s Inc. where she served as Brand Experience Officer until July 2020. During her time at Macy’s, Rachel successfully launched two new businesses for the brand and built a 150+ person cross-functional team specifically and strategically designed to operate, perform and generate effective results efficiently and nimbly within the larger, traditional operation.
Rachel has been recognized as Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business, Fortune Magazine’s 40 Under 40, Crain’s Under 40 and Ad Age’s 50 Most Creative. The AAF inducted Rachel into its Advertising Hall of Achievement and in 2018 Shechtman was named a Henry Crown Fellow by the Aspen Institute.
Rachel sits on the Board of Directors of the National Retail Federation (NRF) and CAMP, an experiential family retail concept and media company.
Dan Amos is chairman, chief executive officer and president of Aflac Incorporated and the second longest-serving CEO in the FORTUNE 250. Under his leadership as CEO, Aflac Incorporated’s total return to shareholders1 has exceeded 15,446%, compared with 3,075% for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, 2,812% for the S&P 500 Index and 1,471% for the S&P 500 Life & Health Insurance Index. In 2000, Dan launched the popular Aflac Duck advertising campaign, transforming Aflac from a successful supplemental insurance company to a top international brand.
Under Dan’s leadership, today, Aflac helps provide protection to millions of policyholders through subsidiaries in Japan and the U.S. by paying cash fast when policyholders get sick or injured. For nearly seven decades, insurance policies of Aflac Incorporated’s subsidiaries have given policyholders the opportunity to focus on recovery, not financial stress. In Japan, Aflac is the leading provider of medical and cancer insurance. In the U.S., Aflac is the number one provider of supplemental health insurance products.2
Sarah Mehler is a creative technology executive with more than 20 years of leadership in the experience design ecosystem.
After graduating from the Design and Media Arts program at UCLA, she began cultivating close partnerships with leading brands and accomplished decision makers to grow the bounds of what’s possible through human-centric technology.
As the Founder and CEO of Left Field Labs, Sarah has combined industry-leading vision with an empathetic approach to deliver experiences that achieve successful business objectives and meaningful human impact for companies like Google, Amazon, Meta, Verizon, and Sony.
Their areas of specialization include: experiential, immersive, and digital products and platforms.
Sarah strives to bring out the best in her teams while modeling a graceful commitment to the greatest possible good in every situation.
Ahead of Advertising Week New York 2024, taking place at THE PENN DISTRICT, Great Minds welcomes Skylight CEO Stephanie Blake back to the show. Skylight is a placemaking and venue development, management and consulting firm committed to creating bespoke venues in storied places.
Longtime Advertising Week friend Tim Armstrong joins Great Minds to discuss Flowcode, his latest endeavor. Flowcode is the #1 trusted QR provider for instant conversions and real-time data.
Jon O’Donnell is Founder & CEO of Viral Tribe Entertainment, a next generation podcasting platform powered by talent and technology, triibe.fm
Viral Tribe is reshaping the podcast experience both for the those who create the content and those who consume it. Their mission is to bring talent and their fans closer together in what will be the most interactive next generation podcasting experience on the market.
Jessica Ling is the Senior Vice President of Global Brand Advertising at American Express. She leads the company’s brand engagement and prospect consideration globally through innovative media, analytics and measurement, talent partnerships, and creative content. Her role also includes overseeing American Express’ in-house creative agency, OnBrand, and Shop Small brand platform.
Since joining American Express in 2019, Jess has held several senior marketing roles spanning both brand and performance marketing.
Prior to American Express, Jess was Head of B2B Marketing at Verizon Media, where she spent over six years leading a cross-functional B2B marketing organization focused on accelerating growth for Verizon Media’s commercial business.
As president and CEO of Index Exchange, Andrew is responsible for providing strategic direction and market vision to the company and leading the brightest minds in advertising technology across North America, Europe, and APAC. With a sharp focus on delivering benefits to the world’s leading media owners and buyers as they tackle the world of automation, he’s built Index Exchange as one of the most efficient and transparent ad exchanges in the advertising ecosystem.
A respected industry thought leader, Andrew is a sought-after source for his expertise and opinions on programmatic and the media industry at large, as well as the imperative need to transact with transparency.
Malcolm joined Cheil Worldwide at the beginning of 2015 as the Network’s first ever Global Chief Creative Officer.
Having built and led teams responsible for award-winning firsts as diverse as Foot Locker’s Sneakerpedia, Dove’s Campaign For Real Beauty and Samsung’s #BeFearless VR experience, Malcolm is a recognised industry influencer and speaker. A two time Cannes Lions Jury President, Clio Awards and LIA Awards Jury president, Malcolm was recently named one of AdAge magazine’s “World’s Top 10 Digital minds” and named by TechCity Insider as one of the UK’s leading Digital Innovators. His international industry accolades number more than 500, including Cannes Lions for Film, Print, Media, Outdoor, Cyber, Glass and Mobile.
Prior to joining Cheil, Malcolm was European Chief Creative Officer and a member of Sapient’s global leadership team where he helped build the company to in excess of a billion dollars in annual revenue, putting Sapient amongst Fortune Magazine’s 40 fastest growing companies in the world. M&CSaatchi, Saatchi&Saatchi, Ogilvy and SapientNitro have all won Agency of the Year titles during his creative leadership. With Cheil Worldwide, Malcolm has steered the network into the industry’s Top 10 Creative Network rankings and has seen the Network win their first Glass Lion at Cannes, first Innovation award at AdFest, Gran Sol at El Sol Awards, Grand Prix at Dubai Lynx, Gold at the International ANDY awards, collect their first WEBBY awards, create the Most Viewed Ad in the World on YouTube and post record new business success with Samsung along with winning global accounts including Etihad Airways, adidas, PZ Cussons, Abbot and UN Women.
A Kiwi, Malcolm is a former member of the NZ Yachting Team, recognised by KEA as a ‘World Class New Zealander’, former board member of the UK’s Institute of Contemporary Art, Patron of the Royal Academy of Arts, C.A.L.M. and a member of the Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Malcolm lives in London with his Australian wife and English daughter.
On this episode of Great Minds, we’re pleased to welcome Tom O’Keefe, Creative Chairman, and Jeff King, CEO, of the newly merged BarkleyOKRP.
BarkleyOKRP is a new advertising agency formed by the merger of two prominent agencies, Barkley and OKRP. The merger creates one of the largest independent agencies in the United States, with offices in Chicago, Denver, New York, Pittsburgh, and Kansas City. BarkleyOKRP aims to be independent enough to create bold work while having the capabilities to build whole brands.
Chuck Leavell was a member of the Allman Brothers Band throughout their commercial zenith in the 1970s, he subsequently became a founding member of the band Sea Level. He has served as the principal touring keyboardist and musical director of the Rolling Stones since 1982. As a session musician, Leavell has performed on every Rolling Stones studio album released since 1983 with the exception of Bridges to Babylon (1997). He has also toured and recorded with Eric Clapton, George Harrison, David Gilmour, Gov’t Mule and John Mayer.
Jamila Wignot is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. Her body of work includes, the Emmy-nominated MAKERS: WOMEN IN BUSINESS; THE AFRICAN AMERICANS: MANY RIVERS TO CROSS, hosted by Henry Louis Gates, which won a Peabody, Emmy, and NAACP awards; TOWN HALL a feature-length co-production with ITVS about the Tea Party movement; and for AMERICAN EXPERIENCE the Peabody Award-winning, “Triangle Fire” and Emmy-nominated “Walt Whitman”.
Wignot’s producing credits include “The Rehnquist Revolution,” the fourth episode of WNET’s series THE SUPREME COURT which was an IDA Best Limited Series winner and STREET FIGHTING MAN, character-driven documentary, currently in post-production, about the daily lives of three men surviving in the neighborhoods of post-industrial Detroit.
Alex Collmer is the founder and CEO of VidMob, the leading creative data company. The AI-based software improves creative and media performance by helping brands and agencies derive their own custom creative best practices, and ensure that those learnings are applied across all flighted media. Vidmob counts many of the world’s leading brands and agencies as clients and helps them drive brand consistency, reduce creative and media waste, and increase overall business performance across the funnel. Since founding the company in 2015, Alex has raised more than $230M in venture funding and has received numerous awards including Ad Age’s Best Places to Work and Digiday’s Most Innovative Technology Award.
Jason founded ACCOMPANY to leverage the economic engine of the fashion and lifestyle industry towards positive impact for global communities in need. Jason brings with him 3 key areas of expertise – strategic image-making for global fashion retailers, leadership experience growing a small business, and a passion for applied ethics surrounding the needs of marginalized and exploited communities. Since 2006, Jason has been integral in growing YARD – a strategic image-making agency in New York – and now leads their expansion efforts as Chief Growth Officer. Jason has established and led relationships to strategically craft and design communications platforms, brand identities, multi-channel advertising campaigns and targeted retail promotions across a range of clients in fashion, retail and socially conscious lifestyles, including John Varvatos, Tumi, Kenneth Cole, Perry Ellis, Converse, Timberland, Equinox, Method, Shea Moisture and Smartwater. Simultaneously, while completing an M.S. in Global BioEthics at Columbia University, Jason published in 3 academic journals and in 2 national conferences his research on the under-acknowledged risks of low-income women and the ways in which unregulated fertility markets treat them like commodities. ACCOMPANY is Jason’s merger between these disparate pursuits – the fun of growing small businesses, the reward of creating compelling lifestyle brands, and the conviction that vulnerable populations with less opportunity deserve a fair chance at prosperity.
Issa Jouaneh is President, Connections, at Emerald, and is responsible for leading the strategic oversight and growth optimization of the company’s core business, comprised of 140+ leading events, trade shows, and conferences.
Issa joined Emerald in March 2021 as Executive Vice President of Emerald Xcelerator, leading the company’s market diversification strategy through new shows, partnerships, and sub-expo launches.
Issa has over 20 years of experience leading multidisciplinary, cross-functional teams across a wide range of industries.
His professional journey includes leading technology, application, and web development teams at Electronic Data Systems and a 14-year tenure at The American Express Company and American Express Global Business Travel. He ultimately served as Senior Vice President and General Manager, leading American Express Meetings & Events globally, where he successfully led the transformation of the business, tripling its size and reaching over 2,400 employees in 25+ proprietary countries.
Issa holds a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from McGill University and a Master of Business Administration from Schulich School of Business at York University.
Heidi Dangelmaier is an inventor + designer + scientist (Quantum Physics & Artificial Intelligence). She has a track record of inventing first to market mass-appeal products, technology, entertainment & brands. Her gift at activating mass-scale growth in the female market is peerless. She’s generated billions in revenues for many global brands. She’s the most recognized leader at the frontiers of Market Growth X Gender X Design.
Robert E. (Bob) Hope is a veteran of the public relations and event marketing business. He is co-owner and president of Hope-Beckham, an independent agency based in Atlanta.
Hope and longtime friend Paul Beckham started Hope-Beckham 25 years ago.
Clients have included Chick-fil-A Foundation, Turner Broadcasting, Belk, The Coca-Cola Company, Southern Company, Home Depot, Comcast and a variety of sports teams and leagues as well as non-profit organizations.
He is author of two books – “We Could Have Finished Last Without You” about his early days with the Braves, and “Greater Late than Never” about people who achieved their life’s success after age 50.
Will Rogers once said there are two kinds of people on earth – those who march in the parade and those who sit on the curb and watch. If you march, you have only one view your entire life. However, if you sit on the right curb, you see marvelous things.
Bob Hope has spent his life on a marvelous curb observing remarkable people and events. He started working for the Atlanta Braves while in college and became the team’s director of public relations and promotions at age 24. He managed the Major League Baseball All-Star Game at age 25. And he was with Hank Aaron during the chase to break the all-time home run record of Babe Ruth.
When Ted Turner bought the team, he was promoted to vice president at age 29 and worked not only for the Braves but also the Turner-owned Atlanta Hawks and for Turner’s TV station, handling marketing for the Braves and the TV station.
He left Turner to work on sports, particularly the Olympics, for The Coca-Cola Company and then decided to go into the public relations agency business so he could work for both Coke and Turner, which led to a career in New York in a top job of the world’s largest public relations firm.
Along the way, he has been involved in many Olympics, including Atlanta. He helped several cities with their campaigns to land major league sports franchises – Charlotte in the NBA, Miami, Denver and Washington in Major League Baseball, Ottawa in hockey, and Atlanta in the WNBA.
He also attempted to open the doors to girls and women as baseball players, creating the Colorado Silver Bullets professional baseball team of elite women athletes, which traveled the world for four years playing against men’s amateur, college and minor league professional teams. The team was managed by former Braves star pitcher Phil Niekro. His involvement with the Silver Bullets led to a 14-year stint on the board of Billie Jean King’s Women’s Sports Foundation and six years as the only male on its executive committee. The WSF is the chief lobbying organization in favor of equal education opportunities, including sports, for women in colleges and universities.
With 20 years of tech experience, and after witnessing the explosion of marketing data and its potential to inform business decisions, Alexander saw a clear gap in the market that he was determined to fill. This led to the founding of Adverity, an intelligent marketing analytics platform, which he co-founded with colleagues Martin Brunthaler and Andreas Glänzer in 2015.
Rob Prazmark, Founder and CEO of 21 Marketing, returns to Great Minds to discuss his book The Olympics Don’t Take American Express and more!
On today’s episode of Great Minds we’re pleased to welcome Andrew Essex, Senior Managing Partner of TCS Interactive, working with companies all over the world. Andrew discusses his career path from Droga5 to Tribeca to present.
Scott Donaton, CMO of Versus and longtime friend of Advertising Week joins us for this special episode of Great Minds. Scott discusses his roles at IPG, Digitas, Hulu and more, leading up to his current role at Versus.
On today’s episode of Great Minds, we’re pleased to welcome Chris Slade, drummer for several of rock’s greatest bands, including Manfred Mann’s Earth Band from its inception in 1971 to 1978 on eight albums, The Firm, and AC/DC, for which he drummed from 1989 to 1994 and performed on the 1990 album The Razors Edge.
On this episode of Great Minds, we’re pleased to welcome Yaniv Makover, CEO & Co-Founder of Anyword. Yaniv is an entrepreneur, with vast experience in numerous fields, dating back to his beginnings at Nokia, to his time at his company Keewee, to the present at Anyword.
iHeart Media’s CMO Gayle Troberman joins Great Minds to discuss her career – from her days at Microsoft to present.
On today’s episode of Great Minds, we’re pleased to welcome Josh Gross, Chief Creative Officer at Energy BBDO. Josh walks us through his incredible and unique career, from his days at powerhouse agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky to his present role at Energy BBDO.
Chris Moscardi is a marketing strategist, creative director, and MBA with a passion for bringing scalable, sustainable growth to B2B companies particularly in tech, infrastructure, and engineering. Chris’s goal is to bring sustainable development to the forefront of public consciousness using creative storytelling, the influence of marketing, and the levers of business.
On this episode of Great Minds we’re pleased to welcome Ron Poulsen, bassist and founding member of PANGAEA. Ron discusses his career in this music business, from his beginnings to present.
Dr. Aaron Mair is an Environmental Justice pioneer intersectionally working in the spaces of, Health, Environment, Voting Rights and Disparities over the last 40 Years; a 35 year veteran urban environmental activist; regional and national Environmental Justice organizer and strategist from the State of New York.
A wise rabbi once said: “Judaism is a great product, but the marketing sucks.” As a Jew and a branding professional, Archie was in full agreement. She’s on a mission to re-brand Judaism so that it’s easy to get right to the good parts, no Hebrew required. JewBelong.com is the heart of the rebrand. It’s filled with meaningful, fun, free, easy-to-use Jewish rituals and information that will never leave anyone who’s new to Judaism, or who is Jewish but didn’t get a ton of Jewish education, feeling left out or confused or… JewBarrassed.
As a member of the senior leadership team, Fabio plays a pivotal role in shaping the newly formed EFG (ESL FACEIT Group). Together with his team, they drive brand partnerships, ticket sales, fan engagement, merchandising, advertising, and marketing.
Jessica Donohue is an executive dedicated to working with institutional investors and allocators as their partner, enabling their mission/vision and creating better outcomes for them and the people they serve. Jessica has a proven track record leading client management/ solutioning, organizational transformation, product innovation, and client service/operations. Jessica is a corporate spokesperson with print and broadcast media. She’s a decisive problem-solver, and a neurodiversity and disability inclusion champion.
On the eve of ClimaTech 2024 we speak with Yvonne Hao, Secretary of Economic Development for Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Yvonne was a longtime senior executive who co-founded Boston investment firm Cove Hill Partners, and was tapped by the Healey-Driscoll administration to helm the state’s chief economic development agency.
Mr. Walker is a Nuclear Physicist and was the project lead and manager for constructing the new Rolls-Royce Nuclear Chemical Plant; he was the UK Subject Matter Expert for the UK Nuclear Material Recovery Capabilities and was the technical project manager for constructing the UK reactor core manufacturing facilities. Mr. Walker was also seconded to Rolls Royce where he modeled configurations of RR’s Zero-Power reactor to inform confidence limits for the UK’s successor submarine’s mechanical design and worked for the Rolls-Royce Nuclear Thermal Hydraulics Engineering team investigating reactor channel thermal performance to inform new reactor designs and support the safety case for reactors in current class submarines. Mr. Walker’s professional engineering experience includes nuclear reactors, mines, submarines, chemical plants, factories, mine processing facilities, infrastructure, automotive machinery, and testing rigs.
On this first ClimaTech Edition of Great Minds, we’re pleased to welcome Joe Curtatone, President of the Northeast Clean Energy Council, ahead of the ClimaTech 2024 event, June 3-5, 2024.
More information on ClimaTech can be found at https://advertisingweek.com/event/climatech-2024
On this episode of Great Minds, the amazing Luvuyo Madasa returns! In case you missed it, Luvuyo joined us to close out Season 2 of Great Minds – be sure to listen here: https://advertisingweek.com/great-minds-luvuyo-madasa/
On this episode of Great Minds we’re pleased to welcome Chris James of The Burrito Brothers to the show. Chris discusses the rich history of The Burrito Brothers band, as well as what they’re up to now.
In early 2020 Bosko Milekic co-founded Optable with the goal of re-architecting digital advertising in the post-cookie world. Prior to Optable, Bosko co-founded AdGear, an advertising technology platform that was among the first ad platforms to integrate real-time bidding protocols. He has spent close to 20 years developing advertising technology, as a software developer, product manager, and entrepreneur, and throughout that time has lived through several major re-inventions of digital advertising infrastructure, from the emergence of advertising exchanges and real-time bidding to, more recently, the deprecation of web browser third-party cookies and the adoption of privacy enhancing technologies in digital advertising.
Debbie Wosskow OBE is a multi exit entrepreneur, board advisor and investor, now focused on diversity, health and wellness and economic empowerment. She is co-founder of WJV LLP, the boutique investment and strategic innovation firm that supports and empowesr female founders by connecting female run and diverse VC’s with investors focused on purpose and returns.
Debbie is also Co-Chair of the government backed Invest in Women Taskforce.
On this episode of Great Minds we speak with Alda Abbracciamento, President, Global Groupe Client Lead-Walmart at Publicis Groupe. Alda’s mission:
- Drive business growth through creativity among big brands, startups and non-profits.
- Build partnerships across organizations that inspire collaboration to deliver integrated marketing and technology solutions that power brands.
- Mentor young talent to bring diversity and energy to the advertising and marketing industries.
On this episode of Great Minds we’re pleased to welcome Claire Singer, VP Partnerships at Condé Nast. Claire walks us through her amazing career, with quite a few interesting stops and stories along the way.
Jennifer D’Alessandro brings over 20 years of experience to her role as Head of Ad Sales and Marketing at Future Today, a video distribution and technology company that operates hundreds of OTT channels on connected TV platforms. Jennifer oversees the ad sales marketing department, leads the U.S. sales team in direct and programmatic partnerships spanning the expansive Future Today library of content, and works with industry trades to inform the community on accomplishments and success stories. Additionally, she works closely with research partners to validate Future Today’s place within the CTV landscape.
On this episode of Great Minds, we’re pleased to welcome Professor Verne Harris, Acting Chief Executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Verne Harris has been the archivist for the papers of Nelson Mandela since 2004, as Head of the Memory Programme at the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s Centre of Memory and Dialogue.
Before that, he had worked for South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and was the Director of the South African History Archive (SAHA). From 1985 until 2001 he was an archivist with South Africa’s State Archives Service and, beginning in 1997, the newly established National Archives of South Africa; he served as deputy director from 1993 to 2001.
Emma Lacey is Senior Vice President EMEA at Zefr, where in her two years with the company she has helped position Zefr as the leading technology provider for brand safety and suitability across Meta, TikTok and YouTube in the region. Prior to joining Zefr, Emma spent 15 years’ building successful commercial teams across the advertising industry, including being part of the EMEA leadership team at OpenX where she worked as Senior Director of Buyer Development to secure strategic partnerships with media agencies and brands. In addition, she has held senior positions within a range of media and adtech businesses, including AOL, Sky and Blis.
On this episode of Great Minds, we welcome Andrea Pezzi, Chairman of MINT. Andrea walks us through his amazing and diverse career, from DJ to MTV to present, with many interesting stops along the way.
Please note that at the time of this recording, Andrea was CEO of MINT but is now Chairman.
Amy Williams is the founder and CEO of Good-Loop, the purpose-led advertising platform that makes it easy and profitable for big brands to do good, at scale.Working with the world’s biggest advertisers, including Nike, Unilever, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and L’Oreal, Good-Loop’s ad formats drive engagement and build brand love while donating millions to charities around the globe. Good-Loop’s carbon-neutral advertising has raised over $10m for charities around the world and planted over a million trees – all whilst supporting high-quality journalism and diverse publications.Amy founded Good-Loop in 2016 after quitting her job at ad giant Ogilvy to volunteer at a soup kitchen in Argentina, impassioned by creating a company that could transform advertising into a force for good around the world.Amy was listed as one of Forbes’ 30 under 30, is among Ad Age’s Women to Watch Europe an EY Entrepreneur of the Year and a face of the United Nations #SheInnovates global campaign. She’s also an Adweek contributor, a Cannes SDG Lions judge and a passionate Bloom mentor.
Consuelo Vanderbilt Costin, seventh generation descendant of shipping and railroad tycoon, Cornelius Vanderbilt, is an American singer, composer, songwriter, designer, actress, philanthropist and entrepreneur. At a young age, Consuelo studied with famous singing teachers such as Ron Anderson and Seth Riggs and went to Italy and studied music in Fiesole and began performing in cafes and restaurants around Florence. At age 21 she signed her first record deal in London, and after many years of touring around the globe, in regions including Germany, France, and Australia, she launched her own record label, C&R Productions, and found herself in the top 20 Billboard Dance Charts with her top 10 hit singles. Consuelo’s debut single “Naked” spent 16 weeks on the charts, while her follow-up “Feel So Alive” earned her Billboard’s #2 Breakout Artist honor. Her latest hit “Body Needs” broke Billboard’s Top 5.
Kicking off season 5 of Great Minds, we’re pleased to welcome actress, comedian, producer, and writer, Susie Essman back to the show.
Liz Ulmer is a theatrical management professional based in NYC with over 16 years of producing and administrative experience.
She works as the Director of Stage Rights at Sony Music Publishing where she handles music licensing for Broadway shows such as MJ the Musical, The Outsiders, Ain’t Too Proud: The Temptations Musical, and Moulin Rouge, as well as various live stage events throughout the world.
On this episode of Great Minds we’re pleased to feature Ren Akinci, EVP, People & Culture, Emerald and Advertising Week, and host of Advertising Week and Emerald’s newest podcast, Great Minds: People & Culture. Ren walks us through her career journey.
Chris uses his 20+ years of data, digital identity, and technology expertise as CRO at Lotame. He is a globally experienced senior leader with a track record of establishing and delivering commercial growth across EMEA markets and was instrumental in Lotame’s European rollout of Panorama ID – one of the leading cookieless identity solutions solving both publisher and marketer challenges on data connectivity, activation and collaboration. As an industry heavyweight, Chris is highly proficient in understanding client’s needs to establish partnerships with enterprise marketers, digital advertising agencies, media companies, and technology vendors.
James Cornish is SVP of International Sales & Partnerships for Vevo. With over 20 years of experience in selling digital media, he is responsible for managing and growing Vevo’s sales partnerships across its international territories. Prior to Vevo, James worked for Virgin Media and Fox Interactive Media.
On this episode of Great Minds we’re pleased to present a long overdue conversation with Aaron Reitkopf, Senior Advisor to IPG on Open Architecture.
On today’s episode of Great Minds we head to the Pacific Northwest to speak with Michael Boychuk, CCO and Co-founder of Little Hands of Stone, and Matt McCain, Co-founder of Little Hands of Stone, an award-winning creative agency based in Seattle.
Composer, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Malcolm Bruce has toured, performed, recorded and appeared on records with some of the biggest names in music including Little Richard, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Dr John, Steve Cropper, Joe Satriani, Joe Bonamassa, Bill Ward and Ozzy Osbourne (Black Sabbath), Simon Phillips (Toto, The Who, Jeff Beck), Leslie West and Corky Laing (Mountain), Tony Butler and Mark Brzezicki (Big Country) and his father the late Jack Bruce of Cream.
On today’s episode of Great Minds we’re thrilled to welcome Tony Marlow, Chief Marketing Officer at LG Ad Solutions. Tony walks us through his career path. From his days at Nielsen and Yahoo! to IAS and now LG Ad Solutions, Tony has worked with some of the best and brightest in the industry.
As a strategic, business-minded B2B marketer, Margaret drives innovative strategies that grow company profit, profile, and pride. Said simply, “marketing is in my DNA”—an unexpected statement from a farmer’s daughter and immigrant, but it was on her family’s dairy farm in Ireland where she learned the value of hard work, keeping promises, and a commitment to community and connection—the same values that are essential to top-performing brands and businesses.
Brian O’Kelley is CEO and co-founder of Scope3, leading the decarbonization of the media and advertising industry.
A respected entrepreneur and executive with a track record of building companies that have defined and led multi-billion dollar categories, Brian was the co-founder and CEO of AppNexus through its $1.6B sale to AT&T in 2018. He co-founded Waybridge, a supply chain technology company, and served as CTO of Right Media through its successful acquisition by Yahoo. Brian is an active board member of LiveRamp (RAMP), Tech:NYC, and the IAB Tech Lab, and is an executive producer of the Wonderstruck podcast.
Credited with the invention of programmatic advertising and the online ad exchange, Brian is deeply committed to technology-driven innovations that benefit society while improving the health of the planet.
Brian has been named to Crain’s 40 Under 40, Adweek 50 and Silicon Alley 100 lists, holds multiple patents, and was recognized as an E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year in the New York region in 2012. Brian was an early supporter of Girls Who Code and Moms First and is deeply committed to making the technology industry more inclusive.
Brian has a B.S.E. in Computer Science from Princeton University. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, two daughters, and two cats.
On this very special episode of Great Minds we welcome Jeff Kollath, Executive Director of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music.
On this episode of Great Minds we welcome Murphy “Murph” Dunne, Dunne played “Murph”, the keyboardist for the Blues Brothers, in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers, a role he reprised in the sequel, Blues Brothers 2000.
On this episode of Great Minds we’re very pleased to welcome legendary saxophonist and composer Louis Marini Jr. Louis has played with everyone from Frank Zappa to Blood, Sweat & Tears. He was an original member of the SNL house band, as well as The Blues Brothers.
Jonathan Gudai is the co-founder and CEO of Adomni.com – a leading platform for digital advertising on screens in the real world. He is passionate about driving innovation to deliver performance marketing results through technology and enhanced creative content on-screen. He sees a world where social media advertising, video advertising and digital out of home advertising converge for performance and brand marketers.
Jonathan serves on the board of directors of the DPAA (Digital Place Based Advertising Association) and the Innovation Committee of the OAAA (Outdoor Advertising Association).
He also is the creator of Shoutable, a platform that brings together social media and digital out of home.
He has written numerous articles for national and industry publications, educating the world on the power of programmatic digital out of home advertising and the future of the industry.
Prior to Adomni, Jonathan spent most of his career in the eCommerce and Adtech sectors – with 20+ years in web and mobile software development.
Jonathan is a seasoned CEO with leadership experience in managing complex organizations in business, government and nonprofit environments.
He currently serves as CEO of ADL, the oldest anti-hate organization in the world and one of the longest standing civil rights groups in the US. Since joining in 2015, Jonathan has transformed the agency by modernizing its operations, innovating its products, overhauling its governance, increasing its revenue and enhancing its impact. He has been named to the list of Top 50 Nonprofit Leaders by the Nonprofit Times in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Jonathan has launched and led successful high-growth companies and worked in senior positions at several public companies. In these roles, Jonathan has achieved multiple exits (IPO, trade sales) while generating shareholder value and social impact. He is the co-founder of Ethos Water (acquired by Starbucks Coffee Company, 2005); founder of All for Good (acquired by Points of Light, 2011); former CEO of GOOD Worldwide; and former VP, Consumer Products at REALTOR.com (IPO, 1999; acquired by News Corp, 2014).
Ed Horne is the President of 160over90. In this role, he is responsible for managing all aspects of the business, and for setting the foundation for 160over90’s global growth strategy across all forms of culture. A key element of his role is to help establish and build relationships with major global clients, as they seek to utilize all areas of culture as a business-building platform.
Ed has more than 25 years of experience as an executive in the marketing industry, having started his career in advertising.
Prior to joining Endeavor, he spent 15 years at the National Hockey League leading the business side of professional hockey. At the NHL, he was involved in and oversaw the majority of the global NHL business, including marketing, sponsorship, media, licensing, communications, fan development and events.
Some of Ed’s most notable professional moments include helping to negotiate the first-ever Super Bowl halftime show sponsorship; helping Amazon Alexa normalize voice technology through TV and film integration; and playing a primary role in creating the partnership with the IOC and relevant NOCs and NGBs that saw NHL players participate in the Olympic Winter Games.
For our final episode of 2023, Great Minds is thrilled to speak with Jessie Peck of the legendary R&B vocal group, The Spinners. Great Minds returns January 2024!
Slovenian entrepreneur and CEO of Celtra, Miha Mikek founded a creative development and serving platform for mobile advertising that became a pioneer of mobile advertising technology. Today, the company provides cloud-based Creative Automation software for creative and marketing teams to collaborate, design and deliver digital campaigns across the ever-growing media ecosystem. Powering 400+ creative teams and 2/3 of Fortune 500 companies, brands and publishers alike use Celtra to transform their creative production and collaboration. Miha was recognized with several business leadership awards in Europe and honored as a 2012 Rising Star by Babson College. He lives with his wife Maja, Celtra’s co-founder, and two kids in Geneva, Switzerland.
Sophie is an experienced business leader, entrepreneur, marketer and bestselling author who has worked in and with multinational companies, successful start-ups and agencies. An ‘acceleration addict’ she is constantly curious about how to speed up success.
Her book on leadership ‘Superfast: Lead at Speed’ was published by John Murray Press and was shortlisted for Business Book of the Year as well as getting to a no.1 spot on Amazon.
Sophie is an acclaimed keynote speaker, talking to organisations and at events regularly. Her highly creative and commercial approach comes from a career which began with classic management training at Procter & Gamble and then Coca-Cola. She later moved agency-side with Leo Burnett in the Middle East and Interbrand in London.
She has personal experience of being a successful entrepreneur, setting up her own award-winning e-commerce business in the middle of the recession which she sold before running a luxury gifts business. Her most recent role has been as CEO of The Caffeine Partnership, a unique business consultancy which helps leaders to work with purpose and pace, where she has worked with impatient business leaders across the world.
In July 2020 Sophie became the new CEO of The Marketing Society, a global community of senior marketers whose purpose is to empower brave leaders.
World-renowned creator of legendary ad campaigns for Levi’s, Lego, and Audi, among others, Sir John Hegarty is Chairman & Worldwide Creative Director of Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) where he presides over one of the most successful and creatively acclaimed agencies.
Sir John started in advertising as a junior Art Director at Benton and Bowles, London, in 1965. He almost finished in advertising 18 months later, when they fired him. He joined a small ‘going places’ Soho agency, John Collings & Partners. They did – out of town.
In 1967 he joined the Cramer Saatchi consultancy which became Saatchi & Saatchi in 1970, where he was a founding shareholder. One year later he was appointed Deputy Creative Director.
Sir John left in 1973 to co-found TBWA, London, as Creative Director. The agency was the first to be voted Campaign magazine’s Agency of the Year in 1980.
He left in 1982 to start Bartle Bogle Hegarty. Four years later in 1986, BBH was also voted Campaign’s Agency of the Year, and won the title once again in 1993. In addition, BBH became the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival’s very first Agency of the Year in 1993. It also won the title again in 1994.
Throughout BBH’s two-plus decades, Sir Hegarty has been responsible for numerous accolades for the agency. Among his abundant award show honors, Sir Hegarty has taken home over 15 Clio’s alone, and his Levi’s 501 work is in the Clio Hall of Fame. since its inception in 1982 BBH has been named Agency of the Year more than six times, most notably by Campaign magazine, who also named BBH as their first-ever Network of the Year in 2004, Cannes, and others.
Sir John’s credits include Vorsprung Durch Technik for Audi, and Levi’s’ Bath and Launderette. His awards include two D&AD Golds and six Silvers, Cannes Golds and Silvers, and British Television Gold and Silvers. More recently, he was awarded the D&AD President’s Award for outstanding achievement in the advertising industry and chaired the 1999 New York Art Directors Advertising Show.
Michael is a passionate and dynamic leader with over 20 years experience in the integrated marketing communications business.
“I like to think of myself as a globalist – with extensive international experience and a love for technology, digital innovation and clients business – I’ve demonstrated a proven capability to build businesses, nurture client relationships. drive digital engagement, embrace and exploit technology innovation, convert new business opportunities, develop high performing teams and empower great people.”
Emmy and Peabody award-winning marketer and business leader Ross Martin is President of Ad Age Agency A-List marketing firm Known and the Founder of venture capital fund Lunch Partners, an early-stage private investment vehicle for some of the world’s most inspiring CMO’s. He is the Executive Producer of Netflix’s Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy and the five-part docuseries Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space, both for Netflix, as well as Meal Ticket, a documentary about the McDonald’s All- American Games for Amazon Prime Video and Deep Dive, a new series with Universal Music Group and TIME Magazine. He is the Executive Producer and Co-Host of the popular iHeart Media podcast “Future Legends of Advertising,” now entering its second season.
Ross is a member of the National Board of Directors of the American Advertising Federation, the Yale University Center for Customer Insights and the Digital & Innovation Council for St. Jude Children’s Hospital. Recent accolades include Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People In Business,” an Advertising Age “Media Maven” distinction, Fortune Magazine’s “40 Under 40” top business leaders and Adweek’s “50 Most Indispensable Executives in Advertising.” In 2014, he was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Achievement.
An international multi-award-winning creative, Samira has worked across Fortune 500 brands including AB InBev’s Michelob Ultra, U by Kotex, ESPN, Virgin Atlantic and P&G’s Pringles. In 2022 she brought home the only Cannes Gold Lion in Innovation for a world-first physical vs. virtual tennis match between real-life John McEnroe and his digital avatars from the past for Michelob Ultra. ‘McEnroe vs. McEnroe’ also received a 2023 Sports Emmy Award in the Best Digital Innovation category. In 2022 she was recognized on Adweek’s Creative 100 list.
Career highlights include turning the consumer problem of the NBA bubble during the pandemic into an opportunity – with the highly awarded digital experience, “Courtside” for Michelob Ultra, by transporting fans closer to the action. She’s made headlines with her brutally honest work for U by Kotex, forever changing the way female sanitary products are marketed, taking Pringles to the Super Bowl for the first time ever, re-launching the P&G laundry business throughout Europe, and successfully launching Mike’s Hard Lemonade throughout South America.
Prior to Deutsch NY, Samira led the AB InBev portfolio of business at FCB New York. She’s worked across three continents and held creative roles at Johannes Leonardo, Grey Group, Leo Burnett New York, TBWA\Chiat\Day, J. Walter Thompson and Saatchi & Saatchi Paris. Her work been recognized at the Cannes Lions Festival, The D&AD, Effies, The One Show, Clio, and the ADC.
Julie is both fiercely competitive and “Minnesota nice.” Her clients benefit from her tenacity and flair for making the seemingly impossible, possible. She has led dozens of integrated marketing programs for modern brands, from launching the car-of-the-future with Steven Spielberg to giving affluents permission to fly private jets again. Protecting pricing power and shifting market share for her clients drives her.
She previously served as Executive Director, Account Management, overseeing the agency’s Lexus National and Dealer Association accounts, and has been with Team One for 18 years. She has held a number of senior management positions, including director of experiential marketing, director of business development, and executive director leading numerous agency clients, among them The Ritz-Carlton, Marriott, HSBC Premier, Häagen-Dazs International, American Express, Flexjet, Icelandic Glacial, Anaheim Ducks, Northern Trust, and Procter & Gamble.
Before joining Team One, she was the Marketing Director at a premier Northwest resort, Crystal Mountain, running all aspects of marketing and sales.
Avinash is the global Chief Strategy Officer of Croud, a leading full-service marketing Agency.
His prior professional experience includes a sixteen-year stint at Google, and roles at Intuit, DirecTV, Silicon Graphics in the US & DHL in Saudi Arabia.
Through his newsletter “The Marketing < > Analytics Intersect”, his blog “Occam’s Razor,” and his best-selling books “Web Analytics: An Hour A Day” and “Web Analytics 2.0,” Avinash has become recognized as an authoritative voice on how marketers, executives’ teams and industry leaders can leverage data to fundamentally reinvent their digital existence.
Avinash puts a common-sense framework around the often-frenetic world of web analytics and combines that with the philosophy that investing in talented analysts is the key to long-term success. He passionately advocates customer centricity and leveraging bleeding edge competitive intelligence techniques.
Avinash has received rave reviews for bringing his energetic, inspiring, and practical insights to companies like Unilever, Dell, Time Warner, Vanguard, Porsche, and IBM. He has delivered keynotes at a variety of global conferences, including Ad-Tech, Monaco Media Forum, Search Engine Strategies, JMP Innovators’ Summit, The Art of Marketing and Web 2.0.
Acting on his passion for teaching, Avinash has lectured at major universities such as Stanford University, University of Virginia, University of California – Los Angeles and University of Utah.
Among the awards Avinash has received are Statistical Advocate of the Year from the American Statistical Association, Most Influential Industry Contributor from the Web Analytics Association, and Founder’s Award from Google.
Julia Haart is a self-made businesswoman, designer, and bestselling author. She was raised in an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. At age 42 she fled, changed her name, and without any formal education or background in fashion launched her career as a designer with her namesake shoe collection. Just a few years later, she was named creative director of La Perla and would become co-owner and CEO of Elite World Group and one of the most influential people in fashion. In 2021, Julia and her NETFLIX hit series “My Unorthodox Life”, which streams in over 190 countries, took the world by storm. In her memoir BRAZEN, Julia writes with radical vulnerability and honesty, sharing her deeply personal journey of heartbreak, resilience, and courage to flee a fundamentalist community. Released in April 2022, BRAZEN became an instant bestseller in the U.S. and U.K. Above all else, Julia applies her experience and platform to be a force for positive change in the world and supporting women who have dedicated their lives to building a better future. With the right for women to choose under threat, Julia has taken a leading role in the pro-choice movement marching in support of women’s rights, rallying her community of influential friends and followers, supporting organizations such as #VoteProChoice and Plan C, and serving on the Advisory Council of the Equal Rights Amendment Coalition. With so much at stake at home in the U.S., Julia has also worked tirelessly to campaign for pro-choice politicians and support organizations such as Emerge America to help recruit and train like-minded women to run for office. As a champion of democracy globally, Julia fights for the right to freedom around the world including Iran and Ukraine where she led a mission to deliver ambulances and critical humanitarian supplies.
Andrew has over fifteen years of Ad and MarTech experience at eBay, Google, Facebook/Meta, Netflix, Snap, and fintech startups. He has tackled hard challenges in product, strategy, growth, go-to-market, and partnerships across many verticals and geographies. He is highly strategic, and has experience building and applying buy- and sell-side ad technology at scale.
Andrew has been advising companies of all shapes and sizes since 2012–from start-ups to Fortune 500 enterprises. He has spoken at large conferences (Meta’s F8), guest-lectured at universities (UGA, Santa Clara, Rotman School of Management), and served on various ad industry boards & working groups (IAB, MMA, MRC, ARF, WFA).
PJ Pereira is an industry veteran of over 20 years, most famously known for co-founding the independent award-winning creative agency, Pereira O’Dell. In 2023, PJ was also named Chief Creative Officer of independent agency network Serviceplan Americas.
Pereira is a pioneer in the marketing world, sitting at the intersection of tech, entertainment and advertising. His credentials have made him one of the industry’s most influential and respected creatives. He has been named to Adweek’s Creative 100, Ad Age’s Creativity 50, and to the 4A’s 100 People Who Make Advertising Great. Most recently, PJ was named Jury President of the inaugural AI discipline at 2023 ADC Awards. Also in partnership with ADC, he helped create 101+1, the world’s only interactive gallery that explores the untapped potential of creativity in collaboration with AI.
Outside of his work in advertising, PJ enjoys other creative pursuits as a novelist, painter, and martial artist. In 2023, PJ will release a book (his 5th) about the unlikely combination of Artificial Intelligence and kung fu. Pereira is particularly drawn to the concept of an AI’s influence in design and creativity, and he tries to engage this emerging tech in his own creative process whenever possible.
Esther-Mireya is a high-performing strategic marketer with a knack for building results-driven powerhouse integrated, strategic marketing functions that deliver maximum enterprise value and operational efficiency. Experienced leader in large-scale digital transformation and organizational change – including rebrands, mergers, acquisitions, and IPOs. Effective in matrixed organizations requiring strategy, agility, collaboration, emotional intelligence, and operational excellence. Bi-cultural and bi-lingual thought leader on diversity, equity, & inclusion. Trained people manager and team builder creating the next generation of leaders.
Rob is CEO of SmartFrame Technologies, an innovative image-streaming service that brings control and fresh monetisation opportunities to image owners, publishers and advertisers. Based in London, Rob joined as CEO in 2015 as a highly experienced entrepreneur and business leader to help define the company’s commercial strategy, take the product to market, and raise the required funding.
His previous experience includes multiple start-up roles such as Founder of Rascals Night Club, Founder and CEO at My Phone Club, Co-Founder and Sales Director at Wellbeing Network, and Founder at Holistic Personal Training Services.
As the founder and global CEO of Advertising Production Resources (APR), Jillian leads the world’s largest and fastest growing production consultancy with over 150+ people in 50+ countries. APR helps marketers to optimize their content creation ecosystem by providing services such as production consulting, cost controlling, vendor selection, and quality assurance. Jillian’s mission is to help advertisers achieve the best return on investment in production and to drive innovation and value in the creative production process.
Elizabeth Brennan is General Manager, Advertising, for Permutive, which is powering the future of targeted advertising on the open web. With over decade of experience in digital advertising, Elizabeth is a champion of women in business and a strong believer in the power of mentoring. A graduate of the University of Reading, Elizabeth is a former winner of the prestigious NABS Fast Forward award and has gone on to achieve Code First certification as part of the organization’s initiative to increase the number of women in tech.
Katy is CEO of the Valuable 500, the global business partnership of 500 companies working together to end disability exclusion. She played an instrumental role in the initiation of the Valuable 500 when she partnered with Dr Caroline Casey to launch the programme at DAVOS 2019.
With over a decade of experience at AMV BBDO, Katy held leadership roles, including Chief Client Officer, Chair of BBDO EMEA Talent Engagement Council, and Head of Account Management and Managing Partner. She played a key role in the ground-breaking 2016 Maltesers Disability campaign, which garnered prestigious awards and became Maltesers’ most successful campaign in 18 years.
After 7 years working in both NZ and Australia on a range of domestic and international business from Air New Zealand, Bank of New Zealand, Pepsico, Danone, Frucor Beverages, Nintendo and Casio, she returned to the UK in 2006, working at WCRS and then M&C Saatchi on Fosters, British Airways and TfL and was the Group Account Director on British Gas and Carphone Warehouse at CHI&Partners for 3 years before joining AMV BBDO in 2010.
Katy’s expertise extends to multi-discipline communications across 25 markets and includes serving as the Global Omnicom lead for Rexona, and the Global BBDO lead for Snickers. She has been acknowledged as a Marketing Trailblazer of 2019 and has recently served as a Leadership Mentor for Disability Rights UK. More recently, Katy has made valuable contributions to the executive leadership team at PINWHEEL, a corporate sustainability company.
Ahead of Advertising Week New York 2023, taking place at THE PENN DISTRICT, Great Minds welcomes Skylight CEO Stephanie Blake. Skylight is a placemaking and venue development, management and consulting firm committed to creating bespoke venues in storied places.
Over the last two decades, Shachar has helped to build and scale global brands, including Meta Reality Labs, Bumble, Snapchat, and Apple.
After graduating from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Shachar turned to women’s politics, and helped to legalize emergency contraception through Planned Parenthood with John F. Kerry. That led her to develop the brand for the century-old women’s organization, NCJW, the group responsible for Head Start, Meals on Wheels and Benchmark – preserving our Pro-Choice Bench. From there she went to Columbia University in New York, where she led marketing and communication for student services while getting her Master of Science in Strategic Communications. She spent six years leading digital and marketing strategy at several media and creative companies in New York, including Digitas, Deep Focus, and StrawberryFrog.
In 2011, Shachar was recruited by Apple Inc. to lead market development strategy for Apple’s digital advertising platform. She left Apple in 2014 to become a Managing Director at a venture and creative capital firm, West, where she ran the company’s portfolio in New York before joining Snap Inc in 2017 to lead Global Brand Marketing. During her time at Snap, she defined the role that marketing plays in driving growth and revenue for the company. At the end of 2020, she joined Bumble as Vice President of Global Marketing, overseeing brand marketing, product marketing, community marketing, brand partnerships, and their expansion into 150 markets.
At the end of 2021, she joined Meta’s Reality Labs. Today, as Vice President, Marketing she leads brand and integrated marketing team across VR (Meta Quest), VR content (Oculus Studios, Beat Saber), AR (Ray Ban Stories), Metaverse (Horizon Worlds, Avatars) and Work (Meta Work Portfolio, Quest for Business).
In addition to her professional marketing leadership, she serves as the Chairwomen of the Board of Directors for SAY.org and as an Independent Board Director at TouchTunes. She lives in Venice, California with her husband, Jason, and is the proud mom of Morgan + Riley, her 10-year old twins. She is originally from Israel and immigrated to America in 1985.
Jon Steinlauf serves as Chief U.S. Advertising Sales Officer for Warner Bros. Discovery. In this role, he is responsible for overseeing sales, research, marketing, branded entertainment, pricing and inventory control, as well as developing advanced advertising and convergent revenue streams for the company’s portfolio.
Steinlauf most recently served as Chief U.S. Advertising Sales Officer, Discovery, Inc. He was instrumental in the creation and monetization of integrated marketing strategies that delivered both incremental revenues for Discovery and additional value for its advertisers.
Prior to joining Discovery in 2018, Steinlauf served as President of Advertising Sales at Scripps Networks, successfully elevating its reputation with advertisers as the most upscale group of cable brands with the most engaged viewers in all of TV. Steinlauf first joined Scripps in 2000 as VP of Advertising Sales, with direction of HGTV and the DIY Network, before being elevated to run the entire TV ad sales division in 2003.
Among his many accolades, Steinlauf has been named seven times to Adweek’s “Adweek 50” as well as to Cablefax’s “Cablefax 100.” He also earned the Myers Report’s National Television Ad Sales Executive of the Year Award in 2007.
Steinlauf is a graduate of Duke University.
As Chief Marketing Officer for UnitedMasters, Inc., Chaucer works across UnitedMasters and Translation teams to provide diverse solutions designed to bridge partners across the enterprise. Chaucer has spent over 15 years in the media and advertising landscape and, prior to, several years as an independent musician in search of the ideal toolkit to segment, mature, and monetize his own unique fan base.
Jerry Shereshewsky has been in the advertising industry since 1969 and worked in general advertising, direct marketing, and public relations. He has been a brand/product marketer, the marketing arm of a major publisher’s sales organization, the CEO of an internet publishing company and a consultant combining all of the above specialties.
Dr Karen Nelson-Field is a globally acclaimed researcher in media science, with over 17 years spent researching and redefining how people deliver successful marketing and media outcomes through the guise of human attention.
Regularly called upon to speak at major industry events across the globe including AdWeek, Cannes and SXSW, Karen’s work has also been recognised and noted in leading publications such as The NY Times, Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Business. Making her the thought leader and subject matter expert in all things attention metrics which saw her named as a 2022 Honoree in the Ad Monsters + Ad Exchanger Top Women in Media & Ad Tech, as a Game Changer.
In addition to regular speaking on the global stage, Karen is also a well renowned author with two published titles under her belt. Her first book, Viral Marketing: the science of sharing, set the record straight on hunting for ‘viral success’. While her second book, The Attention Economy and How Media Works, explains the stark reality of human attention to advertising.
Chef Frank Brigtsen and his wife Marna are the owners of Brigtsen’s Restaurant, in the Riverbend neighborhood of Uptown New Orleans. Frank began his culinary career in 1973 while attending Louisiana State University. In 1979, he apprenticed at Commander’s Palace Restaurant under the guidance of Chef Paul Prudhomme and became the first Night Chef at K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen in 1980. During his seven-year tenure with Chef Prudhomme at K-Paul’s, Frank attained the position of Executive Chef. Paul and K Prudhomme were instrumental in helping Frank and Marna open Brigtsen’s in 1986.
Chef Frank has been named one of the Top Ten New Chefs in America by FOOD&WINE magazine (1988) and America’s Best Chef: Southeast by the James Beard Foundation Awards (1998). He has also been named Chef of the Year by New Orleans magazine and Restaurateur of the Year by the Louisiana Restaurant Association – N.O. Chapter.
In 2022, Chef Frank received the Ella Brennan Lifetime Achievement Award in Hospitality, presented by the New Orleans Food & Wine Experience.
Chef Frank’s passion is teaching and sharing through food. For 15 years, he taught Contemporary Creole/Acadian cuisine as Adjunct Professor at the John Folse Culinary Institute at Nicholls State University and serves as Chef-in-Residence for the Culinary Arts program at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA).
For the past 27 years, Jon has poured his heart and soul into VML — now VMLY&R. In 2018, he led the launch of the unified agency as global CEO. Today, VMLY&R is a global marketing force with more than 13,000 employees in 44 countries.
In 2023, the agency was named to Ad Age’s A-List. VMLY&R was also recognized as 2023 Network of the Year by the New York Festivals, the ANDYs, and the ADC Awards.
VMLY&R is proud to serve some of the world’s most recognized and respected brands, including AstraZeneca Colgate-Palmolive, Dell, Ford, General Mills, Intel, Microsoft, Mondelez, Pfizer, SC Johnson, Sherwin-Williams, The Coca-Cola Company, and Wendy’s.
Michael Sugar is the CEO and Founder of Sugar23 – a management, production and private equity company with a multi-year deal with Netflix – after a long stint at Anonymous Content where he was a partner for many years. He was awarded the Oscar® for Best Picture for “Spotlight,” starring Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, and Rachel McAdams.
Sugar’s recent Executive Producer credits include MSNBC’s docuseries “The Turning Point” and the Apple TV+ series “Dickinson,” starring Hailee Steinfeld and Jane Krakowski. Over the course of the latter’s three seasons, the series garnered a Peabody Award, a Golden Tomato Award, and numerous nominations. Upcoming, Sugar produced “Knox Goes Away,” a feature film starring and directed by Michael Keaton.
Sugar is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Producer’s Guild of America, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and lectures regularly at USC, NYU, Columbia, and the American Film Institute. He has been nominated for multiple Emmys and Golden Globes, and has received two Television Academy Honors, two AFI awards, and two Peabody Awards.
In her current role as CEO of Digitas North America, Amy will focus on delivering new solutions for Digitas clients, tapping into the agency’s Creative, Media, Data and Technology expertise. Her ability to connect products and services; infused with a commerce lens will lead the agency forward in the next generation of growth.
Prior to joining Digitas, she was Chief Operating Officer of Publicis Commerce, a full-stack, purpose-built unit comprised of 10,000+ commerce experts worldwide. During her tenure, she played an instrumental role in notable acquisitions such as Profitero and CitrusAd; contributed to some of the holding company’s biggest new business wins; was key driver behind some of Publicis Groupe’s most important commerce-focused partnerships with platforms such as TikTok and Snap; developed unique Power of One commerce solutions for the holding company’s largest clients; and launched a dedicated Commerce Advisory Board, comprised of client members from over 20 brands.
Amy is widely respected in the industry and has been recognized across honors such as Adweek 50; She Runs It “Working Mother of the Year”; Path to Purchase Institute’s “Executive of the Year” and “Industry Impact” winner; and Campaign US’s “Female Frontier” and “Digital 40 Over 40” Awards. She is also a 2023 Creative Commerce Lions juror for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
Prior to joining Publicis, Amy spent 20+ years at Omnicom’s TPN, where she helped grow the company from a team of 30 to 350 and expanded its presence to include offices in Chicago, San Francisco, Bentonville, and London.
This week on Great Minds we speak with Daniel McCarthy, CEO of FM. FM is a family of brands that exist to empower and inspire the global community of creatives.
A charismatic and invested Owner and CEO that constantly drives the FM brands to build the global creative community and participate in local and international philanthropic efforts.
From commercials to television series to film, legendary actress and star of television's hit show Get Smart, Barbara Feldon, discusses her extraordinary career.
Clay Melton is quickly establishing himself as a rising star, having played world-famous venues such as Whisky A Go Go in Hollywood, opening for Grand Funk Railroad on the Chevrolet Main Stage at the State Fair of Texas, and sharing the stage with Sir Earl Toon, of Kool & The Gang fame. Past credits also include opening for blues-legend Robert Cray and platinum-selling artists Chris Daughtry and Night Ranger.
Journey Gunderson is the Executive Director of the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, NY – the United States’ official cultural institution dedicated to the art of comedy – where she led the planning, strategy, fundraising and creative development for its acclaimed museum and archives.
Named one of the Top 50 Museum Influencers worldwide by international museum and attractions authority Blooloop, Gunderson has guided the National Comedy Center in its 21st Century museum design, featuring state-of-the-art technology, interactivity and personalization.
Since its opening in 2018, the National Comedy Center was named “Best New Museum” in the country by USA Today, one of the “World’s Greatest Places” by TIME magazine and one of “100 Reasons to Love America” by People magazine.
Based on the vision of Jamestown native Lucille Ball for her hometown in Western New York to become a destination for comedy, the non-profit Comedy Center showcases comedy’s great minds and unique voices in ways that educate, engage and inspire future generations.
Journey also serves as Executive Director of the Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Museum and the annual Lucille Ball Comedy Festival, both of which have reached new heights under her leadership.
Bogdan is a Product and Marketing leader with a rich and diverse track record, spanning over 15+ years in the SaaS and IT industries. He is driving strategy and go-to-market execution to help businesses in Cybersecurity, MarTech, and AdTech grow in the global market.
As the VP of Marketing at Creatopy, Bogdan orchestrates a mix of strategic and tactical elements to enhance our marketing campaigns and deliver exceptional results. Bogdan’s ability to navigate between different areas while maintaining a cohesive strategy has cultivated a spirit of creativity and innovation in his team.
Monette is an award-winning strategic advisor in the insurance business. Monette may be in the insurance business, but she does not sell insurance. She is in the business of protecting strong bottom lines and delivering sustainable long-term business solutions for her clients. Her tools are her depth of knowledge and her business acumen.
Monette is known through her numerous accomplishments and awards both within the philanthropic world and the business community. Her philanthropic world and business world seem to fluidly collide and continuously be intertwined. Her two worlds are intimately linked and constitute the undeniable foundation of her success.
In 2019, Monette was honored with the “Women Who Make a Difference” Award, which was remitted at the IWF World Leadership International Conference Gala.
As chair of the Board of the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University she has the honor to sit on the university’s board. Monette is a founder of Genius 100™, an active and engaged community of 100 exceptionally imaginative and impactful human beings. It brings accomplished, compassionate minds together to re-imagine the future – and to implement creative initiatives to improve it.
On this episode of Great Minds, we’re pleased to be speaking with Jim Prior, Chair, Design Bridge and Partners, WPP. Launched in January 2023, Design Bridge and Partners formed with the merger of Design Bridge and Superunion. The new company enables clients to leverage a full range of industry-leading design expertise, driving growth and transformation through consumer, business, lifestyle, and experience design. Jim walks us through his extensive career.
Just in time for the festivities at the corner of Surf & Stillwell on July 4th, we're please to present this incredible discussion with Rich Shea, President of Major League Eating.
Richard Shea has an extensive background in corporate communications, media relations and event production. For 20 years, he has developed and implemented integrated communications programs that incorporate public relations, live events, paid media and social media. Richard has conceived and developed powerful marketing campaigns for national clients, including BING and Netflix, and he acts as a spokesperson for various businesses in major print, online and digital outlets. He is recognized for his expertise in crisis communications.
Ben Jeffries is the 27-year-old CEO of Influencer, a global influencer marketing solution, focused on providing global advertisers with the ability to succeed on social media. Influencer’s mission is to build meaningful relationships between creators and brands, whilst making advertising effective, but more importantly inclusive. Influencer works with a number of global brands such as P&G, offering guaranteed results by combining strategic creativity, insights and technology. Ben is an award-winning entrepreneur, with awards from Forbes 30 Under 30 to BMW Entrepreneur of the Year, and has previously spoken at global events such as Cannes Lions, Web Summit, Facebook, TikTok, Advertising Week and Social Media Week, plus many more.
On this episode of Great Minds, we feature Seijin Jung, Head of Marketing at OpenStore. Seijin recollects his career path, from LG to Google, to Facebook to OpenStore, with several interesting stops in-between.
On this very special episode of Great Minds, we feature Suki Thompson, Founder and CEO at Let’s Reset and Co-Founder of Oystercatchers (as well as host of Reset, the podcast, in partnership with Advertising Week), along with her daughter Jazmyn Thompson, Senior Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner (PWP) at Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (HPFT).
Ian is the North American CEO for Iris, a global creative innovation network. He previously served as President and Chief Client Officer of Hawkeye; CEO of Wunderman Thompson Central; Managing Director of SapientRazorfish Chicago; Executive Vice President of Digital and Social at Ogilvy & Mather Chicago; and global partnership lead for a division of Nokia.
Entrepreneurial, highly organized entertainment and production executive with extensive live entertainment and event management experience within highly competitive markets. Creative professionals and businesses seek Dina’s guidance and knowledge because she can provide top-class event planning by utilizing her expert project management skills and employing her solid track record of success managing client satisfaction and training teams to achieve demanding goals.
Dina shares her career journey on this latest episode of Great Minds.
Jon Patricof is CEO and Co-Founder of Athletes Unlimited, a network of professional sports leagues. Launched in March 2020, Athletes Unlimited now operates leagues in pro women's softball, volleyball, lacrosse, and basketball. In 2022, the company will conduct over 120 games that will be broadcast to over 150 countries.
Before founding Athletes Unlimited, Patricof served as president of Major League Soccer’s New York City Football Club, where he currently serves on the board of directors. Prior to NYCFC, Patricof spent 11 years as a member of the board, President and COO of Tribeca Enterprises, the owner and operator of the Tribeca Film Festival and related business ventures. Among his accomplishments was the creation of the Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival as well as the company’s landmark branded content partnerships with Dick’s Sporting Goods and American Express.
Throughout his career, Jon has been involved in driving revenue and expanding operations. At Tribeca, he helped expand the company from film into branded entertainment and sports as well as the company's JV with Lionsgate and international partnerships in the Middle East and Asia. Prior to Tribeca, he worked in media private equity prior to which he worked in Corporate Strategic Planning at Disney helping grow the Disney, ESPN and ABC brands across video, audio and digital platforms. His first job was at Forest City Ratner at the inception of the Atlantic Yards development (future site of Barclays Center); he worked on Dean Kamen's Segway project and with Harvard Prof. Michael Porter's Initiative for a Competitive Inner City.
Sheri Bachstein is a formative strategic thinker who diagnoses complex problems and rapidly creates solutions in a high-pressure environment. As a turnaround expert, she quickly assesses a situation, see multi-dimensional perspectives and make fast, targeted changes for immediate wins. Sheri joins Great Minds to discuss her career path.
Linda is GE’s Chief Marketing Officer, Vice President, Learning and Culture and President, GE Foundation. She oversees global marketing, brand, content, digital, and sponsorships, while also managing GE’s global learning and GE’s philanthropic arm. She also co-leads the GE Women’s Network. Having marketing, learning and philanthropy tied together opens many opportunities to expand and show GE’s impact on the world.
Linda brings a strategic mindset, global perspective, and expertise in communicating with our key stakeholders. Under Linda’s leadership, GE’s marketing campaigns and fresh approach to media technology and content have driven strong results in global brand growth and recruitment efforts. GE has been recognized as AdWeek’s hottest digital marketer and won a coveted Cannes Grand Prix Award in 2016.
Passionate about all things digital and the future of media and communications, Linda is recognized as one of today’s most influential marketing executives. She was named 2017 AdWeek Grand Brand Genius and is a 2016 Matrix Award winner among other accolades. Linda is a past Chair of The Ad Council and a member of the ANA Executive Committee and Marketing 50.
John Gentry is CEO of OpenX, one of the world’s leading providers of digital and mobile advertising technology. John is responsible for operating the business and further accelerating OpenX’s rapid trajectory, delivering revenue growth through sales, technology, and product innovation globally.
At Maherster Ltd, Ben provides strategic consulting across all areas of digital including business planning, sales strategy development & marketing. Maherster have worked with businesses across many sectors and of many sizes from large publishers to small games start ups.
Dan Boever has been a full time corporate and charity golf entertainer since 2000 with 1800+ personal appearances around the world. His clients have included Bank of America, Microsoft, TD Ameritrade, McDonalds, Citgo, AT&T, Sprint, Pepsi, Yahoo!, Make A Wish, MGM Grand, Marriott Hotels, PGA Tour. Dan has made 18 consecutive trips to the RE/MAX World Long Drive Championship including a World Title.
Tanya Woods is a dynamic, future-forward leader with entrepreneurial edge and successful track record advancing government and industry partnerships to deliver strategic results at scale. Sought out to provide executive-level strategic legal and policy counsel, visionary foresight, navigation on complex legal and systemic challenges, and to deliver success with triple bottom line benefits. Especially skilled at systems thinking, translating complex business, legal and economic risks into simple language, and executing fast-paced, high-impact projects that achieve desired outcomes for all sizes of companies and organizations. Passionate about advising on and implementing projects and technologies that will make a positive and innovative impact in the world.
Launched at the World Economic Forum in 2020, Project In-Kind is an inclusive global philanthropic and social impact movement leveraging in-kind giving, technology and partnerships to help communities and meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This is the world’s first-ever tech-supported global in-kind giving movement to enable and measure 1 billion in-kind donations from businesses, government, and citizens by 2030 and help non-profits and charities use contributions of skills, services and goods to help their communities.
Peter Schube, Ladder & Light’s founding principal, is an entertainment and corporate executive with broad and deep experience across all areas of the media industry, including the production and distribution of television programming, feature films, and digital/mobile content.
Previously, Peter served as Chief Operating Officer for Illumination Entertainment (Despicable Me, Minions, The Secret Life of Pets, Sing franchises), overseeing business strategy and all core business operations for the company, including Illumination MacGuff, its 800+ person animation studio in Paris. Prior to Illumination, Mr. Schube spent nearly three decades at The Jim Henson Company, including the last 13 years as President and Chief Operating Officer. There, he was responsible for the worldwide operations of the company’s businesses, including its distribution, sales and marketing, finance, H/R, and administration functions, as well as the company’s Academy Award® winning Creature Shop. Prior to serving as President, he was the company’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel, where he supervised an international staff of 10 lawyers and support personnel as head of the company’s worldwide business and legal affairs functions.
Bringing 30 years of industry experience in marketing and communications, Marla joined the 4A’s in May 2017 to help define and shape the future focus for the association. Under her leadership, the 4A’s helps empower members to drive commerce, spark connections, and shape culture through infinite creativity all while moving the industry forward.
As the former CEO of MEC North America, beginning in 2011, Marla drove the agency’s strategic initiatives with a focus on delivering growth for its people, clients and the industry. Marla led MEC to become a major disruptor in the area of talent management with its innovative approaches to attracting, nurturing and retaining the industry’s top talent. MEC NA was cited in Fortune’s “Great Places to Work” feature and was named in Advertising Age’s “Best Places to Work in Advertising and Marketing” in 2015.
Prior to joining MEC, Marla spent 12 years at MediaVest, where she oversaw the Procter & Gamble Communications Planning assignment for North America, and previously managed a multi-client team. Marla began her career at DMB&B before moving to Ammirati Puris Lintas. Marla serves on the Boards of The Ad Council, AEF (ANA Educational Foundation), BBB National Programs, Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG), and General Assembly’s Marketing Standards.
Bob Liodice is chief executive officer of the ANA. He previously served as executive vice president, responsible for member relations and business development with a primary focus on strengthening relationships with ANA member companies and broadening the membership base. Bob joined the ANA as senior vice president in 1995.
Prior to the ANA, he was vice president of global marketing and sales for Grupo Televisa, a major worldwide broadcaster. His previous experience includes more than 15 years in marketing and financial management at Kraft General Foods and tenure as category marketing manager for the Jell-O and Bakers brands.
He is a member of the boards of directors of The Advertising Council, Better Business Bureau National Partner Program, Geopath, Advertising Educational Foundation, Digital Advertising Alliance, Trustworthy Accountability Group, and World Federation of Advertisers.
He is co-chair of the ANA Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing, chair of the Privacy for America coalition, and he serves on the governing bodies of the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media and the Global Alliance for Responsible Media.
Bob holds bachelor degrees in accounting and management and an M.B.A. in finance from New York University.
Jon joined Accenture Song as the Executive Chairman of Karmarama – a role he has held since 2014. In his position he now leads client conversations around experience and works extensively in the marketing and communications space.
Prior to joining Accenture Song, John’s 30 plus years of experience in advertising and marketing were spent at ITV, MTV Europe, Disney, BMP DDB, and PHD (part of Omnicom). He also founded and launched Naked Communications in 16 markets globally, trailblazing joined up thinking across legacy and digital channels, and advising global marketers on modern communication strategies to engage with customers.
Jon is a regular speaker at the World Federation of Advertisers, Cannes Lions, SXSW amongst others.
Maryam is a marketing industry veteran who has led and infused purpose into some of the world’s top brands including Hyatt, Gannett, NBC, and most recently, Nextdoor. As a co-founder of NYCNext, Maryam mobilized a volunteer army of 700 passionate New Yorkers to incite both action and optimism—by way of pop-up performance events throughout the city’s five boroughs, supporting the city’s performing arts community by doing it. Featured cultural institutions included the Metropolitan Opera, stars from Broadway, Central Park, Times Square, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others. NYCNext’s activities ultimately culminated in a love letter to the city in the form of a music video re-imagining Billy Joel’s iconic “New York State of Mind,” featuring a diverse group of talent that included Idina Menzel, Stephen Colbert, Sara Bareilles, and many others.
Rob Perry is the Founder & CEO of XOMAD, an influencer-led marketing agency founded in 2010. While representing athletes (50% of his time on Michael Jordan), Rob recognized the power of social influencers to set trends and spike sales. Later he deployed global influencer strategies as President of Champion Footwear International. At XOMAD, Rob seeks to propel influencer marketing out of the scripted era, optimizing the ROI of large scale media buys with organic content created from powerful influencer campaigns. He has led XOMAD’s development of a proprietary technology platform that revolves around influencer creativity, trend-setting and group collaboration with programmatic-like audience targeting, while creating engaging brand campaigns for clients such as Clorox, Unilever, L’Oreal and Ocean Spray.
Shelly Palmer is the Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at
Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications,
CEO of The Palmer Group, a consulting practice that helps Fortune 500
companies with technology, media and marketing, and co-founder
of Metacademy, a free educational platform that teaches practical
applications of blockchain, crypto, NFTs, Web3, the metaverse.
Named LinkedIn’s “Top Voice in Technology,” he covers tech and
business for Fox 5’s Good Day New York, and is a regular commentator
on CNN and CNBC. He’s the co-host of the award-winning
podcast Techstream with Shelly Palmer & Seth Everett and he hosts
the Shelly Palmer #Web3Wednesday Livestream.
Shelly is a prolific author. Along with his daily newsletter, his books
include, the Amazon #1 Bestseller, Blockchain – Cryptocurrency, NFTs
& Smart Contracts: An executive guide to the world of decentralized
finance and Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to
Networked TV, the seminal book about the technological, economic,
and sociological forces that have changing everything about the the
business of television, Overcoming the Digital Divide: How to use
Social Media and Digital Tools to Reinvent Yourself and Your Career,
and Digital Wisdom: Thought Leadership for a Connected World.
Nicole Lapin is the New York Times and Wall Street Journal Bestselling author of Rich Bitch, Boss Bitch, Becoming Super Woman and Miss Independent. Lapin has been an anchor on CNN, CNBC and Bloomberg. She is the founder of Money News Network, which is the home of her daily show “Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin” that reached #1 on Apple’s business charts.
As a special treat during the week of The Masters Tournament, we’re pleased to feature American pro golf instructor Hank Haney, who has coached the legendary Tiger Woods, as well as two-time major championship winner Mark O’Meara. Hank reflects on this extraordinary career in this special episode of Great Minds.
From his days at the helm of Dropbox’s marketing to his present position at Primer, where he is Founder and CEO, Keith Putnam-Delaney takes us through his career path.
Tiffany Xingyu Wang is the Chief Marketing Officer of OpenWeb. OpenWeb, which powers over 1,000 publishers and brands, is a comprehensive, Web3-ready solution designed to create trusted spaces for online conversation and build highly engaged communities.
An award-winning social entrepreneur and marketer, she champions trust, safety, and ethics in web3 development. She co-founded and serves as the President of the Oasis Consortium, a think tank that helps advance digital sustainability through ethical standards and technologies, which launched the first-ever User Safety Standards for the metaverse.
Michelle Miller is a national correspondent for CBS News and currently serves as a co-host on CBS Saturday Morning. She has also served as a substitute anchor on CBS Mornings and 48 Hours on ID.
As Global Chief Marketing Officer of Teads, Natalie Bastian oversees a team that spearheads public relations, lead generation, digital, social, events, communications, and branding. Bastian’s charter focuses on doubling down the expansion of the brand in the US market and enabling growth across Teads’ portfolio, including new omni-channel products such as its recently launched CTV offering.
Season 4 kicks off with Marketing luminary Aaron Shapiro, founder and Chairman of Product, an independent agency focused on making and marketing products for a sustainable future. Product’s unique POV and offering has attracted leading brands like Google and Post Consumer Brands.
Dhomonique Murphy is a 3x Emmy Award Winning TV Personality and Producer and the Founder of award-winning creative agency – The Right Method. She can be seen on some of the largest stages in the world & is one of the nation’s top-booked Presenters.
Nicola Mendelsohn CBE is a British advertising executive. Active in the advertising industry since 1992, she was named vice-president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa for Facebook in June 2013. In 2021, Nicola was named Vice President of Meta’s Global Business Group. She is also a non-executive director of Diageo. The Daily Telegraph has called her “the most powerful woman in the British tech industry”. She was named in Campaign magazine’s Power 100 2020 list of top marketers.
Josh Johnson is a stand-up, Emmy-nominated writer, performer, and NAACP award-winner from Louisiana by way of Chicago. He is currently a writer on The Daily Show, and is a former writer and performer on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where he made his late-night debut. Johnson is Comedy Central’s ‘most watched comedian ever’ with 40M+ views to date across their platforms.
Stephanie Dobbs Brown leads the marketing team at Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and the New York Stock Exchange, a Fortune 500 company. ICE is a global data and technology company that designs, builds, and operates digital networks across asset classes, with 9,000+ employees around the world committed to connecting people to opportunity through digital networks.
This week on Great Minds, we’re pleased to welcome Kevin Gentzel. Kevin is the Global Chief Commercial and Growth Officer of Newsweek. He previously worked at Gannett | USA TODAY NETWORK as a President Marketing Solutions and CRO. Kevin Gentzel attended the University of Florida.
Michael Nyman has made a career by being on the leading edge of marketing trends. With his latest venture, Acceleration Community of Companies, he has created another new go to market strategy.
With Acceleration, Nyman, the former long-time PMK*BNC Co-Chairman & CEO, has developed a new business approach with a series of strategic and complementary acquisitions and build outs aimed at providing a unique collective of specialized agencies, designed to help clients move quickly and efficiently with their branding, marketing and media decisions.
A healthcare innovator, Harshit Jain, MD has been driving health transformation across the globe, delivering life changing, creative and sustainable solutions since his days as a Healthcare Professional. An MD from Chicago’s Northwestern University, Harshit practiced Medicine for a few years, after which he decided to cut his teeth at big advertising agencies, including McCann, where he held a series of positions including Country Head, Marketing Director & Innovation Lead in Asia, Europe and America. In the 13+ years of his professional journey, Harshit has skillfully (and successfully) weaved together his medicine domain expertise and marketing acumen, to grace the world with some outside-the-box campaigns in the healthcare space. Making the best use of advertising media, Harshit has addressed some of the biggest health challenges over the course of his career– Immunization, Vitamin D deficiency, Diabetes, etc., by using data creatively and innovatively. For his pathbreaking work, he has been conferred with eminent industry awards and accolades.
Joining Google in 2007, Courtney leads a team of ad industry experts across Google’s Services sector, including higher education, apps, B2B tech companies, home services, and performance advertisers. Her team is focused on maximizing client business outcomes and modernizing marketing across creative, data & measurement.
On this special episode of Great Minds, we feature Illia Balaban, CEO of Who Are You Agency, based in Kyiv City, Ukraine. Illia discusses creativity as part of the Ukranian identity, as well as the state of the war in Ukraine and how it has impacted so many lives.
On this very special episode to close out 2022, Luvuyo Madasa joins Great Minds to discuss the recent debut of Mandela, the epic new musical now premiering at the Young Vic in London.
From his early years at Leo Burnett to present, friend of Advertising Week APAC John Sintras joins Great Minds to discuss his extraordinary and interesting career.
Industry veteran David Sable joins Great Minds to discuss everything from The Doors to his tenure at Y&R, to his numerous other endeavors – with many, many interesting stops in-between.
Great Minds is pleased to welcome Niki Russ Federman, 4th generation owner of the iconic New York-based Russ & Daughters. Niki discusses the origins of Russ & Daughters and its century-long place in our culinary culture.
Longtime friend of Advertising Week, Emerald board member Lynda Clarizio joins Great Minds to discuss her career, starting with her stint at the U.S. State Department and through her non-profit work, her various board positions, and much more.
Returning Great Minds guest Claudia Romo Edelman talks about the state of the Hispanic community, how the Hispanic community markets and advocates for itself, and previews the upcoming We Are All Human Gala on December 8th.
Longtime friend of Advertising Week, Julia Boorstin, joins the show to discuss her career, from her early inspirations to her present career as at CNBC as Senior Media and Technology Correspondent, and her work with CNBC’s Disruptor 50.
Be sure to check out Julia’s new book, When Women Lead, from Simon & Schuster’s Avid Reader Press. Available now!
Paul Caine is President of IMG Events and On Location, the premier experiences leader and official partner of the NFL, acquired by sports and entertainment leader Endeavor in 2020.
Through partnerships with more than 150 rights holders, including the NFL, NCAA, PGA of America and USTA, and relationships with key festivals, musical artists and other creators, On Location provides official and exclusive access for corporate clients and fans to memorable experiences at marquee events.
Before joining Endeavor and On Location, Caine amassed an extensive track record building, operating, transforming and investing in small- and large-scale public and private businesses. He most recently served as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) of Bloomberg, as Chief Executive Officer of Westwood One and in numerous roles at Time Inc. over 23 years, including Executive Vice President, CRO and Group President. He is also the Founder of PC Ventures (an investment and advisory company), Chairman of the Board of Engine Group, where he also served as Interim CEO, and Chairman of the Board of Telaria (formerly Tremor Video), where he also served as Interim CEO.
In addition to his executive positions, Caine has held various industry leadership roles, including serving on the boards of the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau), RAB (Radio Advertising Bureau) and MPA (Association of Magazine Media), as well as retail franchising company Nexcen Brands.
Caine’s philanthropic involvement includes serving on the board of the John A. ReisenbachFoundation and the Indiana University Media School Dean Advisory Board and previously as Chairman of MusicCares (National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences). Caine and his wife Pam are also the founders of Griffin Cares.
Caine lives in Tenafly, NJ, with his wife and three children.
After 15+ years living agency life, Abigail Posner, Director, Creative Works, at Google, made the jump to Google. Abigail discusses her career path from her agency days to present, with several surprising stops along the way.
Alex Beller is the co-founder and President at Postscript, an SMS marketing platform for growing Shopify businesses. Brooklinen, Kopari, Native, and Fanjoy rely on Postscript for hyper-segmented campaigns and texting with customers. Forbes named his company a Next Billion Dollar Startup in 2021 and has raised more than $106M from top investors like Dick Costolo’s venture firm 01 Advisors, Twilio Ventures, Expanding Capital, m]x[v Capital, Greylock, Accomplice, Elephant, and OpenView. He was previously a Director of Business Development at StackCommerce.
A man of many talents (not to mention a voice made for radio), Jon also hosts the Uncensored CMO podcast, where, over the course of 50 episodes, he has sat down with everyone from the duo behind LinkedIn’s B2B Institute to the vice chairman of Ogilvy, as well as the CEO Of Clear M&C Saatchi. As far as his day job, Jon helps brands tap into the world of ad testing, to ensure they’re communicating with customers in the strongest, most relevant ways possible.
On this episode of Great Minds, recorded ahead of Advertising Week New York 2022, we’re pleased to feature Roku’s VP of Marketing, Dan Robbins. Dan talks about the future of television, the present state of streaming vs broadcast, as well as delving into the state of ad measurement in the industry.
Kristina Heney is a live experience marketing expert, storyteller, brand builder and performance marketer who has spent the last two decades connecting fans with world-class brands including Cirque du Soleil, Madison Square Garden Entertainment and the National Basketball Association.
Currently, Kristina is the EVP, CMO of Hornblower Group, the world’s largest on-water experiences company, featuring a global network of ferries, sightseeing and micro overnight cruises. As CMO, Kristina oversees all aspects of Hornblower’s global marketing, guest experience, and brand communications across 30 ports, leading a team of 400 marketers.
This week we have a special treat for listeners. Recorded live at Advertising Week New York 2022, at the SXM Media Podcast Activation, we're pleased to welcome Lizzie Widhelm, SVP, B2B Marketing and Sales at SXM Media. Lizzie takes us on a journey through her career from beginning to present.
For our 200th episode of Great Minds, we’re beyond thrilled to be speaking to Olympic Gold Medalist and World Cup Alpine Skiing legend Lindsey Vonn. Lindsey takes us on a journey through her spectacular career, from her childhood to her greatest wins and finally to her philanthropic work with the Lindsey Vonn Foundation.
This week on Great Minds we’re joined by Ron McNeil, musician and founding member of legendary Beatles tribute band, The Fab Four. Ron discusses the genesis of the band, life on the road, and why the music of The Beatles endures all of these years later.
On this episode of Great Minds, Satoru Wakeshima, Managing Director and Chief Engagement Officer at CBX, and Kara Buckler, Senior Director of Creative & Design at The J.M. Smucker Co., discuss the recent rebranding of Milk-Bone, the popular 100+ year-old dog treat.
This week on Great Minds we speak with the multi-talented Ephraim Sykes, original cast member of Hamilton, star of NBC's live production of Hairspray! and so much more. Ephraim walks us through his extraordinary career, from his college years, through the present.
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
Today on Great Minds we welcome Analisa Goodin, Founder and CEO of Catch+Release. Analisa charts her career from her time at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, her own agency, Visual Catch, and her newest venture, Catch+Release, for which she raised over $20M from top VCs.
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
On this episode of Great Minds, we’re pleased to speak with Drew Stein, CEO and Co-Founder of Audigent, ahead of Advertising Week New York 2022, kicking off on October 17th, 2022. Drew walks us through his philanthropic work, the importance of internships, and the important work done being done at Audigent.
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
Our good friend Warren Jenson of LiveRamp returns to Great Minds to discuss work/life balance in a post-COVID industry, the new world of privacy, why creativity still matters, and much, much more.
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
On this very special episode of Great Minds, we talk with Dr. Scott Adzick, Surgeon-in-Chief, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, along with Adam Laird, Class A Member of the PGA and Golf and Teaching Professional at the North Shore Country Club in Glen Head, NY, and Joel Friedman, Founder at Clearview Capital Management, ahead of The Golf Marathon for CHOP 2022. Dr. Adzick discusses the incredibly important and groundbreaking work being done at CHOP in this part 1 of our series of discussions with CHOP and those involved in their work there.
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
Ali leads all marketing and communications efforts at MNTN. Ali is also an instructor at UCLA Extension, teaching marketing and advertising courses in the Business & Management certification program. Previously, Ali served as principal product designer at Symantec working on the Norton Security line of consumer software. Prior to Symantec, Ali oversaw digital marketing for the Digital Media Services division of Verizon.
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
Hear from a panel of automotive marketing leaders, led by Advertising Week Chairman Matt Scheckner. The discussion will shed light on the challenges and triumphs that have transcended the industry during the chip shortage and recent economic shifts. Learn how their leadership has helped them innovate through times of constraint and can be an inspiration to the broader advertising community.
Karna Crawford has over 20 years of data-driven marketing experience, with the past 10 years focused on delivering digital transformation for Fortune 50 companies, including Ford, Verizon and JP Morgan Chase. During her career, Karna has been recognized as an inspirational executive leader, known for innovative strategic thinking, cultural transformation, and operational excellence.
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
Julie leads DV’s commercial organization worldwide. This includes driving integration and alignment between all revenue-related functions, including sales, customer support, pricing and revenue management. Prior to DV, Julie was most recently Global Client Partner at Google, where she spearheaded global partnership and growth strategy for some of Google’s largest global clients, including Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler. Prior to Google, Julie led all of the centralized marketing for North America at Procter & Gamble, including media planning and buying, sports marketing, branded entertainment and retailer marketing — leading over 400 employees and 1,000-plus agency personnel. Julie earned both her B.S. in Consumer Affairs and her M.S. in Consumer Behavior from Purdue University.
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
Longtime friend of Advertising Week, Seth Rogin, CEO of Magnolia Media Partners, joins Great Minds to discuss the modern media landscape and walk us through his amazing career, from his tenure at the New York Times to present.
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
This week, Great Minds is pleased to feature David Doft, Chief Financial Officer at Emerald. David discusses his career, including his prior role as CFO at MDC Partners, as well as his current role at Emerald, including Emerald’s acquisition of Advertising Week.
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
Today on Great Minds we’re pleased to welcome Uncle Bard & The Dirty Bastards: Celtic Rock spiced up with Irish Traditional Music! Based in the north of Italy and made up of lads who, in one way or another, lived or spent too much time in Ireland!
Too rock for the Folkies and too folk for the Rockies, the Bastards could please or disappoint almost everyone. Formed back in 2007, they play a unique blend of folk/rock and Traditional Irish Music. Uilleann pipes, tenor banjo, mandolin, Irish flute: there are few others bands in the folk/rock scene that could compete with the Bastards in terms of deep knowledge of Irish Traditional Music and Irish culture and society.
Enjoy!
Martha Boudreau is AARP’s chief communications & marketing officer. She is responsible for setting enterprise brand and communications strategy and unifying AARP’s voice throughout the organization’s extensive channels: social, digital, earned media and paid media along with AARP’s leading publications, AARP The Magazine and AARP Bulletin.
She is a leader in the Washington, D.C., communications industry. Before coming to AARP, she served as president of the mid-Atlantic region and Latin America for FleishmanHillard, a leading global communications consulting firm. She served on the company’s global management committee and was a key figure in growing the firm’s presence in the Middle East and its expansion into Latin America. In addition to her financial and client service responsibilities in the Washington office, she was central to the global coordination of client work and new business efforts.
During her tenure as general manager of FleishmanHillard’s Washington office, she led the efforts to change its offerings to reflect a rapidly evolving communications landscape. She established the firm’s government communications practice, which quickly positioned FleishmanHillard as the largest public relations provider to the U.S. government. For the diplomatic community, she spearheaded a “Digital Diplomacy” team that trained ambassadors and embassy staff on using social media to support their traditional outreach efforts in Washington.
She represented FleishmanHillard at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, and was an active participant in regional WEF events as well as the forum’s Global Gender Parity program. Her teams in Latin America handled media and executive communications for WEF events in Peru and Mexico.
Martha Boudreau is a native of Detroit and received her B.A. from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She is a member of the International Women’s Forum and serves on the Advisory Council for Washington Women in Public Relations. She also has served on the boards of several organizations in Washington, including the National Press Foundation, the American Heart Association’s mid-Atlantic affiliate, the American Bird Conservancy and The Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing.
Chapters
00:37 - 02:10 - Martha Boudreau on the value of the AARP demographic 02:10 – 13:48 - Martha shares her thoughts on her 18 years at FleischmanHilliard 13:48 - 16:35 - The pace of change in public affairs 19:26 – 19:26 - The missed marketing opportunity of brands 26:30 – 38:34 - Ageism in the workplace 38:34 - 41:15 - How AARP is targeting the African-American and Hispanic communities 41:15 - 43:12 - Martha's thoughts on ageism
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
In this episode of Great Minds, we speak with Jonathan Stringfield, VP of Global Business Research and Marketing at Activision Blizzard. An industry veteran, Jonathan takes us through his career journey from Nielsen to social networks Facebook and Twitter, and finally to his current position at Activision Blizzard. Jonathan also shares insights from his book Get in the Game.
Chapters:
00:37 - 03:05 - Jonathan Stringfield Introduction 03:05 - 08:05 - The decision to get a Ph. D 08:05 - 21:52 - His tenure at Nielsen 21:52 - 29:47 - The early days of working at Facebook 29:47 - 36:03 - What was the secret weapon of Twitter? 36:04 - 40:35 - The opportunity in the gaming industry 40:40 - 45:47 - Are brands starting to embrace the gaming ecosystem? 45:47 - 49:19 - The origin story of his book Get in the Game 49:19 - 50:38 - The intersection of gaming and advertising
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
This week, Great Minds is pleased to welcome long-time friend Kwame Taylor-Hayford to the podcast. Kwame charts his career journey from the beginning to Kin, his latest venture. Along the way Kwame discusses industry challenges, his entrepreneurial spirit, and why New York is the greatest city in the world.
Chapters:
00:38 - 04:43 - Intro 04:44 - 11:57 - What was it like working at Media Arts Lab? 14:43 - 16:14 - Where did he come from as an entrepreneur? 16:15 - 25:20 - Working at some of the bigger agencies 25:20 - 34:20 - Challenging areas of the industry 34:20 - 45:03 - What makes New York the greatest city in the world 45:03 - 49:00 - Business as a force for good
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
This week on Great Minds, we’re thrilled to speak with longtime friend Barry Watkins, CEO of Clairvoyant Media Strategies. Barry discusses his time with the NY Rangers (including winning the Stanley Cup in 1994), his current role, as well as the importance of being disciplined when it comes to working with the media.
Chapters:
00:37 - 05:34 - Barry Watkins on how he got his first job at the New York Rangers 05:35 - 08:27 - The uniqueness of Rangers fans 08:27 - 17:07 - What was it like winning the Stanley Cup in '94? 17:07 - 21:37 - What was it like working at Madison Square Garden? 21:37 - 39:00 - Madison Square Garden 39:00 - 48:14 - The importance of being disciplined when it comes to media
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
This week, Great Minds is pleased to feature Hervé Sedky, President and CEO of Emerald. Hervé discusses Emerald’s recent acquisition of Advertising Week and reflects on his career.
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
This week, Great Minds is thrilled to welcome Janice Min, CEO, Co-Owner, and Editor in Chief of Ankler Media, a true legend in the world of media. Janice walks us through her earliest days at publications like People and Life, to her present at the helm of The Ankler.
Chapters
00:37 - 05:16 - Introduction 05:16 - 11:31 - How did you get into Columbia University? 11:31 - 14:14 - Working at People and InStyle 14:15 - 20:59 - The decline of the magazine industry 21:02 - 31:57 - The death of US Weekly 31:57 - 35:34 - The current state of celebrity culture 35:35 - 49:12 - The rise of influencer culture 49:12 - 55:40 - Ankler's origin story 55:40 - 57:17 - The future of entertainment
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
This week on Great Minds we’re pleased to speak with Rikin Diwan, SVP of Marketing at Thimble. From his time as an Apple intern in the early 2000s, to his present at Thimble, Rikin walks us through his extraordinary and interesting career.
Chapters:
00:37 - 04:25 - An intern at Apple 04:25 - 05:57 - What was it like working at Apple in the early 2000? 05:57 - 09:31 - His tenure at News Corp 09:35 - 11:57 - The marriage of product and marketing 11:57 - 15:41 - Sociology and marketing 15:41 - 23:17 - What was it like working at Jump as a CMO? 23:18 - 27:07 - Plans to extend insurance to other industries 27:07 - 31:49 - Growth plans
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
On this episode of Great Minds we’re pleased to welcome Fandom CMO Stephanie Fried. Stephanie takes us on a journey through her career, from the early 2000 digital landscape, through her time at various industry giants, to her present role as CMO of Fandom.
Chapters:
00:58 – 14:28 - Fandom's Stephanie Fried on what she's seeing in Washington DC 14:28 - 20:31 - What was the digital landscape like in the early 2000s? 20:34 - 33:04 - Views on ESPN, NBCU and Discovery 33:04 - 38:54 - Views on the path for brands in the last 20 years 38:59 - 43:29 - The Performance Lab 43:29 - 45:33 - The importance of partnership with brands 45:34 – 54:46 - Fandom, fan and San Diego Comic-Con
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
This week on Great Minds we’re pleased to feature Intersection CEO Chris Grosso. Chris charts his career path from his early days, through his time at AOL and Hearst, to heading up one of the leading out of home technology companies in the world at Intersection.
Chapters:
00:40 - 05:03 - Intersection CEO on his early career as an analyst 05:04 - 08:23 - Outdoor Media on the state of the media industry 08:23 - 14:31 - How did he manage the digital innovation group at NBC? 14:31 - 16:29 - The importance of distribution 16:30 - 18:10 - Are we giving too many companies too much power? 18:10 - 20:02 - Building the VOD business at Hearst Media 20:02 - 22:06 - The philosophical underpinnings of Intersection 22:06 - 24:30 - The focus on content programming and data driven advertising 24:31 - 31:14 - The growth trajectory of the company and where it is today
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
In celebration of the upcoming Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest, Great Minds is pleased to speak with MLE Co-founder and MC George Shea, and the legendary Badlands Booker, competitive eater, rapper and YouTube personality.
Prepare to consume this hearty meal of a podcast.
It is our pleasure to feature the late Stewie Stone, recorded just days before his passing. Stewie’s comedy career is legendary and we’re beyond humbled that he took the time to share the stories of his career with us on this episode of Great Minds.
In this episode of Great Minds, we welcome Iván Markman, Chief Business Officer at Yahoo. Iván discusses what we can can expect from the new, private equity-owned Yahoo, and takes us on a journey through his impressive career.
This week on Great Minds we welcome Richard Kirshenbaum, CEO and Founder at NSG/SWAT. One of the most sought-after personalities in advertising, Richard co-founded the pioneering Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners agency at age 26, with innovative concepts like the pop-up store, sidewalk advertising, and other forms of guerrilla marketing. Richard takes us on a journey through his fascinating career, from the beginning to the present.
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
As an advisor and executive coach to numerous Fortune 500 companies and startups, Sonia Jackson Myles works with CEO’s and their teams on leadership development; growth strategies to diversity, particularly in the areas of MBE development and women’s initiatives; change management; employee engagement and creating a culture where employees can thrive. Her leadership development series, “Great Leaders Have Great Relationships” and “Dreamwalking” have been used by numerous organizations.
Today on Great Minds, Sonia walks us through her career path.
Chapters:
00:18 - 04:08 - Introduction 04:09 - 05:42 - How did she tested her leadership skills at Gillette 05:43 - 10:28 - P&G's acquisition of Gillette 10:29 - 12:12 - How her parents inspired her to be a mentor 12:16 - 23:24 - The origin story of The Sister Accord 23:25 - 26:06 - What were the biggest mistakes early in her career? 26:07 - 34:53 - What early successes gave her the confidence to start a company? 34:54 - 40:28 - The Sister Accord Accelerator
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
English music legend Graham Nash joins Great Minds to discuss his amazing career. From his early days in The Hollies, to his incredible time in Crosby, Stills, & Nash and Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, to his current love of photography.
Chapters:
00:17 - 04:03 - Graham Nash on his childhood 04:04 - 10:33 - The Hollies 10:34 – 21:01 - Lonnie Donegan, the founder of skiffle, and the early years 21:12 - 23:29 - The Laurel Canyon era 23:30 – 30:01 - The political consciousness of the 1970s 30:02 – 37:27 - Crosby, Stills, and Nash 37:28 - 41:46 - The current state of the world 41:47 - 43:46 - What is the mood in the music world? 43:47 - 50:04 - His interest in photography 50:05 - 53:21 - Giles Martin on teaching children to play their love songs 53:32 - 55:10 - Teach Your Children 55:11 – 59:59 - What is on his playlist these days
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
On this very special episode of Great Minds, longtime Advertising Week friend Liz Ross joins the show to discuss her career, the specialness of the Midwest, and the evolution of creative.
Chapters:
00:17 - 09:32 - Liz Ross on her career in the advertising industry 09:33 - 13:01 - The digital savviness of advertising leaders 13:05 - 30:08 - What was the state of the advertising industry in the early 2000s? 30:09 - 34:31 - View on the various holding companies 34:35 - 37:49 - The evolution of creative over the last 20 years 37:51 - 47:19 - Why the Midwest is a special place for innovation 47:20 - 51:08 - Building out a full - service SaaS platform
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
Great Minds welcomes Brooklyn, NY guitar legend Rick Ventura to the show this week to discuss his career. From his early days with Riot, touring everywhere and with nearly every rock band you could think of, to his new project Riot Act, Rick reflects on his inspirations and accomplishments.
Sharon Napier is the Executive Chair and Founder of Partners + Napier, an integrated creative and media company twice ranked among the Top 20 Most Effective Agencies in North America by Effie Worldwide. Napier also sits on the Global Strategic Leadership Team of Project Worldwide, a privately held holding company of 13 leading agencies.
Beyond Partners + Napier, Napier is active in numerous organizations aligning with the agency’s verticals of expertise and her personal passions. She serves as Board Chair of the 4A’s, is a member of the Board of Trustees at the Rochester Institute of Technology and is co-Vice President of the Memorial Art Gallery Board of Managers in Rochester, NY. She is also a member of the Culinary Institute of America’s Society of Fellows.
Chapters:
00:18 - 02:52 - The new chair of the 4A's, Sharon Napier 02:52 - 04:37 - How did she start her career in advertising? 04:37 - 14:48 - Her early years as a young entrepreneur 14:49 - 19:00 - Transcending Our Business 19:04 - 22:15 - How have we done as an industry? 22:15 - 34:17 - The impact of the pandemic on the advertising industry 34:17 - 37:35 - Challenges for organic growth 37:36 - 47:19 - Challenges of being a woman in a man's world 47:19 - 49:41 - The evolution of the agency business 49:41 - 51:16 - The state of the agency 51:17 - 53:53 - What are the top priorities for her as the new 4A’s chair?
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
Legendary venture capitalist and private equity inventory Alan Patricof joins Great Minds to discuss the release of his new book, No Red Lights, as well as his storied career spanning 8 decades.
Chapters
03:03 - 05:25 - The immigrant work ethic 05:26 - 09:32 - How did he get his first job on Wall Street? 09:33 - 13:21 - The founding President of New York magazine 13:22 - 20:35 - What were some of the first properties that you looked at in the early days of investing? 20:36 - 23:03 - The early days of technology 23:03 - 28:05 - Investing in the media sector 28:05 - 29:43 - What are some fond memories of his involvement in politics and volunteering? 29:43 - 32:57 - Thoughts on the political landscape in America 32:57 - 36:30 - Some fish that got away 36:31 - 40:26 - Prime time investing in older entrepreneurs 40:27 - 43:57 - Longevity as an opportunity in the healthcare sector
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
Returning from a brief hiatus after Advertising Week Europe 2022, Great Minds returns this week to feature special guest Amy Marino, Global Head of Brand Marketing at HubSpot. Amy discusses her career from the beginning to present and explores HubSpot’s unique proposition and growth.
Chapters:
00:18 – 16:39 - Amy Marino on her career path and her love of journalism 16:40 – 33:52 - Her time at American Express 33:53 - 35:52 - How Amy became a general manager at American Express 35:53 – 39:18 - What is HubSpot? 39:18 – 46:40 - Small Business Saturday, growth and revenue 46:41 - 1:00:24 - The success stories of the HubSpot campaign
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
Bing Chen is an impact founder, investor, and new world builder. He is Chairman of AU Ventures, President of Gold House, General Partner of AUM Group, and was previously a principal architect of YouTube’s multi-billion dollar global creator ecosystem. Bing joins Great Minds this week to talk us through his extraordinary career.
Chapters:
00:18 - 08:13 - Bing Chen on the launch of Gold House Ventures 08:13 - 11:52 - The creation of the creator economy 11:53 - 15:07 - Where did the creator economy start? 21:57 - 31:22 - Advice board members and how they play a key role in the creator ecosystem 31:22 - 34:18 - What is Oura? How did he get involved with it? 34:18 - 46:30 - The origin story of Gold House
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
This week on Great Minds we welcome entrepreneur Michael Loeb. Michael discusses his career, his entrepreneurial spirit, and his many success stories.
Chapters:
00:18 - 04:56 - Michael Loeb on what it was like growing up as the son of legendary Time magazine editor Marshall Loeb 04:56 - 07:58 - Where did his entrepreneurial spirit come from? 07:59 - 14:28 - The road less traveled by entrepreneurs 14:28 – 28:07 - Michael's background as an athlete and his interest in business 28:07 – 47:49 - The origin story of Priceline 47:49 - 49:59 - Uniting the head, heart, and wallet 49:59 - 55:31 - The Amherst Career Center for Career Exploration and Planning
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
One of the most successful Americans in the history of motorsports, Andretti is one of only two drivers to have won races in Formula One, IndyCar, the World Sportscar Championship, and NASCAR. Mario joins Great Minds to discuss his unparalleled career and legacy.
Chapters:
00:45 - 08:31 - Mario Andretti - The greatest racecar driver of all time 08:33 - 10:07 - How did he come through the ranks in racing? 10:08 - 12:48 - What was it like getting behind the wheel at Indianapolis Motor Speedway as a rookie? 12:49 - 14:47 - What is the difference between winning a season and winning a championship? 14:47 – 22:40 - Who were some of the great drivers who helped him early in his career? 22:40 - 25:58 - How did he start his career in Formula 1? 25:58 - 30:28 - The physicality of what he does 30:28 – 38:38 - Winning the Daytona 500 38:38 - 41:46 - What is your take on the current state of the sport? 41:46 - 44:12 - Are you planning on getting back behind the wheel again?
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
This week on Great Minds we’re pleased to feature Kristin Dolan, Founder and CEO of 605. Kristin founded 605 in 2016, bringing more than 30 years of media and entertainment experience to her role with the company. Kristin discusses her career path, spanning from her intern days at AMC to present.
Editor note: Within this episode, CMS is cited as having had $3M in local revenue. This should be $300 million.
Chapters:
00:18 - 05:11 - Kristin Dolan on her early career path and how it led her to 605 05:11 - 07:25 - What was it like working at AMC as an intern? 07:25 - 11:56 - What was it like working at Radio City Television? 11:57 - 16:18 - Charles Dolan, who created HBO 16:22 - 28:03 - Taking to technology 28:04 - 33:51 - Working as a board member on various companies 33:55 - 41:19 - The origin story of 605 41:20 - 44:42 - The issue of trust in the digital space 44:42 - 51:25 - The relationship between ad-supported and non-ad-supported advertising
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
When she was only six, Deborah Bonham's older brother John Bonham was set to make rock history as the drummer for Led Zeppelin. From there, Deborah's own career began to take shape, both under her early mentor Robert Plant and eventually releasing her own albums and singing and touring with the likes of Van Halen, Humble Pie, and Paul Rogers, among others. In this episode of Great Minds, Deborah takes us through both her own career, and that of her undeniably rock'n'roll family.
Chapters:
00:13 – 17:28 - Deborah on growing up in the Bonham family 17:28 - 22:38 - What is it like to play the Royal Albert Hall? 22:38 – 29:07 - What are some of the most magical moments of her career on stage? 29:07 - 31:43 – Working with artist’s she loves 31:43 - 35:30 – Upcoming tour plans and her new album
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
When it comes to living legends in our industry, few have earned the title like Allen Rosenshine. Allen takes us through his incredible career, starting with his early days as a copywriter at BBDO to his time as BBDO president 15 years later, and all points in between.
Chapters:
02:46 – 11:08 - On his early career in the advertising industry 11:09 – 14:22 - Building enduring brands 14:25 – 28:19 - The merger of BBDO and Needham 28:19 - 30:12 - Role of media back in the early days 30:17 - 31:50 - How technology was starting to dictate change 31:51 - 33:45 - The difference between creative and media 33:45 - 37:49 - The evolution of the marketing communications landscape 37:49 - 42:46 - Favorite clients, favorite ad campaigns 42:47 - 48:26 - The Partnership for Drug Free America
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
Newly appointed Global President of Advertising Week, Ruth Mortimer, joins Great Minds this week to discuss her career, her tenure at Advertising Week, her recent promotion to Global President, as well as the upcoming Advertising Week Europe in London, this May.
Chapters:
00:17 – 05:05 - Ruth Mortimer on Great Minds 05:05 - 07:56 – Istanbul and bravery 07:57 – 13:46 - Working for the New York City Commission as a policy analyst in the early 2000s 13:50 - 15:30 - Early career and mentors 15:30 - 18:13 - What brought her to the advertising industry? 20:10 - 24:54 - Stories from her days as an editor 24:55 - 28:01 - The failure of the media industry to embrace technology 28:01 - 30:18 - The Festival of Marketing 30:23 – 38:58 - Stories from the stage 38:59 – 46:02 - The Groucho Club and 45 Dean Street 46:02 – 51:10 – Advertising Week
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
This week on Great Minds we feature Frank Maggio, CEO and Founder of React, whose “Reactive Experiential” Advertising Platform is garnering significant buzz throughout the industry. Frank walks us through his career and talks about how React is combining technology and advertising to “change advertising for good.”
Chapters:
00:18 - 02:51 – Why advertising has a $300 billion problem 02:51 – 07:30 - The Procter and Gamble training ground 07:30 – 13:59 - Where did Frank's entrepreneurial spirit come from? 13:59 – 20:22 - How did React start out? 20:22 - 23:59 - How did he come up with Super Squares? 24:00 - 29:25 - What is the current state of technology driven TV? 29:30 - 31:13 - Amazon's threat to traditional TV networks 31:13 – 35:25 - What is the future of primetime TV advertising? 35:26 - 38:53 - Consumer, government and Nielsen 38:54 - 42:00 - Can you have the impact that you want to have at scale?
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
This week on Great Minds we welcome legendary comedian and actor Robert Klein. From his earliest days to his time with Second City and string of appearances on every late night television show imaginable, and beyond, Klein walks us through his amazing career. Chapters:
00:17 - 06:16 - His perspective on what's happening today 06:16 - 11:08 - HBO's first original comedy special 11:08 - 18:36 - How Second City shaped him as an actor 18:36 - 24:38 - Mike Nichols and the founder of Second City 24:39 - 35:45 - His reaction to Will Smith at the Academy Awards 35:45 - 45:38 - How did the election of Donald Trump change US politics 45:40 - 56:29 - George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Robert Klein 56:31 - 1:01:35 - The death of Rodney Dangerfield 1:01:36 - 1:06:04 - What was it like hosting Saturday Night Live in the early '70s? 1:06:05 - 1:09:34 - Gilda and Madeline
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
From his early journalism career through his time with global entertainment company Cirque du Soleil, Daniel Lamarre discusses his incredible career journey.
Chapters:
02:41 - 06:29 - Daniel's early career in journalism 06:30 - 08:14 - The illogical trajectory of his career 08:14 - 10:24 - What was Cirque du Soleil like when he joined it? 10:24 - 14:27 - How does Cirque du Soleil find the talent? 14:27 - 16:30 - The process from concept to opening night 16:30 - 19:43 - How long does it take to build a show? 19:43 - 21:52 - What is it about Quebec that makes it so special in the creative industry? 21:52 – 30:20 - The relationship between Cirque du Vegas and Las Vegas 30:21 - 32:31 - The One Drop Foundation
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
Blues legend Joe Louis Walker joins Great Minds this week to discuss his music, his extraordinary career, and his many influences.
Chapters:
00:17 - 05:56 - The intersection of blues and gospel 06:10 - 11:13 - Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, and Sam Cooke 11:14 - 14:39 - The bridges to the past 14:40 - 17:24 - The intersection of politics and art 17:24 - 22:11 - His friendship with Mike Bloomfield 22:18 - 28:12 - The Great Muddy Waters 28:19 - 33:21 - What led him to discovering the blues? 33:21 - 35:34 - How did things change for him? 35:34 - 42:51 - Working with some of the blues greats 42:51 - 46:25 - Willie Dixon 46:25 - 49:48 – About his latest album 49:48 – 53:11 - Joe on playing in New York City
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
Yahoo, Discovery, Time Warner, Criteo, and more – Mollie Spilman has been there, done that, and won numerous prestigious awards along the way. Mollie joins Great Minds this week to discuss her career path from the beginning to the present, her current role as Chief Revenue Officer at Oracle Advertising and Marketing Cloud. Chapters:
00:18 - 03:46 – Welcome Mollie Spilman 03:47 - 08:39 - Sports Illustrated magazine and Ross Levinson 08:40 - 12:17 - Advertising, advertising technology, and ad network 12:17 - 15:58 - Streaming, content, and the future 15:59 - 17:40 – Salesperson and advertiser 17:41 - 19:54 - Leadership and CMO 19:57 - 22:42 – Mentorship/Sheryl Sandberg 22:46 - 29:14 - Oracle, Mad Tech, Criteo, and BlueKai 29:15 - 32:53 – Acquisition and culture 32:56 - 40:52 – Connections with younger people 40:56 - 46:52 - Marketing technology, Oracle and CRM 46:54 - 49:38 - Porcupine Creek, The Yellowstone Club, and The Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
Warren Haynes is a true legend of American music. A founding member of Gov’t Mule, longtime guitarist for the Allman Brothers Band, and so much more, there are few corners of the music world Haynes hasn’t visited. From his early days to present, Haynes describes his incredible, decade-spanning career in-depth. Chapters:
03:55 - 05:30 - The early days 05:30 – 11:31 - Where the early great blues artists came from 11:31 - 17:20 - Les Paul and his long association with Gibson 17:20 - 23:46 - The power of storytelling 23:47 - 28:54 - How did Gregg Allman find their way into his life? 29:09 – 38:42 - How did Gov’t Mule start? 38:42 - 42:47 - How does he keep track of his songs? 42:48 - 45:17 - Red Rocks 45:20 - 48:38 - The Grateful Dead 48:38 - 49:49 - The Allman Brothers 50:19 - 52:15 - The Rolling Stones 52:17 - 57:19 - How did he start Christmas Jam? 57:20 - 1:00:04 - Habitat for Humanity 1:00:04 - 1:04:16 - Best story from the road
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
We kick-off season 3 of Great Minds with Imran Khan, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Verishop, a social commerce company that champions independent brands and creators. Additionally, he is the founder and CEO of Proem Asset Management, an investment firm that focuses on the technology space.
Chapters:
05:16 - 08:07 - Having a finance background can be a blessing and a curse
08:07 - 11:20 - A theory about engineering and marketing in the ecommerce space
11:24 - 15:34 - What drove him to such a successful career?
15:35 - 19:04 - What was it that he saw in China before anyone else?
19:04 - 23:57 - About Jerry Yang, the founder of Yahoo!
24:01 - 28:21 - The issue of data and privacy
28:21 - 34:05 - Where Verishop came from and where it is going
34:05 - 37:55 - Small businesses are embracing the platform
37:55 - 39:23 - Building, progress and journey
Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI
US Surgeon General to the Trump Administration and Advertising Week New York alumni Dr. Jerome Adams joins the show this week as we wrap up Season 2 of the Great Minds Podcast. We’ll be back with Season 3 in a few weeks.
Long-time friend of Advertising Week, Linda Sawyer, joins the show this week to chart her amazing journey from her days as CEO of North America at Deutsch to her current role as Co-Founder and CEO of Skura Style.
On the eve of his move to a new role at Snap, Win Sakdinan discusses his career, ranging from his early days in Vancouver B.C., to P&G, to Twitter.
Long-time friend of Advertising Week, Lisa Utzschneider, joins Great Minds this week. Now serving as CEO at Integral Ad Science, she discusses her career at some of the world’s biggest technology and internet brands: from Amazon to Microsoft to Yahoo, and now at IAS.
From the groundbreaking Mr. Show to his unforgettable stint as Tobias Fünke on Arrested Development, David Cross has been one of the most unique voices in comedy for more than two decades. David joins the show today to discuss his story, his roles, and his perspective on a career spent making us laugh.
Having served the role of Digital Prophet at AOL, Oath, and Verizon Media, David Shingy, aka “Shingy,” is no stranger to marketing. A dear friend of Advertising Week, we’re pleased to welcome Shingy to this episode of Great Minds to discuss his extraordinary career.
There’s no better way to conclude Season 2 of Great Minds than to speak with the extraordinary Michael Roth, Executive Chairman and former Chairman and CEO of Interpublic Group (IPG) about his amazing career as he exits IPG at the end of this year. We’ll be back in January 2022 with Season 3!
Audacy Chairman, President and CEO David Field joins this episode of Great Minds to discuss his career, Audacy's rebranding, and the power of audio.
On her last day as Chief Marketing Officer of the Singapore Tourism Board, Great Minds speaks with Lynette Pang. Lynette shares her journey from its very beginning, as well as what’s next for her in the future.
This week on Great Minds we feature Adam Singolda. Adam is the founder and CEO at Taboola, the largest discovery platform, serving over 450 billion recommendations of articles, blogs, videos, products and apps to over 1.4 billion unique users every month.
In this episode of Great Minds we speak with Lindsey Clay. Now in her 14th year at Thinkbox, and 8th year as CEO, Lindsey reflects on her career.
A true legend of the industry, Rick Boyko joins Great Minds to discuss his career. From his early days at Leo Burnett and Chiat/Day, to his time at Ogilvy and as Director at VCU Brandcenter, to present.
Canadian comedy legend Ron James joins the show to discuss his extraordinary career – from his early days at Second City to Just for Laughs to present.
Today's guest on Great Minds is Elizabeth Herbst-Brady, VP and Head of North American Revenue & Global Client Solutions at Yahoo. Elizabeth takes us on a journey across her extraordinary career, including stops at Viacom, Snap, CBS, and many more, and to her present role at Yahoo!
Recorded live at Advertising Week New York 2021, legendary director, producer and cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld shares stories from his life and career.
This week, Great Minds welcomes John Partilla, CEO of Screenvision Media, a premier cinema, video, and media organization. Prior to joining Screenvision Media, Mr. Partilla served as CEO of Olson Group, and EVP, Digital Practice Lead, of ICF International. Under his leadership, Olson Group achieved double digit growth annually becoming the third-largest independent digital agency in the U.S before it was acquired by ICF International in 2014.
Recorded at Advertising Week New York 2021, rock-and-roll icon and three-time bestselling author Nikki Sixx tells his origin story: how Frank Feranna became Nikki Sixx, chronicling his fascinating journey from irrepressible Idaho farmboy to the man who formed the revolutionary rock group Mötley Crüe.
Recorded at Advertising Week New York 2021, the incredible story of Peter Frampton's positively resilient life and career told in his own words for the first time.
Fresh off his Advertising Week New York appearance, Kargo’s Founder and CEO Harry Kargman joins this episode of Great Minds to discuss his company’s new adtech acquisition, the return to (almost) normal work, and the road ahead for Kargo.
After a one-week break for AWNewYork, we're back with an excellent interview with Ryan Olohan, Managing Direct of Food, Beverage & Restaurants at Google. Ryan discusses his role at Google and has the distinction of being the only guest of Great Minds thus far that owns his own ice cream shop.
Following up on a great conversation with our partners from LiveRamp last year, this week we speak with Daniella Harkins, LiveRamp’s SVP of Commercial Strategy and Excellence, on her work empowering agency executives to leverage the power of identity across the ecosystem, as well as the experience she’s cultivated along the way from her previous executive roles.
This week, Great Minds welcomes Audacy’s Chief Digital Officer, J.D. Crowley, to the show to discuss not only his career, but the continued rise of audio and podcasts in the content marketplace. If you’re even remotely interested in the wide and varied world of podcasts and music, you won’t want to miss this episode.
Great Minds extends a long-overdue welcome to Jason Harris, President and CEO of Mekanism, author of The Soulful Art of Persuasion, and longtime friend of Advertising Week. Harris describes his career and creative journey from his early years at TBWA\Chiat\Day to the present.
A true friend of Advertising Week, Horizon Media’s Founder, CEO, and President, Bill Koenigsberg discusses his career path from the early days to present, helming Horizon Media, the world’s largest independent media agency.
In part two of four of our ongoing Great Minds series with Google, today we sit down with Mike Henry, Managing Director, Financial Services at Google. Mike takes us on an interesting journey through his role at the company, where he started, and where he and Google are headed in the years to come.
As President of Live Nation, Russell Wallach, and his team of over 400 oversee the world’s largest live entertainment company. On this episode of Great Minds, Russell dives into the inner workings of operating a live entertainment business and takes us through the career path he took to get here.
Vevo’s President of Sales and Distribution, Kevin McGurn, joins us for this episode of Great Minds to discuss the past, present, and future of Vevo, the world's leading music video network.
Today on Great Minds, we’re pleased to welcome actor, comedian, and podcasting trailblazer Matt Gourley of the Superego and Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend Podcasts. Matt discusses his career path from the early days to present, with a stop as Volkswagen spokesperson along the way.
A single episode of Great Minds is not nearly enough to cover the extraordinary career path of Mastercard’s Raja Rajamannar. Raja covers his early career path to his most recent endeavor, his best-selling book Quantum Marketing in this part one of an inevitable two-part Great Minds profile of one of marketing’s truly greatest minds.
As lead singer of the rock band The Zombies, Colin Blunstone's voice has been featured on many of rock 'n' roll's greatest recordings. In this special episode of Great Minds, Blunstone, a Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame inductee, takes us through his career, from the early days to present.
On this episode of Great Minds, Alex Schultz of Facebook discusses how he brought his nearly two decades of direct response marketing experience to his CMO role, and what it's like to be responsible for the global consumer marketing organization, promoting Facebook’s brands, products and services.
“King of the Keys,” New York City native Dave Keyes is a music veteran with as many accolades as he has stories. On this episode of Great Minds, Dave shares many of those stories from his incredible career.
This episode of Great Minds takes a rare dive into the world of politics, featuring Zak Malamed, Cofounder and Executive Director of The Next 50, and Abby Finkenauer, The Next 50's Senior Advisor (as well as former and possibly future member of the House of Representatives). Topics include midterm elections, the state of our country, and much more.
This episode was previously published on June 15, 2021. We're republishing in memory of Ed Asner, who passed on August 29, 2021 at age 91.
Legendary film and television actor Ed Asner joins Great Minds to discuss his phenomenal career. From his early days working in film with the likes of Elvis Presley and John Wayne, to his two award-winning television shows, Mary Tyler Moore and Lou Grant, and on to present day in beloved films such as Elf and Pixar’s Up.
Part 1 of our 4-part Great Minds podcast mini-series with Google kicks off with this interview with Michelle Bandler, Managing Director of Tech B2B at Google. In this special episode, Michelle takes us through her career from the very beginning to the present day and her 15+ years at Google.
Seminar rock keyboardist Jimmy Waldo joins this episode of Great Minds to discuss his decades long career in such bands as Alcatrazz, New England, and Blackthorne, as well as the many amazing musicians he's collaborated with over the years.
This episode of Great Minds features Norman Guadagno, CMO at Acoustic, where he is helping reimagine marketing technology. Over the past two decades, he has held a number of marketing and strategy roles with a deep focus on business transformation, marketing acceleration, and brand building.
Progressive guitar legend Robert Berry joins Great Minds to discuss his extraordinary career with other American musical legends, like Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer, The Greg Kihn Band, Alliance, and more, as well as discuss his impressive body of solo work.
Combining his passion for Jewish Delicatessens and mid-20th century family-style diners, Bradley Rubin created Eleven City Diner in both Chicago and Los Angeles. Deli Week on Great Minds concludes as Bradley discusses his life, his inspiration, his successes, and the challenges that have come along the way.
We’re kicking off the 1st Annual Great Minds Deli Week with special guests Evan Susser and David Phillips, hosts of the popular Deli Boys podcast. For the uninitiated, the Deli Boys podcast sets out to do something never been done before in the podcast world: rank 14 Jewish delis with some incredibly funny guests along for the ride.
This week on Great Minds, we're thrilled to welcome Nomatemba “Thembi” Tambo, High Commissioner of South Africa to the United Kingdom and daughter of legendary anti-apartheid politician Oliver Reginald Tambo. Thembi has previously served as the South African ambassador in Rome, and is the head of the Tambo Foundation.
When Stephen "Cat" turned twelve he fell in love with Ska and Pop music, and later Rocksteady and Reggae. He loved the Beatles and asked his mom for a guitar and she obliged and this started a love like no other. Cat joins Great Minds to discuss both his incredible music career, as well as the other legends of music he's played with along the way.
Colle McVoy CEO Christine Fruechte discusses her career path, the importance of creativity, and warmth of Minneapolis-St. Paul, and much more.
Airplane! is widely regarded as the greatest American comedy film of all time, followed closely by The Naked Gun series. Today's guest on Great Minds is David Zucker, one of the great minds behind these films, as well as Top Secret!, BASEketball, several of the Scary Movie films, and many more.
As Chief Marketing Officer for Hudson Yards—the largest private real estate development in United States history—Stacey Feder oversees all aspects of the brand, as well as sponsorship sales, revenue-generating events and fulfillment strategies for office, residential, retail and public spaces. Stacey has a long track record of shepherding assets from initial concept to dynamic destination, demonstrating a talent for creating community where none existed by drawing businesses and consumers to new gathering destinations. In her previous role as Vice President of Marketing at Manhattan’s Time Warner Center, Stacey played an integral role in the global positioning of the innovative, 2.8 million square foot, mixed-use property, which soon after opening became one of the most-visited places and most-referenced landmarks in a city full of both.
Longtime friend of Advertising Week, Farrah Storr, Editor of Elle UK and Author, joins this episode of Great Minds to discuss her amazing career in the industry.
Monique L. Nelson is chair and chief executive officer of UWG, the country’s longest-standing multicultural marketing agency. She took the helm of the agency in May 2012, when founder and advertising pioneer Byron Lewis retired. Monique shares the experiences and learnings of her incredible career on this stand-out episode of Great Minds.
On this episode of Great Minds, Michael Dorf, founder of New York’s famous Knitting Factory music venue, and City Winery, his restaurant chain featuring live music and wine, discusses his history and successes, as well as the effect of quarantine on live performances.
In this episode of Great Minds, Linda Yaccarino, Chairman, Advertising Sales and Client Partnerships at NBCUniversal, and Lynnwood Bibbens is CEO & Founder of ReachTV, discuss their respective career paths in the industry, as well as the new, expanded content and monetization partnership between NBCU and ReachTV.
With over a dozen hit singles to her name as lead singer of Martha and the Vandellas, Martha Reeves joins Great Minds to discuss her amazing career spanning from the dawn of the Motown era to the present.
What better way to celebrate the 4th of July than to talk with one of America's Great Sports Minds, George Shea, co-founder of Major League Eating and MC of Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, held every Independence Day at the corner of Surf & Stillwell in Coney Island? In this one-hour exclusive interview, Shea gives us an inside-look at the past, present, and future of Major League Eating and it's legendary contestants, from Kobayashi to Chestnut.
In this episode of Great Minds we’re not only celebrating our 100th episode, we’re celebrating the 35th anniversary of Prince’s cult classic film Under the Cherry Moon by speaking with Jerome Benton. As a member of The Time, Jerome shares numerous stories of his experiences working with Morris Day, Prince, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, and a host of other legendary musicians from Minneapolis and beyond.
Rob Prazmark, Founder and CEO of 21 Marketing, is America’s foremost sponsorship marketing expert having generated more than $3.5 billion. From the Olympic Games to Jerry Jones and Texas Stadium to the Smithsonian’s 150th anniversary, and the upcoming America 250 celebration, Rob has done it all.
Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside Brian Epstein, self-proclaimed hustler Andrew Loog Oldham made his mark in music history as manager of The Rolling Stones while still in his teens. Credited with helping to shape The Stones into one of the greatest acts in music history, Oldham discusses his career on this episode of Great Minds.
Industry legend David Jones joins Great Minds to cover his incredible career in the business, from his time as CEO at Havas and the incredible creative work he was involved with there, to his more recent endeavors at You & Mr Jones and One Young World.
Legendary film and television actor Ed Asner joins Great Minds to discuss his phenomenal career. From his early days working in film with the likes of Elvis Presley and John Wayne, to his two award-winning television shows, Mary Tyler Moore and Lou Grant, and on to present day in beloved films such as Elf and Pixar’s Up.
As Chief Marketing Officer, Tariq is responsible for leading Petco's enterprise marketing strategy. His mission is to provide pet parents with a seamless pet care experience, so they can focus on the joy their pets bring to their lives. On this episode of Great Minds, Tariq explores his 20+ years of experience in global brand strategy, including his time at Element79, HP, Gatorade, Quaker Oats, and much more. Enjoy!
From sports agent to live music producer, David Fishof has seemingly done it all, and with some extraordinary names. The Monkees, Phil Simms, Roger Daltry of The Who, and many more, David has worked with all of them. These days, David spends his time running Rock'n'Roll Fantasy Camp, where people from all walks of life share the stage with the legends of rock music.
With MediaMonks celebrating their 20th anniversary this year, Great Minds welcomes founder Wesley ter Haar to discuss why Amsterdam is such an amazing center for creativity as well as the genesis of MediaMonks, their work, and their future.
Longtime lead guitarist of Jethro Tull, Martin Barre, joins Great Minds to discuss his decades with the legendary band, including having played and recorded some of the most acclaimed guitar work for all time, as well as his solo projects and other collaborative works.
This week, Great Minds is pleased to welcome Suzanne Powers, Global President and CSO of McCann Worldgroup. Suzanne discusses both her early career path, as well as her current role at the helm of the McCann marketing empire.
The legendary Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter William Bell joins Great Minds to discuss his career, from his time at the legendary Stax Records to present.
From Nintendo to Duolingo and many points in-between, Cammie Dunaway takes Great Minds listeners through her incredible marketing career, with several stops made along the way to reflect on some of the legendary work she's been involved with.
From his early days writing for SNL to his latest collaboration, Here Today, with Billy Crystal, the legendary Alan Zweibel takes Great Minds listeners on a journey through his unparalleled career.
Twitter's Vice President of Global Client Solutions, Sarah Personette, joins to discuss her role at Starcom, her times at Refinery29 and Facebook, as well as her current role at Twitter.
Willie “Too Big” Hall is perhaps best known as the drummer in the legendary Blues Brothers band but he is also an absolute musical icon having played with such legends as Booker T. & The M.G.’s, Isaac Hayes, Rufus Thomas and the reformed Bar-Kays. HIs life story is truly remarkable.
Investor, advisor, and board director Nick Brien joins Great Minds to discuss his career in the industry. Nick’s take on technology is smart and experienced as he looks back on his time as CEO of Dentsu International, Global CEO of McCann Worldgroup, and President of Hearst Marketing Services.
From his Emmy-winning run as Christopher Moltisanti on The Sopranos to his recently released rock album with his band, Zopa, Michael Imperioli discussing his extraordinary career as an actor, scriptwriter, author, director, and musician.
AllBright Co-Founder Anna Jones joins Great Minds to discuss her career and the roller coaster that is being a modern entrepreneur.
From his days as playwright-in-residence and associate artistic director of Steve Olsen's West Bank Cafe Downstairs Theatre Bar in Hell's Kitchen to his runs on Comedy Central, Broadway, Conan, and The Daily Show, comedy legend Lewis Black joins Great Minds to discuss his amazing career.
David Fischer, Chief Revenue Officer at Facebook, is a long-time friend of Advertising Week. In this episode of Great Minds, David reflects on his time working at the U.S. Treasury Department, his tenure at both Google and Facebook, his work as Board Chair at the Ad Council, as well as looking ahead to what’s next.
From his early days at KMOX to his amazing run hosting 11 different Olympic games, television sportscaster legend Bob Costas discusses his incredible life and award-winning career in this must-hear episode of Great Minds.
From her time as a receptionist at Hill Holliday to her current position as Chairman and CEO, Karen Kaplan discusses the challenges, rewards, and successes she’s seen throughout her tenure there, including Hill Holliday’s recent initiatives to promote equality in the workplace and her favorite campaigns.
Marshall Chess is one of the last great record men and is an American icon. In Part Two of this special two-part episode of Great Minds, Marshall continues his story, including his time as founding president of Rolling Stones Records up to the role he played in the early days of hip-hop.
Marshall Chess is one of the last great record men and is an American icon. In Part One of this special two-part episode of Great Minds, Marshall tells his story learning at the feet of his Father Leonard and Uncle Phil who built Chicago’s legendary Chess Records from the ground up. Along that journey, Marshall shares incredible stories about Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, Chuck Berry and many more.
Season 2 kicks off with a conversation with Cannes Lions Chairman Phil Thomas discussing the history of the festival, his time in the media industry, and how COVID has impacted the events industry on a global scale.
LiveRamp President Warren Jenson discusses how his career experiences working for the likes of Amazon, Delta, and GE have shaped his work with LiveRamp, an industry-standard data connectivity platform.
Seth Matlins is the EVP, Cultural Strategy and Insights at 160over90, where he helps brands tap into the agency's breadth of audience insights. He also leads the agency's entertainment and social impact marketing practices.
Self-described serial entrepreneur and CEO of Teal discusses his tenure as WeWork's Chief Growth Officer, his experiences at CASE Design, and the inspiration and launch of his latest endeavor.
Kirk Fletcher is an American electric blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. To date, Fletcher has released four studio albums and one live album.
Mediacom's Sue Unerman discusses her upcoming fourth book, her history in the industry, building an argument for innovation, and how leadership, even now, needs to take more personal responsibility for the modern values around diversity in the workplace.
Joe Jackman is the CEO of Jackman Reinvents, the world’s first and foremost reinvention company. An advisor to consumer brands, retailers, B2B companies, and private equity partners for more than thirty years, Jackman has proven invaluable to leaders intent on sharpening strategy and orchestrating insight-led reinventions of their businesses.
Jim McCarty is an English musician, best known as the drummer for the Yardbirds and Renaissance. Following Chris Dreja's departure from the Yardbirds in 2013, McCarty became the only member of the band to feature in every lineup.
Claudine Revere’s love of hospitality stems from a childhood of enjoying family meals around the kitchen table filled with great food and lots of love. After managing several high profile restaurants and catering companies in New York City, Revere started Relish in October of 2001. Claudine’s vision for Relish was to create a catering and event planning company that worked with clients to create innovative events across a vast culinary landscape.
Karan Faridoon Bilimoria, is a British Indian entrepreneur, life peer in the UK House of Lords, and a university chancellor. Bilimoria is well known for founding the popular global beer brand, Cobra Beer and currently operates as the company's chairman.
Lauren Sallata is Chief Marketing Officer at Panasonic Corporation of North America. She leads the company’s presence at CES, using the show as a launchpad for the global brand platform as well as the company’s most recent What Moves Us campaign – which celebrates the power of purpose and passion shared by 270,000 Panasonic employees and celebrated Olympic and Paralympic athletes.
Barbara Eden is perhaps best-known for portraying Jeannie in the 1965-70 NBC-TV series I Dream of Jeannie. She was nominated twice for Golden Globe Awards for I Dream Of Jeannie, and was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Freeman is the Chief Brand Officer at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. In this role, Freeman spearheaded the worldwide launch of the new HPE corporate brand. She oversees global brand marketing, advertising, media, content partnerships, sponsorships and brandexperience.
After 15 years of hosting some of the biggest TV and Radio shows in Australia, Jules took the audacious step of founding his own tech company, TRIBE. Launched in Nov 2014, TRIBE is a digital marketplace that connects social media influencers with leading brands to transform word of mouth recommendations.
Latif Nasseris Director of Research at the award-winning New York Public Radio show Radiolab, where he has done stories on everything from snowflake photography to medieval robots to a polar bear who liked to have sex with grizzly bears.
Larry Charles is one of the seminal figures in modern comedy. Brooklyn-born, he started as a writer on the legendary sketch comedy show Fridays and moved from staff writer on Arsenio Hall to a central role on Seinfeld for its first five seasons, contributing some of the show’s darkest and most absurd storylines. He is also the longtime collaborator of Sacha Baron Cohen, having directed Bruno, Borat and The Dictator. His latest show is Larry Charles’ Dangerous World Of Comedy is breaking new ground, a hallmark of Larry’s incredible career.
Horace Panter, aka Sir Horace Gentleman, co-founded The Specials with Jerry Dammers in 1977 in Coventry, England. For four years The Specials rose and ultimately flamed out, mirroring one of their iconic songs, “Too Much Too Young.” After a 29-year gap, the band reunited and is still going strong today. Horace traces the journey, which also included stints with General Public and Special Beat, and talks about his work in art both as a teacher and an artist.
To understand where advertising is going, you need to know what came before it. Carl Fremont was there. From working with the man who invented the unique selling proposition, to learning direct marketing from Lesley Wunderman, Carl Fremont’s career has spanned many years and affords him a unique glimpse into where we should be going.
Colin Gottlieb is one of the leading British media agency entrepreneurs of his generation. He co-founded Manning Gottlieb and headed Omnicom's media operation during 18 year-stint. He is now Chief Growth Officer at LADbible Group.
Tamara Conniff is the former editor-in-chief of Billboard Magazine. Under her leadership the magazine won Folio’s prestigious Eddie Award for Editorial Excellence. Her father, Ray Conniff was a world-renowned bandleader and arranger.
John Battelle is an entrepreneur, author and journalist. Best known for his work creating media properties, Battelle helped launch Wired in the 1990s and launched The Industry Standard during the dot-com boom. In 2005, he founded the online advertising network Federated Media Publishing. Most recently, Battelle launched "The Recount," which he describes as “a unique video mashup of each day’s reporting and commentary from across the broadcast, cable, and social platforms.”
As Ampersand CEO, Nicolle Pangis and her team are working to build a smarter, more effective television ecosystem by partnering with and empowering brands to seamlessly connect with audiences wherever and whenever they watch content. Nicolle previously served as Global Chief Operating Officer at GroupM’s where she was responsible for global product management, strategic partnerships and technology development across the largest media investment management organization in the world.
Stephan Loerke has been the CEO of the World Federation of Advertisers since 2003. During his tenure, WFA has tripled its corporate membership and has extended its network to 60 countries, significantly reinforcing the WFA’s presence in the world’s fastest emerging advertising markets.
Samantha Joan Nutt CM OOnt is a Canadian physician and philanthropist, who is the founder and executive director of War Child Canada. She has more than sixteen years of experience working in war zones.
Betty Liu is the Executive Vice Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange and the Chief Experience Officer of Intercontinental Exchange. Liu joined the NYSE Group after ICE acquired Radiate, the ed-tech startup she founded. Liu is a former news anchor for Bloomberg Television.
Joe Marchese is the Executive Chairman and lead investor in Human Ventures. Joe serves as president of Advanced Advertising Products at Fox Networks Group, where he leads operations in non-linear advertising products and services for 21st Century Fox's global portfolio of channels.
In addition to his work with a diverse roster of entertainers ranging from Tony Bennett and k.d. lang to Bruce Springsteen and Barbra Streisand, Micone was also an original producer of such landmark events as Billy Crystal’s smash Broadway hit “700 Sundays,” the North American debut of Riverdance at Radio City Music Hall and an unprecedented six Super Bowl half-time shows. In his earlier career as an agent at ICM, Micone was personally responsible for guiding the careers of Billy Crystal, Robin Williams and Dana Carvey.
Steven Van Zandt is an American singer, songwriter, musician, producer, actor, and activist. He is best known as a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, in which he plays guitar and mandolin. He is also known for his roles on television drama series, such as Silvio Dante on The Sopranos (1999–2007).
Chris was promoted to Global President, Advertising & Allied Agencies of McCann Worldgroup in 2018. Chris has a track record of developing effective and lauded communications in virtually every marketing category and for many of the world’s most famous brands.
Chris Hirst is Global CEO for Havas Creative Network, a multi-disciplinary marketing services network. He was previously CEO at advertising agency Grey London. Once an engineering graduate working in a glass factory, his career path has taken him to the boardroom via Harvard Business School and Oxford University.
If Paul were here talking with you right now, he would surely point out that the agency’s big, sweeping, trademark-able philosophy has nothing to do with buzz generation, media agnosticism or content creation, but is simply “our intentions are good.” Those good intentions – doing right by its clients and people – have helped Paul and his partners attract about 180 of the nicest, most talented people you will find in advertising as well as blue chip brands including Audi, Reebok, REI, Celebrity Cruises, Starwood Hotels and MillerCoors.
Richard Edelman is the CEO of Edelman, a global communications firm and is on Great Minds with returning guest Claudia Romo Edelman, a Mexican-Swiss diplomat who is a Special Adviser at the United Nations and the We Are All Human Foundation, whose mission is to advance an agenda of equity, inclusion and representation. They also happen to be husband and wife.
Mike Ruiz is a Canadian photographer, director, television personality, former model, spokesperson, creative director, and actor.
Ken Sunshine is an American public relations consultant, co-CEO and founder of Sunshine Sachs Consultants. He began his career in New York City politics, including serving as chief of staff for Mayor David Dinkins
Paul Woolmington has held leadership positions at the highest levels both globally and domestically in management, media, integrated business, brand, digital and communications strategy at holding companies including IPG, Y&R Inc, WPP and MDC Partners. He co-founded Naked Communications Americas, founded The Media Kitchen, and was named one of the ten most creative/innovative people in marketing and advertising by Fast Company. Paul is currently the CEO & Chief Agitator of Canvas Worldwide.
Fiona Carter was the Chief Brand Officer of AT&T, and is now CMO at Goldman Sachs. We spoke about the British ads that inspired her career, her extremely old Oxford College and the strategy behind shaping the AT&T's covid crisis response.
Manisha Tank is an award winning Journalist with more than 18 years of experience in the industry. For the last 8 years she has worked with CNN International in both Hong Kong and London, covering global and business news as an Anchor & Correspondent.
Blake Ross is the former longtime Editor in Chief of Playbill. She served as content coordinator across all mediums for Playbill — online, print and mobile — as well as managed all new media development. During the pandemic, Blake set up a charitable organization called The Kindness of Strangers, where she connects people’s skills with those who need it most. Volunteer your time and sign up at www.akindstranger.com.
The Mandela Institute for Humanity and National Urban League invite you to A Town Hall for Change - as an esteemed group discussing the global need for new frameworks and new thinking around systemic racism.
Susan Smith Ellis was the CEO of (RED), a global marketing company whose partnerships help combat the AIDS pandemic in Africa. She helped produce one of the largest grossing contemporary art auction in, which raised more than $42 million for (RED). Prior to joining (RED), Ms. Smith Ellis served as an Officer and Executive Vice President of the Omnicom Group of Companies (www.omnicomgroup.com), the world’s largest advertising and marketing services corporation. She has extensive marketing and management experience and has lived and worked in London, Paris, Sydney and Hong Kong.
Advertising Age has referred to Keith Reinhard as the advertising industry’s “soft-spoken visionary” and in 1999 named him one of the top 100 influentials in advertising history. He is Chairman Emeritus of DDB Worldwide. As a working creative director, Keith was responsible for McDonald’s “You Deserve a Break Today.” Teams under Keith’s direction created award-winning campaigns for Anheuser-Busch, Volkswagen, PepsiCo and others.
The CEO of Republicom Group Tunji Adeyinka discusses growing marketing firms like Connect Marketing Services, Image & Time, Integral, Quore Media, and Neukleos, as well as bringing Advertising Week Africa to South Africa.
Maria Bartiromo has been a pioneer in financial news television. In 1995, she became the first journalist to report live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on a daily basis. She is host of Mornings with Maria and Maria Bartiromo's Wall Street. She worked at CNN for five years before joining CNBC, where she worked for 20 years. In 2013, she joined Fox Business and Fox News, and she’s also the anchor of Sunday Morning Futures on FOX News. In 2009, the Financial Times named her one of the “50 Faces That Shaped the Decade."
Currently, Alvin Bowles holds the position of Vice-President-Global Marketing Solutions at Facebook. He leads Facebook's audience networking department. It is the technology that makes advertisements more viable for small business owners and directs them toward the proper audience.
Michael Ventura is the CEO and founder of Sub Rosa, a strategy and design firm that has worked with some of the world's largest and most important brands—from Johnson & Johnson, Pantone, and Adobe, to the TED Conference, Delta Airlines, and The Daily Show.
Ambassador Ido Aharoni serves as a global distinguished professor at New York University’s Program of International Relations in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Ambassador Aharoni is a 25-year veteran of Israel’s Foreign service, a public diplomacy specialist, founder of the Brand Israel program, and a well-known nation branding practitioner. Ambassador Aharoni, who served as Israel's longest-serving consul-general in New York and the tri-state area for six years, oversaw the operations of Israel’s largest diplomatic mission worldwide.
Jeff was the guy who originally wrote “got milk?”. He is among the co-founders and serves as co-chair of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco. Goodby is also a director and illustrator whose work has appeared in Time and Mother Jones.
Mathew Knowles is an American record executive, talent manager, and businessman. He is best known for being the manager of Destiny's Child. He also managed the solo careers of his daughters Beyoncé and Solange Knowles.
Guru Gowrappan is CEO of Verizon Media, a powerhouse of trusted media and technology brands, including Yahoo, HuffPost, and TechCrunch. Prior to this role, he was Global Managing Director of Alibaba where he focused on international expansion and e-commerce for key consumer and enterprise products
Betches is a digital media company started by Aleen Kuperman, Jordana Abraham, and Samantha Fishbein. Originally started as a website, the company now includes a webpage, social media accounts, podcast, a national comedy tour, merchandise, and three best-selling books.
Patricia has over 20 years’ experience in consumer goods, she was previously Heineken’s CMO/SVP in Mexico and is now CMO of Bayer, based in Switzerland. Prior she was Marketing Vice President and board member for Unilever’s UK & Ireland business. During lockdown she is attempting to learn to play the ukulele.
Emilio "Mimi" Castillo is an American saxophone player and composer, best known as the founder of the band Tower of Power.
Sarah Kate Ellis is an American media executive, journalist, and author, most widely known for launching and turning around media brands within magazines such as New York, InStyle, Real Simple, and Vogue. She is now president and CEO of GLAAD.
Chuck joined the Crispin Agency in 1988 as creative director and partner, after a long career as an award-winning freelance copywriter. The agency was renamed Crispin & Porter, and within three years, it doubled in size and was named one of the top 15 creative shops in the country. Under his leadership, CP+B has become one of the most awarded agencies in the world and was honored as Agency of the Decade by Advertising Age.
Top marketing strategy and branding expert Alicia Tillman is responsible for the creation and acceleration of SAPs marketing and brand recognition on a global scale. The Chief Marketing Officer at SAP, Alicia Tillman has continued building the brand around how SAP is helping the world run better and improving people’s lives.
Darlene Love is widely recognized as one of the most distinctive and powerful voices ever in popular music. She received worldwide attention in 1962 for her hit single “He’s a Rebel”. She has performed with and backed up artists such as Sam Cooke, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, The Beach Boys, Sonny & Cher, Aretha Franklin and The Rolling Stones.
Christena J. Pyle is the executive director of Time's Up Advertising. Previously, she served as director of diversity and inclusion at Omnicom and director of Adcolor.
Steve Cropper is an American guitarist, songwriter and record producer. He is best known as the guitarist of the Stax house band, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, and has backed artists such as Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas and Johnnie Taylor, also acting as producer on many of these records. He later gained fame as a member of the Blues Brothers band. Rolling Stone lists him 36th on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. Mojo ranks Cropper as the second-best guitarist ever.
Crazy Legs Conti is a top-ranked competitive eater with Major League Eating. He holds world records in buffet food, French cut string beans, and corn on the cob. He has eaten his way out of an eight-foot box of popcorn, The Popcorn Sarcophagus, earning him the moniker the Houdini of Cuisini. He has eaten 459 oysters on David Letterman and consumed cannoli on “The Sopranos.” He is the subject of the documentary, “Crazy Legs Conti: Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating,”
Joanna Louise Coles is a British-born media executive, producer, editor, and author. The inspiration for the hit TV show The Bold Type, she currently has a development deal across the ABC Studios Disney platforms. She served as the first ever Chief Content Officer for Hearst Magazines globally in 2016. She has won numerous awards for journalism and leadership, including, when she was editor-in-chief, Cosmopolitan’s first national magazine award in its 50 year history.
Hugh Nanton Romney Jr., known as Wavy Gravy, is an American entertainer and peace activist best known for his role at Woodstock, as well as for his hippie persona and countercultural beliefs. Romney has founded or co-founded several organizations, including the activist commune, the Hog Farm, and later, as Wavy Gravy, Camp Winnarainbow and the Seva Foundation. He was also the official clown of The Grateful Dead.
Lisa Gilbert is currently CMO at IBM Japan. Lisa has also served as Vice President of Marketing responsible for IBM's Growth Markets based in Shanghai, China. Lisa led a team of professionals managing marketing from strategy through to execution for all of IBM's Enterprise and SMB clients. She also led the marketing strategy for IBM's Geo Expansion initiative where the company opened over 140 new sales offices across 40 countries in less than 12 months.
Giles Martin is an English record producer, songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist. His studio recordings, stage shows, TV and film works have been critically acclaimed and commercially successful around the globe. He is the son of Beatles producer George Martin, Head of Audio and Sound for UMG, Sound Experience Leader at Sonos and was the Music Director for 2019 film Rocketman.
David Freeman is the Co-Founder and Co-Head of the Digital Media department at leading entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Prior to joining CAA, Freeman served as General Manager of MATTER, Edelman Sports and Entertainment Marketing. In 2003, he co-founded MATTER to forge and develop marketing partnerships for brands, entertainment companies, and content creators.
Maryam Banikarim shows organizations how to shift mindsets and build themselves through the lens of purpose. Known as a fearless force for change with a track record of creating and leading successful brands such as Hyatt, Gannett, NBCUniversal, and Univision, she demonstrates how to define your purpose, differentiate your brand, make the case for change, rally the troops internally and share it with the world. Banikarim is now Head of Marketing at Nextdoor, a social network for your neighbourhood.
Andrea is a business leader, feminist, activist, professor, dancer, flutist, board member, mother and wife. She was CMO at Interbrand, part of the Omnicom Group for 16 years - and now the first ever Chief Client and Marketing Officer at VaynerMedia. She is responsible for scaling VaynerMedia's full service agency business globally. She is in charge of its client teams, thought leadership, new business and brand reputation.
Werner Herzog was born in Munich on September 5, 1942. He grew up in a remote mountain village in Bavaria and studied History and German Literature in Munich and Pittsburgh. He made his first film in 1961 at the age of 19. Since then he has produced, written, and directed more than seventy feature- and documentary films.
Rory is the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy in the UK, an attractively vague job title. He works with a consulting practice of psychology graduates who look for ‘unseen opportunities’ in consumer behaviour - these are the very small contextual changes which can have enormous effects on the decisions people make - for instance tripling the sales rate of a call centre by adding just a few sentences to the script. Before founding Ogilvy’s behavioral science practice, Rory was a copywriter and creative director at Ogilvy for over 20 years, having joined as a graduate trainee in 1988.
Ken Auletta began contributing to The New Yorker in 1977 and has written the Annals of Communications since 1993. He is the author of twelve books, including “The Underclass” and five Times national best-sellers: “Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way,” and “Googled: The End of the World As We Know It.” He has profiled the leading figures and companies of the information age, including Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Sheryl Sandberg, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, and two former editors of the Times. His 2001 Profile of Ted Turner won a National Magazine Award as that year’s best profile.
Lubomira Rochet is a French-Bulgarian national, economist by training and graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Sciences Po Paris and College of Europe in Bruges. She began her career in 2003 at Capgemini as Director of Strategy and Development for the Sogeti entity. In 2008, she joined Microsoft to manage its relationships with start-ups and the innovation ecosystem. In 2010, she became Deputy CEO of the digital marketing agency Valtech and Managing Director for Southern Europe zone. Lubomira Rochet joined L’Oréal in March 2014 as Chief Digital Officer and member of the Group’s Executive Committee.
Susie Essman is an American stand-up comedian, actress, writer, and television producer. She is best known for her role as Susie Greene on Curb Your Enthusiasm and the voice of Mittens in Bolt. She’s travelled around the world performing for the past three decades. Essman told The New York Times that by the third season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, she couldn't “walk down the street anymore without people stopping her and begging her to say (her character’s catchphrase)’You fat f**k.'”
Frank Abagnale’s transformation from one of the world’s most notorious con men to a highly sought-after international cyber security consultant is truly fascinating. He is one of the world's foremost authorities on fraud and identity theft. Mr. Abagnale's life was depicted on the big screen by Leonardo Di Caprio in the classic film "Catch Me If You Can." He now travels the world sharing lessons he's learned whilst working with the FBI.
Sir Martin Sorrell was CEO of WPP for 33 years, building it from a £1 million “shell” company in 1985 into the world’s largest advertising and marketing services company. When Sir Martin left in April 2018, WPP had a market capitalization of over £16 billion, revenues of over £15 billion, profits of approximately £2 billion and over 200,000 people in 113 countries. Now Sir Martin Sorrell is Executive Chairman of S4 Capital, which is building a new age, new era, digital advertising and marketing services platform for global, multi-national, regional, local and millennially-driven clients.
Ndaba Mandela is Nelson Mandela’s Grandson. He is passionate about the Mandela legacy and motivating young people to get involved in community development. He is passionate about Africa, its people and is concerned about its future. Although the continent faces many problems, there are many positive things that the global community does not know about Africa and Mandela wants to capture these and share them with the world.
Mark Boyd is the Co-Founder of Gravity Road, an agency bringing together the best of the advertising, communication and entertainment sectors in new ways. Mark joined from Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) where he was Creative Director/Head of Content and Partner.
In 1985, on the 19 September at seventeen minutes past seven Mexico City was struck by an earthquake of 8.0 magnitude. In just one minute - 100,000 houses crumbled, 5,000 people died and roughly five million residents were left without electricity or water. People took to the streets, helping those injured - but the residents, including Claudia Romo Edelman was overwhelmed by the scale of the damage. What Claudia learnt from the tragedy, would impact her for the rest of her life and shape her career.