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Speakers TVOT SF 2025 SHOW

We are now accepting speaker/panelist proposals, and welcome your suggestions for topics you would like to see covered on the event’s schedule. Uniquely among conferences, TVOT features an agenda that is developed through ongoing dialog with the industry. Please contact Tracy Swedlow, at tracyswedlow@gmail.com or 415-608-4766, to discuss your proposal. Also, please note that ITVT is not a pay-for-play organization and that speakers do not have to pay any fee to participate in our TVOT events.

Speakers from TVOT NYC 2024, below.

Deepna Devkar, Ph.D.

SVP, Machine Learning and AI and Global Streaming

Bio

Prior to this role, Deepna led Machine Learning, Data Platform and Experimentation at CNN. During her career in engineering, she has primarily worked in the media industry, both as a hands-on IC (individual contributor) and as a leader responsible for building and growing cross-functional teams of data, machine learning, and content engineering. She has over a decade of experience driving impact from projects ranging across audience segmentation, building first-party data and infrastructure, productionizing large-scale content recommendation systems and personalization, search engine and revenue optimization.  She also held positions at Viacom and Dotdash (formerly About.com) where she attained expertise in the linear TV space and digital media and publishing landscape, respectively. Before her transition into engineering, she spent over a decade in scientific research, studying the psychological and neural underpinnings of human behavior.

Deepna has been recognized for her contribution as Folio’s Top Women in Media, Corporate Champion.  She is most passionate about evangelizing data, machine learning, and AI, and regularly speaks at meetings and conferences. She also regularly participates and hosts events supporting women in tech, management and leadership, and is a founding member of Chief. She holds the Chief Data Officer certification from Carnegie Mellon University. Currently, she also serves as Chair of the AI Tech Committee at WBD.

Deepna received her Ph.D. in Computational Neuroscience from the University of Texas, a postdoctoral fellowship from New York University, and also holds a Master’s and Bachelor’s degree in Psychology.

 

 

Michelle Fernandez

Head of Technology, Content and Marketing

Celeste Castle

EVP/Head of Research and Measurement

Brad Stockton

EVP, Head of US Media Investment Solutions

John Attard

Founder

Bio

Award-winning VFX Artist, developer, Supervisor and Producer John Attard has been a principal figure in the visual effects community for over twenty years. His expertise in Stereo 3D production, virtual production and digital production pipeline architecture has been reflected in work done for major companies such as Warner Brothers, Disney, Nissan and Toyota. Attard has lent his expertise to some very significant blockbuster films A few of his credits include The Avengers, Gladiator, Blackhawk Down, Jungle Book, Pitch Black, Minority Report, and Holes.

Rob Bralver

Co-Founder and Creative Director

Bio

Rob Bralver is Co-Founder and Creative Director of DreamFlare. Rob has a long history in the entertainment industry, producing award-winning films featuring talent from Kanye West to David Lynch and Gore Vidal to Bjarke Ingels. His work has been distributed by Netflix and Hulu and played at major festivals such as SXSW and the Tribeca Film Festival. Before DreamFlare, Rob was a Strategic Advisor at Media Capital Technologies, where he advised founders on investment offerings and operations.

Lauren Wetzel

CEO

Bio

Lauren Wetzel is the Chief Executive Officer and Board Director at InfoSum. Joining InfoSum in 2020, Lauren initially served as Chief Operating Officer, where she oversaw day-to-day operations and played a critical role in driving commercial growth and global expansion. A vocal advocate for consumer privacy, Lauren champions the development of ethical standards and innovative approaches to data usage to drive performant advertising solutions.

Lauren’s impact and commitment to building a more customer-centric ecosystem has been recognized with multiple industry awards, including AdAge 40 Under 40, Campaign’s Inspiring Women, and AdExchanger & AdMonster’s Top Women in Media & AdTech.

Prior to joining InfoSum, Lauren was SVP, Strategy and Corporate Development for AT&T’s advertising company, Xandr, and was an Engagement Manager, Strategy at Deloitte within its Media and Entertainment practice.

Alejandro Matamala-Ortiz

Chief Design Officer & Co-Founder

Bio

Alejandro Matamala Ortiz is the Co-Founder and Chief Design Officer of Runway, an applied AI research company shaping the next era of art, entertainment and human creativity. Runway has pioneered research in multi-modal AI systems by applying deep learning techniques to audiovisual content, building a future where content creation is accessible, controllable and empowering for creatives.

Radha Subramanyam

Chief Research and Analytics Officer

Bio

Radha Subramanyam serves as Chief Research and Analytics Officer at CBS and President, CBS Vision. She joined the Company as Executive Vice President, Chief Research and Analytics Officer of the CBS Television Network in November 2017 and was promoted to her current role after 18 months. Subramanyam oversees all research and analytics operations for CBS, including audience measurement, analytics, market research, content testing and advertising research. She has extensive strategic and operational experience in all areas of the industry, including broadcast, cable, digital and streaming, as well as radio, music, and social media.

Most recently, Subramanyam served as President of Research, Insights and Data Analytics for iHeartMedia, where she developed and managed wide-ranging of efforts involving digital analytics, ratings and measurement, ad sales research, mobile measurement, programming analysis, music research, campaign measurement and marketing research. Prior to joining iHeartMedia, Subramanyam held senior executive research roles at Yahoo!, MTV Networks and Nielsen. Before beginning her career in the media industry, she taught media and entertainment at Vassar College and New York University.

Subramanyam serves on the board of directors of the Center for Communication, the International Radio & Television Society, and the Advertising Research Foundation. She is the recipient of many accolades including Top 100 Women in Business, Top 100 Women Leaders of New York and Top Innovators in Data and Analytics. She is a sought-after media thought leader and speaker.

Subramanyam is a graduate of Northwestern University, with a Ph.D. in radio, television, and film.

Sam Zimmerman

VP of Programming

Bio

An expert of the horror genre and a proven leader in the targeted streaming space, Samuel Zimmerman currently serves as Vice President of Programming for Shudder, AMC Networks’ premium streaming video service, super-serving members with the best selection of genre entertainment, covering horror, thrillers, and the supernatural.

In his role, Zimmerman oversees a team of creatives working to acquire and develop feature films and television series, providing guidance on all aspects of production including casting, story, and production plans. Zimmerman became involved with Shudder early in its development, helping with its initial launch and determining its continuous direction.

Shudder is frequently recognized for its personal content curation spearheaded by Zimmerman, relying on his knowledge of horror to program the service, rather than algorithms. He leads a yearly initiative each October and April (halfway to Halloween) connecting directly with Shudder members by manning a weekly one-hour phone line to personally recommend titles based on fans’ horror preferences.

Zimmerman has been instrumental in acquiring some of Shudder’s most successful and acclaimed titles to date, including In a Violent Nature, Oddity and Late Night with the Devil, Shudder’s highest grossing film in the past decade, as well as groundbreaking director George A. Romero’s “lost” film The Amusement Park and Shudder’s first original documentary feature, Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror. In recent years, Zimmerman also played a pivotal role in the creative development of Shudder’s expanding found footage V/H/S franchise including its latest release, V/H/S/BEYOND.

Zimmerman has been with AMC Networks for the past 7 years, as Vice President since 2021 and as Director before that.

Mariel Estrada

Head of Video Currency

Matt Durgin

VP of Content & Services

Bio

Matthew Durgin is Vice President of Content & Services for LG Electronics. Based in the LG’s North American headquarters in the New York City Metro Area, he oversees LG’s Smart TV Business team covering the North American market. Matt and his team’s primary responsibilities include partner negotiations, partner engagement, LG Channels, webOS licensing, and TV innovation partnerships. During the past 15 years at LG, he has led hundreds of new content partnerships including Netflix, Amazon, Max, Disney+, Hulu and ESPN. In that time, LG has distributed over 200 million LG TVs globally including webOS Smart TVs in the US and Canada markets. LG Channels, is a FAST service with more than 300 channels including the exclusive NCAA Championships channel. Matt also serves as Chairman of the Board of Alphonso Inc. operating LG Ad Solutions, as a Board Director of the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) and chair of their Connected Devices Committee. Additionally, he is a board member of the Consumer Technology Association’s (CTA) Content and Entertainment Council.

Leslie Wood

Former Chief Research Officer

Bio

Leslie Wood is a world-class media and advertising research leader who has followed her passions from reach and frequency to recency; from single source to incrementality, into separating the effects of advertising into creative and media. Her passions have led from understanding brands through long-term effects of advertising, loyalty, churn and how to build brands. She spearheaded the introduction of fusion to the US and led the early work on simulation and optimization of media. Leslie is the Chief Research Officer at iSpot TV with the role of developing products, solutions and methodologies that underpin iSpot’s industry-leading cross-platform measurement suite as well as bring an unrivaled and innovative approach to TV and streaming currency measurement. Most recently, she was Chief Research Officer at NCSolutions where she led the development of best-in-class incrementality solutions and targeting. She has a PhD in machine learning and single source data. Among the accolades celebrating her work, Leslie is the author of multiple JAR articles, recipient of the AMA’s 2023 Charles Coolidge Parlin Award, the ARF’s 2019 Erwin Ephron Demystification Award, the 2016 inductee to the Market Research Council Hall of Fame, the ARF’s 2015 Great Minds Award, the 2016 JAR Best Paper winner, and is a member of the JAR Senior Advisory Board.

Brian Kekich

Director of Content Partnerships

Shannon McKenzie

Director, Creative Products & Platform Experience | Content Distribution

Michael Vinson

Chief Research Officer

Bio

Michael Vinson, PhD brings a unique blend of expertise in mathematics, theoretical physics, and data science as applied to media measurement and advertising to his role as Chief Research Officer at Comscore.

Dr. Vinson has played a key role in developing and reinventing Comscore’s measurement solutions across TV, internet, computers, and mobile devices. Under his leadership, Comscore launched its groundbreaking TV measurement capabilities, and is now redesigning all its measurement systems to enable the privacy-focused methodologies demanded by consumers.

Dr. Vinson’s stewardship of Comscore’s analytics strategy builds on a strong, 25-year track record of achievement. Prior to joining Rentrak and Comscore, he served as Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Digital Insights and Analytics at Starcom MediaVest Group and, before that, as Chief Research Scientist at erinMedia, where he was granted multiple patents relating to mathematical methods for estimating demographics from privacy-safe digital return-path data.

Prior to joining the media measurement industry, Dr. Vinson – who holds a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Chicago – was an academic and educator. He completed his post-doctoral work at Syracuse University in Physics, won a Fulbright Scholarship to teach and do research in computational physics at Yarmouk University in Jordan, and served as Chairman of the Department of Physics at Shippensberg University in Pennsylvania. Dr. Vinson has lived and worked in four countries around the globe, and his family includes his wife, three adult children, two dogs, and three cats. He currently lives in Oakland, California.

Diana Pessin

CMO

Michele Stone

Vice President of Advanced Advertising Product & Planning Solutions

Bio

Michele Stone is Vice President of Advanced Advertising Product & Planning Solutions at Paramount. In this role, Stone leads the strategy and development of Paramount’s advanced advertising products, including the company’s advanced advertising solution Vantage. She is also responsible for managing the planning, operations and execution of all Vantage convergent campaigns.

Stone joined the company, formerly ViacomCBS, in February 2017 as an original member of the Vantage team. Before Paramount, Stone worked at GroupM, with a decade of experience in Media Buying, and later becoming a leader in the development and execution of GroupM’s data solutions division.

Stone was recognized by AdExchanger and AdMonsters as a 2023 Top Women in Media and Ad Tech for her notable contributions to the industry. She lives in Westchester, NY with her husband and three kids.

Stefan Maris

Chief Partnerships Officer

Bio

Stefan Maris is the Chief Partnerships Officer at Nielsen and Gracenote focused on building strategic alliances that drive collaborative growth with Nielsen’s media ecosystem partners. With over 20 years of experience in product and business development in the ad tech space, Stefan brings with him a wealth of technology expertise and a deep understanding of the media ecosystem. He began his career at Philips Electronics, leading the creation and development of value-added services based on automatic content recognition technologies (ACR) and later served as the EVP, Product Strategy & Partnerships at the former Sorenson Media, a leading addressable TV technology provider, acquired by Nielsen. During his time at Nielsen, Stefan served as SVP, Advanced Advertising for the Advanced Video Advertising (AVA) division, managing business development (TV programmers, agencies, ad tech partnerships), and go-to-market planning and product strategy. The AVA division was later acquired by Roku. Prior to joining Nielsen, as the Head of Global Partnerships at Comcast’s FreeWheel, Stefan focused on building strong and collaborative ecosystem relationships that drove interoperability and scale for premium TV, working with leading media, tech, and data and measurement companies, including Nielsen, Discovery, NBC, Paramount, Sky, RTL, Google/YT, Amazon, Comcast, Roku, Vizio, Omnicom, GroupM, Liveramp, Snowflake, iSpot, VideoAmp, MediaOcean, Transunion, and Experian.

Jeremiah Tachna

Vice President

Bio

Jeremiah Tachna is Vice President of Sales at Disney Advertising. In this role, Tachna oversees Local advertising sales across the Northeast region – for both Linear and Addressable media – as well as Local Brand Solutions across Disney’s expansive portfolio of premium brands, including ABC and its Owned Television Stations, Disney+, ESPN, Freeform, FX, Hulu, and National Geographic. He also works with some of the largest brands, building out unique partnerships to drive successful business outcomes that leverage the value of high-profile entertainment and sports properties, like the Oscars, Country Music Awards, NBA and the NFL.

With over 25 years of both advertising sales and marketing experience, Tachna has spent 20 years with Disney having led a number of strategic teams across multiple verticals and categories, working with various agency partners and brands on campaign strategy, investment, and activation. Prior to joining Disney, he held sales and marketing roles at Blair Television, Univision and CBS.

In addition to his professional accomplishments, Tachna upholds his unwavering commitment to mentoring junior executives across Disney to support them as they progress in their careers. He also supports a number of impactful programs within Disney, including Disney VoluntEARS and Disney Reimagine Tomorrow, and many great organizations like American Cancer Society, Heritage of Pride, The Brotherhood Sister Sol, New York Edge and Foodbank for New York City.

Tachna is a graduate of the University of Arizona and resides in New York City.

Mike Petrella

Managing Director of Strategic Partnershps, Kinective

Bio

Mike leads Strategic Partnerships across Technology, Platform, Data and Media for United MileagePlus. He is responsible for building partnerships to enable personalized and immersive experiences to surprise and delight United customers from the time they plan their journey to the next planning period, and all points in between. Mike is an AdTech veteran, building and leading organizations across Global Partnerships, Programmatic ad marketplace, Privacy and Data, and Content Syndication. He is an original member of Advertising.com, spending nearly 23 years with Advertising.com through its most recent brand, Yahoo before exiting to the startup world, and now United Airlines.

Mari Tangredi

SVP & GM, Audience Solutions

Jon Watts

Managing Director

Anthony Iaffaldano

VP of Sales Marketing and Insights

Bio

As VP of Sales Marketing & Insights at Fandom, the world’s largest fan platform, Iaffaldano is responsible for bringing the company’s unique platform, audience, and data to life for advertisers and partners. A B2B marketer for 20+ yrs, Iaffaldano combines a deep understanding of client and market needs with the ability to find and tell powerful stories with data.

Mark Lee

Sr. Director, Head of NA Content Business Development

Bio

Mark Lee is Sr. Director of Content and Services for LG electronics.  Based in the LG’s North American headquarters in the New York City Metro Area, he oversees LG’s content business development for the North American market.  His team’s primary responsibilities include partner distribution negotiations for apps, LG Channels (FAST), gaming, and shopping.  During the past 12 years at LG, he has help lead and launch hundreds of new content partnerships and services including LG Channels, Disney+, Max, Youtube TV, Paramount+, Peacock, ESPN, GeForce Now, Amazon Luna, and Shoptime. In that time, LG has distributed over 220 million LG TVs globally including webOS Smart TVs and has expanded webOS to projectors, monitors, hotels, and auto.

Katy Loria

U.S. Chief Revenue Officer

Bio

Katy Loria serves as Chief Revenue Officer at FreeWheel, a global technology platform for the TV advertising industry.

In her position, Katy is responsible for growing both the sell and buy sides of FreeWheel’s marketplace. Reporting to FreeWheel General Manager Mark McKee, Katy defines and maintains the company’s revenue strategy by architecting and integrating revenue streams and designing and launching new revenue programs.

She formerly served as chief revenue officer at Screenvision Media, where she led a cross-departmental staff of over 200 people, managing budget and P&L for over 80% of the company. Throughout her tenure, Katy was an integral part of Screenvision’s executive leadership team, driving significant YOY revenue growth during her time there. Additionally, Katy served as Executive Vice President, National Ad Sales, and Senior Vice President, National Ad Sales.

Previously, she has held numerous executive sales roles within companies like ViacomCBS (now Paramount) and MTV Networks, garnering over 20 years of leadership experience across Fortune 500 companies and start-ups.

Katy demonstrates her expertise and rapport within the media industry through her involvement with organizations like The Picture House, the Video Advertising Bureau and the Cinema Advertising Council, where she is an active board member.

Dedicated to advancing women in executive roles in the media industry, she serves as a member and mentor at CHIEF, a network focused on connecting and supporting women executives, and She Runs It, an organization designed to encourage and promote women’s roles in the media industry.

Katy is the recipient of several industry awards including Adweek’s 50 Most Indispensable People and Celluloid Junkie’s Top 50 Women in Global Cinema. She also served as a judge for The Drum 2023 Awards Festival.

Charlene Polite Corley

VP of Diverse Insights and Partnerships

Bio

Charlene Polite Corley is a researcher, thought leader and speaker that’s passionate about representation in media. Charlene combines data and storytelling to amplify the power and influence of historically excluded audiences, showcase media trends, and support the moral and business case that representation matters. She is a graduate of Florida A&M University and has 15 years of experience across multiple roles at Nielsen. Charlene was appointed as VP, Diverse Insights & Partnerships in 2020 and today is the lead researcher for Black and Native/Indigenous audiences on the Business Impact, Inclusion & Belonging Thought Leadership Team. Her perspectives have been featured widely from Good Morning America to Cannes Lions, Essence Festival, Possible, SXSW and more. Beyond work, Charlene is a creative, mentor, speaker, wife, and mom of two.

Jeff Blaszack

SVP, Business Operations & Strategy

Bio

Jeff Blaszak, Senior Vice President of Business Operations and Strategy at ShowSeeker, is a detail-oriented professional who meticulously examines every aspect of processes, problems, regulations, plans, and contracts. By breaking these elements into their fundamental parts, he gains a deeper understanding, enabling him to effectively explain and solve complex issues.

Jeff spearheads the company’s expanding sales and marketing efforts to establish ShowSeeker as the industry leader in powerful, unified order management across multiscreen platforms. His leadership enhances operational effectiveness and maintains strategic partnerships, driving ShowSeeker’s business strategy forward in the competitive AdTech landscape.

Jeff joined ShowSeeker in 2020 as Vice President of Strategic Partnerships. He brought a wealth of experience from his previous roles at Optimum Media (formerly a4) and Altice USA, where he led significant operational and strategic initiatives. His career in media operations began in 1992 at TCA Cable/CableTime, marking over three decades of industry leadership.

Jeff’s deep industry knowledge and forward-thinking approach set new standards in advertising technology and deliver unparalleled value to ShowSeeker’s clients. This expertise and strategic vision have been pivotal in driving ShowSeeker’s growth and strengthening partnerships across the industry.

Rick Bergan

Head of North American Content Distribution

Bio

Rick Bergan is the Head of North American Content Distribution at Stingray, where he oversees the distribution of the company’s diverse content portfolio across various platforms. With a robust background in media and entertainment, Rick brings extensive experience in content sales, strategic partnerships and new business development.

Before joining Stingray, Rick held several key positions in the industry, including Senior Vice President of Distribution at Music Choice and EVP, Sales and Business Development for the sports technology company OneTwoSee. Following the acquisition of OneTwoSee by Comcast Corporation, Rick joined Stingray in 2016. His expertise spans across traditional and digital media landscapes, making him a pivotal figure in navigating the evolving content distribution ecosystem.

At Stingray, Rick is responsible for forming and maintaining relationships with key partners across a number of different verticals including television, mobile and automotive, ensuring that Stingray’s music, concert TV, relaxation & wellness, and karaoke content reaches a broad and engaged audience.

Rick holds a Bachelors Degree in Communications from Villanova University and a Master of Arts in Public Communication from American University.

Philippe Petitpont

CEO

Justin Fromm

Head of Insights and Thought Leadership

Bio

Justin Fromm is an experienced media executive and a leading expert in the Connected TV and SVOD space currently serving as Head of Insights, North America at Samsung Ads. Justin has extensive experience as a data leader, conducting strategic research on the value and effectiveness of TV and digital media as advertising platforms, the marketing of televisual programming, and the effects of new technology on consumer behavior and the media industry.

Arthur Orduña

Executive Director

Natasha Potashnik

Head of Data, Research & Measurement

Bio

Natasha Potashnik is Vevo’s Head of Data, Research & Measurement. Overseeing the data science, research, analytics, and measurement teams, she is responsible for applying AI, machine learning, and insights to all parts of the business, in close collaboration with engineering. Her teams ensure excellence in the use of data at Vevo, including everything from building new measurement methodologies to creating advanced AI optimization algorithms.Previously, Natasha was CTO and Co-Founder of the wellness startup Superbloom, where she spearheaded technology, data science, software, analytics, and product efforts. She also served as an SVP and Partner at Known, where she led a 90+ person media science team using machine learning to plan, buy, and optimize data-driven advertising. Natasha earned her B.A. in Mathematics from Yale University and her PhD from Columbia University.

Travis Clinger

Chief Connectivity and Ecosystem Officer

David Apostolico

Chief Distribution Officer

Bio

As SVP, Chief Distribution Officer, QVC, HSN and QVC+/HSN+, Dave focuses on expanding the reach of the brands’ five broadcast channels – QVC, QVC2, QVC3, HSN, and HSN2 – as well as the reach of the QVC+/HSN+ Streaming Experience. He also works with all distribution partners to ensure they have the rights to carry Qurate Retail Group’s networks and streaming service. QVC and HSN’s primary channels are available across all major platforms and reach more than 100 million US homes. QVC+/HSN+ offers our most robust, video commerce experience, with live, on-demand and streaming-only content together in one fully shoppable app. Prior to joining QVC nearly 25 years ago, Dave worked in private practice as a lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions and structured finance. Working in QVC’s legal department, Dave worked across multiple business functions gaining unique insight into all areas of the QVC business. In Platform Expansion & Distribution, Dave has contributed significantly to the business, helping QVC and HSN expand their household reach across platforms. He continues to transform the cable industry through the deployment of next-generation interactive applications with our distribution partners across platforms. Most recently, Dave was honored in the 2021 Cablefax 100 List, highlighting the most influential executives whose leadership continues to take the industry to new heights. Dave earned his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Delaware and his law degree from the University of North Carolina School of Law. Dave lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania with his wife and their five children.

Sheila Dharmarajan

Head of Investor Relations and Business Development

Bio

Sheila Dharmarajan joined ZMC in 2014. Ms. Dharmarajan leads all of the investor relations, fundraising and deal sourcing activities at the firm. Prior to joining ZMC, Ms. Dharmarajan was an on-air television reporter for CNBC and Bloomberg Television, where she regularly reported on a wide range of business news and breaking stories. She has also served as the host of “The Future Is Now”, a Yahoo! web series focused on innovation and cutting edge technologies. Before her television career, Ms. Dharmarajan was an investment professional at Permira and Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, where she focused on analyzing and executing private equity investments across a range of industries including healthcare, consumer / retail and information services. Ms. Dharmarajan began her career as an investment banking analyst at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and was an associate director in the mergers & acquisitions group at IAC/InterActiveCorp. Ms. Dharmarajan holds BS in Finance & Management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Ms. Dharmarajan also earned her MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Eric Haggstrom

VP, Business Intelligence

Bio

Eric Haggstrom comes to Advertiser Perceptions with a background in advertising, media and tech market research. He primarily works with clients in the CTV, Retail Media, and Ad Tech spaces and leads Advertiser Perceptions’s advertising spend forecasting projects and macro economic research. Prior to joining Advertiser Perceptions, Eric worked at research firm eMarketer as a senior forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence, focusing on digital advertising, retail media, and streaming video, including CTV advertising, TV and streaming video trends. Eric has presented at industry conferences and appeared in consumer and industry trade publications.

Dave Bernath

General Manager

Harry Levenson

Director of US Sales

Bio

As a seasoned expert on Attention Measurement and Optimization, I bring a wealth of experience from my career at Realeyes and Lumen, two of the leading Attention measurement companies in the industry. My journey has involved collaborating with nearly every major provider in the market, giving me a unique perspective on the evolving landscape of using attention for media and creative applications. I am passionate about harnessing the power of attention data to drive effective strategies that enhance brand engagement and maximize outcomes. Join me as we explore innovative approaches to measuring and optimizing attention in today’s dynamic television environment.

Rohan Castelino

CMO

Bio

Rohan Castelino is the CMO of IRIS.TV and leads the company’s global marketing endeavors. Prior to joining IRIS.TV, he worked in Beijing in the entertainment and hospitality industries, where he helped produce and finance international film co-productions. Rohan also helped scale the franchise development of Super 8 by Wyndham in Greater China. In the U.S., Rohan has worked at prominent media companies such as Gannett, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Illumination Entertainment.

Kate DiRanna

Media and Sponsorship Strategy Lead

Chris Thorman

SVP, Digital Media

Kailyn Hartmann

VP of Advanced Analytics and Intelligence

Rick Allen

CEO

Bio

http://www.linkedin.com/in/timhanlon1

Tim Hanlon is the Founder & CEO of the Chicago-based Vertere Group, LLC – a boutique strategic consulting and advisory firm focused on helping today’s most forward-leaning media companies, brands, entrepreneurs, and investors benefit from rapidly changing technological advances in marketing, media and consumer communications.

Tim has over 30 years of innovative executive experience in traditional, digital and “emerging” media & marketing – as well as a deep understanding of both modern-day media economics and the disruptive challenges roiling today’s ad/media industries.

His strategic and operational expertise is especially sought after in the increasingly convoluted “TV-meets-digital-video” space – including areas such as connected TV (CTV) & over-the-top (OTT) video; subscription & ad-supported streaming video (SVOD/AVOD/FAST); “virtual” pay TV (vMVPDs); addressable/DAI (dynamic ad insertion) ad targeting; TV/video measurement & analytics (ACR, watermarking, cross-screen, etc.); broadcast “NextGen TV”/ ATSC 3.0; and programmatic ad technology.

In a prior life, Tim created and led corporate ventures practices at marketing agency holding companies Publicis Groupe and Interpublic Group, overseeing 70+ early-stage investments and partnerships – including dozens of successful M&A and IPO exits (and counting) since 2006.

Previously, Tim was Senior Vice President/Director, Emerging Contacts for Publicis’ iconic media agency Starcom MediaVest Group, where he was chiefly responsible for pioneering all US client activity and agency initiatives in the field of emerging media technologies – including the establishment of the firm’s ground-breaking “TV 2.0 Practice,” centered around evolutionary television platforms.

Tim earlier held senior management positions at marketing promotions agency Frankel (Chicago); regional advertising agency Creative Alliance (Louisville, KY); digital content pioneer Starwave (Bellevue, WA); and credit card issuer MBNA America (Wilmington, DE).

Among numerous media industry honors, Tim is most proud of being an inaugural recipient of TV of Tomorrow’s “Leadership in Interactive Television Award” – way back in 2004. His insights into the future of media, advertising and marketing are regularly seen in major electronic, print and trade press outlets.

Tim holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business, and a BA from Georgetown University.

Bio

Steve Reynolds is CEO of Imagine Communications, a global leader in multiscreen video and ad management solutions that broadcasters, networks, video service providers and enterprises around the world rely on to support their mission-critical operations.

Steve brings 25 years of technology leadership in the video industry to Imagine Communications. He has served as the CTO at Imagine Communications and Harris Broadcast, Senior Vice President of Premises Technology at Comcast, Senior Vice President of Technology at OpenTV, and CTO at Intellocity USA.

Steve earned a MS in Computer Engineering from Widener University and BS in Computer Science from West Chester University. As the Chairman of the AIMS Alliance and a member of SMPTE and SCTE, he has participated in numerous standards-making bodies in the cable and digital video industries. Steve also holds over 40 patents relating to digital video, content security, interactive television and digital devices.

 

 

Sara Burns

SVP of Programming and Strategy

Bio

Based in the New York Metro area, as Senior Vice President of Programming and Strategy at Cineverse, Sara leads content planning and insights across 20+ FAST Channels and 8+ SVOD platforms including Screambox (horror), DOVE (romance & dramas), Fandor (indie films), and many more. She takes a consumer-centric approach to strategy that includes everything from working with partners on creative stunts to enhancing content discoverability on platform. She steers Cineverse’s Greenlight Pipeline including key acquisitions and new releases.

Sara’s additional career highlights are marked by her 18-year run at Warner Brothers Discovery. In her last role as SVP of Scheduling and Strategy, she oversaw beloved brands such as HGTV, ID, and TRVL. She ran key launch initiatives for franchises and big tentpoles such as Home TownCelebrity IOURock The BlockUgliest House in America, and Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge. Her future-focused approach to content windowing strategies across linear and direct-to-consumer platforms was pivotal in the success of discovery+ and the relaunch of Max. Her responsibilities also encompassed launching 100+ series per year and guiding greenlight and renewal priorities through insightful analysis. She was part of the team that launched Investigation Discovery after rebranding it from Discovery Times Channel in 2008 – making it into a popular true crime destination. Sara is a respected speaker and panelist at industry conferences, a contributor to noteworthy publications like Hub Intel: Entertainment Explained, a member of notable organizations such as Chief and WICT, and has served as a guest lecturer at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Richard Glosser

Managing Director

Bio

Richard Glosser is a Managing Director at Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips, specializing in M&A advisory for Broadcasting, Streaming, and Sports Technologies. ODP is a 28-year-old middle-market investment bank based in New York City that is focused on Marketing, Media, and Technology. The firm is a part of Oaklins, the world’s largest and most successful M&A advisory organization in the mid-market, with over 850 investment banking professionals in 45 countries.

He has vast experience as a senior media and technology executive and operator. Most recently, he was Head of Business Development at Verance, where he played a pivotal role in bringing its watermark-based solution for ATSC 3.0/NextGen TV to the broadcast television and consumer electronics industries. Previous to Verance, Richard was Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Digital at CSTV: College Sports Television (now CBS Sports Network) and as Founder and President of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s early digital efforts. He was also Executive Director of Emerging Media at Condé Nast Digital where he led their video and mobile initiatives. During his tenure at Hilltop Digital, Richard advised clients such as ABC News, Trendrr (now part of X), Alphonso.TV, ION Media (now part of Scripps), SpotX (now part of Magnite), and Corbis Entertainment.

He holds a BS from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Robert Tas

Partner

Holly Leff-Pressman

Chief Client Engagement Officer

Bio

Holly Leff-Pressman is Chief Client Engagement Officer for Screen Engine ASI, based in Los Angeles – with offices in San Diego, New York and London. She is at the forefront of leading the company’s client service teams and works with all clients across avenues of the business. She has been integral to expanding the business and solidifying new logos for our family of companies during her 5 years at the company. Fresh from law school in 1989, she was a litigation associate at an entertainment law firm before joining Viewer’s Choice Television in 1992. While with Viewer’s Choice, she initiated, negotiated and oversaw licensing and distribution of original and event pay-per-view and video-on-demand programming. In 1995, she joined NBCUniversal as Senior Vice President for World Wide Pay Per View and Video On Demand. Following a nine-year stint with NBCU, she signed on with The Nielsen Co. as executive VP for content solutions and media research. She has been at the forefront of industry developments in on-demand viewership as well as the measurement of data and research of that viewership. She was the recipient of a CTAM “TAMI” Award in 2017 and has devoted her time and talents to CTAM’s Marketing, Digital and Research Committees. A Cable TV Pioneer, she is currently on the committee for the Media & Insights Conference and served as the conference’s inaugural co-chair.

Jennifer Moon

Head of Editorial and Programming Strategy, North America

Bio

Jennifer Moon is an accomplished content strategist with a passion for building innovative programming strategies and fostering collaborative environments. As the Head of Editorial & Programming Strategy, North America at BritBox International, Jennifer oversees all aspects of the content pipeline for the leading streaming service of British television in the U.S. and Canada. Jennifer is responsible for content licensing, acquisition, scheduling and merchandising across the platform.

Prior to BritBox, Jennifer served as Director of Multiplatform Programming Strategy at AMC Networks, where she played a pivotal role in developing revenue-driving strategies for streaming and on-demand services. Her leadership in the launch of 10+ FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV) channels and her contributions to AMC’s content windowing strategy helped maximize visibility for blockbuster series such as “The Walking Dead” and “Breaking Bad”. She also spearheaded long-term operational solutions for AMC Networks, including streamlining the development of AMC+.

Jennifer holds a degree in acting from Northwestern University. When she’s not curating must-watch content, she resides in Manhattan with her wife and their two children.

Brian Hunt

Corporate VP/Head of National Digital, Programmatic and OTT/CTV Ad Sales

Anjali Midha

CEO

Bio

Anjali is an entrepreneur with a passion for driving innovation in media and marketing analytics. She is the co-founder & CEO of Diesel Labs, a content analytics company that addresses the toughest questions facing media companies today: what to produce and where to distribute and market it. Before starting Diesel Labs, she was the Global Director of Media Research at Twitter where she developed the ‘playbook’ for television – illuminating the synergies and opportunities across traditional and new media. She joined Twitter via their acquisition of Bluefin Labs (the pioneer of Social TV Analytics), prior to which she was the VP of Strategy & Analytics at Digitas. Anjali holds a BA in Economics from Tufts University and an MBA from MIT Sloan.

David Algranati

Chief Innovation Officer

Bio

In his role as Chief Innovation Officer, Dr. Algranati leads an organization driven to helping clients meet their business goals by creating industry-leading media measurements solutions.

“Comscore has a unique ability to process and understand large amounts of data,” he says. “My team strives to use this wealth of information to design products and services that meet the needs of the industry.”

Before joining the Comscore team, he served as SVP, Television Product Innovation & Custom Research at Rentrak and held executive research positions at Experian Simmons including Director of Integrated Marketing Solutions. While at Simmons, he also led the statistics and research teams, overseeing all statistical responsibilities for the company including custom research projects.

Dr. Algranati holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from The George Washington University, a Master of Science in Statistics, a Master of Philosophy in Public Policy and a Ph.D. in Statistics and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University.

When he is not working on the next generation of media measurement solutions, he is a devoted boxing fan, attending more than 2,000 boxing matches in the past 20 years.

Pete Doe

Chief Research Officer

Bio

Pete Doe is Chief Research Officer at Nielsen. He has decades of experience in market research, audience measurement, big data and statistical modeling techniques. In his current role he leads Nielsen’s Data Science Organization, overseeing the development of audience measurement methodologies across video, digital and audio globally. This is his second stint at Nielsen: between 2004-2015 he was a primary architect of Nielsen’s data integration products and contributed to patented innovations in Set Top Box measurement, Digital and Outdoor Advertising Research. Between 2015-2022, Pete was Chief Research Officer at clypd, an advanced TV platform start-up acquired by Xandr in 2019, which in turn was acquired by Microsoft in 2022. Before moving to the United States, Pete was a board director at RSMB TV Research in the UK, where he worked primarily on the BARB TV audience measurement currency as well as data fusion projects. He started his career at NOP Market Research in London. Pete is a graduate of King’s College, London University.

Tony Lamerato

Vice President, Revenue and Sponsorships

Jennifer Monson

VP of Ad Sales

Bio

Jennifer Monson is Vice President, ad sales at Fubo, the live TV streaming platform whose global mission is to aggregate the best in TV, including premium sports, news, and entertainment content, through a single app.

As VP of ad sales, Monson leads a team of sales professionals who deliver innovative and effective integrated marketing solutions across all forms of video and digital platforms. She helps shape Fubo’s ad sales strategy to generate ad revenue and develop best-in-class CTV ad campaigns. With over 15 years of experience in the advertising industry, Monson has held sales roles throughout the evolving media landscape, serving the needs of diverse clients and audiences.

Prior to Fubo, Monson was an integrated Account Executive for 18+ years at Warner Brothers Discovery (Scripps). She worked on brands such as HGTV, TNT, CNN, ID, Magnolia, Travel, D+, Max and all FEP/GO apps and digital platforms. During her tenure here, she managed a book of business valued at over $125 million and sold breakthrough cross-platform programs.

She lives on Long Island with her husband Bradley, and their two children, Cooper and Lyla.

Chris Signore

VP/Head of Revenue—Ad Server

Matthew Van Houten

SVP of Product, Ad Ops Systems & Services, and Business Development

Bio

Matthew Van Houten is Senior Vice President of Product, Ad Ops Systems & Services, and Business Development at DIRECTV Advertising. Matt’s views on media, advertising, technology and innovation come from 15+ years and 360° of industry experience working across the Entertainment and Media sectors at powerful brands (ViacomCBS, WarnerMedia), scaled distributors (AT&T, DIRECTV, Xandr), and respected universities (CUNY Baruch College, NYU). Matt has led the growth of multi-billion dollar domestic and international businesses across traditional and emerging media. As a thought leader, Matt holds several patents and is a two-time EMMY® award winner for his work in advanced advertising. He has consistently built high performing product, strategy, & business development teams, has established strategic partnerships in changing media landscapes, has led investment M&A and developed new lines of business, and has enabled revenue growth across national, addressable, local, and programmatic ad sales channels. For the past 13 years, Matt has shared his expertise and his perspective in the classroom: he serves as an adjunct professor at the Zicklin School of Business at CUNY Baruch College, where he teaches an advanced media, entertainment, and technology course in the school’s Department of Marketing and International Business. Matt earned his bachelor’s degree in political science and graduated magna cum laude from the University of San Diego, and earned a Master of Business Administration from CUNY Baruch College. He is also a former collegiate athlete and WCLL national champion in lacrosse. He currently lives in Manhasset, New York with his wife and three sons.

Seema Patel

Executive Leader, Advanced Advertising, Data Strategy and Growth/Co-Founder

Bio

With 25 years of experience in advertising and technology, Patel is a seasoned media executive with extensive expertise in launching new businesses and supporting multi-platform solutions. As one of the leading experts in data and advanced advertising, Patel has been a leading force in forging new partnerships and driving innovative product rollouts. She has a proven track record in leading high-profile initiatives by bridging strategy with efficient execution to drive scale and revenue growth.

In her last role, Patel was SVP, Data Enterprise at TelevisaUnivision, leading an enterprise-wide organization that developed proprietary data assets to support advanced advertising and ViX, TU’s streaming content offering. Her team led the build out of the TelevisaUnivision Household Graph, the single largest identity solution focused on U.S. Spanish-speaking households. This critical data asset ensured accuracy and fidelity of representation for a historically under-served community. Patel’s team also developed a recommendation engine for ViX by leveraging AI and complex algorithms to further enhance the user experience.  In addition, Patel was responsible for spearheading partnerships with external partners to activate new capabilities in the areas of Retail/Commerce Media and DAI/targeting on authenticated apps to fuel scale of cross platform advanced advertising.

Prior to joining TelevisaUnivision, Patel served as the business lead with MVPD, technology partners, and Distribution teams at ViacomCBS to onboard new advanced advertising inventory sources, broadening the company’s vast portfolio of data driven assets. She facilitated strategic initiatives, business development, and platform implementation. During her tenure, ViacomCBS built the largest Addressable TV footprint in the country spanning across broadcast and cable in the areas of live linear, VOD, & streaming platforms.

Patel was also a key stakeholder in the launch of DIRECTV’s Addressable Advertising platform, playing a critical role in the design, pricing, and roll out of the first-to-market STB Addressable Advertising product. She created system solutions and business processes that were unique to the marketplace and ultimately, ended up becoming the benchmark for others in the industry to emulate.  Her platform design transformed targetable television and drove double digit, topline revenue growth for the business.  She also spearheaded the launch of D2 Media Sales, which was the industry’s first live linear STB addressable platform for the political marketplace. Additionally, she took a lead role in defining systems strategy & operations for a combined ad sales organization during the AT&T/DIRECTV integration.  She led the effort to create system solutions & streamline processes to support a multi-billion-dollar business.

Patel is the co-founder of TechBae, a networking organization dedicated to advancing equality by creating meaningful connections and developing opportunities for women across all levels within the ad tech & media landscape. She is passionate about creating a community to foster mentoring for junior rising stars in the industry. Founded in 2018, TechBae’s community is comprised of women from over 100+ organizations spanning across programmers, MVPDs, & technology organizations.

She is also an active member of National Academy of Television and Arts & Science (NATAS) Tech & Engineering Committee, which awards Emmys for outstanding achievement in television technology & engineering.

 

 

Brett Hurwitz

Business Lead, Addressable TV

Bio

Brett Hurwitz leads Addressable TV for the Yahoo Demand Side Platform. He’s responsible for strategies and partnerships that drive value for Yahoo’s advertisers within the quickly evolving addressable TV space. Brett brings over 20 years of TV advertising expertise spanning across media companies and agencies., with the past 10 years focused on advanced TV.

Before joining Yahoo, Brett consulted for clients including DISH Networks and AMC Networks. Prior to that Hurwitz was the Senior Vice President, Ad Sales Pricing, Strategy, and Operations at Univision Communications Inc. Earlier in his career he spent ten years in an executive leadership role in Sales Strategy and Operations at NBC Universal. He also held positions at ESPN, MRM Gillespie Advertising, and Publicis Groupe’s Nelson Communications.

Brett is based out of Yahoo’s NYC offices and his home in Essex County New Jersey.

Raghu Kodige

Founder & CEO

Bio

Raghu Kodige is the Co-founder and CEO of Anoki, an AI company delivering personalized content and advertising experiences at scale on CTV. A serial entrepreneur, Raghu previously co-founded Alphonso, a pioneer in ACR technology, which was acquired by LG and became LG Ads. Under his leadership as CEO, LG Ads grew into one of the largest CTV ad platforms globally.

Bio

Sam Bloom is Head of Partnerships for PMG. Prior to this, Sam was the CEO of Dallas-based Camelot Strategic Marketing & Media. In Sam’s 20+ years at Camelot, he helped transition the agency from a traditional media shop into one of the leaders in integrated marketing and advanced analytics. His prior experience includes executive roles at Blockbuster Video as well as several start-ups, including Broadcast.com. Sam was also a goalie for the University of Virginia’s National Championship soccer team and keeps his passion for soccer burning with regular visits to the UK to attend English Premier League matches.

Zack Rosenberg

CEO

Bio

Zack Rosenberg is the Founder & CEO of Qortex, a technology startup that enables brands, publishers, and creators to optimize their video strategy for improved advertising, monetization, and engagement outcomes. With its proprietary AI technology, Qortex contextualizes video content, frame-by-frame, to assess its sentiment and provide the deepest level of understanding at scale. Prior to Qortex, Zack was pivotal in the adoption of digital media and advertising solutions for brands, agencies, and publishers. He previously held key sales and leadership roles at Keywee (now Anyword), Buzzfeed, SmartBrief, and WebMD. During Zack’s tenure at these companies, he generated revenues nearing $100MM. Zack is also a multi-time founder and his philanthropic work focuses on professional development. He started SixDegreesofZR, as well as the Montclair Media Meetup & Starts Up groups to bring the local community together. He was named a 40 Under 40 Honoree by Broadcasting+Cable, Multichannel News, and Next TV in 2024.

Michael Nagle

Founder & CEO

Bio

Michael Nagle has spent his entire career in media. He is the Founder & CEO for Ashling Digital where he assists FAST channels with distribution, marketing and partnerships. Home Media Magazine listed him as one of their “Digital Drivers” in both 2016 and 2017. He served in executive roles for Bloomberg, Playboy, NatureVision and Invincible. He served as GM of Streaming for USA TODAY and USA TODAY Sports (from 2022-24) where he was honored as one of “Gannett’s Greatest” for Diversity & Inclusion. Michael also teaches Advertising & Marketing Communications at Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York.

Bill Harvey

Chairman

Bio

For over 35 years Bill Harvey has been leading the way in media research with special emphasis on the New Media. He is often asked to provide his vision of the future of some specific part of the media world and has consulted for over a hundred Fortune 500 companies. Bill is known to many as a media futurist.

Bill Harvey after a history of innovation co-founded TRA, the first company to show that naturally occurring purchase and media data can be used to create the first actionable process for true ROI measurement and optimization. In 2012 TiVo acquired TRA, now called TiVo Research.

Today, beyond consulting for many companies, Bill has co-founded Research Measurement Technologies (RMT), which is developing a programmatic ROI optimizer that will benefit advertisers and content creators. RMT has breakthrough IP in two areas:

Media Optimization

Bill has spent over 35 years leading the way in media research with special emphasis on the New Media. As the 24-year-old strategy head of the American Research Bureau (now Arbitron), he invented the Area of Dominant Influence or ADI, an audience-based definition of television markets that Nielsen emulated as the DMA, and which was called by Sales & Marketing Magazine “the most widely used marketing tool in the world today”. The ADI has profoundly influenced the advertising and television industries.

Harvey benefited from entering the advertising business exactly as the first mainframe computers were being turned to the task of media optimization. This led him to become one of the early pioneers of optimizers — and a media researcher who had to also learn about media effectiveness in order to program the optimizers. Media effectiveness as a subject falls between media research and advertising research and so Harvey was one of the few media researchers who crossed the line to combine both disciplines. He was most fortunate to have been tutored and mentored by some of the giants in the advertising and research industries including Mike Drexler, Erwin Ephron, Helen Johnston, Timothy Joyce, Burt Manning, Len Matthews, Hal Miller, Ed Papazian, Sandy Reisenbach, Jim Rosenfield, Arnie Semsky, Lester Wunderman, and too many others to mention here.

Before joining Arbitron, Harvey was a media research executive at Grey Advertising, Kenyon & Eckhardt, and Interpublic, specializing in the development of media optimizers.

Author and Speaker

Bill authored Mind Magic, a book on self-transformation, which has been used as a course text at thirty-four universities including NYU and UCLA. A popular speaker at media and futurist conferences around the world, he has written and been the subject of numerous articles in a wide range of consumer and media trade publications. From 1979 to 1999 his monthly newsletter, The Marketing Pulse, helped decision-makers at leading advertisers, agencies, and media companies understand important trends in media technology. That newsletter in 1979 accurately predicted the 3-network share of audience as it would be in 1990, and made many other projections that turned out to be prophetic, including predicting permission marketing, and coining terms that became generic such as clickstream and clickthroughs. In January 1999 that newsletter merged into The Myers Report.

New Electronic Media

In 1972, Harvey founded New Electronic Media Science (NEMS), a marketing media research consultancy that has served nearly 70 top advertisers and agencies, all major MSOs, virtually all major networks and all major Hollywood studios in the area of New Media. NEMS consulted for QUBE and numerous other early trials, for AT&T in the development of the 900 Number, had its first online service in 1972 and put the first online questionnaire on CompuServe for World Book in 1982. NEMS created International Research Services (IRS), which worked with research companies in 34 countries and compiled and harmonized ratings data from these countries into comprehensive reports for a number of Hollywood studios and networks. NEMS had clients in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Japan, Australia, and a number of other countries.

Next Century Media (NCM)

In conjunction with IBM and Leonard Matthews, former CEO of Y&R and of Leo Burnett, Harvey founded Next Century Media (NCM). Next Century Media began as the leading interactive media advisor to advertisers, advertising agencies, entertainment, and media companies worldwide, and evolved into an enabler and service provider for addressable TV commercials and TV clickstream measurement. NCM led the development of addressable television advertising and interactive media measurement Standards, working with the ANA, 4A’s, ARF, IAB, FAST, Audit Bureau, NACHO, CableLabs, and CASIE. Harvey was the originator and drafter of the CASIE Principles which set the privacy standards for the industry. In 1995, in cooperation with Arbitron, NCM published The CyberMeasurement Index, the first compilation of Internet clickstreams to a common Standard, in which AOL was a leading participant; 34 agencies subscribed to the report. This was the first experiment in the amalgamation of clickstream data from multiple sources.

Media Effectiveness

NEMS and NCM were leaders in the field of Media Effectiveness Measurement, the quantification of the higher order business effects of one medium versus another. Harvey believes that this is the Holy Grail within the marketing business: the ability to place an ROI value and not just an eyeballs value on a specific advertising investment. In the 70s, NEMS was highly active in this field, and among the notable studies conducted in that era was the measurement of a CBS Special sponsored by Ralston Purina, whose attitude shift and commercial recall scores tripled their scatter-plan norms, and the measurement of the same ads in Black Enterprise Magazine versus Newsweek, showing again three times the effectiveness for an average ad among upscale Blacks if the ad were seen in the context of their own specialized magazine.

Bill worked with Dr. Daniel Goleman (Emotional Intelligence) and Dr. Richard Davidson, today one of the top neuroscientists in the world, on the application of brainwave measurements to determining the effectiveness of advertising and media. NCM provided a number of clients with media effectiveness research studies, the best known of which are the Sponsorship Effectiveness Index (SEI), and the Commercial Retention studies conducted with cable operators. SEI established the power of native content earlier than any other research system. Harvey was founder and chairman of the New Media Model Committee of the Media Accountability Council for the Advertising Research Foundation, whose work achieved industry and ARF approval as the new ARF Media Model published in 2003, with tremendous leadership from Erwin Ephron, whom Bill invited to join as co-chair early on.

NEMS and Harvey were active in the development of digital out-of-home. In the late 80s, NEMS was the quarterback of a multi-studio study of the feasibility of deploying giant TV or computer screens in malls and other public places primarily supported by the motion picture industry marketing budgets. NEMS was also involved in numerous other research studies involving digital out-of-home in the U.S. and Europe. Next Century Media conducted studies of several important digital out-of-home media including mall video advertising for AdSpace, digital taxitop advertising for AdaptMedia, and others.

Consultant for Internet Industry Leaders

NCM consulted for such industry leaders as Microsoft and Amazon, and consulted on the development of websites for such companies as GM, Visa, Pepsi, Nissan, and many others, and for the clients of agencies such as BBDO, TBWA Chiat/Day, and Messner. Harvey was the Keynote Speaker at the first meeting of the Internet Advertising Bureau, and the speaker representing the advertising industry at the first WorldWideWeb Consortium Measurement Conference. At that conference, Harvey proposed the universal ID that Facebook and others are now achieving.

Addressable Commercials

NCM invented and patented a system for making TV commercials targetable down to the individual home and person, which spawned an entire field with multiple companies competing to supply these important new advertising units. NCM produced reports from the Interactive Index, a service for certifying and compiling the immense “clickstream” (potentially every button push on remote control channel changers and PC keyboards) databases of interactive media worldwide, in cooperation with top research companies such as Nielsen and Arbitron. General Motors was the first subscriber to the Interactive Index, which received letters of support from most of the top 20 agencies.

World Leader in Interactive TV Marketing

budweiser ad frequency
Addressable Commercials increase reach and frequency against targets at same cost.

Through those two companies, Harvey has been involved in every major New Electronic Media trial in the United States since 1975 and many other trials around the world. He brought more advertisers and agencies into more Interactive TV trials than everyone else in the world combined.

OpenTV

During 2003-2004 Harvey took a sabbatical from Next Century Media and Bill Harvey Consulting to accept the role of Senior Vice President and General Manager of OpenTV Research, a new unit he conceived for OpenTV — at that time a Liberty Media Company with a national deployment of 7 million US homes with interactive TV advertising and set-top box data (DirecTV + Charter). As GM he generated the reports of the landmark Aurora trial of SpotOn addressable commercials for Comcast, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Home Depot, Johnson & Johnson, and the U.S. Army, and began to develop the idea for TRA.

TRA

TRA was created to fill the need for a way to make single-source research economically scalable and sustainable. Singlesource — the tracking of both media and ad exposures plus purchases in the same sample over time — had been created but kept going out of business (Milwaukee Ad Lab, Adtel, ERIM, ScanAmerica, Apollo). TRA was the way to do it, using naturally occurring data at scale by connecting set-top box data and digital clickstream data to purchase data at the same-household level. This breakthrough quickly became widely copied and is today the major paradigm for the top digital companies. TiVo acquired TRA in 2012 and it is today called TiVo Research. Bill is its Strategic Advisor.

Research Measurement Technologies (RMT)

Research Measurement Technologies (RMT) is Bill’s current company. Co-founded with Bill McKenna and Lucas Tanner, RMT is a technology company like NCM. Where NCM was concerned with solving the problem of addressable commercials, RMT is focused on two inter-related problems:

RMT has exclusively licensed IP from NCM and also from Bill Harvey Consulting and is now serving major customers in both ROI and content, achieving positive cash flow in its first year.

So far the greatest excitement created by RMT is around DriverTags, the 265 metatags discovered by NCM and now exclusively licensed to RMT, which are the subconscious driving forces behind why a viewer selects this program rather than that one. Validated by set-top box data, Nielsen data, renewal vs. cancellation of series, and Hollywood creatives, DTags™ predict 76% of the variance in Nielsen ratings.

Bill’s vision is to use this technology to drive higher yield for content in a number of ways. And to provide a platform the industry can use to holistically maximize ROI on advertising in concert with all industry data and capabilities.

Awards

  • 2023: CYNOPSIS Measure Up! Hall of Fame Inductee
  • 2022: EMMY® Award in Science and Technology for his 1990s company, Next Century Media (NCM), for“Pioneering Development of Technologies to collect granular linear TV Viewership Data including STBs, ACR, Connected TVs for Measurement, Marketing & Advertising”
  • 2020: Sequent Partners Stars of Attribution Award for People and Ideas Reshaping Advertising Measurement
  • 2018: Media Research Council (MRC) Hall of Fame Inductee
  • 2014: Bill was the first recipient of the Advertising Research Foundation’s (ARF) Erwin Ephron Demystification Award
  • 2008: The ARF Great Mind Award celebrating his achievements

Albert Thompson

Managing Director of Digital

Bio

While carrying the “ethos” of a Marketing Technologist, Albert has always possessed a firm understanding of how technology has continued to transform the discipline of Marketing while disrupting today’s conventional consumer engagement models. Over that past 20+ years his communications experience ranges from African American, Hispanic, LGBT, Asian American, Arab American, Indian, Boomers, Millennials, Urban, GM to International.

His work involves Digital Marketing for Lexus, AMAZON, NYPD, Medline, State Fair, Spalding, HBO, MCD, LA Sparks, Game Show Network, Verizon Wireless, Unilever, Ford Division, Lincoln Mercury, Burger King, Colgate, HSBC, Time Warner Cable, Home Depot, AstraZeneca, US Marines, Pfizer, Novartis, Merck, and Hyatt Resorts.

He is currently the Managing Director, Digital Innovation at Walton Isaacson. Previously he served as the Director, Interactive Services for UniWorld Group and Director of New Media and Technology at Prime Access where he introduced the Digital capabilities for both multicultural agencies.

Albert has participated in numerous speaking engagements for Meltwater Social, MediaPost, Digiday, ThinkLA, AdAge, PUBMATIC, CYNOPSIS, Adweek, VAB and the ANA. This type of industry prowess resulted in him being named one of ADWEEK’s 2022 Media Allstars. Albert is also the host of The Transient Identiti podcast which chronicles the Voice of the Consumer.

 

 

Paul Furia

Head of Content and Creative Packaging

Matt Spiegel

EVP of TruAudience Growth Strategy

Bio

At TransUnion, Matt is responsible for guiding the growth strategy of the company’s suite of marketing products known as TruAudience. Partnering with product and market leadership, Matt serves as a connector and bridge that ensures there is synergy between TranUnions clients’ needs and the products developed. Matt’s previous leadership of TransUnion’s Marketing Solutions product organization and its Media & Entertainment business, combined with his decades of experience developing and guiding businesses at the intersection of marketing and media with technology and data, make Matt a natural fit for his current role. Matt’s career journey as an entrepreneur, agency executive, marketing technology executive, and strategic consultant, provide him with a depth of expertise that is critical for being a business builder and change agent.

Matt joined TransUnion in 2018 from MediaLink, where as SVP he led various Fortune 100 client relationships and developed their Data and Technology Practice. Earlier in his career, Matt founded Resolution Media, Omnicom’s search marketing agency and as Omnicom Media Group’s global digital CEO, Matt led the launch of Omnicom’s programmatic buying capabilities.

In addition to his work at TransUnion, Matt advises/mentors start-ups and young entrepreneurs, is a board member of The KWOE Foundation, and was a Crain’s Chicago Business 40 under 40 honoree. Matt, his wife Marnie and two children, Leo and Penny, live in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood

Darren Sherriff

SVP, Advanced TV Solutions

Bio

A digital expert and industry thought leader with almost 20 years of product and software development experience, Darren Sherriff serves as Senior Vice President of Advanced Ad Solutions within Fox Corporation’s Revenue Management & Strategy team, focusing on developing innovative solutions to precision-target audiences across FOX content, no matter how consumed. In addition to his concentration in advanced TV and addressable advertising, Sherriff oversees linear and digital programmatic advertising operations at FOX. Before joining the corporation as Vice President of Advertising Technology Solutions in 2016, he held tenure at NBCUniversal for more than a decade, in addition to serving in previous roles at WebMD and numerous marketing and consulting companies. He began his career as a software developer and project manager, where he honed his expertise in technology and helped launch countless enterprise-class web applications. Sherriff graduated from Champlain College with a degree in computer science.

Rick Ducey

Managing Director

Bio

Rick leads BIA’s strategy consulting practice and serves as an advisor to an affiliated investment banking group BIA Capital Strategies. Rick works with media, agencies, and adtech clients to see and evaluate opportunities and strategies in the market to achieve business goals.

Rick helps client with strategic planning, developing partnership strategies, product planning, and achieving revenue growth and diversification. He helps marketers including brands and agencies with effective planning and use of digital media platforms. He also works on investment banking projects assisting buy-side and sell-side clients

Rick co-cofounded SpectraRep in 2000, a technology company that specializes in emergency alert and warning solutions. Prior to joining BIA/Kelsey, Rick headed the National Association of Broadcaster’s Research and Information Group overseeing all research and information technology initiatives. Rick is an adjunct professor at George Washington University where he teaches classes in digital media entrepreneurship.

Rick earned his Ph.D. from Michigan State University, his M.S. from Syracuse University and his B.A. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Peter Jones

Head of Sales

Alexandra Sobrino

Director of Addressable Sales

Bio

As Director of Addressable Sales, Alex guides Disney’s sales team to achieve strategic goals in driving streaming and digital growth across the addressable marketplace. With a background in both sales and strategy across major publishers, Alex is an avid learner of the industry with a passion for innovation, collaboration, and education. Born and raised in the Washington D.C. metro area, Alex’s excitement for the industry sparked with a high-school internship at the National Geographic Society. Alex is a graduate of Villanova University with a degree in Communications and currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.

Jim Turner

VP of Product Management, Streaming Platforms

Paul Kontonis

CMO

Bio

Paul Kontonis, the Chief Marketing Officer at Revry, a global LGBTQ+ streaming media company, brings over 25 years of experience to his role. Before joining Revry, he served as CMO at WHOSAY, a ViacomCBS company specializing in influencer marketing. Paul’s career includes leadership positions as CMO at Digiday, CDS (Studio71), Digitas, Edelman (Matter), and Kaplan. Leveraging his expertise in strategic marketing and brand-building, Paul has guided businesses toward achieving revenue and M&A goals. Recognized as a trusted advisor and industry leader, he combines diverse industry insights with proven strategies to drive growth. Paul excels at building high-performing, agile marketing teams. He is actively involved in the Independent Streaming Association, ANA CMO Growth Council, and serves as President of the Global Online Video Association and Chairman of the International Academy of Web Television. Paul holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Psychology from New York University.

Narendra Nag

CSO

Paul Erickson

Principal

Bio

Paul Erickson is a 20+ year veteran industry and competitive analyst covering the media & entertainment technology and consumer electronics sectors. He is Founder and Principal of Erickson Strategy & Insights, an industry analysis, strategy, and advisory consultancy.

Prior to founding the company, he was Research Director for Entertainment and CE at Parks Associates, and brings expansive experience and perspective from covering media & entertainment technology, services, and related consumer devices across Parks Associates, Omdia, IHS Markit (now S&P Global Market Intelligence), and NPD DisplaySearch (now Circana).

With more than 25 years of technology industry experience, his coverage and insight has spanned streaming video services and platforms, pay & broadcast TV, connected consumer ecosystems, content security, UI / UX, smart home, gaming, professional AV, and collaboration technologies.

He has regularly spoken at, moderated, and/or attended industry events, conferences, and tradeshows across the consumer, media & entertainment, and pro AV technology landscape, such as CES, IFA, MWC, IBC, NAB, Connected TV World Summit, MIPCOM, ISE, Infocomm, and NAMM. Paul is also a two-time AVIXA Emerging Trends Fellow honoree.

He has been quoted in a variety of news outlets and industry publications, including the Financial Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, BBC, Reuters, NPR, CNN, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, CBC News, BusinessWeek, Variety, Bloomberg, Wired, The Verge, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, PC World, CNET, Fierce Video, TWICE, CE Pro and Cable & Satellite International

Mike Bloxham

EVP of Global Media and Entertainment

Jonathan Barzilay

COO

Bio

Jonathan Barzilay is Chief Operating Officer of PBS, the nation’s largest non-commercial media organization. He is responsible for all operations and strategy across the company. A recognized leader in the media industry, Barzilay has over two decades of experience in senior roles at ABC, CBS, Qualcomm, and the Ford Foundation.

Barzilay joined PBS in 2015 from the Ford Foundation, where he served as Director, Freedom of Expression. He led the foundation’s global programs in Media, Journalism, and Arts and Culture, directing teams in the United States, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Previously, Barzilay served as Senior Vice President and Head of Content at Qualcomm’s mobile television service, FLO-TV, overseeing programming and production; advertising sales; and research and consumer insights.

Prior to that, Barzilay was Senior Vice President and General Manager, CBS Interactive Entertainment, leading all operations at CBS’s entertainment websites including CBS.com and StarTrek.com.

At The Walt Disney Company and ABC, Barzilay served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of ABC Kids and Toon Disney. Under his leadership, ABC Kids launched the award-winning, top-rated Disney’s One Saturday Morning programming block. As Toon Disney’s first General Manager, he built the network’s core team; launched new programming blocks; and developed a brand identity for the channel.

Barzilay began his career as an attorney, first in private practice and later as a member of ABC’s legal department. He is a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia Law School.

David Bianculli

TV Critic, “Fresh Air With Terry Gross”

Rick Howe

The iTV Doctor

Bio

Rick Howe is a veteran television executive with over 50 years of experience at Time Warner Cable, Showtime Networks and dozens of programming, technology, martech and adtech clients.  He currently publishes and hosts a number of TV Industry video podcasts, including “The Friday Fireside,”  “Inside Television,”  “The Editor’s Desk,” and the Talk Back Group:  “Talk Back to Television,” “Talk Back for Change” and  “Talk Back LIVE!”  His distributor partners include itvt.com’s Televisionation,  USA Today, TheDesk.net and Microsoft Start, plus YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram and Tiktok. “The Friday Fireside” is The #1 Television Industry Video Podcast. The Talk Back Group of shows can be seen on FireTV, Prime Video, Local Now, Philo, Plex, Roku Channel, Samsung TV Plus, Sling, Tivo, Vizio, Xfinity Flex, Xfinity X1, Xumo and YouTube.

Hassan Babajane

Chief Revenue Officer

Jason Cohen

CEO

Bio

Prior to starting MyBundle, the premier online platform connecting consumers, streaming services and broadband providers with tools to simplify streaming television, Jason was a Portfolio Manager at Buckingham Capital Management, where he researched and invested in the Media/Telecom Sector with a special focus on how streaming TV was disrupting the traditional ecosystem.
Jason believed consumers would benefit from the increasing choice afforded by streaming, however with all that choice came fragmentation and new challenges for the underlying business. Jason started MyBundle to be the aggregator the marketplace needed to help simplify streaming for consumers, streaming services and broadband providers alike.
Jason graduated with a Bachelor’s of Arts degree from the Macaulay Honors College at The City University of New York and lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with his wife and two children.

Bio

Chris Pfaff is a leading new media and technology producer and strategist. He is renowned for his knowledge and guidance in integrating leading-edge technology into the media and entertainment community. He was the first to use IRC for an interactive corporate webcast; produced one of the first promotional DVDs, in March, 1997; produced the first HD animated logo; produced numerous multipoint broadband events in the late-1990s. In 2002-2003, he produced some of the first mobile short films, and produced the first Twitter Wall in 2011. Chris was one of the founders of the Producers Guild of America (PGA) New Media Council East, and served as chairman of the group from 2007-2013. He served as the vice chairman of the national PGA New Media Council from 2011-2013, for which he served as a delegate from 2006-2013, and also served as a delegate on the PGA Board of Directors from 2008-2013. Prior to launching Chris Pfaff Tech/Media, Chris was Marketing Director with the early-stage ventures GeoVideo Networks and MobileQ. Previously, he was a member of both the Lucent Technologies and AT&T in-house advertising/public relations teams. At Lucent, Chris helped launch more than 16 ventures with the Lucent New Ventures Group and Bell Labs, including Lucent Digital Radio (now iBiquity Digital), SyChip (sold to Murata), e-Ink, Flarion (sold to Qualcomm), and savaJe (sold to Sun Microsystems), among many others. While at AT&T Corp., he helped launch AT&T WorldNet Service and the AT&T NetWare Connect Service, and also helped launch the AT&T Personal Online Services division. Prior to this, while working with New York-based PR firms, he represented Sony Electronics, Viacom New Media, Sharp Electronics, and Kyocera, among others. He began his career in the music industry, representing clients including Yamaha Corporation and Hal Leonard Publishing, and working with a wide range of musical artists and producers, including such notable figures as Walter Becker, Chick Corea, Wynton Marsalis, and Phil Ramone. Chris earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Radio / TV / Film from the School of Communication at Northwestern University.

Andrew Bradford

Global Product Lead, Cross Media Campaign Measurement

Erica Barnes

Director of Strategic Audience Sales and Partnerships

Sable Mi

Analytics Strategist

Bio

Simon Applebaum is the producer-host of Tomorrow Will Be Televised, the long-running audio program/podcast covering TV’s current and future, now in its 18th year. The program simulcasts live several times a week on TalkShoe–a media platform reaching millions of listeners worldwide each month–and Facebook. Tomorrow also plays on more than 40 podcast platforms, including Amazon Music, Audible, Audacy, IHeart Radio, iTunes, Spotify and YouTube Music. Applebaum, a journalist and commentator on the TV scene, also writes columns for MediaVillage, the media leadership Web site (mediavillage.org), and appears weekly on Sports NewsWire, the weekday morning news/information hour on SportsGrid Network, distributed through smart TV sets/devices, Amazon Freevee, Free Live Sports, Local Now and other multichannel bundles.

Cary Tilds

GM of Local

Bio

Cary Tilds is the General Manager, Local at MNTN, leading the development and implementation of a comprehensive growth strategy and operational plan for local advertising. She began her career in the local merchant marketing space where she ultimately became an early search marketing expert. She applied her deep expertise to launch the search practice for PHD/Omnicom. Team Detroit (GTB) recruited Cary to lead Digital Media Operations for the newly formed agency for Ford Motor Company. She then rose to lead Digital Media for Mindshare North America and served as Chief Innovation Officer at GroupM where she led digital innovation across the agencies and clients including Unilever, Kimberly-Clark, Target, American Express, Burger King and Royal Caribbean. She then served FordDirect as head of Corporate Strategy and then leaned into leading a Pre-Post Series A intrinsic in-game advertising startup Frameplay. She is equal parts internal strategist and operator as well as external award winning market leader.

 

Brian Lin

SVP of Product Management, Advertising

Bio

Brian Lin is Senior Vice President of Product Management at TelevisaUnivision, the world’s leading Spanish-language media and content company. In this role, Lin leads product management for TelevisaUnivision’s advertising sales organization, driving strategy and productization of new capabilities across the advanced advertising ecosystem. Lin leads a team focused on building or partnering to enable capabilities across DDL, Addressable, New Interactive Ad formats, and commerce.

An industry veteran, Lin has over a decade of experience leading product innovation for companies like VideoAmp, Viacom, OpenAPCablevision, and MadHive, where he served as Chief Product Officer. At Madhive, Lin drove product and strategy for the company’s SaaS-based suite of customizable solutions, which includes tools for everything from audience forecasting and targeting to supply management and cross-platform attribution against its proprietary OTT-first device graph.

From April 2019 to April 2020, Lin was SVP of Product & Strategy at VideoAmp, overseeing the productization and development of the company’s cross-platform measurement and planning products.

Prior to VideoAmp, Lin served as VP of Product Management & Data Partnerships, working on advancing the future of television monetization, both within Viacom and across the premium video industry, and was instrumental in productizing and licensing Viacom Vantage’s core data algorithms for advanced advertising. Additionally, he led the co-development and deployment of OpenAP, TV’s largest advanced advertising platform, with partners at Fox and Warner Media.

Lin started his career working at the forefront of advanced advertising at Cablevision, where he focused on product strategy for the company’s Addressable TV, Dynamic Ad Insertion, and Cross-platform advertising products.

Lin graduated in 2008

Andre Swanston

Chairman and CEO

Bio

André Swanston is a tech innovator and media magnate known for his ability to forecast industry shifts and take calculated risks. He co-founded adtech startup Tru Optik, which was acquired by TransUnion in 2020, marking one of the most successful exits in the space over the past decade. After spending two years at Transunion as a Senior Vice President building out the company’s media & entertainment vertical, André and his wife Michelle founded the Swanston Organization, a family office focused on inclusive venture investing, owned and operated technology and entertainment companies, and philanthropy. Most recently, André acquired a Major League Soccer NEXT Pro expansion team, Connecticut United FC, becoming the first Black principal owner in the league. André is a notable media figure, regularly contributing to Bloomberg, Forbes, WSJ, TechCrunch, and more.

Alan Wolk

Lead Analyst

Bio

“If you know anything about television, you probably know Alan Wolk.” That’s how Adweek introduces Alan Wolk, the co-founder of TVREV, a leading media analyst firm, and the best-selling author of “Over The Top. How The Internet Is (Slowly But Surely) Changing The Television Industry.”

Wolk has established himself as one of the industry’s most influential thought leaders, especially noted for his deep understanding of the intersection of streaming and advertising. As the creator of the acronym FAST (free ad-supported streaming TV), he has been instrumental in guiding TVREV to become a pivotal resource in the media industry, navigating the transformative shift to streaming.

His prowess extends to his widely acclaimed reports that have significantly impacted the industry. TVREV’s works on Local TV, the FAST ecosystem, and ACR data are particularly notable, offering incisive analyses and forward-thinking insights. These reports have not only shaped industry discussions but also provided clear, actionable intelligence for media professionals.

What sets Wolk apart is his unique ability to demystify complex ideas in a manner that’s easily understandable yet never oversimplified. This talent makes him a sought-after writer, speaker, and consultant, striking a rare balance between depth and accessibility in his communications.

As a contributing writer to Forbes, NextTV, StreamTV Insider, and other industry news sites, Wolk has been a voice of authority, interviewed and quoted by everyone from NPR to The New York Times. He is a regular guest on Cheddar TV, offering expert opinions on breaking stories in the media industry.

He regularly speaks about the future of television, both at conferences and to anyone who’ll listen.

Jennifer Stamm

Head of Marketing and Business Development

Bio

Jennifer Stamm leads marketing and business development for Haystack News, where she has grown the platform to be the number one way to stream TV news. Previously, Jennifer held roles with leading media brands such as the BBC, AMC Networks, Starz, and Lionsgate Entertainment. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Lebanon Valley College, a Master of Science in Technical Communications from Colorado State University, and an International MBA from the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver. She is based in New York City.

Michele Fino

Chief Storyteller

Bio

Former head of Branded Entertainment & Multicultural at Crackle. Helping brands & production companies & non profits get their content made, seen & tied to social purpose.

Dallas Lawrence

Chief Strategy & Communications Officer

Rob Jayson

EVP of Insights and Analytics

Bio

Rob leads USIM’s strategic insights, optimization, and reporting activities, helping agency and client teams achieve their brand goals. He has created a new architecture of strategic decision-making, underpinned by data, and using agency assets in programmatic and addressable advertising combined with third-party custom data and media analytics. 

To enhance these insights, Rob has designed new AI-based optimization tools to lead location/trading zone investment strategies via traditional, programmatic, addressable, and automated buying channels. In addition, he has developed a customized but fully flexible client-reporting platform that enables immediate cross-channel analytics and optimization.

Rob joined USIM following his role as Global Lead, Branded Apps at Publicis Media, where he developed proprietary insights and optimization tools across multiple business units. An industry thought leader, he has presented at SXSW and ARF on topics related to consumer experience and owned/paid media.

Rob has more than 20 years of experience in marketing analytics, audience sciences, media strategy, media buying, and research. He has created unique, data-driven insights, tools, and strategies for clients such as Verizon, 20th Century FOX, FX Networks, Disney, Toyota (Scion), Nestle, JP Morgan Chase, Hewlett-Packard, FOX, General Mills, and Sonic Drive-In.

Tinashe Chaponda

CEO

Bio

Reputed as the “Mayor of Influencer Marketing,” Tinashe’s number one goal is to bring together like-minded parties from (talent, brands, distributions, and media buyers) to develop groundbreaking campaigns that reach and convert audiences.

As the CEO & Founder of Sosani Studios, and Sosani Consulting Group, he is on a mission to revolutionize the world of influencer marketing. With a background as a former influencer and a deep passion for empowering brands and creators, Tinashe has built Sosani Studios into a powerhouse agency.

At Sosani Studios, Tinashe and his team have developed their own groundbreaking model called “PIIC” – Passion-Integrated Influencer Campaigns. This innovative approach is reshaping how brand marketers collaborate with influencers, ensuring authentic and impactful connections.

Tinashe is an expert in on Gen Z, Gen Alpha and multicultural campaigns within the Hispanic, Black, LGBTQ+, and immigration causes.

Their track record speaks for itself. Through Sosani Studios, Tinashe and his team have successfully executed brand series and campaigns for renowned names such as Lexus, P&G, Cash App, Amazon, Unilever, TED, Warner Brothers, and 200+ brands. They have collaborated with the likes of Khaby Lame, Dwayne the Rock Johnson, David Beckham, Alicia Keys, Justin Schmidt, Brandon Roberts, and many more. Each project has left an indelible mark, delivering exceptional results and building meaningful connections with audiences.

In recognition of their contributions, Tinashe was honored to be named one of Ad Age’s “The List – Generation Next 2022.” He and Sosani have been featured in Business Insider, Ad Age, Brand Innovators, American Marketing Association and many more. This accolade further fuels his drive to empower brands and creators, fostering connections and communities through his work as a brand marketer and entrepreneur.

Helen Katz

EVP of Research

Bio

In her current role, Helen Katz leads the global research unit within Publicis Media’s data sciences practice. She is a trusted industry expert on research, with a particular focus on data quality and reliable measurement. Her interest in innovation inspired her to play an instrumental role in developing best practices in the measurement of addressable TV and advanced video campaigns in the U.S. A 19-year Publicis Groupe veteran, Katz has served in various strategic research capacities for Publicis Media, Starcom, Zenith and GM Planworks – the holding company’s former division devoted to the General Motors business. In 2009, she was integral to the Publicis Groupe team that launched The Pool – a unique research consortium that aimed to identify the next new ad formats across various channels such as online video, mobile/tablets and more. Prior to joining Publicis Groupe, she was Vice President, Media Research Manager at DDB Needham.  She began her career as an advertising professor at Michigan State University, and is currently an adjunct professor at DePaul University. She has published numerous articles in industry and academic journals, as well as three textbooks on advertising and media, the most recent of which is The Media Handbook (7th edition, 2019). She is the ex-officio Chair of the Executive Committee of the Media Rating Council, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Advertising Research Foundation. Katz is also the recipient of the Advertising Research Foundation’s “Great Minds” award for research innovation, Jay Chiat’s Strategic Excellence Silver Award for innovation, and Stars of Attribution leadership award. Katz has a master’s degree in advertising and a Ph.D. in communications from the University of Illinois, and was an undergraduate English major at the University of London.

Howard Shimmel

Head of Strategy

Bio

Howard Shimmel is a television research and insights veteran with over 30 years of change-making thought leadership under his belt. As the President of Janus Strategy & Insights, he is transforming how companies around the world strategize and position their television marketing offerings, from linear methods to addressable and connected TV. Howard also serves as a Board Member and Head of Strategy for datafuelX, an advanced analytics firm focused on developing best in class decision science models to fuel the next generation of media capabilities, specifically focused on forecasting and optimization.

From attribution to advertising, data to ROI, Howard is carving the path to address the changing trends in the audience landscape, as well as shape emerging platforms and industry innovations. He leverages this knowledge to lead organizations through strategy, planning, buying, measurement, and stewardship.

Beyond his role at Janus, Howard is co-founder of datafuelX, an advanced analytics firm focused on developing best in class decision science models to fuel the next generation of media capabilities.

Howard also serves as an advisor and investor in many emerging new age research companies, including Hyphametrics, Adelaide, WeAre8, and Humantel.

Prior to starting this company, Howard was Chief Research Officer Turner, where he oversaw all multi-screen entertainment, news, kids and sports research, as well as corporate analysis and insight-led efforts.

Shimmel played a critical role in driving the company’s efforts around the consumer journey and insights to better capture measurement for both Turner and its partners. In 2016, in partnership with Turner Ad Sales’ Turner Ignite team, Shimmel oversaw the launch of Turner Ad Lab, an initiative whose goal was to make recommendations about linear and digital video ad experience in light of the changing TV landscape.

Prior to be promoted to his role in 2014, Shimmel was senior vice president of ad sales and sports research for Turner, where he oversaw television and digital research analysis and strategy support for the company’s news, entertainment, animation, young adults & kids and sports advertising sales units. He joined Turner from Nielsen Media & Advertising Analytics where he served as executive vice president responsible for building out an advanced analytic business focused on issues like cross-platform analytics, advanced media targeting, promotion effectiveness and ROI measurement, for media companies, agencies and advertisers. Shimmel’s industry-rich experience includes other leadership roles at The Nielsen Company, America Online, WBIS and MTV Networks. He also served as president of Symmetric Resources, Inc. Over the span of his career, Shimmel has developed research expertise related to technology adoption, methodology and advertising’s impact on sales.

 

Fred Godfrey

CEO

Bio

Fred is CEO and co-founder of Origin; an award winning creative technology company which builds unique ad formats and dynamic creatives for brands who want to build stronger connections with audiences on Connected TV.

Prior to Origin, Fred was at E.W.Scripps where he helped navigate Newsy’s pivot to CTV, and before that he was at Tremor Video (now Magnite) where he was part of a 4 person team that brought their SSP to market.

The combination of a Masters Degree in Moral Philosophy, dyslexia and late onset ADHD affords Fred an unconventional view of how we think and over his career has allowed him to solve problems and spot gaps in the market that others don’t see.

Colin Dixon

Founder & Chief Analyst

Chris Pizzurro

CEO

Bio

Chris is responsible for strategic direction and day-to-day operations at Leap Media Group LLC’s media division. Leap is an independent Television Producer, Distributor, and Advertising services company. Chris has over 35 years of experience in media strategy, marketing, and implementation, with a focus on traditional TV and digital media advertising. Prior to Leap, he spent 12 years at Canoe Ventures, an advertising technology services company, where he was most recently SVP, Global Sales & Marketing. As part of the Canoe team, he is an Emmy® Award recipient and is named on five patents. Before Canoe, Pizzurro spent 13 years at Turner Broadcasting advertising sales. Chris has also received an Emmy® nomination, a Webby® Award nomination, as well as being a CableFAX Innovation Award recipient, an iTVt Leadership Award beneficiary, and a TVOT All-Star Award winner.
Follow on LinkedIN @chris pizzurro

Dave Morgan

CEO

Bio

Dave Morgan is the CEO and founder of Simulmedia, a New York-based company whose patented TV+® platform for cross-channel TV advertising guarantees marketers full audience reach, measurement and results across the dynamic linear and connected TV ecosystem in the U.S. The company also enables brands to connect with elusive younger audiences via PlayerWON™, the only in-game video advertising platform for free-to-play PC and console titles.

He previously founded and ran both TACODA, Inc., an online advertising company that pioneered behavioral online marketing and was acquired by AOL in 2007 for $275 million, and Real Media, Inc., one of the world’s first ad serving and online ad network companies and a predecessor to 24/7 Real Media (TFSM), which was later sold to WPP for $649 million. After the sale of TACODA, Dave served as Executive Vice President, Global Advertising Strategy, at AOL, a Time Warner Company (TWX).

A lawyer by training, Dave served as General Counsel and Director of New Media Ventures at the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association in the early 1990’s. Mr. Morgan is a Political Science graduate of The Pennsylvania State University and holds a J.D. from the Dickinson School of Law.

 

Julian Zilberbrand

CEO

Ben Vandegrift

VP, Measurement Solutions & Innovations

Clayton Banks

CEO

Bio

Clayton Banks is the CEO of Silicon Harlem whose goal is to combine technology and innovation with affordable connectivity that can enable a sustainable economic engine in emerging communities across the United States. Under his leadership, Silicon Harlem has attracted over $75 million dollars into upper Manhattan for advanced infrastructure research and test bedding. Mr. Banks has positioned Upper Manhattan as a tech and innovation hub that is one of the fastest growing areas for tech startups, entrepreneurs, and companies. Mr. Banks has been able to galvanize the public sector, the private sector, universities, and community stakeholders to embrace tech as a sustainable economic engine for Upper Manhattan. Banks has established critical programs based on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in public schools and several non-profits in Upper Manhattan to prepare citizens for 21st century jobs and careers. These programs have become gateway opportunities for many students to pursue further education.

Known as a pragmatic visionary, Banks has developed and deployed leading edge technology and applications for broadband, network cloud, gaming consoles, social media, health,augmented and virtual reality, interactive TV, tablets, mobile apps and over 400 interactive properties.

Banks worked with former President of the United States Bill Clinton to publish a first-of-its-kind interactive college guide series called “The Key”, that targets underserved communities and features Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic Serving Institutions.

Mr. Banks is a seasoned and recognized leader in the cable industry, having made significant contributions at Showtime Network, the groundbreaking Sega Channel, and Comedy Central, where he played a pivotal role in shaping some of the industry’s most influential content. His visionary leadership extended beyond his corporate roles, serving as the President of the National Association for Multi-ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC) for four years, where he championed diversity and inclusion across the industry. At every position, Mr. Banks has left an indelible mark through innovation and impact.

He has been recognized with many awards and honors including being selected as one of New York Cities “Tech Power 50” leaders in the technology industry. Banks has been inducted into the US Library of Congress, has received proclamations from the Public Advocate, Manhattan President’s office, Brooklyn’s President Office, and Advocate of the Year from Society for Africans in Diaspora. Universities: California State University Fullerton, Harvard Business School

Tracy Swedlow

CEO, Editor-in-Chief

Bio

Tracy Swedlow is the CEO, publisher, and editor-in-chief of InteractiveTV Today (ITVT), which she founded in 1998, and is also the executive producer and director of the TV of Tomorrow Show (TVOT) conferences.

Her writing has appeared in many leading newspapers and trade publications, including the New York Times, the San Francisco ExaminerPC WorldMultimedia World and VR World. Topics she has covered in the past include virtual reality, email communities, privacy and technology, online gravesite memorials, and, of course, interactive television.

Prior to founding ITVT, she was chief evangelist at eGroups.com (now Yahoo! Groups); new media editor at PC World; a producer and director for Telemorphix, a pioneering interactive TV company, and a video producer at Steve Michelson Productions in San Francisco.

A regular presenter at ITV industry conferences and panels, and a frequent guest on television and radio shows, she actively communicates her understanding of the history of interactive TV; its current trends, technologies, content innovations and applications; the complexities of executive leadership and industrial dynamics; and where she thinks the medium and the ITV industry will and must go in the future to audiences around the world. She has served as the founding chairperson and judge of the “Television” and the “Broadband” categories respectively for The Webby Awards since its inception and regularly produce editorial events and awards programs benefiting the ITV industry (e.g. The annual TV of Tomorrow Show).

Other experiences include voiceovers on many feature films while at Sound One in New York City (e.g. “Hannah and Her Sisters” and “9 1/2 Weeks”); participation in the Director/Playwright Workshop at Playwright’s Horizons in New York City with founder, Bob Moss; participation on various experimental technology multimedia theater showcases directed by the visionary George Coates in San Francisco; conceiving, producing, directing the first 3 fashion shows (as interactive theater) on the Black Rock Desert in the early years of the Burning Man project, and directing an episode of the Twlight Zone called “The Obsolete Man” at the Dark Room in San Francisco. In August 2005, she created and directed a politically-charged multimedia “blogtheater” (my word) piece that focused on post-election America called “Fuck That!: The Political Science Show.” In her non-spare time, she produces and edits the occasional book such as “Desert to Dream” (a photography book) and “Train of Thought” (a children’s book), trains as a traditional boxer, and paints http://tracyswedlow.work. She also recently published her first collection of poems in “No Visiting ‘Till My Show Is Over” published on Amazon. She is also a mother to a wonderful little girl named Hannah and wife to Richard Washbourne, the co-owner and co-producer of ITVT/TVOT.

Her education includes a Ph.D fellowship in directing at the University of California, Berkeley; a Masters degree in Dramatic Criticism from Northwestern University; a certificate in French and French Literature from the Université de Cannes; a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theater History from Tulane University; studies in Drama at the Royal Holloway College at the University of London; as well as a high school degree from Culver Military Academy in Indiana.

Originally from Columbus, Ohio, she witnessed the birth of QUBE, the first commercially deployed interactive television platform, and CompuServe, the first commercial online service. She is also the proud creator of an artcar.

Jon Giegengack

Principal

Bio

Jon Giegengack is the founder and principal at Hub Entertainment Research. He launched Hub in 2013, as the convergence of technology and entertainment began to gain speed. Jon recognized the need for real-time insight about the changing world of digital entertainment: from how people discover new content, to how they consume it, to how they pay for it (if they pay at all).

Jon works with leading entertainment brands including ABC, Comcast, Netflix, Sony, AMC and AT&T. Jon has more than 20 years of experience in research for the entertainment industry. He is a regular speaker at industry events organized by Streaming Media, NYC TV Week, TVOT, SubSummit, the Advertising Research Foundation, to name a few; and has been quoted in publications like Variety, TheWrap, Forbes, Bloomberg, and more. For the latest insights, subscribe at hubintel.substack.com.

Giles Tongue

VP of Marketing

Bio

Giles is responsible for the marketing of the Digital Vending Machine® at Bango. This includes the marketing strategy and execution across all aspects of the marketing mix.

Giles has 20 years’ experience as a marketer and business leader, working for many years in various marketing roles including at Unilever. Giles also ran an AI startup, built a wearable tech business from the ground up, and helped a consumer electronics company become one of the fastest growing privately held tech companies in the UK for 3 years running. He’s also a dad, which sharpens his focus somewhat.

TMRW Corp.

Tracy Swedlow & Richard Washbourne

Tracy Swedlow and Richard Washbourne own TMRW Corp., the parent corporation, which produces the InteractiveTV Today (ITVT) Web site and The TV of Tomorrow Show (TVOT) executive conferences. We are headquartered in San Francisco, California.

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