Allison Romano is Vice President of Xbox Digital Marketing and Media at Microsoft, based in New York. With over 15 years leading high-impact marketing and product teams across Microsoft, Google, American Express, and CLEAR, she has shaped how some of the world's biggest brands reach digital audiences. At Xbox, she oversees digital marketing and media strategy for one of the most recognized gaming brands on the planet, blending B2B and B2C expertise to drive growth at scale.
AJ Herrera is the VP of Corporate Marketing at Cloudflare, where he leads the brand narrative that recast a CDN company into the world's connectivity cloud. With over 30 years in high-tech marketing spanning Silicon Graphics, a decade running his own agency, and seven years shaping VMware's global brand, he brings both the craftsman's instinct and the operator's eye to one of the internet's most consequential infrastructure companies.
Amanda Richman is VP of Global Media Sales at Microsoft Advertising, leading a 700+ person omnichannel sales team from New York. A 30-year veteran of media and advertising, she has run agencies including Wavemaker US and Mindshare North America, winning Adweek's U.S. Media Agency of the Year at Wavemaker in 2020. She joined Microsoft in March 2024 to help brands navigate the convergence of generative AI, search, and connected TV advertising.
Gavin King is VP of Portfolio Marketing at ServiceNow, where he connects the platform's sprawling product launches, AI vision, and strategic narrative into one coherent story. After 25 years at Microsoft - including a stint as Chief of Staff to CEO Satya Nadella - he brings a rare combination of brand-scaling experience, executive proximity, and B2B marketing depth to one of enterprise tech's most ambitious growth stories.
Jonathan Johnsongriffin is VP of Global Brand & Creative at Google, where he leads the Global Brand Studio's creative strategy. A veteran of Nike's most iconic campaigns - including 'You Can't Stop Us' and 'Just Do It Crazy Dreams' - he spent nearly five years shaping Nike's global brand narrative before joining Google in January 2023. Co-founder of the Serena Williams Design Crew program, jury member at Cannes Lions 2023 and 2024, and board trustee at Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Johnsongriffin blends industrial design roots with cultural storytelling at the intersection of sport, technology, and purpose.
Laura McCullough is VP of Brand Strategy & Creative at ServiceNow, the $13B enterprise AI platform company. She leads the creative vision behind one of B2B tech's most distinctive brand identities, including the blockbuster campaign featuring Idris Elba as a ServiceNow brand ambassador. Before ServiceNow, she spent nearly two decades at Ogilvy, rising from junior account work to Senior Partner managing global accounts for Cisco, IBM, and CDW.
Marvin Chow is Vice President of Consumer and AI Marketing at Google, where he leads marketing for flagship products including Search, Maps, Shopping, Google Assistant, Photos, and Google AI. A 16-year Google veteran, he has become the company's de facto 'AI General,' orchestrating the Gemini marketing rollout including a high-profile Super Bowl LX campaign. Before Google, he led Nike's marketing across Greater China, Japan, and Korea, collaborated with Steve Jobs on Nike+, and helped launch Dora the Explorer at Nickelodeon. He grew up working in his family's 7-Eleven store in New Jersey, the child of Taiwanese immigrants.
Nicholas Kontopoulos is the Vice President of Marketing for Asia Pacific & Japan at Twilio, the cloud communications platform. Based in Singapore, he brings over 30 years of marketing and business leadership experience across APAC, with prior senior roles at Adobe (DX), SAP, Magento, and Capita. A recognized thought leader in customer experience and AI-driven marketing, he is a frequent speaker, published author, and LinkedIn Power Profile holder known for challenging marketing orthodoxy across the region.
Rahul Sharma is Vice President of Marketing at Microsoft, based in New Delhi, India. He leads marketing strategy and execution for one of the world's most valuable technology companies in one of its fastest-growing markets. Operating at the intersection of enterprise software, AI, and cloud computing, Sharma drives Microsoft's brand and commercial marketing efforts across India - a country Microsoft has identified as central to its global AI and cloud expansion strategy.
Stacy Martinet is Adobe's Chief Communications Officer and VP of Marketing Strategy & Communications, overseeing a 200+ person team that handles all stakeholder communications, marketing strategy, events, social media, and corporate social responsibility. A former CMO of Mashable and decade-long veteran of The New York Times digital transition, she bridges the worlds of journalism, media strategy, and enterprise technology with a distinctive voice on AI fluency, creative leadership, and modern brand building.
Eric Hunter is the Chief Executive Officer and Board Member of World Market (Cost Plus World Market), the specialty retail chain known for globally sourced furniture, home decor, artisanal foods, and international gifts. Based in Alameda, California, Hunter joined World Market in May 2021 as Chief Commercial Officer, was elevated to President in June 2022, and became CEO in July 2023. He brings deep retail marketing expertise from executive roles at Pier 1 Imports, JCPenney, Kellwood Company, and Ascena Retail Group's plus-size division (Lane Bryant, Cacique, Catherines). Under his leadership, World Market has pursued digital transformation, flexible payment solutions, and continued its mission of delivering unique, globally inspired products across nearly 250 stores and online.
Terrence Morash is VP, Head of Marketing (Brand and Creative) at Slice, the New York-based technology platform powering independent pizzerias across the United States. A veteran creative and marketing leader with deep roots in digital advertising, he has shaped Slice's transformation from a consumer pizza-ordering app into a full-service B2B partner for local pizza shops - building brand campaigns, a loyalty program, a POS system launch, and the 'Slice of the Union' thought leadership series. Before Slice, Morash led creative at Shutterstock, where his trend-forecasting work reached global audiences, and held senior creative roles at Rosetta, Again Interactive, and Zeta Interactive.
Byron Hoffman is the Co-CEO and Chief Creative Officer of Offset, a Napa Valley-based company that is simultaneously a premium wine ecommerce platform and a brand design studio. Born and raised in Napa to a family steeped in food and wine culture - his grandfather was a winemaker at Christian Brothers and his grandmother Sally Schmitt was the original founder of The French Laundry - Byron brings both heritage and craft to his work. He co-founded Offset by merging his design studio Hoffman & Co. with Tyson Caly's 750 Group in 2015, having first collaborated on Last Bottle wine in 2011. Today, Offset serves legendary wineries like Frog's Leap, Grace Family Vineyards, Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, Kosta Browne, and Realm Cellars. Beyond wine, Byron spent ten years producing and designing his grandmother's memoir and cookbook 'Six California Kitchens,' which won the 2023 IACP Award for Best American Cookbook and generated coverage in The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Wall Street Journal.
Stacey Paynter is the founder and CEO of Strategic Connections, LLC, a San Francisco Bay Area strategic planning and brand consultancy she launched in 2004 after a career spanning some of the largest names in global advertising. As former CEO of Publicis Dialog's San Francisco office and COO of EvansGroup, she co-authored the 'Holistic Communications' framework later adopted worldwide by Publicis Groupe. Today she advises C-suite executives on brand strategy, customer acquisition, and operational transformation — and serves on the board of the OSET Institute as a Brand, PR & Media Advisor.
Chang Li is the Marketing Partner at Greylock Partners, the storied Silicon Valley venture firm behind LinkedIn, Airbnb, and Workday. An electrical engineer turned marketing strategist, she has spent her career translating deeply technical products into market-defining narratives. Before Greylock, she helped HashiCorp manage pricing and monetization across a $500M+ ARR portfolio, then led product marketing at Metronome where she helped define usage-based billing as an emerging software category. Now she brings that zero-to-one positioning expertise to Greylock's founders at the exact moment it matters most.
Ryan Scott is an Operating Partner at Khosla Ventures, where he helps portfolio companies build durable, compounding growth. He made his name as Etsy's first-ever CMO and Head of International - scaling GMV from $3B to $14B, tripling active users, and expanding the brand to 220 countries while earning AdAge Brand of the Year in 2020. Before Etsy, he drove Grubhub Seamless from $100M to $6B in GMV and through its IPO. A Forbes Entrepreneurial CMO 50 honoree with seats on Google's Retail Advisory Council and Meta's Leadership Council, Scott brings two decades of consumer marketing, e-commerce, and business leadership to the deepest end of deep tech.
Humza Rahat Siddiqui is a UK-based content development and marketing specialist currently working as Ticketing & Support at Virgin Atlantic's Heathrow Airport operations. With a cross-industry career spanning digital marketing, aviation, supply chain, and corporate communications, he has driven social media growth to over 200,000 Facebook followers, collaborated with aviation executives to build a new airline training academy in Pakistan, and contributed content for high-profile events including Pakistan Fashion Week and Unilever product launches. His academic background combines a BSc in International Business from Coventry University with an MSc in Supply Chain from the University of South Wales.
Kyle Lacy is a seasoned B2B SaaS CMO, author, and podcaster based in Indianapolis, Indiana. Best known for scaling Lessonly's marketing team from 8 to 70+ people and delivering 20x revenue growth before its $170M+ acquisition by Seismic, Kyle has held CMO and VP marketing roles at companies including Jellyfish, Seismic, and OpenView Venture Partners. He's authored three books on social media marketing published in 5 languages, hosts the Revenue Diaries podcast, and currently serves as CMO at Docebo, the AI-powered learning management platform.
Bernadette Jiwa is an Irish-Australian author, brand strategist, and storytelling expert who has written 10 #1 Amazon bestselling business books - including Story Driven, Marketing: A Love Story, and Hunch - plus two novels published by Penguin Random House. A former business consultant who began blogging in her forties, she built one of Australia's most-read business blogs, created the Story Skills Workshop on Seth Godin's Akimbo platform, and has become one of the most cited voices on the power of narrative in business and human connection.
Niraj Dawar is a Professor Emeritus of Marketing at Ivey Business School (University of Western Ontario) and one of the most influential marketing strategists working today. Author of TILT: Shifting Your Strategy from Products to Customers (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013) - a bestseller named Best Business Book of 2014 in Marketing by strategy+business - he built his reputation arguing that competitive advantage has permanently migrated downstream, from products to customer relationships. His 1994 Journal of Marketing paper on 'Marketing Universals' (with Philip Parker) has over 1,000 citations. After retiring to emeritus status, he pivoted to applying brand strategy to nations through GeoStrategix and the Nation Brand Research Initiative, publishing in the South China Morning Post as recently as March 2026 on US-China soft power competition in Southeast Asia.
Sumaira Mirza is the Executive Creative Director at Ogilvy Pakistan, one of the country's most decorated advertising creative leaders with over two decades of experience across WPP and Publicis Groupe networks. Known for campaigns that blend cultural sensitivity with bold social impact — including 'Message in a Mithai Box,' which provided legal support to abused women — she has served on juries at Effie Global Best of the Best, Spikes Asia, AdStars, and Dragons of Asia. In 2024, she became only the second Pakistani ever selected for the Effies Global Best of the Best jury. She is also an adjunct faculty member, a regular contributor to Aurora Magazine, and a participant in Ogilvy's elite APAC 30 for 30 Leadership Program.
Ejaz Asi is a Lahore-based digital strategist and serial technopreneur with over 20 years of experience at the crossroads of culture, technology, and design. Co-founder of Chameleon Worldwide - a full-service digital agency serving clients from North America to the Middle East - and ALRUG, a handmade carpet e-commerce venture, he is a passionate advocate of User-Centered Design and Ubiquitous Computing. Beyond building businesses, he shaped the next generation as visiting faculty at Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, where he created the institution's first-ever Digital Strategy course. Father of three, avid reader, and a persistent optimist about what technology can do for people.