Ksenia Onosov is a veteran talent acquisition leader and the Recruitment Lead at Forum Ventures, one of North America's leading B2B SaaS venture studios. With over 12 years of recruiting experience spanning global tech giants and early-stage startups, she specializes in building teams from the ground up across Engineering, GTM, and Operations. Simultaneously running her own consultancy, Clever Fox, she brings a rare dual perspective as both an embedded operator and independent advisor to the startup hiring ecosystem.
Bill Campbell is the founder and CEO of Barefoot Media LLC, a global advisory firm specializing in digital strategy, content licensing, and fundraising for startups in the music, streaming, and entertainment tech space. With over 30 years of experience, he previously served as Senior Vice President of Global Digital Business at both Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, where he structured landmark deals with Spotify, Apple Music, Google, and Amazon. His client roster includes TikTok/Bytedance, SoundCloud, Square, and United Masters, making him one of the most influential behind-the-scenes operators in digital entertainment.
Dorie Clark is a strategy consultant, executive education professor, and bestselling author recognized four times by Thinkers50 as one of the top 50 business thinkers in the world. Named the #1 Communication Coach in the World by the Marshall Goldsmith Leading Global Coaches Awards, she teaches at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and has written four books published by Harvard Business Review Press and Portfolio/Penguin. A former political campaign press secretary, documentary filmmaker, and Grammy-winning jazz album producer, Clark is also an active Broadway investor and musical theatre lyricist-in-training - living proof that the 'long game' she preaches is one she plays herself.
Luca Dellanna is an Italian author, management consultant, and systems thinker based in Turin, who has written 10+ books on ergodicity, risk management, behavioral psychology, and long-term strategy. Best known for making the concept of ergodicity accessible to a broad audience, he advises organizations on operational excellence and cultural change, teaches at the University of Genoa, and has been featured on EconTalk twice. His work sits at the intersection of probability theory, human behavior, and practical management wisdom.
Gaetano DiNardi is a B2B SaaS growth marketing consultant, former music producer, and one of the most distinctive voices in modern SEO. After spending years producing tracks for Fat Joe and Shaggy in NYC studios, he stumbled into SEO through a blog post about getting ghosted by Atlantic Records - and never looked back. He has scaled companies from Nextiva ($70M to $200M+ revenue) to Aura (0 to 1 million monthly visitors in 12 months), and now runs Marketing Advice, a boutique consultancy serving 50+ SaaS clients including Semrush, Gong, and Demandbase.
Jay Acunzo is a business storytelling advisor, author, and keynote speaker who helps experts, entrepreneurs, and executives develop stronger ideas, more resonant stories, and more influential voices. A former Google and HubSpot strategist turned independent creator, he champions intuition over best practices and deep resonance over broad reach. He's the author of 'Break the Wheel,' host of the 'How Stories Happen' podcast, and has spoken in 25 states and 3 countries to audiences from 40 CEOs to 4,000 marketers.
Mark W. Schaefer is a globally recognized marketing strategist, bestselling author of 12 books, keynote speaker, and Rutgers University professor who has spent 30+ years pioneering human-centered marketing. Known for writing the world's first book on influencer marketing and six #1 Amazon marketing bestsellers, he champions the idea that 'the most human company wins' — a philosophy that has taken on new urgency in the AI era. His latest book, Audacious (2025), features the world's first AI-activated augmented reality book cover.
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.
Scott Vinkle is a Toronto-based Accessibility Specialist at Shopify with over 12 years of experience making digital products usable for everyone. Holding the IAAP CPWA certification - one of the highest credentials in web accessibility - he co-leads Shopify's accessibility guild, contributes to W3C ARIA standards, speaks at international conferences, and publishes practical accessibility guidance through his newsletter, blog, and Medium. He's the rare specialist who bridges the gap between compliance checkbox and genuine inclusive design.
Lia Haberman is a creator economy strategist, educator, and the author of ICYMI — a weekly newsletter read by 45,000+ marketers, brand social teams, and creators. Teaching social media and influencer marketing at UCLA Extension since 2018, she built her reputation as an independent, no-nonsense analyst who helps brands and creators navigate a landscape that reinvents itself every six months. With clients ranging from Google to Disney and a Threads following that dwarfs her Instagram audience, she practices what she preaches.
April Dunford is the world's leading authority on B2B product positioning. A former VP of Marketing at seven venture-backed tech startups (collectively acquired for $2B+), she turned a career of accidental positioning wins into a methodology used by 300+ companies including Google, IBM, and Epic Games. Her book 'Obviously Awesome' (2019, updated 2026) has sold 100,000+ copies and redefined how tech companies think about market context. She consults, speaks, angel invests, and runs a newsletter and podcast under the 'Positioning with April Dunford' brand.
Nate Berkopec is the world's foremost Ruby on Rails performance expert, founder of Speedshop consultancy, co-maintainer of the Puma web server, and author of 'The Complete Guide to Rails Performance.' A self-taught programmer who pivoted from a Shark Tank appearance at 19, he now runs a thriving consulting and education business from Tokyo, helping Rails developers squeeze every last millisecond out of their applications.
Sam Newman is an independent consultant, author, and speaker who has spent over 25 years helping organisations navigate the messy realities of distributed systems. Best known for 'Building Microservices' - one of the most widely read technical books of its era - he runs Sam Newman and Associates from London, advising engineering teams worldwide on cloud architecture, microservices, and software resilience. A former ThoughtWorks principal, he is also the host of the Magpie Talk Show podcast and a sought-after conference speaker at events like QCon, NDC, and GOTO.