consumer-engagement
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Rodney Rambo
Rodney Rambo is the Chief Marketing Officer of Converse Global, where he steers worldwide marketing for one of the most recognizable footwear brands on the planet. A graduate of Northern Arizona University with a background in speech communication, he built his career across action-sports and lifestyle labels including Volcom and Vans before joining Converse in 2012. Over more than a decade at Converse he has moved from Global Marketing Director to VP of North America Brand Marketing to CMO, championing a marketing philosophy built on listening to fans and treating consumers as co-creators. His teams have kept the century-old Chuck Taylor relevant to new generations, most visibly by reviving the knee-high XXHi sneaker in 2024 after tracking years of fan demand on social media.
Proof Authentication
Proof Authentication is a Boston-based technology company that builds anti-counterfeiting and brand-protection solutions for large consumer brands. Its patented approach pairs a non-duplicatable printed mark with a custom smartphone app, letting consumers verify a product's authenticity in seconds while giving brands real-time data to enforce against counterfeits. Formed in 2021 to acquire the DSS Digital division of Document Security Systems, the company is led by CEO Dan McKinnon, former Head of Global Brand Protection at New Balance, and serves Fortune 500 companies.
DISTINCT Technologies, Inc
DISTINCT Technologies is a Fairfield, Connecticut startup building live data intelligence infrastructure that turns real-time consumer interactions at live events into measurable ROI. Its white-label SaaS platform captures what it calls Actionable Consumer Touchpoints (ACTs) from stadiums, activations, and experiences, then routes that data into brands' existing CRM and MarTech systems for unified measurement, predictive insight, and personalized follow-up. Founded in 2022 by former Major League Baseball and Audacy executive Jimmy McCloud, the SOC 2-certified company has raised $3.5M in seed funding.
Youtility
Youtility is a London-based fintech that lets banks and money apps embed household-bill management directly inside their own experience. Through APIs, its technology lets consumers compare, switch, renew and manage energy, broadband, digital TV and mobile contracts without ever leaving their banking app - turning a dreaded admin chore into a few taps that save the average switching household around £234 a year. Founded in 2016 by early open-banking believers, Youtility now powers subscription management for partners including Santander, Virgin Money, Wagestream and Pockit.
Tyler Boyd
Tyler Boyd is the CEO of Youtility, a behavioral decision science company that models the emotional drivers behind consumer choices and feeds banks and brands real-time next-best-action recommendations through APIs. A Columbia-trained financier who spent nearly two decades in private equity, investment banking, and corporate strategy, Boyd moved from Wall Street deal rooms to the marketing-science world at Purple Strategies before sourcing and steering the merger of US fintech Squeeze with UK technology firm Youtility. He now runs the combined company across London and Richmond, Virginia, where its software counts Santander UK, Virgin Money, and Monese among its partners and recently closed a $4.2M seed round.
Firsthand
Firsthand is a New York based AI company building the Brand Agent Platform, a system that lets marketers and publishers deploy their own AI-powered brand representatives to engage consumers in real time across owned sites and paid media. Founded in 2023 by digital advertising veterans behind FreeWheel and AppNexus, Firsthand treats AI as a new communication medium rather than a tool for automating existing marketing. Its Lakebed data and knowledge rights management system lets brands retain ownership and control of their content and data while cooperating with AI. The company raised a $26M Series A in March 2025 led by Radical Ventures.