
The Chargeback Gurus CMO has spent her career turning dense B2B problems into useful stories - and insisting that brand, demand and measurement belong in the same room.

Her résumé runs from Saatchi to Southern style. At Billy Reid, Christina Lipinski’s most revealing campaign may be a three-day Alabama gathering where the conversion metric begins with people simply feeling the brand.

KFC Canada’s marketing chief has spent a decade turning heritage into a working asset - balancing the Colonel, the bucket and 11 herbs and spices with digital ordering, cultural timing and a sharper appetite for change.

CVS Pharmacy’s marketing chief built her career where numbers meet judgment. Her operating rule is simple: listen closely, move quickly, and reserve a little room for the big swing.

The CMO of PENN Entertainment has spent a career learning what actually pulls people back to the casino floor - and the app - and it is not what most people assume.

After three decades in retail, Ray Harrison still begins with the same question: what will make the next stop easier, friendlier and worth repeating? His route from store director to Yesway's senior team explains why the answer lives in both the data and the aisle.

From streaming's cord-cutters to healthcare's data-rich digital stack, Chris Schneider keeps returning to one practical question: are marketers reaching the people they think they are?

Drew Eakins is a marketing leader in the outdoor industry and the marketing chief for Reima's North America business, the 80-year-old Finnish children's outdoor clothing and footwear brand. Based in Colorado, he has spent more than a decade building outdoor brands, with earlier stops at Cotopaxi, Hestra Gloves, and Great Trango Holdings. He is known for connecting technical outdoor products with the audiences who actually use them, and for leaning into brand storytelling, wholesale partnerships, and channel strategy.
Michael Grimes is Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for JD North America, the parent of JD Finish Line, one of the largest specialty athletic footwear and apparel retailers in the United States. Based in Indianapolis, he leads brand strategy, omni-channel marketing and consumer experience for a chain that generates around $2.1 billion in annual revenue and employs roughly 16,000 people. A Butler University graduate who started in the agency world at Willow Marketing, Grimes has spent his Finish Line career stitching together the store and online worlds, steering high-profile sneaker launches and culture-forward collaborations, while also serving on the Finish Line Youth Foundation board.
John Vitalie is the CEO of Aktana, a San Francisco-based AI platform company that helps global life sciences organizations optimize commercial engagement with healthcare providers. A three-time software CEO with leadership stints at Salesforce, Oracle, and Siebel Systems, Vitalie brings a decade of pioneering AI in life sciences to a company building what it calls a Contextual Intelligence Engine - blending AI, human insight, and omnichannel orchestration to make every pharma sales interaction more timely and personalized. Recognized as one of the Top 25 Biotech CEOs of 2022 by the Healthcare Technology Report, he champions a philosophy that AI should augment human judgment, not replace it.