
At Cassels, the chief marketing officer has spent the years since 2015 turning brand, office design and client listening into one practical idea: make an institution easier to talk to.
Lydia Smyers is Vice President of Customer and Partner Solutions for U.S. Telco, Media, and Gaming at Microsoft, leading a team of more than 400 professionals serving the top 200 enterprises in those sectors. Based in Massachusetts, she has spent over a decade at Microsoft in roles spanning U.S. Education, Americas Northeast, and now the converging industries of telco, media, and gaming. Before Microsoft she held senior executive roles at Oracle, Red Hat, and Ernst & Young, building a career defined by large-scale partnerships, channel strategy, and technology-driven transformation. She was named to CRN's Top 100 Women of the Channel five consecutive years and spoke at MWC Barcelona 2026 on AI and its societal implications.
Owen Tripp is the co-founder and CEO of Included Health, the San Francisco company formed in 2021 when Grand Rounds Health and Doctor On Demand merged. A serial founder with prior turns at Reputation.com, eBay and Accenture, he's known for an opinionated, plain-spoken leadership style and a thesis that better outcomes come from blending clinical expertise, software and human navigation.