Best Startup
At Best Startup US we track over 1,000,000 US startups and over 3 million people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top California based Founder operating in the Advertising space. If you think a Founder is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.us.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Sunmeet Jolly
Founder & CEO of GROTU
Founder and Patent holder – GROTU mobile app @ 101 Islands LLC. Angel investor in 40 pre-IPO technology startups. Frequently invited by accelerators and angel forums to Judge startup competitions and discuss technology innovation. Former IT Consulting industry executive who sold hundreds of millions of dollars in consulting services to Fortune 500 companies working for Cap Gemini, HCL, L&T, NTT data.
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About GROTU: Patented GROTU app provides a much needed “private” collection of productivity and communication tools for friends and family social groups
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Rob Fan
Founder & CTO/COO of Sharethrough USA
Rob leads all product and technology strategy for the company. He is a practitioner, student and teacher of the “lean startup” methodology. In his spare time, Rob, hacks and plays with new technology and advises early-stage startups about the successes and pitfalls he has learned thus far. Prior to Sharethrough, Rob worked as a technology consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton advising various three-letter government agencies. As an early adopter of the Facebook platform, Rob was one of the teaching assistants for the first-ever “Facebook Class” while at Stanford. Rob holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and a MS in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University.
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About Sharethrough USA: Sharethrough is one of the top global independent omnichannel ad exchanges
Dan Greenberg
Founder & President of Sharethrough USA
Dan Greenberg is the founder and CEO of Sharethrough, a 150+ person SF-based software company that powers in-feed, native ads for premium publishers like Time Inc, Hearst, People and brand marketers like Pepsi and P&G. Dan also acts as the co-chair of the IAB Native Advertising Committee. Dan comes from a research background at Stanford in persuasive technology, and regularly teaches classes in brand content, modern monetization, and viral engineering. Dan was recently named to the Inc “35 Under 35” list, the Forbes “30 Under 30″ list and has been honored as an Ad Age Media Maven. He organizes and hosts the Sharethrough Native Ad Summits, is a regular speaker at advertising and technology conferences, and contributes to industry publications including Forbes, AdAge, and TechCrunch.
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About Sharethrough USA: Sharethrough is one of the top global independent omnichannel ad exchanges
Farhad Massoudi
CEO & Founder of Tubi
Farhad Massoudi founded adRise with a vision that the future of TV advertising will be targeted, measurable and interactive ads, just like the web on TV. Farhad holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley.
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About Tubi: Tubi is the world’s largest ad-supported video on demand (VOD) service. Available on Connected TV devices, Mobile, and the Web.
Rustin Kretz
Founder, Chief Product Officer, Chairman of the Board of Scorpion
Rustin Kretz is the Founder, Chief Product Officer, and Chairman of the Board at Scorpion. Scorpion is the product of Rustin’s vision. His dedication and leadership have been the driving force behind Scorpion and the foundation for its unprecedented growth and innovative approach to digital marketing for local businesses since 2001.
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About Scorpion: Scorpion exists to better local small businesses and the communities they serve.
Michael Amar
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Ifeelgoods
Seasoned entrepreneur with solid experience in global alliances, business development, executive management, channel development and organizational leadership. Business expertise across the worldwide marketplace including US, France, Israel, and Japan. Prior to founding Ifeelgoods, Michael founded and successfully sold DAOODA, a thriving ad network in the EU, and AGORAD, which was the number one independent French media company at the time he sold it in 2007. As CEO of Ifeelgoods, a U.S company he started in 2010, Michael is leveraging his leadership, experience and insights in e-commerce and online advertising to disrupt the promotion, advertising and loyalty industries. Michael is an Operating Partner at Cathay Innovation, a VC fund based in China, US and Europe, a Board Member of StationF – the largest incubator in the world – and Ambassador for La French Tech in San Francisco. Michael is a graduate of Institut Superieur de Gestion business school. Michael lives with his family in Palo Alto, California.
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About Chain Accelerator, Ifeelgoods, Paris Blockchain Week Summit: Ifeelgoods is a digital promotions platform helping marketers incent, convert and reward their audiences with desirable gifts in real-time.
Afif Khoury
Founder/CEO of SOCi
Afif Khoury has spent the last decade involved in startups and venture capital investments as an attorney, venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur. Afif is a published geneticist who earned his BS in Neuroscience and Physiology from UCSD in 1998, before attending Law School at Northwestern School of Law (JD 2002) and Business School at Kellogg School of Management. Afif started his legal career as a corporate and securities attorney in Silicon Valley at the premier technology law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (WSGR) representing technology companies and venture investors across multiple industries and at all stages. Afif left the Silicon Valley office of WSGR to help start their San Diego office, following which he left to open the San Diego office of Gunderson Dettmer (another Silicon Valley-based premier technology law firm). In 2010 Afif raised a seed and early stage fund named Scatter Ventures, which he continues to manage today. Afif is also the Founder and Managing Partner of Axon Venures, a Biotech focused venture fund in Southern California. Between the two fund, Afif has deployed more than $70 million. Afif is a director of the San Diego Venture Group and also founder and CEO of SOCI, Inc., a social data and intelligence technology startup. He is California Board certified as well as a Registered Attorney with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
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About Aspen Neuroscience, Axon Ventures, Cradle Genomics, Epic Sciences, EvoNexus, EY, Omniome, Oncternal Therapeutics, Singular Genomics, SOCi: SOCi is a centralized platform for multi-location marketers to reach and engage local customers.
Aykut Karaalioglu
Founder & CEO of Mobile Action
Aykut Karaalioglu is the founder of Mobile Action, a company specialized in mobile discovery and optimization. He also co-founded Marro.ws, a clipping tool for intellectual people, and Shoppe, a shopping application. Karaalioglu holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Bilkent University. He obtained his master’s degree from Santa Clara University. Karaalioglu currently lives in San Francisco, California.
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About Mobile Action: Leading mobile intelligence company empowering app marketers to thrive in the market.
Roger Roman
Founder & Partner of Push Consulting & Marketing
Roger Roman is the Co-Founder at AfriBlocks.
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About 101 Custom Kicks, AfriBlocks, Fleeting, Push Consulting & Marketing, Republic, Rythm Interactive, Score 3 Ventures, Streamlytics: Push Consulting & Marketing is a full-service digital agency specializing in marketing and brand development.
Ivan Kan
Founder of Crowdcreate
I am the founder of Crowdcreate, a leading crowdfunding marketing agency specializing in ICO, Blockchain, Kickstarter, and Indiegogo. I have personally been involved on projects raising over $35 million in 2016 /2017 and have been covered by CNBC, CNET, engadget, and many more. Crowdcreate is based in Los Angeles, California and our services range from community engagement, branding, design and video production, earned and paid media management, and PR outreach and influencer marketing. I have been a guest speaker for Global Sources Launch Pad in Hong Kong and contributed as a thought leader on panels and discussions on crowdfunding innovation and blockchain initiatives
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About Crowdcreate: Data Driven Growth Marketing Agency
David Fisch
Co-Founder & President of Turgo
A successful business leader and entrepreneur with 20 years of online, mobile and traditional experience. Expertise in digital media specializing in brand advertising, mobile, business development, marketing and operations. Extensive experiencing in building world-class sales and partnership teams. Strong track record of achievement within both corporate and start-up organizations.
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About Gallo Sales Company, GreenSpring, Mandalay Media, Miller Brewing Company, Miniclip, Shopkick, Turgo: Turgo is a key player in the video advertising and distribution industry.
Michael Ritter
Founder & CEO of Maple Media
Michael Ritter is the Founder and CEO of Maple Media, a mobile apps and games company backed by private equity firm Shamrock Capital. Maple Media is a mobile media, advertising and technology company that acquires, manages and operates mobile applications focused on the utility, productivity, games and entertainment verticals. Popular titles include Snowboard Party: World Tour, Skateboard Party, Minesweeper Classic, Sudoku 🙂 and CalConvert. Previously he was SVP of Business & Corporate Development for Jam City, a large social and mobile game company based in Los Angeles where he oversaw mergers & acquisition activities, publishing, licensing, distribution, sales, legal and partnerships for social and mobile games. Michael was also the Founder and Publisher of Saturday Night Magazine, which at the time, he built into the largest circulated monthly collegiate lifestyle and entertainment magazine in the country.
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About Fantasy Baseball Arbitration, Maple Media: Maple Media is a mobile media, advertising, and technology company that acquires and operates category-leading, consumer apps.
Tom Impallomeni
Co-Founder of SuperAwesome
Co-founder & CEO, Tribe VR
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About SuperAwesome, Tribe XR: SuperAwesome offers kid-safe tools and technology for the children’s digital media ecosystem.
David Shadpour
Founder & CEO of Social Native
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About Social Native: Social Native is a technology platform for creating high performing branded content.
Oren Kaniel
Co-Founder and CEO of AppsFlyer
Oren Kaniel is the CEO & co-founder of AppsFlyer, the market leader in Mobile Attribution Analytics. Oren holds a BA in Computer Science, Cum Laude, from the Technion, and an MBA from IDC, as part of an exchange with the Wharton Business School.
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About AppsFlyer: The world’s top brands use AppsFlyer to build great products, create exceptional experiences, and preserve customer privacy.
Reshef Mann
Co-Founder & CTO of AppsFlyer
Reshef Mann is Co-Founder & CTO at AppsFlyer.
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About AppsFlyer: The world’s top brands use AppsFlyer to build great products, create exceptional experiences, and preserve customer privacy.
Dan Siroker
Co-Founder & Chairman of Optimizely
Dan Siroker is the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Optimizely. The inspiration for Optimizely came from Dan’s work as the Director of Analytics for the Obama Presidential Campaign and Deputy New Media Director for the Presidential Transition. Before Optimizely, Dan co-founded an online math game for kids called CarrotSticks. Formerly, he was also a Product Manager for Google Chrome and AdWords. Dan graduated with Honors from Stanford University with a B.S. in Computer Science.
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About Optimizely: Optimizely is a platform that provides digital experience solutions.
Vlad Kachur
Co-Founder, Director of Promolta
Vlad Kachur create strong marketing directions to help musicians be seen and establish new fans. Promolta’s co-founder believes every musician deserves to be recognized for his or her talent and hardwork.
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About Promolta: A self service advertising platform to promote videos in targeted blogs, websites, mobile apps, games and social networks.
Anjit Anand
Founder of Promolta
Anjit Anand is eager and passionate about helping musicians get discovered through social media and deep publisher network. Promolta’s co-founder takes her mission seriously in helping people reach their dream.
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About Promolta: A self service advertising platform to promote videos in targeted blogs, websites, mobile apps, games and social networks.
Konrad Feldman
Co-Founder & CEO of Quantcast
Konrad Feldman, CEO, co-founded and launched Quantcast in 2006 along with Paul Sutter to transform the effectiveness of online advertising through the use of science and scalable computing. Prior to co-founding Quantcast, Feldman co-founded Searchspace (now Fortent) the leading provider of terrorist financing detection and anti-money laundering software for the world’s financial services industry. As CEO of Searchspace’s North American business, he established the business in the US and directed its rapid growth to become a market leader. Prior to Searchspace, Feldman was a Research Fellow in the Intelligent Systems Laboratory at University College London. Feldman holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from University College, London.
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About Quantcast: Quantcast helps create a more personalized digital world.
Susan Brazer
Chief Executive Officer and Founder of LionShare Media
Susan is a commercial visionary with a 2020’s view. She’s led the successful development, launch and scale of consumer-facing platforms, apps and services for world-leading media, tech and telecom companies: Apple, DirecTV, SES Astra, FIFA World Cup, Viacom, Virgin Mobile, and Nokia. Susan is the CEO of LionShare Media, which is launching the THIN/AIR™ Metaverse, a 5G cloud-native, blockchain-enabled distribution platform for premium entertainment and immersive media. Previously, Susan was VP, Strategy and Business Development at Nokia, and VP, Corporate Development and Entertainment Services at Virgin Mobile USA). Prior to this, Susan was EVP, Corporate Development at KirchMedia’s Venture Fund for the FIFA World Cup, where she raised $50M+ for interactive TV, gaming and mobile app ventures. Susan was the SVP, Networks & Marketing for Viacom’s Showtime service in the Middle East and Africa, overseeing a P&L and operations for MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, The Movie Channel, TV Land, Bloomberg, Paramount, Style and Discovery. Susan led the launch of DirecTV as VP, Marketing at Compression Labs and the migration of 85M European TVHH to digital satellite and cable services for SES ASTRA. The genesis of Susan’s product development and UI/UX expertise began at Apple Computer, where she launched its 1st portable computer, the Newton, and Knowledge Navigator (prototype for the iPAD and Siri). She was also served as an M&A analyst at PepsiCo and International Treasury Analyst at Phillip Morris. Susan holds a B.A. in Economics from Brandeis University, an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and attended the London School of Economics. Susan is on the Board of Global Women in Blockchain, a UN Delegate for Media for Social Impact and a mentor at Princeton University’s Keller School of Engineering for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
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About LionShare Media: LionShare Media develops a media distribution platform-as-a-service to harness the power of converging and emerging technologies.
Alex Dahan
Founder of Open Influence
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About 0x Ventures, Open Influence, The Automation Fund: Open Influence is a marketing company that helps brands and advertisers engage and grow their desired audiences through social media.
Vishnu Prasath Devarajan
Founder & CEO of Bright Bridge Info-tech Pvt Ltd
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About Bright Bridge Info-tech Pvt Ltd, Pulse Pharmacy: Bright Bridge Info-tech Pvt Ltd is a digital marketing company specializing in delivering Internet advertising solutions.
Jesse Leimgruber
Co-Founder & CEO of NeoReach
Jesse is a Stanford Alumni, co-founder of NeoReach and Bloom, Thiel Fellow, and angel investor in a dozen startups. Jesse is a partner at the Alchemist Accelerator, mentor at European Innovation Academy. He frequently guest lectures classes at Stanford University and USC.
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About Alchemist Accelerator, Bloom, Bloom, Clash, NeoReach, Rank Executives: Influencer Marketing For Big Brands
Katherine Power
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Clique
Katherine Power is the Co-Founder and CEO of Clique Media Group (CMG), the parent media company of WhoWhatWear (fashion), MyDomaine (lifestyle) Byrdie (beauty) and Obsessee (new omni-channel platform, specifically targeted at Gen-Z). In 2006, Katherine left her editorial role at ELLE to launch Who What Wear with her co-founder, Hillary Kerr. The goal was to disrupt the DNA of the magazine industry with a simple idea: do it digitally. By bringing print magazine sensibilities to the online space, CMG was born to offer readers elevated and curated access to their core passions: fashion, beauty, home and shopping. At CMG, Katherine drives all business operations, advertising and brand partnerships, along with the development of branded technology products. Just within the last year, Katherine has led the charge on exciting new initiatives for CMG, which include announcing the brand’s first foray into product with the launch of the Who What Wear collection at Target, a Series B round of funding that Amazon participated in, international expansion to the UK and Australia, and the acquisition of Wantering, a Canadian startup and social shopping search engine. Additionally, a third co-authored book, The Career Code, which serves as the modern girl’s guide for creating your own professional success, came out in the spring of 2016. As a leader that constantly innovates about what readers and consumers might want next, Katherine and her CMG team are continuing to enhance their offerings and user experience for the new generation of consumers.
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About AVALINE, Clique, MERIT Beauty, Sonoma Brands, Versed, Who What Wear: Clique is a media and commerce company
Jeremy Bloom
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Integrate
Jeremy Bloom is the only athlete in history to ski in the Olympics and get drafted into the NFL. He is a three-time WorldChampion, two-time Olympian, eleven-time World Cup gold medalist and the youngest member ever inducted into The United States Skiing Hall of Fame. He was also an All-American football player at the University of Colorado and played professional football as a wide receiver and return specialist in the National Football League for the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers. While playing with the NFL in Philadelphia for the Eagles, he completed a business entrepreneurship program at Wharton Business School where he studied real estate and finance. Today, he is Founder/CEO of the Marketing Technology company, Integrate and founder of Wish of a Lifetime, a nonprofit organization that grants lifelong wishes to senior citizens. Through Jeremy’s vision and leadership, Integrate is transforming global marketing. The company has raised over $40M of venture capital from Comcast, Foundry Group and Liberty Global. Integrate was named as the “Best New Company” at the American Business Awards in New York City. Jeremy was named by Forbes as 30 under 30, tech executives under the age of 30 making waves in the technology space and in 2013 Jeremy was a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Outside of business, Jeremy has continued to maintain his name within the sports world. He does commentary for college football and is an Olympic Sports Television Analyst and has worked for ESPN, Fox, NBC, and The Pac-12 Network.
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About Integrate, United States Ski & Snowboard Association, Wish of a Lifetime, Wish of a Lifetime: Integrate provides a hub for managing and measuring demand generation programs.
Cristiano Oliveira
Founder + CEO of Olivia
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About Olivia: Olivia is an AI financial assistant that learns your spending patterns, predict your purchases and recommend ways to get more for your money
Lucas Moraes
Co-Founder of Olivia
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About Olivia: Olivia is an AI financial assistant that learns your spending patterns, predict your purchases and recommend ways to get more for your money
Paolo Privitera
Co-Founder and CEO of Evensi
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About Doochoo, Evensi, Lombardstreet Ventures: Evensi is a platform to discover, experience, ideate, and promote events.
Isaac Deutsch
Co-Founder & CEO of WaiveCar
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About REEF, WaiveCar: Waive’s goal is to bring the cost of mobility to zero by utilizing cutting edge ad tech.
Maran Nelson
Founder and Chairperson of Interact
Maran Nelson is the co-founder and CEO of Clara Labs. Prior to launching Clara Labs, Maran serves as founder and chairperson at Interact ATX, Inc.
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About Interact: SaaS zero party data platform: The easiest way to convert curious people into loyal customers and happy clients.
Christopher Wendel
President and Co-Founder of Volta Charging
Chris is a global finance executive with 20 years of experience running large sales teams and raising capital in equity markets. The bulk of this time was with Goldman Sachs in the United States, Germany, and Japan. While on sabbatical in Hawaii, Chris stumbled upon Volta stations at the Kailua Whole Foods. He soon after became an investor and joined Volta as partner and CFO in 2012. Chris lives in Napa with his wife and three children, loves flying, and will challenge you to a tennis match any day of the week. He and his wife each drive a Tesla Model S in fire engine red and metallic blue.
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About Volta Charging: Volta Charging designs, installs, and maintains a network of electric vehicle charging stations.
Scott Mercer
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Volta Charging
Scott Mercer is the founder and CEO of Volta, an electric vehicle charging network with the most-utilized stations in the US. An entrepreneur fascinated by both cars and future-focused technology, Scott founded Volta to bridge the gap between electric vehicles and the mainstream. The network delivers free electric vehicle charging in areas where stations are most needed, as determined by Volta’s proprietary machine learning algorithms. Under Scott’s leadership, Volta is experiencing consecutive 3x year-over-year revenue and footprint growth. Scott launched Volta in 2010 in Hawaii, where he was named Entrepreneur of the Year by the Hawaii Venture Capital, 40 Under 40 by Pacific Business News and Hawaii Business’ 20 for the Next 20. Previously, Scott ran a business buying, restoring and selling vintage cars in his early 20s. He sold a restored 1967 Jaguar XKE to seed the beginnings of Volta, which has now raised $62 million in funding. Scott currently rides an electric motorcycle, drives an electric Fiat, and occasionally, a 1971 Alfa Romeo.
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About Volta Charging: Volta Charging designs, installs, and maintains a network of electric vehicle charging stations.
Tony Chen
CEO and Founder of Channel Factory
Tony Chen is CEO and Founder of Channel Factory, a social video marketing platform that helps top brands and agencies expand their brand video viewership. Tony is a digital pioneer in the social video space, creating cutting edge solutions to make sure brand videos are safely watched, tracked and shared across multiple platforms by millions of people. Tony founded Channel Factory in 2013 and has quickly scaled the company by partnering with top agencies and Fortune 500 brands. In 2016 alone, Channel Factory spearheaded more than 5,000 campaigns, served over five billion video views and worked with more than three hundred Fortune 500 companies on their campaigns. Prior to Channel Factory, Tony founded Yellow Thunder Media in 2010 while attending Rice University where he double majored in Economics and Piano. Pioneering a scientific method to help videos go viral on YouTube, the company generated more than one billion views within three years for top brands such as Coca Cola, Sony Pictures, and McDonalds among many others. Tony is an avid angel investor with investments in e-commerce companies including, Fab Fit Fun and Trendy Butler, Jumpcut Studio and software start up, Outreach. He has been recognized by Forbes’ 30 Under 30 for his achievements in marketing and advertising.
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About Channel Factory: Channel Factory is the world leader in YouTube brand suitability, content alignment and ad performance.
Wicks Walker
Co-Founder of W4
Adam Wicks Walke has founded numerous companies in the internet and media sectors, landing four times among the top 100 of the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing private companies in the U.S, as well as the fastest growing lists of the Los Angeles Business Journal and the Deloitte Technology Fast 50. He plays the role of strategist and deal maker in each company, and has closed more than a dozen corporate finance transactions securing more than $100 million. Before W4, he was a partner in Hydra, which was named the fastest growing internet company in Los Angeles in 2007 while under the management team now running W4. Before exiting Hydra, he sold a minority interest in the company for $30 million. Wicks also has an independent record label and invests in numerous media, technology and entertainment projects. He also serves on the Board of the Downtown LA Art Walk, a monthly art event that draws more than 10,000 people.
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About Division Films, W4: W4 provides business process management solutions through an expansive network of publishers.
Sahil Jain
Co-Founder and CEO of AdStage
Sahil Jain is the CEO and Co-founder of AdStage. Prior to founding AdStage in May 2012, Sahil co-founded his first company, Y-Combinator backed Trigger.io at 20. He dropped out of UC Berkeley, where he studied Philosophy and Econ, to join AOL Corp Devt. at 19, dropped out of High School to join Yahoo! Mobile as an automation engineer at 17 and worked in the professional video game industry before that.
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About AdStage, inresto: AdStage is an advertising technology startup powering paid marketers to understand the business impact of their campaigns.
Teju Owoye
Founder & President of Sulte Group
Teju Owoye is the CEO and Founder of the Sulte Group, a growth marketing agency that focuses on helping brands achieve omnipresence among their core group of customers. She is an expert at driving engagement, consumer adoption, and brand loyalty by leveraging behavioral economic principles and consumer psychology.
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About Clean Rebellion, Sulte Group: Sulte Group fueling the next generation of marketing with innovative strategies to drive incredible growth for companies.
Co-Founder, CEO of Samba TV
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About Carrot Capital, i/o Ventures, Samba TV: Samba TV enables the next-generation TV experience powered by its first-party data and helps viewers engage with relevant media.
Kamran Razavi
Chairman/Founder/Co-Owner of RGM Group
Kamran Razavi founded the RGM Group in 2004 and successfully built the company into the largest interactive media firm in the US, without any external funding until August 2nd 2012, when he partnered with RLH Equity to scale the model. Prior to starting the RGM Group, Razavi worked on the account management of Toyota at Saatchi & Saatchi. Razavi holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing and Entrepreneurship from Miami University and has studied International Business and Marketing at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Razavi started his first business at the age of 14 in his hometown of Tiffin, Ohio. Razavi was named one of the top twenty entrepreneurs in their twenties by the Los Angeles Business Journal and frequently lectures at a number of Entrepreneurship classes at Miami University. When not focused on RGM, Razavi enjoys biking, hiking, boxing, pilates, lying on the beach in Bora Bora, fine dining, gardening, dreaming, inspiring, and loving life.
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About RGM Group: RGM Group is an online media firm that helps advertisers and publishers engage with targeted audiences.
Brendan Eich
Founder of Basic Attention Token
Brendan Eich joined Brave Software as CEO in 2015.
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About Basic Attention Token, Brave: The Basic Attention Token is the new token for the digital advertising industry.
Carlos Watson
Co-Founder & CEO of OZY Media
Carlos Watson co-anchors MSNBC 2 p.m. news program from NBC headquarters at 30 Rock. A Harvard grad, he got his start in politics, serving as campaign manager and chief of staff for Florida Representative Daryl Jones and managing Bill Clintonâs 1992 Election Day effort in Miami-Dade County. While at Harvard, he also worked with Senator Bob Graham, DNC Chair Ron Brown, and Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez. After graduating from Stanford Law, where he edited the Law Review, Watson joined the business world, advising Fortune 500 companies as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company. He later struck out on his own and co-founded Achieva College Prep Services, which helped thousands of high school students prepare for college and was written about in Time and Forbes, among others. Watson sold the firm to the Washington Post/Kaplan in 2002.
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About Achieva.com, OZY Media, The Stimulist: OZY Media is a premium media and entertainment for curious people — across TV, events, podcasts and news.
Jim McKelvey
Founder & CEO of Invisibly
Jim co-founded Square, where he now serves as a Director. Jim is also a General Partner at FINTOP Capital and Green Visor Capital. He serves as a Director of the St. Louis Federal Reserve and as a Trustee to Washington University in St. Louis. Jim’s first venture was co-founding Mira Digital Publishing in 1990, which is a leader in electronic publishing for scientific conferences. In 2013, he founded the LaunchCode Foundation, currently bringing free computer education and jobs to 5 US cities. In addition to his businesses and philanthropy, Jim is a glassblowing artist and co-founded one of the nation’s top glass centers, Third Degree Glass Factory. He has published two books on computer programming and one on glassblowing. He is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis.
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About Arch Grants, FINTOP Capital, Invisibly, LaunchCode, Mira Smart Conference, Square, Third Degree Glass Factory, Washington University in St. Louis: Invisibly puts the power of your data back in your hands.
Tim Vanderhook
Co-Founder & CEO of Viant
As the Co-Founder, President and CEO of Viant, Tim sets and drives the overall direction and business strategy for the company and each of its brands. In 1999, Tim, along with brothers Chris and Russ identified the high growth potential of digital advertising and founded the interactive advertising platform Specific Media during those early stages of internet advertising. Tim’s vision led the development of behavioral targeting technology that created ground-breaking interest-based digital advertising practices. He led the company’s evolution from a small family business to an industry-leading multinational corporation.
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About Myspace, Viant, Viant, XUMO: Viant is an advertising software company enabling the execution and measurement of digital advertising through a cloud-based platform.
Robert Gryn
Co-Founder of Voluum
Robert Gryn is the youngest self-made entrepreneur to make the Forbes 100 Richest list in Poland. He’s the former CEO of Codewise, the 2nd fastest growing company in Europe. After selling Codewise he shifted 100% of his attention and focus to crypto. His new mission is to help accelerate the mass adoption of this revolutionary technology. Like many, he believes that blockchain will make the world a better and more equitable place.
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About Metahero, Zeropark: Performance marketing tracking solution
Kaan Gunay
Co-Founder & CEO of Firefly
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About Endeavor, Firefly: Firefly is a mobility based advertising and data platform that allows rideshare drivers to make money through digital advertising.
Justin Choi
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Nativo
Justin Choi is a serial entrepreneur and founder of three successful companies across different technology sectors. Justin currently serves as Founder and CEO of Nativo, the most advanced advertising technology platform that helps brands create meaningful connections with consumers and empowers publishers with breakthrough monetization solutions. Prior to Nativo, Justin founded and led two companies to highly successful exits: Cie Games, a mobile app development firm acquired by Glu Mobile for $100M that built two top 25 grossing games, including the #1 mobile racing game, and attracted over 50M players; and Cie Digital Labs (CDL) an interactive agency that provides innovation consulting and custom app development services to major brands. Justin continues to serve as a CDL board member and acts as head of product strategy and development, and is an investor and board member at numerous organizations. A thought leader in digital media, advertising, gamification, and app development, Justin has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, USA Today, Bloomberg West, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, AdWeek and other national publications.
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About Cie, Nativo: Nativo is an advertising technology platform for brand advertisers and publishers to scale, automate, and measure native ads.
Matt Schlicht
CEO and Founder of Octane AI
Matt Schlicht is the founder and editor of Chatbots Magazine, the #1 place to learn about chatbots. He is a YC Alum, a Forbes 30 Under 30 winner, and was also previously a product manager at Ustream as well as an advisor to several other startups. Several months ago, Matt decided to launch a community dedicated to messaging and bots. Chatbots Magazine was born and now reaches over 200,000+ people per month. Matt joins us to share his story, how he got into startups and tech, how he created the opportunity to join the team at uStream, how he approaches building products, why he’s so passionate about bots and messaging, what’s next for Chatbots Magazine.
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About Chatbots Magazine, DominateFund, Hamster Pad, Octane AI, ZapChain: Octane AI provides an all-in-one platform for engaging quizzes, data collection, and personalized Facebook Messenger and SMS automation.
Jed Simon
Founder & CEO of FastPay
Jed Simon is the founder and CEO of FastPay, providing liquidity and financial workflow solutions to the digital media industry. Formerly, Simon was an investment banking analyst program at Morgan Stanley & Co. in New York working on IPOs, debt finance transactions, and M&A for media companies. After joining DreamWorks SKG in 1996, Simon managed aspects of its finance, distribution, marketing, and new media businesses, and was a senior executive at DreamWorks Records before assisting in the sale of the company to Universal Music Group. His last position with DreamWorks was Vice President of International Distribution and Marketing for DreamWorks Pictures, based in London.
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About DreamWorks Studios, FastPay: FastPay is the definitive financial platform for digital media.
Rajeev Goel
Co-Founder & CEO of PubMatic
Rajeev co-founded PubMatic in 2006, based on the belief that publishers are underserved from a technology and services perspective, and set out to build an automation software company focused on publishers. Under his leadership, the company has grown and matured into a major enterprise provider with more than 400 employees and 13 locations around the globe. The high pace of revenue and profit growth, is fueled by Rajeev’s commitment to help publishers protect, monetize and manage their most valuable asset – the relationship between consumers, content and brands. Rajeev is a serial entrepreneur who has raised more than $250 million in funding throughout his career. Rajeev serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the IAB. He holds a master’s degree in Computer & Information Technology from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s degree in economics, political science and Spanish from the Johns Hopkins University.
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About PubMatic: PubMatic is an automation solutions company for an open digital media industry.
Craig Newmark
Founder, Chairman & Customer Service Rep of Craigslist
Craig Newmark is an American internet entrepreneur. He is the founder and chairman of [Craigslist](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/craigslist), a classified advertisements website for jobs, personals, for-sale and wanted items, services, resumes, and discussion forums. He is also the founder of Craigconnects. In 2013, Newmark was named “Nerd-in-Residence” by the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Center for Innovation in recognition of his volunteer work to enhance services to veterans. He uses the Craigconnects platform to support effective organizations working for veterans and military families, the open government, public diplomacy, journalistic ethics and accountability, fact-checking, consumer protection, election protection, and voter registration. Newmark serves on the board of directors of the Poynter Institute Foundation, Center for Public Integrity, Sunlight Foundation, Consumers Union/Consumer Reports, and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. He also serves on the Board of Overseers of the Columbia Journalism Review, and as an advisor to nearly 20 other renowned non-profit organizations. Newmark communicates regularly through his own blog on craigconnects.org and through the Huffington Post, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. He also travels around the country speaking about issues, appearing on behalf of organizations he supports and delivering his Craigconnects message to audiences nationwide. Born in Morristown, New Jersey in 1952, Newmark received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from Case Western University. He currently lives in San Francisco, California.
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About Craigslist: Craigslist is a classified advertisements website for jobs, personals, for sale and wanted items, services, résumés, and discussion forums.
Raghu Kodige
Founder & Chief Product Officer of Alphonso
Raghu Kodige is the co-founder of Alphonso.
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About Alphonso, LG Ads, Microsoft, Yahoo: Alphonso is a software company that offers TV data and measurement services for brands and agencies.
Diaz Nesamoney
Founder, President & CEO of Jivox
Diaz Nesamoney founder of Jivox has had two prior successful ventures. He was previously co-founder, President and Chief Operating Officer at Informatica (NASDAQ:INFA), which he took from a startup to a publicly Diaz Nesamoney is an accomplished technology entrepreneur who founded three successful technology companies, all harnessing the power of data to power enterprise and consumer applications. Currently Diaz is Founder, President, and CEO of Jivox, a company that provides a technology platform for data-driven personalized advertising and marketing. He was previously Co-founder, President, and Chief Operating Officer at Informatica (NASDAQ:INFA), which he took from a startup to a publicly traded company in 1999. Informatica pioneered data integration software as a category and is now the market leader with more than $1 billion in revenue and a $5 billion market capitalization. Before founding Jivox, he founded Celequest and served as its CEO until early 2007, when the company was acquired by Cognos/IBM. Celequest introduced the market’s first business intelligence and analytics appliance, a disruptive innovation that led to its acquisition. Diaz holds a Masters degree in Computer Science from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in India and is the holder of seven technology patents. Diaz is also the author of the first book on using data and technology to personalize digital advertising.
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About Jivox: Jivox offers a cloud-based, data-driven omnichannel platform that personalizes digital advertising and marketing experiences at scale.
Kelvin Cheung
CTO, Founder of LeanData
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About LeanData: LeanData is a platform that enables revenue teams (marketing, sales, customer, and partner ops) to manage all go-to-market motions.
Jan Nugent
Founder & CEO of Branded Online
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About Branded Online, Nogin: Branded Online is a dynamic technology company that delivers enterprise-class ecommerce, marketing, and logistics solutions to brands.
Jordan Rothstein
Founder, CEO of King Tide Creative
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About Furious M, King Tide Creative, Raziel, TravelZeeky: King Tide is a full-service creative agency specifically and intricately designed to surpass the reach of the modern branding machine.
Oded Noy
Co-Founder & CTO of TargetClose
Oded Noy is the CTO at ZEFR.
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About Amplify.LA, LA CTO Forum, TargetClose, ZEFR: Our business focuses on efficiently delivering customers for direct to consumer brands.
Christopher Lien
Founder & CEO of Marin Software
Mr. Lien is Marin’s founder and Chairman of the Board, and rejoined the Company as Chief Executive Officer in August 2016. From September 2015 to August 2016, Mr. Lien has served on boards of private companies as well as Marin Software. From May 2014 until September 2015, Mr. Lien served as executive chairman of Marin Software, and from the founding of the Company in 2006 to May 2014, he served as the Company’s Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Lien has been a member of the Board since 2006. Previously, Mr. Lien served as Chief Operating Officer of Adteractive, Inc., an online performance marketing company, from 2004 to 2005. In 2001, Mr. Lien co-founded and served as Chairman and Chief Financial Officer of Sugar Media, Inc., a broadband services platform, until its acquisition in 2003 by 2Wire, Inc., a leading supplier of DSL equipment and services, which was subsequently acquired by Pace plc in 2010. Prior to that, Mr. Lien served in various capacities at BlueLight.com, LLC, Kmart Corporation’s ecommerce and Internet service provider subsidiary from 2000 to 2001, including as Chief Financial Officer and acting Chief Executive Officer. Prior to BlueLight.com, Mr. Lien spent 10 years at various investment banks, including Morgan Stanley and Evercore Partners, with his last role as Managing Director. Mr. Lien holds an A.B. from Dartmouth College, where he was elected as a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Mr. Lien’s presence as a member of the Board brings his thorough knowledge of the Company into the Board’s strategic and policy-making discussions. He brings his extensive experience in finance, digital marketing and executive roles in the information technology industry into deliberations regarding the Company’s strategy and operations.
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About Heron Partners, Marin Software, Marin Software: Marin Software Incorporated (NYSE:MRIN) provides a leading cross-channel performance advertising platform used by advertisers and agencies.
Scott Rafer
Co-Founder of Delivr
Scott Rafer is the Advisor at Technicolor Ventures since July 2014. After 20 years running software startups, Scott is focusing on being the sidekick to a few great founders in marketing automation, marketplace seller services, and e-commerce delivery. There is a business plan at the intersection of those three burning in his brain, but he’s got that under control for now. Startup-wise, Scott was most recently Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Nanigans, which is pioneering the SaaS evolution of media buying with its predictive lifetime value SaaS platform. Until its 2013 acquisition by Nanigans, Scott ran Lumatic, where the team believed that cities are humanity’s future — so they’d better get a lot easier to love. We made smartphone maps for pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users. Lumatic was preceded by Lookery, one of the first ad networks on Facebook, portions of which were sold to Adknowledge in 2008; and MyBlogLog, a social network of bloggers, which Yahoo! acquired in 2007. The list goes downhill from there for a decade. Before most of the startup work, Scott headed-up the Internet products group at Kodak Hollywood, worked in investment banking at Needham & Company. Scott graduated from the Management of Technology Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Scott is also Co-Founder and a Member of the Board of Directors at Mashery (acquired by Intel), ShopPad, Boomset, Boostable, Delivr and Zemanta. Check out @rafer and rafer.net for more.
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About Delivr, PANTASTIC: QR Code & NFC Management and Tracking
Kyle Wong
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Pixlee TurnTo
Kyle Wong is the CEO & Co-Founder of Pixlee, a visual marketing platform that helps brands market and sells with customer photos and videos. The company works with more than 150 brands such as Kenneth Cole, Gaiam, Levi Strauss and Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants to develop a more authentic marketing experience and create stronger relationships with their most passionate customers. Apart from that, he is currently working as a contributor with Forbes magazine and as a leadership council with Ad Council. Kyle attended Stanford University where he studied engineering and co-founded Pixlee out of his dorm room in 2012. He is a mentor for the Stanford Accelerator (StartX) program, where he advises several early-stage VC backed tech startups. Kyle has been featured in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 List and is a regular speaker and domain expert on influencer marketing and driving consumer engagement through social media. He is also an active contributor for Forbes and Fortune Magazine where he writes on digital marketing, entrepreneurship, and various leadership and career topics.
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About Ad Council, Forbes Magazine, Pixlee: Pixlee TurnTo ia a Social UGC, Influencer Marketing, and Ratings & Reviews company.
Raju Sagiraju
CEO/Founder of Dime Development
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About Dime Development: Digital Agency to help brands
Eric Mathewson
Founder & CEO of WideOrbit
Eric Mathewson is the Founder and CEO of WideOrbit, the leading provider of advertising management solutions for media companies. Since its founding in 1999, WideOrbit has grown to be the media management platform of choice for over 70% of US television stations.
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About Prescient Capital, WideOrbit: WideOrbit provides advertising management software for major media companies.
Christopher Smitley
Founder & CEO of LeadBully.com
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About AdverMail, ClickSmart.com, Ghray Area Holdings, Golf Ball Charger, LB & Company, LeadBully.com: LeadBully is a service marketing agency that specializes in lead generation, bulk consumer, and landing page optimization aspects.
Victoria Ransom
Founder of Wildfire
Founder & CEO at Prisma.
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About Bowie Capital Management, Dare Co., Prisma, Wildfire: Wildfire is a provider of enterprise social media marketing software.
Spectacular Smith
Founder & CEO of Adwizar
Upon turning after school candy sales into a $2,000 a week business at age 11, Spectacular Smith discovered he was an entrepreneur. That realization would take him first to the heights of popular music, and then to success as a business owner, label owner, author, and beyond. A dancer since the third grade, Smith took his childhood love of performing into the rap group he formed with his brothers, Pretty Ricky. His father was the manager of the group, and owner of indie label. Spectacular contributed musically and also choreographed the group’s explosive stage shows—performances that won them a deal with Atlantic Records. The group went on to huge worldwide success: filling arenas on the Scream IV tour, selling millions of singles and ringtones, and earning huge hits with “Grind With Me,” & “Your Body,” Music stardom was just the first stage of Spectacular Smith’s career. Intrigued by the business possibilities of social media, he turned Pretty Ricky’s Facebook page into his personal laboratory, testing out his theories behind social networks for a full year until he had a new, unbreakable system of gaining and monetizing followers. He then turned those ideas into Adwizar, the dominant social media brand in the urban music space. The company runs the Facebook pages of artists such as Bow Wow, Kevin Gates, Soulja Boy, Master P, Birdman, Bone Thugs N Harmony, and countless others. Adwizar has now grown beyond urban music into dealing with major brands and corporations, athletes, merchandising deals, and more. The company was also featured on Forbes.com for its innovative methods, and has no ceiling on its growth. Smith has not left music behind. He has a record label called Mula Music Group, The label has recently signed West Coast artist Compton Menace, who is ringing up millions of YouTube views for his new single with Chris Brown, “Put On.” After conquering the worlds of music, social media, and publishing, the world is waiting to see what he does next.
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About Adwizar, Amazon, Inc. Magazine, Meta, Spectacular Academy, Viacom: Music Industry’s #1 Company for Growth and Monetization on Social Media – Making Artist, and Brands residual income from their social media.
Adam Turner
CEO and Founder of Postscript
Adam Turner is the founder and CEO at Postscript. He was a product manager at StackCommerce. He studied Bachelor of Science in physics at University of Southern California.
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About Postscript: Postscript is an SMS platform that enables brands to communicate and engage with customers through text message marketing.
Alex Beller
Co-Founder and President of Postscript
Alex Beller is the co-founder and president at Postscript. He was a director of business development at StackCommerce. He studied philosophy at University of Southern California.
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About Postscript: Postscript is an SMS platform that enables brands to communicate and engage with customers through text message marketing.
Maria Sipka
Co-Founder, VP Brand Strategy and Chief Evangelist of Linqia
Maria is the Co-Founder, EVP Brand Strategy at Linqia. Home of the first performance-based influencer marketing platform with fully managed services, Linqia merges science and storytelling to optimize creator content at scale. Prior to Linqia, Maria was part of the founding team and COO at XING, Europe’s leading business network, where she led XING’s communities and premium group offerings, exiting shortly after its IPO. Maria also founded the content marketing agency Cherry Communications at age 18 and grew the agency to be one of the most respected consultancies in Australia. Additionally, Maria has been recognized as one of the leading women in technology by Forbes.
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About Linqia: Linqia is the only influencer marketing company that delivers guaranteed influencer ROI for the enterprise.
Susan Kuo
COO & Co-Founder of Singular
Susan’s extensive background in mobile ad tech, analytics, and gaming was integral in the creation of Singular. Before founding Singular, she held senior leadership roles at Onavo and InMobi. As an active member of the mobile community, she serves on the advisory board for several mobile-focused startups.
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About Singular: Singular, a marketing intelligence platform, unifies marketing analytics, giving marketers actionable insights from previously siloed data
Gadi Eliashiv
CEO & Co-Founder of Singular
After leading a team of Technologists for 8200, the most elite intelligence unit of the Israeli Army, Gadi founded Singular with the belief that simplified and unified marketing data is the key to unlocking growth. Prior to Singular, Gadi was Head of Research at Onavo, a mobile analytics company acquired by Facebook in 2013.
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About Singular: Singular, a marketing intelligence platform, unifies marketing analytics, giving marketers actionable insights from previously siloed data
Luke McDonough
Founder, CEO of AIR.TV
Luke McDonough is Founder & CEO at AIR.TV.
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About AIR.TV, IFILM: AIR.TV enables the distribution and monetization of viral videos on websites.
Kris Kibak
Founder & CEO of The Control Group
Entrepreneur & Investor focused on startups, equities and real estate.
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About The Control Group: The Control Group is an online development and web marketing company based in San Diego, California.
Jim Steyer
Founder and CEO of Common Sense Media
Jim has spent more than 20 years as one of the most respected experts and entrepreneurs on issues related to children’s policy and media in the United States. As CEO, he is responsible for the overall leadership of Common Sense Media, the nation’s leading nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving the media lives of kids and families. Prior to founding Common Sense, Jim was Chairman and CEO of JP Kids, a respected family media company. Before that, he served as President of Children Now, a leading national advocacy and media organization for children, which he founded in 1988. Jim began his career as an elementary school teacher and then became a public interest lawyer. He served as a law clerk for the California Supreme Court, as a deputy district attorney, and as a civil rights attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. In addition to his duties at Common Sense, Jim teaches popular courses on civil rights, civil liberties, and children’s issues at Stanford University, where he has taught for the past 22 years in the School of Education and Department of Political Science. During that period, he has received a number of Stanford’s highest teaching honors. Jim is also the author of the widely acclaimed book The Other Parent: The Inside Story of the Media’s Effect on Our Children, which draws upon his extensive experience as a leading child advocate, educational media expert, and dad. Over the past decade, Jim has appeared regularly on a variety of national television and radio programs, including The Today Show, Good Morning America, Oprah, CNN, The O’Reilly Factor, and Larry King. He hosts a regular weekly segment, “Kids and the Media,” on CBS-5 TV in San Francisco, and his work has been featured in many publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Newsweek, and The Wall Street Journal. Jim grew up in New York City and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford. He received his JD from Stanford Law School, where he founded the East Palo Alto Community Law Project. Jim is the father of four children and lives with his family in the Bay Area.
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About Common Sense Media: Common Sense Media provides information and education to help kids and families thrive in a world of media and technology.
Todd Khozein
Founder & Co-CEO of SecondMuse
Todd Khozein is the Founder & Co-CEO ,Director of Secondmuse Foundation.
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About SecondMuse, Secondmuse Foundation: SecondMuse is an innovation and collaboration agency.
Erik Huberman
Founder and CEO of Hawke Media
Forbes 30 Under 30. Erik Huberman is a brand marketing expert, serial entrepreneur and founder of Hawke Media, a full-service outsourced CMO for brands like Red Bull, Verizon, Evite and Eddie Bauer. Prior to Hawke, Erik founded, grew and sold Swag of the Month, and grew Ellie.com’s sales to $1 million in four months. Erik is also an Inc. Top 25 Marketing Influencer and received a 2016 Telly Award.
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About Hawke Media, Hawke Ventures: Hawke Media provides a host of services that help businesses strategize and realize their potential.
Travis Chambers
Chief Media Hacker, Founder of Chamber.Media
Travis Chambers is the Founder of Chamber.Media.
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About Chamber.Media, Tangible School: Chamber.Media is the industry leader in data crafted video ads with 3,000 productions/mo and $800M in tracked revenue driven for brands.
Sean Fannan
CTO & Co-Founder of Chartboost
Sean Fannan is co-founder and CTO of Chartboost, a technology platform for mobile developers to find new users and monetize their games. Chartboost works with over 32,000 games, serves over 12 billion game sessions per month and has raised $21M from Sequoia Capital and other investors. Prior to Chartboost, Fannan was one of the early employees at Tapulous, that was acquired by Walt Disney in 2010 to become Disney Mobile.
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About Chartboost: Chartboost is one of the largest mobile-games only marketplace to increase revenue and discover new players.
Dedric Reid
Founder of HelloVR
Dedric Reid is Founder @ HelloVR
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About HelloVR, MetaWorld: A digital content studio creating shared immersive experiences.
Tyson Quick
Founder & Chief Growth Officer of Postclick
Serial Entrepreneur, Advertising/Marketing Innovator, Postclick & Instapage Founder/CEO
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About Instapage, Mesiab Labs, Postclick: The world’s leading solution for improving digital ad conversions-creating digital experiences that optimize and increase return on ad spend
Rob Emrich
Founder & CEO of The Mobile Majority
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About Alliance for Audited Media, The Emrich Foundation, The Mobile Majority, YPO: We help brands realize the full potential of mobile.
Rob Weedn
Founder, CEO of DealSignal
Focused and driven executive & entrepreneur with 15 years experience in sales & business development, product strategy, marketing and finance. Created multipliers on revenue growth at 3 companies by taking new solutions to market. Built revenue streams key to successful exits at my last 2 companies. Delivered $20M revenue in the past 4 years with 175% average annual achievement and unparalleled 90% win rate. Created new business with customers such as Visa, Paypal, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase, Union Bank, Walmart, Home Depot, Walgreens, Best Buy, Famsa, McKesson, Kaiser Permanente, American Medical Response, Sandisk, Sandia Labs, the FBI, US Air Force. I love building businesses in mobile, sensors, speech recognition and big data. Specialties: • Mobile, CRM, BPM, NLP, Big Data, Analytics, Visualization • Strong Technical background • Enterprise Sales • Consultative Sales • Leadership, Team Building • Product Strategy & Marketing • Lean Startup • Business Planning, P&L • Business Process Design & Execution • Demand Generation • Packaging, Pricing & Negotiation • BD & Alliances – VAR, SI, OEM • Keen sense of Mobile UX Design • Project Management (PMP) • Consulting & Project Delivery
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About DealSignal: DealSignal helps B2B companies maximize growth and conversions with targeted lead and account discovery and CRM data enrichment.
Ben Goldhirsh
Founder of GOOD
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About GOOD: GOOD is an integrated media platform for pragmatic idealists working towards individual and collective progress.
Marc Simons
Co-Founder of Giant Spoon
Marc Simons has been a creative catalyst dedicated to thinking about how emerging technologies will change the face of media and marketing at a number of large advertising and media agencies before starting his own independent agency. Prior to co-founding Giant Spoon, Marc was the West Coast Director for OMD’s creative media group, the Ignition Factory at Omnicom. Marc has a number of “firsts” under his belt, including embedding a web-connected video screen in a magazine for the CW, the first television script published to Amazon’s Kindle Store as a marketing stunt, the first “Shazam-able” TV ad with Levi Strauss & Co., and the first advertising on Flipboard. Marc has also helped countless startups tackle their advertising products while pairing brands with the next wave of disruptive technologies.A Boston University grad, Marc resides in Los Angeles, CA
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About Giant Spoon: Giant Spoon is a marketing strategy and innovation agency that provides short- and long-term marketing and business planning.
Nanxi Liu
CEO & Co-Founder of Enplug
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About Enplug, Nanoly: Enplug is a software company that built the first open platform for digital displays everywhere.
Ben Hsieh
Co-Founder and COO of Synapbox
Ben Hsieh is the co-founder and COO of Synapbox. He is a former director at Nest.vc.
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About Synapbox: Synapbox is a startup that uses AI-powered tools to understand consumer engagement towards Ads.
Chaitanya Chandrasekar
Co-Founder & CEO of QuanticMind
Chaitanya Chandrasekar is CEO and a co-founder of QuanticMind, the platform for smarter advertising. Previously, he built and managed the traffic acquisition platform and was part of the data science team at NexTag. He strongly believes in the power of data-driven technology, which can help decipher big data to unlock new ideas and opportunities, and continues to be fascinated by the possibilities of search marketing and its continued evolution alongside new and developing fields such as social and offline conversions.
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About QuanticMind: QuanticMind is a predictive advertising management software for paid search and social channels.
Kamal Shah
Founder, CEO and CTO of fotobabble
Kamal Shah has over 20 years of experience building technology products and companies. Kamal was the Founder and President of Invu Technology for seven years. Prior to that he served as Chief Architect at enterprise software companies Wakesoft and Smashcast and started his career as a software engineer in the early ’90s. Kamal has a Master’s in Engineering from the University of Toronto where he was also the captain and nationally ranked member of the University of Toronto Swim Team.
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About fotobabble, FotoNotes, invu technology: Fotobabble is a software company providing photo- and audio-powered social marketing solutions.
Tuomo Riekki
Founder & CPO of Smartly.io
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About Smartly.io: Powering beautifully effective ads
Zafar Jafri
CEO & Founder of Inprintz, Inc.
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About Inprintz, Inc.: Inprintz is a large format printing company.
Mitch Thrower
Founder & Chairman of Events.com
He is the Founder and Chairman of Events.com, an innovative cloud-based Event Management Platform provider that provides a state of the art mobile-first SaaS application that enables the full event life-cycle, connecting event organizers and event goers. Events.com enables event organizers to plan, promote, and ticket their events while also providing event goers the tools to discover, register, collaborate, share, and celebrate their experiences. Thrower also serves as Chairman of The La Jolla Foundation, a 501c3 foundation whose primary initiative is Project Active, providing funding, mentoring, encouragement and education to areas of world tension. Specifically — sending sports equipment to children in war zones. Thrower Co-Founded active.com (The Active Network, Inc.). He also launched ActiveEurope.com (Active Europe Network) as Co-Founder and CEO. Active went public before selling to Vista for 1.05 billion. Thrower was the President and Chief Operating Officer of Triathlete Magazine, the world’s largest triathlon magazine where he also served as Chairman. He has also served as the Chief Interactive Officer, Strategist & Senior Correspondent for the Competitor Group (CGI), the active lifestyle industry’s leading media and event entertainment company. Thrower spoke at his university graduation at St. Lawrence University, and has lectured at many colleges such as Stanford University, Anderson School at UCLA, UCSD and the University of San Diego where he served as the “Entrepreneur in Residence” teaching Entrepreneurship. Thrower is an active member of TED.com and the Executive Producer of TEDxLaJolla, an independently organized TED event. He is the Author of “The Attention Deficit Workplace: Winning Strategies for Success in Today’s Fast-Paced Business Environment,” published by Lyons Press and he was author of the popular monthly column, “Starting Lines” in Triathlete Magazine for more than a decade. He was also co-author of the travel guide “The Passport” which, for several years was distributed to 50,000 college students before traveling abroad each year. In 1990, Thrower co-founded his first company and served as CEO of The College/Rail Connection, Inc., serving American Express, AT&T, and Eurail until he sold the venture in 1997. Thrower graduated from the Executive Institute at Stanford University. He holds a MBA from the University of San Diego and a bachelor’s degree from Saint Lawrence University. He has competed in 22 Ironman Triathlons, including 13 World Championships. He is the only photo journalist to ever photograph and film the Ironman Triathlon World Championships while competing in the event. Thrower is an East Coast native whose father, Fred Thrower was a television pioneer as Vice President of NBC, and also as president of WPIX-TV in New York City and is known for his holiday creation of the televised “Yule Log.” Thrower’s mother, Lori, worked as an assistant for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in NYC. Thrower is happily married to his lovely wife Amanda and lives in La Jolla, California.
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About Events.com, La Jolla Foundation, Inc, La Jolla Holding: Events.com is an event management platform that manage, market, and monetize low-key fundraisers, massive festivals, and marathons.
Jay Desai
Founder and CFO of InvestingChannel, Inc.
Jay is a founder and CFO of InvestingChannel. As CFO, he spearheads business strategy and oversees the corporate development and finance functions. Before InvestingChannel, as a consultant with Giant Step Strategies (GSS), Jay helped Internet entrepreneurs write business plans, forge strategic partnerships, improve business strategy, raise capital and negotiate mergers and acquisitions. Prior to GSS, he was a partner at Hambrecht & Quist, a technology-focused investment bank later acquired by JP Morgan Chase. At H&Q, Jay helped found and grow the company’s Internet industry group and mergers & acquisitions practice and specifically focused on the online advertising space in his last few years. From raising capital through private placements and public offerings to providing strategic and mergers & acquisitions advice, he has helped shape the web from a financial and advisory role. Working on transactions ranging from $10 million to over $2 billion, Jay worked with such clients as Netscape, Quote.com, Adforce, UUnet, Infospace, Netcentives. Prior to his seven years with H&Q, he worked in the technology and biotechnology industries for the merger and acquisition specialist, Wasserstein Perella. A true weekend warrior that loves the outdoors, Jay participates in virtually every sport imaginable and has the battle scars to prove it.
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About InvestingChannel, Inc.: Our mission is to be most innovative and scalable marketing platform in financial services.
Matthew Morrison O’Connor
Co-Founder of AdQuick
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About AdQuick: AdQuick is a marketplace to buy and sell outdoor advertising.
Connor Burden
Co-Founder of AdQuick
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About AdQuick: AdQuick is a marketplace to buy and sell outdoor advertising.
Alon Carmel
CEO & Founder of AniView
Alon Carmel, an Israeli serial entrepreneur, founded Aniview–a global adtech and media company– in 2013. He has founded dozens of startups, primarily in the hi-tech sphere. Most notably he is recognized as a founder of the Spark Network–which manages the JDate and Christian Mingle platforms.
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About AniView: Aniview is a global adtech and media company whose platform is playing an increasingly central role in delivering efficient and effective video advertising across the open web. The company’s end-to-end solutions are highly flexible and transparent, and they operate on desktop, mobile, in-app, connected TV, and over-the-top formats. Aniview’s patented video player technology, high-performance ad server, and video marketplace provide flawless video delivery to over 200,000 publishers worldwide and power many of the world’s largest web publishing groups. Founded in 2013, Aniview now delivers, on average, 15 billion ad impressions per month. For more information, please visit https://www.aniview.com/.
Lauren Nagel
Founder, CEO of Scale It For Me
Lauren Nagel is a data-driven marketer specializing in growth for internet businesses. Lauren’s core expertise is in driving rapid customer, traffic, and revenue growth. Lauren is CEO and Founder at SIFM. She works with each business to establish high-performance, scalable, multi-channel marketing programs to help companies exceed their goals. Throughout her marketing career, she has acted as Chief Marketing Officer for multiple internet businesses.
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About FindKeep.Love, Scale It For Me: Scale It For Me, LLC is a full service marketing consulting firm.
Mike Land
Founder of Rela
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About Rela: Rela’s platform gives agents the power to create beautiful single property websites in minutes.
Nicholas Parasram
Founder of Sonar Projects
Nicholas Parasram is a founder and investor in the entertainment and technology industry. Nicholas started his career working on product and growth initiatives at Kanvas Labs (f/k/a Tracks Media), a mobile-tech startup focused on creativity and self expression through viral music and video content, which was acquired in 2015 by AOL/Verizon. He then launched his own product development studio, creating three consumer apps, Eventible, FLYR and MIDI.AI. Using the experience he gained while working with influencers and artists on various mobile apps, he also launched Sonar Projects, a company focused on powering the creator economy through content marketing, talent management and seed investments. Clients he’s worked with include: Sony Music’s Epic and Columbia Records, Jack Harlow, The Chainsmokers, Universal Music’s Republic Records, Future, Verizon, and more. His talent management roster consists of producer/songwriters Marcus Van Wattum (signed with Giorgio Tuinfort, production credits include: David Guetta, Sia, G-Eazy & more) and Stryv (signed with Ian Kirkpatrick + Warner Music Group’s APG). His venture fund, Kaieteur Capital focuses on investing in early-stage startups in the crypto, gaming, cpg and creator industries. In December of 2021, Nicholas invested and joined Turnt Gaming, a blockchain gaming studio (creators of Taunt Battleworld), to lead marketing and partnerships.
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About Sonar Projects: Sonar Projects is a diversified company specializing in mobile product development, growth hacking & influencer marketing.
Martin Anazco
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Jampp
Martin co-founded Jampp in 2011 – a mobile app marketing platform that combines advanced technology (Big Data, Real Time Bidding and Machine Learning) with a team of mobile marketing experts to deliver millions of users to iOS and Android apps globally. Previously, in the year 2000, he co-founded and ran Livra.com (Livra Panels) which became the leading online market research company in Latin America. In 2008, after continuous growth the company was acquired by publicly listed IPSOS – one of the top market research organisations world-wide. Martin was born in Comodoro Rivadavia, Argentina. He graduated in Economics from the University of San Andres in Buenos Aires (Honors Thesis: “Selling Information Good on the Internet: Give before you sell”).
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About Jampp, Livra Panels: Jampp is the growth platform of choice for on-demand apps worldwide. We unlock programmatic UA and RTGT to drive incremental performance
Diego Meller
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Jampp
Diego co-founded Jampp in 2013 – The company is a performance marketing platform for retargeting and acquiring app customers. The company combines behavioural data with predictive and programmatic technology to generate revenue for advertisers by showing personal, relevant ads that inspire consumers to purchase for the first time, or more often. Jampp’s 90 people team serve a global client base from offices in San Francisco, Singapore, London, Berlin, São Paulo, Cape Town and Buenos Aires. Previously, in the year 2000, Diego co-founded and ran Livra.com which became the leading online market research company in Latin America. In 2008, after continuous growth the company was acquired by publicly listed IPSOS – one of the top market research organisations world-wide.
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About Jampp, Livra: Jampp is the growth platform of choice for on-demand apps worldwide. We unlock programmatic UA and RTGT to drive incremental performance
Mike Kofi Okyere
Founder & CEO of Perengo
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About Perengo: Perengo is a programmatic recruitment automation and analytics platform for performance-conscious recruiters.
Artur Lapinsch
Co-Founder of Perengo
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About Dataconomy Media GmbH, Perengo: Perengo is a programmatic recruitment automation and analytics platform for performance-conscious recruiters.
Erik Kostelnik
Co-Founder & CEO of Postal.io
Erik Kostelnik is the co-founder and CEO of Postal.io, a leading offline engagement platform that automates direct mail and gifting in the sales and marketing workflow. Prior to Postal.io, Erik founded TextRecruit, one of the fastest-growing HR technology companies in the world, leading it to acquisition in 2018 by iCIMS, Inc. He also served as the Head of Sales at Wrike from 2014 to 2016 helping it reach #116 in 2015 Deloitte Fastest 500. Erik was named an Upstart 50 Top Inventor by the Silicon Valley Business Journal in 2017 and lives in San Luis Obispo, CA with his wife and three kids.
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About Postal.io: Postal.io offers an experience marketing platform helping businesses to generate leads, increase sales velocity, and retain happy customers.
