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 United States based CEO’ operating in the Social Media space. If you think a CEO’ 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.
Jeff Weiner
Chief Executive Officer & Executive Chairman of LinkedIn
Jeff Weiner is the executive chairman of LinkedIn, where he continues to help LinkedIn realize its vision of creating economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. He’ll also continue to mentor and coach the leadership team, advise on key strategic initiatives, and help to represent the company externally. In addition to his ongoing work at LinkedIn, Jeff is focused on investing, coaching and his philanthropic work, including helping to ensure that compassion is taught and practiced in every primary school in the U.S. Prior to becoming executive chairman in June 2020, Jeff was the CEO of LinkedIn. During his 11-year tenure, LinkedIn grew its membership base from 33M to more than 690M, increased its revenue from $78M to over $7.9B and expanded the team from 338 employees to over 16,000. Also, presently resides on the board of directors for Intuit, Donorschoose.org and Everfi, an ed tech company with which he co-founded The Compassion Project, a non-profit whose mission is to ensure compassion is taught in every elementary school in the U.S. Additionally, an active early and growth stage investor through his Next Play Ventures fund and separately, the newly created Concrete Rose Capital fund, focused on investing in diverse founders, start-ups serving underserved communities and/or building diverse teams. Prior to LinkedIn, was an Executive in Residence at Accel Partners and Greylock Partners. Primarily focused on advising the leadership teams of the firm’s existing consumer technology portfolio companies while also working closely with the firm’s partners to evaluate new investment opportunities. Previously served in key leadership roles at Yahoo! for over seven years, most recently as the Executive Vice President of Yahoo!’s Network Division managing Yahoo’s consumer web product portfolio, including Yahoo’s Front Page, Mail, Search, and Media products.
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About LinkedIn, Next Play Ventures: LinkedIn is a professional networking site that allows its members to create business connections, search jobs, and find potential clients.
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Alex Chung
Co-Founder & CEO of Giphy
Alex Chung is currently the founder and CEO of GIPHY. His latest startups include Artspace, a leading ecommerce destination for contemporary art, The Fridge, a private social network acquired by Google, and General Displays a GE venture developing GE’s next generation of HDTVs. He has also directed media technology for MTV, NBC, Comcast, Charter, and managed future technologies for Paul Allen’s R&D lab. He was one of the early architects of interactive television and started his career as a hardware engineer at Intel. He was named on Business Insider’s Top 25 most influential technologists in New York and has degrees in philosophy, electrical/computer engineering, and graphic design.
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About Giphy: Giphy is an online database and search engine that allows users to search, share, and discover GIFs.
Abraham Shafi
Founder and CEO of IRL
Abe attended UC Berkeley and studied the intersection of computer engineering, business, cultural anthropology and sociology before starting his first company, getTalent, a highly acclaimed social recruiting platform, prompting him to leave school. The platform was born of out a personal experience while job hunting and realizing there was improvements to be made with the resume-sorting process. The platform leveraged data science to take away the biases from the hiring process, thus helping organizations hire the best talent. getTalent had global clients including Walmart, JetBlue and Viacom, and was later sold to Dice in 2013. In 2018, Abe founded IRL because he was personally driven to build an app that would bring people together. He found his addiction to social media was related to his own depression and left him close to quitting social media all together. This propelled him to make a social product that could help people feel connected in a way that felt healthier and less addictive. Since inception, the app has brought friends together over 600M times. IRL has eleven employees and is based in San Francisco, California. In Abe’s spare time, he likes playing piano and composing music. Currently, he is most interested in merging electronic music with classical leveraging deep folkloric music from around the world, blending with archeologic tunes of humankind’s musical history.
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About IRL: Groups, Chats, Events
Shlomo Zalman Bregman
Founder & CEO of Alpha Tribe Media
Shlomo Zalman Bregman (born June 27, 1977), is an American rabbi, attorney, media personality, and digital marketing expert. He is the CEO of Alpha Tribe Media and the Founder of the Jewish Executive Learning Network. Also know as “Sam,” he is a regular Commentator on Fox News and Fox News Radio. Today, he is best known for building massive social media followings and communities that accelerate his clients’ influence. Sam has been labeled a “social media star” by outlets such as the Huffington Post and his work has been featured hundreds of times in major media publications such as Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Inc., Fast Company, BuzzFeed, Yahoo, Bloomberg Radio, Reader’s Digest, MSN, Medium, and by American Express, Microsoft, the United States Air Force Academy, and on some of the top-ranked Entrepreneur and Business podcasts in iTunes.
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About Alpha Tribe Media: A full-service digital agency specializing in building massive social media followings & communities that accelerate our clients’ influence.
Jake Paul
CEO & Founder of TeamDom
Jake Paul is the Founder and CEO at TeamDom. He dropped out of high school and relocated to Los Angeles at 17, without a single meeting lined up. Jake became a Viner before becoming a Vloger. Also Jake has racked up over 15 million social media followers, and 3.5 billion video views, categorizing him as one of the top 20 social media influencers and a leading brand ambassador. Jake also lends his efforts to the acting world — starring as “Dirk” on Disney Channel’s Bizaardvark, “Lance” in the YouTube Red Original Movie Dance Camp and “Dugan” on Fox Digital’s new movie Mono.#Bloodynosegang
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About TeamDom: TeamDom is a media conglomerate that builds brands, stories, celebrities, and businesses around teen entertainment and media.
Kong Pham
CEO & Founder of Jumpcut
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About Jumpcut: Jumpcut creates captivating online courses.
Ketan Shah
CEO of Gameyola
• Past positions include VP engineering, VP product, VP technology, CTO and CEO • A successful entrepreneur and executive with engineering background and experience in local / online advertising, ad networks, digital media, SEM, SEO, lead generation, consumer and enterprise web applications, social networking, social gaming, healthcare and wellness • 17+ years of overall experience in technology, product design and management • 10 + years of experience in online advertising, digital media, social and web applications & enterprise platforms • Founded and sold multiple businesses with 3 successful exits • Co-author of a pending patent in local online advertising technology • Product development using technologies: C, C++, Java, .Net, RoR, SQLServer, MySQL, Oracle, Google AdWords API, Google Analytics, Yahoo SEM API, Facebook API, Kiva, Microsoft AdCenter API, MFC, Html, Javascript, CSS and more.. • B.S.( Electrical Engineering ), M.S.( Computer Engineering) Specialties: • Engineering, Entrepreneurship and general startup management • Complete technology lifecycle (design, development, QA, deployment ) of complex, web based consumer and enterprise software in various industries like retail, online advertising, legal, HR, social gaming • Team setup and development (National & International) • Operations • Business strategies & negotiations
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About Agentz, Inc, Gameyola: Gameyola provides a monetization and distribution platform for casual Flash games on social networks
Steven Galanis
Co-Founder & CEO of Cameo
Steven Galanis is the CEO of Cameo, the world’s leading marketplace for personalized video shoutouts. He launched the company in 2016 with co-founders Martin Blencowe & Devon Townsend after seeing a personalized video message taped by a prominent NFL player congratulating a friend on the birth of his son. To date the company has sold over 75,000 Cameos and seen over 4,500 athletes, actors, and influencers join the platform. He was named to Chicago Inno’s 2018 “50 on Fire” list. He is LinkedIn alum who previously worked as a trader on the floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, and founder of two film investment companies where he produced movies featuring stars such as Bruce Willis and Robert De Niro. Outside of work he is an avid Chicago sports fan and serves on the Board of Directors for Habitat for Humanity Chicago. Steven is a 2010 graduate of Duke University where he majored in History.
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About Cameo: Cameo is a marketplace where fans can book personalized video shoutouts from their favorite people.
Jay Meattle
CEO & Founder of Shareaholic
Jay started [Shareaholic, Inc.](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/shareaholic), a company fanatical about making sharing on the web better, faster, easier, and more measurable. Over 2 million people have used the award winning tools created by Shareaholic. Jay was Vice President of Products at Lookery, an online user-targeting network that offered lightweight, economical targeting data for over 200 million users. Before Lookery, Jay was the Product Manager and founding member of the small team that was responsible for creating and launching [Compete.com](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/compete), now part of the WPP Group [Nasdaq: WPPGY]. In addition, as co-founder of PopSignal, one of Boston’s largest professional networking organizations, Jay is actively contributing to the growth of Boston’s technology startup community. Jay earned a B.S. cum laude in Computer Science from Tufts University. He also minored in Entrepreneurial Leadership and Multimedia Arts. At Tufts he was awarded the MacJannet scholarship. Jay is also a TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) Leadership Fellow and in 2012 was named to the TR35 India — MIT Technology Review magazine’s annual list of the world’s top innovators under the age of 35. He loves creating, lives for technology and innovation, and likes making things happen. You can follow Jay on Twitter @meattle or his blog http://www.meattle.com/jay/
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About Shareaholic: Shareaholic is an Audience Engagement platform that helps over 300,000 businesses grow audience engagement, loyalty & conversions.
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
Mark Weinstein
CEO, Founder of MeWe
Mark Weinstein is the Founder and CEO of MeWe, the Next-Gen Social Network. Mark is a leading privacy advocate, one of the visionary inventors of social networking, and an award-winning author. He founded SuperFamily and SuperFriends, precursors to today’s social and chat networks, at the turn of the millennium. Both became PC Magazine “Top 100” sites for multiple years. Mark sold them and then authored the “Habitually Great” book series endorsed by the late Dr. Stephen Covey, (2x Indie Book awards), and became an influential technology consultant/advisor. A few years ago when Mark Zuckerberg declared, “privacy is a social norm of the past,” that comment angered Weinstein greatly. It sparked him to create the Sgrouples beta project, hiring an engineering team to design and build the world’s first social network with privacy-by- design for its members. The 3-year beta project served as the testing platform for the launch of MeWe. Making its official launch during SXSW 2016 (South by Southwest), MeWe was honored as the 2016 Start-Up of the Year Finalist for “Innovative World Technology.” World renowned thought leaders and executives proudly serve on MeWe’s Advisory Board, including Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web; Raj Sisodia, the founder of Conscious Capitalism; Professor Sherry Turkle, leading technology expert; Professor Phil Rogaway, award-winning cryptographer; Cullen Hoback, award-winning documentary film-maker on privacy; Colin Sebastion, leading internet analyst; Simon Mainwaring, founder of WeFirst; Marci Shimoff, NYT Best-Selling author; Jack Canfield, co-founder of Chicken Soup for the Soul; and several others. Mark is one of the world’s foremost privacy advocates, and he is listed as one of the “Top 8 Minds in Online Privacy.” He was a Steering Committee Member of National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) – where he strongly argued against any “national identity system,” calling the idea a complete violation of the human right to privacy. The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Canada has named Mark “Privacy by Design Ambassador.” Mark has written about privacy and the social media industry in well-known publications such as USA Today, InfoSecurity Magazine, Daily Mirror (UK), Dark Reading, HuffPo, and many others. He has been interviewed on many media outlets, including PBS, BBC, FOX, FORBES, CNN, and ABC. Mark is often a featured speaker and social media/privacy expert on the stage at many conferences, including EY’s Strategic Growth Forum, the 16th Annual Privacy and Security Conference, Global Security Conference, GMIC Silicon Valley, and he was a recent keynote speaker at GMIC New York, Security BSides Vancouver, and the Customer Experience Asia. Mark received his BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz; and his MBA from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA. He resides in Los Angeles.
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About MeWe: MeWe is the rapidly growing high integrity alternative to Facebook. No Ads, No Targeting, No Newsfeed Manipulation, NO BS!
Marcy Boyle
Co Founder, CEO of Hot Bit VR
Marcy Boyle is the CEO and co-founder of Hot Bit VR, a upcoming webVR marketplace of experiential social shopping. Hot Bit VR has been featured on ZDnet, Entrepreneur, Fox News, and listed as one of the “30 Best Virtual Reality Companies to Change Your World Soon.” She and her co-founder’s VR experiences have been featured in art galleries, universities, conferences, and festivals including FIVARS in Toronto and VRUK in London. Hot Bit VR was selected for the first class of the AR/VR/XR accelerator at the Green Screen Institute, and Silicon Valley’s Women’s Startup Lab. Prior to working in VR, she co-directed the feature film, NOBODY CAN COOL, which was released internationally. Marcy is a graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University and is a member of Women in VR, Women in Film, and on the Board of the Alliance of Women Directors.
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About Hot Bit VR, Oculus: An experiential marketplace in virtual reality.
Daniel Street
CEO of Scorpion
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About Scorpion: Scorpion exists to better local small businesses and the communities they serve.
Prerna Gupta
Founder & CEO of HOOKED
Prerna Gupta is the Founder & CEO at HOOKED.
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About HOOKED: HOOKED is redefining entertainment for the Snapchat generation.
Tracy Chou
Founder & CEO of Block Party
Tracy Chou is an entrepreneur, software engineer, and diversity advocate. She spent five years at Pinterest as an engineer and tech lead and was an early engineer at Quora prior to that. She is a co-founder of Project Include, a non-profit working with tech startups on diversity and inclusion, and #MovingForward, a movement working with VC firms to establish and publish anti-harassment policies; and an investment scout and advisor for several Bay Area VC firms. In her latest venture she is CEO of Block Party, with a mission to solve online harassment and abuse.
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About Block Party, Pinterest, Project Include: Block Party is a consumer app that tackles online harassment and puts you back in control.
Dilip Keshu
CEO of BORN
Dilip Keshu is Chief Executive Officer at BORN Group (BORN). BORN is the new name for two agencies that were merged – GROUP FMG and POD1. BORN is a global provider of high impact marketing & media solutions; a new-age agency that integrates creative design, media/content production services and commerce enablement. BORN also offers digital marketing services, campaign management, support&Maintenance and analytics. BORN is headquartered in New York and London, with additional offices in Singapore and Chennai. BORN has delivered ecommerce flagships and creative design work clients such as Ethan Allen, DKNY, Tom Dixon, Glanbia, Red Bull, Fossil/Skagen, John Hardy, Mia Suki, Tom Dixon, Walgreens’ Beauty.com, Ferragamo, Erno Lazlo, Bulgari, Tag Heuer. Its media production services cut across various platforms including: print, mobile, tablets, interactive magazines, e-books, catalogues, e-commerce solutions, digital shop fronts, portals, websites, videos and loyalty programs. Its clients for such services are John Lewis, Random House, Haymarket, Sears, Staples, Pepsi, Boots, Harrods, Boden; Disney, Reader’s Digest, Penguin, Harper Collins, BBC, AMI; IBM, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Sony, Virgin Holidays, Sandals. BORN is funded by IVFA, a leading private equity fund, and Zodius Capital, a growth capital and build-out company.The management comprises of an international team of entrepreneurial leaders with deep experience of creating large global businesses. Prior to joining BORN, Dilip was a member of the Management Board of Xchanging plc., and also its Group Chief Customer Officer running all of sales, relations, service and marketing functions, in addition to the oversight of seven of the companys most strategic global customers. In this capacity he delivered $1.14 billion in top line revenues in 2010. His team of sales, service and relations comprises 146 people in the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Singapore and Australia. He was the executive sponsor for all big ticket sales to strategic customers and pioneers new deals/new platforms (which are usually acquired through Xchanging’s unique “Enterprise Partnerships” commercial structures where back office captive units are transformed to market utilities). As chief marketing officer he managed 3rd party influencers and a network of spotters and hunters who are C-Level opinion leaders. He also managed all digital assets such as websites, portals and social media initiatives. Prior to this he was a Board Member, President, ITO and Chief Strategy & Corporate Development Officer of Cambridge Solutions, a young publicly listed company with operations in 9 countries and offices in over 56 locations. Prior to that role Dilip led the company as its CEO including its listing in March 2005. By 2008, Cambridge was tracking at a profitable US$ 324m, at which point it was acquired by Xchanging. Prior to Cambridge, Dilip worked as the head of the Asia Pacific region for a corporate learning and development firm called DA Consulting Group, Inc. (DACG). It listed on the NASDAQ in 1998. Dilip acquired the e-business division of the firm in May 2000 and became an entrepreneur. A part of his firm was then acquired by Cambridge Solutions in 2003 and he joined Cambridge to lead its listing. As an entrepreneur, he raised money from Softbank and Newscorp and expanded his company from Asia to the UK and then the US. Prior to this, he served as Managing Director and Vice President, Baan Asia Pacific where he ran a successful P&L operation covering the Far East and south Asia. He was widely acknowledged for his substantial contributions in significantly growing the company’s market share and revenue in this region. Prior to Baan, he ran the Asian operations of Cincom Systems where he won several awards (Gold Circle, Quixote Club Award which is reserved for the firms top performers) and was given the firms top ‘AAA’ rating for performance. Before his tenure at Cincom, Dilip ran the Manufacturing Solutions Division of a large systems integration firm, which sold and implemented ERP and CAD/CAE/CAM and PLM products. He started his career as a management trainee in a large aerospace firm where he distinguished himself by winning the company’s top awards, the Chairman’s Gold Medal and Wilkinson Sword for high performance. He is a Charter Member of TiE which is one of the largest not for profit organization organized to help entrepreneurs. He is an Industrial Advisory Board Member of their Professional Science Master’s Program. Dilip holds a Master of Technology degree from IIT (M). He is an American citizen and lives in Princeton, New Jersey, USA. He has written two books (The Land of The Free, Home of the Brave, a booklet on America and The Nine Dots, a handbook for young leaders).
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About BORN, Fidovia LLC, Group FMG: BORN is an award winning global agency that focuses on enterprise, commerce, and experience design.
Jorn Lyseggen
Founder & CEO of Meltwater
Jorn Lyseggen, a serial entrepreneur and philanthropist, is the Founder & CEO of Meltwater. Launched in his home country of Norway in 2001 with just a $15,000 investment, Jorn and his team have grown the company to become a global leader in media intelligence. Today, Meltwater has more than 1,500 employees in 55 offices across six continents, with more than 30,000 clients worldwide. Jorn released his first book, Outside Insight: Navigating a World Drowning in Data, in October 2017. The book describes the emergence of a new software category that will leverage insights gleaned from the vast amount of external information available on the web to transform corporate decision-making.
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About Meltwater, Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST): Meltwater is a media Intelligence & social listening tools for measuring, managing and magnifying corporate reputation.
Michael Heyward
CEO of medialab
Serial entrepreneur Michael Heyward co-founded Whisper with Brad Brooks in 2012 with the mission of giving people a place to freely and authentically express themselves. Whisper is one of the fastest-growing media companies, generating over 17 billion content views per month. Prior to Whisper, the LA native worked in different roles related to consumer-based marketing at startup TigerText. As a teenager, Michael was an avid Formula One Racing fan and secured the United States commercial rights for the sport. In 2016, Michael was named one of AdWeek’s “Young Influentials”. In 2014, he was named one of Forbes Magazine’s “30 Under 30” and one of Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business.” Michael is a frequent keynote speaker and has spoken at a number of prominent conferences, including WSJ D, Fortune Tech Brainstorm, TechCrunch Disrupt, and Business Insider Ignition.
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About medialab: medialab is a media & technology company that engages in acquiring and growing internet brands.
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.
David Siegel
CEO of Meetup
David Siegel is the CEO at Meetup.
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About Columbia University, Meetup: Meetup brings people together in thousands of cities to do more of what they want to do in life.
Joshua Stylman
Co-Founder, Managing Partner & CEO of Threes Brewing
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About TeamSnap, Threes Brewing: Threes Brewing is a brewery, bar & event space.
Ben Silbermann
Co-Founder & CEO of Pinterest
Ben (@8en) grew up in Iowa, where he spent a lot of time collecting bugs. Today, he helps millions of people collect and discover the things they love as co-founder and CEO of Pinterest. Before Pinterest, Ben worked at Google on AdSense and studied at Yale. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and two sons. Previously, Silbermann worked at Google in the sales organization; however, after a short time with the company he left and started designing his own iPhone apps with a college friend, Paul Sciarra. After their initial application, Totte, failed to gain significant traction, the cofounders created a pinboard product and Pinterest was born. However, Pinterest saw a low user base and very little engagement in its early stages. Silbermann said the prospect of telling people he failed was too embarrassing so he and Sciarra continued to tinker and improve the site. Today, Pinterest claims over 20 million users.
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About Cold Brew Labs, Pinterest: Pinterest is a visual bookmarking tool for saving and discovering creative ideas.
Declan Kennedy
Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of StitcherAds
Declan Kennedy is a Co-Founder, CEO at StitcherAds.
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About StitcherAds, X-BOLT Orthapaedics: StitcherAds is a performance marketing platform for Facebook & Instagram, helping advertisers drive better performance across all channels.
Kevin Long
Co-Founder & CEO of The Dyrt
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About : The Dyrt is consumer subscription software and top ranked camping app, with over 1.5M user-submitted reviews and tips across the U.S.
Blake Lawrence
CEO and Co-Founder of Opendorse
Blake Lawrence is the CEO and co-founder of Opendorse, the athlete endorsement company. More than 75,000 athletes use Opendorse to understand, build, and monetize their name, image, and likeness (NIL) value. Prior to Opendorse, Blake co-founded Hurrdat, a social media agency, in Lincoln, Nebraska. Over four years, Hurrdat grew from two to twenty-five employees, and was acquired in July 2014 by B2 Interactive. Prior to his journey as an entrepreneur, Blake was a member of the Nebraska football team. Lawrence was a highly recruited linebacker, who started at Linebacker in 2008 and 2009, before his career was cut short due to recurring concussions. Off the football field, Blake earned his marketing degree in just 2.5 years, and received his MBA from Nebraska in 2011.
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About Opendorse: Opendorse operates the leading SaaS-enabled Marketplace in the athlete endorsement industry.
Nick Hedges
CEO of MomentFeed
A 20-year veteran of the Internet and software as a service (SaaS) industry, Nick comes to MomentFeed having been President and CEO of Velocify, the leading consumer sales acceleration platform. Nick helped orchestrate the successful sale of the company to Velocify partner and leading cloud-based platform provider for the mortgage finance industry, Ellie Mae. A widely recognized thought leader on organization transformation, technologies, and sales strategies, Nick has held senior positions at Bain & Company, Accenture.com, and Ogilvy. He was named one of the 50 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management. A Fulbright Scholar, Hedges holds an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree with first-class honors from Manchester University.
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About ICE Mortgage Technology, MomentFeed, uberall: MomentFeed is a platform that helps multi-location brands optimize for proximity search in order to connect customers with brands.
Keith Messick
Cofounder & CEO of Origin.al
Keith Messick is Senior Vice President Marketing at LaunchDarkly
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About LaunchDarkly, Origin.al: Origin.al is a new way to represent a user’s work—projects and examples in real time.
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.
Banu Guler
Founder & CEO of Co–Star
Founder and CEO of Co-Star, the hyper-personalized, social astrology app bringing astrology into the 21st century. Fashion industry veteran, working with brands such as Diane von Furstenberg, Alex & Ani, Ann Taylor, VFILES, and Michael Kors. Began career as a graphic designer. After realizing the power of digital in the fashion space, shifted focus to creating immersive, digital experiences to integrate community and content into commerce. Studied psychology at NYU. Scorpio.
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About Co–Star: Co–Star is a real-time horoscopes bringing astrology into the 21st century.
Eric Grossberg
Co-CEO & Co-Founder of Brilliant Earth
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About Brilliant Earth: Brilliant Earth is a luxury jewelry company that offers ethically sourced jewelry.
Beth Gerstein
Co-CEO & Co-Founder of Brilliant Earth
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About Brilliant Earth: Brilliant Earth is a luxury jewelry company that offers ethically sourced jewelry.
Art Levitt
CEO of 4 JEMS Entertainment
In addition to serving as an active investor and advisor to runtriz, Art is currently a Venture Partner with Jerusalem Venture Partners and CEO of its portfolio company, Animation Lab. Art also operates 4JEMS Entertainment as a consulting practice focused on the improvement of business and industry. Prior to 4JEMS, Art founded, and served as President and CEO of, Fandango, Inc., the premier online movie ticketing and entertainment website. Previously, Art served as President of Disney Regional Entertainment, a division of The Walt Disney Company. Prior to Disney Regional Entertainment, Art served as President and CEO of Hard Rock Cafe, International. Levitt completed the Program for Management Development (P.M.D.) at Harvard University, and graduated Southampton college with a B.A. in Biology.
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About 4 JEMS Entertainment, Animation Lab: 4 Jems Entertainment, Inc.
Matt Marshall
Founder and CEO of VentureBeat
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded \”Journalist of the Year\” by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
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About VentureBeat: VentureBeat is an online technology news platform that is engaged in technology publication and events business.
Greg Fell
CEO of Tsū
Greg Fell is the Chief Executive Officer at Tsū and the Chairman at InvestorsCollaborative. He comes to Tsū from Gama Signature Aviation, the largest private jet charter operator in the United States and the exclusive air carrier for WheelsUp, where he served as chief operating officer. Prior to joining Gama Signature, Fell held leadership roles in information technology with Ford Motor Company and Terex Corporation.
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About Tsū: Tsū is a social media platform that shares ad revenue as well as provides tools that inspire content creation.
Eric Dahan
CEO & Co-founder of Open Influence
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About Open Influence, YPO: Open Influence is a marketing company that helps brands and advertisers engage and grow their desired audiences through social media.
Hao Li
CEO & Co-Founder of Pinscreen
Hao Li is Founder and CEO of Pinscreen, Inc., and Distinguished Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. He was previously Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southern California, Director of the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, a visiting professor at Weta Digital and a research lead at Industrial Light & Magic / Lucasfilm. For his contributions in non-rigid shape registration, human digitization, and real-time facial performance capture, Hao received the TR35 Award in 2013, recognizing him as one of the top 35 innovators under the age of 35, from the MIT Technology Review. He was named Andrew and Erna Viterbi Early Career Chair in 2015, and was awarded the Google Faculty Research Award and the Okawa Foundation Research Grant the same year. He won the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award in 2018. He is best known for his work on dynamic geometry processing, facial animation, and data-driven techniques for making 3D human digitization and facial animation accessible to the masses. During his PhD, Hao co-created the first real-time and markerless system for performance-driven facial animation based on depth sensors. The team later commercialized a variant of this technology as the facial animation software Faceshift (acquired by Apple Inc. in 2015 and incorporated into the iPhone X in 2017). He was brought on as visiting professor at Weta Digital to build the high-fidelity facial performance capture pipeline for reenacting the deceased actor Paul Walker in the movie Furious 7 (2015). His recent research focuses on combining techniques in Deep Learning and Computer Graphics to facilitate the creation of 3D avatars and to enable true immersive face-to-face communication and telepresence in Virtual Reality.
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About Pinscreen, University of California Berkeley: Revolutionizing digital communication and online human interactions with user-generated and personalized 3D virtual avatars.
Justin Romano
CEO & Creative Director of Backspace
Founder of Backspace.
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About Backspace: Gamified Social Network with Self-Deleting posts.
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
Matt Mahan
CEO & Co-Founder of Brigade
Matt is responsible for the strategic and operational leadership of Brigade. He served as CEO of Causes and has previous experience in political campaigning and community organizing. In 2004, Matt ran the first political campaign to leverage Facebook data when he was elected Student Body President at Harvard.
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About Brigade, City of San Jose, University of Southern California: Brigade wants to make civic engagement easy, effective, and enjoyable — and in so doing, restore political power back to the people.
Robert Gabel
Founder & CEO of Tubular Labs
Robert (“Rob”) Gabel is the founder and CEO of Tubular Labs, the leading marketing and analytics platform that helps companies grow and engage their online video audience on YouTube. Building a marketing and analytics platform for online video unites two of Rob’s passions – online video and online marketing. Rob became fascinated with the promise and power of online video while serving as SVP of Advertising Performance at Machinima, YouTube’s 2nd largest network. Rob broadened his online video experience by consulting to YouTube-centric media companies DanceOn and AwesomenessTV. Rob’s online marketing experience includes serving as a SVP of Marketing for LowerMyBills and VP Marketing for both Inadco and Netflix. As one of the first employees at LowerMyBills, Rob helped the company grow from pre-revenue to over $200 million organically before being acquired by Experian in 2005 for nearly $400 million. Robert Gabel earned his M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and graduated Magna Cum Laude from The Honors College at the University of Houston with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering.
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About Tubular Labs: Tubular Labs is the global leader in video intelligence for the cross-platform world.
Austin Smith
CEO of Racket.com
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About Coughdrop Capital, LAUNCH, Racket.com: Let’s make a racket.
Jon Fisher
Co-founder & CEO of CrowdOptic
Chief Executive Officer (Co-Founder) / Director Jon is CrowdOptic’s CEO and served as CEO of Bharosa (Oracle NASDAQ: ORCL), NetClerk (NYSE: ROP) and AutoReach (AutoNation NYSE: AN). Jon is a recipient of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year, Award (Emerging Category, 2007) and lives in Marin County, CA with his wife and daughter.
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About CrowdOptic, ViciNFT: CrowdOptic uses algorithms and real-time sensor data from electronic devices to enhance security, social media sharing, and advertising.
Christopher Sopher
Co-Founder and CEO of WhereBy.Us
CEO at WhereBy.Us.
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About WhereBy.Us: A platform that enables creators to build a media business for their community.
Brett Garfinkel
Co-Founder & CEO of SYLO
Brett Garfinkel is a Co-Founder & CEO at SYLO.
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About SYLO: SYLO provides marketers and creators with 3rd-party validation and standardized measurement to confidently invest in influencer marketing.
Brian Hamachek
Co-Founder, CEO of Nearby
Brian is the Co-Founder and CEO of Nearby.
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About Nearby, Social Foundry, LLC: Meeting new people is hard. We wanted to create something to help.
John R. Adler
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Scribd
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About Scribd: Scribd is an unlimited reading subscription that offers access to books, audiobooks, magazine articles, documents and more.
Jonathan Gray
CEO and Co-Founder of Encore Music Technologies
Jonathan Gray, founder and CEO of Cask, is an entrepreneur and software engineer with a background in startups, open source, and all things data. Prior to founding Cask, Jonathan was a software engineer at Facebook where he drove HBase engineering efforts, including Facebook Messages and several other large-scale projects, from inception to production. An open source evangelist, Jonathan was responsible for helping build the Facebook engineering brand through developer outreach and refocusing the open source strategy of the company. Prior to Facebook, Jonathan founded Streamy.com, where he became an early adopter of Hadoop and HBase and is now a core contributor and active committer in the community. Jonathan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Business Administration from Carnegie Mellon University.
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About Encore Music Technologies, Orcada, The Apache Software Foundation: Encore is an interactive live music mobile-based platform aiming to help artists monetize their connections with fans.
Brian Freeman
Founder and CEO of Heartbeat
Brian Freeman is a Entrepreneur, Consultant & Investor At Present he is Founder of Heartbeat Technologies, Inc of Heartbeat (getheartbeat.co). He also founded Wyldfire, where Ladies are the Gatekeepers. He has been featured for his work in entrepreneurism in Forbes, Business Insider, Huffington Post, Techcrunch, etc. He was Director Channel Partners at MOGL Loyalty, Inc & Investor & Consultant for MobilePay USA an early mobile payments provider.
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About Heartbeat: Heartbeat is a platform for millennial women to join, provide feedback to, and promote brands via their personal networks.
Adam Mosseri
CEO and Head of Instagram
Adam Mosseri is a VP at Facebook and leads the product and engineering teams responsible for News Feed and Sharing. Before this role Adam was the PM director for News Feed and before that the design director for the Mobile product group, where he was responsible for the design of all of Facebook’s mobile apps. Prior to Facebook he worked at TokBox as the company’s first designer. Adam began his career founding a design consultancy in 2003 with offices in New York and San Francisco that focused on graphic design, interaction design and exhibition design. Adam holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Study from the Gallatin School of Interdisciplinary Study at NYU where he studied Information Design and Media. He and his wife Monica are proud parents of sons, Nico and Blaise
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About Instagram, Meta: Instagram is a free photo-sharing application that enables its users to take photos, apply filters, and share them on social networks.
Dmitry Shapiro
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Koji
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About Koji: Koji is the world’s most powerful Link in Bio platform. With hundreds of free apps created by Koji and its community of independent developers, the Koji Link in Bio gives leading creators on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and other social media platforms new ways to engage audiences, connect with supporters, and monetize. Koji launched in March 2021 and has raised $36 million in venture capital.
Ulrik Bo Larsen
Founder & CEO of Falcon.io
Ulrik Bo Larsen founded Falcon Social in 2010 after working in the groove between marketing and technology for an A-list of global clients such as PANDORA Jewelry, Carlsberg, Georg Jensen, JWT, IUM, Mindshare and MediaEdge CIA. Prior to Falcon, Ulrik founded and ran the digital agency Mingler, producing data-driven, social campaigns and assets for a global audience. He also created the first Scandinavian social network and led it to a successful exit to Danish media company – JP/Politikens Hus.
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About Falcon.io: Falcon.io provides an SaaS platform that allows marketing departments to create, launch and measure social media campaigns in real time.
Ben Anderson
Co-Founder and CEO of Amino Apps
Benjamin Anderson is a co-founder and CEO at Amino Apps.
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About Amino Apps: Amino Apps enables people to discover, develop, and express their interests and passions.
Alex Beckman
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of GameOn Technology
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About Elastic Holdings, GameOn Technology: Our technology powers intelligent chat applications across multiple platforms for some of the world’s largest brands.
Joel Simkhai
Founder and CEO of Blendr
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About Blendr: Blendr is a geo-social networking application and social discovery platform for Android, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Facebook.
Jon Vlassopulos
Founder & CEO of Tribalist
Jon Vlassopulos is the founder and CEO of Trailerpop, where he leads a mission to revolutionize the way people discover entertainment and engage with advertising. Jon has spent the last 17 years building businesses in and around the mobile, entertainment and advertising industries and as a founder, senior executive, investor and advisor, his work has driven hundreds of millions of dollars worth of innovation and delighted tens of millions of consumers. Prior to founding Trailerpop, Jon has served as CEO of award winning mobile entertainment studio skyrockit, where he managed major US carrier content platforms for companies like Sprint and built innovative branded entertainment products and experiences for companies like GAP, Intel, Coca Cola, Kraft and Zippo. Dubbed a digital media and advertising visionary by The Hollywood Reporter, Jon has created successful industry firsts in the areas of mobile, games, advertising, TV and music. Before skyrockit, Jon was the SVP of digital media and branded entertainment for Endemol, the world’s largest independent production company, where he was responsible for its worldwide digital & advertising business. Jon is credited with launching interactive TV in the US with shows like Deal or no Deal and 1 vs. 100 and with creating some of the first live, multi-platform game formats for networks like BET and TBS. He also produced games that were successful on multiple platforms including Xbox, online, and mobile and sold and produced some of the first online web series. Jon served as senior director of business development & strategic partnerships at AT&T Wireless, establishing the first phase of messaging and mobile data. At AT&T Jon ran the mobile content business and mobile marketing where he established the first mobile marketing campaigns with major brands and led the youth marketing team responsible for tracking and implementing new applications and business models Early in his career Jon was at Bertelsmann, where he helped to create BMG’s global digital strategy and held multiple executive positions with other Bertelsmann divisions in New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo. Jon has served on the board of NATPE, the Producer’s Guild and was a founding member of the Mobile Marketing Association. He holds a degree from Durham University and is fluent in French, Spanish and Mandarin. Jon got his start as a DJ and radio host, from where he nurtured his love of music & entertainment, building a career that blended interests in original content, emerging platforms and marketing innovation.
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About A-Force Ventures, Fabric, Roblox, Tastemates, Trailerpop, Tribalist: Tribalist is a site that offers the best entertainment & lifestyle lists from top publishers to help people discover new things to do.
Osman Rashid
CEO & Chairman of Convo
Osman is a seasoned entrepreneur in the field of educational technology. He is currently the CEO of Convo Corp. and Founder & CEO of **Galxyz** , an intergalactic science adventure on a mission to ignite the fascination of science and unlock the true potential in every student. Previously he was the co-founder and CEO of online textbook rental leader **Chegg** (NYSE:CHGG) until early 2010, and also co-founder and CEO of **Kno, Inc.** (acquired by Intel in 2013), a digital education platform company. He is also on the Board of Trustees at a health focused non-profit, ChildLife Foundation, which provides urgent care to the poorest in Karachi, Pakistan. CLF runs Karachi’s largest children emergency rooms and is deploying satellite urgent care centers to provide critical care and prevention education. Osman has received several honors, including Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of The Year Award (CA) in 2009, which is the world’s most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs, as well as Forbes Impact 15 for 2012 and Inc.’s Immigrant Edge: 9 Wildly Successful Entrepreneurs. To find out more about Osman, check out his LinkedIn profile. You can also follow him on Twitter @osmanrashid.
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About Convo, Galxyz: Convo provides an enterprise social collaboration platform that enables easy, secure conversations between desk/non-desk workers.
Konstantin Stoyanov
Founder & CEO of 411 Marketing
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About 411 Marketing: 411 Marketing is a fully-certified Google Partner, and we are actively following all the strict standards of the SEO to improve rankings.
Johannes Waldstein
Founder & CEO of FanAI
Johannes Waldstein is the Founder & CEO at FanAI Inc.
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About FanAI: FanAI is an AI-driven Audience Monetization platform focusing first on esports.
Justin Davis
Co-Founder & CEO of Spectrum Labs
Currently Spectrum’s Co-Founder & CEO, Justin previously managed and scaled Salesforce’s Data Studio platform as a Product Director. He’s worked for numerous industry stalwarts – including Krux, Adobe, SAS, and Microsoft. Sales: sales@getspectrum.io | Blog: getspectrum.io/blog
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About Spectrum Labs: Spectrum Labs helps consumer brands recognize and respond to toxic behaviors happening within their online communities.
Yael Vizel
CEO & Co-founder of Zeekit (a Walmart company)
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About Zeekit (a Walmart company): Zeekit is a technology company, a part of the Global Tech department at Walmart, specializing in virtual dress-up technology.
Stanley Adrianus
CEO & Founder of Gamenauts
Stanley is currently the founder & CEO of Gamenauts, a games developer/publisher in San Francisco Bay Area. The company has remained profitable and 100% self-funded since its founding in 2005. Gamenauts maintains a portfolio of several Top 10 titles in the App Store and over 16 million mobile downloads. Prior to Gamenauts, Stanley was Lead Designer at Yahoo! Games, where he was responsible for the UI/UX when the site grew to be #1 games portal on the web.
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About Gamenauts, Plato: Gaemnauts is a game developer and publisher of applications for mobile devices.
Mark Bishof
President & CEO of Clarabridge
Mark Bishof is a seasoned CEO with a track record of creating high performance organizations, shaping new markets and delivering world class solutions and results. – Served as CEO of Flexera Software. – Held senior executive positions at IBM, Deloitte Consulting, Macrovision, Crossworlds Software, and Booz Allen Hamilton. – Serves as a Board Director of Infogix and Pace Harmon, and is a Board of Trustee member of The Nature Conservancy (Virginia Chapter).
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About Clarabridge: Clarabridge is a Customer Experience Management platform that provides insight from customers.
Chris DeWolfe
CEO & Co-Founder of Jam City
Chris DeWolfe is co-founder and CEO of Jam City, a global leader in mobile entertainment that provides social gaming experiences for millions of players around the world. Prior to Jam City, Chris co-founded and served as CEO of MySpace, where he popularized social networking and revolutionized the music industry. The site, formed in 2004, became the most visited in the U.S. by 2006 with 90 million members. When Chris left the company in 2009, MySpace had more than 130 million monthly active users around the world. Chris received Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2015 and the Producers Guild of America’s Vanguard award in 2009. TIME included him among its 2006 list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and Barbara Walters named him one of her 10 Most Fascinating People in 2007. He studied finance at the University of Washington and attended the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, which honored him in 2006 with its Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year award. Chris is an advisor at USC’s Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and a board member of Uproxx Media Group. He lives in Los Angeles with his family and actively participates in animal rescue operations.
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About Jam City: Jam City is a mobile entertainment company, connecting the world through technology, creativity, and play.
Alex Collmer
Founder & CEO of VidMob
Alex Collmer is the founder and CEO of VidMob, the world’s largest video creation platform.As the web transitions to a video-driven medium, Collmer recognized the need for businesses to have access to the world’s best video creators who could produce quality content for a variety of platforms that was affordable. Since founding the company in 2015, Collmer has raised more than $13M and counts the leading brands and agencies as clients. Combing an elegant interface with a roster of more than 5000 video creators enables anyone to maximize their video presence and make a brand impact with video. An engineer by training, Collmer’s career has always been at the intersection of technology, design, and consumer entertainment as those sectors have evolved. Prior to founding VidMob, Collmer was the co-founder and CEO of Autumn Games, a premier publisher of video game franchises. Under his leadership, Autumn Games developed successful partnerships with such personalities as Jimmie Johnson, the 7-time NASCAR champion and companies like Def Jam, the leading urban culture brand, as well as the award-winning fighting game franchise, Skullgirls. Previously, Collmer was a founder and board member of the New York Video School, an online film school focused on empowering people all over the world to become “video literate” (www.nyvs.com). Collmer received a B.S. from Cornell University’s School of Engineering and was a certified E.I.T. in the field of structural engineering in the state of New York. Collmer sits on the board of several technology and media companies and has spoken at numerous universities and conferences on entrepreneurship and media. In his spare time, he coaches little league soccer and baseball.
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About VidMob: VidMob is a video content creation network and platform where brands can create digital video ads with expert teams.
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.
Matt Ivester
Co-Founder & CEO of Hotshot
Matt Ivester is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, author and speaker. He is currently CEO of Kindr Inc., a company dedicated to making online kindness fun and easy. In 2011, through Serra Knight Publishing, he published lol…OMG!: What Every Student Needs to Know About Online Reputation Management, Digital Citizenship and Cyberbullying. And in 2012, he published the high school edition of the same. Since its release, lol…OMG! has become Amazon’s top-selling book on the topics of digital citizenship and cyberbullying. He has spoken at various institutions around the country on these topics. Prior to writing lol…OMG! he started several companies, including a concert ticket auction site, a multi-million dollar investment fund, and a college gossip site. In 2005, Ivester graduated from Duke University with a Bachelor of Science double majoring in Economics and Computer Science. In 2012, he graduated from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business with an MBA.
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About Hotshot: Screenshot technology
Patrick Gavin
CEO of Consumer Media Network
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About Consumer Media Network, Gavin, UpCity: Consumer Media Network builds web properties that drive high-converting, high-intent traffic.
Ryan Horrigan
Co-founder and CEO of Artie
Ryan is the co-founder and CEO of Artie, a platform for next-gen games powered by AI. Artie enables developers to create and distribute hyper-personalized games where players interact with game characters via voice and computer vision. All of the games on our cloud-based platform can be shared and played instantly inside of popular apps, including Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube, with no download needed. For our launch titles, we are partnering with global entertainment studios, superstar athletes, and A-list music artists. We will be opening our platform to third-party developers in early 2020. Our team includes AI scientists, engineers, and technical artists from Disney, DreamWorks Animation, Snap, Facebook, Mozilla, Playtika, WayForward, and Carbonated Games. Early investors include Founders Fund, Warner Music Group, Scooter Braun’s Raised in Space, Jeffrey Katzenberg’s WndrCo, angel investor Cyan Banister, and YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley. Prior to co-founding Artie, Ryan served as Chief Content Officer of the Comcast-backed immersive media startup Felix & Paul Studios, where he oversaw content and business development, strategy and partnerships. At Felix & Paul, Ryan helped forge numerous partnerships with Fortune 500 companies and media conglomerates including Facebook, Google, Samsung, Fox and Comcast, and worked on projects with top brands and A-list talent such as NASA, Cirque du Soleil, President Obama, LeBron James, Wes Anderson, Judd Apatow, and Brie Larson. In 2018, Ryan and the Felix & Paul team won an Emmy for ‘The People’s House,” featuring President Barack Obama, as well as a Peabody for immersive comedy experience “Miyubi.” Prior to Felix & Paul, Ryan was a studio executive at Fox/New Regency, where he oversaw films including Academy Award Best Picture Winner “12 Years A Slave.” He began his career in the Motion Picture department at CAA, and at Paramount. Ryan has spoken at Ted X, Cannes, Facebook, Google, Sundance, SXSW and throughout China. He was a Hollywood Reporter 35 Under 35 honoree. He lives in Los Angeles, California
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About Artie: A Web3 mobile gaming company. Play on social media. No app download needed.
Jon Feltheimer
CEO of Lionsgate
Jon Feltheimer is the Chief Executive Officer at Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. and Lions Gate Entertainment, Inc. Feltheimer serves as the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Chairman of Lions Gate UK Limited an affiliate of TV Guide Networks, Inc. Feltheimer serves as Chief Executive Officer of Lions Gate Entertainment, Inc. He serves as Chief Executive Officer of Lionsgate at Lions Gate Films Inc. He serves as an Advisor of ZeniMax Media Inc. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Lions Gate Films Corp. He worked for Sony Pictures Entertainment from 1991 to 1999. He was the Founder and President of TriStar Television from 1991 to 1993. He served as President of Columbia TriStar Television from 1993 to 1995, President of Columbia TriStar Television Group from 1995 to 1999 and Executive Vice President of Sony Pictures Entertainment from 1997 to 1999. He served as Head of Sony Entertainment Television. He served as an Architect of Sony Pictures Entertainment. He served as the Co-Chairman of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. from June 30, 2005 to February 2, 2012 and has been its Non-Independent Director since January 2000. He serves as a Director of Celestial Tiger Entertainment. He has been a Director of Telltale, Incorporated since February 24, 2015. He has been a Director of Grupo Televisa, S.A.B. since April 2015. He serves as a Member of Advisory Board of Lions Gate Entertainment, Inc. He served as a Director of Lions Gate Films Corp. Feltheimer served as a Director of CinemaNow Corporation. He served as a Member of Advisory Board of JumpTV Inc. He served as a Member of Advisory Board of EastWest VentureGroup. Feltheimer has Bachelor’s Degree in Economics with honors from Washington University.
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About Lionsgate: Lionsgate is a premier next generation global content leader.
Matthew Peltier
Founder, CEO of Community
Matthew Peltier is the Founder, CEO at community.com
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About Community: Community is an app that solves communication and engagement problems.
Zachary Hamed
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Clay
Zachary Hamed is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Clay.
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About Clay: The most beautiful and private home for the people and relationships in your life.
Matthew Achariam
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Clay
Matthew Achariam is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Clay.
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About Clay, Custora: The most beautiful and private home for the people and relationships in your life.
Julie Anne Quay
Founder and CEO of VFILES
Julie Anne Quay is VFILES Founder and CEO and has over 20 years of experience in the fashion and media industries. Quay was Executive Editor for V Magazine before founding VFILES, and has worked for VH1, Vogue Japan and Australia, style.com, Steven Meisel, Richard Avedon, and more leading industry figures.
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About VFILES: VFILES—connect, discover, collaborate, and be a part of what’s next.
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.
Alex Ma
CEO & Co-founder of Poparazzi
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About Poparazzi: Poparazzi is a photo sharing app where users can create social profiles of their friends.
Hesam Hosseini
CEO Match and Match Affinity of Match Group
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About Match, Match Group, Pof: Match Group is a division of IAC & online dating portfolio that comprises over forty brands around the world.
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.
Mahi de Silva
Co-founder & CEO of Amplify.ai
Mahi is the Co-founder & CEO at Amplify.ai. Previously, Mahi was responsible for commercial activities for Opera’s consumer mobile products and services. Before joining Opera, Mahi was co-founder and CEO of AdMarvel, Inc., the global leader in mobile advertising platforms, acquired by Opera in 2010. Prior to AdMarvel, Mahi co-founded Frengo Corporation, a mobile social media platform. Mahi also spent 10 years at VeriSign, where he was part of the startup management team. From 2002 to 2006, he served as senior vice president and general manager of Wireless and Digital Content Services at VeriSign, where he built the world’s leading mobile messaging and mobile entertainment business with revenues exceeding $600M per year. Prior to VeriSign, he served in various technology leadership roles at Taligent, Apple and NCR Corporation.
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About Amplify.ai, Opera Mediaworks: Amplify.ai is the developer of the first enterprise-class Conversational AI platform
Dan McCall
CEO of Influitive
Dan McCall is the Chief Executive Officer at Influitive.
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About Influitive: Influitive helps companies mobilize their advocates to provide more referral leads, reference calls, social media advocacy, product reviews.
Eran Hammer
Founder & CEO of Sideway, Inc.
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About Sideway, Inc.: Stories told through the lens of social media via our streaming app where every show is told within its own fictional social network.
Michael Houston
CEO, Grey North America of Grey
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About Grey: Grey Group is a global advertising and marketing agency with headquarters in New York City
James Heekin
CEO of Grey
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About Grey: Grey Group is a global advertising and marketing agency with headquarters in New York City
Hrachik Adjamian
Co-Founder and CEO of Wakie
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About Wakie, Wakie: Wakie is a social app for phone calls where you set a topic and get to have a phone call with someone interested in your topic.
Lorna Borenstein
Founder & CEO of Grokker
Lorna Borenstein is the CEO & Founder ,Author at Grokker.
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About Grokker, Grokker: Netflix for wellbeing with community at its core
Christof Wittig
Founder and CEO of Hornet
Christof Wittig is a serial software entrepreneur and investor. He is Founder and CEO at Hornet Networks, the world’s queer social network, and Managing Partner at Strive Capital, based in San Francisco, CA. Prior to Hornet, Christof was founder and CEO at LiquidM, the first mobile DSP provided as a SaaS platform, which he formed in 2013 when restructuring Madvertise, Europe’s largest mobile ad network. Previously he was the founder and CEO of Servo Software, the world’s first Android middleware company, which merged with Synclore to form Kii in 2010, today a leading player in the IoT space based in Tokyo. He was also founder and CEO at db4objects, an open source, “no sql” database company, which he sold to Versant in December 2008. Before that he was the founder and CEO of Apsis Software to revolutionize real estate cost management with software and led the company through its sale to Nemetschek in 1999 and its merger with conject in 2002. Christof is an investor and/or board member in various companies, including Enish (TYO:3667), Metago, KeepSafe, VirtaHealth, Cerebral, and App Annie. He has been active in the US, Germany, and throughout Asia. Christof holds a Master of Science in Management from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where he was a Sloan Fellow in the Class of 2004 and author of the case studies on MySQL and Google’s Android. He also holds a Dipl.Ing. from Technical University Munich.
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About GAY GAMES 11 HONG KONG 2022, Hornet: Hornet is the world’s gay social network with 30 million members worldwide
Andre Swanston
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Tru Optik
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About Tru Optik: Tru Optik is the Only Audience Measurement and Data Management Platform Built for OTT
Victor Gajendran
Co-founder and CEO of Ticketmaster
Co-founder and CEO at Gento.
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About Gento, Ticketmaster: Ticketmaster is the world’s largest ticket marketplace and the global market leader in live event ticketing.
Tamanna Dhamija
Founder & CEO of Convosight
Tamanna Dhamija is a Founder & CEO of Convosight.
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About Babydestination, Convosight: Convosight provides a management platform for community builders to help them grow and monetize their Facebook groups.
Tania Yuki
Founder & CEO of Shareablee
Tania Yuki is founder and CEO of Shareablee, a leading provider of social content analytics for business. She has spent most of her career in digital marketing, measurement and analytics, and was recently honored with a Great Mind Award from the Advertising Research Foundation and featured in Fast Company and Forbes as one of 12 women driving digital in New York. Tania began her career as a media and internet attorney, specializing in digital rights management, IP and film financing. After moving to the US from Australia she was seduced by digital and went on to run an online video content network as head of acquisitions and branding and has also led product management for comScore’s Video Metrix, the world’s leading online video ratings service. After leaving comScore she ran the TV Ad Solutions practice with TV advertising company Visible World, where she oversaw sales, product management and research and development and grew revenue more than 50% year over year. Tania is also the founder of wimlink, an organization that holds regular events and seminars promoting entrepreneurship, leadership and the professional development of women.
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About Shareablee, wimlink: Shareablee is an online platform offering audience intelligence, competitive benchmarking, and insights for social media.
Lon Otremba
Chief Executive Officer and Director of Bidtellect – Native Intelligence
Lon Otremba joined Bidtellect as its Chief Executive Officer and Director in January, 2014. Mr. Otremba leads all aspects of the Company’s efforts, working closely with the management team and the Company’s board of directors. With over 20 years’ experience in media, Mr. Otremba is a veteran operating executive and adviser in the Internet publishing, mobile, and broadcast music industries and a well-known pioneer in interactive media. From April 2013 to December 2013, Mr. Otremba was CEO, North America of Beintoo SpA, a mobile engagement technology company based in Milan, Italy which he joined after selling them a portfolio of mobile ad technology products he helped develop and patent while he was CEO of Tylted, a social gaming community on the mobile web, from 2011 to early 2013. Tylted attracted more than 10 million unique monthly visitors, and generated more than half a billion mobile page views each month according to Comscore at the time the company was sold in early 2013. Before joining Tylted, Mr. Otremba served as Chairman and CEO of Access 360 Media from 2007 until 2011, expanding its digital TV network to stadiums and entertainment venues worldwide. Prior to Access 360, he served as CEO of Muzak, guiding the company’s transformation into the world’s largest provider of commercial music services with 80% market share in 2005. Before that, he served as Executive Vice President of AOL’s Interactive Marketing Group, shaping the media giant’s online advertising strategies and directing a comprehensive, aggressive evaluation and re-build that helped to re-establish AOL as a leader in interactive media, create alignment in their sales and operations teams, and re-start revenue growth. Mr. Otremba was also the founding Chief Operating Officer and President of Mail.com, and before that the founding Executive Vice President of CNET Networks. Over the course of his career he has served on a number of corporate and industry boards, including the Executive Committee of the IAB. He is a frequent commentator on interactive marketing and operating strategies. Mr. Otremba is a graduate of the Broad School of Business from Michigan State University, with a BA, majoring in Marketing and Economics.
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About Bidtellect – Native Intelligence: Bidtellect is the leading buy side Native platform built for marketers.
Torrance Harris
Founder & CEO / Social Engineer of Acrochat
If you are reading this you have been influenced by him some kind of way and you possibly don’t even know it. In the near future he will change the way people talk, text, and type simply by using acronyms, you will never look at a normal word the same. Torrance Harris is the founder of “Acrochat”, (www.acrochat.com) it’s the world’s only acronym based social network, a photo sharing website “Flodger” (www.flodger.com), and dating app like none other “Petty” (www.petty.chat). He noticed the internet world consisted of a language that would eventually be used in everyday communication. Torrance explains, “every social network does the same thing which consist of connecting people but Acrochat is the only social network that gives users the option to change the way you communicate using an embedded language that is built off the premise of acronyms”. During the development & testing phase of Acrochat Torrance created this “internet chatbot persona” that involved his social engineering and marketing skills. It allowed him to attract people to join his social site and once joining they would convince friends to sign up. This allowed Acrochat to grow to 30,000 users off simple “word of mouth”. Spending 4 years in college only to obtain an associates degree in mechanical engineering technology. He applied and received his first business license in 1998 starting a video game repair company called Game Over Enterprise. His knowledge of disrupting the internet started in the early 2000’s hanging out in the hacker’s lounge on yahoo messenger where he first experienced the pros and cons of DDOS programs and traffic exchange software can be. He had a brief stint in the music industry managing his main artist who was his brother. Torrance wanted the album sales to grow rapidly so he searched for a glitch in the recording industry network and found it. He purchased bar-codes from GS1 US (https://www.gs1us.org/) formerly know as Uniform Code Council and he hacked the numbers associated with obtained bar-codes. Consumers would purchase his brother’s cd in store consisting of only 2 songs for $0.50 and once the store scanned the bar-code it would credit and register as a full album sale from Nielsen SoundScan. His brother’s album sales increased making him #3 in sales in some stores in Memphis. He hired an Manhattan attorney Anthony Arther (www.artherlaw.com) to represent his label where they had meetings with Badboy, Interscope, etc. but to no avail a deal was ever made. Torrance stock portfolio contains shares in Snapchat, Facebook, online travel, textile, oil and gas, and etc. In 2004, he exploited a Sony PlayStation glitch simply using a router w/ yahoo email MP3s attached to knock their game servers offline. Glitching his online internet enemies he saw it as fun to counter against cheaters. In 2010 he disrupted top music mixtape website Datpiff.com, changing artists user stats and giving them more views and more recognition and leaving his number for DatPiff CEO to call him so he could discuss how vulnerable his website was. He has worked for companies such as Sharp Electronics, Microsoft XBox Division, Amazon, FedEx, and Beckman Coulter. He owned an ATM repair company ATM Geek that was notarized by FedEx and he served on Fed Ex Mobile Council Board. Retired from his days of being one of the first and self-proclaimed internet trolls, Torrance main focus is his family and making sure his social networking sites are used for fun and not evil. He will tell you all the years of what he was doing he considered real life research & development to find out how vulnerable things are and eventually finding a solution to make them stronger.
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About Acrochat, Graapevine, Petty: World’s only acronym based/enhanced social networking website
John S. Shriber
Co- Founder & CEO of Roomster
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About Roomster: The leading multi platform roommate matching & shared housing application. IOS, Android & fully responsive design
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.
James Foster
CEO and Founder of ZeroFOX
James C. Foster is the Founder and CEO of ZeroFOX. Foster is an industry veteran and a world-renowned thought leader on cyber security. He’s published over a dozen books, holds patents, has spoken on Capitol Hill about the increase in international cyber threats, and is a recognized keynote speaker. In 2006, Foster founded the cyber security firm, Ciphent. Ciphent grew to almost 100 employees with 1000 customers by 2010 when it was acquired by Accuvant. With a three year growth rate of 8900+%, Ciphent was recognized as the #16th Fastest Growing Private Company in the US and #1 in Maryland by Inc. Magazine. As Chairman of the Advisory Board and SVP while at Accuvant, Foster led the successful acquisition of V3rity while the company achieved 50% year-over-year growth in 2011 with revenues in excess of $325M. Additionally, Foster has had the privilege of working with several other high growth cyber security organizations such as Booz Allen and Hamilton and Computer Sciences Corporation, and executing on exit strategies for Foundstone (acquired by McAfee for $86M), Guardent (acquired by Verisign $135M), and Information Security Magazine (acquired by Tech Target Media for an unpublicized amount). Foster started his career as a civilian in the United States Navy in Annapolis, Maryland. In 2005, Foster became a Fellow from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and received his Bachelor of Science in Software Engineering from Capitol College.
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About ZeroFOX: ZeroFOX, The Social Media Security Company, enables organizations to identify, manage and mitigate social media based cyber threats
Ragy Thomas
Founder & CEO of Sprinklr
Ragy Thomas is the CEO and founder of Sprinklr, a provider of enterprise software for customer experience management. Sprinklr was last valued at more than $1.8 billion in 2016. He founded Sprinklr in 2009, and the company now has 1900 employees around the world serving global clients such as Microsoft and McDonald’s. Prior to founding Sprinklr, Ragy was the president of Epsilon’s (NYSE:ADS) Interactive Services from 2006 to 2008, and the CTO of Bigfoot Interactive, an email marketing leader that Epsilon acquired in 2005. Ragy earned his M.B.A. in Finance and Information Systems from New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business and his Computer Science Engineering degree from Pondicherry University in India.
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About Sprinklr, Sprinklr Japan: Sprinklr provides enterprise software for customer experience management.
Kai-Shing Tao
Chairman & CEO of Remark Holdings
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About Remark Holdings: Remark Holdings is a global digital media company focused on creating destinations that merge engaging content with social interactions.
Aman Brar
CEO of Jobvite
Aman Brar has an extensive background in leading technology companies through periods of high growth and has also held key corporate strategy and finance roles at Fortune 500 companies. As former president of Apparatus, Aman led the company through a $34.2 million acquisition by publicly traded and global consultancy, Virtusa, in 2015. Recognizing the need for a method to boost recruiting productivity, Aman and his teammates launched Canvas, the first enterprise-grade text-based interviewing platform that enables recruiters to screen more job candidates and market employment brands. Prior to Apparatus, Aman was vice president of business development for ChaCha Search, leading its corporate strategic partnership activities. Before returning to Indiana for graduate school, Aman lived in Mountain View, Calif., and led a team responsible for the nation’s first consumer DSL broadband service. Aman sits on the board of Teach for America Indianapolis, Orr Fellowship, EmployIndy, and is on the Board of Trustees for Wabash College. Aman earned his undergraduate degree from Wabash College and an MBA from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University – Bloomington.
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About Jobvite: Jobvite provides end-to-end talent acquisition software and services that increase recruiting quality, speed, and cost-effectiveness.
Gregory Schneider
CEO and Co-Founder of 3BL Media
Greg Schneider is a co-founder of 3BL Media and serves as its Chief Executive Officer. Prior to founding 3BL Media, Greg was the COO of a news distribution service focused on corporate responsibility. In recognition of the obvious evolution of communications technologies and the expanding global interest in CSR and sustainability, Greg, along with some friends and colleagues left their jobs to start 3BL Media. Prior to his five years running the newswire service, Greg built a number of different service organizations geared for small businesses. Greg has a degree in Philosophy and a MS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He likes coffee, The Dead, kayaking, reading and spending time outdoors.
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About 3BL Media: CSR and Sustainability News and Content Distribution Platform
Joel Gascoigne
Co-founder & CEO of Buffer
Joel Gascoigne is a co-founder and the chief executive officer of [Buffer](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/buffer), a web-based platform that helps users share social media content. He is also the founder of OnePage. Prior to that, he was a web developer at Priority Research; and a web designer and developer at joelg.co.uk. Gascoigne completed his secondary education at Tapton Secondary School and obtained a bachelor’s degree in computer systems from the University of Warwick. He is fluent in English and Japanese. Born on March 24, 1987, Gascoigne currently lives in San Francisco, California.
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About Buffer: Social Media Management Software for Growing Brands
Arjun Rai
Founder + CEO of Woofy, Inc.
ON A MISSION TO SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESSES WITH THE POWER OF VISUALIZED DATA SCIENCE FOR DIGITAL MARKETING AT HELLOWOOFY.COM AND WOOFY.AI. Arjun is a New York City based entrepreneur originally from West Windsor, New Jersey (aka Princeton Junction). Since high school, Arjun has been networking with some of the most well known entrepreneurs and even worked on a few projects and startups of his own. Upon graduation, Arjun pursued his career opportunities and came to New York City where he enrolled at the New York Institute of Technology in 2011 with scholarships and grants. Following a few weeks into college, Arjun launched his second startup, fuelbrite.com, a social media agency focused on small businesses and startups, and a student-focused organization, TheBizDen. After interning at a PR and ad agency in the summer of 2012, Arjun quickly saw the need for yet another startup within the tech space and raised a seed investment round to build it out. That startup became Wrkbench.io which was a virtual collaboration space designed for creative and visual people (we liked to say we make visual conversations). After spending a few years and learning the ins and outs of running a venture backed startup, Rai set out to modernize another industry related to his former passion of social media. The startup would be known as Woofy which is a social media management driven by artificial intelligence to help small to medium sized businesses with digital marketing. Arjun currently lives in New York City with his girlfriend, two cats and a dog. Arjun went to the NYIT School of Management (majoring in Small Business and Entrepreneurship). He also holds several notable awards and is a member of the Phi Eta Sigma Honor Society and Golden Key International Honour Society. Professionally, Arjun is also a member of The One Club, The Art Directors Club, The Advertising Club of NY, Social Media Marketing Society and the IVY Connect Club.
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About Woofy, Inc., wrkbench.io: Woofy is an online social media marketing platform.
Andrew Maltin
Founder & CEO of Hang w/
Andrew co-founded MEDL Mobile in March 2009. Prior to founding MEDL Mobile, Mr. Maltin served as the Chief Executive Officer of Momentum Gaming, Inc., where he led the company’s marketing, business development and technology efforts to build a world class online gaming infrastructure which both operated independently and licensed its technology to several of the world’s leading gaming sites. He has been featured in Entrepreneur, 944, Success, The Wall Street Journal and The LA Times. He is also the CEO of Hang w/ a company that he also co-founded in 2012.
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About Hang w/: Hang w/ empowers users to stream and broadcast live high-quality video to other phones using their standard wireless service.