Local Mobile Advertising Conference 2011

Keynote Speaker

Featured Speakers

Michael Becker

Managing Director, North America

Mobile Marketing Association

Michael is responsible for overseeing the MMA 's North American membership, research, strategic initiatives, events and education efforts. He also holds the position of Founder and Strategic Advisor to iLoop Mobile, Inc., an industry leading mobile marketing solutions provider. In addition, he is an adjunct professor of Mobile Marketing Golden Gate University and is pursuing his doctorate, with a focus on next generation consumer personal control and information management (PCIM) business models, at GGU as well. He holds a BS of Business Administration from Saint Mary's College of California and an MBA from Santa Clara University.Previously, he held business development, marketing and sales positions with Ecrio, Inc., Nuvomedia, Inc., Agilent Technologies and A&D Engineering in Japan and The Americas.Michael is a recognized expert in the mobile marketing field.

Michael speaks regularly at industry conferences, he is the founder and publisher of the International Journal of Mobile Marketing, has authored two books (Mobile Marketing for Dummies and Web Marketing All-in-One for Dummies), over 75 articles and 5 book chapters. Mr. Becker has extensive experience it technology start-up business development, sales and marketing.

Douglas Bennett

President

Freedom Interactive

Douglas S. Bennett serves as president of Freedom Interactive, a division of Freedom Communications. He previously served as the company’s senior vice president and chief financial officer from 2006 to 2008.

Bennett has a 30-year track record in growing revenues and driving product development strategies within publishing, media, software and technology companies. In each of the last four years, Bennett has led Freedom to double-digit, year-over-year growth in interactive audience and revenues by expanding the accessibility and distribution of its hyper-local news and information.

Bennett has initiated numerous partnerships and technology solutions onto Freedom’s more than 140 websites, which include its daily and weekly newspapers, broadcast television stations and magazines. Bennett has orchestrated content-sharing and cross-selling partnerships with leading information companies such as Google and Yahoo, the latter having netted more than $3 million in advertising revenue.

Under Bennett’s leadership, Freedom is transforming from a traditional media company into a world-class, multi-platform information provider that reaches new audiences through mobile apps, tablets and social media.

Previously, Mr. Bennett served as president and chief financial officer for National Lampoon from 2002 to 2006, playing a major role in re-establishing the company as the pre-eminent creator of irreverent comedy material in film television, print and online media.

Prior to that he was chief operating officer at iUniverse, Inc., a digital publishing company that provides technology for multiple distribution methods of content such as ebooks, and print-on-demand deliveries. He also served as president at Macmillan Publishing, where he led day-to-day operations and product development for a portfolio of websites, computer books, software and game strategy guides.

Gordon Borrell
CEO
Borrell Associates

Gordon Borrell is one of the media industry's leading analysts and is ranked in the top 2% among Gerson Lehrman Group's 150,000 consultants worldwide. He is quoted frequently in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Ad Age, Forbes and other publications and has appeared on CNN and other TV and radio programs discussing trends in local media. Prior to starting Borrell Associates, Gordon was vice president for new media for Landmark Communications, where he worked for 22 years. He started his career as a reporter and editor for Landmark's newspaper, The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia. In 1989 he began pioneering interactive ventures for Landmark and helped the company establish the first TV and newspaper Web sites on the Internet. Mr. Borrell conceptualized and helped create InfiNet, an Internet access and hosting company now owned by Gannett Co. He is past president of the Newspaper Association of America's New Media Federation and was nominated for the NAA's New Media Pioneer of the Year in 2002. He is married, has five children, and lives in Portsmouth, Virginia, where he has been active on boards and organizations supporting public education and community sports.

Peter Conti Jr.
Executive Vice President
Borrell Associates

Peter received the Interactive Advertising Bureau's (IAB) 2010 Service Excellence Award for his dedication and leadership in helping educate local marketers and ad agencies in 2009. He has been engaged in traditional and online business start-ups for more than 20 years. After selling a retail business in late 1996, he began work in Richmond, Va., on one of the first e-commerce marketplaces for a 1,000+ member local merchants association. Peter joined Landmark Communications Inc. in 1998 to develop and manage the highly successful Richmond.com Web site. He has also served as director of interactive media for Media General's Publishing division with shared responsibility for the online convergence effort of publishing and broadcast sites.

Peter has been an adjunct professor at Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Business teaching Global Internet Marketing. He attended the International Studies program at the University of Lund, Sweden, and holds a bachelor's degree in Radio, TV & Film from the University of Maryland.

Terry Delisa

VP of Digital

Tribune Interactive

Terry Delisa is the VP of Digital at Tribune Interactive, driving online and mobile revenue growth for 6 major dailies at Tribune Company. She started her digital media career in direct sales and worked her way up to VP in just under 7 years. Her specialty is building successful sales organizations and channels in marquis companies such as Media News Group, and Tribune Company. Terry has helped these companies build strategy, develop cross platform products, and grow revenue through effective partner management and developing the digital IQ in their sales teams.

Scott Dixon
President, Real Estate Division
Network Communications

Scott was named President of the Real Estate Division of Network Communications, Inc. (NCI) in 2004. NCI is the largest publisher of advertiser sponsored, free to the consumer, real estate information in the country. Scott is responsible for the sales and profitability of the company's flagship product, The Real Estate Book®, as well as its New Home Finder brand, which serves the builder community and its Mature Living Choices brand which serves the active adult segment of the market.

Prior to joining NCI in 1995, he was employed by Digital Equipment Corporation in a variety of managerial positions including Product Business Planning, District Business Manager, Industry Business Manager and Marketing Support Manager. Mr. Dixon earned a Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Massachusetts and a Masters Degree in Urban Affairs from Boston University. Originally from the Boston area, Scott has lived in Atlanta since 1990.

Mary Jo Edwards

Owner

European Tan

Has lived in Bedford park, IL for 47 years. She purchased European Tan 9 years ago on a whim, and she has never regretted it! She offers tanning, lotion and moisturizer, jewelry, and purses. They specialize in unique retail items.
Prior to owning a tanning salon, she owned a Cleaning Service.

Shayne Fitz-Coy

Director, Strategy + Business Development

Rhythm NewMedia Inc.

Shayne is Director of Strategy and Business Development for Rhythm, the leader in premium mobile video advertising. Shayne oversees Rhythm's exclusive premier publisher relationships. He has led partnership efforts with various media entities, including top apps and mobile websites from CBS, ABC, NBCUniversal, Fox, Sony, Warner Bros., Discovery, Viacom, and Associated Press. Shayne holds a Masters in Business Administration from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and an A.B. from Harvard University.

Dan Gilmartin
Vice President, Sales & Marketing
Where, Inc.

Dan joins Where, Inc. from a successful stint as a carrier marketing consultant. Previously, Dan managed consumer location based-services for Sprint Nextel. In this role, he was responsible for the launch of the first family finding product in the wireless industry Sprint Family Locator, local search, and a host of other GPS enabled services. Prior to Sprint Nextel, Dan led product initiatives for VeriSign, a company he joined through a series of acquisitions including Network Solutions who acquired a start-up he helped launch, ImageCafe. Dan received his bachelor's degree from Villanova University. When not working, Dan loves to spend time with his family, root for the New York Yankees and fly-fish.Follow Dan on Twitter: @DanGilmartin

Alistair Goodman
CEO
Placecast

Alistair Goodman has a passion for helping to build successful organizations and brings to Placecast 20 years of experience working in strategy, product management, sales and digital marketing. At Placecast, he leads an award-winning team that has created the worlds leading location-based offer management platform. The company’s ShopAlerts™ product powers the location-based deal services for AT&T and Telefonica’s O2, as well as for brands like The North Face and Chico’s/White House Black Market. Recent accolades for the company include the National Retail Federation Award for Innovation and Creativity, the Global Mobile Awards from the Mobile World Congress, the CTIA E-Tech awards and a 2011 Webby Award honoree.

Prior to joining Placecast, Alistair was Vice President of Strategic Marketing at Exponential Interactive, an online media technology company whose flagship brand - the Tribal Fusion ad network - grew to be one of the largest privately-held digital media companies in the US during his time there. Earlier in his career, he worked first on Wall Street and then as a management consultant for both CSC Index and Corven UK Ltd. Alistair holds a BA from Haverford College, the C.E.P from l’Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, an MBA from the J.L. Kellogg School of Management and was a Henry Luce scholar in Asia.

Craig Hagopian
Chief Marketing Officer
xAd

Craig Hagopian is responsible for driving xAd's sales, advertising partnerships and marketing operations within the local-mobile marketplace. He possesses more than 20 years of experience in sales and consumer-marketing leadership for hardware and service-based companies in the PC, wireless and broadband-Internet sectors.

Hagopian previously served as chief marketing officer at Axesstel — a CDMA-terminal manufacturing company — where he oversaw sales, marketing and new-product development, as well as investor and media activities that included securing $7 million in funding and transitioning Axesstel to a public company. While there, Hagopian also improved the company's earnings by 70 percent through wireless-carrier account acquisitions.

Prior to Axesstel, Hagopian held management positions at AIR2LAN, a regional provider of broadband-Internet services. Even earlier, he served wireless-data-messaging entity SkyTel Communications as general manager, vice president and senior director, developing consumer strategies and building partnerships with major retailers and telecommunication providers. Finally, at Epson America, Hagopian served as manager of market planning and product management, a position that enabled him to author the market-entry plan for a $150-million, multimedia product line.

Applying his veteran leadership in the local-mobile and search spaces, Hagopian is a frequent speaker for CTIA, BIA/Kelsey, Borrell Associates and other industry conferences. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Southern California and a master's degree from Duke University — both in business administration. He currently lives in San Diego with his wife and two children.

Greg Hallinan

Co-founder & Chief Marketing Officer

Verve Wireless

Greg is a co-founder and the Chief Marketing Officer of Verve Wireless, an advertising technology provider that helps local media monetize their mobile inventory, and enables advertisers to reach a valuable premium audience. Greg has more than fifteen years of experience in business and consumer-based marketing, including brand management, product marketing, and communications strategy. Greg started his career at Intel in strategic marketing, working on the Pentium® III and Xeon® product launches. He then went on to product management positions at Swell.com and, more recently, led the marketing efforts at the leading out-of-home interactive entertainment company - NTN Buzztime. Greg earned his Bachelor's degree from the University of Colorado-Boulder and went on to earn his M.B.A. from the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame. Greg is also a commissioned officer in the United States Marine Corps Reserve.

Greg Harmon
Senior Research Analyst
Borrell Associates

Greg Harmon joined Borrell Associates in January 2011 after nearly 10 years at Belden Associates and Belden Interactive. Prior to Belden, Greg was Sales and Research Director at Survey.com in San Jose, CA. In all Greg brings over 15 years of digital and media research experience to bear on his work at Borrell. Greg has been a leading innovator in designing research and programs for understanding digital audiences since his time at Survey.com, where Greg was involved in some of the very first online consumer research for technology and media companies. While at Belden Greg developed the widely regarded "Sales and Site Survey" program for local news and information media—including managing over 400,000 online interviews while working with hundreds of newspaper, TV and other media clients. While at Belden, Greg was also responsible for developing the "Visitor Estimate" program, that allows clients to understand digital audience in more complex and effective ways than "unique visitor" counts.

In addition to these consumer programs, Greg developed the "Small and Medium Advertiser Survey" program, which continues at Borrell. Greg has an A.M degree in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Chicago.

Terry Heaton
Vice President
AR&D

Terry Heaton is Senior Vice President of Media 2.0 for Audience Research & Development in Dallas, Texas. He's an adviser to the local media industry on all things web-related and is widely recognized as a visionary, an iconoclast and an authority on doing business via the World Wide Web.

He is the author of "Reinventing Local Media, Volumes I & II and of the acclaimed series of essays Local Media in a Postmodern World, which is published in many languages worldwide, and writes the popular "Pomo Blog." He is a sought-after speaker on college campuses and at media conferences, and he's the author of three other books.

He coined the term "unbundled media" to describe not only what's happening to and with all forms of media but also as a strategy to move mainstream media to the web. He created definitions and descriptions of Media 2.0 that are now widely used by media observers everywhere, including "We are not in the content business; we're in the advertising business."

He retired from television news management in 1998 to concentrate on the internet. He is a 28-year veteran of television news and was a news director in six different markets.

Terry lives with his wife, stepdaughter and 3 dogs in Frisco, Texas.

John Hilton

Executive Director, Channel Sales & Strategic Partnerships

Pandora

John Hilton serves as the Executive Director of Channel Sales and Strategic Partnerships for Pandora. He is responsible for developing and spearheading Pandora’s local and reseller strategy to take advantage of the company’s explosive growth. As today’s leading personalized online radio service and one of the top downloadable apps on smartphones, Pandora has more than 100 million registered users and mobile listening now accounts for 70% of Pandora’s total listening hours.

Prior to Pandora, John was at Yahoo!, where he was one of the original executives to develop a strategic vision for Yahoo! to "go local” by developing a consortium of the country's major media companies and creating a mutually beneficial partnership with television stations and daily newspapers. Not only did this partnership generate millions of dollars by effectively connecting in market advertisers with Yahoo! users, it also pushed one global and many local media companies alike, several steps closer to understanding how to reach the holy grail of local advertisers.

Since 1994, while a sophomore at Santa Clara University, John has been working to understand the local advertising market. As founder of a San Francisco Bay Area media company that produced a monthly magazine, website and niche events, he utilized up to 80 energetic adult and student volunteers to build a local advertising machine that led to year over year growth for the 13 years of its existence. John also led efforts for Knight Ridder, the largest U.S. newspaper company at that time, to acquire both CareerPath and CareerBuilder and managed sales teams representing local sites such as BayArea.com and Miami.com.

David Karabag
Director, Product Management
Belo Interactive Group

David is Director of Product Management for Belo Interactive Group, the interactive division of Belo Corp one of the largest pure-play television companies in the country. His responsibilities include leading corporate product development, strategy and implementations for 15 local markets in the area of web, mobile and niche product offerings. David also oversees several of Belo's reseller partner relationships with organizations such as Cars.com and Yahoo!

Since joining Belo in early 2010 David has led the team in a complete overhaul of the company's mobile technologies leading to exponential traffic and revenue growth. He is now is focused on working with the local markets to expand the companies mobile offerings and developing new revenue models to ensure sustainability.

Prior to joining Belo David spent 13 years in the newspaper industry working mainly in the interactive space most recently as Director of Interactive Classified Sales and Product Management for the Bay Area News Group in San Jose California.

David is a graduate of the University of Miami School of Business with a degree in Business Management and Accounting, and a die-hard UM Football Fan.

Sharon Knitter
Senior Director or Mobile
Cars.com

Sharon Knitter joined the Cars.com team in 2006 and is now the site's Senior Director of Mobile Strategy. In this role, Knitter works to enhance Cars.com's mobile site and mobile apps to better serve car shoppers on the go. She also assists with the development of advertising products for manufacturers and dealers to help them reach this growing segment. Knitter will continue to monitor the growing mobile space to help Cars.com identify opportunities for growth on multi-media platforms and lead the third-party mobile automotive space.

Before her role as Senior Director of Mobile Strategy, Knitter served as the Senior Director of Consumer Products at Cars.com. In this position, she implemented the strategic management and development of the site's consumer automotive buying and selling channels on the web. She also led the site's mobile initiative and successfully made Cars.com the first third-party automotive site with an optimized mobile presence. Prior to Cars.com, Knitter worked at the Tribune Co., where she began in 1987 as a research manager and later worked as both the manager of advertising development and director of recruitment strategy.

Knitter is the co-chair of the IAB mobile committee and previously served as the president of the Newspaper Association of America's Research Federation. Additionally, she was elected the Oak Brook Park District Commissioner.

Knitter lives in Oakbrook with her husband Richard.

Sandhi Kozsuch
Director Mobile Broadcasting
Cox Media Group

Sandhi Kozsuch is Director of Mobile Broadcasting for Cox Media Group in Atlanta where he leads the company's development of Mobile DTV and digital data opportunities for Radio. He serves on the Board of Pearl LLC, the recently announced consortium of major television media companies focused on the advancement of Mobile DTV.

Since 1995, he has worked in the Internet and Mobile fields serving as Director of Site Development for Cox Media Group Digital, Director of Digital for Cox Television, Executive Vice President - Development and Marketing for WorldNow in New York City, and as General Manager of Cox Interactive Media's Charlotte studio and part of the senior management team to launch Cox Enterprises' Internet division. From 1995 to 2000 he developed and led GoCarolinas.com/WSOC-TV.com to become one of the top television-based web sites in the nation.

Prior to 1995, Kozsuch has been in the television broadcast industry, serving in various positions in marketing, news, programming, and production. He served as Program Director for Cox Television's WSOC-TV/WAXN-TV in Charlotte, North Carolina and as Director of Marketing and Broadcast Operations for WRIC-TV in Richmond, Virginia. Additionally, he served as the Chairman of the American Broadcasting Company's Affiliate Marketing Board, and has won numerous Addy, Telly, and Promax awards.

Past affiliations include: Chairman of the IAB's Local Committee, member of the IAB's Video and Interactive Television Committee, National committee member of the American Heart Association, Leadership Richmond and Leadership Kingsport, committee chairman for the Richmond Chamber of Commerce, committee member for the United Way, and committee chairman for the Virginia Association of Broadcasters.

He attended East Tennessee State University with studies in Communications, Marketing, and English and the National Association of Broadcasters' television management conference at Northwestern University.

He is married, has two children, and resides in Johns Creek, GA.

David Kurtz

Executive Director, Product Management

AT&T Interactive

David has over 15 years experience developing and managing technology products, the last six years focused on solutions for mobile publishers. He currently manages Publisher Products for AT&T Interactive, the digital local advertising division of AT&T. David directs strategy and execution for AT&T Interactive’s YP Local Ad Network, providing publishers access to one of the most comprehensive sources of local ads. A key initiative David is focused on is how mobile app developers can leverage local advertising to monetize their mobile sites and apps.

Pat LaPlatney

Vice President for TV and Digital Media

Raycom Media

Pat LaPlatney joined Raycom Media in August 2007. He oversees the digital media business with responsibilities for the TV websites, digital spectrum opportunities, and other emerging-market platforms.

This is LaPlatney's second tour with Raycom, having spent eight years with Raycom Sports, departing there as Senior Vice-President of Programming and Distribution in 1997. While at Raycom Sports he had oversight responsibility for distribution, programming, the events group and business development.

Dick Larkin
Executive Vice President
American Marketing & Publishing, LLC

Dick is the Executive Vice President of American Marketing & Publishing (AMP), the fastest growing local publisher in the United States with 480 community directory publications in 10 Midwestern states under the HomePages Directories brand. He manages a sales force of 235 professionals and is responsible for Text Marketing, printed directories, and the online and mobile directory, CloseBy.com.

AMP focuses on small suburban and rural markets delivering customers to family-owned businesses through community directories and mobile marketing.

Prior to joining AMP, he was co-founder and President of Weblistic, an online advertising agency dedicated to local results. Prior to Weblistic, Dick was VP of Internet at TransWestern Publishing and Publisher of WorldPages.com, companies acquired by Yellowbook for over
$1.5 billion.

He was the VP of Sales and Marketing for GTE Interactive Media, the consumer software arm of the $21 billion telecommunications company.

Dick publishes the Small Business Commando News, electronic publications focused on the needs of small businesses. He is the author of countless magazine articles, and the book Ringing Up Profits – How to Create Yellow Pages Ads that Make the Phone Ring.

He has a degree in finance from the University of Notre Dame.

Fred Lebolt

Senior Vice President

Sun-Times Media Digital

Fred Lebolt has been involved with online and print operations at the Sun-Times since the mid-1990s. As SVP for Sun-Times Digital, he oversees sales, content and technology initiatives for the digital division. He recently directed the implementation of an integrated print/online content management system for the company, and helped create a unified, multi-platform "media desk" operation. In addition to digital operations, Lebolt has served as publisher of the company’s daily suburban newspapers. Other organizations Lebolt has worked for include Liberty Suburban Chicago Newspapers, The Financial Post of Canada, and other media companies. A native of Chicago, Lebolt has a Bachelor’s degree in journalism.

Steve Lesniak
Manager
European Tan

Steve receiving his bachelors in business administration with a concentration in finance from Saint Xavier University in Chicago. He currently is the manager of European Tan. He received a Saint Xavier University Scholarship, is a State Scholar and is a Dean's List student.

Joy Liuzzo
Senior Director
Insight Express

Liuzzo is responsible for the strategic development & management of mobile advertising measurement & custom research efforts across InsightExpress, a digital market research company. She works closely with Product Development on the creation of all mobile research solutions, oversees the company's key external partnerships & affiliations within the mobile space, & sets the direction for all mobile strategy.

Liuzzo has extensive strategy and research experience in new media and telecommunications. She joined InsightExpress from AOL where she held the position of Senior Market Research Manager, a high level role that involved working closely with clients at every phase of research design and strategy development. Outside of her research responsibilities, she was part of an innovation team that developed a product and marketing strategy for a mobile advertising initiative.

Prior to AOL, Liuzzo worked at MCI in the Consumer Research group. There she handled primary and secondary research needs for the Consumer Marketing group including the Mobile Strategy team. She has also held prior consulting and analytic roles at Economic Systems and Ferguson Enterprises.

Brock MacLean
Executive Vice President
Dominion Homes Media

Brock MacLean is a 18 year veteran in the multi-family housing industry. He initially joined For Rent Media Solutions as a general sales manager from 1994 to 1996, and rejoined the company 10 years later as the vice president of national sales and development and Internet operations. In 2009, MacLean was promoted to senior vice president of national sales and development. In this position, MacLean focused on expanding technological advances and forming new business partnerships for For Rent Media Solutions.

MacLean is strongly involved with For Rent Media Solutions' push for technologically advanced marketing solutions. Over the past five years, he spearheaded efforts to create Community Theater®, the industry's first online video package, followed by a text messaging product, mobile Web site and most recently, iPhone®, T-Mobile G1TM (GPhone) and Blackberry® mobile applications, with features that cannot be found in any iPhone apartment application in the market. MacLean was instrumental in securing For Rent's exclusive arrangement with Oodle and Marketplace on Facebook. He has helped educate the industry through speaking engagements, national management meetings and media interviews for major industry publications.

In May 2011, MacLean was promoted to executive vice president of Dominion Homes Media, a group led by the flagship product Homes.com. MacLean began his new role by rebranding Homes Media Solutions and is currently leading the launch of Homes Connect. This synergistic element has created a new strategic direction for the company, and works as a platform which connects and enhances all Homes Media Solution products.

Andrew Martin
Senior Associate
Borrell Associates

Based in Toronto, Andrew has worked for more than 25 years in the media sector. He managed the B2C and B2B online operations for CanWest Global, the largest newspaper publisher in Canada. Before that he ran the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency for seven years. His early career was with LexisNexis, where he was director of textbook publishing for the UK division, before moving to Canada in 1987 to head up their operations in Toronto. He was closely involved in developing CanWest's web strategies and the expansion of their online aggregation businesses. He also contributed to drafting the newspaper industry positions on copyright law reform in Canada.

Andrew's current consulting work divides between business and strategic planning, licensing and copyright. Clients include media businesses, government departments, trade associations and libraries in Canada, the US and UK. Andrew has a law degree from the University of Cambridge, and qualified as an UK attorney.

Sandy Martin
Mobile Director
Schurz Communications

Sandy Martin is the Mobile Director for Schurz Communications, a nationwide, family-owned communications company with more than 20 local media properties that include newspapers, television and radio broadcasters. Sandy has over 10 years of local digital marketing experience and most recently served the last 2 years as a consultant for Borrell Associates to advise publishing companies how to grow mobile revenue. Sandy was on the forefront of social networking, even before it had a name, by creating a "fan" site for her local neighborhood in Norfolk in 2002 to promote nightlife along restaurant row. She has an MBA in Entrepreneurship and a BA in Economics.

Sandy Martin is the Mobile Director for Schurz Communications, a nationwide, family-owned communications company with more than 20 local media properties that include newspapers, television and radio broadcasters. Sandy has over 10 years of local digital marketing experience and most recently served the last 2 years as a consultant for Borrell Associates to advise publishing companies how to grow mobile revenue. Sandy was on the forefront of social networking, even before it had a name, by creating a "fan" site for her local neighborhood in Norfolk in 2002 to promote nightlife along restaurant row. She has an MBA in Entrepreneurship and a BA in Economics.

Sam Matheny

General Manager

News Over Wireless

Sam Matheny is General Manager of News Over Wireless, which is part of CBC New Media Group, LLC. CBC New Media Group is a division of Capitol Broadcasting Company with three principle areas of operation: digital television, Internet, and mobile wireless. Sam's focus is on strategic media applications, where he is currently engaged with mobile wireless content delivery.

News Over Wireless works with broadcasters and wireless phone carriers to provide news and information on mobile phones through video channels, downloadable applications, mobile web sites and SMS. News Over Wireless is partnered with over 185 television stations reaching approximately 90 million US television households and has on-deck relationships with AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon as well as numerous very successful iPhone and Android Apps.

Sam has over fifteen years of experience in the high-tech world of computers and communications. Prior to joining CBC New Media Group Sam held management positions with satellite, digital television, web development, interactive video companies.

Sam is a member of the Academy of Digital Television Pioneers, the Advanced Television Systems Committee, Mobile Marketing Association, the Open Mobile Video Coalition and the Mobile 500 Alliance. He was a 2007 American Marshall Memorial Fellow, and holds a B.S. in Communications from East Carolina University and a M.S. in Technology Management from North Carolina State University.

Away from work Sam serves as an advisory board member to NCSU’s Poole College of Management and as board member for the Triangle Area Chapter of the American Red Cross.

Sam lives in Zebulon, North Carolina, with his wife and two sons.

William McMahon

Owner/Operator

The Lincoln Inn Family Restaurant

William McMahon has been the owner and operator of The Lincoln Inn Family Restaurant in DeKalb Illinois since 1994. The Lincoln Inn has been providing customers with enjoyable dining experiences in the heart of downtown DeKalb for over 40 years. Since purchasing the restaurant eighteen years ago, the McMahon’s have added a line of fresh baked goods and full service catering to the restaurant’s offerings. In addition to the daily operational duties or running the restaurant, McMahon focuses his efforts on using today’s evolving technology to improve marketing opportunities for the restaurant today.

Prior to entering the restaurant industry, McMahon earned a Master’s Degree in Pure Mathematics and his MBA from Northern Illinois University.

Diane Mermigas
Adjunct Professor, Writer, Analyst, Consultant
Mermigas on Media
DePaul University

Diane Mermigas is an award-winning, independent business writer and analyst specializing in interactive digital media content, advertising, marketing, commerce and consumer behavior-related issues and trends. She is a veteran speaker and conference presenter, who advises companies on developing digital strategies and new business models from their existing resources.

Ms. Mermigas also is an adjunct professor of new media studies at DePaul University in Chicago, and a co-collaborator on a book being written by former NBC Universal Chairman and CEO Bob Wright. Her trademark column, big picture analysis and executive interviews can be found at Mediapost, Seeking Alpha, Business Insider, The Hollywood Reporter, BNET, Advertising Age and other Crain Communications publications.

She can be reached at dcmermigas@gmail.com or (708) 352-5849. A more extensive bio can be found at Seeking Alpha.

Joe Meyer
President & CEO
Hopstop
See Joe Meyer Interview

Joe Meyer is the President and CEO of HopStop, a leading location-based service that provides transit-routing and pedestrian navigation in 57 major metropolitan markets throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and Russia.

Prior to HopStop, Mr. Meyer was a Vice President and General Manager for AOL's Quigo Technologies. At Quigo, a leading contextual ad network that was acquired by AOL in late 2007 for $376 Million, Mr. Meyer was responsible for on-boarding and managing exclusive partnerships with hundreds of leading online publishers including Time Inc., ABC News, CareerBuilder, ESPN, Forbes, FoxNews, USA Today, Fodor's and several other top digital media companies.

Before Quigo, Mr. Meyer was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) for Onset Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. Earlier in his career, Mr. Meyer was a General Manager at eBay where he launched eBay's inaugural co-op advertising program, and managed several large product categories for the e-commerce leader including Collectibles and Sporting Goods.

In addition to his responsibilities at HopStop, Mr. Meyer was most recently on the Board of Advisors for Adtuitive (acquired by Etsy) and Belief Networks (acquired by BenefitFocus); and is currently on the Board of Advisors for Snooth, Lot18, Spongecell and Kalexo. Mr. Meyer lives in Mamaroneck, NY with his wife and four children, and earned a BA degree from Georgetown University and an MBA from Wharton.

Randa Minkarah
Senior Vice President of Revenue & Business Development
Fisher Communications, Inc.

Randa Minkarah is Senior Vice President of Revenue and Business Development for Fisher Communications, Inc., where she has corporate responsibility for revenues at all Fisher television, radio and internet properties. In addition, she is responsible for developing and executing the Company's new media strategy, including its highly innovative, award-winning digital portfolio and content distribution programs.

Ms. Minkarah oversees Fisher's broadcast to broadband initiative, which focuses on leveraging the strengths of the Company's broadcast heritage and technological innovation to establish new digital revenue sources through cross-marketing, content sharing and other strategic relationships. Fisher recently established one of the industry's first comprehensive digital content development and distribution strategies. This includes the Company's successful hyperlocal program, a series of microsites that serve specific communities, the Buzz Brands websites, life and style website Seattle Pulp and NoizBeam, a collection of podcasts. Fisher has deployed its hyperlocal websites in five of its media markets including Seattle, which serve as a platform for its stations to super-serve their communities, as well as better reach online audiences and advertisers.

In addition, she is leading Fisher's effort to create an integrated, multi-platform content and advertising solution for broadcasters. As part of this effort, she is working to create original broadcast and digital content specifically designed to give local broadcasters the ability to distribute and monetize content across TV, radio and newly created digital platforms. She successfully launched mobile applications and Dot 2 channels. She handles retransmission consent negotiations and group programming across all Fisher markets.

A veteran of the broadcasting industry, Ms. Minkarah joined Fisher in 2002. Over the past eight years, she has held a series of roles of increasing responsibility, including leading Business Development and Market Development initiatives throughout the company and General Sales Manager of KOMO 4 in Seattle.

Ms. Minkarah is a Board Member of the Foundation for Seattle Community Colleges and the Girl Scouts of Western Washington, and she also serves on the Marketing
Committee of the Pacific Science Center Board. Ms. Minkarah earned her BFA in Broadcasting from the University of Cincinnati.

Iryna Newman
Head of Mobile Marketing
Groupon

Iryna Newman leads mobile marketing for Groupon, which features a daily deal on the best stuff to do, eat, see and buy in more than 500 markets around the world. Her role is wide ranging, covering mobile user acquisition across mobile platforms, and international mobile marketing strategy. Prior to Groupon, Iryna was leading mobile marketing at SendMe, Inc., the largest provider of direct-to-consumer mobile entertainment services in the U.S. where she was responsible for creation and growth of SendMe’s mobile channel. Before that Iryna was focused on investment strategy and analysis for the technology and media sectors.

Sean Polay
Director for Deals and Mobile Products
Dow Jones Media Group

By day, Sean Polay is the Dow Jones Local Media Group's director for deals and mobile products, responsible for guiding the company's mobile product development and audience growth across an array of commercial content offerings. Those include daily deals at www.limelightdeals.com, local search, and classifieds.

By night, Polay dons the hat of Commuter Daddy, a blogger chronicling life of a family man on the road, one drive at a time.

Polay joined Dow Jones LMG, formerly Ottaway Newspapers, in 2006 as director of Internet audience development, working with newsrooms and online departments to develop products, content and training aimed at increasing readership for the company's interactive products. More recently as product manager for distributed media, he spearheaded launch of a metered content subscription platform at all DJLMG daily newspaper Web sites.
He spent the previous six years at The Providence Journal, rising to lead that organization's award-winning projo.com. He began his career as a reporter at the Cape Cod Times in the 1990s, and later developed The Cape Cod Journal, one of the nation's first online-only newspapers.

From 2006 to 2010, Polay was president of the New England New Media Association, of which he was a founding board member.

When he's not traversing the country as a grizzled, affable online news veteran, Polay, his wife and their three boys do their best to keep the sand between their toes near their home on Cape Cod.

Jose Puente
Director of Mobile Strategy
Autotrader.com

Jose is the Director of Mobile Strategy for AutoTrader.com, the largest automotive marketplace connecting thousands of local dealerships and OEM's with in-market car shoppers. He joined the company in 2008 as General Manager with the specific task of developing and launching the company's strategy for the Hispanic market. Within two years, AutoTrader Latino was ranked by comScore among the top 25 of all Spanish language websites in the United States. Core to driving the brand's success Jose developed a comprehensive mobile product platform that includes a mobile website, iPhone and Android apps with voice search and augmented reality features, an SMS platform to connect buyers and sellers, as well as QR features to drive user engagement. The mobile products represent over 40% of all user activity, driving significant ROI to thousands of local dealership advertisers and national brands such as Toyota, Nissan and GM.

In his current role, he is responsible for developing the mobile strategy for AutoTrader.com to include dealer specific products as well as consumer facing products.

Prior to joining AutoTrader.com, Jose was CEO of Avenida America, Inc. a multimedia Spanish language communications company with products including yellow pages, auto guides, apartment guides in print, online and mobile. He is an expert in the Hispanic consumer market as well as emerging technologies. In 2008, he was recognized by Catalyst magazine as one of the top 10 entrepreneurs in Atlanta. He is a native of Mexico and resides in Atlanta, Georgia with his family.

Anne Schelle
Executive Director
Open Mobile Video Coalition

Co-founded xDSL Networks Inc. in June of 1998, a start-up high-speed data access ISP based in Baltimore, MD. The company, licensed as a CLEC, intends to begin offering facilities based services in the third quarter of 1999. The company will utilize Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technologies to offer high speed, low cost data services to the business and residential markets. The company will initially focus their efforts on the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore markets, with intentions to expand their presence to encompass the twelve states comprising the mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions within eighteen months of their initial service offering. Mrs. Schelle is responsible for state and legislative and regulatory licensing, interconnection and carrier relationship matters.

Previously Mrs. Schelle served as Vice President of External Affairs for American Personal Communications (APC) the nation's first and most successful commercial PCS venture. Mrs. Schelle was responsible for all strategic partnerships, external affairs, and all legislative and regulatory matters.

Mrs. Schelle came to APC from the Personal Communications Industry Association, a wireless communications trade association in Washington, D.C., where she established a PCS section to give representation to the emerging PCS industry. Mrs. Schelle has also worked as a manager of business development for LCC Incorporated, a cellular consulting firm, and as a financial analyst for McCaw Cellular Communications and previously, MCI/Airsignal.

Mrs. Schelle holds a B.A. in Biology from Emory University in Atlanta, GA.

Greg Schwartz
Chief Revenue Officer
Zillow

Greg is responsible for strategy, direction and operation of the sales and partner relations teams. He joined Zillow in 2006 as Vice President of Sales and has built a national sales team and the company's advertising sales platform for the website and location-based mobile platform.

Before joining Zillow, Greg was Vice President of Advertising Sales at CNNMoney.com where he built the advertising sales team and platform. He was also National Accounts Director for Yahoo! Inc.'s Automotive and Finance properties. Greg has also held various positions at DoubleClick, Inc., including Director of Business Development, and he co-founded the wireless advertising business unit.

Greg graduated from Hamilton College with a bachelor's degree in political science.

Andrew Shotland
SEO, Local Search & Web Strategy Consultant

Andrew is the proprietor of www.localseoguide.com and one of the top local search consultants in the industry. Andrew offers full service SEO, search engine advertising, website strategy and local search consulting with a specialty in yellow pages and local directories SEO. He has provided his services to numerous media, ecommerce companies, franchises and start-ups including Bing.com, Amazon, DexKnows.com, Yellowbook.com, The Yellow Pages Group Co. of Canada, Truvo, Telegate Media, Business.com, The Los Angeles Times, Cox Communications, The New York Daily News, Ingenio/AT&T, D&B, Sequoia Capital, Friendster, MOG.com, ChaCha.com and Spoke.com. Local SEO Guide also provides small businesses with search marketing services.

Andrew also is the editor of the popular Local SEO Guide blog, the local search engine optimization and local search marketing blog that provides simple tips, trends, how-to's and strategies for small businesses and marketers in the local search industry. In 2011, Andrew launched a partnership with BIA/Kelsey to provide social media consulting services to BIA/Kelsey clients. He also is a regular contributor to SearchEngineLand.com.

Andrew is a frequent speaker on SEO, local search and web strategy at conferences such as BIA/Kelsey's Interactive Local Media, Directional Media Strategies, The Local Search Association, SMX, SES, RadioInk, Deals3D and the Daily Deals Summit.

Andrew has over 15 years of experience in the Internet. He was a founding member of NBC's Internet group and a former GM of NBC.com. While at NBC, Andrew created NBC-IN, the first national network of local TV station websites. Most recently he was VP Business & Product Development at Insider Pages, a pioneering local-social search engine which was recently acquired by CitySearch. At InsiderPages, Andrew developed local SEO strategies and techniques that helped attract over 3 million monthly unique visitors and over 600,000 reviews of local businesses almost entirely via search engine referrals.

C. Lee Smith

President and CEO

Ad-ology Research

C. Lee Smith is the President and CEO of Ad-ology Research - a division of Sales Development Services, Inc., a company he founded in 1989.

Ad-ology Research analyzes key marketing and advertising trends in over 440 industries and what motivates end-customers. - including the firm's recently completed "2011-2012 Auto Buyers Forecast."Lee is also the creator of the AdMall new business development system for local advertising sales. AdMall is currently used by sales teams at more than 2,000 media properties across the United States.

His company’s mission is to help marketers and business owners “Advertise Smarter” by using customer psychographics, shopographics, and technographics, rather than just rates and ratings.

Prior to forming the company, Lee spent 10 years in advertising sales for newspapers in Columbus, Ohio; Providence, Rhode Island; and Athens, Ohio; along with radio sales research experience in Marietta, Ohio. Lee enjoys cycling, playing golf, ice hockey and curling, and is active in Rotary International. Lee received his degree in Advertising from the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University.

Greg Sterling
Senior Analyst with Internet2Go
Opus Research

Greg Sterling is a leading blogger and senior analyst with Opus Research's Internet2Go program. He's also the founder of Sterling Market Intelligence, focused on the Internet's impact on offline consumer behavior. Before SMI, Sterling ran The Kelsey Group's Interactive Local Media program. Prior to that, Sterling was at TechTV where he helped produce "Working the Web." Before TechTV he was a founding editor and executive producer at AllBusiness.com. Prior to joining AllBusiness, Sterling was a practicing attorney in San Francisco.

Brent Turner
EVP, Digital Call Advertising Products
Marchex

A seasoned digital marketing veteran with more than 13 years of experience, Brent Turner joined Marchex in October 2009. As the executive vice president responsible for Marchex’s Digital Call Marketplace and Call Analytics business units, he oversees the daily operations and strategic direction of the company’s Digital Call Advertising business. Before joining Marchex, Turner was General Manager of Search and the Microsoft Media Network for Microsoft Advertising, where he oversaw the launch of both the Bing and Microsoft Media Network brands to advertisers and agencies.

Prior to his role at Microsoft, Brent worked for aQuantive for eight years, holding numerous strategic roles, including Vice President of Operations for Avenue A (Razorfish), Founder and Vice President of Atlas' Publisher division, and Founder, Vice President, and General Manager of aQuantive's Vertical Networks business unit.

In the years before he entered the digital marketing space, Turner was Executive Vice President and Corporate Secretary for VanOwen Group, a small private equity firm in Grand Prairie, Texas, where he executed takeover and turnaround activities on small manufacturing firms in the high-tech sector.

Turner is a General Partner in the Seattle Founder’s Co-Op, a community of early stage investors, and is an angel investor in several Seattle-area startups. Additionally, he is a member of the board of directors of REST (Real Escape from the Sex Trade, a nonprofit organization that serves minors who are victims of prostitution. He is directly responsible for the organization’s strategy and development, and he supports similar nonprofits in Cambodia and Thailand.

Turner holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Memphis and an MBA from theOwen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University, where he is President of the Alumni Board of Directors.

Steven Yarger
Product Manager
Trulia Mobile

Steven Yarger is the Product Manager for Trulia Mobile. Steven's product team helps millions of Trulia users find the real estate information they need using Trulia's mobile technology platforms including iPhone, Android, iPad and the Mobile Web. Steven has been developing innovative mobile and web experiences for over a decade. Prior to joining Trulia, he was at Yahoo! in the Front Page group as the PM responsible for launching Yahoo's first-to-market tablet optimized mobile web experience (www.yahoo.com/tablet).

Steven also managed PM and Online Marketing teams at Orbitz.com for several years, and earlier in his career Steven was an Engineer where he developed award-winning Internet and Enterprise technologies for Xanboo.com and Goldman, Sachs & Co.

Already Registered?