Megan Bent is the Founder and Managing Partner at Harbinger Ventures. A lifelong investor and entrepreneur with deep expertise in consumer brands, Megan has spent the past decade working to identify and scale high-growth, early-stage companies in the consumer sector, serving as a lead director, problem solver, operator, strategic thinker and confidant to emerging entrepreneurs. In launching Harbinger in 2016, Megan began leveraging a model that emphasizes female leadership and fosters close collaboration among entrepreneurs and investors to accelerate value creation. Prior to founding Harbinger in 2016, Megan served as Managing Director of Revelry Brands.

Carole is a founding partner at BIGR Ventures, along with Duane Primozich and Bill Weiland. She began her career in natural foods over twenty years ago, as an analyst in the then nascent natural foods industry. As one of the first analysts to cover Whole Foods, she has had a front row seat as the story of this now powerful sector has emerged. Carole has worked as a consumer equity analyst on the sell-side with RBC Capital Markets and on the buy-side with The Boston Company.

In 2008, Carole left financial services, taking a leadership role in corporate finance and investor relations with Gaiam, Inc. In 2010, Carole went to Boulder Brands as Senior Vice President of Business Development and Investor Relations. While there, Carole identified and led the acquisition of 4 companies (including Udi’s, Glutino & evol) over her first 3 years which came to represent almost 75% of Boulder Brands sales. Concurrent to this role, Carole served as Managing Director of Boulder Brands Investment Group from 2013 to 2015.

Carole’s research and financial background in natural foods, combined with her experience in acquisitions within the industry make her an integral part of the BIGR team. Carole sits or has sat on the Boards of Temple Turmeric, EPIC, Bonafide Provisions, Hope, Soozy’s and RE Botanicals.

Gigi Lee Chang is a Managing Partner at BFY Capital, a privately-owned debt financing company focused on providing growth capital to “better for you” consumer brands in the food, beverage, beauty and wellness sectors to support growth activities with minimal dilution.  

Prior to joining BFY, she was the Managing Director of FoodFutureCo, an accelerator helping mission driven entrepreneurs working across the food system. Gigi is the Founder of Plum Organics and was also the CEO of the national children's environmental health non-profit Healthy Child Healthy World.

Named one of the top women leaders in the "future of food" by Forbes in 2017 and a top dealmaker and influencer in consumer food and beverage by CircleUp in Dec 2016, Gigi is a frequent speaker on social enterprise, sustainability, impact investing and entrepreneurship. She is an advisor, board member and mentor to numerous early stage companies. Her philanthropic and board affiliations include Venture for America, Good+ Foundation, and the Good Food Initiative of Arabella Advisors.

Paul Gelb is currently the Head of Social and Programmatic at Bayer. He leads relationships with all major ad marketplace platforms including Facebook, Google, Twitter and Pinterest. He also determines the strategy, tactics, targeting and advanced buying optimizations across all brands for all biddable and programmatic buying platforms. Previously he was the Head of Programmatic at Twitter, where he oversaw the company's worldwide programmatic agency trading desk business. Prior to that, he was the Head of Strategy and Marketplace Development at MoPub, the largest mobile exchange, which Twitter acquired in 2013. Before that Paul was the Vice President and Founder of the mobile practice at Razorfish, which ranked #2 by Ad Age for agency mobile revenue. He was the youngest executive to receive Mediaweek's Media All-Star award. The global mobile practice he founded was recognized by Forrester as a mobile marketing agency Industry Leader, their top rating. His clients won mobile marketer of the year, luxury mobile marketer of the year and a Cannes Lion shortlist selection

Chieh Huang is Co-Founder and CEO of Boxed.com, a company that is disrupting the wholesale shopping club experience by enabling you to shop for bulk-sized items online or via mobile app and have them delivered directly to your door. Forbes Magazine has named Boxed one of the next “billion dollar startups.”

Started in Huang’s garage 5 years ago, Boxed now has hundreds of employees in facilities all over the United States. Since the garage, the company has sold hundreds of millions of dollars of products and has raised over a quarter billion dollars in funding to date.

Prior to Boxed, Huang served as the CEO of Astro Ape, one of the first mobile social gaming studios.

Michael Jaconi is the Co-Founder and CEO of Button, the mobile commerce platform that enables companies to drive revenue through commerce in their mobile apps and websites. Jaconi formerly served as the CEO of Rakuten Loyalty and Executive Officer of parent company Rakuten. Michael helped build Rakuten Loyalty from a fledgling state to a multi-million dollar business in less than two years and led Rakuten’s $100M investment in Pinterest, helping bolster Rakuten’s position as one of the most innovative and aggressive global internet companies. Prior to his tenure at Rakuten, Jaconi co-founded two public affairs companies and has been a lifelong entrepreneur.

Chris is the Senior Vice President of Retail at Ibotta where he leads partnerships with some of the biggest names in retail and mobile commerce. Prior to joining Ibotta, Chris founded a company in the card linked offer space, and before that was Global Marketing Director at Whole Foods, where he ran some of the first card-linked offers ever, facilitated Apple Pay’s largest retail partnership, and helped execute the fastest-selling daily deal of all time.

Bryan Leach founded Ibotta in 2011, when he realized the need for a more innovative approach to connecting brands, retailers, and consumers through mobile technology. Bryan made it his mission to empower smartphone-savvy shoppers with an easy way to earn cash back on their everyday purchases. Today, the company is the industry leader in offline performance-based mobile marketing. Prior to Ibotta, Bryan was a partner at a leading law firm and had clerked for Justice David Souter at the U.S. Supreme Court. He is a graduate of Harvard, Oxford, and Yale Law School. On weekends, you'll find Bryan enjoying dim sum or clinging to a rock-climbing wall with his daughters.

Kane McCord oversees Ibotta's sales, account management, business development, and operations functions. Prior to Ibotta, Kane was an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he was a senior leader in the Sales & Marketing function of the Retail and Consumer Goods practice. He has extensive experience advising senior management at some of the nation's largest retailers and CPG companies. Kane holds a bachelor's degree in business from Indiana University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Outside of the office, Kane is an avid triathlete and skier, and enjoys spending time with his wife and daughters exploring the mountains.

Steve Miller is Senior Vice President of Strategy & Analytics at DICK'S Sporting Goods.

Prior to joining DICK's, Steve held a number of roles in sales and marketing, most recently as SVP of Marketing & Strategy within JOANN Stores. Previously, he held roles in McKinsey & Company’s strategy practice and as co-founder of Tiggly, an educational technology company.

Carol is the Editor of NOSH, BevNet’s media property focusing on Natural, Healthy, Sustainable and Organic food products. In addition to NOSH's daily online publication, Carol helps organize and lead NOSH LIVE, NOSH's bi-annual conference for emerging and leading food companies.

Carol previously worked and consulted for several consumer goods companies, many within the food space as well as was on the marketing team for Whole Foods Market in the North Atlantic region. Prior to focusing on the food industry, Carol worked at several tech companies, including HubSpot, and served as a consumer researcher at AMP Agency.

As Facebook’s Industry Manager for CPG, Will leads the Central Region teams who partner with CPG Food & Beverage companies. Will joined Facebook & Instagram in 2013, prior to which he was at The Wall Street Journal where he spearheaded regional sales, product launches and
sales development for consumer marketing. His background is in consumer insights and strategy, having spent the early years of his career at Ogilvy New York as a Strategist across CPG, Financial Services, Retail and Consumer Technology. He is passionate about helping consumer brands adapt their story to resonate with people in today’s mobile world.

He has a BA in Advertising & Public Relations from Penn State. He now lives in Evanston, Illinois with his brilliant wife and two young daughters who constantly leave him covered in glitter and humming music from Pixar movies.

As a lifelong Alaskan, Kikkan has always been an athlete at heart, aspiring to the Olympics and beyond. She was a trail blazer for the US Cross Country Ski Team, being the first American woman to win a World Cup and medals at the Olympics and World Championships. She is a 3-time Overall World Cup Sprint Champion and an Olympic gold medalist. In addition to her athletic pursuits, she is passionately involved with Healthy Futures and Fast and Female, organizations that promote the benefits of healthy active lifestyles to youth. She represents the voices of athletes as a member of the International Olympic Committee. In June 2018, just three months after winning Olympic Gold, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and has been bringing her determination and positive attitude towards her cancer battle, hoping to inspire others along the way to stay active and persevere through any challenge!

With a long and varied entrepreneurial history in natural foods ranging from retailer to farmer to consultant, Walter Robb joined Whole Foods Market in 1991 and in 2010, he joined the Whole Foods Market Board of Directors and was named co-CEO along with John Mackey.

In 2017, Robb transitioned his leadership focus to his role as Chairman of the Board for WholeKids Foundation and Whole Cities Foundation. Robb also serves on the Board of Directors for Union Square Hospitality Group, The Container Store, FoodMaven and HeatGenie.

Talbott Roche is CEO and president of Blackhawk Network. As Blackhawk’s co-founder, she was integral to the company’s transformation from a gift card network in one grocery chain to a global prepaid leader. Before becoming CEO, she served as Blackhawk’s president through a successful IPO (2013), and led the growth of the company’s retail and digital businesses. In recent years, she integrated multiple acquisitions in incentives, making Blackhawk a leader in
commerce and incentive solutions, employing over 3,000 people in 26 countries.

Prior to Blackhawk, Roche held leadership roles with News America Marketing, a News Corp company, and The Clorox Company among others. Roche sits on the board of directors ofElectronic Arts Inc. (EA), and previously served as an Executive board member of the Network
Branded Prepaid Card Association (NBPCA).

For the past 5 years, Alex has led digital investment planning helping top marketers become some of the most sophisticated in the fast-paced CPG and retail categories. He has excelled at developing integrated marketing communications strategies focused on digital campaigns by working closely with marketers to align both marketing goals and business outcomes.

Alex is also responsible for the development of agency level partnerships with key data, technology, automation and creative vendors in the digital arena. Alex developed the agency’s strategic approach to digital investment partnerships to maximize negotiations with key partners emphasizing areas of interest that provide the greatest value to the agency’s clients in the form of innovation, competitive rates, research, and education. Most recently, he worked with key stakeholders to develop a new private marketplace specific to OTT/CTV inventory featuring over 15 direct partnerships, dubbed SeleCTV.

Prior to joining Horizon, Alex led cross-agency teams delivering digitally focused solutions for progressive marketers such as Lowe’s, FedEx, Chobani, and Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Trishya Varma currently leads Data Strategy for Clorox brands at AKQA where she is advocating for customer data acquisition, creating strategies for a CPG company to govern and enrich their customer data, ultimately to pave a path towards personalization. She comes from a broad marketing analytics background, prior to AKQA, she was leading digital transformation for New York’s iconic Madison Square Garden. Birthed in advertising and passionate about Marktech, she is constantly thinking about customer centric marketing for clients and businesses. She has a M.S & MBA from NYU Stern school of business with a focus in digital analytics & has spent majority of her career on the agency side working for WPP and Publicis agencies.

Joel Warady serves as both General Manager, and Chief Sales & Marketing Officer of Enjoy Life Foods, a leading brand in the North American Gluten-Free, Allergy-Friendly CPG category that has experienced 18 consecutive years of growth under his guidance. In the past few years, he has been ranked as one of the Top 50 CMOs on Twitter by Social Media Marketing Magazine, one of the Top 50 Most Influential CMOs on Social Media by Forbes.com and was included in Brand Quarterly magazine’s list of 50 Marketing Thought Leaders Over 50. In 2015, Joel was part of the management team that successfully negotiated the sale of the company to Mondelez Intl. Rather than exit the company, Joel has remained a part of the Mondelez/Enjoy Life family helping to create best practices on how best to merge the culture of an emerging brand while taking advantage of the global expertise that a large multinational brings to the business.