Ayinde Alakoye is Founder and CEO of Hitch Radio, Inc., a social network built on the world’s first real-time broadcast radio search. Hitch radio instantly delivers audio results for radio content searches, letting listeners "hitch a ride" to anywhere that content is playing live. Before Hitch Radio, Alakoye was advisor to chief of staff David Axelrod during Barack Obama's first presidential campaign. During 2008, he was senior management/client development for Internet advertising startup Spot Runner, and before that he was founder and CEO of Thumb Radio Inc. Ayinde got his start at WTOP before going on to become the top salesperson at Clear Channel and CBS, respectively. He's also known for his appearances on BravoTV's The Millionaire Matchmaker.He's also known for his appearances on BravoTV's The Millionaire Matchmaker.
As CEO and co-founder of Listener Driven Radio, Daniel Anstandig leads the software company in developing innovative interactive programming tools for broadcasters. LDR's premiere "crowdcasting" product, which integrates real-time audience voting into a radio station’s live playlist, is on the air at Citadel Broadcasting, CBS Radio, Virgin Radio in Europe, Harvard Broadcasting, Clear Channel Radio, and several other major broadcasters around the world. During Anstandig's tenure as President of McVay New Media consulting, he advised the Wall Street Journal, CBS News, and Clear Channel R&D, among many others. His research and editorials on radio and interactive media have been published in the Wall Street Journal, Radio Ink, Radio and Records (R&R), Billboard, Billboard Radio Monitor, Radio World Magazine, FMQB, and Christian Radio Weekly.
A General Partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, Katherine Barr focuses primarily on investments in Web and mobile consumer and business services. She has a particular interest in retail and commerce innovation; data analytics that enable automation, optimization and personalization of the digital experience; and next-generation media. Barr sits on the boards of PunchTab, BandPage and Ruby Ribbon, is a board observer for Ticketfly, sponsored the seed investments in Retention Science and Storefront, and is responsible for the investments in Visible Measures, Infusionsoft, and the seed investment in Massive Health (Jawbone). Before Mohr Davidow, she held senior management roles in product development, marketing, and negotiation.
Jacquelyn Bullerman is Digital Media Manager for Arbitron, with responsibilities for developing and hosting industry-wide webinars, writing articles, and working directly with Arbitron clients on current digital trends. Bullerman brings 20 years of hands-on media experience to her current position, including media planning, buying and selling, traffic, and media training for both radio and agencies. She has worked with a multitude of stations in all market sizes, reviewing their social media content and providing tactical and strategic insights.
Scott Burnell is Global Lead, Business/Development & Partner Management for Ford Motor Company. He most recently facilitated the creation and launch of the Ford Developer Program, the first developer ecosystem for in-vehicle connectivity open to all global app developers. Before joining ford, Burnell spent 16 years in the wireless industry; as director of mobile content for Wireless Developer Agency, he led the mobile apps team at the largest content aggregator in North America. Earlier in his career, he launched both retail and indirect sales channels for wireless operators as Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile.
Duane Cofield is Interactive Strategist and Social Media Community Manager for KJLH (Radio Free 102.3)/Los Angeles, responsible for digital and social media strategy. As a traditionally trained marketer with a passion for the digital side, he's a vocal advocate of bridging the "digital divide" in Los Angeles' minority community and is considered a thought leader in digital marketing in L.A. Cofield has been with KJLH for three years and is currently pursuing his MBA in information systems.
James Derby is Chief Strategy Officer for Federated Media and Federated Interactive. He started his career at KDUK/Eugene, OR, and was hired out of college by KUIK-AM/Portland, OR, where he rose to program director. He joined KXL-AM (Newsradio 750) as PD in 1999 and headed the startup Radio Northwest Network, which eventually grew to 17 stations. Derby joined Federated Media in 2009 as director of interactive media and later rose to his current post.
Mike Dougherty is the CEO and Co-Founder of Jelli, a social radio platform that combines the reach of radio with the engagement of the Web. Under his leadership, Jelli has developed a next-generation advertising platform that provides real-time measurement, accountability, and analytics to the radio station and its advertising clients. Before Jelli, Dougherty was VP of business development at Tellme, a leader in speech recognition applications (acquired by Microsoft), and SVP/business and corporate development at Loudeye, an early leader in online and mobile music Web services (acquired by Nokia).
Tim Draper, Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, is known as the visionary who innovated what's now known as "viral marketing." His idea to use "viral" techniques in Web-based e-mail to geometrically spread an Internet product to its market was instrumental in the success of Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, and has been adopted as a standard marketing technique by hundreds of businesses. As a venture capitalist, Draper invested in and contributed to the development of Skype, Baidu, Hotmail, Overture (acquired by Yahoo), and many other top brands. Draper launched the DFJ Global Network, an international network of venture capital funds with offices in more than 30 cities around the globe, and founded or co-founded Wasatch Ventures (Salt Lake City), Zone Ventures (L.A.), Draper Atlantic (Reston), Draper Triangle (Pittsburgh), Timberline Ventures (Woodland, WA), DFJ EPlanet (global), Polaris Fund (Anchorage), Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham (NYC), DFJ Frontier (Sacramento and Santa Barbara), and DFJ Dragon (Shanghai). He's featured as a keynote speaker in entrepreneurial conferences worldwide.
John C Dvorak is the weekly tech columnist for Dow-Jones Marketwatch and writes Inside Track, an essay and weekly online column, for PC Magazine. He hosts the daily Tech5 podcast and the weekly podcasts This Week in Tech (with half a million listeners) and No Agenda with Adam Curry. Dvorak is a veteran broadcaster who serves as a guest analyst on CNBC, spent eight years hosting Dvorak on Computers on public radio, and hosted ZDTV's Silicon Spin, doing 1,000 live and live-to-tape shows.
Jon Erdahl is President of 3D MediaVentures, advising Wall Street venture capital, private equity, and hedge fund partners. A 38-year broadcast veteran, Erdahl has clients across the U.S. and Canada. He regularly contributes articles on digital and broadcasting to Radio Ink, and is a frequent speaker at industry events. At 3DMediaVentures, Erdahl has the vision to leverage all radio platforms, maximizing unique revenue opportunities in the digital space as well as terrestrial broadcasting assets.
Manolo Espinosa is the Head of Audio at SoundCloud, the world's leading social sound platform, with 180 million users and 10 hours of sounds uploaded every minute. Espinosa is responsible for creating and implementing business strategy for all forms of existing and emerging audio content. In addition, he oversees SoundCloud's API toolset and integration with platforms such as Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Apple. Before SoundCloud, he was co-founder of IndexTank, a real-time hosted search engine acquired by LinkedIn.
Rick Eytcheson is CEO of Capital Public Radio. He was one of the founders of Chancellor Broadcasting, and served as the company grew as EVP and western regional manager, overseeing the company’s stations in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Riverside/San Bernardino in addition to Sacramento. He retired from Chancellor in 1997 and later that year founded a company that developed online business directories. He returned to radio in 2002 with Radio Disney and later served as SVP of Maverick Media. He has been involved in syndication of independently produced radio programs and regional representation of radio stations and networks in California.
Scott Fleischer is Sr. Manager/Programming for TuneIn. He’s worked with the company since 2008 and has helped make TuneIn one of the world's leading Internet radio platforms. He initially managed the global directory of 70,000 radio stations for TuneIn (then RadioTime) and now builds partnerships with broadcasters, introducing TuneIn's new tools for content providers. Fleischer’s radio background includes previous roles with WSCR in Chicago, WTEM in Washington, DC, and XM Satellite Radio.
Marc Greenspan is one of the founding partners of Research Director, Inc.; the company’s service helps hundreds of radio stations across the country have a better understanding of their audience and helps them monetize their inventory. Greenspan oversees the internal operations of the company as well as the development of all software systems related to the production of the company’s products and services. Before helping found Research Director, he worked as an Arbitron radio product manager.
Maya Grinberg serves as Chief Evangelist and Social Media Manager at Wildfire, a Division of Google. Her specialty is educating brands and businesses about the best practices and winning strategies of social media marketing. She has organically grown Wildfire's social properties into the most engaged fan communities in the industry, with 155,000 fans on Facebook and nearly 40,000 on Twitter, and counting. Grinberg produces Wildfire’s popular monthly webinars and writes the Wildfire blog; her writing has also appeared in the Huffington Post, Social Media Examiner, Social Media Today, and Business2Community. Before Wildfire, she worked at IBM in the Strategy and Transformation group, and at TechCrunch, on the CrunchBase property.
Kurt Hanson is publisher of the daily web-based newsletter RAIN: Radio And Internet Newsletter and is considered perhaps the world’s leading expert in the field of Internet radio. As a popular keynote speaker, he has given his "State of the Industry Address" on the future of radio at conferences around the world. Hanson is also CEO of AccuRadio, one of the world’s leading personalizable Internet radio properties, reaching over a half-million unique listeners per month. Before launching RAIN and AccuRadio, Hanson developed his reputation within the radio industry as the founder and CEO of Strategic Media Research (1980-2000), a market research firm respected throughout the industry for its STAR professional callout music research program and its AccuRatings product, which he built into a $10 million business.
Evan Harrison is EVP/Content & Entertainment for the Univision Radio division of Univision Communications, where he's responsible for strengthening programming and growing audience share through new content initiatives, digital platforms, live-event integration, mobile, and other nontraditional media. Before joining Univision, Harrison was EVP of Clear Channel Radio and president of its digital division, and played a leading role in creating the popular iHeartRadio app. Earlier in his career he served as VP/GM of AOL Music.
Paul Jacobs is VP/GM of Jacobs Media and runs its successful mobile apps division, JacAPPS, which has produced apps for such brands as C-SPAN, Dan Patrick, and stations including WEEI/Boston and WRIF/Detroit. Jacobs began his radio career in sales, working for and running stations in Dallas and Detroit, and in 1991 joined his brothers Fred and Bill at Jacobs Media. Paul Jacobs is known as a leading radio consultant, specializing in generational marketing, sales development, and research.
Frankie James, Ph.D., is Managing Director, Advanced Technology Silicon Valley Office for General Motors Inc. U.S.A. In her post she is focused on identifying new Silicon Valley technologies that may be of benefit to GM. Her particular focus is on human-machine interactions and driver experience of GM's products. Before joining GM, James was the program manager for Human Computer Interaction at SAP Research. She has also worked for the Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science, a NASA contractor, where she developed voice interfaces for semi-autonomous robots.
J.Love is Marketron Interactive Management Consultant, Corus Entertainment. Corus owns 37 radio stations, among them the most listened-to stations in Canada. In his work with Corus, J.Love has launched innovative marketing partnerships that use all of a stations assets, and authored programs using databases to enhance programming, marketing, and sales. J.Love has a wide background in radio broadcasting, marketing, and sales across multiple media platforms, including digital media. He's worked with Marketron Interactive for the past three years, and has been a leader in driving digital revenue for such companies as Emmis and Corus.
Nichole Kelly is the President/CEO of Social Media Explorer, a leading digital and social media marketing agency and an AdAge Power 150 Top Marketing Blog. Author of How to Measure Social Media: A Step-By-Step Guide to Developing and Assessing Social Media ROI, Kelly is a social media pioneer who was an innovator in measuring social media results against core business objectives of sales, revenue, and costs. She is a respected national speaker, and her systematic approach to social media ROI and case studies are highlighted in such books as The Executives’ Guide to Enterprise Social Media Strategy by David B. Thomas and No Bullshit Social Media by Jason Falls. Before joining SME Digital, Nichole worked for major brands such as the Sherwin-Williams Company, the Federal Reserve Bank, and Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown.
Tom Kenney, President of Verve Wireless, has mobile-industry experience that dates back to 1994, as an early employee at start-up mobile carrier GO! Communications, a spin-out of MCI. Before Verve, he was a venture capitalist with Blue Run Ventures, formerly Nokia Venture Partners. While at BRV, Kenney was a contributing principal on many investments, including PayPal (sold to eBay), eVoice (sold to AOL), MongoMusic (sold to Microsoft), and Lightningcast (sold to AOL). Prior to Blue Run Ventures, Kenney spent several years working in Nokia Corp.’s Mergers and Acquisition Group.
Buzz Knight is VP/Program Development for Greater Media, overseeing programming for all of the Greater Media properties and collaborating with the individual programming teams to build winning content and brand-management strategies. Knight has been with Greater Media since February 2002. Before that, he worked at radio stations including CBS Radio's Classic Rock WZLX/Boston, Saga Communications' Rock WNOR in Norfolk, and Great American's Rock WLVQ in Columbus, OH. In addition, he spent three years as part of the legendary WNEW-FM in New York City. Knight launched his broadcasting career at WRKI in Fairfield County, CT.
Danica Kombol is co-founder of Everywhere, a leading social media marketing firm with clients such as Radio One, CNN, Coca-Cola, and Cox Communications. As a social media marketer, Kombol draws on her extensive background as a television producer and public relations executive. She began her career at Sesame Workshop and went on to become a successful television producer, working on such legendary shows as Saturday Night Live. Kombol frequently speaks on social media at conferences and to corporate teams. She blogs about social media at www.beeverywhere.tv.
Thilo Koslowski is VP, Distinguished Analyst, and founder of the Automotive practice at Gartner Inc., the largest business and technology strategy advisory company in the world. He is recognized as a global thought leader, futurist, and strategic adviser regarding the evolution of the automotive industry, the connected vehicle, mobility innovation, and new business models, working with senior business and technology leaders in the automotive, consumer electronics, Internet, communication, and technology industries on disruptive and successful cross-industry business opportunities. He is also an adviser for venture capitalists and public agencies. Before founding Gartner’s Automotive practice in Silicon Valley in 1999, Koslowski was Lead Consultant in Gartner’s Consulting Practice.
Leo Laporte is an author, speaker, and broadcaster on tech, focusing today on technology coverage for radio, television, and the Internet. In 1991, he and John C Dvorak created and co-hosted Dvorak on Computers, which became the most listened-to high-tech talk show on radio, heard on more than 60 stations and around the world via the Armed Forces Radio Network. Laporte went on to host Laporte on Computers on KSFO and KGO in San Francisco, and to host the popular PBS show Internet! He's the author of four best-selling Technology Almanacs, and has written for publications including Byte, MacUser, and InfoWorld.
Larry Marcus is Managing Director of Walden Venture Capital. He was named to the 2012 Billboard Power 100, most powerful people in music. Larry was a founding investor in Pandora (NYSE: P) in early 2004 when Walden led the rebirth round to focus the company on launching a consumer-facing service. Larry is also a Director at SoundHound, BandPage, Aarki, Boombotix, and a Board Observer at PowerCloud Systems as well as an investor in LyricFind. Prior to Walden, Larry was a digital media sell-side Equity Research Analyst at Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown where he led the IPOs or financed leading companies including Netflix, Terayon, Maxis, Edmark, Broderbund and CBS Sportsline. Larry received a BA and MBA from the University of California at Berkeley.
Kathleen McMahon is VP/Sales and Marketing for SoundHound Inc, responsible for revenue and user base growth; she leads business operations including sales and monetization strategy, strategic partnership development, product marketing, communications, and brand management. Before joining SoundHound, she was vice president of business development at Shazam, where she played an instrumental role in growing revenue, international expansion, and building Shazam’s brand. Prior to Shazam, McMahon was the founder and managing director of Westport Communications Inc., a mobile virtual network operator.
Lisa Moore is Interactive Director for KSBY Communications Inc. She’s been in her current post for the past five years and has been with the station for 13 years. She spent three years as a local account executive and five as the local sales manager, giving her a unique perspective on the ever-changing radio industry.
Gregg Murray is the award-winning creator of iRadioSales, a contributor to Radio Ink, and author of Website Blueprint. He's a former director of sales with 30 years in radio and over a decade in online marketing. Since 2002, his radio sales websites have generated over 100,000 new business leads in 75 markets. Murray is an advocate for radio managers and sellers who understand the importance of professionally branding themselves and their sales department in today's hyper-competitive marketplace.
Norm Pattiz, as founder of Westwood One, is considered a founding father of modern radio syndication. Under his leadership Westwood One became America's largest provider of news, sports, entertainment, talk, and traffic to the broadcast industry. Pattiz was appointed by President Clinton and re-appointed by President Bush to serve on the Broadcasting Board of Governors, overseeing all U.S. non-military broadcast services, including the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe; in that post, Pattiz conceived and launched America's Arabic-language radio and TV service to all 22 countries of the Middle East, plus Farsi broadcasting to Iran. He was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2009 and that same year received the Giants of Broadcasting Award from the Library of American Broadcasting.
Dave Presher is founder, President, and CEO of Involution Digital, a full-service agency helping companies bridge the gaps between their social, digital, and traditional media plans. Presher is an award-winning executive who has served in senior roles in television, radio. sports, and digital media, including posts at Cox Communications, Belo, and CBS. Additionally, he is a sought-after speaker on digital media and has provided opinions to organizations including the Wall Street Journal, Tribune Co, and other leading media companies.
Ruth Presslaff is President of Presslaff Interactive Revenue. Started in 1988, PIR (originally The Media Gallery Inc.) combines proprietary state-of-the-art technology with experienced database marketing and sales. PIR's Dat-e Base E-mail Marketing software is used by more radio stations than any other industry platform. Ruth Presslaff has an extensive radio background, ranging from on-air work in New Orleans to senior radio network management. She started PIR more than 20 years ago and is a sought-after speaker on the programming, marketing, and sales benefits of interactive technology and database marketing.
Michael Robertson, CEO of UberTalk, is an accomplished technology entrepreneur. He ushered in the MP3 era with the advent of MP3.com, a company he founded, took public, and sold to the world's largest music company. He challenged Microsoft by creating a desktop-friendly Linux version called Lindows, later Linspire. Next he started Gizmo5 and created a VOIP company with 10 million users, eventually selling to Google. Now Robertson’s interest has turned to Internet radio and UberTalk, which offers a DVR-for-radio service called DAR.fm and a cloud guide to radio.
Scott Roesch is Head of News & Entertainment Business Development for Ustream.tv. There he helps radio, TV, print, and digital organizations increase reach and revenue with live social programming. Roesch began his career as an editor and producer at Starwave Corp., helping create the award-winning MrShowbiz and ESPN SportZone sites. He later served as a GM of the Atom.com business unit at Viacom and VP of original digital content development for Comedy Central. He joined Ustream in 2012.
Ken Rutkowski is founder of METal (Media/Entertainment/ Technology Alpha Leaders). He's known as one of the most broadly informed and connected people in the MET market, and consults everything from startups to multi-national corporations to help them understand the trends shaping their industries. The METal group has more than 1,500 members.
Adam Seymour is SVP/Managing Director, Digital for Optimedia, overseeing all of the agency's digital media, search, and analytics initiatives while also overseeing its San Francisco office. Seymour handles some of the most well known and recognized brands, including T-Mobile, Toyota Scion, Hewlett Packard, Nintendo, Paypal, and Princess Cruises.
Valerie Shuman is VP/Industry Programs for the Connected Vehicle Trade Association (CVTA), an international nonprofit trade association that advances the interests of industries and organizations involved in vehicle communications. Since the inception of the industry, Shuman has led the establishment of new wireless and automotive telematics communities and technologies and national and international standards. Shuman founded Shuman Consulting Group in 2009; at SCG, she partners with customers to deliver new products, new markets, and new ventures by developing strategy, market intelligence, product management, and marketing. She previously served as executive director of corporate strategy for Ygomi LLC and its five subsidiaries and before that was Director of Strategy for Verety, a start-up that provided remote order-taking services for quick service restaurants.
Doug Sterne is VP/Audio Sales for Pandora, overseeing a nationwide network of media salespeople delivering custom audio solutions for online and mobile. He also in charge of Pandora Audio Lab, the company's testing ground for creative and best practices. Before joining Pandora, Sterne was VP of sales at Clear Channel Online Music and Radio, where he restructured and grew the sales organization while increasing online revenue. He's also served as a VP at Infinity Radio.
As VP/Business Development of AdsWizz, Rockie Thomas uses her 15 years of digital media experience to help audio publishers measure, target, and monetize their audiences. She has worked with digital audio startups Sonicbox, iM Networks, XACT Radio, Spacial Audio, and Bid4Spots, as well as traditional broadcast companies Chancellor Broadcasting, AMFM, NRC, and Emmis, and also with McVay New Media. Before joining AdsWizz, Rockie was VP/digital sales at Tribune Broadcasting, where she led a 20-person digital sales team.
Cory Treffiletti, SVP/Marketing for BlueKai, has been a thought leader, executive, and business driver in digital media since 1994 and has written a weekly column on digital media, advertising, and marketing for Mediapost's Online Spin since 2000. Treffiletti spent 18 years primarily on the agency services side of the business as a successful executive, media expert, and/or founding team member for a number of companies; he was part of the initial team and VP/client and media services for i-Traffic (acquired by Omnicom), and his past posts also include VP/media services for Freestyle Interactive (acquired by Aegis/Carat), and SVP and managing director for Carat Fusion (Interactive).
Jessica "Tai" Valenzuela is the National Digital Content Manager for Univision Radio, responsible for developing and managing all digital content. In addition to focusing on the Univision Radio app and social media, she provides digital content leadership to the local content managers. Valenzuela first joined Univision Radio San Antonio in 2006 as an account coordinator and went on to hold various programming positions, spanning multiple Latin music genres.
David Verklin is a marketing consultant who has served for the last three years as CEO of Canoe Ventures. Before joining Canoe, he was CEO of Aegis Media Americas, and one of the pioneers of the free-standing media agency business. He brought the Carat agency to North and South America, and reinvented the agency model with Carat Fusion and Carat USA, integrating on- and offline marketing services. His 2007 book Watch This, Listen Up, Click Here, about understanding the new media landscape, is still being used as a college textbook.
Adam Wiener is SVP/Content, Community, and Operations at CBS Local Digital Media. He joined the division in 2010 and has been instrumental in developing and implementing the content and social strategy for all CBS local digital extensions, working with corporate and local leadership with CBS Radio and CBS Television Stations. Before taking his current post, Wiener held positions including executive producer of CBSNews.com, senior producer at CBS News, SVP/business development for NBCU/iVillage, and COO for NBCU's driverTV.
Digital media strategist Stephanie Winans consults with radio stations and personalities, artists, and small businesses on digital media strategy at Stephanie Winans Digital and the Randy Lane Co. From social media strategy and engagement to digital content marketing and graphic design, she is all about making radio look good online. Winans also writes for Radio Ink and speaks on social media at radio and music industry conferences.
Chelsea Williams picked up a guitar at 13 and started writing and performing her own music soon after. Starting out on the club and coffeehouse circuit in Los Angeles, she learned she could make more money, and fans, playing on the street. So on nearly every weekend for six years, she pushed her dolly full of equipment through busy streets, setting up, playing, and dismantling her gear three or four times a day. She's sold 100,000 records, just by singing on the streets of L.A. Last year, Williams was spotted playing and picked to star in a commercial for Chevrolet, and soon after that was signed by Interscope Records. She's now finishing up her first album as a signed artist.
Jed Williams is a Senior Analyst at BIA/Kelsey and the Program Director for the company's Social Local Media practice. In this role, he analyzes, forecasts, and advises clients on the evolving digital media ecosystem. He is a frequent speaker at industry events who’s been cited in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Ad Age and the BBC.
Ken Williams has been co-President/CEO of Dial Global since the company's inception as Dial Communications-Global Media in 2002. He began his career in media planning at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising in 1978 and in 1983 became VP of Sales at DIR Broadcasting, a network radio syndication company. In 1989, Williams became VP and managing director of MediaAmerica, managing Western region ad sales and programming. Five years later, he and David Landau founded Multiverse Networks; in addition to being a partner in the company,Williams served as its chairman. After that company was sold to Jacor, he served as EVP of Premiere Radio Networks. In late 2000, Williams became co-President/CEO/partner of Dial Communications, which in 2002 merged with Global Media. In October of 2011, Dial Global completed a merger with Westwood One.
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