Speakers

As the Director of Content and Product Marketing at MessageGears, Koertni Adams leads the company's communication strategy across campaigns, channels, and releases. A lot of her work sits at the exact fault line this panel explores: helping enterprise teams move from legacy systems that feel duct-taped together to the real-time, AI-ready infrastructure that modern customer engagement demands. After almost 15 years in martech, Koertni has built her career on helping translate jargon into "street speak" everyday language, often finding herself as the unofficial mediator between technical and creative teams. Outside of work, Koertni is a mom of three who spends as much time as she can soaking up the Florida sunshine with her family.

Steve Armenti is a 2X marketing founder. He operates twelfth agency, a boutique ABM and demand generation agency built for growth-stage B2B SaaS companies. He also leads Howdy, a unique signal-based experiences platform that delights buyers with custom real-life experiences. Steve holds 16 years in B2B marketing - including six years leading demand generation at Google.

Maria Corcoran is the manager of performance media at Jiffy.com. Perviously, Maria worked at Microsoft on the inhouse Search Marketing team where she provided strategy and account leadership on multiple commerical and consumer lines of business. Maria has over 15 years of hands-on experience creating and implementing successful search marketing strategies for multiple fortune 500 companies and at Microsoft.

Having started her career in advertising in 1994, Angelina Eng rose to executive leadership roles, significantly influencing the progression of digital media, marketing, ad operations, and analytics. In her pivotal roles at renowned firms such as Morgan Stanley, Merkle, dentsu, and Publicis, Angelina provided invaluable assistance to over 150 marketers across diverse advertising facets, and played a key role in forming some of the industry standards recognized today. Currently holding a position of Vice President of the Measurement, Addressability Data Center at the IAB, Angelina plays a crucial role in defining guidelines and establishing industry standards in the fields of addressability, measurement, and operations. In doing so, she is actively shaping the contemporary landscape of digital advertising.Before her tenure at IAB, Angelina received notable awards including the AdMonsters 2018 Power List, IAB Data Rockstar 2016, and AdMonsters Digital Media Leadership Award 2016, underlining her significant impact and leadership in the field.

Jacqueline Freedman founded Monarch Advisory Partners to fill a specific gap in the Martech market: an advisor with deep practitioner experience who evaluates technology on behalf of the buyer. Not the vendor.

Her work spans CDP and ESP evaluation, campaign hierarchy architecture, MAP selection, and MarOps operating model design across industries, including legal, professional services, and enterprise SaaS. She has built marketing operations infrastructure at hypergrowth companies, including Grammarly and WeWork, reaching hundreds of millions of customers globally.

She is also the host of Making Sense of Martech, an independent podcast that covers the structural forces, vendor dynamics, and enterprise decisions shaping the Martech landscape.

Monarch was built on the premise that the best technology decision is rarely a technology decision. It's an organizational one.

Cyndi W. Greenglass is a founding partner and president at Livingston Strategies, a data-informed, strategic consulting firm that helps clients develop, measure, and analyze their customer communications with a close focus on results.

With a strong track record in data-driven communications, strategic planning, and database development, Cyndi has built a successful company and reputation in performance-based marketing across a broad range of industries, with a strong focus on nonprofits, compliance, and B2B organizations.

Prior to launching her current consultancy, Cyndi was a founding partner at Diamond Communication Solutions, a data-driven communications firm specializing in Healthcare, Financial Services, and direct response solutions.

Cyndi has taught and trained marketers worldwide. She currently co-hosts a podcast series entitled Marketing Horizons sponsored by WVU, and is a consistent contributor to books, white papers, and articles by leading marketing thought leaders. She is an Adjunct Instructor in the WVU Data Marketing Communications M.Sc. program.

Shiv Gupta is a trusted advisor to marketing leaders, specializing in driving marketing effectiveness and helping them elevate their role within the C-suite. With over 20 years of experience in data-driven marketing, Shiv has worked with top-tier brands and consultancies, including Exelon, Farmers Insurance, Merkle, Prophet, and Lippincott - Oliver Wyman.He has led transformative engagements for an impressive roster of blue-chip clients, such as Intel, Guardian Life, Novant Health, Crate Barrel, and Elevance Health.As the Principal at Quantum Sight, Shiv partners with marketing executives to enhance organizational impact, harness deeper customer insights, and deploy strategies that drive measurable results.

As SVP of Data Strategy Analytics at Qualified Digital, Kevin Haag leads a highly skilled team of consultants, architects, and engineers designed to help clients unlock the value of their customer data. As a strategy leader in the company, Kevin works with his best-in-class talent to strategize, implement, and scale leading Customer Data Platform (CDP) and Analytics solutions to measure the impact of personalized customer experiences across channels and touchpoints.

Jessica Hawthorne is the CEO of Hawthorne Advertising, an award-winning technology-based advertising agency specializing in analytics and accountable brand campaigns for 40 years. Throughout her tenure, Jessica has prioritized innovation and accountability that has been prevalent in her accomplishments as she continues to lead with confidence in all she does. Her work focuses on helping marketers establish transparent, reliable data foundations that eliminate uncertainty and enable confident decision-making.

Under her leadership, Hawthorne Advertising has a legacy of ad industry leadership by being a visionary in combining the art of right-brain creativity with the science of left-brain data analytics and neuroscience. Jessica's role principally involves fostering long-standing client relationships with the company's expansive base of Fortune 500 brands to develop highly strategic and measurable advertising campaigns, designed to ignite an immediate consumer response. From strategy, creative and production to media and analytics, Jessica is committed to premium quality and innovation throughout all agency disciplines.

As a recognized leader in the marketing space, Jessica is a written contributor to various industry publications, such as Inc. and Forbes offering insights on key industry trends. In addition, Jessica has been recognized from the broader professional community with a long list of accolades for her career accomplishments, including: semifinalist in the Ernst and Young "Entrepreneur of the Year" in the Greater Los Angeles area, "Women to Watch" recognition for the "Marketing Hall of Femme" Direct Marketing News, "Woman of Influence" by L.A. Biz and Biz Women, "Female CEO of the Year in Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations", presented by the CEO World Awards organization, Marketing EDGE's "Rising Star Award", and "Top 40 Under 40" by Direct Marketing News.

Craig Howard leads Actable's solutions consulting team, developing customer data strategies and deploying technologies for Actable's customers. Craig also oversees Actable's industry partnerships with MarTech providers, including customer data, cloud database, and customer experience platforms.

Craig has 25 years of experience delivering multi-channel enterprise marketing technology solutions. He has broad technology and industry experience, driving technical architecture solutions by providing technical expertise in strategy, design, and implementation.

Prior to joining Actable, Craig led Merkle's solution architecture team as Chief Solution Architect. He was responsible for design of marketing technology solutions for all practices as well as providing thought leadership, innovation, and architectural standards to enable solution deployments.

Prior to joining Merkle in 2009, Craig served as Director of Business Intelligence Systems and Services at a startup focused on providing marketing management to small businesses. Prior to that, he served as Director, Marketing Technology at Epsilon/DoubleClick, acting as Chief Architect for an interactive database marketing solution, enabling advanced segmentation and reporting capabilities specific to online channels.

Craig began his career with Accenture and Braun Consulting, serving as a Manager within the CRM and Database Marketing consulting groups. Craig holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Christina J. Inge, EdD is a marketing analytics consultant, author, and educator with over 20 years of experience helping organizations harness the power of data to drive better business decisions. She is the founder of Thoughtlight, a consultancy specializing in ethical, effective AI and analytics strategy for marketing teams. Christina teaches at Harvard and Northeastern University and is the author of Marketing Metrics: Leverage Analytics and Data to Optimize Your Marketing, which has been adopted in academic and corporate training programs worldwide. A passionate advocate for inclusive, data-driven decision making, she blends technical depth with real-world pragmatism to make metrics meaningful across organizations.

Natalie Jackson is the Director of Demand Generation at CBIZ and co-host of the podcast Humans of Email. She has more than a decade of experience in B2B marketing strategy, demand generation, account-based marketing, and digital marketing, including more than eight years of strategic consultation on CRM and marketing automation alignment strategy. She combines her work brand side, agency side, and for a marketing automation platform to deliver a broad perspective on both digital marketing trends and practical applicability. Natalie has spoken on the topics of email marketing, ABM tactics, CRM strategy, and content marketing at Unspam, Gartner Marketing Symposium, Litmus Live, Dreamforce, Really Good Emails, Digital Summit, MarketingProfs, Microsoft Dynamics CRMUG Summit, DynamicsCon, and for countless vendor webinars and local marketing organizations.

Mike is Chairman of Napier, a B2B technology PR and marketing agency, as well as chair of Eurocom Worldwide, a global PR network for B2B tech agencies. He began his career as an electronics engineer, moving into technical sales and then marketing . In 2001 he acquired Napier, and the agency has since acquired three other businesses. Mike has served as the chair of the B2B group for the PRCA, as well as lecturing in PR at Solent University. He is currently the B2B group lead on the Forbes agency council and he hosts two popular marketing podcasts.

John Miller is the founder of Scribewise and the author of Playing It Safe Sucks: A Manifesto for Courageous Marketing. John has spent his career helping firms to get noticed and build trust through bold marketing programs.

Before Scribewise, John was a principal at one of the mid-Atlantic's top public relations agencies. He also worked as an award-winning broadcaster for a number of TV and radio stations, most notably as the pre- and postgame radio host for the Philadelphia Eagles. Go Birds.

Ana has spent 15 years in the trenches of marketing technology at Fortune 500 companies - not advising from the outside, but building and running customer data strategy from the inside.

Throughout her career, she has unified millions of customer profiles across many countries, reducing acquisition costs while increasing engagement. Before that, she had built marketing technology infrastructure for Fortune 500 companies such as 3M, Charles Schwab, and Marriott - learning firsthand what works, what breaks, and what matters when you're trying to make your martech stack deliver on its promises.

From this experience, she created her proprietary methodology: The Experimental Marketer Framework. It was designed to help other senior marketing leaders maximize marketing technology's benefit for their companies and their careers.

Ana also serves on the ANA Martech Committee, contributes to the martech.org publication, and is an author. Her book "Strategic Marketing Skills: How to build technology-driven expertise that delivers business value," based on her own methodology, will be published in October by Kogan Page.

Shay Olupona is a Principal Product Manager at OneTrust with more than 10 years of experience leading product strategy and technology initiatives across startups and high-growth organizations. Throughout his career, he has held consulting, strategy, and leadership roles, managing complex projects spanning defense, enterprise technology, and large-scale digital transformation.

Shay has played a key role in building and scaling teams across both Europe and Africa, helping organizations grow while delivering innovative, customer-focused solutions. Today, he specializes in the privacy technology space, driving product innovation that helps organizations navigate an evolving data and regulatory landscape.

Originally based in London and now living in the United States, Shay brings a global perspective shaped by working and traveling extensively across multiple regions. His diverse experience enables him to connect business strategy, technology, and product development to solve complex challenges at scale.

Mike Pastore is the Head of Content Media for Third Door Media, a Semrush company. Mike has spent nearly three decades in B2B marketing as an editor, writer, and marketer. He first wrote about marketing in 1998 for internet.com (later Jupitermedia). He then worked with marketers at some of the best-known brands in B2B tech, creating content for marketing campaigns at both Jupitermedia and QuinStreet. Prior to joining Third Door Media as the Editorial Director of the MarTech website in 2023, he led demand generation at B2B media company TechnologyAdvice.

Ruth P. Stevens consults on customer acquisition and retention, specializing in B2B markets. She advises companies on go-to-market strategy, sales lead generation, customer and prospect data, content marketing, and ABM. Crain’s BtoB magazine named Ruth one of the 100 Most Influential People in Business Marketing. Ruth also teaches marketing at business schools in the U.S. and abroad. She has taught at Columbia and NYU Stern business schools in New York, and abroad at Hong Kong UST, Singapore Management University, Athens College, San Andres University (Buenos Aires), Jagiellonian University (Krakow), ASE (Bucharest), and Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. Ruth served on the board of Edmund Optics, a $200M manufacturer and distributor of industrial optics, for ten years. She is an emerita trustee of Princeton-In-Asia, past chair of the Business-to-Business Council of the DMA, and past president of the Direct Marketing Club of New York. Ruth was named one of 20 Women to Watch by the Sales Lead Management Association. She serves as a mentor to fledgling companies at the ERA business accelerator in New York City. Ruth co-hosts the Marketing Horizons and Marketing Legends podcasts. She has been a contributor at Martech, Biznology, AdAge, HBR.org, CustomerThink, Business 2 Community, and AdWeek. Her newest book is "B2B Data-Driven Marketing: Sources, Uses, Results." She is also the author of "Maximizing Lead Generation: The Complete Guide for B2B Marketers", and "Trade Show and Event Marketing", and co-author of the white paper series, “B-to-B Database Marketing.

Anthony Tedesco plays a key role in Cisco Systems' digital marketing efforts, as the Global Performance Media Lead. The role has him focused on developing optimal digital customer experiences while maximizing the business impact across search, social, and programmatic.

Prior to joining Cisco, Anthony spent the better part of 5 years working with Fortune 100 brands to deliver world-class SEM activations at scale. He enjoyed playing an active role in strategy development, as well as ensuring best-in-class account management practices across offices. Anthony discovered his passion for SEM at Red Ventures in Fort Mill, SC. There, he cultivated a deep passion for data-driven full funnel marketing programs, as well as complex analysis.

Outside of work, Anthony is a die-hard Boston and UNC Tar Heels fan. When he's not watching his favorite teams, he is often looking to compete with friends in a wide range of outdoor activities or spending time with his family.

I believe every meaningful customer experience begins long before a message is sent and continues long after it ends. At Razorfish, I lead our CRM, loyalty, eCommerce and owned-channel practice, helping brands turn fragmented customer data into connected experiences that are relevant, trusted, and built for growth. My passion is designing the systems for the people, process, and technology that bring creative and data together to power personalization at scale. Outside of work, I'm a dad, a lifelong endurance athlete, and an advocate for big ideas and reinvention. If I'm not iterating on a new framework, you'll likely find me running, biking, or chasing adventure with my three children and dog, Zorro.

Zack Wenthe is a seasoned product marketing and customer data expert, currently serving as Director of Product Marketing & Customer Data Evangelist at Tealium, where he helps brands unlock the power of unified customer insights and drive meaningful engagement through data-driven strategies with the power of value-add storytelling in product marketing. He’s a prolific speaker, writer, and storyteller in the martech space, known for breaking down complex ideas into practical, revenue-focused narratives. Outside of work, Zack enjoys cooking, writing comedy, and spending time with his family.

AnnMarie Wills is the co-founder and CEO of Leverage Lab LLC, a pioneering first-party data-centric marketing agency. With over 20 years of experience at industry giants like Knight Ridder, Penton Media, and SourceMedia, she has a proven track record of developing innovative products by leveraging data and technology.

Known for her exceptional understanding of the intersection between data and business, AnnMarie possesses an uncanny ability to find and monetize the right data that appeals to and empowers audiences to achieve their business goals. At Leverage Lab, her visionary leadership has driven significant growth and industry recognition over the past seven years.

AnnMarie is considered a top "business data thinker" in the media space, making her an invaluable leader in transforming and optimizing technology to build a modern media enterprise.

Jiaxi Zhu brings over a decade of experience driving innovation in data strategy, marketing analytics, and AI adoption at scale. As Head of Analytics at the Small and Medium Business (SMB) division at Google, Jiaxi charts data and analytics strategies that optimize how Google engages with an ecosystem of millions of digital advertisers globally.

Prior to Google, Jiaxi was a business technology consultant at McKinsey Company and PricewaterhouseCoopers, advising Fortune 500 C-level leaders on enterprise data transformation to unlock marketing ROI and personalized customer experiences.

Recognized as a thought leader in the field, Jiaxi frequently speaks at industry conferences on business intelligence, AI integration, and responsible data governance. He also serves as a judge for high-impact analytics competitions, helping shape the next wave of innovation in data science.

Jiaxi holds an MBA in Business Analytics from The Wharton School and a B.S. in Industrial Engineering Operations Research from UC Berkeley.

A forward-thinking leader who is passionate about brands connecting with their audiences in ways that are genuine and meaningful-with lasting impact.

Julie Zwissler is a seasoned marketing executive with over two decades of experience at the intersection of brand strategy, business growth, and storytelling. As Chief Marketing Officer at Office Beacon, a global provider of Managed Remote Staffing Solutions, she leads the company's global marketing strategy, brand development, and partnership initiatives-focused on scaling growth while building a brand that resonates.

Julie believes that great marketing starts with alignment from a company's internal vision, external messaging and creative strategy, to their business goals and human connection. She has applied that philosophy throughout her career in leadership roles at CBS, Time Warner, and CJ EM.

As former CMO of Fabric, she helped bring to life a platform that created gamified mixed-reality experiences at live sports events, partnering with leagues like the NBA, MLB, NHL, and MLS. She's also built and led marketing strategies for a range of companies, from startups to Fortune 100 brands like Hilton, Toyota, and MGM Resorts.

She also serves as a Strategic Advisor for Offleash'd, a social app connecting pet people, and Ordr, a mobile ordering and payment platform that enhances in-venue experiences for sports and entertainment.

Julie is a member of the Board of Directors for WISE (Women in Sports and Events) LA and holds a master's degree in Social Entrepreneurship from Pepperdine University. Julie is recognized for her entrepreneurial mindset, strategic leadership, and commitment to driving impactful marketing initiatives.