2018 Speakers
Alex Baxter
Former President & CEO
OmniForce and RGM Group
Alex Baxter is the former President and Chief Executive Officer of OmniForce LLC, a Private Equity-backed, multinational digital and marketing agency, and prior to that the CEO of RGM Group, a PE-owned digital media and ad technology business.
Before becoming a CEO, Baxter was Chief Digital Officer for Competitor Group, the world’s largest endurance sports organization and now a subsidiary of Ironman/World Triathlon Corporation, and managed digital media teams in a GM capacity at organizations like Conde Nast, NewsCorp and Wenner Media.
Mr. Baxter lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Amanda and daughter, Sophia where he is an active member of YPO’s (Young President’s Organization) Hollywood Chapter. He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS, BA and Honorary Doctorate from Southern Wesleyan University.
Ben Saren
CEO
Dropsource
Ben Saren is an entrepreneurial and innovative executive with more than 20 years of technology, business development, and marketing experience for B2B, B2C, and Internet businesses. Ben is currently President and CEO at Dropsource, based in Raleigh NC. Prior to joining Dropsource, Ben was Senior Vice President of Marketing at Cayan, Vice President of Marketing at Litle & Co., and Co-Founder and CEO of CitySquares, the pioneer in hyper-local search. Known for disrupting and challenging the status quo, Ben has been covered from industry blogs to The Wall Street Journal and The Boston Globe. He’s a frequent speaker on innovation, e-commerce, m-commerce, Internet trends, and entrepreneurship. Ben has also held positions in IT and business development at Internet pioneers such as Delphi.com and Prospero Technologies, as well as multinationals such as Bell Atlantic, Digital Equipment Corporation, GE Capital, RSA, and Parametric Technologies Corporation.
Carrie Bishop
Chief Digital Services Officer
City and County of San Francisco
Carrie is the Chief Digital Services Officer for the City and County of San Francisco. She loves her job. Working with a team inside the city, she is responsible for creating excellent city services that are digital and accessible to all. Prior to working at the city, Carrie was based in London, running FutureGov, a digital design agency for public services. Carrie passionately believes in public services designed around the people that use them. Follow her on Twitter @carriebish.
David Mathison
Curator, CDO Summit
Founder, CDO Club
David Mathison is the curator of the Chief Digital Officer Summit and founder of the CDO Club.
He is the world’s leading authority on Chief Digital and Data officers, and has been quoted by the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Computerworld, McKinsey & Company, MIT Sloan Management Review, CMS Wire, ZDNet, Fierce CIO, and I-CIO, among others.
He was previously the founder and Managing Director of the Digital Media practice at Chadick Ellig, a premiere executive search consultancy named by Business Week as “one of the world’s most influential headhunters.
Mathison’s book, BE THE MEDIA, was featured in the NY Times after he pre-sold over 5,000 copies in 11 days via his web site, Twitter, and Facebook.
He has given keynote presentations everywhere from Columbia University to the United Nations (3 times in 2010), from Amsterdam to Zagreb.
From 1999-2001 he was founder and CEO of the Kinecta Corporation where he raised $30 million in under 2 years. Kinecta was acquired and is now part of Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL).
From 1994-1999 Mathison was Vice President with Thomson Reuters, the world’s largest news agency, where he pioneered online content syndication.
Mathison earned his Masters degree from Columbia University in 1995.
Kevin Conroy
Former President, Digital and New Platforms
MGM
Kevin Conroy is an award-winning media and technology innovator, board member, advisor, and entrepreneur, consistently at the leading edge and focused on the intersection of media, technology, and data, making significant breakthroughs impacting the future growth of entertainment, music, and sports. He has held a range of global, operational, strategic, entrepreneurial, and intrapreneurial roles for major media and entertainment corporations including CBS, Fox, Bertelsmann, AOL, Univision, and MGM, managing P&L’s in excess of a billion dollars. Conroy has been honored at Broadcasting & Cable’s Annual Technology Leadership Awards, recognized by Broadcasting & Cable as a Digital All-Star, on CableFAX’s Digital Hot List, lauded as one of Digital Media Wire’s “25 Executives to Watch,” and awarded membership in the CDO Club Hall of Fame.
Most recently, Conroy held the position of President, Digital and New Platforms at MGM, overseeing all initiatives for new and emerging platforms for the company. He led the charge to advance and broaden the studio’s new short-form digital content, and developed new formats for new platforms, utilizing MGM’s vast catalogue as well as originally scripted content. He established and expanded partnerships with major content brands for virtual and augmented reality experiences, which included investments in the leading entertainment and gaming VR and location based entertainment companies. He was a strategic member of the team that developed the company’s OTT efforts in the areas of faith-based and entertainment verticals.
Prior to MGM, he served as Univision’s Chief Strategy and Data Officer, where he led efforts to identify priority growth initiatives and developed Univision’s big data strategy. He developed and led Univision’s overall digital platform, product and programming strategies and execution.
Before Univision, he spent 8 years at AOL, where he served as Executive Vice President for AOL’s global products and marketing group, Chief Operating Officer for AOL Broadband, and held Senior Vice President, General Manager posts for AOL Entertainment and AOL Music. Previously, he was Chief Global Marketing Officer and President, New Technology for BMG Entertainment, and Vice President, Marketing for CBS/FOX Video. He began his career at Leonard Monahan, Inc.
Conroy serves on the board of directors at Sotheby’s, and is an advisor to Madison Dearborn Partners and numerous start-up companies at the intersection of media, data, content, and technology: Adverator, BingeGiving, Channel Factory, Dreamscape Immersive, Eleven James, Joox Music, Kiswe, Mitu, Perfect Sense, Photo Butler, Pongalo, Snap+Style, Trivver, and Vaudeville Ventures.
Khosrow Hassibi
Chief Data Scientist
R Systems Inc
Dr. Hassibi is an expert, a pioneer, practitioner, and thought leader in the areas of data science, machine learning, and AI. His expertise is based on twenty plus years of design, R&D, consulting/sales, and management in applying these technologies to hard real-world business problems such as real-time fraud detection, hand-print OCR, robotics, marketing, risk, preventive maintenance, and transactional customer behavior analysis. Dr. Hassibi is recognized for his contributions to real-time payment card fraud detection (FalconTM) and has been a part of four machine learning startups focused on new data products and analytics-based business solutions. Most recently and prior to joining R Systems as Chief Data Scientist, he has been with SAS Institute and Altice USA (formerly Cablevision) with his main interest focused on new big data analytics and machine learning applications in financial and telecommunication industries. His has a recent book on machine learning and big data titled “High performance Data Mining and Big Data Analytics.” (http://www.bigdataminingbook.info)
Marty Boos
Chief Information Officer
StubHub
As Chief Information Officer at StubHub, Marty Boos leads the company’s technical operations, overseeing the network and quality operations teams, as well as the engineering organization. With more than 25 years of experience building and maintaining high-performance web infrastructure systems for leading retailers, Marty plays an instrumental role in building a streamlined buying and selling experience for StubHub customers.
Over the past five years, Marty has implemented processes and advanced systems that have brought StubHub to a “Four Nines” reliability rate. Prior to joining StubHub in 2012, Marty served as Chief Information Officer at MarketLive and as Vice President NOC Operations & IT at Motorola’s Good Technology Group. Marty holds a degree in Computer Technology from CDI Minneapolis Minnesota.
Mike Vorhaus
CEO
Vorhaus Advisors
Mike Vorhaus founded Vorhaus Advisors in November 2018. Previously, Mike worked at Magid for 25 years. His final role was President, Magid Advisors.
Mike founded the Magid Internet practice in 1995 and began the Magid Gaming Practice in 2001. The Magid Internet and Gaming practices worked with many of the top digital and gaming companies in the U.S. and abroad.
Mike provides consulting services focused on strategy, investment opportunities, product development, and marketing to a number of leading digital and gaming companies. He has also provided advice to venture capital and private equity firms in regard to investments in the media and tech spaces.
Mike has also been very involved with many start-ups in the digital media and technology industries. Mike focuses on strategic and tactical consulting, including the launch of new services and programming, as well as development and implementation of online and offline programs. Mike has provided many companies with assistance on their early-stage fundraising, as well as business development introductions and advice.
Mike is a member of the Board of Directors of Perion (Nasdaq: PERI) and Chairs the Nominations Committee, as well as serving on the Compensation and Audit committees. Perion is based in Israel and trades on the US Nasdaq, as well as the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
Mike has appeared regularly on MSNBC, CNBC, CNBC Asia, NPR, and Fox Business. Mike has regularly been quoted in various newspapers and Websites, such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Reuters, MarketWatch, TheStreet, and others. Mike previously wrote a monthly column for Ad Age.
Mike holds a B.S. in psychology and sociology, cum laude, from Wesleyan University and has worked as a fundraiser and transfer of technology officer at the California Institute of Technology and the University of California. Mike also worked for the U.S. House of Representatives, The U.S. Senate, and as a part-time Advance Man in the Carter and Clinton White Houses. Mike has also consulted on a number of film projects such as You’ve Got Mail and The Matrix. Mike also appeared in Eddie Murphy’s movie, Imagine That, and is an active SAG member.
Rikard Steiber
President of Viveport
HTC
Before joining HTC as President of Viveport, Rikard successfully built up several international businesses in Video on Demand, YouTube MCNs and eSports, as the CEO for MTGx and Chief Digital Officer at Modern Times Group. At Google, he was Global Marketing Director of Mobile and Social Advertising and prior to this ran marketing for all Google’s products in Europe. He co-founded Scandinavia Online (AOL of Nordics) and build Xlent Strategy Consulting. Rikard is the Founder of Women in Tech and Women in VR in Europe. He is a future Astronaut with Virgin Galactic. Rikard has MSc from SDA Bocconi (Italy) and BSc from Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden).
Viveport, the app store for Virtual Reality (VR), is a global destination for VR content and experiences. Its mission is to unleash human imagination from the limitations of reality and democratize access to the world’s most diverse selection of immersive experiences.
Seri Nabeshima
Chief Global Officer
CDO Club Japan
Board of Directors, Chief Global Officer, Association of CDO Club Japan.
Graduate BA Law from Aoyama Gakuin University, Postgraduate in Geopolitics and Energy Policy from University College London in 2016. Joined Digital and Disruptive Technology Unit, PwC Japan Consulting Company after doing Global Research on smart cities and technologies in the electricity industry at the International Affairs Office, Tokyo Electric Power Company. Founder of the think tank Nabeshima Strategy Institute.
As the Chief Global Officer at the Association of CDO Club Japan, she interviews Chief Digital/Data Officers, researches global emerging technology and reports this information in various media forms such as article columns, keynote speeches and TV. She also has a strong passion for human resource education, cooperating with overseas business schools such as Cambridge Judge Business School and Columbia Business School in order to create innovation in Japan
Simon Hankinson
Market Manager - Financial Services
Collibra
Simon is the Market Manager for Financial Services at Collibra. During his 20+ years of management consulting services experience at leading consultancies EY and PwC, Simon helped companies across multiple industries to design and implement information and data governance processes to support internal, external, and regulatory reporting.
Slava Akmaev
Senior Vice President, Chief Analytics Officer, Co-founder and Head of Berg Analytics
BERG
Slava Akmaev
Senior Vice President, Chief Analytics Officer, Co-founder and Head of Berg Analytics
BERG
Slava Akmaev, Ph.D., is the Senior VP and Chief Analytics Officer at BERG. Dr. Akmaev is the industry leader in AI and machine learning applications in life sciences and healthcare. He heads the BERG Analytics business division and is the chief architect of Bayesian Artificial Intelligence software, bAIcis®. Dr. Akmaev is an avid advocate for data driven research and promotes wider utility of advanced mathematical modeling techniques in pharmaceutical and clinical research. Prior to his role at BERG, Dr. Akmaev spent a decade at Genzyme R&D and the CLIA diagnostic laboratory, Genzyme Genetics. He led the development and commercialization of novel multi-omic panel diagnostics in oncology and prenatal medicine. Dr. Akmaev has published numerous peer-reviewed manuscripts in genomics, systems biology, biochemistry and human genetics. He is a frequent speaker at AI, analytics and precision medicine conferences. Dr. Akmaev holds a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Colorado at Boulder.