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2009 Speakers

Noah Brier
Head of Strategy
The Barbarian Group

Noah likes the Internet a lot. Which is a good thing, because so does The Barbarian Group, where he leads the strategic planning department. In his spare time he also runs Brand Tags, a digital experiment in brand perception and Likemind, a global coffee morning meet-up with locations in 50+ cities around the world. Prior to joining The Barbarian Group, Noah was a strategist at Naked Communications. This year he was named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business and one of four social media innovators by BusinessWeek. He blogs at NoahBrier.com.

Kamal Chadha
Director of Ad Platform Strategy
CBS Interactive

Kamal Chadha is Director of Ad Platform Strategy at CBS Interactive (previously CNET Networks), where she has been working for the past 12 years. She oversees product management for Madison, CBSi’s in-house ad serving system, which she has been responsible for since its inception. Kamal has helped lead the vision for creating a world class ad system encompassing the Trafficking, Rich Media, Delivery, and Inventory areas.  She works closely with sales and engineering to establish the product road map and to build and maintain a competitive and high performing ad system. She is also responsible for evaluating vendor technologies and integrating vendor products.

Kamal previously managed the Ad Technology Engineering group at CNET Networks and has consulted at AT&T and Mint Investment Management Company in NJ.

Kamal holds a management degree from the Wharton Business School and an MS in Computer Science from NJIT.

David Cohen
Executive Vice President, U.S. Director of Digital Communications
Universal McCann

In his current role as Executive Vice President, U.S. Director, Digital Communications, at Univeral McCann, David Cohen's central goal is to spearhead the digital and alternative media offering across the U.S. and to accelerate, integrate and intensify a digital best practice throughout the UM universe. 

David started the digital practice in 2001 as Interactive Media Director, joining UM from Zentropy Partners, a standalone digital marketing consultancy in the IPG family.  In 2002, he became a Senior Vice President overseeing all digital media strategy, planning, buying and analysis operations for the New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco offices. In March 2006, he was promoted to his present position, and now leads a team of over 125 digital specialists.

Under David’s leadership, UM was recognized as one of OMMA’s Agency of the Year winners for Best Media Planning & Buying. David was also named a 2006 “Online All-Star” by Media Magazine. He currently oversees the efforts of Sony, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, BMW, U.S. Army, Kohl’s, L’Oreal, Applebee’s, Brown Forman and Bacardi, representing over $750 million in digital billings. 

David was elected to Chairman of the AAAA’s (American Association of Advertising Agencies) Interactive Marketing Committee in April 2009 and will serve a 2-year term.  He is also leading the industry initiative Project Reinvention, a joint taskforce between the AAAA’s and IAB, designed to improve business process and efficiency in the digital industry.  David often speaks at seminars and lectures and is frequently quoted in the trade press, as well as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

Adrian D'Souza
Director, Advertising Operations
Google

Adrian D'Souza, Director, Advertising Operations, at Google, is responsible for all post-buy campaign execution in Google's online non-search businesses. He is also responsible for leveraged services like partner support, yield management and technical media support, and for certifying new rich media technologies. He is also Co-Chair of the IAB's Ad Operations Council, a group that is focused on streamlining the supply chain for online media thereby making it easier for traditional advertisers to do business online.

Prior to this, D'Souza was Vice President, Advertising Operations, at CNET Networks and was responsible for evaluating, defining and implementing new ad opportunities and technologies across CNET Network properties and defining rich media strategy from an advertising perspective. He led a team of product managers and engineers who deploy new ad opportunities across the multiple properties of CNET Networks. Prior to joining CNET Networks, D'Souza served as the Director, Product Management, at Engage Media. He oversaw the product strategy for B2B and B2C products and was responsible for implementing new and exploring emerging technologies in Internet, wireless and streaming media applications. Prior to that, he managed a worldwide product line of enterprise management hardware and software products for American Power Conversion Corp.

D'Souza received a MBA from the R.B. Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech and a degree in Engineering from the University of Poona in India.

Rob Deichert
Senior Vice President, Global Sales Development and Operations
AOL Advertising

As Senior Vice President, Global Sales Development, Rob Deichert manages the strategy and operational monetization of AOL's owned and operated inventory. In this role, Rob and his team focus on ensuring they have industry leading advertising solutions across AOL Media as well as ensuring they achieve operational excellence in delivering these solutions to clients. Rob held various roles prior at Advertising.com which covered sales, media buying and business operations. Prior to joining Advertising.com in 2000, Rob held roles at Mars & Co., a boutique strategy consulting firm. Rob received a BA degree, with departmental honors and Phi Beta Kappa, in Economics from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA degree from the Robert H. Smith School of Business.

Mark Ellis
Executive Vice President, Sales
AOL Advertising

Mark Ellis is Executive Vice President, Sales, for AOL.  Based in New York, he is responsible for North American display advertising revenue across AOL’s 90+ owned and operated web properties (including AOL.com, AIM, Mapquest, Moviefone, Fanhouse, Asylum, Lemondrop, Engadget, Daily Finance, AOL Latino and Black Voices), Advertising.com (the leading display network on the web) and several ancillary products and networks (behavioral targeting, affiliate, SEM, AOL Search Marketplace, Bid Place, video, mobile, sponsored listings, etc.).  He oversees the National Sales team (11 regional offices), Account Management, Network/Product Sales, Homepage and Multicultural Sales and Agency and Inside Sales.  His team focuses on creating and delivering best-in-class digital marketing solutions for client and agency partners who want to engage with their key customers and extend marketing messages efficiently and effectively.  Mark joined AOL in early 2004 as Vice President, Detroit Region, and subsequently managed the Central Sales Division, the Eastern Sales Division and the Vertical and Product Sales teams.  Before joining AOL, he was Senior Vice President, Corporate and Digital Sales, for sports marketing firm IMG and before that was Senior Vice President, Sales, for Internet startup Quokka Sports. That followed 8 years with Time Inc. where he held a variety of positions including Publisher of Time Inc. New Media, Publishing Director for Sports Illustrated and Detroit Manager Sports Illustrated.  He began his career in account management at advertising agencies Bozell and D’Arcy.

Mark graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in Marketing and received his MBA from the University of Detroit. He serves on the AAF Hall of Fame and Hall of Achievement judging committees, is a former member of the Adcraft Club board of directors, was Co-Founder and Treasurer of 313 Digital and is a former board member of the IAB.

Marc Formisano
Director of Product Management
MediaBank

As Director of Product Management at MediaBank LLC, Marc is the business and design lead for their Vendor Portal electronic business and efficiencies platform. Marc brings over 18 years of business and systems experience on both the buy and sell sides of media management operations. He has understood the challenge associated with process inefficiencies and discrepant business by working at such organizations as MTV Networks and Petry Media Corporation as well as implementing beneficial system solutions at such companies as Mediaplex, Harris and eMadison. His distinguished career also included working participation in industry EDI efforts at the IAB, AAAA’s, TVB, CAB, MPA and RAB.

Marc is a graduate of New York Institute of Technology and holds a BA in Management of Information Systems.

Eric Goldsmith
Operations Architect, Web Performance
AOL Advertising

Eric Goldsmith, Operations Architect at AOL, has more than 20 years of experience providing technical leadership in the areas of product development, engineering and operations. At AOL he has led efforts to deliver the highest levels of performance and availability for top Web sites, including: AOL.com; AIM.com; and AOL Video; among others.

His areas of expertise include Performance Analysis, Capacity Planning, Network Engineering, and Software Development. Prior to AOL, Eric worked for companies such as UUNet, WorldCom and CompuServe, as well as telecom and Internet startups. He holds a BS in Computer Science from The Ohio State University.

Moinul Haque
Project Manager
Univision Interactive Media

Moinul Haque, Project Manager at Univision Interactive Media, manages the business solutions group focused on development of the internal ad sales planning, order, and billing systems, along with integrating with CRM and business intelligence initiatives.

Pramod Khincha
Senior Manager, Systems and Tools
Yahoo!

As Senior Manager, Systems and Tools at Yahoo, I oversee the implementation of tools and services to ensure creative quality and security for all of Yahoo! advertising systems.  My main expertise in building simple solutions – tools and service solutions for measuring ad performance, quantifying ad security and quality. Some of the tools I have built are YSlow, Internal tools for virus scanning, and malware detection.

R. Michael Leo
CEO and President
Operative

“Mike” Leo joined Operative in 2003 as CEO and President. Infusing Operative with his energy and drive, Mike has led the company to become a “must have” solutions provider for interactive advertisers/publishers including, MSN, Fox Interactive Media, The Wall Street Journal and NBC Universal. Considered by many to be one of the interactive industry’s most recognized thought leaders, Mike brings to Operative a leadership style and industry perspective based on more than 16 years at the executive level at some of the most prestigious marketing and media companies in the digital world.

Mike was cofounder of aQuantive (NASDAQ: AQNT), a digital marketing organization now owned by Microsoft that became one of the industry's biggest success stories. Mike assembled the team that helped to grow aQuantive to one of the best and largest interactive agencies in the world.

With Mike at the helm, Operative has experienced doubled-revenue growth for the past two consecutive years and has recruited some of advertising’s most recognizable talent.

Grace Liau
Vice President, Group Director, Media Operations and Technology
Digitas

Grace Liau leads the Media Operations practice for Digitas.  In her role, she is responsible for evaluating and recommending media technologies that help make media strategies smarter and media buys more efficient. At Digitas, she works on clients such as American Express, Disney, Kraft and Astra Zeneca where she is responsible for developing and using the best media technologies to help clients achieve their branding and acquisition goals. Prior to Digitas, she worked at Family Education Network where she was responsible for yield management, monetizing and setting ad product strategy for all of the company's sites.  She oversaw the integrating of the company's eleven sites into the extended Family Education Network.

Marc Lucas
Executive Creative Director
Razorfish

Marc Lucas is executive creative director, overseeing digital marketing programs in the Northeast Region for Razorfish, one of the world’s largest digital marketing agencies. In this role, he directs all advertising creative, including design and copywriting from the agency’s Manhattan flagship. His current clients include Unilever, Panasonic and Terra Networks.

Lucas has extensive experience leading award-winning creative teams for high-profile advertising agencies in New York, Hong Kong and the Philippines. Prior to joining Razorfish in 2008, Lucas was vice president/creative director at SS+K in New York, where he created award-winning advertising inspired by unique ideas, design, public relations, and popular culture. His international experience includes stints as executive creative director of D’Arcy Hong Kong and Ogilvy Manila, where he worked on accounts such as Nestle, The Economist, Seagram’s, and Kimberly Clark. Lucas previously served as chairman of the Hong Kong 4A’s and was co-chairman of the Asian Advertising Awards.

Learn more about Marc at http://www.marclucas.net.

Bryant Mason
Principal Test Managers
Microsoft Advertising

Bryant Mason is a Principal Test Manager with the Microsoft Advertising Research and Development Group, where he is responsible for performance engineering. He has been optimizing large-scale Internet services at Microsoft since the late 90s and over the past nine years he has been busy building advertising platforms that handle tens of billions of requests each day. When not working on the next generation advertising platform for Microsoft, he contributes to industry standards for on-line ad performance and was recently a panelist at the 2009 Velocity web performance and operations conference.

Ramsey McGrory
Vice President, North American Marketplaces
Yahoo!

Ramsey McGrory is Vice President in Yahoo! North American Marketplaces, which includes display, search and video to create winning product and solution strategies based on customer needs and marketplace dynamics. Ramsey is specifically responsible for establishing and growing Yahoo!’s strategic use of data and insights.  Prior to this role, he was responsible for strategic relationships with major agency holding companies as part of the U.S. partnerships team, he also led a team that drove participation and growth of the of the Right Media Exchange, which Yahoo! acquired in 2007.

With ten years of online media, banking and military experience, Ramsey brings a diverse background to his role. He is a veteran of the Persian Gulf War and the early days of the Internet, and thrives in chaotic, fast-paced environments. Before joining Right Media, he worked in media and technology sales at DoubleClick and Excite. He also spent six years at NationsBank and at Citigroup, in the Treasury and Derivatives Trading Groups, focused on Internet banking and credit/debt derivatives structuring. He was in the military from 1985-1993.

Ramsey is based in New York City. He received an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of the South, and  a Master's degree in Management from Georgia Tech. He is active in the William J. Clinton Foundation and sits on the board of The Jericho Project.

Tim Messier
Director, Pricing & Inventory
The Weather Channel

Tim Messier is Director, Pricing and Inventory for TWC Media Solutions, where he has been for 10 years. TWC Media Solutions is the ad sales and sales support arm of The Weather Channel Companies. He oversees yield management and pricing for all of the organization's digital products, which include weather.com, Intellicast, and Desktop Weather, as well as other emerging platforms. Always in sales support roles at TWCC, Tim has also had responsibility for the organization's ad serving infrastructure, and business analytics functions.  

Prior to joining The Weather Channel Companies, Tim was with The Arizona Republic in Phoenix, helping to launch their first digital products.  

Tim is a graduate of the University of Florida and holds a BA in Decision and Information Systems.

Becky Minervino
VP Interactive Strategist
McKinney

Becky has a wealth of experience in all aspects of interactive engagement. She has managed the CRM programs for Jaguar, Flooz.com, IKEA,  and UPS and has worked at OgilvyOne, APL Digital (now Lowe & Partners) and Circle Boston. She received the 2003 Global Innovator Award and was named "champion" of email marketing best practices by Jupiter Research. She is best known for the work she did for the MINI that generated response rates 300% greater than average, international luxury brands and new product launches, including the launch of a mid-level luxury line for Jaguar and the MINI launch. Both were global brand efforts with local market adaptations. Since she’s been at McKinney, she’s been a major force on the Brown-Forman brands, Virgin Atlantic and Gold’s Gym. Becky is a graduate of Columbia University.

John Montgomery
Chief Operating Officer, North America
GroupM Interaction

John Montgomery has held the position of Chief Operating Officer of GroupM Interaction in North America since 2008.  In this role he leads GroupM’s privacy and data strategy for digital and works closely with industry bodies that help set policy in these areas.

GroupM Interaction is now a network of more than 750 digital specialists across North America.  It serves as the parent company to WPP media agencies including MediaCom, Maxus, Mediaedge:CIA and Mindshare.

Previously, John held the title of Global Chief Executive Officer of Mindshare Interaction, the agency’s digital center of excellence.  Before that he led mOne in North America, the interactive media practice for Mindshare and Ogilvy.

Dan Murphy
Senior Vice President, Research and Ad Traffic
Univision Interactive Media

Dan Murphy, Senior Vice President, Research and Ad Traffic, at Univision Interactive Media, has served as Co-Chair for the IAB Ad Operations Council since inception.  He’s been working in the interactive world since 1994 working with Sportsline (CBS Digital), Relevant Knowledge (comScore MediaMetrix) and Univision Interactive Media.  He also serves on the Council for Research Excellence, IAB Research Advisory Board and MRC Internet Committee.  He received dual Masters degrees from Georgia Institute of Technology in Statistics and Electrical Engineering.

Kelly Petersen
iDesk Product Development Director
Donovan Data Systems

As Director, iDesk Product Development at DDS, Kelly Petersen manages the development of the company’s digital media buying system. Kelly and her team in Europe and North America work with agencies and other stakeholders in the digital buying community to create a system that meets the industry's need for efficient digital buying.

Kelly has led her team in meeting a rapid deployment schedule. Within one year of development, iDesk is now in use at several leading digital agencies. A key development feature of iDesk is its unique capability to update the financial system when changes are made to the buy. Another key component is the ability to link electronically to other parties involved in the digital buy, such as sites and ad servers.

Before running iDesk development, Kelly was Product Director for print and out-of-home at DDS. Her detailed knowledge of this market, coupled with long-term experience in running dynamic projects and meeting pressing deadlines, made Kelly the obvious choice to lead the iDesk team.

Geoff Petkus
Senior Director, Product Management
Operative

Geoff is a respected online advertising veteran, bringing to Operative more than 15 years experience and a firsthand understanding of publishers’ needs for effectively running their business.  As Senior Director of Product Management, Geoff guides Operative’s market strategy for the software suite domestically and internationally; acts as a liaison between sales and development; and is continually developing solutions to ongoing publisher challenges. Geoff is also an active participant in industry-wide efforts, and received an IAB Service Excellence Award in 2009 for his contributions to the IAB E-business Interactive Standards initiative.

Geoff joined Operative from Interactive Corporation (IAC) where he was Director of Sales Development.  There, he was responsible for the online advertising strategy of properties such as Ticketmaster, Match.com, Expedia and Evite.  Prior to his time with IAC, Geoff served as Director of Advertising Systems at Edmunds.com.

Steve Robinson
President & Founder
Panache

Seeing the need for an effective advertising revenue model for video in the media and entertainment eco-system, Steve started Panache in 2006. Since then, Panache has been building sell-side software solutions for linear television and successfully applying the same principles to online video for major publisher clients. Steve has always been at the forefront of technical innovation, designing and implementing best-of-breed technologies to solve business problems for Fortune 500 companies and government agencies.  
 
In 1996, Steve founded Panache's parent company, Panther Software, to develop mission-critical, high-performance data exchange software, video delivery and advertising solutions for enterprises such as Motorola, Viacom, Microsoft, NASA, Citicorp, EDS, and Ticketmaster. Under Steve’s leadership, Panther Software grew to a multi-million dollar sale company.

While at Panther, Steve’s work in component object modeling and disparate systems connectivity was published in numerous periodicals. Since starting Panache, he has been a frequent contributor to new media publications such as MediaPost and regularly speaks at industry events, including OMMA, NAB, IAB and Digital Hollywood.

Steve is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Florida with a degree in Finance and Accounting.

Steve Sullivan
Senior Program Manager, Data Integrity and Ad Security
Microsoft Advertising

While working in online advertising technology organizations since the late 1990s, Steve Sullivan developed a passion for numbers, data quality and service excellence.  Today he is a Senior Program Manager responsible for Data Integrity and Ad Security in Microsoft’s online advertising platform.  Steve came to Microsoft from Atlas (an aQuantive subsidiary) where he earned an industry wide reputation for working collaboratively with partners and competitors on standards, guidelines and data quality issues.   Steve continues working in the Advertiser Tools space, focusing on improving the online advertising industry by protecting its most valuable asset, the consumer.

Todd Teresi
Chief Revenue Officer
Quantcast

Todd Teresi joined Quantcast in September 2008 as Chief Revenue Officer. He is responsible for Quantcast's business development activities and is integral to the company's next phase of growth, specifically, the introduction of solutions that provide advertisers with a new way to evaluate their target customer profiles against the entire U.S. Internet population, so they can identify prospective customers numbering in the millions, even tens of millions. Quantcast measures and organizes the world’s audiences in real-time so advertisers can buy, sell and connect with the people who matter most to them.
 
Teresi joined Quantcast after nearly 10 years at Yahoo! as Senior Vice President of Yahoo!'s Publisher Network. Teresi contributed to the development of many of the company's highly innovative advertising, publisher network, and targeting capabilities, and helped drive strategic acquisitions, global operations and new business models.

Bill Todd
General Manager
ValueClick Media

As General Manager, ValueClick Media, Bill Todd leads the operations of one of the world’s largest and most diversified online display advertising networks. Throughout his eight years at ValueClick, Bill has developed solutions for hundreds of leading brands and their digital agencies making him one of the industry’s foremost experts on networks.

He joined ValueClick in 2000 and has held numerous sales management roles throughout his tenure with the company, including Director of Eastern Sales, Vice President of Eastern Sales and most recently Senior Vice President, Sales, North America. He was promoted to General Manager in October 2008.

Prior to joining ValueClick, Bill was a Senior Account Executive at leading radio representation firm Katz Radio in New York, where he sold national spot radio across 2,000 stations in the U.S. 

He serves on the Board of Directors of the IAB.

Julian Zilberbrand
Vice President, Group Director, Technology and Ad Operations
MediaVest USA

As Vice President, Group Director, Technology and Ad Operations at MediaVest, Julian Zilberbrand oversees the implementation and reporting of digital campaigns for all MediaVest’s clients.  An expert on digital technology, analytics and measurement systems, Julian helps oversee training for all digital staff on buying, planning, trafficking and billing tools.  He also manages relationships with MediaVest’s digital and technology vendors.  In addition, Julian has helped to lead and oversee the development of the Digital Mediabank platform across MediaVest, as well as the entire Starcom MediaVest Group network.

Before joining MediaVest in 2004, Julian held Product Specialist and Client Service Specialist roles at rich media technology provider, Eyeblaster, as well as developing the company's Eyeblaster University training program. Julian was also a Project Manager and Technical Analyst for Doubleclick, balancing product engineering and operational roles while providing support for clients on rich media, third party ad serving and campaign reporting.