Cliff Warner
Thinkwell Design & Production
Principal/Chief Executive Officer

As Chief Executive Officer Cliff is responsible for strategic alliances and global relationships, and is proud to be the "people, time and money" partner at Thinkwell. In the role of Executive Producer he has spearheaded projects for Harrah's, Lawry's, Lotte, MasterCard and The Tussauds Group, just to name a few.

Cliff is a Yale graduate with a Masters of Fine Arts in Stage and Production Management and has 20 years of experience in theatre arts and production. Early in his career he began in operations as Technical Manager for Universal Studios Hollywood, where he helped develop and produce The Flintstones Musical Review and Waterworld among many other attractions. His years of experience in operating attractions brings a unique sensibility to the table when creating and producing original experiences and master plans.

Prior to founding Thinkwell, Cliff was Producer and Show Project Manager for Universal's new attraction and live show development in Spain, producing the award-winning FiestAventura nighttime spectacular and Templo del Fuego, an extreme effects attraction.

Cliff has also been a show producer for Walt Disney Entertainment, where he was responsible for developing six of the live shows produced for Tokyo Disney Sea.

Matt Freeman
Betawave Corporation
Chief Executive Officer

Matt serves as CEO of Betawave Corporation, the industry's first Attention Based Media company. Betawave focuses exclusively on the highest attention span media environments as measured by time spent per month, time spent per page and receptivity to brand advertising.

This approach, coupled with an emphasis on immersive advertising products, allows Betawave to weave brands into the fabric of consumer experiences and deliver measurable results to brand advertisers that far exceed industry norms.

As measured by minutes of consumer attention, Betawave is now the world's 4th largest digital media company. Betawave is the largest pure play digital media company for Youth (6-17) and Moms - and a top-5 player in 18-34 demographics.

Betawave's transparent portfolio of casual gaming, virtual world, social play and entertainment publishers delivers scale with a unique monthly audience of 74 million globally and 29 million domestically - and attention with an average audience engagement of more than 51 minutes per month.

Prior to Betawave, Matt was the founder and CEO of Omnicom Group's Tribal DDB Worldwide. During Matt's decade-long stewardship, Tribal grew from an idea to a worldwide network of 46 offices in 28 countries and became one of the largest and most awarded digital agencies in the world.

Tribal won every major industry award for innovation and effectiveness as well as Agency of the Year honors from ADWEEK, the International Advertising Festival at Cannes and many others. In 2007, Tribal became the first digital agency ever to be named overall Global Agency Network of the Year by Advertising Age.

Matt also served on both the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of DDB Group, was a board member of the AAAA (the 4As) and the IAB's agency committee, and continues as a director of the Advertising Club of New York and the marketing advisory board of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa). Matt has been named one of the Top 50 most creative people in the industry by Creativity magazine and has been inducted into the American Advertising Federation's (AAF) Hall of Achievement.

Prior to his life at Tribal, Matt was a Partner at Poppe Tyson, an executive at Modem Media (now part of Publicis Groupe), worked for MTV, wrote for several magazines and was a prep school English teacher. He has a B.A. in English and art history from Dartmouth College and attended the School of Visual Arts.

Matt lives in New Jersey with his wife Robin and sons Sawyer, Colby and Wes.

Anisha Ahluwalia
Associate Director
Denuo

David Goldberg
Chief Operating Officer
Youbet.com

David Goldberg and his senior team oversee all operations, including technology, marketing, customer service and content partnerships, as well as lead the strategic planning effort in driving new growth initiatives.

Mr. Goldberg joined Youbet.com after serving at Ticketmaster, where he was EVP of Global Music Services and one of three executives charged with overall leadership of the business through the office of the CEO. He was also responsible for all aspects of global sales and marketing, mergers and acquisitions, and business development.

Prior to his tenure at Ticketmaster, Mr. Goldberg held a variety of executive positions: He was EVP of Corporate Development for Sportvision, a sports technology and marketing company; co-founder and EVP of Tunes.com; and talent buyer and Vice President of Business Development at JAM Productions.

In addition to his role at Youbet.com, Mr. Goldberg serves as Chairman of the Board of Pacific Edison, a solar project developer exclusively focused on entertainment venues and attractions.

Mr. Goldberg earned his MBA from the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago and his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Northwestern University.

Scott Teissler
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc
Chief Technology Office/ Chief Digital Strategist

Scott is executive vice president, chief technology officer and chief digital strategist for Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS, Inc.). In this capacity, he oversees technology groups supporting the TBS, Inc. entertainment and news networks; is instrumental in the company's technology strategy and policy development and implementation; and represents Turner Broadcasting in technology matters involving parent company Time Warner and other Time Warner companies. He serves on the TBS, Inc. executive committee chaired by Chairman and CEO Phil Kent.

Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner company, is a major producer of news and entertainment product around the world and the leading provider of programming to the basic cable industry.

Previously, Teissler was senior vice president of new media strategy and chief technology officer for CNN and vice president of information technology infrastructure for TBS, Inc. He joined the company in 1993 from the University of Chicago, where since 1990 he had served as vice provost and the institution's chief technology strategist, also overseeing applications development, communications, computer retailing, research and instructional computing.

Teissler is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Tim Hanlon
Executive Vice President/Managing Director
VivaKi Ventures

Tim Hanlon is Executive Vice President/Managing Director of VivaKi Ventures, the strategic partnership and investment arm of VivaKi – the digital services hub of marketing services agency holding company Publicis Groupe, S.A. – comprising Starcom MediaVest Group, Zenith Optimedia Group, Digitas, and Denuo.   He is chiefly responsible for the solicitation, negotiation and oversight of the unit’s strategic partnership and investment activity – focused exclusively on paradigm-changing “new media” platforms and technologies. His current role is an outgrowth of his previous work as head of ventures activity for both Denuo and Publicis Groupe Media, and includes formal advisory and directorial positions with over three dozen early-stage companies.
 
Prior to founding the Denuo Ventures and PGM Ventures practices, Hanlon was Senior Vice President/Director, Emerging Contacts for Starcom MediaVest Group.  He was chiefly responsible for all US client activity and agency initiatives in the field of emerging media technologies, including the firm’s ground-breaking TV 2.0 Practice, centered around evolutionary television platforms such as interactive/enhanced television, on-demand video, digital video recording, interactive program guide navigation, addressable advertising, and digital broadcasting/datacasting.  
 
Hanlon has over 20 years of traditional and interactive agency media experience including roles as Vice President/Director, Strategy & Business Development for the Digital Marketing Group of Chicago-based marketing services agency Frankel, and Director of Interactive Media at Creative Alliance in Louisville, KY.  He also served as the Advertising Media Manager for the in-house agency of credit card issuer MBNA America in Wilmington, DE, USA.    
 
Hanlon also has wide-ranging journalism experience, including production and writing stints at CBS News, Sports Illustrated and the Voice of America.  
 
Among numerous advertising and television industry activities, Hanlon was Chairman of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) Advanced Television Committee from 2001-05, a founding member of the Steering Committee of the Innovation in Digital Advertising (IDiA) Consortium, and a founding member of the National Academy of Media Arts & Sciences (NAMAS).  In 2004, he was an inaugural recipient of Interactive Television Today’s Leadership in Interactive Television Award, and has been twice named as one of MEDIA Magazine’s “100 People to Know.”  His insights into the future of media and advertising are regularly seen in major electronic, print and trade press outlets.
 
Hanlon holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and a BA from Georgetown University.

Chris Vollmer
Booz & Company
Partner, U.S. Media and Entertainment Practice

Christopher Vollmer is a Partner with Booz & Company based in New York and he leads the firm's global media and entertainment practice. He focuses on growth and portfolio strategy as well as advertising and consumer marketing in the media, entertainment, and consumer products industries.

Since joining Booz & Company in 1995, Chris has worked with the senior management of many of the leading global media, entertainment and consumer goods companies. He has helped to develop innovative growth strategies, strengthen operating performance, and redesign organization structures. His clients span a wide range of businesses including television, music, film, magazines, video games, sports, digital media, and consumer goods. He is also the author of the recent best-selling book Always On: Advertising, Marketing and Media in an Era of Consumer Control (McGraw-Hill, 2008).

Chris holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and an MA in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. He also graduated with a BA in English from the University of California at Berkeley. He resides in Old Greenwich, Connecticut with his wife and two children.

David Friedman
President, Central Region
Razorfish

David Friedman was named president of Razorfish – Central Region in 2004, where he has overseen the region’s rapid growth. He has spent the last 20 years helping companies grow sales and customer relationships through the use of digital technologies. Dave also serves as an industry thought leader by providing commentary on a wide range of timely interactive marketing topics, including penning a monthly column for ChiefMarketer.

Prior to his current role, Dave managed a series of practices, including the agency’s Consumer Products and Retail industry group. From 1999 to 2001, he was in charge of the Global Strategy Practice, at Scient which was acquired by SBI.Razorfish. From 1989 to 1999, Friedman was an Associate Partner for Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) in the Strategic Services practice. He holds a BA from Cornell University and an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Jonas Tempel
CEO/Co-Founder
Beatport.com

Jonas Tempel started the entrepreneurial journey by founding his first company, Factory Design Labs, Inc in 1996. Factory is a high end, active lifestyle focused brand development agency where Jonas held the roles of Founder/CEO/Creative Director and currently sits as the Chairman. As of 2008, Factory has grown to over 100 staff members and boasts a client roster headlined by premium brands such as Audi of North America, The North Face and Oakley.

Never one to turn down a challenge, Jonas helped co-found Beatport in 2003 with a group of friends and the support of Factory. As a long time DJ, award winning graphic designer, branding and marketing executive, Beatport is the perfect consolidation of Jonas' professional experience and personal passions. In 2004, Jonas stepped down as CEO/Creative Director of Factory to engage Beatport as the CEO and Chairman full time. Beatport has grown to become the recognized leader of online electronic music retail. The site is focused on providing up front content to professional DJ's and fans looking for premium-encoded electronic music. Still DJing regularly, Jonas holds a residency at Beta Nightclub in Denver and tours regularly playing clubs and promoting the Beatport brand.

Jonas graduated in 1993 from Colorado State University with a Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts with an emphasis in graphic design.

Peter Strand
Senior Counsel
Holland and Knight

Peter J. Strand concentrates his practice in entertainment & media law, intellectual property and commercial litigation.  He represents content providers and content creators including media companies, television and radio broadcasters, authors, songwriters, recording artists, musicians, television and film writers, independent record labels, independent film producers and documentarians, publishing companies, and production companies in various transactional and litigation matters in the entertainment industry.  In addition to contract preparation, analysis and negotiation, Mr. Strand assists clients with organizing their business, protecting and enforcing their copyrights, trademarks and other intellectual property rights, licensing or exploiting their creative works, acquiring and distributing content and selecting and securing product and service names and brands and securing and defending domain names.

Mr. Strand has been named by the Chicago Law Bulletin Leading Lawyers Network as a “Leading Lawyer” in Arts, Entertainment and Sports in Illinois from 2003 - 2008.  Mr. Strand was also named an “Illinois Super Lawyer” in Arts & Entertainment as one of the top five percent of Illinois attorneys in the entertainment field.  Finally, Chambers USA - America’s Leading Business Lawyers named Mr. Strand a “Leading Business Lawyer” in Media & Entertainment Law in Illinois, 2006 through 2008.

In 2008, Mr. Strand received the Thomas R. Leavens Awards from Lawyers for the Creative Arts for his distinguished service to the arts through LCA.

Mr. Strand is an Adjunct Professor of entertainment and music law at Chicago Kent College of Law.  He has been an adjunct for more than 12 years teaching entertainment and music law at DePaul University College of Law and Marquette University Law School. 

He is currently the President of the Board of Governors of the Chicago Chapter of the Recording Academy (Grammy® Awards), serves on the Honors Council of the Board of Directors for the Lawyers for the Creative Arts, is the Chair of the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts Division of the ABA Forum on the Entertainment & Sports Industries and co-chairs the Chicago Bar Association Media & Entertainment Law Committee.

Before practicing law, Mr. Strand was a full time musician and recorded two albums for RCA/Millennium Records.

Brenden Mulligan
President and Director of Business Development
ArtistData

In the past 7 years, Brenden Mulligan has seen the music industry from almost every angle. In 2002 and 2003, he produced, promoted, and revived one of Nashville's largest music festivals, the Rites of Spring. During this time, he learned from some of the best booking agents in the industry during a work study period at Creative Artists Agency, one of the world's premiere booking agencies. He then moved to Chicago to learned the role of an artist manager and label executive while working with internationally recognized artists at Aware Records and Asquared Management. After Aware and while starting ArtistData, he consulted an online music retailer, as well as numerous independent bands. Also during the past 7 years, Brenden has spent significant time on tour, including a month with John Mayer in 2007 as the road manager for one of his opening acts during a sold-out arena tour (ending at Madison Square Garden in New York).

Since founding ArtistData in 2006, Mulligan has served as the company's President and Director of Business Development. Brenden has led the artist acquisition initiative which has resulted in a rapidly growing user base with virtually no marketing or PR budget. During this initiative, he has recruited over 250 music organizations who now manage their artist rosters through ArtistData, including subsidiaries from 3 of the 4 major labels, and dozens of independent labels and management companies. He has also led a partnership initiative and secured or is securing partnership deals with some of the industries most respected companies and has connected with high executives in almost every significant online music related company.

Brenden graduated Sigma Cum Laude from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN and is currently earning his Masters of Business Administration in the evenings from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Chicago, IL.

J Mays
Senior Director Business Development, USA
Zed

As a Senior Director at Zed, J leads the business development and account management teams responsible for distributing major and independent label music to over 30 U.S.-based mobile entertainment storefronts. In his five years with Zed, J has executed numerous contracts and developed close relationships with some of the most well-known brands in mobile space like AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless, U.S. Cellular, MTV Networks, Univision Movil and FOX's American Idol. J touts a strong music and technology background having previously worked for Clear Channel Radio and MOZworld Entertainment where he specialized in monetizing interactive streaming media and live concert webcasts. J majored in finance and minored in economics at the University Of Florida.

Conrad Sheehan
Founder and CEO
Mpayy, Inc.

Conrad is the Founder and CEO of Mpayy, Inc., a multi-channel electronic payment company that enables payments across mobile devices, blogs, social utilities and Internet retailers.
 
Prior to Mpayy, Conrad was a Senior Vice President at JPMorganChase and head of its Consumer Payments business where he was responsible for the bank's retail payment products that serviced the bank's extensive corporate and public sector clients. Prior to heading the Consumer Payments business, Conrad held National Sales Management, Product Management and Strategy roles at the bank. Prior to joining JPMorganChase, he was a Partner at Accenture, a global management and technology consulting firm. He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in economics from Holy Cross College.

Jack Philbin
Co-Founder and President
Vibes Media

Jack spearheads the company's overall strategic direction and drives Vibes' position as one of the premier thought leaders in the mobile marketing and wireless industry. Since founding Vibes in 1998, Jack has played an instrumental role in building text-messaging as a marketing tool and is a sought after speaker at industry events such as the CTIA, MMA and iHollywood Forums. An entrepreneur and builder, Jack has specific expertise in business development, strategic client management and consumer marketing.

Jack is a graduate of Boston College and received his MBA at Northwestern University's J.L. Kellogg School of Management. He currently sits on the CTIA Wireless Internet Caucus and, in 2005, received the MMA award for outstanding individual achievement.

Parrish Hanna
Global Director of Experience Planning
Motorola

From a corporate design leader to sought after speaker and professor, Parrish Hanna has a broad array of experience in the world of digital business solution and brand experience development. In his current role, Parrish and his team are responsible for defining Motorola’s experiential strategies for next-gen mobile interaction paradigms across diverse strategic topics including messaging, music, multimedia, productivity, social media, contextual awareness, browsing, web services and more.

Nadir Khan
Regional Manager
AT&T Mobility

Nadir has held business development roles in the telecom industry for over ten years, marketing products and services through a variety of verticals and channels.  In his most recent role with AT&T Mobility he led business development and account management for Higher Education accounts in the Great Lakes region and the top 50 Higher Education customers in the Chicago area.  His focus has been to develop partnerships with University customers at both an institutional and individual level by leveraging the AT&T Mobility Higher Education Group's mission to improve the educational process and enhance the student life experience. Nadir has been responsible for managing the relationship between AT&T Mobility and the University of Chicago since 2004, but also has business development experience in Middle Eastern and South East Asian markets.  Nadir majored in Business Economics from the College of Wooster.

David Prusinski
National Government Manager
Research in Motion

As the National Manager for Federal/State Government, Education, and Healtcare verticals for Research in Motion, David is responsible for the Business Development and Marketing strategies of RIM’s Mobile solutions nationwide.  In the past Dave has worked with many of the major US carriers including Sprint, AT&T and Nextel in developing their go to market strategies during the early evolution of the mobile market.  Dave has further worked with many Fortune 500 institutions in developing their mobile content delivery strategies and early on helped to develop various mobile content delivery platforms in the financial services industry.

Bill Hensler
Vice President and General Manager, Dynamic Media
Adobe, Inc.

As vice president and general manager of Dynamic Media, at Adobe Systems, Bill Hensler is responsible for Adobe’s professional video, audio, Flash creation tools and servers; which include the video products: Premiere Pro, After Effects, Encore, OnLocation, and the audio products: Soundbooth and Audition as well as Flash authoring, Flash Media Server and Encoder, digital rights management (DRM) solutions, and Adobe Media Player. Bill’s role includes driving the direction for codecs, servers and usage of metadata across all forms of moving content.

Prior to placement as VP/GM, Bill served as the VP for Digital Video/Audio group within Adobe. Prior to joining Adobe, he spent time at a number of companies in various technical, managerial and executive positions. He began his career as a Macintosh software developer for Symmetry. Since then, he has worked for Accom, Scitex Digital Video, ImMix, Interactive Media Technologies, Twin Engine Bitplane Software. While at Immix, he helped develop the first real time wavelet based non-linear editing system, for which he and his colleagues were awarded their first technical Emmy. Along the way, Bill has written a number of technical books, including “Sex, Lies and Video Games,” a light-hearted discussion of arcade-style programming for the Macintosh.

Bill has a wealth of expertise and experience in audio/visual production, interactive tools and standards, software development, and production workflows.

Bill studied electrical engineering at Arizona State University.

Dr. Scott Prevost
Principal Development Manager
Microsoft

For over a decade, Dr. Prevost has worked to bring natural language processing technology to the marketplace. As a graduate student at University of Pennsylvania, he developed theoretical models of prosody for synthetic speech, as well as technology to generate dialogue for autonomous agents. In post-doctoral research at the MIT Media Lab and FX Palo Alto Lab, he integrated gestures, facial expressions, and other interactional cues into his research, creating lifelike 3D characters with speech recognition, dialogue processing, and vision capabilities. Dr. Prevost co-founded and served as CEO of Headpedal, Inc., a software company that specialized in creating virtual character interfaces for customer-facing applications on the web. Dr. Prevost also previously served as CEO of Animated Speech Corporation, which produces interactive, animated tutors for speech and language development. Dr. Prevost was General Manager and Director of Product at Powerset, where he was focused on developing the user experience for natural language search. Powerset was acquired by the Microsoft Live Search division in August 2008, where Dr. Prevost currently holds the position of Principal Development Manager.

Shailesh Nalawadi
Product Manager, Image Recognition Technology
Google

As a product manager of Image Recognition Technology at Google, Shailesh is responsible for developing new image recognition technologies and making sure that those technologies are adopted within Google's products and services. Most recently, his team helped Picasa Web Albums become the first consumer facing application to incorporate automatic face tagging technologies.

Prior to working at Google, Shailesh worked at a variety firms, most notably Digitalfuel Technologies, FTD, Escalate and Silicon Graphics. Shailesh is a graduate of the University of Toronto and received a Master of Applied Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan, as well as an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Dr. Philip Yu
Professor of Computer Science
University of Illinois at Chicago

Philip S. Yu received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in E.E. from Stanford University, and the M.B.A. degree from New York University. He is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago and also holds the Wexler Chair in Information Technology.   Dr. Yu spent most of his career at IBM, where he was manager of the Software Tools and Techniques group at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center. His research interests include data mining, Internet applications and technologies, database systems, parallel and distributed processing, and performance modeling. Dr. Yu has published more than 530 papers in refereed journals and conferences. He holds or has applied for more than 350 US patents.

Dr. Yu is a Fellow of the ACM and the IEEE.  He is associate editors of ACM Transactions on the Internet Technology and ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data.  He is on the steering committee of IEEE Conference on Data Mining and was a member of the IEEE Data Engineering steering committee.  He was the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (2001-2004).  He has received several IBM honors including 2 IBM Outstanding Innovation Awards, an Outstanding Technical Achievement Award, 2 Research Division Awards and the 94th plateau of Invention Achievement Awards.  He was an IBM Master Inventor.  Dr. Yu received a Research Contributions Award from IEEE Intl. Conference on Data Mining in 2003 and also an IEEE Region 1 Award for "promoting and perpetuating numerous new electrical engineering concepts" in 1999.            

Howard Tullman
President and Chief Executive Officer
Flashpoint Acadamy

Howard A. Tullman serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Flashpoint Academy (www.flashpointacademy.com), Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Experiencia, Inc. (www.experiencia-world.com), and he is the immediate past President of Kendall College, in Chicago which he recently sold to Laureate Education. Mr. Tullman is General Managing Partner for the Chicago High Tech Investors, LLC and a Director of The Cobalt Group (www.cobaltgroup.com) and Passage Events (www.passageevents.com), both located in Seattle. He is also a Trustee of WTTW in Chicago, Chairman of the Endowment Committee of Anshe Emet Synagogue in Chicago, a member of Mayor Daley's Council of Technology Advisors, and an Adjunct Professor at Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management in Evanston and also a regular guest lecturer at the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago.

Mr. Tullman has over 35 years of new business development, entrepreneurial ventures, management and turn-around experience with a particular emphasis on information systems for the insurance and automotive industries and an extensive operations background in online services, large-scale information assembly and delivery systems, database design as well as in the development, creation and production of all types and formats of multimedia content including CD-ROMs and DVDs. He has designed and developed interactive interfaces, award-winning computer games, automated teaching systems, a number of the leading national music, video and employment websites, and other electronic entertainment, training products and services, along with many other information-based products and services.

After 10 years as a lawyer at Levy and Erens in Chicago, in 1980, Mr. Tullman founded CCC Information Services, Inc., a provider of information systems to the country's largest property and casualty insurers. CCC successfully raised venture capital and subsequently completed an IPO in 1983 and several subsequent public offerings. Since taking CCC Information Services private in 1987, Mr. Tullman has founded or served as CEO or Board Chairman of eight other entrepreneurial companies and as a director and/or advisor to many other early-stage companies. In 1990, he also founded Eager Enterprises, a venture capital firm focused on the information industry. He is also active in the arts and has served on the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (1993 - 2001).

Mr. Tullman graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, with Honors, from Northwestern University. He also holds a J.D., with Honors, from Northwestern University School of Law.

Robert J. Labate
Partner
Holland & Knight

Robert J. Labate concentrates his practice in the area of developing, financing and distributing feature film and television programs. He represents production companies and industry professionals, including producers of nationally distributed feature and documentary films, screenwriters, best selling authors, talent agencies and actors in a broad spectrum of contract, financing, distribution, copyright and right of publicity issues.

Bob is an adjunct professor at DePaul University School of Law where, he teaches "Film and Television" Law. He is the immediate past Chair of the Media & Entertainment Committee of the Chicago Bar Association. For the past three years Chambers USA, the legal reference guide, has named Bob as a "Leading Business Lawyer" in the area of Media and Entertainment Law and in 2006 Chambers USA named Holland & Knight LLP as the No. 1 Media and Entertainment firm in Illinois. Since 2004 Bob has been named as a "Top 5% Lawyer" in the area Arts, Entertainment and Sports by the Chicago Law Bulletin and in 2005 Bob was the subject of a profile article in the national weekly business magazine, "The Deal." For 2007, Bob was selected for "Best Lawyers in America" and was named as one of the Illinois Super Lawyers in Media and Entertainment.

Bob frequently speaks and writes on entertainment law issues. Bob is a regular speaker and panelist at seminars for lawyers and for entertainment industry professionals, including events sponsored by the American Bar Association, Entertainment and Sports Forum, the Chicago Bar Association, The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, Loyola Law School, DePaul School of Law, the Jacksonville Film Festival, the Independent Feature Project and the Illinois Film Office.

He is a partner in the Chicago office of Holland & Knight and is a Trial Attorney in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois where, recently, he conducted a two-week jury trial to a successful result. Bob is a graduate of Yale College and of Case Western School of Law.

Tony Hunter
President, Publisher, CEO
Chicago Tribune

Tony Hunter was named president, publisher and chief executive officer for Chicago Tribune Company in September 2008. He oversees the Chicago Tribune Media Group, which includes Chicago Tribune, Chicago Tribune.com, RedEye, Hoy, and Chicago Magazine. Hunter is the 14th publisher in the newspaper's history.

Hunter became senior vice president/circulation and operations for Chicago Tribune in 2007. He was responsible for the Chicago Tribune's circulation, production and technology activities as well as the newspaper's consumer/business marketing strategy, customer acquisition/retention, manufacturing and distribution. In the fall of 2007, Hunter was instrumental in helping secure an unprecedented distribution agreement with the Sun Times News Group to distribute the cross-town rival Chicago Sun-Times.

Hunter served as Chicago Tribune's vice president/operations from 2003 to 2007 with responsibility for printing, packaging and advertising operations, newsprint, receiving/inventory control, dock operations, financial planning/analysis, facilities, engineering, and safety/security. During that time he led two major expansions at the newspaper's near-west side "Freedom Center" printing plant--to expand color printing capacity and improve the targeting of preprinted advertising inserts.

Hunter joined Chicago Tribune in 1994 as manager/circulation planning and analysis and has held a variety of leadership positions in distribution, logistics, technology, and sales/marketing management during his career with the newspaper. Prior to joining Chicago Tribune, Hunter worked for the Audit Bureau of Circulation from 1984 to 1994, serving as Director of Field Auditing-Newspapers. He held a variety of auditing positions including manager, regional manager and field auditor.

A native of Calumet City, Illinois, Hunter holds an MBA in Leadership and Organizational Development from DePaul University and a BA in Accounting, Business Administration and Economics from Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He is a CPA and the former President of the Illinois Fatherhood Initiative. He and his wife Sue live in suburban Homer Glen, and have three children.

Wendy Weatherford
VP, Consumer Marketing & Promotions
VH1

Wendy Weatherford-Marks serves as Vice President of Consumer Marketing and Promotion for VH1, VH1 Classic and VH1 Soul.  She’s also the founder and President of Kosmic Marketing, Inc.

As Vice President of Consumer Marketing & Promotion, Weatherford-Marks is a key member of the network’s executive brand strategy team, developing multi-platform consumer campaigns that creatively build brand equity for the Viacom-owned music network.  She oversees Media Buying, Guerilla Marketing, Promotions, Music and Online Marketing. 

Starting with a nine-year career at MTV in New York City followed by three years with DreamWorks Pictures SKG in Los Angeles, Weatherford-Marks expanded into the world of digital entertainment as the Director of Marketing with moxiegirl.com, a niche-oriented multimedia company providing interactive entertainment, fashion, music and sports content.

Weatherford-Marks established Kosmic Marketing, Inc. in 2000 as an entertainment-focused marketing and promotion company working across multiple platforms, with early clients including IMAX and USA Network. After Kosmic Marketing’s work on Mark Burnett’s Eco Challenge New Zealand, USA Network offered Weatherford-Marks a full-time position.

Returning to New York in 2001, she joined USA Network as Vice President of Consumer Promotion, Events and Interactive Marketing.  After a successful run with USA Network, she returned to Kosmic Marketing full time before assuming her current role with VH1. 

A native of Indianapolis, Weatherford-Marks holds a Master of Arts degree from New York University’s prestigious Gallatin School, with a focus on Entertainment Business.  She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Telecommunications from Indiana University, Bloomington. 

Mohanbir Sawhney
McCormick Tribune Professor of Technology
Northwestern Kellogg School of Management

Professor Sawhney is a globally recognized scholar, teacher, consultant and speaker in strategic marketing, innovation and new media. His research and teaching interests include marketing and media in the digital world, process-centric marketing, collaborative marketing, organic growth and network-centric innovation. He has been widely recognized as a thought leader. Business Week named him as one of the 25 most influential people in e-Business. Crain’s Chicago Business named him a member of “40 under 40”, a select group of young business leaders in the Chicago area. He is a Fellow of the World Economic Forum.
 
Professor. Sawhney holds a Ph.D. in marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; a Master’s degree in management from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta; and a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.

Marc Knez
Clinical Professor of Strategic Management
Chicago Booth School of Business

Marc J. Knez studies strategic and organizational decision making, strategic planning, and market analysis. His academic research evolved from a focus on applying game theory and decision theory to strategic decisionmaking to a focus on market analysis, strategy development, and organizational structure. His work has appeared in the Harvard Business Review, the Journal of Business, and the Journal of Labor Economics. Among his articles are "Across the Board Incentives," Harvard Business Review (February 2002); "Direct and Indirect Bargaining Costs and the Scope of the Firm," the Journal of Business (April 2002); and "Firm-wide Incentives and Mutual Monitoring At Continental Airlines," Journal of Labor Economics (October 2001). All were written with Duncan Simester. He also has published in the Financial Times Mastering Strategy Series. Titles include "Game Theory in the Real World" and "Vertical Integration: Make or Buy Decisions" both written with Robert Gertner and published in November 1999.

Knez has been a full-time management consultant working with clients in financial services, telecommunications equipment, hospitality, and consumer products. During his time as a consultant, he was a senior vice president of Sibson Consulting and a Principal at the Capital H Group. He is currently on the board of directors of the Metropolitan Capital Bank.

He believes his past experience provides him with the ability to bring both perspectives to the classroom. He specializes in bridging the gap between academic research and applied decisionmaking in the context of strategic planning and technology strategy. He also has brought this perspective to executive education. He has taught executives at the Financial Management Program at General Electric, and the McKinsey & Co. mini-MBA program, as well as conducted customized education for Northrop Grumman, MTV Networks Asia, Metropolitan Life, and the William Wrigley Jr. Company.

Knez earned a bachelor's degree in economics at the University of Arizona and a PhD in decision sciences at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1991.

When not teaching or conducting research, Knez enjoys spending time with his family and playing golf.

Professor Steven J. Kahl
Assistant Professor of Organizations and Strategy
Chicago Booth School of Business

Steven Kahl researches the emergence of new products and firms within economic markets, with a focus on technological innovations. On a theoretical level, Kahl is interested in how market communities come to accept new categories and how this process can inform prevailing sociological explanations of markets. Empirically, Kahl's research is on how customers come to understand and use a new technology and how this process influences technological development and market competition. In related research, he also studies the role of services in innovation as a means to transfer knowledge between customers and producers. He has extensively studied the software industry, using both historical and quantitative research methods.

Prior to academia, Steven Kahl was a vice president in Global Investment Research at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in Boston, following the enterprise software sector. He is also a former research analyst at U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray Inc., senior consultant at Deloitte & Touche LLP in Minneapolis, and systems analyst at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) in Washington, D.C.

Kahl earned a bachelor's degree magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in philosophy from Dartmouth College, where he also was a senior fellow. He earned a master's degree in philosophy from the University of Minnesota, with a focus in epistemology and logic. In 2007, he earned a PhD in management from the Sloan School at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), specializing in technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship. He was the recipient of the Best Student Paper in the Academy of Management Technology and Innovation Management Division in 2006 and a Presidential Fellowship from MIT from 2003 to 2007.

Beverly Jackson
Sr. Marketing Manager
The Recording Academy

Beverly Jackson has more than 15 years of partnership marketing, branded entertainment and business development experience. She works with technology and social media to drive revenue for brands and entertainment properties and promotions. Prior to joining the Recording Academy, she served as the Director of Global Partnerships at the X Prize Foundation and Director of Sales at Octagon's Music and Entertainment Group. In each of these roles she was instrumental in brokering partnerships and monetizing assets to generate revenue and organizational growth. She specializes in utilizing digital resources and assets to add value.

Additionally, Beverly has held leadership roles at Tribune Interactive and JWT focusing largely on digital media platforms related to content development and social networking with some of the largest online brands and properties. Beverly is an avid music fan and earned her Academy membership by managing various recording artists.

Beverly has vast project management experience working with start up technology companies and non-profit organizations. She earned her BS in Marketing from Howard University in Washington, DC and Master's degree from Baruch College in New York, as a National Urban Fellow.

Kevin Chang
Founder and President, Cazoodle Inc.
Associate Professor, Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Kevin C. Chang is a leader in Web search and integration technologies, and his research pioneered large scale information access over the "deep Web"-- structured data on the Web. He received PhD in Electrical Engineering in 2001 from Stanford University and has received NSF CAREER Award in 2002, NCSA Faculty Award in 2003, and IBM Faculty Awards in 2004 and 2005.

He is also founder and president of Cazoodle Inc., a spin-off of the University of Illinois, for enabling Web vertical search over structured data. The first product, Cazoodle Apartment Search provides comprehensive and up to date search over apartments scattered all over the Web. As its mission, Cazoodle aims to enable deep "data-aware" search-- to develop enabling technologies and bring vertical search to every domain where user needs are not currently met.

Bill Hague
Senior Vice President - Media Strategy Program
Frank N. Magid Associates

Bill Hague serves as Senior Vice President in the Media Strategy Program division at Frank N. Magid Associates. In addition to managing corporate relationships and business development efforts, Bill also manages the Magid Media Labs unit that focuses on targeted new media opportunities for our legacy media clients. In recent years, Bill has been the lead consultant with clients as diverse as the University Of Notre Dame, American Cancer Society, Jacksonville Jaguars, Yucaipa Holding Company and the Canadian Broadcasting Company, among others.

Previous to joining Magid in 2005, Bill served as Vice President, Sales, Midwest Division at KingWorld Productions in Chicago and was responsible for all program distribution efforts in the central region for programs such as The Oprah Winfrey Show, Wheel of Fortune ad CSI, among others. Prior to that, he was Director of Client Development with Magid’s North American television group. Bill originally joined the firm in 2001 from Digital Convergence Corp. in New York City, where he served as Senior Vice President and managed the media sales staff. Prior to Digital Convergence, Hague was Senior Vice President and Central Sales Manager at Telepictures Distribution, a unit of AOL Time Warner. From 1987 to 1999, Hague was Senior Vice President of Central Sales at Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Vassar College.

Tom Yorton
President
Second City, Inc.

TOM YORTON, President, Second City, Inc. Yorton spent the first 15 years of his career as an advertising and marketing professional, working for ad agencies such as Ogilvy & Mather, Hal Riney & Partners and in senior marketing roles at Sears and 3Com.  After so many years in the belly of the beast, his role at The Second City has been to evolve and grow the company’s corporate services division, Second City Communications, and to provide operational leadership and strategic oversight for the overall company.  In his time with The Second City, Yorton has led Second City Communications’ expansion beyond its corporate entertainment roots, into a ground-breaking learning and development organization and sought after marketing services boutique, handling over 400 engagements a year with Fortune 1000 companies.

In recent years, Yorton has focused on preparing The Second City for success beyond its heralded theatres, helping the company delve deeper in learning and training, branded entertainment, and digital and interactive media.  Yorton writes and speaks widely about his undying belief in the power of improvisation and comedy to connect people, improve organizations and make the world a little more interesting.