Cristopher Bjelajac, Senior Director, Channel Programs, SoundBite Communications

As Senior Director of Channel Programs at SoundBite, Cristopher is responsible for the Partner and Alliances relationships at SoundBite’s Reseller, VAR and BPO clients. Cristopher works daily helping SoundBite Partners deliver impactful Cross-Channel Communications strategies to their clients, whether in a Pre-Sales role, Solutions Consulting Role, or as a Program Architect.  Cristopher has been with SoundBite since startup phase, soon to enter into his 10th year with the company.

Prior to SoundBite, Cristopher served as an evangelist in the mobile presence space as a Concept Developer for Zed, a subsidiary of Finland’s Sonera Corporation (Now TeliaSonera) and as Director of Content and Community at StudentUniverse.com, and FreeScholarships.com.  Cristopher has more than 20 years experience in Telecommunications, Radio and Television and has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Florida.

Jim Milton, President & CEO, SoundBite Communications

As President and CEO, Jim Milton is responsible for leading the team at SoundBite towards attaining the undisputed market leadership position in Proactive Customer Communications. Jim brings more than 25 years of high technology sales, marketing and general management experience to his role.

He previously served as president and chief operating officer of Intervoice, Inc., a publicly- traded leader in interactive voice response (IVR) and IP messaging systems (acquired by Convergys Corporation in 2008). Prior to joining Intervoice, Jim served in senior executive management positions at UGS Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, Compaq Computer and Digital Equipment Corporation.

Jim received a Bachelor of Mathematics degree with Joint Honors in Computer Science and Economics from the University of Waterloo in Canada.

Learn more about JIm and SoundBite:

Meet the Speaker Q&A

Mike Romano, Senior VP, Mobile Sales and Services, SoundBite Communications

Mike is responsible for identifying, developing and managing key strategic partnerships for SoundBite’s mobile services  business unit.  He is a driven and focused leader with a proven track record of accelerating organizational revenue and profitability by developing C-level relationships, building high-achieving sales teams and growing strategic partnership channels. He has led the sales and channel growth of two public companies and three technology start-ups. Highlights include building the second largest online advertising network with OnAir.com and helping create the largest publicly traded senior housing company at ARV Assisted Living. 

Mike was a co-founder of SmartReply and also played professional baseball for the Cincinnati Reds.

David Andreadakis, Director of Business Development Strategy, Aimia

David is a Behavioral Economist and leads Business Development for Aimia out of the Loyalty Strategy team. As a core part of this team, his primary focus is to understand markets, and develop optimal loyalty strategies and tactics.

His client list includes companies in industries such as financial services, banking, retail, grocery, technology, consumer packaged goods, software, automotive, publishing, manufacturing, logistics, and e-commerce. He has consulted many of the world’s largest institutions such as Microsoft, Orbitz, Coca Cola, Delta, EA Sports, American Express, and many more.

David has presented regularly at loyalty industry conferences as an expert in optimizing marketing spend, partnerships, and mitigating risk within loyalty programs and has written several publications in the loyalty space.

Prior to joining Aimia Marketing, David worked for over 14 years in consulting and sales, primarily of marketing analytics and risk assessment software. His experience comes from working around the globe designing and implementing solutions with companies like Oracle, American Express Financial Advisors, Acosta Sales and Marketing, and Matrixx Marketing.

David was awarded a Masters of Business Administration degree, along with Bachelors of Science in Organization Development / Human Resource Development from the University of Minnesota.

Learn more about David and Aimia:

Thought Leadership Video Blog

Robin Krieglstein, Senior Producer, Badgeville

Robin Krieglstein is a Senior Producer at Badgeville, The Behavior Platform. Founded in 2010 to help companies measure and influence user behavior, Badgeville is the gold standard for gamification, having added a global client roster of over 170 customers including Deloitte, eBay’s X.Commerce, Samsung, Dell, NBC, CA Technologies, Universal Music, The Active Network and Recyclebank. Robin has specialized in applying behavioral psychology to technology for over 20 years as designer, developer, founder and consultant.  He founded the Design Group at LeapFrog; founded GoalTribe.com (the first gamified goal-achievement, social network); and is a member of the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab with Dr. BJ Fogg. He holds a BA in Computer Science with a focus on Educational Software Design from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.

Kathy Hecht, Vice President Marketing, Acxiom

In her role as vice president marketing, Kathy directs Acxiom’s corporate marketing and marketing communications activities and is responsible for enabling high performance strategy that aligns marketing efforts across the organization. With more than 20 years experience transforming interactive marketing and multichannel direct marketing operations, Kathy has most recently held top marketing and general management roles at American Greetings Interactive and Reliable Office Supplies.

Mark Johnson, President and CEO, Loyalty 360

As President and CEO of Loyalty 360, Mark is committed to bringing loyalty to the forefront as a critical marketing strategy. To further this goal, he has created an unbiased, market-driven clearinghouse and think tank through which users and loyalty providers can interact and collaborate with. His finger on the pulse of what’s happening in loyalty, Mark is driven to give members the expert insight and guidance they need to develop strategies and implement programs that effectively engage their customers and employees and build stronger relationships with them.

Mark has significant experience in selling, designing and administering prepaid, loyalty/CRM programs, as well as data-driven marketing communication programs. He received his start in loyalty program design while at Fifth Third Bank in Cincinnati, OH where he developed the bank’s open (merchant-based gift card) and closed (MasterCard) system stored value programs (Premiere Issue).

Following, Mark was Vice President of Product Development at Stored Value Systems. Through efforts, SVS designed the gift card mall product and wrote its first comprehensive market evaluation on loyalty. He was also responsible for the recommendation to acquire the assets of DataMark Technologies and their loyalty processing clients.  At Size Technologies, Mark sold loyalty and CRM programs to Alliance Data Systems (Dynamic Value), Carlson Marketing Group (Gold Points Replacement), National Processing Company/Bank of America, Blackhawk Marketing/Safeway and First Data Resources.

Mark has his undergraduate degree in mass communications (media management) from Miami University, an M.B.A from the University of Cincinnati, and is currently pursuing an M.B.A. in Business Information — Statistics from Xavier University.  A recognized thought leader in loyalty marketing, Mark shares his expert insights with media worldwide. He is a regular contributor to Hotel Executive and 21st Century Business and has been featured in FoxBusiness, NBC News, ABC News, New York Times, Washington Post, 1to1 Magazine, MarketingSherpa, CRM Magazine and The PrePaid Press.

Joe Leader, Vice President, Strategic Business Development, PossibleNOW

Joe Leader serves as a Ph.D. level expert on new marketing technologies and strategic business development.  Leader led guerilla marketing efforts at a company ranked #2 on the Inc. 500.  The team grew  a new division from zero to $150 million in revenue selling the technology to a multi-billion dollar company.  At a $2 billion high-tech company, Leader headed worldwide channel marketing across two divisions bringing a 10-times increase in channel revenue in four years.   Most recently, Leader marketed air travel technology into one of the largest travel distribution networks in the world creating a $100 million new market.  Leader now serves as Vice President of Strategic Business Development for PossibleNow, the number one customer preference management company in the world with over 80 billion customer preferences managed on behalf of over 700 enterprise-level companies.  Leader holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Emory University, an MBA in technology management, and completing his business Ph.D. this year with his marketing research focused on accelerating new product adoption.

Learn more about Joe and PossibleNOW:

How Shared Ownership of the Customer Experience Changes Everything

Meet the Speaker

Jonathan Clarkson, Director, Rapid Rewards, Southwest Airlines

Jonathan Clarkson is Director of Rapid Rewards, Southwest Airlines’ frequent flyer program which encourages Customer loyalty and maximizes Customer value.   His responsibilities include Member acquisition, communication, and partnerships for the industry-leading program, which re-launched as the All-New Rapid Rewards last year.  Clarkson joined Southwest in 2007 and helped establish the first Customer Insights team there while concurrently leading product development efforts for the Instation and Inflight systems. Prior to Southwest Airlines, Clarkson worked in a variety of marketing roles at PepsiCo, YUM! Brands, and Dr Pepper.

Learn more about Jonathan and Southwest:

Behind the Brand/People Q&A

Jim Milton, President & CEO, SoundBite Communications

As President and CEO, Jim Milton is responsible for leading the team at SoundBite towards attaining the undisputed market leadership position in Proactive Customer Communications. Jim brings more than 25 years of high technology sales, marketing and general management experience to his role.

He previously served as president and chief operating officer of Intervoice, Inc., a publicly- traded leader in interactive voice response (IVR) and IP messaging systems (acquired by Convergys Corporation in 2008). Prior to joining Intervoice, Jim served in senior executive management positions at UGS Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, Compaq Computer and Digital Equipment Corporation.

Jim received a Bachelor of Mathematics degree with Joint Honors in Computer Science and Economics from the University of Waterloo in Canada.

Mark Johnson, President and CEO, Loyalty 360

Michelle Malish, Senior Director, Loyalty & Relationship Marketing, Carlson Restaurants

BJ Emerson
, 
VP Technology, Tasti D-Lite and Planet Smoothie

BJ Emerson is an award winning social technology executive who has a long and consistent track record of innovation and leadership within the organizations he serves. His curious blend of creative and technical abilities makes him a sought after speaker and consultant. BJ's unique perspective comes in part from spearheading the integration of the Tasti D-Lite brand experience with online communities and was largely responsible for taking the brand from a place of social negligence to social prominence in just a few short years. He has appeared on CNBC, has been quoted in The New York Times, Reuters, Inc magazine, Entrepreneur, and AdAge as well as numerous other publications including the cover Hospitality Technology magazine.

Considered a social loyalty pioneer in the industry, in 2010 he led the deployment of the first ever loyalty platform to feature an integration with Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare which has been recognized with a variety of industry awards.  BJ was once named in Mashable’s Top 40 Brands on Twitter and the People Behind Them and his projects have been featured as case studies in 7 different books published in 2011.

His revolutionary use of mobile coupons on Twitter in 2009 earned Tasti D-Lite a spot in Twitter’s Business 101 Case Studies which ultimately led to invitations for Tasti D-Lite to be launch partners with business products for companies such as Foursquare and Google.

The former co-host of the Social Geek Radio Show on Blog Talk Radio, he has interviewed dozens of authors, leaders and influencers on the subject of social media and social technologies. BJ currently sits on the board of SNAP Services, LLC which is the first Social Network Appreciation Platform to enable businesses to bring together point-of-sale transactions and the digital word-of-mouth customer rewards.

BJ provided the foreword to Location Based Marketing for Dummies and is the co-author of The Tasti D-Lite Way; Social Media Marketing Lessons for Building Loyalty and a Brand Customers Crave to be published by McGraw-Hill in 2012.

BJ speaks throughout the United States as well as internationally on a regular basis on the topics of social media, technology and customer loyalty. His passion for being an ambassador and empowering others with technology can be seen through the innovative solutions and campaigns he manages.

A decorated veteran of the first gulf war, BJ has the US Navy to thank for his solid foundation in technology which was followed by several years of successful small business ownership.

Learn more about BJ and Tasti D-Lite:

The Inside Scoop: Tasti D-Lite

Jon Windley, Vice President of Client Advocacy, Savvis

Jon leads teams responsible for improving customer loyalty by developing and implementing programs and processes which place the customer at the center of Savvis’ strategies. This includes the management of customer loyalty initiatives, service transition strategies relative to change management, ITIL-based work flow automation tools to provide a global standardization framework and platform, and root cause analysis in support of problem management assessments and improvement recommendations which includes management of the Human Excellence program.  He is also responsible for strategic oversight of feedback forums such as the Savvis Advisory Council and the Customer Corridor Board where cross functional teams come together to create awareness of customer feedback and drive strategic decisions to improve the customer experience.

Jen Millard, Chief Revenue Officer, Truaxis

Jen is recognized industry expert on consumer and channel segmentation, specializing in the convergence of technology and retail innovation that improves retail operations and the consumer experience. She serves as the Chief Revenue Officer at Truaxis. Prior to Truaxis, she was the founder and managing partner of Retail Growth Partners LLC. She has held executive positions at ZoomSystems, Bed Bath & Beyond, Brown Shoe Group, Sears, Saks Inc. and McMillan Doolittle LLP. She serves on multiple retail and consumer products board of directors and also holds a seat on the Board of Governors to the University of North Texas Retail Merchandising School and was recognized by Chain Store Age as a ‘Rising Star – Top 40 under 40’ in 2007.

Mu Hu, President and CEO, Revenue Insights Corp

Mu is the founder and CEO of Revenue Insights Corp, a consulting firm that helps clients improve their customer relationships, loyalty, retention, and bottomline.  Mu has more than 12 years experience in applying analytical solutions to customer management problems. Prior to Revenue Insights, Mu was Director of CRM at Golfsmith International where he led the advanced analytics function and was responsible for developing and implementing CRM strategies and loyalty programs.  Mu holds a Master degree in Business Administration from Texas Christian University (TCU), and a BA in Journalism from Fudan University.

Rick Chambers, Vice President of Customer Intelligence & Analytics, Zale Corporation

Rick Chambers is Vice President of Customer Intelligence & Analytics at Zale Corporation in Irving, Texas where he manages consumer research, customer insights, database marketing as well as supporting analytic efforts across the enterprise including product and promotion testing and media effectiveness analysis.  Prior to joining Zales, Rick was Vice President of Operations for Javelin Direct, where he was responsible for the advertising agency’s process improvement, direct marketing data processing and print production. He has over 20 years of business management experience and more than 12 years in business-to-business and business-to-consumer corporate marketing and advertising. Rick holds a Bachelor of Science in Nuclear Engineering from Texas A&M University and a Master of Science in Management and Administrative Science from the University of Texas at Dallas. He is a veteran of the US Air Force and a current member of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership.

Thad Peterson, Principal, inCode

Thad Peterson has more than 20 years of experience in services marketing, database marketing, new product development, loyalty, strategy consulting and payments. His experience includes developing and managing marketing programs for global corporations as well as startups, leading new product development teams, repositioning companies for greater profitability, and developing strategies around services, payments, mobile devices and chip cards. Past positions have included CEO, Managing Director, CMO, and Partner/Managing Director in two global consulting firms.

Matt Hood, Chief Marketing Officer, BJs Restaurant & Brewhouse

Matt Hood is Chief Marketing Officer of BJ's Restaurants Inc. Prior to joining BJ’s in January of 2008, Mr. Hood served as a marketing and strategy consultant to the restaurant industry, and also served as the national restaurant brand consultant for Google, Inc.  From 2002 to 2006, Mr. Hood worked for Fired Up, Inc., owner and operator of the Carino’s Italian Grill restaurant concept, with his last position as Senior Vice President, Marketing and Brand Development. Prior to that, Mr. Hood was co-founder of a loyalty database marketing company, AIM Technologies, serving the professional sports and entertainment industries.  Early in his career, Hood was a marketing manager for Brinker International, which owns and operates the Chili’s Grill and Bar and Maggiano’s casual dining concepts. Hood is a cum laude graduate of Texas Christian University and also has an MBA in marketing and entrepreneurship from the Kellogg Graduate School at Northwestern University.

Michael Hemsey, President, Kobie Marketing

As President of Kobie Marketing, Michael is responsible for leading all facets of the loyalty marketing organization including business development, IT initiatives, client services, as well as the overall direction of the Kobie brand. For 20 years, Michael has cultivated a rich background in client services, product development, marketing, technology and operations through several key posts.

Prior to Kobie Marketing, Michael was Executive Vice President of TSYS Loyalty (formerly ESC Loyalty) and led the loyalty marketing implementation and relationship management teams serving the world’s largest issuers and retailers. Michael served as Director of Product Management at Broadvision, a worldwide enterprise software company, where he was responsible for developing the company’s employee portal platform offering. In addition, he has held client relations and marketing leadership positions at Consumer Financial Network, an e-commerce platform of insurance and financial service providers, and Mutual of New York (MONY).

A graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a Bachelor of Arts in Government, Michael has served on the Board of Notre Dame Alumni, NJ; and held board member posts at DataComm Electronics, based in Atlanta, GA; and Loeffler Randall Inc, based in Brooklyn, NY.

Learn more about Michael and Kobie Marketing: 

Behind the Brand/People

Meet the Speaker

Adam Raak, Assistant VP, Business Development, IMG College

Serving as IMG’s Assistant Vice President of Business Development, Adam is responsible for research and development related to new business acquisitions and renewal business plans. He began his IMG career in 2004 as a Marketing Assistant for the Virginia Tech property and was promoted to the Washington IMG Sports Marketing staff as a Senior Account Executive in 2005. Adam received his master's degree (Athletic Administration) at Indiana University before he started with IMG. He worked in sales prior to graduate school as a retail marketing representative for Reebok in the Chicago area. Adam earned his undergraduate degree in Marketing from Michigan State University.

David Kristal, CEO, Augeo

David Kristal is the founder and CEO of Augeo.  David began his career as an attorney at Winthrop and Weinstine, and then left the firm in 1993 to create and run the business development function at a large, privately held transaction management company managing over $500mm annually.  He joined his family business, the Embers Restaurant chain, as its CEO in 1998 to lead its turnaround effort, a consequence of which was the formation of Augeo.  David earned his BS in Business from the Carlson School of Management in 1987, and his JD from Stanford Law School in 1990.   David is active in a number of philanthropic activities, including serving on several non-profit boards.  He also sits on the boards of two early stage companies, drivescribe.com and a soon to be announced affinity company in the recycling space.  Among David’s many daily activities, he leads invention and innovation efforts at Augeo, conceiving product and strategic solutions for its client’s macro and strategic challenges.

Kenneth Greer, CMO, Augeo

Kenneth Greer is a change agent, trend visionary, technology geek and creative spark. He’s known as the “go to guy” for big ideas. Since founding his agency in the early ‘80’s, and now leading the marketing charge at Augeo, Ken’s one-of-a-kind combination of creative and strategic marketing skills has been the driving force behind the transformation of both consumer and business-to-business enterprises.

Ken holds a Master’s Degree from Stanford University and is nationally recognized for innovative thinking and a unique ability to create compelling brand value. His thinking was featured in the business best seller, “The World is Flat” and he has been cited in the New York Times for his fresh approach to the convergence of technology and communications.

Today, Ken continues to help clients take full advantage of the ever-evolving media convergence – social, video, interactive, mobile and what ever might be coming next. He’s a brand futurist and his unique “Luminary Process” recently helped Microsoft Bing and Mayo Health Clinic with their employer branding efforts. He has over 100 awards and accolades for his creative contributions and is an board advisor to many corporations.

In addition to his duties as Chief Marketing Officer at Augeo, Kenneth Greer is the President and fearless leader of Augeo+Greer, a Brand Strategy and Communications Design Agency.

Tim Herman, CEO, Direct Connections and Wrypple

A recognized leader for over 25 years in the recycling and related industries, currently rolling out Wrypple, a nationwide recycling loyalty program.

Mark Johnson, CEO & CMO, Loyalty360

Steve Collins, President of Analytics, Altair Customer Intelligence

Steve Collins is President of Analytics at Altair Customer Intelligence.  In this role he brings 25+ years of experience in database marketing, analytics and model building from both the client and vendor side of the business.  As co-founder and owner at Altair he built the company knowing that proper data management, reporting and analytics can serve as the backbone to significant gains in performance of marketing and overall profitability. Steve’s priority is to design each solution to deliver value beyond the expectations of Altair’s clients.

Aldo Agostinelli, Marketing Executive, Snapfish Division

Martie Woods, Vice President & Chief Experience Officer, Deluxe Corporation

Martie Woods is Vice President and Chief Experience Officer at Deluxe. With expertise in consumer psychology and buying behavior, Martie’s charge is to improve customer engagement and loyalty throughout the financial services industry. In her twelve years at Deluxe, Martie has been a leader in driving the company to focus on customer-centered decision-making and innovation.

Learn more about Martie and Deluxe:

Customer Experience Forum Video Blog

Executive Insights

Greg Brown, Vice President, Loyalty, Promotion and Relationship Marketing, Choice Hotels International

Greg oversees the consumer marketing strategy for Choice Hotels, a leading hotel franchisor with 6,200 hotels worldwide.  His principle focus is on global growth of Choice Privileges, the comprehensive, award-winning rewards program for Choice Hotels, which has tripled membership to over 15 million in the past 5 years.  He also oversees the promotional marketing initiatives group, as well as, the relationship marketing organization, which annually generate significant incremental revenue for our hotels.  A frequent speaker, Greg is also on the board of the Association of Travel Marketing Executives (ATME).

Greg has held a variety of marketing and finance leadership roles during his
25-year career, 17 of which were with American Airlines.  He began his career with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture).  Greg then joined American’s Finance department in the late-80s, and subsequently led organizations in Financial Analysis, Airport Resource Planning, Revenue Management, and Sales.  He was recruited to Choice Hotels initially as Vice President of Choice Privileges, and has been with Choice for nearly five years.

Shirli Zelcer, Senior Director, Merkle

Shirli has over 11 years of experience in strategy and analytics in the travel and entertainment, consumer, and financial services industries.  At Merkle she has worked for a variety of different clients including Dell, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Nike, and Disney, and has led projects for both consumer and small business lines of business.

Key projects Shirli has managed include lifetime value segmentations, contact strategy optimization, lifecycle and customer segmentations, email/direct mail integration, acquisition and customer targeting models, opt out propensity models, and media mix modeling.

Prior to Merkle, Shirli worked for Capital One in the Marketing and Analysis department, responsible for developing statistical risk models, NPV models, DOE testing, and customer profiling. Shirli has a bachelors and masters degree in Statistics from Cornell University.

Yannis Kotziagkiaouridis, Vice President, Analytics Strategy, Merkle

Yanni leads the analytics strategy team for Merkle’s insurance, wealth management, nonprofit and global analytics practices. Over the past 15 years, Yanni has had the good fortune of working with clients like, AIG, GEICO, GMACI, Nationwide, 21st Century, Hartford Insurance, Blackrock, AARP, Chubb, Region, Citizens, PNC, BBVA, Assurant, S.G Komen, Arthritis Foundation, American Cancer Society and others. 



Bringing 15 years in CRM Analytics Strategy with a focus on Customer Lifetime Value, and Customer Centricity, Yanni leads a dedicated team of highly specialized professionals in creating and articulating quantitative strategies and relevant solutions for Merkle’s financial services, insurance and nonprofit clients. Yanni has extensive experience in managing large groups of diverse stakeholders and providing strategic leadership in the areas of CRM, marketing database management, direct response analytics, statistical modeling, segmentation and customer lifetime value measurement.



Before joining Merkle in 2008, Yanni was the Vice President of Quantitative Strategy for TPG Direct an Omnicom owned full services agency specialized in Insurance and Financial services. Yanni has a Post Masters in Quantitative Analysis from Drexel University, an MBA from the University of New Haven and a Bachelors Degree in Business Economics from Aristotle University.

Jim Taschetta, Chief Marketing Officer, FreeMonee

As CMO, Jim Taschetta brings to FreeMonee 25 years of leadership experience across a name-brand selection of blue-chip companies and start-ups. Jim previously served as the CMO of Bare Escentuals, FRS Healthy Energy and Yodlee.com. Additionally, he served in various executive positions leading brand management and marketing at Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola and Visa. Jim has extensive international experience, having spent seven years living and working in Latin America while at Procter & Gamble.

Dave Capuano, VP, Marketing, Verint

A veteran executive, Dave Capuano leads the Marketing and Product Management organizations. Throughout his 18-year career in the information technology industry, Dave has played a key role in leading the product portfolios and marketing activities of a series of new ventures. Dave’s experience includes marketing and product leadership roles in innovative, fast-growth companies.

T.J. Andre, Chief Operating Offier, Chadwick Martin Bailey

T.J. leverages over 20 years of experience in marketing strategy, brand development, marketing operations management, and strategic partnering, to help clients grow and innovate.  His diverse industry background in insurance, travel, financial services, and government, has made him a trusted partner of leading brands like AAA, Royal Caribbean, and Avis Budget.  In addition to his role as Chief Operating Officer T.J. plays a key role in the strategic development of CMB’s technology platform; helping companies more effectively and efficiently get from data-to-action-to-impact.
T.J. holds a B.A. in Psychology and Social Relations from Harvard University.

Bob Hoffer, Loyalty Marketing Director, Mister Car Wash

Bob Hoffer, Director of Loyalty Marketing, Mister Car Wash

Bob Hoffer is the Director of Loyalty Marketing for Mister Car Wash, the largest and fastest growing car wash chain in the United States.  Bob oversees the customer loyalty programs for 90 car washes and 30 express lube centers.

The company focus is shifting more and more to strengthening customer relationships, building revenue and broadening usage of services through the intelligent use of customer transaction data that historically was difficult to manage.

Bob has an MBA and BBA in Marketing and Finance from the University of Cincinnati.

David Resnick, Vice President Technology Solutions, VeraCentra

Since 1996, David has led the design and implementation of VeraCentra’s marketing-focused data and technology solutions, including those enabling customer intelligence, analytics and automation. Leveraging his business acumen – along with over 12 years in marketing – David is committed to providing VeraCentra clients with marketing solutions that yield maximum value.

An engaging speaker and industry activist, David frequently leads marketing workshops at marketing events such as Loyalty 360, the Customer Engagement Expo and the National Conference of Database Marketing. He also trains business professionals in the art and science of applying analytics to marketing.

Lori Dillon, Head of Customer Experience, Citizens Financial Group

Trevor Knott, Director of Partnership & Distribution Strategy, Citizens Financial Group

Trevor Knott currently serves as Director of Partnership & Distribution Strategy for Citizens Financial Group, where he oversees all branch-planning, partnerships, and ATM distribution for Citizens.  His scope includes distribution-planning for over 1,400 branches, 30+ retail banking partnerships and the #2 instore-banking program in the U.S., and 3,900 ATMs; oversight of the annual branch occupancy, branch improvements, and ATM budgets; and a mandate to continue the evolution of Citizens’ distribution strategy thru a combination of extensive capital and network-optimization initiatives.  He is a member of Citizens’ Executive Leadership Group.

Knott’s prior roles at Citizens include Director of Partnership Strategy & Marketing Operations, Director of Channel (Direct) Marketing, and Head of Deposits Product Management.  He holds a B.A. from Furman University, and earned his M.B.A. at the University of Georgia.  He lives in Wrentham, Massachusetts, with his wife and three children.  He is an active member of Lions International dedicated to local and international charitable causes, coaches youth sports, and actively leads and supports the outreach efforts of his local church.

Jennifer Kielmeyer, Web and Emerging Technologies Strategic Marketing Manager, Safelite AutoGlass

Jennifer L. Kielmeyer is the Web and Emerging Technologies Strategic Marketing Manager at Safelite AutoGlass®, the nation’s leading provider of vehicle glass repair and replacement services. She is responsible for managing social media; search engine optimization; search engine marketing; online reputation management; e-commerce; web analytics; usability; and e-mail marketing for retail, commercial and wholesale brands nationwide.

Jennifer has been with Safelite AutoGlass®, which employs nearly 10,000 people, for 10 years in various marketing roles, including managing multimillion dollar directory advertising campaigns, but primarily focusing on Web-based marketing and advertising initiatives.

She is an associate faculty member of the University of Phoenix, teaching undergraduate- and graduate-level marketing and media-based courses through the university’s Columbus, Ohio, campus. Jennifer received both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in marketing, with specializations in digital communications and e-commerce, from Franklin University in Ohio.

Jeff Nicholson, VP Global Marketing, Customer Analytics and Interaction, Pitney Bowes Software

Regarded as a thought leader in his field, Jeff Nicholson works closely with industry analysts including Gartner and Forrester and is a frequent presenter upon topics including event-triggered marketing, customer analytics, customer communications, campaign management, business process management and dialogue marketing strategy.

Mark Johnson, President and CEO, Loyalty 360

Laura Coblentz, Vice President of Marketing and Innovation, Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy

Ms. Coblentz has been the Vice President of Marketing and Innovation at Pharmaca since September 2008. At Pharmaca, she oversees all marketing activity, including direct, digital and CRM programs to drive customer acquisition and engagement. Ms. Coblentz has more than 20 years of consumer packaged goods and specialty retail marketing experience and has worked for a number of leading brands in the natural products space. Prior to joining Pharmaca, she was Vice President of Marketing at Wild Oats Markets until the company was acquired by Whole Foods Market. In addition to her organic food experience, Ms. Coblentz has also led marketing initiatives for leading wine brands including Sutter Home Winery, the nation’s top-selling wine brand with retail sales of $450 million, and E&J Gallo Winery. Ms. Coblentz graduated cum laude from Brown University with a Bachelor’s degree in History. She also earned an MBA in Marketing and Entrepreneurial Studies from the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA.

Danielle Plathe, Senior Manager of Customer Experience, Stride Rite

Danielle (Leveille) Plathe brings a unique blend of strategic thinking and executional excellence to her current role as senior manager of direct-to-consumer marketing at Stride Rite Children's Group. As part of Wolverine Worldwide, one of the largest non-athletic shoe companies in the world with brands such as Stride Rite Children’s Group ®, Sperry Top-Sider®, Merrell®, Saucony®, among others.  For over 90 years, the Stride Rite has designed and engineered footwear specifically to meet the needs of growing children.  Through their sole commitment to “Kid-RITE” innovation, quality, health and style, Stride Rite Children’s Group’s mission is to be the first choice for premium authentic that kids love and moms trust.  Over the past 3 years, Danielle has partnered with the Stride Rite retail leadership to build a CRM competency where both insights and direct marketing have become part of the company’s core marketing strategy.  Using consumer insights, the team identified business opportunities that lead them to the launch in Summer 2012 of Stride Rite Rewards, the company’s first-ever multi-channel loyalty program..

Danielle began her nearly decade long career in retail marketing at Mullen Advertising where she managed interactive media planning for Eddie Bauer and other notable retail clients. In 2004, she joined the Tweeter Home Entertainment Group where she led its Guerilla Marketing program empowering commission-based sales associates to actively acquire and retain customers using 1:1 marketing strategies.  Danielle joined PetSmart in 2007 where her focus was on CRM initiatives, including a re-launch of the PetPerks loyalty program. Danielle's expertise is in leveraging customer databases to drive customer-centric initiatives that increase sales, loyalty and create a richer cross-channel experience.

Jeff Simpson, Senior Vice President, Retail and Consumer Brands, Harte-Hanks

Jeff Simpson is the Senior Vice President of Retail and Consumer Brand Markets for Harte-Hanks’ direct marketing. Reporting to Gary Skidmore, president of Harte-Hanks Direct Marketing, Jeff oversees a 25-employee division and is responsible for building and executing the firm's retail and consumer brand go-to-market strategy and working with other Harte-Hanks business units to create and execute multichannel campaigns.

Simpson has served with Harte-Hanks for more than four years and, in addition to his leadership of the Retail & Consumer Brands Markets, he leads strategy within the retail practice of Harte-Hanks, a strategic full-service, data-based consultancy and service provider that delivers marketing, insights and enablement services to retailers across all points of customer interaction to optimize customer experiences, loyalty and value.  Simpson came to Harte-Hanks from the client side, as the former vice president of marketing for Belk Department Stores.  He has had responsibility for the creation, execution and delivery of a wide variety of marketing, media, research and promotional programs for a diverse group of other retailers and brands, among them Saks Department Store Group, Apple, State Farm Insurance, Nike, Adidas, Budweiser and BellSouth.

Simpson earned his master’s of business administration degree in Marketing in 2001 from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.  He is a recognized leader with extensive experience utilizing media, customer and market research, CRM [customer relationship management], analytics and public relations to formulate and implement growth strategies for a variety of companies.

Vikas Venugopal, Solution Manager, SAP

Vikas Venugopal is a solution manager at SAP with over 10 years’ experience in enterprise technologies. He is currently responsible for SAP CRM Loyalty and Campaign Management solutions. Prior to SAP, Vikas was a product manager at Nortel Networks and a technical lead at Wipro Technologies. Vikas holds an MBA from University of Toronto and a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering from University of Kerala.

David Rosen, Strategy, Analytics and Consumer Insights, TIBCO Loyalty Lab

As a member of TIBCO Loyalty Lab's leadership team, David leads the strategy, analytics and consumer insights teams, and has designed innovative loyalty programs for dozens of top global brands in the multi-channel retail, CPG, media and travel industries.

Prior to joining TIBCO Loyalty Lab in 2006, David held the position of Senior Vice President, Marketing for MyPoints, the Internet's largest and most active loyalty program.  David was also a partner in Oliver Wyman's retail and consumer practice where he focused on consumer-driven strategies for companies in North America, Asia and Europe.

David is a graduate of Dartmouth College and received his MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business.

Bob Gold, CEO, Gold Mobile

Bob Gold is a rare combination of business entrepreneur, strategic visionary and outstanding communicator. Bob’s successful track record in creating and developing growth companies combined with his specialty focus in sales, marketing and technology has enabled him to help companies convert their Intellectual Properties into thriving businesses throughout his career. Bob’s most recent business endeavor has taken him to the new world of mobile and social commerce. As CEO of Gold Mobile, Bob has built a thriving business focused on “lifestyle engagement, transactions and rewards” extending enterprise CRM and loyalty programs for Fortune 1000 companies.

Learn more about Bob and Gold Mobile:

Is Your Brand’s Mobile Wallet Empty?

Digital to Human Persuasion: Social Monetization