Kelvin Lee

Thomson Reuters

Director, Social Media Marketing

Kelvin Lee is Director of Social Media for the global Financial & Risk division at Thomson Reuters, where he leads social media strategy, including the content marketing and social selling campaigns. Schooled in Singapore and Rotterdam in business management, Kelvin has been based in London and Singapore for the last 11 years, creating and project-managing a trail of B2B and B2C online and offline customer experiences for the financial technology, telecommunications, FMCG and entertainment sectors throughout Europe, Asia and North America.

Irina Pashina

SAP SE

Certified Leadership and Team Coach | Leadership Culture & Development Expert

Irina is a certified coach (PCC, CPCC), a seasoned mentor of individuals and teams, a leadership expert, and a leader specialized in transformation. Her passion for people development, leadership, and public speaking took her to five continents, where she inspired and drove change in various industries such as technology and non-profits. 
Leading a content strategy function at SAP, the market leader in enterprise application software, she feels fortunate to shape superior customer experiences with a focus on digital transformation. Irina also builds bridges to people leadership topics such as a transformation to a newly established leadership culture. Her ability to connect with people across cultures and functional areas has been a key factor for meaningful connections and success in all her roles.
A requested speaker on leadership and communication topics, Irina is a transformational leader who inspires and helps people discover more, develop, and bring about a positive change in the world.

James Gregson

Lego

Head of Social Studio

James began his career in ‘non-traditional’ brand strategy and through his experience has built a combination of technical understanding and conceptual creativity to craft effective, measurable programs for clients and brands alike.

Currently, James is a senior leader within The LEGO Group’s internal creative agency. As the Head of the LEGO Social Studio, leading a team of digital content strategists, creative designers, producers, and video editors. Responsible for creating best-in-class digital content for LEGO social media channels.

Marvin Liao

500 Startups

Partner

Marvin works with awesome startups across the globe and at the SF/SV accelerator programs – that is, when he’s not practicing his signature song (Backstreet Boys “I Want it That Way” btw) & dealing with his book buying addiction, A recovering exec from Yahoo! he’s very happy to be part of the Revolution!

He invests in digital media, adtech, marketing cloud, e-commerce and mobile startups across the globe. Formerly of Yahoo! Inc. (10.5 years), Marvin has worked in various departments – sales, business development, ad operations and marketing. Most of his positions have been regional or global management roles, giving him extensive experience across Asia, Europe, Latin America and the United States. He presently serves on the boards and advisory boards of several internet advertising and ad technology companies across the globe. In addition, he is a mentor for several startup accelerator programs in Europe, Israel and the US, helping guide startup teams with their sales, marketing and partner development efforts.

Amisha Gandhi

Analyst & Partners, SAP ARIBA

VP, Influencer Marketing, Analyst & Partners

Amisha Gandhi is Vice President, Influencer Marketing, Analyst & Partners at SAP Ariba and previously led mobile product marketing.  In her current role, she is leading the charge at SAP by creating influencer marketing programs to help drive demand gen and global marketing campaigns. She’s worked in public relations and marketing roles in Silicon Valley for the past 15 years, working for everyone from startups to large enterprises such as HP, Google, Accenture and Time-Warner. Amisha has a passion for consumer tech gadgets and always seeking out the next big thing.

Allison Polly

PepsiCo

Head of Content Development

As the Head of Content Development at Creators League Studio, Ally oversees all content activities, scripted and unscripted, branded and original, across the PepsiCo portfolio including Pepsi, Gatorade, Mountain Dew, Tropicana, Quaker, Doritos, Lays and new products. She is also responsible for distribution strategies for select content, including strategic partnerships with top Hollywood studios. As a part of the new content model she has brought award winning talent to the organization to create documentary and scripted films, episodic series, music videos and digital content. Her current projects include a documentary feature with Steven Cantor and Robert Rodriguez with brand Gatorade; a scripted narrative feature with Cinetic based on the documentary short CLS made with David Darg; and a Pepsi Black commercial with the Mundo Sisters and Alexander Wang.
Ally was an EP on an award-winning series of documentary short films for Gatorade with David Darg, the Zimbalists, and Kirk Fraser. The films were selected to 15 top film festivals including the TriBeCa Film Festival and TIFF Kids, and were distributed on ESPN, Amazon Prime, and El Rey Network.
Throughout her award-winning career, Ally ran branded content for Bedrocket, a Ken Lerer venture company; launched the first digital entertainment studio, FILMAKA; was VP/Talent at a think-tank within Limited Brands that created the $1B brand PINK for Victoria’s Secret, and SVP/Creative Manager at McCann Erickson Worldwide.
Ally is a graduate of Brown University and is a member of The Academy of Television Arts and Science.

Ana Villegas

Dell EMC

Marketing Senior Director, NorthAmerica Field Marketing

Ana Villegas is a senior Marketing Leader with +20 years of Global marketing and digital experience in B2C and B2B in the technology and financial industries. Currently responsible for North America Commercial end to end marketing plan, digital and direct strategy and budget management. Among her achievements: launched the Next Generation Dell.com (Content management systems), launched the Marketing Dell University, lead dell.com consumer site redesign that enabled customers better engagement and conversion, instrumental in growing the Dell social media footprint with Small and Medium Businesses in the US, lead digital innovation for Dell B2B demand efforts, grew and embedded programmatic into Dell B2B digital strategy.

Gary Davis

McAfee

Vice President, Global Consumer Marketing

Gary Davis is the worldwide marketing lead for McAfee’s Consumer, Mobile and Small Business (CMSB) organization. In this role, he oversees the strategies and plans that drive brand/product consideration, preference, and demand globally. Gary is primarily responsible for optimizing the CMSB business for success and ensuring marketing superiority for the Company’s portfolio of products around the world. He closely follows technology and marketing topics to understand how they intersect and influence the behaviors of consumers. Gary is also considered an online security expert frequently discussing security threats and trends.

Gary has appeared on multiple business and consumer lifestyle broadcast outlets, including CBS News, CNBC, FOX News, Bloomberg, WSJ MoneyBeat and several Bay Area television stations; and quoted in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Money Magazine, CNN, Forbes, TIME Magazine, LA Times, Huffington Post, MSNBC, PC Magazine, CNET, and PC World. He is a sought-after speaker discussing contemporary marketing techniques and activities. Prior to joining McAfee, he held senior leadership positions for more than 15 years in technology companies. Gary served on the board of directors of the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA).

Dena Blevins

Starbucks Global Creative Studio

Creative Director Global Promotions & Brand

Dena Blevins is the Creative Director of Global Promotions & Brand at Starbucks Coffee Company. There she seamlessly manages the constant shift and flow of promotions around the world on one hand, while balancing the brand on her other. 
Dena’s career began as an art director at FCB/Chicago after receiving her Master’s degree from Northwestern University. 
Craving the Pacific Northwest brought her to Portland, OR where she created award winning work at several agencies. 
Her work has been featured in Communication Arts Design Annual & Advertising Annual, Print Regional Design Annual, New York Festivals, The Effies, Addys, Rosey Awards, HOW Design Annual and The One Show. 

Alexei Milgram

New York Life Insurance Company

CVP, Performance Analytics, Consumer + Brand Marketing

Alexei Milgram currently leads Performance Analytics on the Consumer + Brand Marketing team at New York Life -- the largest mutual Life Insurance company in the United States. His over 20 year career has taken him on a number of stops including pwc, ABN AMRO, MetLife, Macy's and a number of advertising agencies, including leading Digital Analytics at Mediacom.

Alexei's experience includes building, growing and leading marketing analytics and measurement teams.  He has worked with many online, offline and 3rd party information providers developing cutting edge solutions to optimize and measure marketing performance.  Alexei's passion is teaching, and for few years, he worked as an Assistant Professor teaching Marketing Science and Strategic Planning.

Alexei carries BS and MS degrees in Civil Engineering from Columbia University and MBA from Columbia Business School.  He lives with his wife, 2 sons, and 2 cats in Staten Island.  One weekend a month you can usually find him at a local swimming pool watching his sons compete and serve as a swimming official.  Other times he enjoys building things, reading and biking.

Laura Pearce

Twitter Canada

Head of Consumer Marketing

Laura Pearce is the Head of Consumer Marketing for Twitter Canada. In her role, she is responsible for connecting Canadian consumers to what’s happening in the world via Twitter. She leads all marketing initiatives to consumers in Canada, from brand to campaign marketing, performance buying and marketing partnerships.
Prior to joining Twitter Canada, Laura held senior marketing and digital content roles with prominent media and publishing companies, including Blue Ant Media, AOL, Canwest (now Postmedia) and Dell Canada.
Laura is an active contributor to the Canadian Marketing Association, chairing and sitting on advisory boards of several conferences.

Laura lives in Toronto and has 2 children. She has an M.A. in literature and enjoys reading and is an avid skier and runner.

Dylen Postnikoff

CBC

Head of Entertainment and Content Marketing

With a background in entertainment marketing, Dylen Postnikoff is skilled in planning and executing multichannel marketing campaigns that encompass traditional and social media, mobile and digital marketing tactics. She brings an in-depth knowledge of analyzing research, data and market trends to drive positioning and promotional marketing strategies. To reach the consumer, Dylen draws on finding the emotion within the story to help craft campaign messaging that resonates with target audiences.

In 2014, Dylen was appointed to lead the entertainment marketing team at the Canadian Broadcast Corporation. As the Head of Entertainment and Content Marketing at CBC, she has helped transform the network toward a digital forward 360 marketing approach in promoting the entertainment portfolio. During her tenure, Dylen has overseen the launch of shows such as Alias Grace, Schitt’s Creek, Kim’s Convenience, The Baroness Von Sketch Show and Workin’ Moms.

Prior to joining CBC, in 2010 Dylen opened her own creative production agency where she engaged in deep ethnographic and insight-related engagements working with Canadian and US-based clients in developing multicultural campaign strategies.

After graduating with a Master’s Degree in Political Science, Dylen joined Corus Entertainment in 2008 where she lead the development and execution of the client marketing campaigns for brands such as P&G, Nestle, Crayola, Hasbro and Kraft.

Dylen’s passion lies within the intersection of technology, media and culture.

Rob Daintree

WestJet

Director, Marketing Communications

As Director, Marketing Communications for WestJet, Rob leads multiple disciplines within the marketing team including Brand and Product Marketing, Retail, Destination and Co-op Marketing, Guest Communications, Planning, Budget, Sponsorship, Community Investment, Experiential Marketing and Creative Services.  Prior to joining WestJet, Rob was Associate Vice-President at FGL Sports (a subsidiary of Canadian Tire Corporation), responsible for leading the Brand and Content efforts for their Sport Chek and Atmosphere banners, contributing to multiple awards and industry recognition for the organization including Marketing Magazine Marketer of the Year (winner 2014, runner up 2015), Strategy Magazine Brand of the Year (Finalist 2015), as well numerous campaign awards including Media Innovation Awards and Sports Clio’s (2014, 2015).  Prior to FGL, Rob spent 13 years advertising agency side in strategic planning and account lead roles, for clients spanning numerous industries and categories (Automotive, Tourism, Education, Retail, CPG and Energy). 

Darian Kovacs

Jelly Digital Marketing & PR Agency

Managing Partner

Darian brings over 15 years of experience in marketing, communications and public relations. Throughout his career, he has also been a founder and board member of various foundations and charitable organizations. Through his award-winning company, Jelly Marketing, Darian has worked with various local, national and global brands building and executing on their digital & PR strategy. He co-founded the Canadian Internet Marketing Conference and he's been featured in BC Business magazine, Business in Vancouver and on the Canada Post training circuit. He is a contributor with Small Business BC, Entrepreneur, and both Rogers and Shaw's Business Resource Centre on topics of Social Media and PR. Being both an educator and practitioner, Darian's mix of stories, practical examples and takeaways leaves audiences feeling inspired and equipped to implement social media and PR strategies into their organizations.

Gemma Lawrence

IABC/BC

President

Theodora Jean

CPRS Vancouver

Vice President

Ryan McKenzie

Canada Wide Media

Vice President, Content and Marketing

Jaylene Crick

Smart, Savvy + Associates

Director of Recruitment

Jaylene comes from the high tech industry where some of the world’s most talented marketing professionals earn their stripes. Over the last six years, Jaylene has relied on her 15 years of marketing experience to help companies source “real” talent for tough to fill positions, especially in product marketing, digital marketing, innovation, and brand management. Known as a people connector, Jaylene has mastered the art of understanding who companies really need, uncovering the perfect match, and coaching both parties through the often exciting, yet stressful, (and sometimes awkward) “courting” process. 
Today Jaylene leads and mentors a talented team of Recruitment Consultants at Smart, Savvy - helping organizations across the Pacific Northwest find top talent for their teams. 

To find out more about how Jaylene and the Recruitment Team can help you fill those tough to place marketing and communications roles, please contact her anytime at 604-720-0756 or jaylene@smartsavvy.com.