Lee Applbaum has served as WUP’s Chief Marketing Officer since October 2020. Mr. Applbaum has over 25 years of experience transforming iconic brands such as Patrón, Grey Goose, Target and Coca-Cola. In his role as Chief Marketing Officer, Mr. Applbaum leads all strategic marketing, brand positioning, and member experience initiatives. He has been recognized throughout his career as a brand builder and innovative marketer whose work has disrupted industries including his oversight of the successful $5.1 billion sale of Patrón to Bacardi in 2018, where he also previously held the Global Chief Marketing Officer role. Mr. Applbaum holds a BBA in Marketing from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Otto Bell is Chief Creative Officer of Courageous, CNN’s in-house brand studio dedicated to creating global, cross-platform content for brand marketers across CNN, HLN and Great Big Story.

Since joining the company to help launch Courageous in 2015, Bell has been focused on pioneering the evolution of branded content to help advertisers tell more powerful stories. From breaking new ground with the production of Human by Design, a global conference sponsored by Square Enix on the future of human augmentation, to the 4K VR “live ad” execution in partnership with Volvo during the solar eclipse, Bell and his team continue to harness new distribution platforms and innovative technologies to produce transformational brand experiences.

Bell was previously the creative director and a founding member of OgilvyEntertainment. During his eight years at Ogilvy, he developed, produced and directed landmark television and digital campaigns across five continents for a myriad of lead brands; pairing the likes of Philips, DuPont, Unilever and IBM with global media partners.

Alvaro De La Rocha is the Chief Marketing Officer at Bespoke Post, the leading lifestyle startup delivering thoughtfully curated goods and guidance through a monthly subscription service and e-commerce shop.

In his role, Alvaro oversees all marketing, customer acquisition, public relations and customer experience initiatives. He was a founding team member at Bespoke Post and has helped the startup grow to reach over a million customers across the U.S. and Canada.

Jenna Habayeb, Chief Brand Officer, Beauty For All (BFA) Industries, is an accomplished marketing professional with nearly 20 years of experience leading creative marketing to drive growth for leading lifestyle brands.


In her role at BFA Industries, Jenna oversees brand marketing for BFA, including IPSY, BoxyCharm, Refreshments and BFA’s ESG initiatives. Jenna specializes in the strategic development and implementation of fully integrated marketing campaigns with a core focus on brand storytelling and data-driven design. She has applied this philosophy to help brands create authentic experiences, engage with consumers on a deeper level, and maximize brand exposure and awareness.

Steve began his career at ABC Television before joining HBO, where his work as a producer earned him industry recognition with four Emmy Award nominations & two Emmy Awards. He has served as a juror and speaker at multiple industry events including Cannes Lions, SXSW, Spikes Asia, Festival of Media and Dubai Lynx. Steve was most recently the president of Localize.city and prior to that, he drove growth and led business for R/GA and Twitter across 20 countries throughout APAC & MENA.

Alex Lopez joined McCann Worldgroup as President & Global Creative Chairman in 2021.

Alex is one of the most accomplished and awarded brand marketers and creative storytellers of this generation. For nearly a quarter century Mr. Lopez has defined, differentiated, and dimensionalized the Nike brand, shaping its positioning and messaging, driving enterprise- wide alignment, and leading teams around the world to best-in-class execution. Alex has been at the forefront of evolving the ways Nike connects with consumers both at scale and on an individual basis via traditional avenues and through the use of existing and emerging technology and platforms.

Alex led some of the most noteworthy efforts in Nike’s history, most recently leading the Dream Crazy, Equality, and You Can’t Stop Us campaigns. Alex also led efforts to launch new sport categories like Nike Skateboarding, the brand’s launch into Digital Sport via the Fuel Band, and most recently its efforts into premium long-form entertainment by co-founding and leading Waffle Iron Entertainment. Mr. Lopez has worked across the portfolio of brands within Nike, Inc, and has overseen a diverse set of functional expertise departments like Advertising/Brand Communication, Social Media, Media Planning & Buying, Digital Brand Innovation, Events, and more at both the Global level and across several of its geographies and territories across the world.

Alex’s work has led to significant business growth and brand affinity and has been received widespread critical acclaim. The Jordan Brand doubled in revenue during Alex’s time leading the Brand’s efforts, and North America revenue grew 25% in two years, delivering its first ever $4B quarter. Nike’s brand strength metrics have grown in all segments, and Nike is the #1 overall brand for its core consumer globally and in each of its key cities. Mr. Lopez’s work has won every significant creative marketing award, including multiple Emmy nominations and one Emmy win, seven Cannes Grand Prix Lions, the D&AD Black Pencil, the Effie 5 For 50, One Show Brand Of The Year, and hundreds of other awards over the years. Alex’s work has also been recognized by being added to the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.

Alex is an empathetic and empowering team leader who believes the work and results are a consequence of the culture he creates and has coached and mentored many senior marketing and creative leaders in the industry. He has also served as a keynote speaker, external advisor, board member, and subject matter expert for companies and organizations of all sizes and stages of development, both in the for- profit and non-profit worlds. He received his bachelor’s degree from Pepperdine University in 1997.

Greg Lyons is the Chief Marketing Officer of PepsiCo Beverages North America (PBNA), where he leads the strategic, communications and innovation agenda across PepsiCo’s $22 billion beverage portfolio in the U.S. The portfolio includes iconic brands like Pepsi, MTN DEW, Gatorade, Tropicana, Starbucks, Lipton, Pure Leaf, Rockstar Energy, as well as recent innovation like bubly, LIFEWTR, MTN DEW RISE Energy and Driftwell.

Greg has implemented a holistic portfolio strategy and new innovation framework to accelerate growth in new categories and ensure future business success on existing brands. He has moved the innovation agenda forward significantly for PBNA, delivering more than $2 billion in innovation in 2019 and 2020 through new brands like bubly, LIFEWTR and Gatorade Zero. He also has led brand Pepsi’s return to 12 straight quarters of growth.

Passionate about capability building and talent development, Greg established an award-winning in-house creative content studio, and an in-house media measurement team that has resulted in a 40% improvement on media ROI since 2017. He’s invested in the people of PBNA marketing by implementing training across performance marketing, creative excellence, consumer intimacy and strategic planning.

His work to strengthen PBNA brands, his team and the industry has led to several recognitions, including the Advertising Research Federation’s CMO Great Mind Award, Adweek’s Top 50 Marketing Executive, Adweek’s Top Tech Savvy CMOs, Business Insider’s Most Innovative CMOs and Campaign Magazine’s CMO 50 list, among other accolades.

Previously, Greg led the MTN DEW and Energy portfolio. He also held positions as CMO of PepsiCo’s Canadian Beverage business and was the lead of the Marketing department for the Walkers business in the UK and Ireland. Early in his PepsiCo career, Greg worked across all of Frito-Lay’s major brands in the Marketing department.  Prior to PepsiCo, Greg worked in consulting for Marketing Corp of America.

Greg serves on the Board of Directors for the North American Coffee Partnership. He is also active in his community serving on the Board of Directors for the Ridgefield Boys & Girls Club.  Active in the marketing industry, Greg serves on the CMO Growth Council for the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the Adweek Steering Committee, and the Time @100 Advisory Board.

Greg holds a BA in Economics from Amherst College and a MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University with majors in Marketing & Management and Strategy. Greg keeps a full house in Ridgefield, CT with his fiancée Beth, his two children Molly and Jack, his soon-to-be stepchildren Crawford and Max, and two Bernese Mountain Dogs.

As Chief Marketing & People Experience Officer, Barbara Messing leads all aspects of marketing, communications, and employee experience operations at Roblox. She is responsible for overseeing the development of the company’s global brand strategy to drive innovation and continued growth and establish Roblox as one of the most beloved brands in the world among kids and teens.

Prior to Roblox, Barbara spent the last two decades serving in a number of leadership roles, including Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Walmart U.S. and TripAdvisor. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Overstock.com and Vacasa.

Barbara holds a JD from Stanford Law School and a BA from Northwestern University.

God-is Rivera is a trailblazer in the tech industry as Twitter’s global director of culture and community. She is also a steady advocate for Black Twitter and enlightens the masses on its cultural significance.

Throughout her career, God-is Rivera has made inclusivity in the media industry her main priority. Her bold vision for better representation and stronger communities has catapulted the Bronx native to her current role as the global director of culture and community at Twitter. Her passion for giving a voice to the voiceless and creating impactful connections between people around the globe is constantly reflected in her work. Even though the pandemic may have postponed a planned forum for Black Twitter, Rivera still showed out for her community by uplifting Black voices with a national billboard campaign, which took Black Lives Matter tweets to the streets. The campaign, which launched in May in cities that have been hubs of protest, shared tweets of everyday users who posted messages that meaningfully contribute to the BLM dialogue. As a tribute to the treasured digital community of Black Twitter, Rivera has made the rounds discussing her presentation, “Woke, Lit & Ready: A Guide to Understanding Black Twitter.”

Stephanie Ruhle is the host of MSNBC’s “The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle” on weeknights at 11 p.m. ET. Ruhle also appears across all NBC News and MSNBC platforms as NBC News’ Senior Business Analyst, including “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt,” “TODAY”, NBCNews.com, and TODAY.com’s “On The Money” with Stephanie Ruhle.

Ruhle has interviewed titans in politics, business, entertainment and sports. As a Wall Street veteran, she is known for bringing her business acumen and hard-hitting style to high profile interviews, for her original reporting and bringing humanity into her news coverage and her daily “Good News Ruhles” segment. 

Ruhle served as the consulting producer of “Diamond Hands: The Legend of WallStreetBets,” an MSNBC and NBC News Studio film coined by traders within the social media community of Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets where users post stock and option trading. Ruhle is also the host of the podcast, “Modern Ruhles: Compelling Conversations During Culturally Complicated Times.” The show takes aim at zeitgeist topics with the goal of understanding and respecting ideas that conflict with our own.  

Prior to Bloomberg, Ruhle worked at Deutsche Bank, serving as a Managing Director in Global Markets Senior Relationship Management. Ruhle began her career at Credit Suisse, where she was the highest-producing credit derivatives salesperson in the US. 

Ruhle plays an active role in women’s leadership development, having founded the Corporate Investment Bank Women’s Network and co-chaired Women on Wall Street. Ruhle is a member of the board of trustees for Girls Inc. NYC and in 2016 was honored as one of their Women of the Year. She is also on the Leadership Council at Robin Hood, NYC’s largest poverty-fighting organization. 

Ruhle received a bachelor’s degree in International Business from Lehigh University, living abroad in Guatemala, Kenya and Italy.

Fidji Simo joined Instacart as CEO in August 2021 and has been a member of its Board of Directors since January 2021. Simo has spent 15+ years leading strategy and product development for some of the world’s leading businesses and consumer products. 

Prior to joining Instacart, Simo was Vice President and Head of the Facebook App. Over the last decade at Facebook, she oversaw the Facebook App, including News Feed, Stories, Groups, Video, Marketplace, Gaming, News, Dating, Ads and more.

Simo serves as Co-founder and Board Member of Metrodora, a multidisciplinary medical clinic and research foundation with a focus on advancing health equity for all women. She also currently serves on the Board of Directors for Shopify.

Simo holds a Master of Management from HEC Paris. She grew up in the South of France and now lives in California with her husband and daughter.

Steve Szaronos is the Co-CEO of Bespoke Post. Together with friend and business school classmate Rishi Prabhu, Steve launched Bespoke Post in 2011. In the seven years since, the duo has built Bespoke Post to be a leading lifestyle subscription and e-commerce service, delivering goods and guidance to over half a million customers across the U.S. and Canada.

Prior to business school, Steve spent time in supply chain & logistics at Callaway Golf and Deloitte.

He received his Bachelor of Science degree in economics from Miami University and his MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. He is based out of Bespoke Post’s New York City office.

For over two decades, Liz Taylor has been recognized as one of the industry’s most progressive creative leaders. She currently serves as global chief creative officer of Ogilvy. Before that, she was global chief creative officer for Leo Burnett and chief creative officer for Publicis Communications North America.

Her work has been featured in the Museum of Modern Art and multiple Super Bowls, seen across the pages of Harper’s Bazaar, Fast Company and Rolling Stone, and even topped the Billboard charts. Her career credits include iconic and brand-defining work for Budweiser, Clorox, Gatorade, Wrigley, Michelob Ultra, Morton Salt, Beam Suntory, GE, Kimberly-Clark and Boeing.

A graduate of the University of Wisconsin and Portfolio Center, Liz is based in her native Chicago, where she lives with her husband, a Goldendoodle and her two kids when they are home from college.

Baratunde Thurston is an Emmy-nominated, multi platform storyteller and producer operating at the intersection of race, tech, democracy, and climate. He is the host of the PBS television series America Outdoors with Baratunde Thurston, creator and host of How To Citizen with Baratunde, which Apple named one of its favorite podcasts of 2020, and a founding partner of the new media startup Puck.

His comedic memoir, How To Be Black, is a New York Times best-seller. In 2019, he delivered what MSNBC’s Brian Williams called “one of the greatest TED talks of all time.” Baratunde is unique in his ability to integrate and synthesize themes of race, culture, politics, and technology to explain where our nation is and where we can take it. Baratunde serves on the boards of BUILD.org and the Brooklyn Public Library and lives in Los Angeles, California.

Kevin Warren is Executive Vice President (EVP) and Chief Marketing Officer at UPS. In this role he’s responsible for U.S. and International Marketing, The UPS Store, Digital Channels, Revenue Enablement, Business Planning, Forecasting and Pricing, Digital Marketing, Customer Experience, Brand Relevancy and the company’s Ware2Go subsidiary. His highly developed perspective on data-centric business and non-traditional engagement channels is driving change at UPS and setting new standards in digitally enabled customer experience. As the e-commerce business era takes shape, Kevin is shaping those critical aspects of UPS strategy that will deliver the business of the future.


Most recently, Kevin served as Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer for Xerox Corporation, where he was responsible for marketing, worldwide channel strategy, salesforce effectiveness and global client engagement for the company’s diverse portfolio of hardware, software and services.

Previously, Kevin served as president of Global Growth Opportunities, responsible for accelerating revenue growth outside the United States. In addition, he had strategic oversight for two Xerox operating units, Global Imaging Systems and Xerox Canada, as well as leading the company’s 3-D printing strategy.


He also led the integration activity surrounding Xerox’s $1.5-billion purchase of Global Imaging Systems. In 2007, he was named chairman, president and chief executive officer of Xerox Canada and in 2010, was named president of U.S. Client Operations. Kevin joined Xerox in 1984 as a sales trainee in Washington, D.C.

Kevin is a board member for Fiserv, Georgetown University and The UPS Foundation. He is also a current member of the Executive Leadership Council and a founding member of the Black Executive CMO Alliance (BECA). Previously, Kevin served on the board of Illinois Tool Works and the national board of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.

A native of Washington, D.C., Kevin received his Bachelor of Science in finance from Georgetown University and is an alumnus of the Harvard Business School, having completed the Advanced Management Program.