Maria Menounos is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, TV personality, actress, motivational speaker, New York Times best-selling author, former pro wrestler and digital entrepreneur whose many accolades include conducting the only sit down interview with the Obama family, being the youngest host of Entertainment Tonight and wrestling at Wrestlemania. As host of the Noovie cinema pre-show, Maria is the most watched female in movie theaters along with being a frequent guest host of Live with Kelly and Ryan. She is founder of the AfterBuzz TV Streaming Network, first to produce the now popular TV after-show as well as one of the first digital networks. As an actress, along with being one of the leads in Mike Myer’s recent Netflix hit series, Menounos starred in her second Lifetime Christmas movie this last holiday season. She is also host of the critically acclaimed daily Life Improvement series, ‘Heal Squad x Maria Menounos’. Surviving brain tumor surgery, Menounos’ main passion today is seeing others heal and get better in all areas of life.

With more than 20 years of experience in the industry, Emilio Aliaga is currently the Vice President of Azteca Digital, a position he has held since January 2018.

Throughout his long and successful career, Aliaga has been part of the digital teams of companies such as Televisa Interactive Media in Mexico, where he led various projects for over ten years, as well as Univision, where he directed content development and the operation of social and digital networks. Before joining the Ajusco television station, Aliaga was a partner at the consultancy firm SWS, whose objective is to help media companies optimize their results and capitalize on digital opportunities. He also served as a business producer & writer at CNN en Español from 1997 to 1999. He has a degree in Computer Science and Business from the Anáhuac University of Mexico. 

As Co-Head of Content and Programming for IMDb TV, Amazon’s free, ad-supported streaming service, Lauren Anderson oversees all programming for IMDb TV, including development, production, licensing, research, and strategy. Prior to joining IMDb TV, Anderson served as Head, Strategic Content for Amazon Studios, she spearheaded such series as The Savage x Fenty Show for Prime Video. Prior to joining Amazon, Anderson was the Chief Content Officer (CCO) for Indigo Development and Entertainment Arts, the joint venture studio between NBCUniversal and Snapchat. As CCO, she was responsible for all aspects of the business and creative development for the studio. During her tenure, Indigo produced a variety of Snap Originals for the Discover platform, including the Webby-nominated and longest-running scripted hit The Dead Girls Detective Agency.

Previously, Anderson was Senior Vice President of Primetime Programming at NBC Entertainment. It was this work that saw her named by Variety as one of Hollywood’s New Leaders. During her time at NBC, she worked at both the studio and network, developing and/or shepherding series including The Good Place, AP Bio, Parks and Recreation, The Office, The Carmichael Show, and the musical drama Smash. Her work at NBC also included oversight of several non-traditional offerings, including a multi-season live scripted series. Anderson began her career at NBCUniversal as an Entertainment Associate. Prior to joining NBC, Anderson served as an executive at the National Basketball Association in New York City. She began working at the NBA as a summer intern while earning her BA from Columbia University in New York City. Although based in Los Angeles, she still calls Ohio home.

As Senior Director of Distribution Partner Management at Vevo, Bethany Atchison leads a team that both fosters the network’s new distribution partnerships and elevates existing relationships worldwide. Through these partnerships, Atchison and her team enable Vevo to expand its global viewership across a variety of CTV platforms and viewing formats, from on-demand to linear. She also ensures Vevo programming is optimized for each partner and promoted through their various marketing initiatives. Prior to Vevo, Atchison has worked at Showtime, OMD, and MediaCom.

Dan Aversano is Senior Vice President of Data, Analytics and Advanced Advertising at TelevisaUnivision,  the world’s leading Spanish-language media and content company. In this role, Aversano is responsible for accelerating the company’s ability to leverage data and insights to develop advanced, cross-platform advertising capabilities for clients.

Since joining TelevisaUnivision in 2021, Aversano has driven critical initiatives to enhance the company’s suite of advanced advertising solutions, including launching new audience targeting solutions and driving cross-platform partnerships that enable marketers to optimize their reach and impact among the fast-growing U.S. Hispanic audience. A fierce advocate for representation, Aversano was integral to the launch of TelevisaUnivision’s proprietary U.S. Hispanic household data graph, a critical advancement in solving for the data inequities that have been holding the industry back from accurate and representative measurement of diverse audiences.

Prior to joining TelevisaUnivision, Aversano spent nine years at WarnerMedia where he held various roles across the company’s sales and research teams, most recently as Senior Vice President of Ad Innovation and Programmatic Solutions for the Ignite Division. While at WarnerMedia, Aversano led its audience targeting solutions and advanced advertising sales team and was essential in the formation of OpenAP in 2019.

Aversano was honored as one of Broadcasting & Cable’s Next Wave of Leaders in 2017, as well as “18 Under 34” in 2015. He also helped lead the team honored by TV of Tomorrow in 2016 for “Achievement for Advanced Advertising,” and by the ANA in 2016 for outstanding achievement in the category of Analytics Science. He was also recently named to Adweek’s first Mediaweek Council, an assembly of the industry’s foremost media and marketing executives whose mission is to amplify best practices and forward-thinking methods for the media-buying space. Aversano currently sits on the boards of the NYC/Long Island chapter of the JDRF and the Center for Marketing & Consumer Insights (CMCI) at Villanova University.

Based in New York, Aversano holds a Bachelor of Science degree in finance and marketing from Villanova University.

J Balvin is a highly decorated global superstar and entrepreneur with wins across Billboard Music Awards, American Music Awards, Latin GRAMMYs and many others. Originally hailing from Medellín, Colombia, the illustrious reggaeton superstar is one of the best-selling Latin music artists with sales of more than 35 million records worldwide. He has steadfastly broken cultural barriers and become one of the Top 10 most globally streamed artists, developing legions of fans worldwide. With passions spanning across music, fashion, art and mental health, Balvin continues to lead the charge for representation across industries. Furthering his initiative for mental health awareness and the importance of mental health resources, the global icon recently launched OYE, a bilingual, mental health and creative wellness app in both Spanish and English. With his finger on the pulse of the worlds of entertainment, fashion, digital culture and beyond, Balvin has time and again proven to be an unstoppable force and inspiration to emerging artists, entrepreneurs and the Latinx community

Krishan Bhatia serves as President & Chief Business Officer for NBCUniversal’s Advertising and Partnerships division, reporting to Linda Yaccarino, Chairman, Global Advertising & Partnerships. Bhatia oversees Advertising Sales for all Streaming & Data Products as well as the division’s One Platform Strategy, Partnerships, Data, Product, Technology, Measurement, and Operations functions — spanning a portfolio of TV, CTV and digital assets that reaches 1B viewers globally, including the company’s ad-supported streaming platform Peacock.

In 2021, Bhatia launched the company’s Enterprise Data unit to develop NBCUnified, the first-party data platform that serves NBCUniversal’s portfolio of industry-leading consumer businesses — including the company’s TV & streaming properties, the NBC News Group, Universal Filmed Entertainment and Universal Parks & Resorts.

Bhatia also manages the corporate partnerships with Comcast Advertising, Freewheel and Sky Media, as well NBCU’s advertising partnerships with Amazon, Apple, Google/YouTube, Roku, Snap, The Trade Desk, TikTok, Twitter and others.

Bhatia took on his role at NBCUniversal after Comcast acquired the company in 2011 and led the integration of the two companies’ advertising businesses. He joined Comcast in 2005 as a founding executive team member of Comcast Interactive Media, where he played an instrumental role in creating and growing the digital media business for Comcast through acquisitions and partnerships.

Prior to Comcast, Bhatia was a Principal with Booz Allen Hamilton’s Global Media & Entertainment Practice in New York, advising many of the world’s leading media and technology companies.

Bhatia serves on the Executive Committee of the IAB, as a board member of OpenAP and a board observer for the company’s investments in Anzu and TVScientific.

Peter E. Blacker is currently Executive Vice President, Streaming and Data Products at NBCUniversal’s Global Advertising & Partnerships division. Blacker is responsible for leading the company’s efforts to grow revenue and relationships across NBCUniversal’s best-in-class products including Peacock, Streaming, Programmatic, DDL and Partnerships, working in close coordination with the entire sales team. In addition, Blacker also leads NBCUniversal’s DEI initiatives across the ad sales division driving a single, streamlined DEI team that supports all internal employee programs and external DEI-related partnerships. Blacker dually reports to NBCUniversal’s Global Advertising and Partnerships Chairman, Linda Yaccarino and President & Chief Business Officer, Krishan Bhatia.

Before joining NBCU Advertising & Partnerships, Blacker served as Chief Commercial Officer and Head of DTC Licensing for NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises. Blacker led the Revenue Strategy and Distribution division, focusing on the commercialization, monetization and distribution of Telemundo content for SVOD and AVOD platforms in the US and Globally.

Blacker began his tenure at NBCUniversal launching one of the company’s first forays in Digital Media developing Telemundo’s Digital, Social and Mobile business units, which he managed for over a decade and growing them into an award-winning powerhouse. His pioneering work in English and Spanish spanned multiple genres including developing interactive primetime programming with Telemundo Studios, multiple US Election’s coverage on digital platforms, record breaking digital and social experiences for the 2018 FIFA World Cup as well as launching NBCU’s first bilingual multiplatform global entertainment news program LATINX Now!

Additionally Blacker developed Telemundo’s bilingual movie studio, FLUENCY, whose award-wining productions led him to be tapped to be an Executive Producer for Telemundo Global Studios where he worked closely with the content development teams, connecting storytelling and technology to maximize the audience and revenue potential of Telemundo intellectual property. Blacker also led Telemundo’s first distribution and partnership agreements with Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon for the US and Global markets.

Prior to joining NBCUniversal, Blacker served as Vice President, Multicultural & International for AOL Media Networks. There he created AOL’s first marketing, sales and research strategies for the U.S. multicultural market and assisted the development of AOL Latino, AOL BlackVoices, AOL Japan, AOL Germany and AOL Latin America.

In 2021, Blacker was one of 30 senior revenue, advertising and tech executives to be included in Variety’s Valleywood Impact Report and has won multiple awards for his pioneering work over the past 20 years. A strong believer in the importance of education and community service, Blacker is on the National Board of the Posse Foundation and has been the Chairman of Posse Miami for over a decade. He is a graduate of Cornell University and speaks both Spanish and Portuguese.

Alvin Bowles, Vice President of Global Partnerships & Engineering, manages Meta’s strategic business partners that leverage our technology platform and tools to maximize success metrics across Meta’s family of apps (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger). As a part of the Meta Global Leadership team, he is responsible for the worldwide network of global partners and developers leveraging scalable solutions for advertisers. Prior to this role he ran Meta’s Advertising Technology team where he was responsible for the worldwide network of quality inventory from global publishers and developers. Based in New York, he reports to the Chief Business Officer and manages half of the revenue generated for Meta annually while delivering strategic value for Meta’s core consumer products.

Prior to Meta, Bowles was Global GM for Video at Grab Media/Rhythm One, and was accountable for all aspects of the division’s operations as well as spearheading strategic development and managing the firm’s growth. In August 2013, as CEO, Bowles led Grab Media through an acquisition to Rhythm One, a publicly traded leading technology firm, headquartered in London.

Bowles joined Grab from Viacom, where as senior vice president – brand solutions BET Networks, he led integrated sales and strategy efforts, including product integration, branded entertainment, original digital content, event execution and experiential marketing. He created a number of television and online properties on behalf of advertisers, which received a number of industry awards.

Before joining Viacom, Bowles worked at AOL as vice president and publisher of AOL Black Voices as a key member of the strategy sales team 2006-2007. In this role he oversaw sales and sales development for AOL multicultural division as the brand experienced tremendous growth during this period.

From 2004-2006, Bowles worked at Time Warner as the vice president of the global asset media group developing cross-functional sales and marketing platforms for various divisions across Time Warner’s portfolio. Prior to Time Warner, he served as Sony Music’s director of business development and created strategic traditional and digital partnerships with brands on behalf of the label group. He began his career at JP Morgan where he spent three years as a corporate financial analyst, eventually transitioning into media.

Bowles earned his MBA from Harvard University Graduate School of Business and he received his undergraduate degree in business administration from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Ryman Hospitality Properties, a publicly traded REIT, headquartered in Nashville, TN. He also serves as an advisory council member for a number of civic-minded ventures and is an active alumnus for both Michigan and Harvard. Alvin Bowles resides in New Rochelle, NY with his wife, Terri Prettyman Bowles and two daughters.

Bianca Bradford is the director and head of agency for North America at Meta, where she partners with agencies to help them thrive in the digital landscape, drive transformational growth, and deliver strong business outcomes. Previously, Ms. Bradford was an EVP at Leo Burnett, primarily working with quick-service restaurants and retail accounts. She also spent almost a decade at marketing communications company Burrell Communications and worked at Carol H. Williams Advertising and DDB Chicago.

As EVP, Global Head of Brand Assurance, Deva leads dentsu’s US and Global Media Brand Assurance offerings, bringing together Brand Responsibility, Brand Safety, and Brand Suitability to address evolving media threats and enable clients to make the best, most responsible media decisions. In this role, Deva partners closely with others across the organization, including on the Investment and Economic Empowerment teams, to constantly monitor and understand best practices in deliverability, suitability, viewability, responsibility, and sustainability. Deva is also leading the creation of a global Brand Assurance steering committee. Prior to taking on the Brand Assurance leadership role this year, Deva served as the EVP, Head of Digital Investment, leading marketplace strategy and positioning across digital & publishing for dentsu’s US media agencies.

A true digital native with nearly 20 years of experience in the media industry, Deva spent several years within GroupM and Publicis agencies, with client experience spanning the Technology, Pharmaceutical, CPG, Retail, Financial Services and B2B verticals. Deva also spent three years on the client side within the KFC Corporation and was responsible for the development and launch of the brand’s digital marketing discipline.

As President of Peacock and Direct-to-Consumer, Kelly Campbell is responsible for growing and elevating NBCUniversal’s streaming business and spearheading go-forward strategy for the platform. In her leadership role, Campbell oversees teams across programming, marketing, product, technology, partnerships, and data sciences that together support NBCU’s direct-to-consumer portfolio. Prior to joining Peacock in October 2021, Campbell was President of Hulu, where she led the SVOD and live-TV streaming businesses, following a role as Hulu’s Chief Marketing Officer, where she guided overall marketing and drove Hulu’s strategic brand vision and voice. Prior to joining Hulu, Campbell spent more than a decade at Google in marketing leadership roles across the Google Ads and Google Cloud businesses. Campbell is a graduate of Harvard Business School and Vanderbilt University. A respected leader and innovator, Campbell has been recognized as one of Business Insider’s Most Innovative CMOs, the Adweek 50, AdAge’s Women to Watch, FierceCable’s The Fierce 50: Executives Reshaping the Business of Pay TV, and Forbes’ Most Influential Global CMOs.

Alan Chikin Chow is a creator, actor and writer with the mission to unite audiences of all backgrounds and identities through laughter. Best known for his comedy skits, Alan has amassed 20 MILLION subscribers and 16 BILLION views on YouTube through both Shorts and long form YouTube videos.

Alan grew up in Dallas, Texas and moved to Los Angeles to attend USC, studying Business Administration and Screenwriting. Alan began his career as a film/TV actor, guest starring in Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, and YouTube Red productions. While at USC, Alan began creating videos to share with his mom and dad, and his digital presence quickly grew from there.

Throughout the last year, Alan has placed in the Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels in the US every single week, peaking at #1 Most Viewed Channel in the Country the week of 10/30/2022, defeating both Cocomelon and Mr. Beast! Alan is gaining an impressive 1 million+ subscribers a month as he continues his ascent through both his short AND long form content. He’s a true multi-format success story, using his YouTube earnings to start a company, hire full time employees, and keep his content flowing without a hitch.

Alan has partnered with brands such as HBO Max, McDonald’s, and Old Spice. Originally hailing from the film & TV space, Alan has starred in projects such as ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, ABC’s Home Economics, and Hulu’s Into the Dark. Next year, Alan is set to executive produce and star in a feature film with digital studio Creator Plus, is creating a scripted musical podcast with production company Wheelhouse DNA, and will be appearing in the upcoming Mean Girls Musical film.

Alan’s vision is to create a multi-faceted media company, with successful arms in both digital and traditional media. And yes, his middle name is actually Chikin.

As Senior Vice President of U.S. Sales and Global Distribution at Vevo, Rob Christensen leads the network’s U.S. ad sales organization, including local and multicultural teams, and the growth of global distribution through various partnerships. While at Vevo, Christensen has played a critical role in growing Vevo’s TV business and embedding it into the network’s unique offering for advertisers to buy cross-platform at every level. His background is in television and premium video sales, with various sales management and partnership roles previously held at Turner Broadcasting, Hulu, and Fullscreen.

Agnes Chu joins Condé Nast from the Walt Disney Company. She joined Disney in 2008, and most recently served as SVP of content for Disney+. In this role, Chu commissioned an original slate of programming, featuring series, feature films and short form content for the service, receiving 19 Emmy nominations in its first year. She also led the Originals teams for scripted, unscripted and animation, working closely with Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and NatGeo. Chu has been featured on The Hollywood Reporter’s 100 Most Powerful Women in Entertainment. Prior to joining Disney, she worked in documentary production, including the Oscar-nominated “Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room”.

Audrey Cochran is the Vice President of Research for TV One Networks, the largest African-American owned and operated multi-media company. She is a skilled media scholar whose experience spans over 25 years researching and promoting the value of the African American consumer market for cable networks, including: Black Entertainment Television (BET), The Gospel Music Channel (GMC), UPTV and ASPiRE TV. For most of her illustrious career, Audrey has been responsible for conducting research on the television landscape, particularly programming targeting diverse viewers.

Audrey considers herself a “SUPER” fan of television programming across a litany of genres. Her passion for television and in-depth knowledge of the landscape has made her a content expert in this field. The organizations she has supported have depended on her strategic guidance in the decision-making process for procuring new talent and programs. Audrey began her research career at Nielsen Media Research where, in 2007, she helped launch Nielsen’s first Employee Resource Group, Sustaining Active Black Leadership & Empowerment (SABLE). 15 years later, SABLE continues to partner with broadcasters and advertisers to highlight and address the lack of diversity within the media landscape.

David Cohen joined IAB in April 2020 as President and was named Chief Executive Officer in September 2020. Cohen is a widely respected advertising agency leader who, prior to IAB, served as President, North America for MAGNA, Interpublic Group’s (IPG) centralized media intelligence, investment, and innovation arm. In this role, Cohen was responsible for more than $20 billion in media spend. During his tenure, Cohen structured and executed large global transactions on behalf of IPG and its clients, with such major IAB member companies as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Spotify, Twitter, and Verizon Media.

Prior to MAGNA, Cohen served as Chief Investment Officer of UM, ensuring that digital innovation, data, and technology acumen flowed throughout the agency to drive performance. From 2001 to 2011, Cohen served in critical, transformational roles at UM during the explosive growth of digital advertising, including Chief Media Officer, Chief Digital Officer, and Executive Vice President, U.S. Director of Digital Communications. In the late 1990’s, Cohen was responsible for launching and building IPG’s digital practice.

Cohen has a long history of working with trade organizations including IAB and 4As, where he served as chairman of the Interactive Marketing Committee from 2009-2013. He has also been instrumental in initiating several vital industry-wide programs, including the Future of Television, facilitated by EY. Cohen is a Queens native, with a bachelor’s degree in communications from Adelphi University. He was recognized by Adweek as a “Media All Star” and was part of the “Adweek 50” in 2012.

In 2016, David was elected to the Board of Directors of Partnership with Children a non-profit whose mission is to strengthen the emotional, social, and cognitive skills of vulnerable children in New York City to help them succeed in school, society, and life.

David enjoys spending time with his wife and two teenage daughters. A self-described gadget-geek and sometimes fitness fanatic – he ran the NYC Marathon in 2014 and 2019 and Boston Marathon in 2016.

Harry Connick, Jr.’s career has exemplified excellence across multiple platforms in the entertainment world over the past three decades. He has received Grammy® and Emmy® awards, as well as Tony® nominations, for his live and recorded musical performances, his achievements in film and television, and his appearances on Broadway as both an actor and a composer. Connick continues to establish himself as a best-selling musician, singer, composer, and a legendary live performer with millions of recordings sold around the world.

The foundation of Connick’s art is the music of his native New Orleans, where he began performing as a pianist and vocalist at the age of five. Highlights of his music career include several multi-platinum recordings such as When Harry Met Sally, Blue Light, Red Light, When My Heart Finds Christmas, Come By Me, and Only You. True Love: A Celebration of Cole Porter, was released in 2019 and coincided with performances on Broadway in a show he wrote and directed: Harry Connick, Jr.- A Celebration of Cole Porter honoring the musical achievements of one of America’s most respected songwriters, Cole Porter. In 2020 as the country entered the pandemic lockdown, Connick retreated to his home studio and emerged with an album of songs of faith and inspiration. Alone With My Faith, released during the spring of 2021, displays the sheer breadth of Connick’s talents as he wrote new songs, arranged all songs, played every instrument, and sang every voice. Alone With My Faith earned Connick his 16th career Grammy® nomination for Best Roots Gospel Album.

Connick has appeared in 20 feature films with actors such as Sandra Bullock, Hilary Swank, Renée Zellweger, Sigourney Weaver, and Morgan Freeman. His work on television includes starring roles on Will and Grace, South Pacific, and American Idol. In June of 2020, he hosted the CBS special, United We Sing: A GRAMMY® Tribute To The Unsung Heroes, honoring essential workers in the pandemic. In 2016, he launched Harry, a national daytime television show, which earned 11 Daytime Emmy® nominations, including nominations for best host and a Critics’ Choice nomination for best talk show. In December of 2021, he stepped into the shoes of Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks in Annie Live! which aired on NBC. On Broadway, Connick received Tony® nominations as both a lead actor in The Pajama Game and as a composer/lyricist for Thou Shalt Not.

Despite his busy career, Connick has always found the time to be charitable and has done some of his most important work in his efforts to help New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. He, along with friend Branford Marsalis, conceived of “Musicians’ Village,” and its centerpiece the Ellis Marsalis Center. Musicians’ Village provides homes for Katrina-displaced musicians while the Center uses music as its focal point of a holistic strategy to deliver a broad range of services to underserved children, youth, and musicians from neighborhoods battling poverty and social injustice.

Connick’s honors, including a star on the celebrated Hollywood Walk of Fame, induction into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame, Honorary Doctorates from Tulane and Loyola Universities, and the Jefferson Award for Public Service, have not led Harry Connick, Jr. to slow his creative pace; they only confirm his determination to apply his talents in ways that prove inspirational to other artists and publicly spirited citizens.

From a very young age, Alia J. Daniels recognized the power of representation within the media. Quickly identifying how few women looked like her across entertainment, business and politics, Alia became determined to make an impact. She equipped herself with bachelor’s degrees in Music and Communications Studies with a Mass Media emphasis from Albion College, and a Juris Doctorate from Loyola Law School and sought to change the face of media. As a business and entertainment attorney, Alia has not only represented clients in the digital entertainment and tech space but is also a strategist and featured speaker on the ever-changing streaming entertainment arena. Since 2015, Alia has been consistently named to the prestigious Southern California Rising Stars list by Super Lawyers for eight years in a row. In 2021, Alia was named to the inaugural Forbes Next 1000 list, honoring the next generation of upstart entrepreneurs. Today, Alia has found her niche at the intersection of entrepreneurship, entertainment and social impact as co-founder and Chief Operating Officer for Revry, a global queer streaming TV network. As an advocate for inclusion for all underrepresented communities, the cornerstone of Alia’s personal mission is to create avenues for authentic representation in media and business. Revry is NGLCC Certified and an ANA Diversity supplier.

Morgan DeBaun is a serial entrepreneur and corporate advisor. As the Founder & CEO of Blavity Inc., the leading digital media company for Black culture and millennials, Morgan has grown the company into a market leader for Black media, reaching over 100 million readers per month through a growing brand portfolio which includes: Blavity News, 21Ninety, AfroTech, Travel Noire, and Shadow & Act. Under DeBaun’s leadership, Blavity has launched several leading consumer summits, including Summit 21 for Black women creators, and AfroTech, the largest tech conference for Black innovators and founders.

DeBaun acts as an advisor to influential global brands and companies including American Airlines, CES, Pantora Bridal and Rosen Skincare. She is also an angel investor in Golde, a consumer brand present in over 200 stores, and Public, which has a $1B+ valuation.

Marie Donoghue is Vice President of Global Sports Video at Amazon, overseeing Amazon’s global sports content business. In her role, Marie leads Amazon’s worldwide sports strategy, identifying and evaluating new opportunities, and enabling customers to access live and on-demand sports content, on hundreds of devices, in over 240 countries and territories.

Over the course of her career, Donoghue has received numerous recognitions, including “Most Powerful Women in Sports” (AdWeek), “Most Influential People in Sports” (Sports Business Journal), “Power 100 Women in Entertainment” (The Hollywood Reporter), “New York Impact List” (Variety), “The Most Powerful Women in Cable”(CableFax: The Magazine), “Women to Watch” (Advertising Age and Advertising Women of New York) and “Game Changers” (Sports Business Journal).

Prior to joining Amazon, Donoghue was at ESPN for more than 18 years, where she most recently served as Executive Vice President, Global Business and Content Strategy, leading the ongoing development and implementation of ESPN’s enterprise-wide business and content strategy. She also headed ESPN’s Business Affairs, Business Development and Partnership groups (including gaming partnerships).

Donoghue earned a J.D. degree from Columbia University and a B.A. from Columbia College.

Pamela Drucker Mann oversees all ad sales and ad product strategies globally, and works with commercial leads across the company’s 31 markets to drive overall ad, agency and B2B revenue. She has played an integral part in leveraging brands and scale to develop new revenue streams and opportunities for advertisers. Drucker Mann has twice been named to Adweek’s list of the top 50 executives, and is an Advertising Age Media Maven, 2015 Advertising Age Publishing Executive of the Year, an Adweek First Mover and a 2016 Folio Top Women in Media in the Entrepreneur category.

Justin Evans is Global Head of Analytics & Insights for Samsung Ads. At Samsung Justin has built an award-winning team supporting rapid growth on 5 continents. His teams have launching multiple solutions for insights, targeting, and measurement, including “The Streaming Index,” “Rule of 40” and “Behind the Screens,” as well as countless custom deep-dives into proprietary TV data to help Fortune 100 advertisers tackle bespoke challenges. Justin is a frequent conference speaker and regularly contributes insights to industry publications.

Previously, Justin was Vice President of Data Strategy at Comcast Spotlight (now Effectv), where he supported a $2.5B local advertising business with responsibilities spanning analytics, data partnerships, product management and ad sales research. In addition, Justin has held positions at Collective, serving as EVP of Enterprise and Chief Strategy Officer, as well as SVP of Advertising Solutions at The Nielsen Company where he spearheaded the company’s “Reach, Resonance, Reaction” solutions.

Justin received a Master of Business Administration degree NYU Stern and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University.

Born and raised in North Queens, NY, Victoria got her start in interactive media after receiving her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Pace University in NYC. A self-taught web designer and developer, Vanguarde Media brought her on in 1998 as they re-launched the Honey, Heart & Soul and Savoy magazine brands. After great success working there, Emmis New York hired her in 2001 to transform the digital vision for HOT97.com and WBLS.com. She lovingly remembers those websites being a logo and a field for email input when she arrived and helping to morph them into the full-fledged, original content curation and audience affinity machines that they are today. She went on to direct the Digital Brand Solutions arm at BET in 2017. In this role, she spearheaded the network’s digital content ideation process and converted those ideas into revenue generating opportunities working alongside the BET Sales force.

Today, she proudly serves as the Senior Director of Social at iONE Digital – a subsidiary of Urban One, the largest black owned media company in the world. She oversees the social eco-system for the company’s seven national brands: Bossip, MadameNoire, HelloBeautiful, NewsOne, Cassius Life, HipHopWired and GlobalGrind. In this role, she peels away the mysteries around creating a healthy ecosystem between social, editorial and video and channels those wins into sponsorable opportunities for clients to partner with iOne Digital.

In her free time, she also provides independent creative services to small businesses and sole proprietors who need digital marketing, graphic assistance or social media strategy. Previously, she managed digital media marketing and strategies for groundbreaking brands including Black Promoters Collective, SJPresents, Inc., National Action Network, Coalition of 100 Black Women, National Association of University Women, The Links, Incorporated, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc., LaVar Hair Designs, Stroke of Hope Foundation, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and many more. She was honored as part of the 2014 class of The Network Journal’s 40 Under Forty for excellence in her industry.

Victoria served as the Marketing Director on the of the Advisory Board for the Wendy Williams Hunter Foundation, was a member of the Junior Advisory Board for Habitat for Humanity, chairman emeritus of the Digital Leadership Academy for the New York State Broadcaster’s Association, is a Certified Digital Marketing Consultant appointed by the Radio Advisory Board and a member of the National Association of Professional Women. She also speaks 5 human languages (to distinguish from the copious digital languages she knows for her career) and is working on a 6th.

Victoria is a first-generation American born of Haitian parents, wife to her husband Earl and mother to her 11-year old “dimpled-goddess”, Athena.

Tom Fochetta is a highly experienced business leader and media veteran with more than 20 years of digital advertising experience. He currently serves as Senior Vice President of Samsung Ads, a leading provider of Advanced TV advertising solutions. Tom has a proven track record for spearheading high-impact sales teams at world-class media, commerce and hardware companies, including Google and Amazon. As the founding executive of Samsung Ads (2015), Tom was tasked with establishing its global ad sales platform. Among his responsibilities, he leads the Americas’ ad sales, client solutions, and operations, and global marketing team, and oversees the Company’s advertising platform across Samsung’s Smart TV and digital ecosystem. Tom reports up into Samsung’s Corporate Offices in South Korea and frequently travels to Seoul to inform Executive Leadership of Market Conditions and to seek further investment.

Armed with a deep understanding of viewership preferences and Smart TV usage, Samsung Ads is a leader in Advanced TV, bringing innovation to advertising and empowering more efficient and effective media strategies. Under Tom’s leadership, Samsung Ads has achieved significant year-over-year growth over the past five years. Through acquisitions, technology enhancements and the development of an end- to-end tech stack, Tom has opened up a new world of opportunities for the sales team and their clients. In fact, Tom championed the acquisition of AdGear and was part of the Deal Team from Samsung’s M&A arm to acquire the foundation of a fully owned and operated tech stack. Today, Samsung Ads works with Fortune 500 advertisers selling and servicing ads natively, across over-the-top (OTT)/Connected TV, display and mobile, leveraging its unique audience platform. Tom is an outspoken advocate for the Advanced TV industry.

He has taken an active role with the interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), sitting on its Board of Directors, leading as Co-Chair for the CRO Council, and participating in its Advanced TV Committee, along with many other industry associations. Tom frequently participates in industry conferences to help educate the industry on Connected TV and evangelize Samsung Ads’ platform. Tom holds an MBA and a Bachelor of Science in Marketing and Management from St. John’s University. He lives on Long Island with his wife and two sons.”

Gisella Fu-Ripp, born and raised in NYC is a seasoned veteran in the US Hispanic media marketplace. For over 2 decades, she’s successfully held various leadership sales roles at the top Spanish language networks.

Her media career started at Univision in a business development role where she worked on political campaign initiatives to help drive young Latino voters to the polls. This experience quickly converted her and made her a passionate advocate for the Latino media marketplace. Gisella’s career accelerated soon after achieving success at various sales roles at HBC Radio, Telemundo, Azteca TV and national sales roles at Discovery en Español and GolTV. Her outstanding record of driving sales and fostering partnerships landed her a Director of Sales role at LATV (Latino Alternative TV Network), almost 11 years ago. Gisella’s current role as Senior Vice President of Sales is the first Latina woman in a leadership role at LATV. Gisella’s distinctive career includes numerous achievements that include spearheading LATV’s revenue growth through annual Upfronts, creating strategic partnerships and redesigning a new sales organization. Gisella has co-led the efforts with the heads of Digital, Operations and Content to strategize and execute a multichannel offer that includes premium video network on LATV.com, LATV+ streaming OTT/CTV.

Gisella’s media experience has helped her develop and incorporate hundreds of marketing strategies and successful media campaigns. Her enthusiasm, authentic style and passion for the Latino market comes naturally from being multiculturally identified half Ecuadorian, half Chinese descent. When she’s not negotiating or closing deals, she is traveling the world and spending time with her family and friends.

Federico Gagliardone is a partner and Chief Operating Officer of COCINA, a minority-owned platform and content studio engaging more than 75M devices on a monthly basis, co-founded by Fox’s MasterChef co-star, Aarón Sánchez.

Previously, Federico was the former Vice President of Digital Media and Operations for Entravision Communications Corporation, a publicly-traded media company with offices in 14 countries. As the Head of Digital Platforms and a member of the Mergers and Acquisitions initiative, Gagliardone helped transform Entravision’s digital business,over 7 years through organic growth and acquisitions. He built cross-functional teams of designers, developers, data science, yield & pricing managers, and marketers to develop the company’s owned platforms. During his tenure, Gagliardone oversaw the company’s technology investment and built an ecosystem that included partners such as Google, Salesforce, Nielsen, Brightcove, Ooyala, Outbrain, The Trade Desk, PubMatic, MediaMath, Moat, IAS, IAB, and DoubleVerify among others.

Prior to joining Entravision, Gagliardone was the director of Digital Content and Strategy for LA-Based LATV networks. He spearheaded the company’s expansion from linear to digital by developing a platform that delivered 17,000 hours of video content per month. Gagliardone successfully built LATV’s social marketing strategy which allowed the company to run cross-platform campaigns that drove viewership and ratings over the air.

Before LATV, Gagliardone was the founder of a Digital Marketing Agency that provided digital media services for clients such as McDonald’s and Mexican furniture retail giant, Famsa. Throughout the agency’s existence, he built modular teams of developers and designers to create engaging digital experiences, creative video, and eCommerce platforms with a lower-funnel focus.

Gagliardone holds a BA in Graphic Design and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and children.

Ivan Garcia-Hidalgo is a visionary innovator, multifaceted business executive, and respected political commentator who gives an essential voice to Hispanic Conservatives in the United States and abroad. He is the founder and CEO of Americano Media, a first-of-its-kind Spanish-language media outlet, and President of the Hispanic Freedom Coalition; a nonprofit organization focused on the education and empowerment of Hispanics throughout the Western Hemisphere.

As Chief Operations Officer of Cable and Digital Networks at Hemisphere Media Group, Francisco Gimenez is a hands-on leader who lives by the motto “success is no accident,” and understand that relationship-building and having a pulse on market trends is crucial for the image, vision, and growth of a television network. His knack for establishing effective marketing and promotional strategies and his eye for stellar programming has allowed him to manage the creative ideation behind Hemisphere’s branding efforts and the rollout of high-quality content across the company’s five US and two Latin American cable networks. Gimenez believes that by tracking and monitoring, you can get a better handle on anything in business, and this strategy has helped him maximize distribution, consumption, and monetization efforts across all seven brands. This approach has also served as the blueprint for his career success in both the Hispanic and general market television industry. 

Sheryl Goldstein is the Executive Vice President, Chief Industry Growth Officer at the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau). In her role, she oversees engaging the IAB’s 650+ members across all of the IAB’s vast initiatives, activities and thought leadership programs. Under Sheryl’s watch are the Member Engagement, Centers of Excellence, Research and L&D teams. She also spearheads talent development, diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and runs the IAB CRO Council.

Sheryl Goldstein is a “net vet” with over 20 years of driving meaningful revenue growth through consultative selling in the dynamic digital landscape (Yahoo, AOL, About.com). She is adept at building successful teams, developing go-to-market strategies and gaining consensus across key stakeholders. Her background includes a wide variety of digital media platforms and technologies and numerous leadership roles.

In addition to her experience as a sales leader, Sheryl brings years of talent development and training to her role and is committed to making the digital media landscape a great industry for diverse talent to thrive and have a long and exciting career.

Sheryl is a current board member for 212NYC, Makers and was a past Board member of She Runs It. She serves on the Rutgers Business School Advisory Board for Marketing and is helping RBS craft a digital marketing graduate program. In addition, she has served on Boards and Committees for the NY Ad Club, Women in Communications, Inc. and the IAB and is a member of Chief. She is an award-winning sales leader (Yahoo Accelerator Award, AOL Best Media Partner presented by Verizon, AOL Presidents Club, AWNY Crystal Award Winner).

Sheryl is a graduate of Syracuse University Newhouse School and lives in New Jersey with her partner Cindy and dogs Pancho and Camden. On the weekends, you can catch her on the pickleball court or riding around the Jersey Shore on her new electric bike. Her daughter Sarah-Jaana lives in the Boston area with her husband Michael.

Sara Guaglione is the senior media reporter at Digiday. Based in New York City, she covers publishers and their businesses.

Mike Hadgis is a seasoned media executive with a track record of successfully leading revenue teams and driving growth for media companies. He currently serves as Chief Revenue Officer at Blavity Inc., overseeing all activities and strategies focused on generating and increasing media revenue. Under his leadership, Blavity’s Media Solutions business has been reshaped, creating a more aggressive growth strategy for the division and increasing its profit margins.

Before joining Blavity, Inc, Mike was the Chief Business Officer at ATTN:. He oversaw all revenue lines of business and strategy for ATTN: sales, marketing, agency sales and consulting, business development, experiential, revenue strategy, and pricing. He helped ATTN: become profitable, which helped the company successfully exit to Candle Media (owned by Blackstone) in June 2022. ATTN: was also named Mid-Size Agency of the Year in 2021 and won several awards, including the Tribeca Film Festival Tribeca X Award for Best Branded Content Series and awards from Shorty Impact, Digiday, Campaign, and more.

Before joining ATTN:, Mike was an early employee at Vox Media, where he helped build the company from the ground up and oversaw revenue teams for 7+ years. He was the company’s first SVP, Head of Revenue & Partnerships, where he led all revenue lines of business, including sales, Concerts Network, Chorus publishing, Vox Media Podcast Network, Programmatic, Experiential, and Client Success team. Under his leadership, he helped Vox Media grow into one of the largest and most diversified premium media companies with a successful business model. In 2018, the Wall Street Journal called Vox Media “one of the more aggressive digital publishers when it comes to producing and distributing content on behalf of paying marketers.” Mike helped secure Vox Media’s most significant partnerships with brands like Google, Capital One, StubHub, Ford, John Frieda, and more. Mike also represented Vox Media as a Board Member for the AdCouncil. Previously, he built and grew the company’s Chicago office and held the VP, National Sales position.

Before joining Vox Media, Mike worked at Meebo (acquired by Google) and News Corp’s MySpace, where he was part of the inaugural Chicago team for both companies. Mike built strategic partnerships with clients, including Unilever, Motorola, Sprint, Ford, and more, during his time at MySpace and Meebo. Mike also served as the President of the Chicago Interactive Marketing Association (CIMA) and was on their Board of Directors for ten years. Before his career in digital advertising, Mike worked for MatchPoint Marketing, an advertising agency in Cincinnati, OH, that focuses on CPG retail and event marketing.

With experience building revenue teams and securing partnerships with top brands, Mike Hadgis has demonstrated exceptional leadership skills in growing brand revenue and driving
business growth.

Mike received a B.S. in Business Administration from Miami University, focusing on Marketing. He currently lives in Chicago and likes to conquer the Eater 38 list, attend concerts, spend time with his pug Cooper, and volunteer in his spare time.

Janique Helson has been the Head of Brand Marketing, Content and Creative Services at Volvo Car USA since May 2020. Janique has an extensive career in advertising and marketing, and before joining Volvo Car USA worked agency side at – to name a few, 360i, Grey, Mad Dogs and Englishmen, as well as having owned her own agency. A hybrid marketing leader, Janique is creative, strategic and conceptual, and creates award-winning campaigns that build brands and reach new audiences. Janique prides herself on finding solutions for things that people say are “not possible” and developing campaigns on topics that are meaningful for a better future.

Jackie is Founder of New Majority Ready, a consulting and content company specializing in multicultural and GenZ marketing. Prior to launching her firm, she held various leadership positions in media and entertainment, including CMO NBCU Hispanic Enterprises & Content, COO Telemundo Enterprises, Publisher People en Español and Teen People as well as President Combate Global.

She currently sits on the board of directors of VS&Co and Estrella Media. 

Tanya Hoffler-Moore is a New York based television showrunner, executive producer, screenwriter, director, on-air talent, wife, and mother of three. After graduating from Howard University, Tanya landed a coveted spot as a crew member on Comedy Central’s cult classic “Chappelle’s Show”. Since then, Tanya has taken the television & digital content industry by storm.

As a member of the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) her television writing credits include “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne” and “Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns”. She has produced a variety of content for major cable, digital and social networks such as Vh1, BET, BET Digital, MTV, Snapchat and Tik Tok. Tanya has produced red carpet livestreams, reality content, video podcasts and live content for Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. As on-air talent she’s interviewed Hollywood heavyweights such as Denzel Washington, John Boyega, Brandy, Jovan Adepo, Laz Alonzo, Daveed Diggs and more…

Tanya currently serves as the Vice President of Video for iOne Digital an Urban One company. Her objective is to promote complex, infectious, groundbreaking, and entertaining narratives that truthfully reflect the Black experience in America.

Walt Horstman is the SVP and GM for Monetization at Xperi. Mr. Horstman leads Xperi’s Monetization team that works to increase advertising targeting and effectiveness with advanced data and unique inventory across all devices and platforms, mostly recently as Xperi has entered the CTV and streaming space via TiVo. He oversees the business’ strategic product roadmap and manages overall business group operations.

Mila Jam is a transgender singer, actress and LGBTQ activist. Mila has toured internationally with the Broadway musical RENT and has performed alongside James Brown, Mark Ronson, Laverne Cox and others.

Michelle James joined Meta in 2020 to establish the Culture & Community Marketing function at Instagram and expanded her scope in 2021 to include Facebook’s Social Marketing team to become the Family of Apps (FoA); leading the Culture & Community Marketing FoA (family of Apps) function in company marketing. In this role Michelle is a cultural curator, storyteller and champion for underrepresented communities and teens creating campaigns and moments that build favorability with these audiences and position Facebook and Instagram products in culture to make real connections and build relationships.

Throughout James’ career, she’s challenged boundaries to push culture forward and positively define underrepresented communities within popular culture. She’s held senior marketing roles in entertainment, print, TV and Tech that required her to navigate the evolving dynamics between brand and culture driving marketing and brand activations for some of your favorite festivals, television and award shows, albums and podcasts.

Michelle is a Kentucky native but has spent the past two decades living in the NYC metro area. She is led by passion and purpose in both her personal and professional work. She’s on the DEI board and Music Council at Instagram. She leads a Meta career circle and she is an executive sponsor of the employee marketing business resource group, REPRESENT. In addition to her work at Meta, James is a wellness advocate, award-winning podcreator and Google Podcast creator alum; launching a podcast in 2019 to spark conversation around wellness and friendship.

Michelle is on the advisory committee of the Google Podcasts creator program, advisory board for the American Influencer Awards (AIA) and a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

DJ Jazzy Jeff was born in West Philadelphia and developed a love of music at an early age. Jeff was just 10 years old when he started spinning records at parties using his family’s basement as a training ground for his expert mixing. Since 1985, DJ Jazzy Jeff has wowed us with his flawless turntable skills, innovative production and musical versatility.

From the success of “DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince” with partner Will Smith, to the critical acclaim of his production company A Touch of Jazz, Jeff proved time and time again that he would always be a force to be reckoned with.

And he continues to represent with his solo projects, collaborations, mixtapes and live shows. His love of music shines through in everything he does.

Until recently, DJ Jazzy Jeff had been busy traveling the globe. Jeff satisfies his passion for sharing good music with two annual European tours, regular tours of Canada, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East, and shows across the US throughout the year. With each set, he takes fans on a musical journey. And he chronicles all of his travels in the increasingly popular Vinyl Destination, a web series that documents DJ Jazzy Jeff’s experiences on and off stage.

Due to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, DJ Jazzy Jeff moved the party, literally, in-house with his signature livestreams: Magnificent Friday Nights (9PM ET), Magnificent House Party (Saturdays at 3pm ET) and Magnificent Lunch Break (Wednesdays at 12PM ET).

Though DJ Jazzy Jeff is busy playing good music for fans all over the world, he hasn’t stopped producing great music. His newest release, “Evil,” debuted at #1 on Traxsource and continued to chart for weeks after its release. He is currently works with Philadelphia MC, Dayne Jordan. The duo released “Memoirs of Dayne Jordan” in Spring 2015, In the meantime, the pair has released a number of singles and videos including Room Test, All About the Art, I Want it All, Einstein (prod. by DJ Ferno) and Play Dat. The same year, DJ Jazzy Jeff founded the PLAYLIST Retreat, an invitation-only event that brings artists together to inspire, motivate and fuel collaboration.

Over the course of his career, DJ Jazzy Jeff has achieved many accomplishments including a DMC Championship and multiple GRAMMY and American Music Awards wins. But he is a humble man who is still doing it as his 2002 hit said: “For Da Love of Da Game.”

Eric John leads the IAB Media Center, a dedicated unit within the IAB whose mission is to simplify the video and audio supply chain, providing best practices and education for brands, agencies, and media companies. Eric drives the center’s efforts in the development of market-making research, industry standards, best practices and buyer/seller terms and conditions. Before joining the IAB, Eric served as VP of Digital Services and Strategy at the Alliance for Audited Media and as Global Director of Publisher / Developer marketing at Nokia, managing the company’s world-wide mobile app developer ecosystem. Prior to Nokia, Eric launched and led advertiser brand engagement solutions for Yahoo!, creating advanced, data-driven video, mobile and interactive campaigns for brands such as Pepsi, L’Oréal, GM, Audio and Nikon. Eric began his career at internet advertising pioneer DoubleClick (Google) where he led product development and marketing within the DART for Publishers (DFP) and DART for Advertisers (DFA) business units where he launched the industry’s first post-click measurement tools. Eric is an alumnus of Miami of Ohio (BA) and Indiana University (MA) and is a graduate of Columbia University’s Product Management Program.

Michael E. Kassan is the founder and CEO of MediaLink, a leading strategic advisory firm. Described as the “ultimate power broker,” he is a trusted advisor on speed dial with every major executive in the media, marketing, entertainment and technology C-Suite. MediaLink is a part of UTA, which acquired the firm from Ascential plc in 2021. In 2019, Kassan was inducted into the American Advertising Federation’s Hall of Fame, which is considered the highest honor in advertising.

Lynette Kaylor is senior vice president, advertising sales of FuboTV, the sports-first live TV streaming platform that’s redefining the way cord cutters view and interact with live sports, news and entertainment.

With over 15 years of sales and business development experience, Kaylor leads FuboTV’s North American sales strategy and ad operations as well as manages the company’s growing sales team.

Most recently she was senior vice president, media and publisher solutions for Merkury, Merkle’s Enterprise Identity Solution. Joining Merkle in 2017, she led M1 partnerships and integrations with premium media owners, publishers and technology platforms across digital, programmatic, TV, OTT, OOH and other mediums. She also led the Merkury for Publishers’ sales efforts, helping publishers to grow and maintain their first party identity graph in preparation for the post-cookie world. Prior to joining Merkle, Kaylor was director, digital partnerships for V12 Group, where she sold and managed data-driven partnerships across the digital ecosystem and led enterprise platform sales. Kaylor has also held sales positions at MetLife, Inc., a Fortune 50 company, among others.

Kaylor holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Colorado Boulder and lives in Denver, CO.

As SVP of Product & Marketing, Samsung Electronics, Sang Kim is responsible for building next-generation TV products and services for the Samsung Smart TV platform, the largest globally with hundreds of millions of Smart TVs in 195 countries worldwide.

After joining Samsung in 2013, Sang was tasked with building out the global business development organization. Since assuming his new role in Product in 2018, Sang has been at the helm of all product initiatives for the Tizen TV Platform including Universal Guide, Samsung Health on TV, as well as Samsung TV Plus, which has become one of the top streaming apps on the Samsung Smart TV platform under Sang’s leadership.

With the increase in content choices across live TV and streaming, Sang’s focus has been on proprietary discovery tools and services such as Universal Guide, Search and Bixby to help consumers find and watch what they love across all sources and apps, including Samsung TV Plus, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, Netflix, Apple Music, HBO Max, YouTube and more.

Prior to Samsung, Sang held leadership roles at Google Inc., both in the US and APAC. He was responsible for business development and go-to-market strategies for early products, including mobile, YouTube and advertising platform syndication.

Sang holds a BS degree in Business Administration from UC Riverside.

Craig Kostelic is chief business officer, revenue at Condé Nast, heading up all advertising sales across the Condé Nast portfolio.

Kostelic most recently served as the chief business officer of The Lifestyle Collection, including The Food Innovation Group (Bon Appétit and Epicurious), Architectural Digest, Condé Nast Traveler and SELF, overseeing all revenue and brand development for the collection of brands.

Previously, Kostelic served as head of revenue and head of digital for The Food Innovation Group. Under his sales and digital leadership, The Food Innovation Group hit record highs in terms of revenue, profitability and digital audience growth. Prior to his role at the Food Innovation Group, Kostelic also served as digital advertising director at Condé Nast Traveler, where he was responsible for all digital revenue streams and oversaw the launch of CNTraveler.com.

Before joining Conde Nast, Kostelic worked at Google where he was responsible for developing and managing national strategic sales for Mobile Display within the automotive vertical. Prior to Google, Craig held numerous sales and marketing roles at Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson.

As Chief Advertising Sales Officer, Amy is responsible for leading DIRECTV’s advertising sales business enterprise wide. With over 25 years of experience across sales, operations, and technology, she is widely recognized as a problem solver who drives results and a winning culture through teamwork and collaboration.

Amy’s energy and passion, coupled with an ability to balance both strategy and operational excellence, makes her uniquely suited to serve in her role at DIRECTV. From delivering addressable, digital and data-enabled solutions across screens for a large portfolio of brands, to reaching specific audiences with relevant advertising, Amy carries the expertise needed to deliver a world-class experience both for consumers and brands.

Amy began her career in media buying and syndication before joining the Game Show Network, helping to launch a dedicated ad sales team during her tenure. After joining DIRECTV in 2011, she transformed performance-based media and digital practices in addition to launching and scaling DIRECTV’s addressable advertising TV offering in the market.

Amy has also held leadership roles at Xandr as Executive Vice President of Operations and Services, and WarnerMedia as Executive Vice President of Pricing, Planning, and Operations. These experiences have provided her with valuable expertise in both the technology and content sides of the business.

When she isn’t forging a path in the evolving world of advertising, Amy enjoys spending her time with her husband and two children in New York.

Since its founding in 2013, The Woks of Life has become the #1 online resource for approachable, creative, authentic Chinese recipes in English. Through their popular recipe site and diverse social media community, Bill, Judy, Sarah, and Kaitlin Leung share inspiring recipes and their family’s culinary genealogy with millions of home cooks. With the debut of their highly-acclaimed, New York Times bestselling cookbook The Woks of Life: Recipes to Know and Love from a Chinese American Family in 2022, the family has served up even more of their sought-after recipes and stories to hungry fans and new audiences. The Leungs have been featured in numerous press outlets, including Magnolia Network’s Family Dinner with Andrew Zimmern, Food Network’s Family Meal, as well as Bon Appetit, Good Morning America, NPR, The New York Times, and many more.

Alfred C. Liggins, III is the Chief Executive Officer of Urban One, Inc., formerly known as Radio One, and the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of TV One, LLC. Urban One is one of the largest diversified media companies in the United States that primarily targets Black Americans and urban consumers. Under Liggins’ leadership, the company’s diversified into the cable television and digital media spaces, which positions Urban One as the largest black owned distributor of urban content in the country, reaching more than 80-percent of African Americans in the country, weekly. Liggins has won numerous awards and recognitions, including induction into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame and Radio Ink’s 40 Most Powerful People in Radio Award in 2016 and 2019.

Aubriana Lopez is an experienced, multi-disciplined marketer who has had the ability to grow her expertise throughout the ever-evolving nature of the media business with a focus on audience development, cross-functional measurement, and in-depth reporting and insights.

Through her deep understanding of product and audience development, she has held the role as Chief Innovator at Digital Envoy and has led her to her current role as Head of Data Strategy at Samsung Ads where she leads the development of data partnerships, principles, and attribution.

Her voice is ever present through the professional community as a member of the Samsung Ads Women+ Diversity & Inclusions Committee, a mentor within the She Runs It organization, and the host of the long-running weekly podcast Location Weekly.

Kristina Lutz, EVP, Marketing, is a tenured and respected executive in marketing, with varied roles across agency, publisher, and brand. Kristina leads GSTV’s marketing function and is responsible for delivering marketing goals across all revenue channels and driving a cohesive corporate marketing strategy, encompassing integrated marketing, ad sales/solutions marketing, PR/marketing communications, brand activations and more. 

As Chief Commercial Officer for Global Distribution Tara Maitra oversees global syndication and advertising sales, including BBC Studios’ digital news properties and the World News TV channel (ex-UK and Ireland); business transformation and digital business development. Maitra first joined the company in 2021 as Chief Commercial Officer for North America and Latin America, where she was charged with leading the commercial growth strategy for BBC Studios in the U.S. Before joining BBC Studios, Maitra was the Chief Revenue Office at BDEX, a data exchange platform designed to help companies identify target audiences, where she oversaw revenue growth, business development, and marketing efforts. Prior to that, Maitra spent 11 years at TiVo, where she served on the executive leadership team as Senior Vice President and General Manager for TiVo’s content, advertising sales, and data businesses. Tara was responsible for launching and operating TiVo’s OTT content strategy.  She also had oversight of TiVo’s human resource department. Before TiVo, Maitra held executive roles at Comcast, Primedia, and NBC. Maitra has been recognized as a Multichannel News “Wonder Woman” and has been featured multiple times on the CableFax “Most Powerful Women in Cable Tech” and “Digital Hot List.” Maitra holds a degree from Washington and Lee University. She lives in New York with her husband, Mark, her two daughters, Annie and Rosie, and their dog, Ginger. 

Steve Mandala is the Chief Commercial Officer for Estrella Media. In this role, Mandala will lead Estrella’s network, national, and local sales teams, driving growth across the companies multiple platforms and increasing brand value for our partners on a national and local level. He is based in the company’s New York offices.

Mandala recently served as President, Ad Sales & Marketing at Univision, where he was pivotal in growing Univision’s valuation before its sale. Before that, he was at NBCUniversal, where he led sales throughout the cable group and Telemundo, driving double-digit sales growth. In addition, he held numerous other positions while at NBCUniversal and played a key leadership role in integrating cable and broadcast channels following Comcast’s acquisition of NBCU.

He is a former CableFax and HispanicAd “Media Executive of the Year” and has been a featured speaker at many industry events, including ANA Multicultural, Advertising Week, and AHAA. In addition, he is a board member of the Cultural Marketing Council. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California.

Pete is an advertising sales professional with over 30 years of experience. In his current role at TiVo, he oversees the national sales team that represents TiVo’s CTV solution, TiVo Xtend. TiVo Xtend provides incremental reach to TV campaigns using first and third party data to create custom audiences, and reach them with premium CTV inventory on the big screen.

Prior to joining TiVo, Pete was Director, Client Services at Xandr and AT&T AdWorks, where he oversaw the western region client-facing sales team that sold data-driven Addressable TV for DirecTV. Before that, Pete was the West Coast Director, Advanced Advertising Sales at Comcast, focusing on their interactive television business. Prior to Comcast, he managed Los Angeles-based sales teams at MTV Networks and NBC Cable. Pete began his career in New York on the agency side in network TV buying, media planning and media research.

Sheila Marmon has a passion for the launch and operation of new businesses in the digital media industry and has created innovative platforms for over 20 years. With a focus on growth markets her expertise delivers meaningful ROI for diverse publishers, investors, and multinational clients.

As Founder + CEO of Mirror Digital, an interactive media and advertising company, she helps Fortune 500 brands tap into the fastest growing U.S. consumer base – the multicultural market. Sheila has executed over 800 digital campaigns in this space for clients including AT&T, Clinique, Comcast, Disney, Ford, General Motors, Intel, Macy’s, Procter & Gamble, Universal Pictures, Walmart, and other leading brands.

In addition to entrepreneurship, Sheila’s multi-faceted media career includes leadership roles in operations, new ventures, and finance at Time Warner (now WarnerMedia), Morgan Stanley, and Essence Communications.

Sheila has been featured in global publications including the Financial Times, and she was profiled in a cover story for Minority Business Entrepreneur Magazine. She currently serves on the Boards of The American Advertising Federation and Chairs the Digital Committee. She also serves on the boards of A Better Chance, and Cate School. She is a founding member of the Council of Urban Professionals and has received numerous industry and civic awards including being named a Top Woman in Media and Ad Tech by Ad Monsters & Ad Exchanger. The team at Mirror Digital has also been a standout, the firm has been recognized as a “Best Place to Work” by Ad Age, Inc. Magazine, and the Los Angeles Business Journal.

Sheila graduated with a B.A. from Princeton University, cum laude and an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business. She resides in Los Angeles with her husband Steven F. Heuer

Kyle joined Monster Energy in 2018 to lead digital marketing and media strategy across the company’s portfolio of brands. Prior to joining Monster, Kyle led digital strategy at two LA-based agencies and he helped to build digital marketing efforts for key brands such as GUESS?, Verizon, and American Express among others. He is a co-founder of Hollywood agency PMK-BNC’s Digital service.

Kyle graduated from The Ohio State University (Go Bucks!) and currently lives in the OC with his wife, two daughters, and their pup.

Sean McCaffrey is President and CEO of GSTV. In this role, Sean’s focus is driving business growth through understanding the evolution of the media landscape, the consumer journey and consumer behavioral insights leveraging data, technology and scale of GSTV’s video platform.

Sean has energized GSTV’s customer base and partnerships through a series of key executive hires, data and analytics partnerships and driving the evolution of the company’s unique national video network. He and the team continue a relentless focus on delivering value to brand, agency and retailer partners while building a fresh and entertaining consumer experience across the country.

As co-founder and Chief Product Officer, LaShawn uses her skills in media and production to oversee all technology functions at Revry including handling channel launches, deliverables management, and tech quality control. After leaving a nine-year nursing career with the United States Army, LaShawn dedicated herself to the art of storytelling by graduating from The American Film Institute (AFI) with a master’s degree in film editing. Since graduating, LaShawn has worked on film, television, and documentary projects as an editor, assistant editor, and producer. Previously involved in Ava Duvernay’s ARRAY film movement and a regular juror and panelists at events such as Outfest and the American Film Market (AFM), LaShawn brings her experience of working on feature films (Selma, The Leisure Class) and broadcast television (Girl Rising, A Chance to Dance) to Revry. Her technical skills are matched only by her passion for sharing the unique voices and stories of the LBGTQ community with the widest audiences possible. LaShawn was also integral in Revry’s selection as a member of the inaugural Goldman Sachs Launch with GS Black and Latinx Entrepreneur Cohort. Revry is NGLCC Certified and an ANA Diversity supplier.

As President of Sales and Distribution at Vevo, Kevin McGurn is responsible for leading the network’s monetization efforts and expansion across streaming and digital platforms. He oversees: global, national, and local ad sales; distribution, client, and agency partnerships; and research, insights and analytics. Since joining Vevo in 2017, McGurn’s vision launched Vevo from a digital-first company to a music television destination, accessible on 35 CTV partners, and the largest FAST (free ad-supported streaming TV) network in the world, with over 150 FAST channels in 13 markets. Prior to Vevo, McGurn has served several prominent positions: Head of Sales at Fullscreen and Otter Media; Chief Revenue Officer of Shazam; Senior Vice President of Sales at Hulu; and positions at NBCUniversal and Doubleclick.

A marketing veteran and trusted voice in media, Bree is currently the global SVP of Condé Nast Commercial Creative, connecting clients to the power of our brands and creators. Bree has an uncanny ability to know where the industry is heading, and position brands and advertisers at the center of the action.

Prior to this stint at CN, Bree built The Wall Street Journal’s first global integrated marketing organization and held key marketing roles at brands like Elle, Interview, and Veuve Clicquot. Bree has been named to Ad Age’s Women to Watch and Folio’s 100, and was featured at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Next Gen Summit. She’s been a judge for the Effie awards and an NYU Summer Publishers Institute Summer Fellow & Finals Mentor. Her unique industry perspective is frequently quoted in Ad Age, Digiday and MediaPost.

Nicola Mendelsohn is the Head of Global Business Group at Meta, where she leads the company’s relationships with top marketers and agencies for all of our family of apps as well as global partnerships and engineering.

Nicola previously served as Vice President for Europe, Middle East, and Africa for Meta – a role she held since 2013. During that time, Nicola spearheaded the growth of EMEA into a multi-billion dollar business and led Meta’s expansion into countries like Israel, Norway, Austria and Denmark.

She is currently a non-executive director of Diageo, sits on the Mayor of London’s Business Advisory Board, and is co-president of the charity Norwood. In 2019, Nicola founded and launched the Follicular Lymphoma Foundation, a charity focused solely on raising funds to help the thousands of people living with Follicular Lymphoma to live well and get well.

Prior to joining Meta, Nicola worked in advertising for over 20 years working at BBH, Grey and Karmarama. Her previous roles include: first female President of the IPA (the advertising industry trade body), Trustee of The White Ribbon Alliance, Chairman of Women’s Aid Development Board and President of the Women in Advertising and Communications London club (WACL). She was also a Director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, member of the UK government’s Digital Economy Council and Co-Chair of the UK Government’s Creative Industries Council. Previously, she served as a director of Cosmetic Executive Women and The Fragrance Foundation in the UK.

In 2015, she was awarded a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for services to the creative industries in the UK. Her greatest joy in life comes from her husband Jon and her four children Gabi, Danny, Sam and Zac.

With 22+ years of media & entertainment experience, Jeff is a seasoned, multi-dimensional marketing professional who is laser-focused on accomplishing key business objectives through strategic planning, innovative thinking, collaboration, and effective communication from ideation through tactical execution and implementation. He is currently the EVP, Head of Branded Entertainment & Integrated Marketing at One Solution — the branded entertainment, integrated marketing, and strategic partnerships award-winning division within the only black-owned and operated fully integrated media company in the country (Urban One). Under Jeff’s leadership, he has propelled the One Solution team to an unprecedented 39 awards/accolades, inclusive of Best Branded Content Studio two-years in a row (2018-2019), across top industry organizations inclusive of The Telly’s, AdColor, NAMIC Vision Awards, REGGIE Awards, Webby’s, Digiday and more.

Brandon Mikolaski is an award-winning director and writer with over two decades of experience crafting custom content solutions.  His work is known for infusing technology and emerging media into branded content, with past works incorporating augmented reality, biometrics, voice recognition and artificial intelligence.  He won a Clio in 2021 for his work in mobile gaming, and worked on the landmark film OJ: Made In America, the only property to ever be awarded both an Emmy and Academy Award.  He comes to GSTV after a second stint at Serino Coyne, where he served as the agency’s Executive Producer.   

Matt Montemayor is Senior Vice President of Sales and Partner at Canela Media for the West and Central Region. He is responsible for sales including streaming TV, digital video/display/audio, branded content and Canela’s key verticals of Canela Music, Canela Sports and CanelaKids. As a sales and marketing leader with over 20 years of experience across Digital, TV, Audio/Radio and Streaming focused on multicultural and the Hispanic market, Matt has continued to be on the cutting edge of media. He has a proven track record for delivering both innovative solutions and results for brands looking to connect authentically through culture with highly sought Hispanic audiences.

Elyse Myers is a writer and comedian who achieved mainstream recognition as a digital content creator. Deemed “The Internet’s Best Friend,” Elyse continues to serve her audience of more than 10MM+ with relatable stories, twisted Q&A’s over coffee, and acts as an advocate for countless topics such as ADHD, imposter syndrome, body image and more by allowing herself to be seen, unfiltered in a genuine and hilarious way. Elyse’s podcast, Funny Cuz It’s True, continuously sits at the top of the comedy podcast charts since launching last fall and welcomes A-List guests such as Jenna Fischer, Angela Kinsey, Penn Badgley, Meghan Trainor, Lance Bass, Kevin Jonas, Jonathan Van Ness and more. The show launched on September 21st and shot straight to the top of the Apple podcast charts — #1 in Comedy and #3 overall.

Before pursuing comedy full-time, Elyse worked as a web developer and brings her knowledge and love for user experience with her to this new career. Elyse currently lives in Nebraska with her husband and young son, expecting her second child later this year.

As Chief Marketing Officer, Oswald Méndez leads the company’s marketing strategy and to enable growth across its product portfolio including Canela.TV, Canela Music and Canela Kids. Prior to joining Canela, Oswald founded Collective Transformation, a firm focused on developing innovative solutions for media companies, advertising agencies and marketers coping with the new, more challenging environment of the multicultural mindset in the U.S. Before that, he was CEO and Co-founder of New Majority Ready, a marketing & business consulting company with the mission to help businesses realize the impact America’s current cultural transformation has on their current and future strategy and create a path that will lead to new sources of revenue through the lens of the new majority. 

Méndez also held executive positions at BBC America, MundoFox Broadcasting, and FIC. Earlier in his career, Méndez spent over two decades working for global and domestic agencies such as McCann-Erickson Worldwide and was part of the team that launched Universal McCann globally. He was a Managing Partner at The Vidal Partnership and began his career in the multicultural space at Conill Advertising.

Oswald has a degree from NYU’s Stern School of Business in International Business & Marketing.

Tiffany Nasralla serves as the Chief Revenue Officer of iONE Digital, Urban One’s digital division. Urban One is the largest Black minority-controlled and operated, fully integrated media company that reaches, connects, and engages with the multicultural consumer at scale across audio, digital, linear, and experiential.
As a millennial, who is passionate about digital media, her community, and technology, she has helped top global companies like General Motors, AT&T, Amazon, McDonald’s, and P&G build authentic, deeper connections with their consumers.

In 2017, Tiffany Nasralla joined iONE Digital as the VP of Business Development. By 2019, Nasralla was responsible for iOne Digital’s entire sales force, where she led the division to profitability, averaging double-digit year-over-year revenue and EBITDA growth.

In January 2022, Nasralla was appointed Chief Revenue Officer of iONE Digital, the first position of its kind at Urban One’s digital division. She has a well-earned reputation for exceeding revenue and gross profit goals while building, leading, and coaching high-performance sales teams. She is focused on continued revenue growth and expansion and fueled by iONE Digital’s mission to represent Black truth.

Nasralla aspires to drive change by shifting the narrative around Black people, celebrating the beautiful complexity of the Black experience, and exposing and providing her community access to resources and tools to advance Black culture.

Tiffany earned a B.A. from Pepperdine University and, before joining iONE Digital, served as the EVP of Business Development and Strategy at Moguldom Media Group. She set revenue records and led the team to exceed revenue expectations. Nasralla worked closely with the content, marketing, and operations teams to create and implement the company’s video, mobile and social strategy. In addition to leading the company’s digital strategy, Tiffany built sustainable relationships with key stakeholders and Fortune 500 companies and oversaw numerous national sales transactions and campaigns. Before joining Moguldom Media Group, Tiffany served as a National Account Coordinator and Strategist assisting Fortune 500 companies and Non-Profit organizations with developing their go-to-market digital strategy, leveraging media platforms to generate online revenue and donations.

Marla Newman is the Executive Vice President, Sales at Raptive. In her role, she’s responsible for leading the company’s best-in-class sales organization and driving an all-new multiplatform strategy that connects advertisers to its creators’ 195M monthly visitors. Newman, a 20-year digital media veteran, joined Raptive from DotDash Meredith, where she was President of Digital Sales–Lifestyle Group.

Joining Meredith Corporation in 2016, she led all aspects of the digital team’s go-to-market strategy and execution for brand, agency, and holding company partners, doubling Meredith Corporation’s digital media business growth while creating a best-in-class sales organization of nearly 200 team members. She was also responsible for spearheading the largest strategic brand partnerships in the company’s history and an integral part of post-acquisition integrations during Meredith’s acquisition of Time Inc., and again during the company’s merger with DotDash.

Prior to joining DotDash Meredith, Newman served as Global Head of Agency Development at AOL and Microsoft and held senior leadership roles at FOX Sports Digital, MTV Networks, and MSN.

She is a graduate of the University of Oregon and a member of The Advertising Group of New York’s Board of Directors.

Sarah North is a partner and Chief Creative Officer of COCINA, a minority owned platform and content studio engaging more than 90M people globally, co-founded by Fox’ MasterChef co-star, Aarón Sánchez.

Previously, Sarah North was the Head of Shopify Studios, the content house of leading global commerce company Shopify which powers more than 1M businesses. As the Head of Studios, North oversaw development, production, distribution, and strategy across the company’s slate, including feature documentaries and long-form Original series for streaming and linear networks with best-in-class partners, as well as experimental digital series.

Prior to joining Shopify Studios, North was the Head of Television and Long-form content at SoulPancake, the award-winning media and entertainment company founded by actor Rainn Wilson and acquired by Participant Media in October 2016. Her Emmy-nominated work helped SoulPancake reach 1B+ views and a 60M monthly reach.

Before SoulPancake, North was a partner at Mad Cow Productions, the production company that created The Daily Show. NAACP Image Award nominated, she has developed, executive produced, and showrun series for networks including ABC, [adult swim], MTV and Showtime to name a few. She specializes in storytelling that drives engagement and connects content to commerce.

North is a graduate of New York University, and resides in Los Angeles with her husband and children.

Joanna O’Connell, independent industry analyst and data-driven advertising expert, has more than 20 years’ experience in the ad industry and has served as a pioneer throughout. She started her career at agency Avenue A, co-founded Razorfish’s agency trading desk, built the research practice at trade publication AdExchanger, served as CMO of global ad tech company MediaMath and led programmatic and omnichannel research for Forrester Research. She holds a BA in psychology from Vassar College.

Capitalizing on her nearly 20 years of global marketing experience with Fortune 500 companies, Cathy Oh serves as Vice President, Global Head of Marketing & Analytics for Samsung Ads. As one of the founding members of Samsung Ads, her leadership has been integral in redefining the Advanced TV landscape.

Throughout her career, Cathy has achieved notable success developing marketing programs for global brands, launching large-scale marketing strategies and activations, and spearheading marketing programs for multi-national, enterprise organizations. In her current role, she has created a global marketing and analytics organization from single-digits to nearly 100 professionals throughout the US, Canada, Latin America, EMEA and AsiaPac regions.

Prior to joining Samsung Ads, Cathy served as Head of Marketing for iAd, Global Brands & Agencies (a division of Apple), and held marketing positions of increasing responsibility at companies that include WebMD and NBC Universal.

Cathy received a Master’s Degree in Integrated Marketing from New York University and a Bachelor’s of Science from Carnegie Mellon University.

When she isn’t traveling the globe for work and pleasure, Cathy serves on the board of the Korean American Community Foundation and sits on the advisory board for Conscious Step. She is a founding member and executive sponsor of Women+, a Samsung Employee Resource Group designed to mentor and support women within the organization. Since launching less than a year ago, Women+ has grown to include women and men from 13 cities and eight countries. In 2021, she was recognized as MultiChannelNews’ “Wonder Women.” Cathy lives in New Jersey with her husband and dog Adonis.

Kristen M. O’Hara is a strategic and transformational leader who has driven growth and innovation for global enterprises in an increasingly digital, e-commerce, and data-driven economy. She is a curious, compassionate and collaborative executive who has led global sales and marketing teams across media and entertainment, technology platforms and agency holding companies.

O’Hara is currently VP, Agency & Brand Solutions at Google. Before joining Google, she served as Chief Business Officer at Hearst Magazines, VP Business Solutions at Snap Inc. and Chief Marketing Officer at Time Warner Inc. (now Warner Bros. Discovery). O’Hara began her career at WPP’s Young & Rubicam.

O’Hara is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross with a bachelor’s in English literature. She serves on the board of directors of Arrival (Nasdaq: ARVL) and the Columbia University Medical Center Neurology Advisory Council.

As the CEO of Latino Alternative TV, Andres Palencia is at the forefront of an exciting new media landscape that is empowering the voices of the bilingual Latino community in the U.S. With a wealth of experience in entertainment and marketing, Andres is passionate about building platforms for bilingual content that resonate with viewers of all backgrounds and organically connect brands with Hispanic audiences.

Andres is a member of the Forbes Business Development Council, the Rolling Stone Culture Council, and the Association of National Advertisers AIMM initiative. He was also named to the POZ Magazine Poz 100 for his work on the groundbreaking “Living y Ready” series about LGBTQ+ folks living and thriving with HIV.

At LATV, Andres has overseen the development of a number of critically acclaimed shows, including “The Q Agenda,” an LGBTQ talk show that was included in Out Magazine’s Out 100 for 2022 and the GLAAD Pride entertainment guide. He is currently overseeing development on a new project, a Trans-Latina lead series that is set to premiere in fall 2023.

Andres is a proud member of the rainbow community and is passionate about using his platform to promote greater understanding and acceptance. He has created, directed and lead in the development of several LGBTQ+ series for LATV’s digital Queer hubs, including “My Health Agenda”, “Living y Ready” and “Mas Que Pride” coming pride month 2023.

Andres first joined LATV in 2007 as an intern, and quickly made a name for himself as a talented writer and producer. Over the years, he has worked on a number of popular series, including “LATV Central,” “Wachale,” “Mas Comedy,” “The Homies Hip Hop Show,” “American Latino TV,” and “LatiNation.” He has also worked as a writer and producer for other Latino networks, including SiTV, MTV3 and NuvoTV.

In 2016, Andres became the full-time showrunner of “The Zoo,” LATV’s flagship inclusive talk show. The show was a huge success and helped to cement Andres’ position as a creative force within the company. He was soon promoted to LATV’s creative branded content team, where he was responsible for ideating the creative concepts for blue-chip branded campaigns.

In the summer of 2019, Andres and Bruno Seros-Ulloa were appointed Co-Executive Directors of LATV, with a mandate to expand the network’s reach beyond traditional cable television and into digital, streaming, and social platforms. Despite the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, Andres and Bruno were able to grow the company exponentially, resulting in Andres being named CEO and Bruno being named president.

Under Andres’ leadership, LATV has seen record growth in every area, and has become a champion for change through partnerships with organizations such as GLAAD, AHF, and the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. With a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, Andres is helping to expand the footprint of minority-owned Latino media from coast to coast. Through his and Bruno’s leadership, LATV has established itself as the number one Latino-owned media company representing the community on streaming, cable TV, digital and social media platforms.

Tony, Grammy, and Critics Choice award nominee Ashley Park is widely known for her role as ‘Mindy Chen’ on the hit Netflix series Emily in Paris. The multihyphenate will next be seen leading Lionsgate’s comedy Joy Ride in theaters this summer and in Netflix’s Beef, a dramedy from Lee Sung Jin. Her work on Broadway includes Mamma Mia!, ‘Tuptim’ in The King and I, Sunday in the Park With George, and Grand Horizons, and Mean Girls, for which she earned Tony, Drama League, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Chita Rivera Award nominations for her performance as ‘Gretchen Wieners.’

As Agency Partnership Lead at Vevo, Bindi Patel plays a critical role in securing and building breakthrough agency partnerships. Patel and her team help agencies understand how the Vevo library can deliver impact beyond impressions. She has over 25 years of experience in integrated media advertising sales at both large media and agency holding companies. Prior to joining Vevo, Patel worked at WarnerMedia as Vice President of Portfolio Sales, following roles at Mindshare and OMD.

As Hollywood’s only openly Non-Binary CEO Damian was named one of Business Insider’s “Top 16 Power Player Execs in AD Video Streaming Space”, Damian (they/them) is one of 4x intersectional diverse co-founders and CEO of Revry, the first global Queer (LGBTQ-first) streaming media company. Damian was named one of Goldman Sachs ‘Top 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs‘, and was also featured on the ‘Out 100’ list. Damian was also a proud recipient of the West Hollywood Rainbow Key Award. Damian and their co-founders are all graduates of Goldman Sachs Black and Latinx 2020 accelerator program. Damian is a proud member of StartOut and Out in Tech.

Charles Porch is vice president of global partnerships for Instagram. He has played a key role in Instagram’s growth from 30 million users when he joined nine years ago to more than 1 billion users today.

Porch and his team work with the most influential people, properties and events in the world to ensure their best possible presence on Instagram. His work spans multiple categories, including entertainment, music, fashion, sports, news, media and the creator space. Highlights of this work include partnerships with performers such as Beyoncé, organizations such as the NBA, events from global fashion weeks to the Olympics, and onboarding Pope Francis to the Instagram platform.

Prior to Instagram, Porch led Facebook’s music and entertainment partnerships team, and ran strategic relationships at Ning, a pioneering social platform. He began his career at Warner Bros Records, where he helped musicians navigate the world of technology.

Abigail shines a humanistic lens on data, business, and technology, bringing a fresh perspective to marketing, digital advertising, and corporate culture. As the Director of Google’s US Creative Works, Abigail and her team work closely with the advertising and marketing communities to help develop their strategic and creative efforts for the digital space. While at Google, she has also launched an industry-first thought leadership series on human beings’ deep, emotional relationships with the digital space: Humanizing Digital. This research decodes technology in an inspiring and useful way. Abigail currently directs an additional XFN team responsible for developing, embedding an overarching organizational Brand Purpose inside America’s Large Customer Sales force.

Before joining Google, Abigail was Executive Vice President, Strategy Director at Publicis New York, where she directed strategic brand planning efforts for major new business pitches and provided thought leadership to key global clients, and co-strategy director at DDB.

Abigail is a recipient of the prestigious Media Impact Award from the UN and speaks at key conferences around the globe on innovation, creativity and the intersection of humanity and technology. She’s a member of ENDI Corp’s Board of Directors and sits on the advisory boards of the 890 Fifth Ave, SwiftArc Ventures, Global Leadership Diversity Exchange, Realm, TheSocialArchitects & the Conference Board’s Marketing & Communications Team; and has been featured in a host of publications including: NYTimes, Business Insider, Forbes, Adweek, Huffington Post, La Presse, CNBC, Mumbrella, AdNews, B&T & Globes Israel.

She blogs on beauty in our culture in Beautyskew.com and hosts the podcast: “Human Code.” Abigail has published her thought pieces in publications around the world from Fast Company to Advertising Age.

Abigail graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in social anthropology. She lives in NYC with her husband and 3 children.

Jamie’s expertise is in enabling the evolution of the Advanced TV marketplace through data, automation and attribution. Before Cadent, she cofounded one2one Media, and she was a founding member and Managing Partner at MODI Media, GroupM’s Advanced Television group. Jamie began her career at GroupM’s MEC. She has received many TV and advertising industry honors, including Multichannel News Wonder Woman and Digital All-Star, GABBCON Media Executive of the Year, and Cynopsis Top Women in Digital.

Heather Rafferty Savatta leads the Supply & Demand Product Marketing team at Samsung Ads. Samsung Ads is Samsung Electronics’ advertising ecosystem, spanning hundreds of millions of smart devices across TV, mobile, desktop, and beyond. Our deep understanding of consumers and unmatched position at the intersection of hardware, software and advertising delivers quantifiable results for brands on a massive scale.

Heather has spent 15+ years helping to create a better and healthier advertising ecosystem across the television and internet, with a focus on building & launching ad tech solutions that help marketers ensure brand safety while ensuring a trusted

Isabel Rafferty Zavala is a digital marketing pioneer. She is the Founder and CEO of Canela Media, a leading digital media tech company that gives brands the tools they need to effectively connect with multicultural audiences through multiple touchpoints, including its highly successful free-to-stream platform Canela.TV. Prior to starting Canela Media, Isabel founded Mobvious, a company dedicated to reaching U.S. Hispanic and African-American audiences via mobile advertising. Under Isabel’s leadership, Mobvious quickly became the largest Hispanic-focused ad network, as ranked by Comscore, before being acquired by PRISA in 2017.


In addition to being a minority woman CEO in an industry dominated by men, Isabel is one of the few Latinas to successfully secure VC funding for her company, with tremendous support from women-led funds. She closed an oversubscribed $32 Series A to significantly grow the company as its popularity soared in 2022. In 2022, Isabel was given a National Entrepreneur of the Year Award from E&Y, an honoree for the Top Women in Media and AdTech from Admonsters and AdExchanger, 40 under 40 from NYC TV Week and a Top Women in Media from Cynopsis. She was also named a Notable Hispanic Leader by Crain’s New York Business and one of the Top 100 Female Leaders by Entrepreneur Magazine.


Under her leadership, Canela Media became one of the top Hispanic media companies in its first year of operation. Canela.TV was launched in May 2020, becoming the first AVOD streaming service built exclusively for Latinos by Latinos – offering culturally relevant content. In 2023, Canela Media was named one of the most innovative companies in video by Fast Company. Canela.TV currently has over 40 million users and is growing as it grows in popularity in the U.S and Latin America.


Isabel is committed to supporting Father Joe’s Villages in San Diego, which helps to end homelessness and California State University at San Marcos to help create opportunities for young Hispanic students and their academic success. Canela also has partnered with AudPop for a series of Latin Film challenges to highlight multicultural content created by emerging talented filmmakers that celebrate Latin culture and life.

Danan Ren leads the Client Success team on all things digital and social at Comscore. She loves partnering with clients to help them craft and execute the best strategies for reaching and engaging their audience across the total digital landscape, Previously, she spent over 10 years on the brand marketing side working on household names in the CPG and Beauty spaces, including MAC Cosmetics and Dove. A true data-lover, she started off as an organic chemist by training and is now a digital media data nerd by trade.

With over seventeen years of experience managing digital advertising campaigns, Orchid Richardson is the Senior Vice President of Digital at Blavity Inc., where she leads the growth of Blavity360º’s Black and multicultural publisher network, increasing revenue for all its members. Her experience as an expert data solution architect and integrator has allowed her to lead initiatives within many prominent media companies, entertainment networks, and publications during her career. Orchid has worked for several other media companies, including BET Networks, Hearst Magazines Digital Media, and 33Across, Inc. At the IAB, Orchid served as the Senior Vice President of IAB’s Programmatic and Data Center (PDC), where she defined the strategic vision and executed the PDC Board of Directors’ agenda. Orchid also established industry-wide standards and business guidelines for the responsible use of data that enabled relevant, personalized, and privacy-compliant consumer experiences. Orchid led industry-wide training on The Data Centric-Organization, providing direction on how to break down a matrix organization through four key areas – people, partnerships, processes, and platforms.

Orchid is actively involved in advertising, having held leadership roles in key industry trade organizations, including Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement and Black MAKERS. Additionally, she is an active member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. She is Vice President of the Metro-Manhattan (NY) Chapter of The Links, Incorporated, and the Westchester Chapter of Jack & Jill of America. Orchid also serves as a board member and fundraising chair of the Ujamaa Community Development Corporation, which has built over $100 million in affordable housing in Westchester County, New York. She is passionate about giving back and helping to unite the community.

Vinny brings a disruptive lens to a media ecosystem that is constantly evolving. His approach to digital transformation starts with a deep understanding of business outcomes to translate into media strategies. 

Vinny brings a unique approach to his role after spending the past 14 years in various roles at startups like Adap.TV, ad tech giants like Google and Amazon, leading Investment and Activation at GroupM’s Wavemaker and a 2019 Ad Age 40 under 40 nominee for his transformative work at The Hershey Company through the lens of Addressable Media.

An ad technology evangelist, Vinny is committed to being provocative in his approach to using data and analytics to address a brands planning, investment, activation, and measurement ecosystem. He continues to push the system as he looks to disrupt the changing landscape of media from a linear world to an addressable first world.

Andres Rincon joined the Canela Media team as Senior Vice President of Sales for the East Coast region in October of 2020 based out of New York City. Andres is also responsible for Canela’s revenue in Mexico and LATAM expansion markets. Prior to joining Canela, Andres spent ten years as Vice President of Sales and Strategic Partnerships for LATV Networks, where he was responsible for the company’s revenue and stewarding the company’s linear network, digital platforms, client relationships and GTM strategy. Rincon’s trajectory also includes key sales and management positions at Azteca America, Telemundo, and CNBC Europe. Andres is an industry-leading ad sales professional with hands-on experience in multicultural media sales, marketing, management, and business development. He has an unparalleled reputation of leadership, collaboration, and innovation among clients. Andres holds a Master of Science degree in Integrated Marketing from New York University. He’s a native from Colombia and resides in Brooklyn with his son.

A producer and entertainment attorney with a background in reality television and digital media, Christopher received his bachelor degree in Political Science from UCLA in 2007. The recipient of the 2008 Scholar’s Award to Loyola Law School, Christopher went on to graduate with his Juris Doctorate degree in 2011.Christopher possesses wide-ranging experience in reality television production and has acted as legal counsel on a myriad of award-winning shows including Shark Tank, Deadliest Catch, Jay Leno’s Garage, The People’s Choice Awards, and Storage Wars. Having represented web television content creators and produced festival-featured digital media productions, Christopher brings his wealth of knowledge in the digital space to Revry as a co-founder and the Chief Business Officer. Revry is NGLCC Certified and an ANA Diversity supplier.

Susan Rovner serves as Chairman, Entertainment Content, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, where she leads creative strategy for original entertainment content across NBCU’s broadcast, cable and streaming platforms: NBC, Bravo, E!, Oxygen, SYFY, Universal Kids, USA Network and Peacock. Rovner reports to Mark Lazarus, Chairman, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming.

In her capacity as Chairman, Rovner oversees content teams tasked with development and current programming for scripted, unscripted, late night and specials. She also leads first-run syndication, which produces seven shows, including the Emmy Award-winning “The Kelly Clarkson Show.” As the head of content, Rovner manages key relationships with studio partners, both internal and external, as well as showrunners, producers and creative talent.

Rovner and her content team have played an integral role in greenlighting hit programming across NBCU’s entertainment portfolio, including NBC’s “The Thing About Pam” and “La Brea,” Peacock’s “Bel-Air,” “A Friend of the Family” and “Real Housewives: Ultimate Girls Trip,” and SYFY’s “Chucky” and “Resident Alien.”

Under her leadership, NBC finished the 2021-2022 season #1 in the 18-49 demographic for the 2nd consecutive year and 8th time in 9 seasons, with more shows in the top 20 than any other network. The network is home to the #1 unscripted series “The Voice,” the highest-rated night of dramas on television with “One Chicago,” and the #1 entertainment program in the 18-49 demographic with “Saturday Night Live.” Additional late-night hits “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Late Night with Seth Meyers” are both #1 in their time periods in the demo.

On the cable side, Bravo ranks among the top 5 cable networks among the 18-49 demographic and boasts the most loyal and engaged audience across all of cable entertainment. The network is currently home to more than half of the top 20 reality series on cable. USA Network extended its streak as a top 5 cable entertainment network for more than 25 years and ranks as the #1 cable network in live premiere viewership for entertainment programming.

Rovner also oversees content development for NBCU’s talent deals with superstars including Miley Cyrus and Laverne Cox.

Prior to joining NBCU, Rovner was President of Warner Bros. Television (WBTV), the division of the Warner Bros. Television Group (WBTVG), which produces scripted dramatic primetime television programming for the five broadcast networks, premium/pay cable channels and on-demand/streaming platforms.

During her more than 20 years with WBTV, Rovner was instrumental in spearheading the company’s creative expansion to develop series for on-demand/streaming services and increasing its output for premium and basic cable, while maintaining the studio’s position as an industry leader in production for the broadcast marketplace. In addition to working closely with dozens of highly influential producers, highlights of series greenlit under Rovner’s tenure as President include “The Flash” and “Riverdale” for the CW, “Blindspot” for NBC, “Gotham” for Fox, “Westworld” and “Watchmen” for HBO, “You” for Netflix, “Shrill” for Hulu, “Queen Sugar” for OWN and “Ted Lasso” at Apple TV.

Rovner rose through the ranks at WBTV over a more than 20-year tenure at the company beginning in the drama department before being elevated to oversee development, and then rising to co-President of Warner Horizon Scripted Television in 2014. Early in her career, Rovner helped develop the long-running “Cold Case,” “The O.C.” and the critically acclaimed “Everwood.” As Senior Vice President of Drama Development, Rovner oversaw the development of some of the company’s most important and successful programs, including “The Closer,” “Fringe,” “Gossip Girl,” “The Mentalist,” “Nip/Tuck,” “One Tree Hill,” “Supernatural,” “The Vampire Diaries” and many more.

During her time with the company, 18 series developed by Rovner or that were developed under her leadership reached the 100-episode milestone: “The 100,” “Arrow,” “2 Broke Girls,” “Blindspot,” “The Closer,” “Cold Case,” “The Flash,” “Fringe,” “Gossip Girl,” “Gotham,” “Major Crimes,” “The Mentalist,” “One Tree Hill,” “Person of Interest,” “Shameless,” “Supergirl,” “Supernatural” and “The Vampire Diaries.”

Before WBTV, Rovner was Executive Director, Movies for Television, at ABC. She is also on the board of the NAACP Entertainment Advocacy Council, the Anti-Defamation League, the Barnard Board of Trustees and the Paley Los Angeles Board of Governors.

As CEO of dentsu Media, Doug leads 4,500+ media experts across the Americas who strive every day to deliver like never before. Known for exploiting the intersection of data, technology, and creativity to help modern marketers champion progress, Doug has been recognized for successfully leading businesses through transformation and fortunate to be a part of numerous industry firsts. Doug most recently was the first Chief Media Officer at award-winning agency 360i. He joined 360i from OMD, where he was Chief Digital & Chief Innovation Officer and drove the relationships with Apple, Hasbro, and Eli Lilly, among others. Prior experience includes Chief Innovation Officer and SVP, General Manager at Meredith; SVP, Global Lead at Aimia (formerly Carlson Marketing); and Senior Partner & Managing Director at JWT. Doug is a proud cancer survivor and advocate for Stand Up to Cancer. He is an avid cyclist and currently lives in CT with his wife and two teenage children.

Jorge Ruiz is currently the Head of Measurement at TikTok where he leads a global organization that will drive advertiser value and insights. This responsibility includes building an organization from the ground up, establishing a high-performing culture, and leading measurement as well as research innovation for the TikTok advertising business. 

Prior to TikTok, Jorge was the Head of Agency Measurement at Facebook where Jorge led global initiatives for holding companies and consultancies across highly complex (and often) custom measurement and research initiatives. 

And going back further, Jorge led the media analytics team at [email protected] where his numerous research contributions helped set the bar on media analytics for the agency. Jorge was awarded the 2013 ARF Great Minds Awards, Innovation Award – Certificate Winner, David Ogilvy ARF research awards 2011 & 2012 (individual & team), and served as board advisor to Google on their development of Google Consumer Surveys

Emiliano Saccone is the co-founder and CEO of COCINA, a minority owned platform and content studio engaging more than 90M people globally, co-founded by Fox’s MasterChef co-star, Aarón Sánchez.

Recently, he executive produced “El Robo Del Siglo” (“Robbery of the Century”) an original feature film released in theaters in Argentina in early 2020. The film went on to become Argentina’s highest grossing film of all time. Prior to the above, Emiliano was known for building, launching, and running MundoFox, a Spanish language national broadcast television network in the US including live news daily as well as multiple scripted and unscripted original Productions.

Prior to MundoFox, he was credited with building some of the world’s most influential media businesses including Fox and National Geographic’s global pay TV portfolios for Fox International Channels. As President of Fox International Channels Latin America, Emiliano managed a billion dollar plus portfolio of pay TV networks including revenue, distribution, content development, M&A, brand development, programming, marketing, digital and all other editorial aspects. As the President of Global Content Development for Fox International Channels, he oversaw the creation and promotion of thousands of original hours of content across scripted, factual and lifestyle around multiple territories and languages including co-developing and globally rolling out “The Walking Dead” across more than ninety countries while acquiring and running multiple content production engines in the US, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Brazil.

Prior to Fox, Emiliano served as the Creative Director for Casanova Pendrill, Inc. overseeing brands like California State Lottery, El Pollo Loco, General Mills, Bank of America, Eveready, Reebok and more.

Saccone holds a B.A. in film and an MBA from UCLA Anderson. He currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife and children.

Michael Sanchez is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Raptive. He is responsible for leading the company and its mission to build a creator-first future where independent creators become the most valuable and important part of digital media. In his role, he is focused on supporting an extraordinary 300-person team while growing the company’s capabilities that empower 4,000 of the world’s best creators to build their businesses and compete at the highest levels on their own terms.

A serial entrepreneur, Sanchez co-founded and served as President of Do Something, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping millions of young people each year take action to improve their communities. He also co-founded and served as the Chief Executive Officer of the profitable ’94 Cup Daily, the nation’s only daily newspaper dedicated to the 1994 World Cup soccer tournament held in the United States.

Sanchez is an avid soccer player who played at the nation’s top-ranked University of Virginia team in college before playing professionally in Zimbabwe while teaching high school math. He currently enjoys playing in an overly competitive men’s soccer league and working to avoid injury. As a child, Sanchez traveled around the world as a top-ranked junior chess player. He received extensive media coverage as a chess prodigy, conducting dozens of chess exhibitions and earning a draw with the #3 ranked player in the world.

He graduated from Columbia Law School with honors and has a B.A. in Economics from the University of Virginia.

René Santaella serves as Chief Digital & Streaming Officer for Estrella Media. Santaella was previously EVP, Digital & Streaming Media, and is credited with launching the company’s successful streaming and AVOD platforms and leading the digital transformation of Estrella Media’s content and distribution strategy, operations and new revenue initiatives. Under his guidance, Estrella Media has quickly become a leader in multi-platform, Spanish-language, ad-supported content distribution, streaming over one billion minutes per month across FAST, AVOD, social and audio platforms.

Among the platforms that have launched under his guidance are: the EstrellaTV APP available on Roku, Fire TV, Android TV, Samsung, Vizio, iOS and Android mobile; four Estrella Media curated live streaming T.V. networks – EstrellaTV, Estrella News, CineEstrellaTV and Estrella Games – seen across The Roku Channel, Samsung TV Plus, LG Channels, Vizio WatchFree, Xumo, Xfinity Flex, PlutoTV, Amazon News, Tubi and FuboTV. Estrella Media is a top 20 leader in streaming audio with stations like Que Buena Los Angeles, QB Underground, La Raza and El Norte – all available on TuneIn, the EstrellaTV APP and EstrellaTV.com.  

Prior to joining Estrella Media, Santaella was the Senior Vice President, Head of Ad Sales & Business Operations, at Sony Pictures Television Digital Networks, and built Crackle into a leading free ad-supported streaming network with the Emmy nominated hit, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.  He also led the creation of a premium video network for advertisers targeting a large audience of “connected gamers” that included PlayStation, Funimation, Pluto TV and Crackle. Before Sony, he was Director, Ad Sales Marketing for Disney Interactive, leading digital and cross-platform advertising and integrated marketing solutions across the company with corporate alliance partners. 

Santaella is based in the company’s Burbank headquarters and reports to Peter Markham, CEO of Estrella Media. He holds a Master of Business Administration from the Anderson School of Business at UCLA and a Bachelor’s degree from UCLA. He was also a member of the Puerto Rican National Swim Team and UCLA Men’s Swim Team.

Michael Scott is Head of Sales, Brand, North America at Samsung Ads. With more than 20 years of sales, business development and marketing experience in the television marketing services, digital advertising, programmatic and sports marketing industries, Michael works with brands to leverage Samsung Ads Smart TV insights to reach consumers where they consume their content across Smart TVs, mobile or desktop devices.

Most recently, Michael served as Chief Revenue Officer at Tru Optik where he managed business development and strategic partnerships with advertisers, agencies, data companies and adtech partners leveraging Tru Optik’s proprietary data set to access OTT audiences. Prior to Tru Optik, he was Senior Vice President, Strategic Partnerships for Cox Media Group’s Gamut, where he grew revenue by nearly 20 percent and Managing Director, Ad Intelligence for Ebiquity, where he led the advertising consultancy practice with teams around the globe and doubled revenue within his first year.

As an entrepreneur, Scott started and later sold, two successful content marketing businesses/agencies – Fourth Element Group and MacDuff Inc. Earlier in his career, Scott worked for NBC Television as the Director of Olympic and Sports Marketing.

As Vice President of Media and Distribution Marketing at Vevo, Aneessa Steilen leads Vevo’s B2B marketing strategy and execution for agencies, brands, data and distribution partners, helping communicate Vevo’s value proposition in the marketplace. She has held several roles within Vevo over the past 6+ years, including launching the distribution partnership management team in 2019. Prior to Vevo, Steilen held various sales and marketing positions at Tumblr and News Corp.

Aarón Sánchez is an award-winning chef, TV personality, author and philanthropist. He is the chef/owner of Johnny Sánchez in New Orleans, the host and executive producer of Warner Bros Discovery’s El Toque de Aarón and El Sabor de Aarón, and a judge on FOX’s hit culinary competition series MasterChef and MasterChef Junior. He is the partner/creative director of Cocina, the first online content platform dedicated to celebrating Latin lifestyle through its vibrant culinary culture. Aarón grew up in the restaurant business and is passionate about preserving his family’s legacy through food and encouraging diversity in the kitchen. 

Aarón has starred in multiple Food Network shows, most notably as a judge on Chopped and Chopped Junior. He was the host of Cooking Channel’s Emmy-nominated series, Taco Trip, and has appeared on a numerous other shows including Iron Chef and Best Thing I Ever Ate. Additionally, Aarón hosted two Spanish-language shows on Fox Life, 3 Minutos con Aarón and MOTOCHEFS.

A third-generation cookbook author, Aarón has written two cookbooks – La Comida del Barrio and Simple Food, Big Flavor as well as a memoir, Where I Come From: Life Lessons From A Latino Chef.

Aarón has won a James Beard Award for Television Studio Program and was recognized by the Hispanic Federation with the Premio Orgullo Award for being a leader in the Hispanic community. In 2016, Aarón founded the Aarón Sánchez Scholarship Fund (ASSF), an initiative empowering aspiring chefs from the Latin community. ASSF provides recipients with full culinary scholarships to the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) in New York City and ongoing mentorship. Aarón’s love for the arts extends beyond the kitchen. He is a partner in world-renowned tattoo shop and museum, Daredevil Tattoo in NYC. An avid music lover, he enjoys cooking to the sounds of Portugal the Man, Shakey Graves, Café Tacvba, Alabama Shakes, Tank and The Bangas, Amos Lee, Lianne La Havas, and Lenny Kravitz. He has a son, Yuma, and lives in New Orleans, LA.