The Future of Video Marketplace

Maureen has worked in the Media business for 25+ years as a leader in Strategic Investment guiding both clients and agency teams to driving maximum value in the marketplace. She has also focused on building relationships with the media partners to better facilitate the negotiations and client’s executions in market.

Maureen serves as the Chief Partnerships Officer at Initiative, where she oversees all investments across the portfolio of clients, including Amazon, T-Mobile, Liberty Mutual, Merck and Lego.


Prior to joining Initiative, Maureen was at Optimedia, where she most recently was EVP, Group Director of National Broadcast, where she oversaw the strategic investments across all clients. Her career has spanned both the buy- and sell-side, in agency and in house, holding positions at Discovery Communications, Universal McCann, and GM Mediaworks.

Maureen’s experience extends across several key categories including auto, retail, wireless, film/entertainment, beverage, pharma, casual dining, insurance and packaged goods. As an active member of the media industry, Maureen is on the 4 As National Broadcast Committee. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications from Fordham University and is an active alumni sponsor.

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.

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.

• 30+ years of experience across digital transformation, marketing and media, direct marketing – with concentration in retail media, advertising, direct marketing, and analytics
• Founded Accenture’s data monetization practice – focusing on helping organizations in retail, travel, FS, and media build formalized media networks
• Worked with retailers globally to build advanced advertising and media strategies (Kroger, Loblaws, eBay, Sainsbury)
• Founded Accenture Interactive’s programmatic media agency
• Executed several ground breaking studies in the US and Canada on media attribution for major networks (NBC Universal, Disney ABC TV, Think TV Canada)
• Expert in advertising technology for programmatic, advanced advertising in TV, search, and SEO
• Strong understanding of marketing, media, agency, publishers ecosystems for B2B and well as B2C marketing and media execution
• Also, avid cyclist, runner, painter, swimmer – and devoted father

Susan Schiekofer is the Chief Digital Investment Officer for GroupM U.S. She is responsible for digital partnerships and trading across all of GroupM’s agencies including Mindshare, MediaCom, Wavemaker and Essence.

Susan’s digital skillset, coupled with her broader knowledge of trading best practices across all media formats, ensures that GroupM continues to lead the market with the most valuable and accountable digital solutions for clients of GroupM agencies.

She is figurative in GroupM’s efforts to improve the integrity of the digital marketplace in the U.S. by championing viewability, anti-fraud safeguards, measurement, and standards.

Schiekofer has been a leader in the digital media space at WPP and GroupM since 1994. She founded the digital media offering at Ogilvy & Mather, which was later rebranded to Neo@Ogilvy, and worked on accounts including IBM, TD Ameritrade and Lenovo, among many others. In 2010, Schiekofer joined MEC to head up the AT&T digital business, and soon became responsible for all of digital at MEC. In July of 2014, she moved to GroupM to lead digital investment for Maxus and MediaCom, and to assume responsibility for all of online video.

Jon Steinberg is president of Altice News and Advertising, comprising Cheddar, News 12 Networks, i24NEWS and a4. He is the founder of Cheddar, the leading Post Cable Networks company.

He was most recently the Chief Executive Officer of DailyMail.com North America. Steinberg grew U.S. revenue 45% while at Daily Mail and doubled direct advertising revenue.

He joined DailyMail.com from BuzzFeed where he was President & Chief Operating Officer, responsible for business management, company operations, finance, and social advertising operations from 2010 to 2014. Under his leadership, BuzzFeed became a global and profitable social advertising business working with over half of the top 100 brands. He grew the company from 15 employees to over 500. Steinberg was named one of Advertising Age’s Media Mavens and 40 Under 40.

Steinberg was previously Strategic Partner Development Manager on Google’s SMB (small medium business) partnerships team. As a high schooler, he was an intern in Walt Disney Imagineering’s research and development group.

Steinberg is a graduate of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and holds an M.B.A. from Columbia University. He sits on the board of Temple Israel. He lives with his wife, two little kids, and cat on New York’s Upper East Side.

Catherine Warburton is the EVP, Chief Investment Officer at 360i where she guides all investment activities for clients. Catherine joined 360i from MDC’s Assembly, where she served as their Chief Investment Officer, leading investment and media owner relationships across all media for clients such as Truth Initiative, E*Trade, Red Robin, and Boehringer Ingelheim. Prior to Assembly, she served as Vice President of Business Development at FOX Sports Media Group. Before FOX, she held several roles at major media agencies working on clients in the beauty, entertainment, automotive, retail, and technology categories.