Speakers

Dean Abbott is Co-Founder and Chief Data Scientist of SmarterHQ, and President of Abbott Analytics, Inc. in San Diego, California. Mr. Abbott is an internationally recognized data mining and predictive analytics expert with over two decades of experience applying advanced data mining algorithms, data preparation techniques, and data visualization methods to real-world problems, including fraud detection, risk modeling, text mining, personality assessment, response modeling, survey analysis, planned giving, and predictive toxicology.

Mr. Abbott is the author of Applied Predictive Analytics (Wiley, 2014) and co-author of IBM SPSS Modeler Cookbook (Packt Publishing, 2013). He is a highly-regarded and popular speaker at Predictive Analytics and Data Mining conferences and meetups, and is on the Advisory Boards for the UC/Irvine Predictive Analytics Certificate as well as the UCSD Data Mining Certificate programs.

He has a B.S. in Mathematics of Computation from Rensselaer (1985) and a Master of Applied Mathematics from the University of Virginia (1987).

Considered one of the leading digital measurement experts in the world, Gary Angel sold his 16-year-old consultancy to EY where he headed up their Digital Analytics Practice. Voted the most Influential Industry Contributor by the Digital Analytics Association, Gary has published more than twenty whitepapers on advanced digital analytics practice and is a sought after speaker at industry events. Today, Gary is CEO at start-up Digital Mortar, applying online analytics to in-store behavior.

Chris Baird is an accomplished professional with nearly 15 years of experience in digital and demand marketing. Through his experience he has gained in depth knowledge about web and mobile analytics.

He is currently serving as Vice President of Marketing at a VC backed SaaS company that offers an enterprise Data Governance solution to some of the world's largest brands. Customers include AmericanExpress, Adidas, Marriott and NBC.

Vladimir Barash is a Senior Researcher and Engineer at Graphika. He has received his Ph.D. from Cornell University, where he studied Information Science and wrote his thesis on the flow of rumors and virally marketed products through social networks. At Graphika, Vladimir's research focuses mainly on the intersection of social media and large-scale social phenomena, ranging from online political activism in Russia to the cross-cultural patterns of emoticon use in Twitter to leveraging social media for the prediction of emergency events.

In addition to his research duties, Vladimir has a decade's experience working with big data, from scientific computing (Matlab, scipy) to parallel processing technologies (Hadoop / Hive) to data storage and pipelining (Redis, mongodb, MYSQL) at the terabyte scale. At Graphika, Vladimir has co-designed and implemented systems that process tens of millions every six hours to deliver timely information on influencers and conversation leaders in online communities tailored to client interests. Vladimir is proficient in over a dozen programming languages and frameworks and has designed production-ready systems for every stage of big data analysis, from collection to client-facing presentation via web, spreadsheet or graphic visualization.

Vladimir has been active in the Social Media Research Foundation (SMRF) and the NodeXL project, helping build a network analysis package that brings relational data analysis at scale to the fingertips of any interested user, without requiring specialized knowledge or technical training beyond familiarity with Microsoft Excel. NodeXL has enabled users in academia, industry and the general public to analyze tens of thousands of social networks, from networks of politicians voting on bills to networks of motorcycle enthusiasts working together. As part of his work with SMRF and the NodeXL team, Vladimir has contributed a chapter on Twitter analysis to Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL: Insights from a Connected World.

Vladimir's work has received awards at the International Conference for Weblogs in Social Media and Bits on Our Minds. He has presented his research at academic and industrial campuses all over North America and Europe, including: Xerox/PARC, Microsoft, Colgate University, Northeastern University, UMCP and Oxford University (Oxford Internet Institute). He currently resides in Somerville, MA.

Shari Cleary has more than 17 years of experience in media analytics and is currently the senior vice president of strategic insights and research for Comedy Central. As a key member of the senior leadership team, she is responsible for cross-platform analytics and providing key consumer insights to guide strategy for multi-platform development, programming, and marketing. She recently served 2 terms on the Board of Directors for the Digital Analytics Association (DAA), co-founded the DAA Media Special Interest Group, and has spoken at numerous industry conferences worldwide. She graduated from Binghamton University's School of Management in 1997.

Eric has over 20 years’ experience in IT and strategic business development for companies such as Oracle, Apple and Allaire-Macromedia. In 2008, Eric founded Hub’Sales, a consulting firm specializing in digital analytics which quickly became the European leader in its field.

In 2010, he created the model for automated real-time digital analytics quality assurance and launched the R&D program to build the Hub’Scan EX platform. Eric has led the vision and the strategic development of Hub’Scan which was awarded Digital Analytics Technology of the Year in 2015. Hub’Scan is used by thousands of websites around the world to ensure their quality of data, improve performance and optimize business results.

Margaret manages a team of talented web analysts located in the US and Europe. Her team provides consulting, reporting and analysis of web activity to internal clients, mostly marketing teams, in all of IBM's major business units, including hardware, software and services. Margaret joined IBM in 1998 as the manager of the Netfinity / System X web site. She helped launch eCommerce at IBM, and spent several years in the Personal Computing division before joining ibm.com. Margaret had a previous career in international and cross-cultural consulting. She is a graduate of Wellesley College with an MBA from the University of Texas at Dallas.

Matt Gershoff is Co-founder of Conductrics, an intelligent decision engine platform (www.conductrics.com). Matt has over 15 years experience in database marketing and web analytics. He holds MS degrees in both Economics & Artificial Intelligence.

Jim is an interactive customer retention, defection, and loyalty expert with nearly 20 years of experience generating exceptional returns on customer marketing program investments. His professional career has been focused on introducing Data-Driven marketing to new industries from cable television in the 80s to TV shopping in the 90s and now to the Internet.

Bio is forthcoming.

Laura is a proven marketing practitioner, respected consultant and dynamic speaker. Her expertise is helping marketing organization’s transform into high performing centers of excellence. A marketing operations champion and pioneer on the science side of marketing, she is recognized as one of the leading authorities in marketing measurement and performance, marketing operations, and marketing data and analytics. Laura has authored three books: Measure What Matters: Reconnecting Marketing to Business Goals and Marketing Metrics in Action. and Gone Fishin': A Guide to Hooking, Keeping, & Growing Profitable Customers. Her marketing leadership roles at Motorola, State Farm, DME Systems, Shushenoff Consulting, and ETI include: Marketing Operations Manager, Customer Loyalty & Experience Architect, Product Marketing Manager, and Customer Relationship Director.

Judah Phillips helps people create value with analytics and data science. He is an award-winning consultant who consults on these topics with the world's leading brands and their executives. Phillips takes a “top down” approach to value creation by working with executive leaders who want to improve their business and financial performance through the applied analysis of data, the management of analytical and technical resources, and the alignment and optimization of analytics strategy against short­term roadmaps and long­term strategic visions. He strongly believes that cutting­edge technology is critical and necessary but often becomes technical overhead unless strategy is aligned with excellence in organizational development, operational management, and delivery execution that is solidly tied to impacting material financial goals. Judah has worked with Internet companies, Media and Marketing companies, Consumer Product companies, Financial Services firms, Pharmaceutical companies, and many different agencies, including high­growth, early stage startups and the Fortune 10.

Judah is an advisor on the board of technology­ centric companies who have under his advisement raised more than $85M with combined valuations of more than $500M across multiple rounds of funding, including global leaders in digital analytics, mobile analytics, online marketplaces, mobile apps, and ad technology.

Phillips is the sole author of three books on analytics, including Ecommerce Analytics, Building a Digital Analytics Organization, and Digital Analytics Primer. He has also authored chapters and/or edited the books: Measuring the Digital World, Advanced Business Analytics, Sales and Marketing Analytics, Digital is Changing Everything, The Complete Guide to B2B Marketing, and Multichannel Marketing Metrics.

Judah holds a Master of Science in Finance and a Master of Business Administration from Northeastern University and a B.A. from University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is an adjunct lecturer at Babson College.

Greg founded Delve over 7 years ago to help clients make sense of their data to execute efficient media buying. With nearly two decades of experience in digital marketing Greg understands how to deliver high ROI for his clients through programmatic media buying with a unique analytics approach. Prior to founding Delve Greg has also held senior marketing positions at Digitas, Bath & Body Works, Community Connect and ooVoo. He holds a B.A. in Economics from Clark University.

Jim Sterne is an international consultant focused on measuring the value of the online marketing for creating and strengthening customer relationships since 1993. Sterne has written eight books on using the Internet for marketing, produces the eMetrics Summit - www.emetrics.org and is co-founder and current Chairman of the Digital Analytics Association - www.DigitalAnalyticsAssociation.org