Thursday, April 30th, 2015

ThinkTank I: Admiralty Room

2:15 PM - 3:30 PM

Advertising Innovation! Ad Targeting and Hypertargeting, Mobile, Social Networks and Video Ads

Michael Benedek, President and CEO, Datonics LLC

Annika Byrntse, Director of Media Services, True North, Inc.

Oscar Padilla, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Digital Media & Insights, Pulpo

Tom Bash, Senior Manager, Product Strategy and Operations, Exponential

Bryan Gernert, CEO, Resonate

John Trefry, Founder & CEO, 4WT Media, Moderator

 

Annika Byrntse - Director of Media Services, True North, Inc.; Annika is a marketing technologist with over ten years’ experience in building and managing large online marketing campaigns. During her seven years at True North, she has worked with a broad spectrum of clients including several Fortune 100 companies, as well as played an integral role in the program development for our nonprofit clients, including ASPCA, Doctors Without Borders, American Diabetes Association, Make A Wish, Share Our Strength and World Wildlife Fund. She oversees the media strategy and works very closely with the Insights/Analytics department to continuously move our campaign analysis forward and go deeper into understanding the consumer behavior that drives response. She has deep expertise in acquisition marketing and a strong track record of designing custom direct response marketing campaigns with a focus on acquisition, scalability, and ROI.

 

Michael Benedek is the President and CEO of Datonics (www.datonics.com), which was recently spun off as a standalone company from AlmondNet.   Benedek was most recently President of AlmondNet Data Division and joined AlmondNet in 2000 as Vice President, Business Development. His experience extends to over 15 years in the Internet, financial services and healthcare fields while based in New York and in Tel Aviv, Israel.

 

Tom Bash, Manager, Product Strategy & Operations, Exponential Interactive: As Exponential’s Senior Manager of Product Strategy and Operations, Tom Bash is responsible for leading product management, external go-to-market strategy and internal operations for Exponential’s mobile initiatives.  Prior to this role, Tom led all phases of development for products and applications at mobile location-based gaming startup Booyah, which included multiple top 10 App Store launches and a business intelligence platform built on top of Hadoop. Before that, he was a consultant, conducting financial and economic analysis and market research for corporate attorneys and Fortune 500 companies. Tom holds a BA in Business Administration with a focus in Finance from the University of Washington.

 

Bryan Gernert, CEO, Resonate: A proven business leader, Bryan Gernert has led businesses through periods of significant transformation and growth. He has applied his management expertise to businesses in several industries, with emphasis on information technology and services.  Before joining Resonate, Bryan served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Americas for Cybertrust. In the five-year period leading up to the sale of Cybertrust to Verizon for approximately $500 million, Bryan's region more than doubled its annual revenues from $36 million to $80 million. He was an instrumental player on the executive team that orchestrated, negotiated and completed the transaction with Verizon.  Previously, at Digex, Incorporated, a global web hosting and managed services provider, Bryan grew a start-up company into a business with an annual revenue run rate of $240 million. During his tenure, he helped Digex raise over $1.3 billion through an IPO and secondary offering and was part of the team that sold Digex to WorldCom in a $5.7 billion transaction.  Bryan has also held management positions with Evergreen Information Technologies and RCI. Twitter ID: @BryanGernert

 

John Trefry is the Founder & CEO of 4WT Media, a digital marketing and video production company. 4WT specializes in creating and marketing video content to reach targeted audiences for clients including Google, Netflix, AT&T and many others. John has extensive experience working with top internet and technology companies having built complete content strategies and brokered large syndication deals. He has a diverse background mixing both a technical and creative focus. Before founding 4WT, John started a production company in Sydney, Australia before going on to work with some of the most exciting technology companies in Southern California. He holds a BFA in film production and business from the University of Colorado at Boulder. John enjoys pushing himself both professionally and personal and he actively competes in 10+ mile obstacle races.

 

Oscar Padilla serves as Senior Vice President of Marketing, Digital Media & Insights of Pulpo, an Entravision Communications Corporation unit that combined the data and technology assets of Luminar Insights, the leader in Big Data Hispanic Analytics, with Pulpo Media, the nation’s leading digital media network targeting online Hispanics ((i)Hispanics) across acculturation levels and digital devices. He is a seasoned technology executive with a long history leading innovation around digital media, big data solutions, programmatic advertising, and cross-channel marketing strategies. Before joining Entravision, he served as Senior Director of interactive strategy for Vertis, a $1.2 Billion communications company where he led the formation of the company’s digital media practice. Other experience includes work at Hitachi Consulting, Blackboard, and Mindshare Interactive Campaign (currently Rep Equity).