Wednesday, May 22nd, 2019

9:15 AM - 10:15 AM

Track I: Herscher Hall, 3rd Floor, Room 303-304

The Internet, OTT, Media and the Hollywood Connection - Programming, Content & Advertising

Neil Ishibashi, Director of Design Development, Fandango

Scott Kramer, Director of Digital, Olive Bridge Entertainment

George Leon, Chief Strategy Officer, Hawthorne

Darren Cross, COO, Unreel Entertainment

Nicholas Galante, VP of Media and Growth, Direct Agents

Damian Pelliccone, CEO, REVRY

Moderator - David Leibowitz, Managing Partner, CH Potomac

Nicholas Galante is the VP of Media and Growth at Direct Agents, a full-service, independent digital marketing agency As Vice President, Nicholas leads client management and marketing technology solutions for the agency, as well as overseeing media strategy for the Entertainment and OTT partner base. With over 10 years’ experience in digital media, he has helped the agency build best in class growth strategies for subscriber/viewership activation, audience discovery, churn reduction, data management, attribution, and more. Nicholas is active in the digital marketing community, and has spoken at numerous industry events including DigiDay, Ad:Tech, Insider Summit, and Google.

Scott Kramer is an Emmy and Webby award-winning Television and Digital Content Producer & Digital Strategist with over 20 years of experience. Currently, he is Director of Digital at Olive Bridge Entertainment, where he Executive Produces one-of-a-kind interactive shows for the Eko platform, including the Webby award winner, "That Moment When", and the upcoming "Timeline".  He was the New Media Producer for TBS's "Lopez Tonight" where he managed and produced popular content for the show's online presence as well as social media for George Lopez, himself. During that time, “Lopez Tonight” was one of the top 3 trending late night comedy shows on social media networks and at its peak, lopeztonight.com was the third most visited late night comedy website.  Scott was also key in building the video offering at NBC.com, producing groundbreaking transmedia and added value content for the network's prrogamming.  His most notable highlight at NBC.com was winning an Emmy as part of the “Heroes Digital Experience” team.  Other credits include producing the documentary "Beyond Laughter and Tears" and creating his own viral videos including "Frozen Father" which garnered over 3 million views.  In addition, Scott has worked with multiple brands and television networks includingThe Hershey Company, Microsoft, HP, Pfizer, SyFy, and Bravo.

Damian Pelliccone is the CEO of REVRY, the groundbreaking new LGBTQ digital content streaming service for Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Android TV Amazon Fire, Pluto TV, IOS, Android and the Web. REVRY now reaches over 10 million people in over 100 countries across the globe. Previously Damian has worked for top-name brands like Chevrolet and Cadillac to develop new media opportunities for product promotion and marketing. Damian also worked as head of Business Development for Make.TV a German based live streaming technology and represented Make.TV in Dubai, Singapore and all over North America and Europe. Damian also served as adjunct professor for Columbia College Chicago and instructor at YouTube Space LA and NYC. With over 15 years’ experience in the digital and new media world. Damian is a member of the Producer’s Guild of America New Media Council, TV Academy Of Arts and Sciences and is a member of the International Academy of Web TV. A proud member of StartOUT, Damian is passionate about supporting the LGBTQ community in both authentic media representation and entrepreneurship.

Neil Ishibashi is Senior Director of Design and Development at Fandango, a unit of NBCUniversal. He develops experiences across the life cycle of movies spanning mobile, online, multi-platform video distribution (Apps, Video On Demand, Digital Storefronts).  Ishibashi manages a team that has won multiple Webby Awards for their design and he is also the winner of the Season 2 competition in Comcast/NBCUniversal's "The Idea," an internal contest where employees have the opportunity to pitch Ideas to the top c-level executives. Fandango is the ultimate digital network for all things movies, serving consumers with best-in-class movie information, ticketing to more than 27,000 screens, movie trailers and original video content for movie discovery, and home entertainment.  Its portfolio reaches more than 63 million unique visitors per month, according to comScore, with over 100 million app downloads, and includes popular movie properties Flixster, Rotten Tomatoes and the Tomatometer(tm) rating, and Fandango Movieclips, the No. 1 movie trailers and content channel on YouTube.

Darren Cross, COO, Unreel Entertainmet: Darren Cross is currently COO of Unreel Entertainment, a leading platform for networks and publishers launching OTT streaming services, where he oversees all day-to-day business and finance activities. Prior to Unreel, Darren was vice president of corporate strategy and business development at Maker Studios. Focusing on developing strategic partnerships for Maker, creating and developing new lines of business, and incremental distribution opportunities. Darren remained an executive with Disney throughout the completion of its acquisition of Maker and subsequent earnout. Before joining Maker, Darren oversaw corporate strategy and business development for Blip Networks. Focused on fundraising, strategic partnerships, Blip’s original productions, and the company’s technology assets and various distribution platforms. Prior to Blip, Darren was the head of business development for Fandango, the nation’s leading moviegoer destination and was instrumental in extending the brand to new platforms, most notably leading strategy and execution of Fandango’s mobile and connected device efforts. Prior to Fandango, Darren was vice president of content acquisition and business development at ClickStar, a joint venture between Intel and Morgan Freeman’s Revelations Entertainment created to deliver first-run theatrical and home entertainment product to consumers via the open Internet. Darren is a member of the State Bar of California with a JD from the University of California Hastings and an MBA from UCLA's Anderson School of Management.

George Leon, Chief Strategy Officer, Hawthorne: During George’s eight years, he has helped Hawthorne grow by 300% by focusing on campaign strategy and execution, data analytics, campaign optimization and partnership development. He leads a diverse team of account directors, data scientists, media strategists, buyers and planners who work on a broad range of major brand clients managing billions of dollars of media allocations and investments. George’s client roster at Hawthorne includes 3M (Command, Filtrete and Post-it), Angie’s List, BLACK+DECKER, Brother International, Carbonite, Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, Craftsy, Credit One Bank, Dexcom, Dyson, Equifax, Gerber Life, Hamilton Beach, HomeAdvisor, Indochino, It’s Just Lunch, L'Oréal, Mars, Mattel, Pella, Penn Foster, Philips Electronics, ResMed, ShopAtHome, Spectrum, thredUP, Transamerica, VARIDESK and zulily. Over the past 20 years, George has been involved in every aspect of video advertising from creative development, offer and content messaging to integrated media strategy, media planning, data analysis, forecasting and attribution methodologies—covering all channels and devices. He has created strong media relationships with major broadcast and cable networks, ad exchanges, DMPs, programmatic and addressable platforms, aligning Hawthorne campaigns with the right strategy and ROI-driven execution. Utilizing his background in financial analysis and forecasting, George launched his media career at Williams Television Time in Los Angeles. He worked on account analysis for clients such as DIRECTV, Mars, Mattel and Phillips Electronics. Later, George became media director of National Media. Within two years, George was responsible for all of the company's media and operation functions. In 2000, George co-founded Gold Mountain Media, Inc., a successful media agency focusing on long form media. As integrated marketing and data-driven campaigns expanded their dominance in the DRTV media marketplace, George launched CIELO Media Management, Inc. in 2008, focusing on a hybrid of English and Spanish long and short form media campaigns. In 2010, George joined Hawthorne as it continued to expand and grow brand response and accountable advertising covering the three pillars of Hawthorne’s Art + Analytics differentiation; Data Analytics, Responsive Creative and Accountable Media. George received his degree from Boston University. He grew up in Brooklyn, NY and remains loyal to all NY sports teams. Even the Knicks.

David E. Leibowitz is Managing Partner of CH POTOMAC, working at the intersection of entertainment, media and technology and focused on bringing new innovative ways for people to enjoy and experience content.  David brings many years of experience in business, law and policy issues facing the entertainment, new media, CE and IT industries.  Among other activities, David is a Senior Advisor to Gibson Brands (parent company of such iconic brands as Gibson Guitar, Baldwin, Onkyo, Philips Home Entertainment and TEAC); Co-founder and Chairman of Sir Groovy (an award-winning solution for creating enhanced search metadata for musical recordings); Co-Chairman of Golden Shores Enterprises (a marketing and advertising technology firm that utilizes point of sale consumer data to deliver hyper-local digital advertising and lifestyle content across multiple digital platforms); and Chairman of Moonrider (an interactive advertising and content generation company whose platform is used to create engaging “magnetic” HTML5 and iOS experiences for tablets, smartphones, and other interactive devices).  David also serves as a member of the CEO Advisory Board of The Silverfern Group (a merchant bank specializing in buy-side M&A opportunities) and as Chairman of the Advisory Board of FIGHTER Interactive (a transmedia strategy and marketing services company for celebrities and brands).  In recent years, David has served as an Advisor to The SingTel Group (Asia’s leading provider of telecom, data and media services in 25 countries); as a Senior Advisor to Motorola Mobility; as Chairman of EZMO (one of the early cloud-based music social network and storage locker services operating in Europe); as Executive Vice President of Gotuit Media (a leading provider of premium metadata based video tools – since acquired by TiVO via Digitalsmiths); and as an Advisor to others in the content and technology industries. Earlier in his career, David co-founded and served as Chairman and Co-CEO of Verance (the preeminent audio watermark technology provider used by the motion picture, music, CE and IT industries to protect, manage, and monitor the use of audio and audiovisual content); was Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the Recording Industry Association of America; was a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm Wiley & Rein; served as Policy Planning Advisor to the Register of Copyrights for the U.S. Copyright Office; and as an adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Miami Law School, and at the Communications Law Institute of the Columbus School of Law (Catholic University).