WOMMA events always feature the best and brightest minds in the word of mouth marketing industry. It’s what you’ve come to expect from WOMMA events, and WOMM-U will feature industry experts who have mastered WOMM and are eager to share their wisdom and expertise with you.

Keynote Speakers

Carla Hendra

Named Co-Chief Executive Officer of Ogilvy North America in 2005 and appointed Chairman of Ogilvy New York in 2007, Carla has been the driving force of digital at Ogilvy for more than 10 years. OgilvyInteractive was recently named one of the leading digital marketing agencies in North America by Forrester Research, based on its pioneering digital work on behalf of clients such as IBM, American Express, Yahoo!, TD AMERITRADE, Unilever, SAP, Kraft, Allstate, and Cisco. Read More

Joseph Jaffe

As an author (most recently of “Join the Conversation: How to Engage Marketing-weary Consumers with the Power of Community, Dialogue and Partnership”), “Jaffe Juice” blogger and podcast producter, Chief Interrupter of crayon, a frequent speaker, and a sought-after consultant, Joseph Jaffe wears many hats within the new marketing industry — and WOMMA is thrilled to have him join us at WOMM-U as one of our notoriously remarkable keynote speakers. Read More

Andrew Lark

During his career he has worked and lived in the majority of the world’s major markets and developed a reputation as a highly creative executive, reputation turn-around specialist, and, marketer. He is a prolific writer, blogger and speaker on marketing, emerging business strategies, marketing/communications measurement, and Web 2.0. Read More

Case Study Speakers

Jordan Corredera

Having joined Carnival Cruise Lines in 2003, Jordan Corredera has held various positions within the sales, operations and marketing groups. An advocate of social media and establishing corporate credibility online, he championed Carnival’s Cruise Director Blog, which is the first and most popular insider blog in the cruise industry to date. Read More

Jeffrey Graham

Jeffrey Graham leads a 30-person corporate research team for The New York Times and nytimes.com, which includes advertising, product, marketing and strategic research, web analytics, and database marketing. Previously he was SVP, Strategic Research & Accountability Director for Starcom MediaVest, where he led communication research for Procter & Gamble, as well as research for P&G’s television and digital investments. Read More

Jennifer Gulvik

Jen Gulvik is VP-Marketing and Creative Director for Houlihan’s Restaurants, Inc., overseeing the marketing and in-house creative for Houlihan’s and the company’s two upscale-casual restaurant concepts. Jen joined Houlihan’s in 2002 to lead a total brand repositioning for the company, making its dated brand relevant once again and re-imagining everything from food & beverage to in-store music to the look-and-feel of training and recruiting material for its 100+ restaurants. Read More

Fiona Pietruski

With over a decade of experience in all aspects of global online marketing for banking and financial products, Fiona Pietruski is an avid word-of-mouth marketing advocate. She is the Chief Marketing Officer of SheSpeaks, LLC., a unique women’s word-of-mouth marketing network that establishes a direct dialogue between its diverse national network of women and companies that want to spark women’s interest, obtain candid feedback about products and services, grow word-of-mouth awareness, and build long-term brand advocates. Read More

Judy Stonefield

Judy Stonefield has been with OPI Products Inc., the world leader in professional nail care, for 12 years, and is responsible for the OPI Nail Lacquers segment of the company’s business. Renowned for their fashion-forward colors and quirky names, OPI Nail Lacquers are loved in 100+ countries around the globe. And yes, Judy is one of the select few who gets to name the Lacquer shades! Read More

Ted Wright

The founder of Fizz, Ted has been at the forefront of Word of Mouth Marketing since its inception as a discipline. Ted has built an experienced team at Fizz dedicated to the singular proposition of “Selling more client beverage more often to more people.” Ted and his team has been honored for their Word of Mouth work with a variety of industry awards and speaking requests. A 15 year veteran of beverage marketing and an alumni of Booz Allen & Hamilton, Ted also holds an MBA with honors from The University of Chicago. Read More

Faculty

Jason Anello

Jason Anello is constantly wondering — why’d you just do that? As an Ideologist in Yahoo!’s Buzz Marketing Group, he created a Buzz Labs team dedicated to finding more relevant and genuine ways to connect and communicate with his audiences. He believes you have to listen closely, keep your eyes peeled and find the right time to effectively make a lasting connection with your users/consumers. Before putting on his “lab coat” Jason thrived on the cutting edge, sometimes bleeding edge, of emerging marketing disciplines and tactics. Read More

Kathy Baughman

Kathy is a founder and principal of ComBlu, which specializes in community-based WOMM. ComBlu helps companies design, grow, nurture and manage stakeholder communities. Some recent engagements include work for: Microsoft, Intel, Roche Diagnostics, Merck, Coca-Cola, and Citrix. Considered a visionary in thought leadership marketing and integrated communications strategy, Kathy has over 30 years experience in branding, PR, MarCom, event marketing, organizational communications, grassroots marketing, and advocacy-based programs. Read More

Rohit Bhargava

Rohit is one of the founding members of the 360 Digital Influence practice at Ogilvy Public Relations and has served as lead strategist on projects for many of Ogilvy’s largest accounts, including Intel, Ford, Lenovo, Sunglass Hut, and multiple Unilever brands. He publishes an award winning personal blog about marketing called Influential Marketing (www.influentialmarketingblog.com) and has been featured in media worldwide including The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Fast Company, The Globe & Mail (Canada), Marketing China (China) and AdWeek (Australia). Read More

Bonin Bough

Bonin Bough is executive vice president and director of Weber Shandwick’s global Interactive, Social and Emerging Media practice. Bonin has extensive experience in all aspects of emerging media, from strategic development and project management to code development and design. Prior to joining Weber Shandwick, Bonin was a founding member and senior vice president at Ruder Finn Interactive (RFI), where he developed and oversaw the company’s interactive strategy unit for eight years. Read More

Rod Brooks

Rod W. Brooks is the Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer for PEMCO Mutual Insurance Company based in Seattle, Washington. As such, Rod is a member of the PEMCO executive committee and has oversight responsibility for product development, underwriting, brand management, marketing and sales. In addition, PEMCO has two wholly owned subsidiaries, PEMCO Life Insurance Company and PEMCO Insurance Agency, for which Brooks is the responsible executive and member of the board of directors. Read More

Erin Byrne

Erin is Burson-Marsteller’s Chief Digital Strategist and as such oversees the agency’s global digital strategy, client work, product and service development and Internet-related policies and procedures. She has a long background in new media, having worked on web initiatives since 1993 for diversified clients encompassing online strategy and research, marketing communications, design/development, viral marketing and interactive advertising. Read More

Blake Cahill

Blake Cahill is responsible for executing marketing strategies, thought leadership, and analyst relations to increase market and customer awareness for revenue growth. Prior to joining the company, Blake was the Vice President of Marketing and Product Management at SafeHarbor Technology Corporation, a Seattle based web-services firm, where he successfully reignited customer acquisition and retention programs, oversaw the launch of a new brand identity and significantly raised the profile of the firm with the analyst and media communities. Read More

Walter Carl

Walter Carl is the founder and Chief Research Officer at ChatThreads Corporation, an independent Word of Mouth (WoM) measurement and analytics company that helps brands quantify the ROI and reach of their WoM marketing initiatives. ChatThreads’ clients include Johnson & Johnson, Nike, Unilever, Kelloggs and Wyeth. ChatThreads’ proprietary G2X methodology was developed by Dr. Carl while a faculty member at Northeastern University in Boston, MA and received the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s (WOMMA) award for Best Research Paper 2007. Read More

Geno Church

Geno Church’s claim to fames are that he was born the son of a preacher-man, scored 50 points in a high-school basketball game, was in a glam-rock band (while he was a Leif Garret look-alike) in the 70s and nobody can ever figure out where his accent is from (it’s Southern). Oh and he’s a quoted, sought-after and stalked thought-leader in uncovering the DNA of sustainable word of mouth movements and building them from the ground-up. Read More

Clayton Closson

Clayton Closson is the website content manager for Quicken Loans, the nation’s largest online mortgage lender. Clayton’s responsible for the flagship Quicken Loans website as well as several smaller sites including his beloved DIFF blog – the Quicken Loans employee blog. Clayton (or Clay as his name became when he joined Quicken Loans because of a clerical error) led the team that launched the DIFF - Quicken Loans first venture into blogging - and he’s never looked back. Read More

Lynn Eastep

With more than thirteen years of digital communications experience, Lynn Eastep has delivered award-winning and sophisticated marketing solutions for Fortune 500 corporations, nonprofit organizations, and household-name consumer brands. She has created word of mouth, digital and social media campaigns for clients such as Nestle®, Bayer, AT&T and Visa. Read More

Brandon Evans

Brandon Evans leads the charge at Mr. Youth. From Strategist to Brand Manager to Entrepreneur to Agency Partner, Brand Evans has worn many hats and garnered a breadth of unique experience that has prepared him well to head up Mr. Youth. After graduating from the University of Texas, Brandon began his career as an interactive strategist at Sapient. Read More

Brad Fay

Brad Fay is the Chief Operating Officer of the Keller Fay Group, a company he co-founded in early 2006 with CEO Ed Keller, the co-author of The Influentials (Free Press, 2003) and the President of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. Based in New Brunswick, NJ, the Keller Fay Group is the first market research firm dedicated to understanding and measuring word of mouth, which is now a $1 billion market and the fastest growing marketing services discipline, according to PQ Media. Read More

Leslie Forde

Leslie is a member of Communispace’s Management Team and is responsible for developing strategic partnerships with customer-focused organizations including marketing consultancies, advertising and public relations firms. She helps Communispace’s partner companies to effectively leverage customers by bringing them into the marketing conversation. Partners such as Ogilvy & Mather, Edelman and Digitas are using communities to deliver more value to their clients: to differentiate their brands, drive greater advocacy, foster loyalty, and overall, to improve marketing effectiveness. Read More

Liana Frey

Liana Frey is a marketing leader at Dell Inc, a leading global systems and services company. Until recently she was responsible for digital marketing for the Consumer and Small Business Divisions in the United States, where she managed one of the largest direct marketing budgets in the country. In late 2007 she began working directly for Dell’s CMO, to re-invigorate Dell’s marketing and brand positioning, and to drive innovations in customers’ online experience. Read More

Tom Kehler

Tom Kehler is the VP and General Manager of Community Solutions for Satmetrix. Prior to the merger with Satmetrix, Mr. Kehler was Chairman and Founder of Informative. Prior to Informative, Mr. Kehler was Chairman and CEO of Recipio from 1998 through January, 2002. Recipio developed and marketed the technology platform for Adaptive Conversations ® and relationship marketing platform acquired by Informative. Read More

Rob Key

Rob is founder & CEO of Converseon, the award-winning social media marketing and communications agency designed to help companies “join the conversation” to meet business objectives. Founded in 2001, Converseon provides leading brands with innovative “end-to-end” social media marketing and communication solutions. Converseon’s work has been featured in such media as The Financial Times, CNN, Search Engine Land, Mediapost, Ad Age, Business Week, among others. Read More

Chris Lightner

Chris is responsible for the success of all PopularMedia social media marketing programs. In his role, he works with clients, designers, and developers to design programs, launch, optimize and deliver outstanding ROI to clients. Prior to joining PopularMedia, Chris was the Product Manager at Jumpstart Technologies, LLC., an outsourced information technology company, where he specialized in web properties and viral marketing. Read More

Michelle Makowski

Michelle Makowski leads Word of Mouth marketing for the TurboTax product at Intuit. She works closely with product and marketing leads across the division to evangelize WOM and the various ways each team can employ WOM into their functional areas. Prior to this role, she has worked on retention marketing and online advertising at Intuit. Her online experience began working for Art.com as a marketing partner manager. Read More

Myra Norton

Myra Norton, Chief Executive Officer of Community Analytics LLC, has been with the firm since its inception in 2004. Norton is responsible for providing strategic direction for all of Community Analytics’ business units and is leading the firm through its next era of dynamic growth. She is a leading thinker on the application of social networks within communities, speaking and writing on this subject in a variety of venues. Read More

Warren Sukernek

Warren Sukernek is a senior strategist with VML, a top 20 Interactive Marketing Agency, part of the Wunderman Network, in Seattle. He helps guide strategy and planning to product development, marketing communications, relationship management and social networking working with Seattle clients as well as VML’s other national clients. Read More