Keynote speaker:
Ephraim Cohen
Global Managing Director, Media + Platforms, FleishmanHillard
Ephraim Cohen is the Global Managing Director of FleishmanHillard’s (FH) global media and platforms practice, which brings media, social, digital and editorial content capabilities into a single, integrated global practice. He also co-leads the agency's data transformation strategy, designed to put advanced data tools directly in the hands of every counselor at FH. Prior to his current role, Ephraim was the General Manager of FleishmanHillard NY and oversaw the regional social and digital practice. Throughout his tenure at FH, Ephraim has designed and led programs for Chase, AB InBev, AT&T, Samsung, J&J, Accenture, Singapore, InvestUK and EY, among others. Prior to FleishmanHillard, Mr. Cohen was the chair of the technology and digital content industry practice and executive vice president of innovation at MWW. Mr. Cohen also founded and ran The Fortex Group, an industry community-building firm for the media industry. Mr. Cohen launched The Fortex Group after serving as the executive vice president and general manager of Edelman’s global technology practice as well as leadig Edelman Boston as GM. Mr. Cohen began his career at Business Week as an assistant editor in the executive programs division. He later became the managing director of the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition (IACC) where he worked on trade policy and served as manager of the Digital Future Coalition, an organization focused on global copyright policy. Mr. Cohen holds a master’s degree of public policy in international political economy from Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy and a bachelor’s degree in political science and dramatic literature from New York University.
Ephraim will speak on "Immersion, Influence and Brand: How Your Communications Strategy Will Work, Even with Robots."
With sessions featuring these experts:
Rend Al-Mondhiry
Partner, Amin Talati Wasserman LLP
Rend Al-Mondhiry is a Partner at Amin Talati Wasserman LLP in Washington, DC. She advises clients in the dietary supplement, food, and cosmetic industries on a broad range of FDA and FTC compliance matters, with a focus on helping companies navigate the rapidly evolving regulatory landscape for hemp and CBD products at both the federal and state level. She is committed to helping her clients responsibly develop and market products, drawing on her years of experience advising the nation’s leading dietary supplement and food companies on complex labeling, advertising, and ingredient issues. In her previous role as Associate General Counsel at the Council for Responsible Nutrition, Rend advocated on the industry’s behalf numerous times before FDA, FTC, Congress, and state attorneys general. She has assisted companies with FDA import alerts and detentions, International Trade Commission matters, and Proposition 65 compliance, and has substantial experience initiating and defending challenges before the Council of Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division.
Rend will speak on "Legal Claims for Nonlawyers—Best Practices Beyond FDA Compliance for Today’s Litigious Times."
Melissa Ardavany
Vice President, Operations, Allume Group
Melissa Ardavany of Allume Group has spent nearly 20 years in retail and eCommerce working with hundreds of consumer brands. She is known for her expertise across merchandising, planning, marketing, and strategy, along with her specialization in luxury and beauty categories. Melissa is a former director of client services for digital agencies where she led strategies and upskilled teams to achieve growth and success. She is most passionate about the art the science of eLearning and instructional design.
Melissa will speak on "Unlocking the Potential of Marketplaces with the eCommerce Success Framework."
Kay Brungs Laud
Senior Vice President, Social Impact, Spectrum Science
Kay believes authentic purpose-driven work not only drives business results but brand loyalty. She brings a wide mix of industry and practice area expertise including sustainability, CSR, energy, renewable energy, finance, nonprofit, and workplace. She has helped organizations from Fortune 500 to local nonprofits build awareness through strategic communications, thought leadership and social impact strategies for more than a decade.
Prior to joining the Spectrum Science team, Kay spent four and a half years at Allison+Partners where in addition to her account work, she led the agency’s global volunteer committee. Kay began her career at Golin, where she spent more than seven years working with clients like Dow Chemical, Walmart, The Y, EY and Johnsonville. One of her career highlights was helping Dow launch its sustainability goals.
Kay holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, Communications and Economics from The American University, and a master’s degree in Art History from George Washington University.
Kay will speak on the session, "Beyond the Label: The Importance of Science and Responsible Practices."
Jennifer Cosenza
Co-founder, Catalytic Agency
Working at the intersection of tech, health and policy for more than 25 years, Jennifer has partnered with innovators to build public awareness for pioneering new approaches to scientific discovery and public health. Throughout her career, she led business development and communications efforts across the life sciences, providing strategic counsel to the world’s leading healthcare companies, startups, and advocacy organizations.
As a co-founder of the Catalytic Agency, she brings her passion for translating how science and tech are shaping our understanding of disease to support the visionaries and entrepreneurs who are transforming the health of individuals and communities around the world. Prior to Catalytic, Jennifer served as the Washington, D.C., health practice lead for a global communications agency where she supported both industry and government clients to strengthen thought leadership and coalitions in the areas of personalized medicine, biopharmaceutical innovation, health and wellness, and health technology.
Jennifer will speak on the session, "Beyond the Label: The Importance of Science and Responsible Practices."
Adam Dornbusch
CEO & Founder, EnTribe
Adam is a digital media executive with more than 20 years of experience developing content strategies for the world's largest brands. Prior to founding EnTribe, Adam spent four years building the groundbreaking Community Content & Rewards program at GoPro (GoPro Awards). During his tenure at GoPro, Adam’s team licensed millions of photos and videos from the GoPro community for Super Bowl Ads, The GoPro Channel, Out Of Home and In Store marketing.
Before GoPro, Adam was licensing citizen journalism from over 50 countries for Al Gore’s Current TV (acquired for $500M). Adam has spent his career building scalable content communities for GoPro, Current TV, Tribeca Film, Starz/Encore, Jaman, Access 360 Media, and Ripe Digital. Not finding any suitable CRM solutions for creator communities, he decided to build EnTribe.
Adam will speak on the session, "Today’s Most Powerful Marketing is User-Generated Content."
Adela García Chévez
Vice President, Brand Strategy, Spectrum Science
Adela is a fearless brand strategist with Spectrum Science that has spent the last decade of her life deeply caring about people, brands and culture. She believes that brands have the power to change perceptions, beliefs and even behaviors. Her passion lies at the intersection of humanity, science and creativity. This mix of curiosity and passion has guided her to help brands across a variety of industries, including health & wellness, healthcare, pharma, CPG, government, biotech and non-profit companies in Latin America, USA and Europe.
Adela holds a Master’s Degree in Neuromarketing from ESCO Escuela Superior de Comunicación y Marketing in Granada, Spain. A Bachelor’s Degree in Integrated Marketing Communication, and an Associate’s Degree in Advertising from Escuela de Comunicación Mónica Herrera in San Salvador, El Salvador.
Adela will speak on the session, "Beyond the Label: The Importance of Science and Responsible Practices."
Matt Heindl
GVP, Content Engagement Strategy, Razorfish
Matt started his career on the publisher side: Running marketing services and content marketing for notable startups HEAVY.com and VICE where he activated early communities and alternative content strategies for brands like Dell, Subaru and Harley Davidson.
With the advent of official “social media,” he made the switch to agency side 12 years ago, putting his digital and creative toolkit to use in the quickly-exploding social media realm; helping brands like BMW, HomeGoods and Vanguard burst onto the social media scene. At Razorfish, he lead the Mercedes-Benz social media program—and helped elevate and scale content-heavy social programs for Uniqlo, Kia and Trojan to a new, best-in-class social level under his guidance.
Matt will speak on the session, "Today’s Most Powerful Marketing is User-Generated Content."
Claudia Lewis
Partner, Venable LLP
Claudia Lewis, co-chair of Venable’s FDA Group, counsels clients on matters involving Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation, labeling, and marketing of foods, over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, medical devices, and other products. With deep knowledge of dietary supplement labeling regulations, Claudia represents scientists, physicians, nutritionists, healthcare associations, and citizen groups. She has also aided international clients in establishing a U.S. market for their products. She has prepared and presented constitutional and administrative law cases before the FDA, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Department of Justice (DOJ), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Claudia will speak on "Legal Claims for Nonlawyers—Best Practices Beyond FDA Compliance for Today’s Litigious Times."
Andrew Nash
CEO, Targetable Sciences, Inc.
Andrew J. Nash serves as the CEO of Targetable Sciences, an innovative digital brand marketing platform for the restaurant and hospitality industry. In addition to his leadership and operating experience, he has worked extensively with the portfolio companies of multiple Venture Capital and Private Equity firms, including diligence, strategic advisory, interim CEO, Board and Advisory Board roles.
Andrew’s leadership experience includes CEO, PropertyRoom.com; EVP, Sales & Services, FoundationDB (acquired by Apple); SVP, Consumer & Enterprise, GlobalLogic (acquired by Apax Partners); Global Head, Sales & Services, GSI Commerce (acquired by eBay); COO, Visual Sciences (acquired by Omniture); COO, BroadVision; EVP, Services & Board member, Baan Company (acquired by Invensys); CEO, Coda; Partner, Deloitte Consulting; and CEO, ICS Australia & New Zealand (acquired by Deloitte Consulting).
Andrew is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia and a member of the Australian Computer Society. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce from The University of Melbourne and a Graduate Diploma in Computing from Monash University. He serves on the Board of Directors of PropertyRoom.com, Viral Launch and Silectis and serves on the Advisory Boards of MoreCommerce, Soil Metrics and EnTribe. He also served as a Senior Technical Advisor to HBO’s Silicon Valley.
Andrew is an Entrepreneur at Large for the Translating Research at Melbourne (TRAM) Accelerator at The University of Melbourne mentoring research entrepreneurs on their commercialization journey.
Andrew will speak on the session, "Today’s Most Powerful Marketing is User-Generated Content."
Vanessa Neurohr
Vice President of Customer Success, Muck Rack
Vanessa Neurohr is the Vice President of Customer Success at Muck Rack, the software platform that enables thousands of organizations to find the right journalists to pitch, report on media coverage and prove the value of their work. In this role, she works to change the way professionals approach public relations and encourages better relationships with the media through a unique mix of technology and partnership. Vanessa joined Muck Rack as a Customer Success Strategist in 2016. Prior to this, she worked in customer experience at Capital One and digital marketing at TITLE Boxing Club. She is also the co-founder of ThriveNetwork in New York City, which is a community of over 1,000 members in the customer success space.
Vanessa will speak on "Muck Rack's 2023 State of Journalism Report."
Ryan Olohan
EVP, Klick Media, Klick Health
Former Managing Director - Healthcare, Google
After 16 years at Google, Ryan recently joined Klick Health to scale their fast growing Media practice. Prior to Klick, Ryan spent the first half of his Google career overseeing the Consumer Packaged Goods industry. He then spent 7 years as a key thought leader in healthcare as the Managing Director of Google Healthcare. Because of his leadership, he was selected by MM&M as a "Top 40 Healthcare Transformer of 2016,” a "Top 50 Healthcare Influencer" by PRWeek for 2017 and 2018, and the "2019 Top Business 100" by Irish America Magazine.
Outside of his day job, he is a frequent speaker at industry events, a Board member for the Seven Scoops & Sips that employees adults with special needs and donates the proceeds to local and global causes.
Ryan will speak on "Recognizing, Embracing, and Thriving in Disruption."
Katherine Tallmadge, MA, RDN, LD
Personalized Nutrition
Katherine Tallmadge is internationally recognized in the nutrition and weight loss field. She is sought by the national, international, and local media for her expertise, which is why her name or face may be familiar to you.
National Media spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics for nine years, the maximum term, she regularly appears on CNN, and has appeared on major network news programs such as ABC’s Good Morning America, 20/20 and Nightly News, NBC’s Today Show and Evening News, CBS’s Good Morning and CBS Nightly News—even featured on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. She has been a columnist in The Washington Post, Shape, Vegetarian Times, and US New & World Report Magazine.
She leads wellness programs at organizations such as CNN’s Washington Bureau, Acorn Media, Farmers Markets, schools, aging communities, trade associations, financial institutions national and local governments. She teaches and provides continuing education for registered dietitians, physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals.
She has authored the best selling book, Diet Simple, listed as a top three diet book by Good Housekeeping Magazine.
Katherine will speak on "Influencing with Expertise."
Caroline Thomason, RD, LDN, CDCES
"Not Your Average Dietitian"
Caroline Thomason is a media dietitian in the greater Washington, DC, area. She writes for Eat This, Not That!, Livestrong.com, Health.com, and Well+Good, partners with brands as a nutrition expert, and runs a nutrition private practice. In her private practice, she works with women who want to stop dieting and find confidence with food. She has completed and written hundreds of media interviews and freelance articles for top-tier media outlets.
Caroline will speak on "Influencing with Expertise."
Chetan Vijayvergiya, PhD
Spectrum Science Chief Science Officer
Chetan is a scientist by training, with a PhD in Neuroscience from Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University/Sloan Kettering Institute (SKI). His thesis work focused on mitochondrial dysfunction in neurodegenerative disorders.
His passion for science, however, is matched by his intellectual curiosity of all things. Why this? Why that? It is exactly this insatiable quest for knowledge that led Chetan to broaden his horizons into understanding the “whys” behind behavior, and ultimately leveraging this drive into building brands that resonate.
Chetan brings to the table in his role at Spectrum 20+ years of experience in activating brands that incite—from branding strategy, positioning, and critical message development. Chetan’s experience focuses on targeted molecular therapeutics in a variety of therapeutic areas (transplant, autoimmune, inflammatory, neurologic, oncologic, and cardiologic disorders), including launch experience in rare conditions like eosinophilic esophagitis, cystic fibrosis, and glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Leveraging his expertise in cellular and molecular pathways, Chetan contributes significant clinical insight and understanding of the mechanisms that underlie the pathobiology in these therapeutic areas.
Chetan completed his BA in biology from the University of Texas in Austin and subsequently earned his PhD in neuroscience from the Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University/Sloan Kettering Institute (SKI), where his thesis work focused on mitochondrial dysfunction in neurodegenerative disorders. Chetan has published scientific articles in The Journal of Neuroscience, Biochemistry, and Human Molecular Genetics.
Ultimately, Chetan is a firm believer that in order to create brands that resonate with their audiences, that truly incite audiences, you must do more than create words—you must be able to transfer enthusiasm.
Chetan will moderate the session, "Beyond the Label: The Importance of Science and Responsible Practices."
