Keelan Leyser, Digital Illusionist

Digital Illusionist Keelan Leyser is a world-renowned virtual magician, British Magical Grand Prix Champion with appearances on TV shows like Penn and Teller Fool Us & Dean Cain’s Masters of Illusion. Keelan sas been personally invited to perform for Prince Charles on more than one occasion and is the entertainer for our Connecting the Dots Virtual Conference break.

Aaron Zagha, Chief Marketing Officer, Newton Baby

Aaron Zagha is currently the CMO at Newton Baby, the direct-to-consumer brand behind the safest baby crib mattress on the market in addition to other top-rated sleep products. He was previously the head of e-commerce for Teleflora’s international operations. Aaron also currently serves on the board of Westside Analytics, an online data-mining firm providing competitive analysis and research to corporate clients in eCommerce, restaurant chains and hedge funds. Prior to Newton and Teleflora, Aaron was a co-founder and COO of Ownza.com, the live shopping site.

Alex Cone, Senior Director, Product Management, IAB Tech Lab

Alex leads Tech Lab’s privacy initiatives. Before Tech Lab, Alex was Director, Product Management at Xandr, directly responsible for its privacy and creative product and engineering plans, execution and go to market. During his 7 years at AppNexus (now Xandr) Alex gained a deep understanding of the ad tech industry working globally on projects ranging from a video DSP to ad quality policy and enforcement. Alex holds a masters degree in International Relations focused on European Union Policy Studies, and before AppNexus worked in government and not for profit roles. Alex’s unique experience as a tech leader with international policy chops are a strategic advantage as Tech Lab enables its members to navigate the major disruption impacting digital advertising today.

David Bell, co-founder and President, Idea Farm Ventures

David has been called the “guru of the DTC movement” and the “man who kick started the direct brand economy.” He is co-founder and President at Idea Farm Ventures (IFV), a permanent capital consumer and retail investment holding company based in New York City. David was an early investor in several iconic new economy brands including Diapers.com (acquired by Amazon for $545m), Jet.com (acquired by Walmart for $3.3b), Bonobos (acquired by Walmart for $310m), Harry’s (private), and Warby Parker (private), among many others.

Prior to IFV, David had a 20-year academic career at the Wharton School where he was a Chaired Professor, an award-winning teacher and researcher, and responsible for starting the first courses on digital marketing and e-commerce for MBAs and undergraduates. He is a recipient of the Frank M. Bass Outstanding Dissertation Award, POMS Applied Research Challenge First Place Award, WISE Overall Best Paper Award, three John D.C. Little Best Paper Finalist Awards, and two INFORMS Long Term Impact Finalist Awards, among others.

David speaks globally on digital marketing and e-commerce for clients including Alibaba, Google, Haier, Nike, and Ralph Lauren. He wrote of Location is (Still) Everything: The Surprising Influence of the Real World on How We Search, Shop, and Sell in the Virtual One, a playbook for how to win in the digital economy. His academic research is published in all major peer-reviewed journals, including Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, Marketing Science, MIT Sloan Management Review and California Management Review.

David holds a Ph.D. (Business) and M.S. (Statistics) from Stanford University as well as a B. Com and M. Com (1st Class Honors) from University of Auckland.

Lewis Broadnax, Vice President, Global eCommerce & Digital, Sazerac

As a 20+ year tech industry veteran, Lewis Broadnax is currently responsible for leading digital transformation and eCommerce globally for Sazerac. Previously, Lewis led the creation of the eCommerce and digital practice for RJ Reynolds’s Vapor Company. Lewis’s 17 year career with IBM/Lenovo included P&L and marketing responsibility for the Americas eCommerce organization as well as managing web development teams in Argentina, India and China. Lewis is a frequent speaker at eCommerce and Marketing Technology conferences. He was educated at Duke University and calls both Durham, NC and Louisville, Ky home. His passions are consumer electronics, photography and all things Duke Basketball.

Natalie Zmuda, Head of Think with Google

Natalie Zmuda leads Think with Google, a global platform that delivers Google data and insights to millions of advertisers. She shapes the editorial strategy and shepherds the brand across 21 sites in 12 languages.

Prior to joining Google, Natalie spent nearly fifteen years as a journalist at Advertising Age, Women’s Wear Daily, and Footwear News. As a journalist, she was a frequent guest on CBS This Morning and appeared on a number of other national news outlets, including NBC’s Today, ABC World News, CNBC, CNN, and National Public Radio.

She resides in the New York City area with her husband and two sons.

Jerry Wind, Professor of Marketing, The Wharton School

Jerry (Yoram) Wind joined Wharton in 1967 with a doctorate from Stanford and since 2017 is the Lauder Professor Emeritus and Professor of Marketing. He founded the Wharton Think Tank – The SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management and directed it for three decades. Among his many innovations at Wharton he led the development of Wharton Executive MBA, the Lauder Institute, the new MBA of 1990 and Wharton School Publishing. He has edited top marketing journals, published over 300 articles, manuscripts and chapters and authored, co-authored or edited 30 books, and received the 4 major marketing awards: Buck Weaver, Parlin, Converse, and AMA/Irwin Distinguished Educator Award. He was inducted to the inaugural group of AMA Fellows. He was one of the original Legends in Marketing, with an 8-volume anthology published by Sage in 2014. He has consulted with over 100 companies and testifies in intellectual property cases. He is a member of the executive committee of SEI, sits on the advisory boards of various companies and nonprofit organizations, including the Time@100. He is a trustee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Curtis Institute of Music and Grounds for Sculpture. He is a co- founder of the first private, non-profit university in Israel, The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya. His current research explores marketing-driven business strategy, creativity and innovation; and challenging our mental models. His recent books include Transformation In Times of Crisis (December 2020), Can Art Resolve Conflict? (2018) Beyond Advertising: Creating Value Through All Customer Touchpoints (2016) and The Network Imperative: How to Survive and Grow in the Age of Digital Business Models (2016). He is a 2017 inductee into the Marketing Hall of Fame, the Co-founder of the Purple Project for Democracy and of the Reimagine Education global competition and conference.

Udayan Bose, Founder & CEO, NetElixir

Udayan started the company with a vision to help e-commerce businesses succeed online. His exclusive focus on the digital retail space has helped NetElixir become the de facto e-commerce experts while partnering with industry leaders like UPS, Google, and Bing. Now, over 17 years later, NetElixir continues to empower e-commerce growth through empathy, insights, and innovation.