Great Minds

Clay Melton is quickly establishing himself as a rising star, having played world-famous venues such as Whisky A Go Go in Hollywood, opening for Grand Funk Railroad on the Chevrolet Main Stage at the State Fair of Texas, and sharing the stage with Sir Earl Toon, of Kool & The Gang fame. Past credits also include opening for blues-legend Robert Cray and platinum-selling artists Chris Daughtry and Night Ranger.

Journey Gunderson is the Executive Director of the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, NY  – the United States’ official cultural institution dedicated to the art of comedy – where she led the planning, strategy, fundraising and creative development for its acclaimed museum and archives.

Named one of the Top 50 Museum Influencers worldwide by international museum and attractions authority Blooloop, Gunderson has guided the National Comedy Center in its 21st Century museum design, featuring state-of-the-art technology, interactivity and personalization.

Since its opening in 2018, the National Comedy Center was named “Best New Museum” in the country by USA Today, one of the “World’s Greatest Places” by TIME magazine and one of “100 Reasons to Love America” by People magazine.

Based on the vision of Jamestown native Lucille Ball for her hometown in Western New York to become a destination for comedy, the non-profit Comedy Center showcases comedy’s great minds and unique voices in ways that educate, engage and inspire future generations.

Journey also serves as Executive Director of the Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Museum and the annual Lucille Ball Comedy Festival, both of which have reached new heights under her leadership.

Bogdan is a Product and Marketing leader with a rich and diverse track record, spanning over 15+ years in the SaaS and IT industries. He is driving strategy and go-to-market execution to help businesses in Cybersecurity, MarTech, and AdTech grow in the global market.

As the VP of Marketing at Creatopy, Bogdan orchestrates a mix of strategic and tactical elements to enhance our marketing campaigns and deliver exceptional results. Bogdan’s ability to navigate between different areas while maintaining a cohesive strategy has cultivated a spirit of creativity and innovation in his team.

Monette is an award-winning strategic advisor in the insurance business. Monette may be in the insurance business, but she does not sell insurance. She is in the business of protecting strong bottom lines and delivering sustainable long-term business solutions for her clients. Her tools are her depth of knowledge and her business acumen.

​Monette is known through her numerous accomplishments and awards both within the philanthropic world and the business community. Her philanthropic world and business world seem to fluidly collide and continuously be intertwined. Her two worlds are intimately linked and constitute the undeniable foundation of her success.

In 2019, Monette was honored with the “Women Who Make a Difference” Award, which was remitted at the IWF World Leadership International Conference Gala.

As chair of the Board of the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University she has the honor to sit on the university’s board. Monette is a founder of Genius 100™, an active and engaged community of 100 exceptionally imaginative and impactful human beings. It brings accomplished, compassionate minds together to re-imagine the future – and to implement creative initiatives to improve it.

On this episode of Great Minds, we’re pleased to be speaking with Jim Prior, Chair, Design Bridge and Partners, WPP. Launched in January 2023, Design Bridge and Partners formed with the merger of Design Bridge and Superunion. The new company enables clients to leverage a full range of industry-leading design expertise, driving growth and transformation through consumer, business, lifestyle, and experience design. Jim walks us through his extensive career.

Just in time for the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest festivities at the corner of Surf & Stillwell on July 4th, we’re please to present this incredible discussion with Rich Shea, President of Major League Eating.

Richard Shea has an extensive background in corporate communications, media relations and event production. For 20 years, he has developed and implemented integrated communications programs that incorporate public relations, live events, paid media and social media. Richard has conceived and developed powerful marketing campaigns for national clients, including BING and Netflix, and he acts as a spokesperson for various businesses in major print, online and digital outlets. He is recognized for his expertise in crisis communications.

Ben Jeffries is the 27-year-old CEO of Influencer, a global influencer marketing solution, focused on providing global advertisers with the ability to succeed on social media. Influencer’s mission is to build meaningful relationships between creators and brands, whilst making advertising effective, but more importantly inclusive. Influencer works with a number of global brands such as P&G, offering guaranteed results by combining strategic creativity, insights and technology.

Ben is an award-winning entrepreneur, with awards from Forbes 30 Under 30 to BMW Entrepreneur of the Year, and has previously spoken at global events such as Cannes Lions, Web Summit, Facebook, TikTok, Advertising Week and Social Media Week, plus many more.

On this episode of Great Minds, we feature Seijin Jung, Head of Marketing at OpenStore. Seijin recollects his career path, from LG to Google, to Facebook to OpenStore, with several interesting stops in-between.

On this very special episode of Great Minds, we feature Suki Thompson, Founder and CEO at Let’s Reset and Co-Founder of Oystercatchers (as well as host of Reset, the podcast, in partnership with Advertising Week), along with her daughter Jazmyn Thompson, Senior Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner (PWP) at Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (HPFT).

Ian is the North American CEO for Iris, a global creative innovation network. He previously served as President and Chief Client Officer of Hawkeye; CEO of Wunderman Thompson Central; Managing Director of SapientRazorfish Chicago; Executive Vice President of Digital and Social at Ogilvy & Mather Chicago; and global partnership lead for a division of Nokia.