Great Minds

Lisa Gilbert is currently CMO at IBM Japan. Lisa has also served as Vice President of Marketing responsible for IBM’s Growth Markets based in Shanghai, China. Lisa led a team of professionals managing marketing from strategy through to execution for all of IBM’s Enterprise and SMB clients. She also led the marketing strategy for IBM’s Geo Expansion initiative where the company opened over 140 new sales offices across 40 countries in less than 12 months.

Giles Martin is an English record producer, songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist. His studio recordings, stage shows, TV and film works have been critically acclaimed and commercially successful around the globe. He is the son of Beatles producer George Martin, Head of Audio and Sound for UMG, Sound Experience Leader at Sonos and was the Music Director for 2019 film Rocketman.

David Freeman is the Co-Founder and Co-Head of the Digital Media department at leading entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Prior to joining CAA, Freeman served as General Manager of MATTER, Edelman Sports and Entertainment Marketing. In 2003, he co-founded MATTER to forge and develop marketing partnerships for brands, entertainment companies, and content creators.

Maryam Banikarim shows organizations how to shift mindsets and build themselves through the lens of purpose. Known as a fearless force for change with a track record of creating and leading successful brands such as Hyatt, Gannett, NBCUniversal, and Univision, she demonstrates how to define your purpose, differentiate your brand, make the case for change, rally the troops internally and share it with the world. Banikarim is now Head of Marketing at Nextdoor, a social network for your neighbourhood.

Andrea is a business leader, feminist, activist, professor, dancer, flutist, board member, mother and wife. She was CMO at Interbrand, part of the Omnicom Group for 16 years – and now the first ever Chief Client and Marketing Officer at VaynerMedia. She is responsible for scaling VaynerMedia’s full service agency business globally. She is in charge of its client teams, thought leadership, new business and brand reputation.

Werner Herzog was born in Munich on September 5, 1942. He grew up in a remote mountain village in Bavaria and studied History and German Literature in Munich and Pittsburgh. He made his first film in 1961 at the age of 19. Since then he has produced, written, and directed more than seventy feature- and documentary films.

Rory is the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy in the UK, an attractively vague job title. He works with a consulting practice of psychology graduates who look for ‘unseen opportunities’ in consumer behaviour – these are the very small contextual changes which can have enormous effects on the decisions people make – for instance tripling the sales rate of a call centre by adding just a few sentences to the script. Before founding Ogilvy’s behavioral science practice, Rory was a copywriter and creative director at Ogilvy for over 20 years, having joined as a graduate trainee in 1988.

Susie Essman is an American stand-up comedian, actress, writer, and television producer. She is best known for her role as Susie Greene on Curb Your Enthusiasm and the voice of Mittens in Bolt. She’s travelled around the world performing for the past three decades. Essman told The New York Times that by the third season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, she couldn’t “walk down the street anymore without people stopping her and begging her to say (her character’s catchphrase)’You fat f**k.’”