It's No Fluke

Nia Testamark is the Director of Strategy and Client Leadership at We Thrive Media, a millennial-led, Gen Z-powered digital marketing agency specializing in digital & social media, influencer marketing, and creative production across culture, entertainment, education, healthcare, sports, and social impact.

With nearly a decade of experience across marketing, creative strategy, and digital storytelling, Nia has helped brands, organizations, and cultural campaigns build work that feels relevant, thoughtful, and culturally aware. Her work has contributed to nationally recognized campaigns, including a 2026 Shorty Award-winning campaign.

Born in New York, raised in the South, and influenced by her West Indian background, she brings a cross-generational perspective to creativity, communication, and internet culture. Nia is also an author, mentor, and advocate for creating more visibility, representation, and reflection for women navigating marketing, creativity, and leadership today.

David Clarke leads communications at Oh Hello Agency, specializing in public relations, strategic messaging, and brand storytelling. His career spans NYC Public Schools, NYC Pride | Heritage of Pride, Inc., The WNET Group, and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, earning high-impact media coverage and shaping resonant campaigns.

A published journalist in OutSmart Magazine, BroadwayWorld, and others, David blends strategy and storytelling to elevate diverse voices with authenticity and purpose.

Sara Currie is a video editor for MrBeast turned founder and CEO of the trusted creative agency, Rich Bear Brandworks. She has her finger on the pulse of the real inner workings of the creator economy. And now she's here to share it with you.

Jacques Keyser is the Director of Programming at VidCon, where he leads the strategy and execution of event programming across the US and international markets. With over 15 years of experience in music, entertainment, and the creator economy, he has worked with leading platforms, labels, creators, executives, and global brands. At VidCon, Jacques has helped launch and scale events worldwide, curating industry-leading programming that unites creators, executives, and fans on a global stage.

Previously, he held senior roles in talent management and artist development, shaping the careers of top UK digital and music talent while building strategic partnerships across the industry. Jacques also shares insights on the creator economy through his bi-weekly VidCon industry newsletter. 

Drew Sutton is the founder of Drew Sutton Leadership and creator of Culture Systems — a proprietary leadership architecture that replaces force-of-will management with scalable systems for aligning people, culture, and execution across an entire organization.

This episode was recorded live at Innovate Summit in Louisville. Check out their next event in Nashville in October. Vibes improved by Old Commonwealth Kentucky Nectar.

A former Chief Engineer at Lockheed Martin, Drew holds 30+ patents in rotorcraft systems and composite structures, and has led cross-disciplinary engineering teams on multimillion-dollar U.S. defense programs spanning Air Force acquisitions, SOCOM prototyping, and research partnerships with Johns Hopkins University and the Air Force Research Laboratory.

Today he applies that same systems discipline to leadership development — specializing in the doer-to-leader transition for technical professionals and culture-wide change adoption for organizations in transformation. He delivers 37 talks across leadership, AI integration, multigenerational workforce alignment, change management, and decision architecture, in formats ranging from keynotes to multi-day team engagements.

Drew is based in Georgetown, Kentucky and serves clients nationally.

Holly Hartman is an AI governance strategist and founder of FWS Enterprise LLC (Future Workforce Systems), where she works with enterprise leaders to build the guardrails, policies, and workforce readiness programs that make responsible AI adoption real, not just a talking point.

She is also the co-founder and President of The WO Network, Kentuckiana’s largest professional women’s community with more than 4,000 members, and an international bestselling author.

Holly is a NAWBO Women Business Owner of the Year 2025 honoree, a Louisville Business First Enterprising Women 2026 recipient, and a Bingham Fellow in the Class of 2026.

She is currently pursuing her AI Governance Professional (AIGP) certification through IAPP.

Her message to organizations wrestling with AI right now is simple: you do not have to choose between innovation and integrity. The ones who will lead are the ones building governance now, not later. Every AI decision is a workforce decision. She works with organizations to move them AI-Anxious to AI-Ready, From Guardrails to Governance all through an ethical AI Lens.

futureworkforcesystems.com

Whitney Belmonte spent fifteen years scaling marketing for category-defining brands, including Supergoop!, where she helped scale digital from a single channel into a multi-format engine. She has shipped campaigns, hired teams, and rebuilt operations from the inside.

Now she works with founders, marketing leads, and ops teams to put AI to work in the parts of their business that actually move revenue — without the buzzwords, without the gloss, and without breaking the parts of their company that already work.

Her clients tend to be the operators noticing what's quietly broken — content cycles that take three weeks, briefs that take longer than the work itself, leads that arrive cold and stay cold. The fix is rarely the model. It's the workflow around it.

Kimberly Bottom is a 15+ year veteran in storytelling and community initiatives. An award-winning broadcast journalist and video producer, Kimberly now focuses on helping nonprofits sharpen their messaging and amplify impact through modern fundraising technology.

In her current role as Director of Community at Velora, the nonprofit operations platform, Kimberly's north star is connecting nonprofit professionals to share ideas, elevate diverse voices, and celebrate the people doing the world's most important work.

Emily Benner Snyder leads social media at United Airlines, where she’s helped transform the brand into one of the industry’s most engaging and talked-about voices online. Named Ad Age’s 2025 Social Lead/Community Manager of the Year, she sets the strategy and turns everyday travel moments into scroll-stopping stories. Before United, she brought her storytelling magic to both Disney and Olive Garden—so yes, she knows how to make both planes and breadsticks go viral.

Paddy Smith is Chief Creative Officer at Born Social, where he oversees the creative output for the agency. He's spent his time at Born building a 60+ strong department spanning Creative, Design and Production, developing some of the brightest creative minds in the industry. He's pitched, won and delivered best in class creative across iconic brands like Guinness, Smirnoff, Mars, Uber and Ford, helping them transform into social-first brands. 

Paddy's work has collected creative awards from The One Show, The Creative Circle, The Webbys, Shortys, Marketing Week, Digiday and Campaign Awards and sat on juries with The Shorty Awards and Creative Review. 

Paddy has also written and hosted multiple industry events on varied creative subjects spanning brand design, generative AI, influencers, social-first brand building and modern craft, as well as writing thought pieces on creativity for the likes of The Drum, Adweek, Future London Academy and Creative Review.