It's No Fluke

Alyssa Meyers is a senior reporter for Marketing Brew who’s covered sports for three years, with a particular interest in brand investment in women’s sports. Prior to that, she wrote about podcast and audio advertising for Marketing Brew and Business Insider and was a data journalist for Morning Consult. She started her career covering crime and breaking news for the Boston Globe and the Virginian-Pilot.

Rebecca Larzik is the Head of Marketing at Stan.

With nearly 20 years of marketing experience, she has led work for global brands including Chanel, Clinique, O’Neill, and GoPro. Prior to joining Stan, Rebecca served as Executive Producer of Global Marketing at GoPro, where she oversaw the content used to market the company’s hardware and software products worldwide. Drawn to the freedom‑fighting spirit of the cannabis community and Weedmaps’ mission to power a transparent, inclusive global cannabis economy, Rebecca joined Weedmaps in 2017.

There, she oversaw all aspects of brand marketing strategy, helping establish Weedmaps as one of the first companies in the category to retain an entertainment marketing AOR (Wheelhouse Labs), secure a multi‑year partnership with Kevin Durant’s Thirty Five Ventures, and continually find innovative ways to educate consumers about cannabis. At Stan, Rebecca now leads marketing strategy and major initiatives, including overseeing the Dare to Dream Challenge, a flagship contest designed to spotlight and support ambitious entrepreneurs building their personal brands with Stan.

Caity Bransby is a social marketing leader who turns live events into internet moments. She leads global social strategy for StubHub, building culture-driven content and creator programs that connect fans to what’s happening now. Previously, she led social at NBCUniversal, across the Paris Olympics, scripted shows, and major live broadcasts. Her work blends data, fandom, and internet culture to help brands stay relevant where attention lives.

Michael Kaye is the Head of Brand for Match Group’s ARCHER and OkCupid, and leads communications for the company’s Evergreen and Emerging portfolio, including The League, Match, and Plenty of Fish. He is also an adjunct instructor at Columbia University and New York University.

Survivor-led nonprofit The SHERO Foundation and its agency partner Duncan Channon launched “Girlhood,” a pro bono campaign that reframes how sex trafficking is portrayed.

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI2A9ve-unc

The work blatantly omits showing the crime itself and instead focuses on what trafficking takes away from girlhood. The work was created as part of Purpose, Produced, a partnership between Kevin Bacon’s SixDegrees.org and Advertising Week that pairs top agencies with deserving nonprofits to create pro bono campaigns. 

The campaign includes a two-minute hero film and three 30-second spots that capture a diverse group of girls simply being girls: taking selfies, making TikToks, and going to school. Viewers hear the real stories of women who were trafficked as girls, describing what was stolen from them long before anyone noticed something was wrong.

Lisa Hayden’s involvement with SHERO began through a personal connection, but her commitment quickly evolved into transformative leadership. As the Founding Inaugural Chairperson of the Technology Committee, she helped build the operational infrastructure that supports the Foundation’s mission. Her work strengthened systems, streamlined processes, and laid a foundation for growth during critical years of expansion.

She then served six years on the SHERO Executive Board, helping guide strategic decisions and organizational development during a pivotal season for the Foundation. Today, as SHERO’s Manager of Operations, Lisa ensures that vision becomes action — overseeing the internal structure, coordination, and day-to-day leadership that allows the mission to thrive.

Jessea Hankins is an extremely online creative director and writer who was pulled into the vortex of advertising by fate. Her decades-long career began at Wieden+Kennedy (in the finance department! With a poetry degree!), flew through Bartle Bogle Hegarty, and landed at Duncan Channon. She can be blamed for work on brands like Sephora, Kettle Chips, the United Nations, Kona Big Wave, Horizon Organic, and the CA Department of Public Health – from their first anti-vaping campaign to the recent fentanyl prevention effort, “Facts Fight Fentanyl.” In between, she took a 4-year hiatus in the advertising wilderness before boomeranging back to DC to continue being very silly and very serious forever.

Stacey Richman is an accomplished communications executive with extensive experience shaping brand narratives across sports, entertainment, and digital media. Most recently, she served as Senior Vice President and Head of Communications for DAZN and Whistle Sports. DAZN is a global sports streaming platform, while Whistle is a social publisher connecting athletes, brands, and original content across sports and culture. In this role, Richman led global communications strategy and played a key role in supporting the launch of the inaugural FIFA Club World Cuptournament.

Prior to joining DAZN, Richman was Director of Consumer Communications at Group Nine Media, where she led communications efforts supporting several of the company’s flagship digital brands, including The Dodo, PopSugar, Thrillist, and NowThis.

Earlier in her career, Richman held communications roles at truTV and served as a publicist for Animal Planet.

Richman began her career at CBS News before joining FerenComm, where she gained experience in media relations and agency communications. She later moved to Discovery Communications, where she led communications for the company’s consumer products and advertising sales divisions.

She is known for developing high-impact communications strategies that elevate brand visibility, support business growth, and connect audiences with culture-defining content.

Beth Everhart is Managing Director at AntiSocial, where she leads growth across North America and strengthens the agency’s social-first, talent & partnership and media offerings. She brings senior leadership experience and a deep client background, guiding cross-functional teams and complementing AntiSocial’s existing strengths with strategic perspective as the agency expands its footprint in North America.

Previously, Beth served as Chief Client Officer at Pearpop and held senior roles at leading agencies working with brands including Microsoft and Snap.

Doug Straton, CMO, Bazaarvoice

Before joining Bazaarvoice, Doug served as the Chief Digital Officer at The Hershey Company, earning a Hot Topics/HP Top 100 Global CDO award, where he oversaw digital business development across marketing, sales, category management, product development, insights, and enterprise digital transformation. Before that, he held a series of global Marketing and Strategy leadership roles at Unilever, including VP of Digital, E-commerce, Omnichannel and Data, and Head of Global E-Commerce Strategy and Innovation.

Doug is currently an advisor to DCG (Digital Commerce Global) and has also recently served as an advisor to NectarFirst, Catena Clearing, and Alert Innovation. Doug has been a featured speaker at academic institutions such as Wharton, NYU, and Penn State, as well as at leading industry events including NRF, FMI, and Shoptalk. His thought leadership has been featured in Business Insider, USA Today, and MarketWatch. He has been frequently quoted in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, CNN, and Forbes. Doug lives in New York with his wife of 25 years, has a college-aged bodybuilding son, and a wildly enthusiastic French bulldog.

Christian Muche, Global President & Co-Founder of POSSIBLE, is a renowned global executive and business strategist operating at the intersection of the digital, marketing, technology, and event industries. Muche has worked with global brands and executives, including AOL, YAHOO, and FIFA, to bring successful results.

He was the Co-Founder of DMEXCO which has become the leading and most international digital marketing event in the world. Seeing a gap in the marketing community, he believed the time had come for a new event experience created specifically for the entire marketing world which is POSSIBLE.

Badass Mamas is a media platform and community dedicated to working mothers who are rewriting what success, leadership, and care can look like. Co-founded by Jessalin Lam and Kat Richards, the platform shares unfiltered stories at the intersection of work, motherhood, identity, and healing.

Grounded in lived experience, Badass Mamas examines the unlearning required to break generational patterns, heal the inner child many mothers are still carrying, and challenge the invisible labor and cultural expectations placed on women. The platform centers rest, growth, and purpose as necessary conditions for sustainable leadership, not luxuries earned after burnout.

Listen to their podcast.