Francesco Federico is Chief Marketing Officer at S&P Global, where he leads global marketing strategy across five divisions of the 165-year-old heritage brand. With a career that defies conventional paths, Francesco combines the analytical precision of his legal training with entrepreneurial vision and corporate leadership experience to drive marketing innovation in complex financial markets.

Francesco's journey began with founding a digital marketing agency in Milan before holding transformative leadership roles at global organizations including Vodafone, Acer, and JLL. At each stop, he pioneered initiatives at the convergence of marketing, technology, and business growth—from launching Vodafone's first self-care mobile application to implementing real-time dynamic pricing algorithms that doubled conversion rates.

As a recognized thought leader in Artificial Intelligence, Francesco's interest in AI dates back to his academic work, where he authored a thesis on AI applications in legal practice. Today, he explores how generative AI is reshaping marketing and business transformation through his widely-read newsletter "Chronicles of Change" and speaking engagements worldwide.

At S&P Global, Francesco is pioneering a vision where human talent and agentic AI systems operate as unified marketing teams. This emerging approach aims to amplify strategic capabilities and creative intelligence while delivering enhanced efficiency and market relevance across financial and energy sectors

Damon Harman is the Founder & CEO of StreamerDap, a cutting-edge platform revolutionizing sponsorships between brands and live streamers. By enabling seamless, real-time brand integrations, StreamerDap transforms traditional advertising into an authentic and measurable experience for both brands and creators.

A pioneer in interactive content, Damon has produced and directed live and branded entertainment for Twitch, collaborating with major brands like Progressive, American Family Insurance, and McDonald's to name a few. His extensive career spans over 500 episodes of television for networks such as MTV, Universal, and Fox, alongside hundreds of commercials for global brands such as Coca-Cola , Emporio Armani and Calvin Klein.

With a passion for gaming, technology, and audience engagement, Damon has consistently been at the forefront of digital innovation—from launching early mobile content platforms to integrating brands into live-streaming culture. His work has generated over $200 million in production and sponsorship revenue.

Outside of StreamerDap, Damon is a proud husband to Maria and father to Oliver, a rising Twitch Affiliate.

Andrea Palten is the founder of CMO Growth Guide, where she helps startup founders and early-stage companies scale through effective marketing strategies. She's also the Vice President of Marketing at Techstars. With over a decade of helping thousands of founders with their marketing and scaling their businesses, Andrea specializes in building demand generation systems and teaching marketing to early-stage founders.
Andrea is the creator of two courses: The Homepage Conversion System, which teaches founders how to optimize their website for clarity and conversion, and The Startup Growth System, a comprehensive program for driving traffic, capturing leads, and nurturing customers without a marketing team. With her free CMO Growth Guide Newsletter, Andrea makes complex marketing strategies accessible and actionable for entrepreneurs and startup leaders.

Simone Banna, the self-proclaimed Queen of Strategy and Culture, is a marketing and partnerships executive known for translating cultural relevance into measurable growth. She specializes in building strategic partnerships that unlock new revenue, expand audiences, and strengthen brand ecosystems across high-impact verticals including sports, technology, and entertainment.

Simone has held roles at Klutch Sports Group, MoonPay, Twitch, and the NBA. At Klutch, she led marketing for top basketball talent, bridging athlete influence with brand growth strategy. At MoonPay, she helped scale the company’s footprint through growth partnerships across Web3 and consumer sectors. During her time at Twitch, she expanded the platform’s presence beyond gaming and helped drive new vertical development within sports. Her tenure at the NBA spanned five years, where she played a central role in advancing the league’s digital innovation, platform strategy, and partnership development across the NBA, WNBA, and NBA G League.

In addition to her partnership expertise, Simone brings above-average fluency in social media and emerging platforms. She has a keen understanding of what’s trending, how culture moves online, and how to position brands for maximum cultural traction. Her work is grounded in an obsession with data, using performance metrics and platform insights to inform every strategic decision.

Simone is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia and currently resides in Atlanta.

Ian Shepherd has 25 years commercial experience at some of the world’s leading media companies including Disney, Universal Music and WarnerMedia along with start-up experience as the founder of two leading Creator Economy businesses.

He is currently Co-CEO and Co-Founder at Electrify Video Partners. They invest in and scale established YouTube channels, enabling content creators to maximize their full potential. They have access to $85m in funding and have invested into a number of leading channels including Veritasium and Astrum.

He also hosts the Business of Creators, a leading podcast for the Creator Economy, featuring creators, managers, investors and unicorn entrepreneurs.

He previously founded The Social Store, a pioneering consumer products and events business working in partnership with globally renowned social media stars. As part he launched and sold a successful Amazon FBA business.

Becky Frost is the founder and CEO of Frost Communications. She is a highly accomplished communications executive whose career spans over 18 years of driving strategic, integrated marketing and communications programs across the globe. Becky brings a unique blend of brand strategy, executive advisory, and messaging expertise to organizations at every stage of growth—from nimble, fast-moving startups to globally recognized, publicly traded companies.

In her awareness advisory capacity, Becky has become a trusted confidante and one-on-one advisor to senior executives, helping them build and elevate their personal brands in ways that amplify corporate impact and extend reach into new markets. Her tailored approach to executive presence and narrative development not only strengthens individual credibility, but also serves as a powerful lever for broader company visibility, media engagement, and stakeholder trust.

Josh Kaplan is the CEO and Co-Founder of Smooth Media, a new agency that represents the best knowledge creators on the internet. He was on the founding team at Morning Brew and is focused on helping creators educate, empower, and engage professional audiences.

Mandy Hoskinson is a talented digital marketer and visual artist based in Los Angeles, California. She has a passion for digital marketing and community management, which began during her time at UCLA where she co-launched the university's social media platforms.

After her successful experience at UCLA, Mandy took on various roles in the digital marketing industry, including work for LA 2028 (the Olympic and Paralympic Games), Apple, Fox TV, and CBS. Over time, her client base grew, and they began to request additional services such as photography, videography, analytics, print marketing, design, and more. This led to the establishment of Mandy's own boutique marketing agency, MediaMandy Agency, which has since rebranded as Zolay Studio.

Mandy's dedication to her industry extends beyond her work at Zolay Studio, as she is also the President of the Social Media Club of Los Angeles.

Monica Khan is a creator economy multi-hyphenate with 15+ years of experience helping creators build sustainable, revenue-driven businesses. As Partner and Head of Digital at Strand Entertainment, she leads creator management, representing top digital-first talent through multi-platform growth and strategic partnerships.

Earlier in her career, Monica worked directly with top creators and media companies at YouTube, helping grow channels that would go on to become some of the platform’s most popular today. At Meta, she led the product marketing team to launch monetization features for Facebook Groups. Most recently, she worked with some of the world’s biggest creators while founding and scaling the Spotter Creator Community, establishing the company as a trusted partner for creator knowledge and support.

Monica is also the co-founder of the Bay Area Creator Economy, fostering community among creators and industry leaders. Her mission is to empower creators to own their growth, expand their impact, and build lasting businesses on their own terms.

Robyn Nissim began her career on the agency side of advertising, launching social channels for global brands like Michelin and Nissan. After five years in the Ad World and winning a Webby Award, she realized she could make waves on social platforms using zero brand dollars, which led her to launch an independent freelancing business.

During this time, Robyn built out Ulta Beauty's entire influencer marketing program, leading strategy and execution for their team. She went on to build and manage some of the largest social communities in the world, in-house on the brand side, taking Anastasia of Beverly Hills to its peak (24M Followers on Instagram) and building out Alo Yoga's entire social footprint, sprouting to +4M in less than one year.

After driving massive results at both brands and receiving acknowledgments from Instagram, Robyn founded Social Proof Agency (SPA) and began facilitating training programs designed to help individuals, teams, and organizations adopt a social-first mindset. Through interactive workshops and hands-on learning, SPA equips teams with the knowledge and tools to execute Social Media and Influencer Marketing strategies in-house.