ADVISORS
Mike Bloxham
Senior Vice President, Global Media & Entertainment, Magid
Mike Bloxham has worked in media and tech research and consulting for over 25 years, advising multi-national corporations, media owners and government agencies on strategic marketing and communications issues on an international basis. A recognized innovator and thought leader in the media space, he has extensive experience in attitudinal and behavioural research across all media and marketing channels with an emphasis on the integration of emerging and traditional media among all audiences from children to seniors. He is the founding Co-Chair of Magid’s VR/AR Consumer Insights Consortium.
Ken Bretschneider
Founder & CEO, Evermore Park & The Grid
Ken Bretschneider is an artist and entrepreneur, which he believes stem from the same creative mind space. In 2003 he founded DigiCert a new startup in encryption security, which has gone on to become the largest global provider of SSL after acquiring Symantec’s web security business. Ken exited DigiCert in 2012 to pursue his greater interest in what he likes to term the business of experience. Ken loves to mix virtual and physical experiences in environments that foster exploration and imagination through art and technology. In the past four years Ken has founded and developed several new ventures including The Void (thevoid.com), Evermore Park (evermore.com), and The Grid (thegrid.com). Next steps are to further blur the lines of what is possible and real.
Gerard Corbett
Founder, Chair, CEO, & Chief Content Officer, Redphlag LLC
Gerard “Gerry” F. Corbett is Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Redphlag LLC, a strategic public relations firm focused on helping people and companies define and communicate their intrinsic value. He serves on the board of advisors of Infinite Retina and the Museum of Public Relations. Gerry has served 50 years in senior communications and technology roles with Fortune 200 firms and NASA. He is an avid nature photographer and writes and coaches on corporate and career management.
Ryan DeLuca
Co-Founder & CEO, Black Box VR
Ryan DeLuca founded Bodybuilding.com in 1999 in his garage in Boise, Idaho at the age of 20. Under Ryan’s leadership, the company skyrocketed to nearly $500 million in annual revenue before he stepped down as CEO in 2015. Profitable from the start, Bodybuilding.com was eventually purchased by Liberty Media. A born innovator, Ryan was named Entrepreneur of the Year by E&Y in 2009 for the Idaho/Utah region and Inc. Magazine called him one of the “Top 5 Coolest Entrepreneurs Under 30”. Ryan was temporarily retired for only six months before the startup bug bit him again and together with co-founder Preston Lewis, Black Box VR was born, merging their continued passions for technology and fitness and the way they can intersect to help people transform their lives.
Annie Granatstein
VP, Content Marketing, Marriott
Annie serves as VP, Content Marketing at Marriott. Previously, she was EVP, Creative Newsroom Director at Edelman and before that, headed up The Washington Post’s in-house creative agency, WP BrandStudio (explore washingtonpost.com/wpbrandstudio), which she grew from a nascent line of business to an award-winning, content powerhouse. At the Studio, she shepherded inventive multimedia programs for hundreds of major brands, including Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Prudential, Paramount, FX, Canon, Allstate, AT&T, Dell, Samsung, Mercedes, Jaguar and Audi.
Andy Grignon
Head of Strategic Exploration, Walmart
Andy Grignon is currently Head of Strategic Exploration at Walmart. Previous to this, he was Design and Technology Fellow at JP Morgan Chase. Andy has made a career out of creating and shipping highly visible consumer products, most notably at Apple.
Francine Hardaway
Partner, Stealthmode Partners
Francine Hardaway, Ph.D., co-founded Stealthmode Partners, an accelerator and advocate for entrepreneurs in technology and health care, in 1998. She is a true angel investor, and has helped package and secure funding for many high-tech startup companies.
James Herr
Senior Director, Alvarez & Marsal
James Herr is a Senior Director with Alvarez & Marsal Valuation Services in Houston, specializing in the fair value of businesses, intangible assets, and financial instruments for international and domestic financial and tax reporting. He has performed hundreds of consulting and valuation engagements, including fairness opinions, financial modeling, consulting on business transactions, and litigation consulting. He has two financial master’s degrees and is both a certified American Senior Appraiser and a CFA charter holder.
Marcie Jastrow
Chief Revenue Officer, Evercast
Marcie Jastrow is an industry veteran with over 20 years in the Entertainment business. Currently, Marcie is the Chief Revenue Officer at Evercast, a company that provides a real-time creative collaboration tool. Prior to that, she was the SVP of Immersive Media at Technicolor, as well as the Head of the Technicolor Experience Center (TEC), where she was dedicated to bringing artists, technologists, and partners together to build the future of immersive media.
Tatyana Kanzaveli
CEO & Founder, Open Health Network
Tatyana Kanzaveli has gone from a programmer to senior executive at Big 5 to Founder and CEO of a startup company along her 20-year career. Today she is the Founder and CEO of Open Health Network, a startup in a Big Data/Healthcare space. Today she is the Founder and CEO of Open Health Network, a startup in a Big Data/Healthcare space. She is a mentor at 500Startups and Richard Branson Entrepreneurs Centre and serves on boards for private companies.
Chris Kaufield
VP of Growth Strategy, Booster
Chris Kaufield commercializes B2B workforce services, products and partnerships. For 20 years, Chris has delivered new operational and learning platforms for diverse enterprises and institutions, from global automakers to federal agencies to museums. At Microsoft, Chris led initial Office 365 sales, then launched Surface Hub large-scale touch devices and Microsoft’s mixed reality wearable product, HoloLens. As DAQRI’s Chief Revenue Officer, Chris created its Worksense offering, packaging state-of-the-art augmented reality devices, software and consulting programs for industrial clients.
John Koetsier
Senior Contributor, Forbes
John Koetsier is a journalist, analyst, and tech executive. He writes for Forbes Inc. and was previously VP Insight for Singular. John built the VB Insight research division at VentureBeat, managed teams creating software for partners like Intel and Disney, and secured VC funding for his AR cloud startup, Genesis Reality. His current dual focus is fourth industrial revolution technologies, plus martech/adtech. In 2014, John was named to Folio’s top 100 of the media industry’s “most innovative entrepreneurs and market shaker-uppers.”
Nicole Lazzaro
President, XEODesign
For 26 years Nicole Lazzaro has run XEODesign to unlock human potential through play. A world-renowned XR developer and innovator, Nicole designed the first iPhone game, planted 16K trees in Madagascar, and discovered the 4 Keys to Fun. Her work inspires millions of leading developers worldwide including The Sims, Myst, and Star Wars. One of the top 20 women working in video games, Nicole and her work have been widely cited by global news media such as Wired, Rolling Stone, Fast Company, Samantha Bee, CNN, CNET, and the Wall Street Journal. She has advised the Obama White House and the US State Department on the use of games to improve our world. Nicole is currently developing Follow the White Rabbit, a mind-bending XR adventure about a magician whose magic one day suddenly works. (http://playwhiterabbit.com)
S. Matthew Liao
Director of Center for Bioethics, Arthur Zitrin Professor of Bioethics, New York University
S. Matthew Liao is Arthur Zitrin Professor of Bioethics, Director of the Center for Bioethics, and Affiliated Professor in the Department of Philosophy at New York University. He is the editor of The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) and the author of The Right to Be Loved (Oxford University Press, 2015); Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights (Oxford University Press, 2015), Moral Brains: The Neuroscience of Morality (Oxford University Press, 2016), and over 50 articles in philosophy and bioethics.
Eli S. Lustgarten
President, ESL Consultants
Eli S. Lustgarten is now President of ESL Consultants after completing a 45-year career as a Wall Street Analyst. His industrial consulting firm assists trade associations and their members, and individual companies understand the North America and global outlook for their end markets. He also provides analysis of industrial manufacturing companies and markets to the professional investment community.
Mr. Lustgarten received his BSEE from the Polytechnic Institute (NYU engineering), and an MSEE from the University of Pennsylvania. After 3 years as a design engineer/program manager on the PATRIOT missile system at Raytheon, Mr. Lustgarten entered Harvard Business School and received his MBA with High Distinction.
Michael Mansouri
VP & Co-Founder, Radiant Images
Always interested in the overlap between film and technology, Michael co-founded Radiant Images in 2005. His work and innovations in film led to his acceptance as an associate member of the American Society of Cinematographers, an invite-only membership group for experts with distinguished credits in film. He also received several other prestigious honors that include the Mario Award, which recognizes significant technological breakthroughs, and landed a spot on the Studio Daily’s list of The Top Creatives & Technologists. Mr. Mansouri’s efforts in filmmaking led to NASA / JPL’s 2018 Emmy win for Outstanding Original Interactive Program for Cassini’s Grand Finale, which was NASA’s first recognition in the film community. At Radiant, he hopes to break the technology barriers surrounding digital innovation and provide a more meaningful impact that connects and engages humanity.
Matt Miesnieks
CEO & Founder, LivingCities.xyz
Matt Miesnieks is the CEO and Founder of LivingCities.xyz and was previously an Advisor at Niantic, following Niantic’s acquisition of 6D.ai, where Matt was the Co-founder and CEO. 6D.ai tackled the first steps to making semantic maps of the world in real time using a smartphone camera. Matt was also a founding partner of Super Ventures, which invests solely in AR startups.
Doug Morwood
CEO, Whole Earth Futures
From introducing affordable access to healthcare in emerging markets to accelerating the transition to a circular economy, Doug brings his business modeling and systems-change design experience to creating new markets and designing new economic models for growth. As CEO of Whole Earth Futures, Doug draws upon a breadth of experience from a range of sectors and value networks and significant depth in strategy, advisory, market-making, business model innovation and targeted systems change to deliver results.
L. A. Paul
Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, Yale University
L. A. Paul works on the nature of time, temporal experience, causation, decision theory, and the self. Her recent work focuses on developing the philosophical concept of transformative experience, which concerns the nature of life-defining experiences, epistemic changes, and major life decisions. In 2014, she won a Guggenheim Fellowship for her research on transformative experience, and her 2013 book with Oxford University Press, Causation: A User’s Guide, won the annual book prize from the American Philosophical Association. Her 2014 book with Oxford University Press, Transformative Experience, was reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement, translated into Japanese, and named by Cass Sunstein of Bloomberg View as one of the year’s five most important books on human bias and blunders.
Joe Robbins
Co-Founder, Metatexel
Joe is a media and technology expert with over 15 years of experience in the industry. He has a passion for creative leadership, and has led the development of Emmy award-winning content in live sports broadcasts, virtual reality, and augmented reality. Joe has produced thousands of videos for major record labels, TV shows, feature films, commercials, and music videos, giving him a unique understanding of production and development.
Currently, Joe is helping media, entertainment, and technology companies use premium geospatial data in real-time through his company, Metatexel. He believes in leading with integrity, transparency, and respect, and has a track record of delivering results that garner industry recognition and ROI. In his free time, Joe enjoys spending time with his family, exploring local hot spots, and going to the beach.
Maurizio Rossi
Founder & CEO, H-FARM
In 2005, Maurizio, together with his partner Riccardo Donadon, co-founded H-FARM to pioneer the startup industry over Italy and Europe, with the role of Co-CEO of the listed holding company and focused on international relations. He is also an executive member of the VATC (Vatican Art & Technology Council), chaired by Arianna Huffington and a selected group of worldwide senior technologists and art experts, and member of the Kellogg Innovation Network (KIN), a worldwide innovator’s community related to the Northwestern Kellogg School of Chicago.
Jason Schneiderman
Corporate Attorney & Partner, Perkins Coie
Jason Schneiderman is a second-generation Silicon Valley corporate startup attorney, who represents fast growing emerging companies in formation, venture capital fundraising, convertible debt, SAFEs and equity financings. He advises clients on business plans, founders’ stock, employee equity plans, intellectual property protection and licensing, as well mergers and acquisitions. Jason is a trusted advisor and is a deeply committed and passionate contributor to his clients’ success. He brings a pragmatic, business-minded approach to his counseling. A keen listener, he guides entrepreneurs, officers and directors through complex legal issues while explaining them in simple and actionable terms. Jason’s clients come from a variety of industries, including Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (AR/VR), Blockchain, computer software, hardware, communications, Software as a Service (SaaS), interactive entertainment, financial services technology, Internet of Things (IOT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and unmanned vehicles.
Jaimy Szymanski
Director of Market Intelligence and Insights, Global Growth & Strategy, Avanade
Jaimy Szymanski is Director of Market Intelligence and Insights, Global Growth & Strategy at Avanade. Prior to this, she was an industry analyst and founding partner of Kaleido Insights, a research and advisory firm based in San Francisco. Focused on organizational change brought by digital disruption, Jaimy’s research zeroes in on the impact of disruptive technology on customer experience and behavior. She advises corporate leaders and change agents in managing digital transformation and innovation efforts to reach evolving consumers and employees.
Jaimy has worked in strategic advisory and planning capacities with many large organizations, including: AARP; Cisco; Enterprise Holdings; Facebook; Google; Hallmark; HBO; Intel; LinkedIn; Nestle; and Save the Children International. Her research has been covered by USA Today, Mashable, Forbes, Inc., Huffington Post, and more. Jaimy is a TEDx speaker and the co-author of Content: The Atomic Particle of Marketing.
Jules Urbach
Founder & CEO, OTOY
Jules Urbach founded OTOY Inc. in 2008 and serves as its Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer. Jules sets the strategic direction and vision for the company, and is the chief architect of OTOY’s technology roadmap.