Executive Chairman Webit Foundation
Dr. Plamen Russev is the initiator and focal connector of one of the world’s largest impact networks and curator of the global Webit community, reaching out to over 800,000 digerati, policy makers, innovators and media. His success stories include creating the global Webit brand from scratch, supporting founders and brands in establishing and growing a successful marketing strategy, creating meaningful relations with potential partners, customers and media. Plamen supports causes which impact the achievement of the UN’ SDGs.
He is an investor, philanthropist and serial entrepreneur and proven success record in developing business ventures in multicultural and challenging business environments.
Plamen Russev is B.Sc in Marketing and Management, M.Sc in Electronic Education/Mathematics and Physics, and Ph.D in Healthcare Management.
Plamen Russev has been appointed Goodwill Ambassador for Digital Affairs of his home country – Republic of Bulgaria and a member of European Commission’ BOF.
Dr. Russev’ work and impact have been recognised and awarded by governments, associations and NGOs along with 2 honorary doctorates from Universities in Europe and South America. Plamen Russev is featured in hundreds of international and local media including The Economist, Bloomberg, CNBCe, Forbes, Venture Beat, CNN to name a few.
Dr. Russev is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Webit Foundation and host of Webit Virtual.
He is happily married to the most wonderful girl in the world and father of 2 boys.
Chief Marketing Officer The Trade Desk
As CMO of The Trade Desk, Susan oversees all aspects of the company’s marketing including branding, product marketing, creative design, digital media, content development and PR. She brings a strong track record of strategic marketing leadership and a passion for building brands across the media, technology and consumer sectors.
Named to Forbes’ World’s Most Influential CMOs, Susan is a recognized expert at the forefront of marketing’s digital transformation. Susan is regularly featured in media including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Reuters, and Adweek. She is also a frequent speaker at industry conferences including CES, Forbes CMO Summit, and AdvertisingWeek NY.
Before joining The Trade Desk, Susan served as EVP and Chief Marketing Officer of global fashion brand Tory Burch, where she led a customer-centric, omnichannel, and global digital transformation of all brand communications.
Prior to Tory Burch, Susan was the founding executive and GM of Bloomberg’s Media Distribution division, which she built into a highly profitable global content business. In addition, Susan has held marketing leadership roles at Bloomberg.com, Yahoo!, Gap Inc., and Walmart.com.
Susan serves on the Board of Directors of MyEyeDr., a company that operates a national network of more than 500 vision care centers. Additionally, Susan serves on the CMO Advisory Board for Ridge Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm. She is also committed to mentoring the next generation of business leaders through being a W.O.M.E.N. in America mentor, a member of the Women’s Forum of New York, and presenter at Deloitte’s Next Generation CMO Academy.
Susan received a B.A. in economics from Carleton College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling and all sports, especially golf.
Chairman & Partner Crispin Porter Bogusky
Chuck Porter joined the Crispin Agency in 1988 as Creative Director and Partner after a long career as an award-winning freelance copywriter. The agency was renamed Crispin & Porter, and within three years, it doubled in size and became one of the top 15 creative shops in the country. His many years of leadership have helped CPB earn the honor of AdAge’s Agency of the Decade. Chuck has served as judge or jury chairman at the Clios, Andy Awards, D&AD Awards in London and Cannes Lions, among others. Previously he was Chairman of the American Association of Advertising Agencies and co-chairman of Advertising Week in New York – North America’s preeminent communications industry event.In 2015, Chuck was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame. He also serves as chairman of the Advisory Board of Boulder Digital Works at the University of Colorado, as well as the non-profit Digital Works Institute in New York. Along with Martha Stewart and Michael Dell, he was named one of Inc. Magazine’s “Entrepreneurs We Love.” The Wall Street Journal also featured one of those stippled drawings of him, which made his mother really proud. A Presidents Club member at the University of Minnesota, Porter funds a student award in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Assistant Editor Forbes
Elisabeth Brier is an assistant editor and reporter at Forbes. Based in New York City, she covers top innovators and disruptive technologies. She also tracks the fortunes of the world’s richest. Prior to arriving at Forbes, Elisabeth was a reporter at the Huffington Post and earned her B.A. from Tulane University.
Special Panelists
Host
Q&A Moderator
Executive Chairman Webit Foundation
Dr. Plamen Russev is the initiator and focal connector of one of the world’s largest impact networks and curator of the global Webit community, reaching out to over 800,000 digerati, policy makers, innovators and media. His success stories include creating the global Webit brand from scratch, supporting founders and brands in establishing and growing a successful marketing strategy, creating meaningful relations with potential partners, customers and media. Plamen supports causes which impact the achievement of the UN’ SDGs.
He is an investor, philanthropist and serial entrepreneur and proven success record in developing business ventures in multicultural and challenging business environments.
Plamen Russev is B.Sc in Marketing and Management, M.Sc in Electronic Education/Mathematics and Physics, and Ph.D in Healthcare Management.
Plamen Russev has been appointed Goodwill Ambassador for Digital Affairs of his home country – Republic of Bulgaria and a member of European Commission’ BOF.
Dr. Russev’ work and impact have been recognised and awarded by governments, associations and NGOs along with 2 honorary doctorates from Universities in Europe and South America. Plamen Russev is featured in hundreds of international and local media including The Economist, Bloomberg, CNBCe, Forbes, Venture Beat, CNN to name a few.
Dr. Russev is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Webit Foundation and host of Webit Virtual.
He is happily married to the most wonderful girl in the world and father of 2 boys.
Founder, General Partner Acrobator Ventures
Acrobator Ventures BV (Netherlands) was founded by Bas following the success of his angel investments. He is an eCommerce pioneer since 2000, active as an eMarketing expert and growth hack consultant for nearly two decades. Bas served in the leadership team of multiple UK/USA listed $1BLN+ firms and helped shaping the digital ecosphere in Russia as C-level executive of Russian eCommerce leaders Ozon (Index Ventures), Gloria Jeans, Lamoda (Rocket Internet), Kupivip (Accel), Enter and others.
Investment Managеr Alma Mundi Ventures
Educated as an engineer, Mr. Luis Viñas devoted the first years of his professional career as a business and strategy consultant, collaborating with management projects all around Europe, Latam, and the Middle East. After outstandingly obtaining an MBA from IESE and Columbia Business School, Luis joined the Venture Capital industry, where he has been working since mid-2017 and is currently managing a dedicated European InsurTech Fund.
Managing Director Austrian Angel Investors Association
Laura Egg has been active in the Viennese start-up scene for over a year and previously studied international Business & Management. After gaining experience in the Tyrolean start-up community, her enthusiasm for innovative business models and new technologies led her to the VC fund APEX Ventures in early 2019. As an investment analyst she was responsible for deal flow management and communication with startups and investors at the early-stage Deep Tech VC fund. Since March 2020, she has taken on the role of managing director at aaia and has set herself the goal of positioning the network throughout Europe and fully exploiting the potential of the location.
Chief Executive Officer Match-Maker Ventures
Nicolai is the founder and CEO of Match-Maker Ventures, co-founder of OptInk (exited) and board member at a several tech startups. At Match-Maker Ventures, Nicolai is bridging the gap between growth-stage companies and large corporates with the objective to setup value creating collaborations between the two. Prior to that, Nicolai was part of the Global TIME leadership team at Arthur D. Little, where Nicolai advised multi-billion-dollar companies and financial investors. Nicolai regularly acts as keynote speaker, publishes insights on the topic of innovation, startups and collaboration and acts as a mentor for several accelerators. Nicolai is a German citizen, lives in Austria, worked in 20+ countries and studied in Austria and the US.
&Wider is a worker engagement company. It aims to bridge the data gap on working conditions in supply chains. Their system sends automatic calls to workers’ mobiles to gather anonymous, actionable data at scale. The system creates a safe channel for workers to provide feedback without fear or negative repercussions. The results are shared with buyers and suppliers using easy-to-read traffic light dashboards, which offer clear insights into working conditions and enable prioritization and rapid response.
User.com is a single platform providing its clients with intuitive tools for automation of marketing, sales and customer support activities.Their solution is a modern, fully integrated Marketing Automation platform aimed at boosting engagement and conversion rate on a website. It integrates all communication channels (email campaigns, WebPush, MobilePush, In-app messages, SMS, call center, live chat, chatbot), CRM as well as user-friendly analytics & reporting tools in one place. The heart of user.com is its automation module with intuitive drag & drop automation builder and a library of ready-to-use automation templates (almost 200) that can be easily filtered by the goal clients want to achieve or the business industry they’re operating in. In addition, it enables companies to create their own knowledge base with articles supporting their customers in understanding their products, services and offering, as well as getting quick access to all FAQ.
Addy is a self-serve ad marketplace that makes all kinds of local advertising accessible, affordable, and easy to buy for small businesses. Addy is a marketplace that solves a problem for both sides of the local advertising equation. SMBs are able to discover, compare, and purchase the most popular types of local ads at low rates, with just a few clicks. Media owners are able to generate meaningful ad revenue from hundreds of small customers through a single partner with virtually no cost-of-sales..
Executive Chairman Webit Foundation
Dr. Plamen Russev is the initiator and focal connector of one of the world’s largest impact networks and curator of the global Webit community, reaching out to over 800,000 digerati, policy makers, innovators and media. His success stories include creating the global Webit brand from scratch, supporting founders and brands in establishing and growing a successful marketing strategy, creating meaningful relations with potential partners, customers and media. Plamen supports causes which impact the achievement of the UN’ SDGs.
He is an investor, philanthropist and serial entrepreneur and proven success record in developing business ventures in multicultural and challenging business environments.
Plamen Russev is B.Sc in Marketing and Management, M.Sc in Electronic Education/Mathematics and Physics, and Ph.D in Healthcare Management.
Plamen Russev has been appointed Goodwill Ambassador for Digital Affairs of his home country – Republic of Bulgaria and a member of European Commission’ BOF.
Dr. Russev’ work and impact have been recognised and awarded by governments, associations and NGOs along with 2 honorary doctorates from Universities in Europe and South America. Plamen Russev is featured in hundreds of international and local media including The Economist, Bloomberg, CNBCe, Forbes, Venture Beat, CNN to name a few.
Dr. Russev is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Webit Foundation and host of Webit Virtual.
He is happily married to the most wonderful girl in the world and father of 2 boys.
Business Journalist, Deputy Editor-in-Chief & Head of Under30 Forbes Russia
Anastasia Karpova is a media manager and business journalist, deputy editor-in-chief and head of Under30 at Forbes Russia.
Before that, she worked at Interfax News Agency and RBC. Anastasia started her career as a junior reporter, has been working as a business journalist, editor and media manager and has 8 years experience in Russian leading news and business media, such as Interfax News Agency, RBC Media and Forbes Russia. In August 2017 Anastasia got a Chevening Scholarship (Great Britain) – an international awards scheme aimed at developing global leaders. She spent a year studying media management and working as an intern at Financial Times and The Economist in London. After coming back to Russia she became deputy editor-in-chief at Forbes Russia and brought Forbes Under30 to Russia. Anastasia oversees Under30 in Russia, she is responsible for communications with the team in the US.
She has developed excellent leadership skills in her work managing teams of journalists at Forbes Russia and RBC, got diverse experience in reporting on business news and creating stories for print and digital platforms. Her work experience ensures good aptitude at creating opportunities and stories from raw data.
Hosted roundtable discussions and talks at Collision Conference and Forbes Under30 Summit.
Host, the AI show at Venture Beat Columnist at Forbes
John Koetsier is a journalist, analyst, and tech executive. He writes for Forbes and consults with Silicon Valley companies. 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.”
He lives near Vancouver, Canada with his family, where he coaches baseball and hockey, though not at the same time. He travels frequently to Seattle, Silicon Valley, New York, and other tech hubs around the world.
Columnist at Forbes, Author, Keynote Speaker, Podcast Host
Roger Dooley is a Columnist at Forbes and an author and international keynote speaker. His articles give readers practical ways to turn the latest brain and behavior research into simple, real-world strategies for improving marketing, sales, and advertising. Some articles focus on big brands that are succeeding or failing at appealing to their customer's emotions and non-conscious decision processes. His books include Friction: The Untapped Force That Can Be Your Most Powerful Advantage (McGraw Hill; named one of the Best Business Books of 2019 by strategy+business) and Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing. He writes the popular blog Neuromarketing as well as a column at Forbes.com. He is the founder of Dooley Direct, a consultancy, and co-founded College Confidential, the leading college-bound website. He’s been a serial entrepreneur since he left a senior strategy position at a Fortune 1000 company to enter the then-nascent home computer market.
Columnist at Inc. Magazine Best-Selling Author, LinkedIn Live Host & CEO of Power Coaching and Consulting
Rhett was recently named the 2018 Best Small Business Coach in the US, joined Marshall Goldsmith's 100 Coaches, and was named the #1 Thought Leader on Entrepreneurship by Thinkers360. He is CEO of Power Coaching and Consulting in Washington, DC, and hosts Power Lunch Live, one of the most popular business talk shows on LinkedIn's new live platform. Power is the author of the bestselling book The Entrepreneurs Book of Actions: Essential Daily Exercises and Habits for Becoming Wealthier, Smarter, and More Successful. He has written for Success Magazine, Thrive Global, Time, and The Wall Street Journal and is a weekly columnist for Forbes and Inc. Magazine.
Special Panelists
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