BlogHer Business '10 : Speakers

Beth LaPierre is the first Chief Listening Officer at Eastman Kodak, the world's foremost imaging innovator. As Chief Listener, Beth is responsible for the strategy and development of Kodak's Social Intelligence efforts for both B2C and B2B businesses. Beth uses the power of the Web to drive customer satisfaction, identify influencers and customer segments, inform product innovation, mine and analyze consumer sentiment, and to measure social media marketing efforts.  

A true innovator, Beth has been active in social and convergence media since the late 90s. Her rare combination of left and right brain thinking paired with a true commitment to customers has allowed her to translate insight into action and to transform business objectives into social strategy.

Beth is a sought-after speaker and presenter focusing mostly on Mobile Marketing and Social Media Strategy and, prior to joining Kodak, was Founding Editor at FuelYourBranding.com.

When she's not working, Beth can be found in her art studio, on her snowboard or behind a good book.

Carol Hymowitz is known throughout the business community in the U.S. and internationally for her writing, editing and speaking about leadership and management issues.

Most recently she has been Editorial Director of Forbes Woman, where she launched the quarterly magazine Forbes Woman and ForbesWoman.com, a site for executive and professional women. Before joining Forbes Woman in 2008, she was a senior editor and columnist at The Wall Street Journal. She led management coverage at the Journal, which included supervising special writers in several U.S. and overseas bureaus. Her award winning In the Lead column explored the biggest challenges facing executives across industries.

She began her journalism career as a staff reporter for the Wall Street Journal in Pittsburgh, covering energy, manufacturing and the retail industry. She was named Pittsburgh bureau chief in 1990, overseeing coverage of more than 300 companies including P&G, Corning, Federated Department Stores, The Limited, USX, Alcoa, Kodak, Goodyear and Mellon Bank. She returned to New York in 1999 as senior editor of management and workplace issues and to launch her In the Lead column. She also launched and edited the Journal’s “Women to Watch” coverage and convened annual “Women to Watch” conferences, featuring senior executives.

She is a frequent speaker, panelist and moderator at conferences and has appeared as a commentator on CNBC, Fox and other media. She is co-author of A History of Women in America, published by Bantam. In 2008, she won a Clarion award for her In the Lead column from the Association for Women in Communications. In 2007, she won a Front Page award from the Newswoman’s Club of New York for her story on how most CEOs attended state universities rather than Ivy League colleges.
She has a BA from Brandeis University and an MS from Columbia’s School of Journalism.

A pioneer in the digital marketing space and marketing professional with more than 20 years in the industry, Daina Middleton is the CEO of Performics, the performance marketing division of Publicis Groupe. As one of the largest and oldest search and performance media agencies, Performics delivers performance marketing solutions and solid results for a list of blue chip clients through smart innovation and solving complex challenges.

Daina believes marketing and consumerism are undergoing a transformational change. She is known for thought leadership in the social marketing space – creating a new marketing lexicon including “participant marketing” – and has developed several ground-breaking market intelligence tools where brands can utilize social listening to effectively compete in the world of conversational marketing. Participant marketing shifts the philosophy about how brands and people connect, creating new roles and equal status. Through her many years of client experience, she is also driven to redefine marketing to focus on performance, where agencies are compensated for the results they deliver for brands. Daina rallies her team to provide strategic insight and leadership with an intense concentration on client success, and willingness to put skin in the game to prove it.

Prior to joining Performics, Daina served for two years at Moxie Interactive, another Publicis Groupe agency, as senior vice president of Sunao, a division comprised of four departments: participant insight, emerging trends, analytics and market innovation.

Daina spent 16 years working at Hewlett-Packard in key marketing communications positions across most of the core segments in the company’s printer businesses. She worked on a number of digital projects for HP in the early 1990’s, including the first cross-IPG printer chooser tool for HP and was involved early in exploring the marketing impact of the then unknown phenomenon called the “Internet.” At the time of her departure she was the director of advertising for HP’s $28 billion global Imaging and Printing Group, managing both digital and traditional mediums through integration and establishing global standards for traditional and digital activities, including SEO, SEM, social marketing, web site development, and cross-media effectiveness and measurement.

Daina currently sits on the Board for the Digital Place-based Advertising Association (DPAA) and was a former Standards Board member for the Social Media Advertising Consortium (SMAC). She is a regular industry speaker with appearances at Conversational Marketing Summit, ad:tech, WOMMA, and VideoNuze, to name a few.

Daina has a Bachelor of Science in technical journalism, and a minor in fisheries and wildlife sciences, from the College of Liberal Arts at Oregon State University. She lives on a horse ranch outside of Boise, Idaho where she raises Andalusian and Lusitano horses.

As BlogHer’s Senior Vice President of Advertising Sales, Debbie Wogan develops strategic partnerships and advertising programs with Fortune 500 brands. She is responsible for developing highly-customized marketing campaigns and advertising that help brands establish ongoing relationships within BlogHer's diverse and influential community of social media-savvy women.

Prior to joining BlogHer, Debbie spent 10-years at NBC Universal’s iVillage in various sales and sales leadership positions. In her most recent role, she was Vice President of National Sales and was responsible for leading the development of integrated advertising and sponsorship campaigns.

With nine+ years of experience in traditional public relations, marketing and copywriting for fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands and an embarrassing addiction to Facebook and Twitter, Dina's transition into social media was a seamless one.

At Attention, Dina oversees the digital strategy - including digital engagement, events 2.0, social identity and measurement - for two dozen leading fashion & beauty brands, including Aveda, MAC Cosmetics, Clinique, Origins, Bobbi Brown, Rachel Roy, Nine West, Hudson Jeans and David Yurman.

Dina holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fashion Buying from the Fashion Institute of Technology. In addition to her experience building brands, she is a highly respected blogger in her own right. Read her musings on fashion, beauty and style at eye4style.com.

Elisa Camahort Page co-founded BlogHer, Inc., in 2005 with Jory Des Jardins and Lisa Stone, and serves as the company’s COO. Elisa leads events, marketing, public relations and research for the company and with her leadership, the BlogHer conference business has grown from a single conference hosting 300 attendees in 2005, to five diverse events that will host over 4,000 attendees in 2011. With more than 3,000 attendees expected at this year’s annual conference alone, the flagship event is the largest conference for women social media leaders in the world and has been described as “ComicCon for women who blog” by Variety magazine.

Elisa’s other major focus is to bring the story of BlogHer and the influence of the women in its community, to life via research, helping BlogHer’s customers glean critical insights about how women connect, share and behave online and off.  Elisa’s work leading BlogHer’s consumer insights team, as well as marketing and public relations, has resulted in coverage and profiles from many of the leading media outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Advertising Age, Forbes, Fast Company, CNN, The Today Show, the Wall Street Journal, and many more.

Elisa is a frequent public speaker, bringing research data about women and online communities to life in recent keynotes at Marketing to Women, MediaBistro Circus, Fem 2.0, New Communications Forum, BlogPaws and WOMMA Marketing Summit and sessions at Web 2.0, SXSW Interactive and CES.

Prior to co-founding BlogHer, Elisa ran a marketing consultancy, Worker Bees, which was among the first companies to integrate corporate marketing strategies into the social media environment. Before bringing her marketing expertise to the Internet industry, Elisa was a senior-level high-tech marketer, helping develop digital infrastructures for voice, video and data delivery. Her last corporate position was as Senior Director of Product Marketing at Terayon Communication Systems, where she managed a team of product managers and five product lines.

Together, BlogHer co-founders Lisa, Elisa and Jory have been named among the most influential women in Web 2.0 and technology by Fast Company (2008, 2009 and 2010), Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year semi-finalists (2010) and among the seven most powerful people in new media by Forbes Magazine (2009). In 2011 they were jointly awarded the PepsiCo Women’s Inspiration Award and in 2008, the Anita Borg Institute Social Impact Award. Elisa has been honored as an NCWIT Hero.

As the co-founder of a mission-based for-profit organization, Elisa is a founding Fellow of the Society for New Communications Research and serves on the Board of Directors of the 42nd Street Moon Theatre in San Francisco, the programming advisory committee for SXSW Interactive and the Board of Advisors of the Anita Borg Institute. A native of the Bay Area, she lives in San Jose with her software developer husband.

Gina Garrubbo draws from her more than 20 years of experience in media leadership and sales innovation to help further BlogHer’s development as one of the top community and media networks for women who blog. Garrubo works closely with co-founder and President of Strategic Alliances Jory Des Jardins to build momentum in the advertising community and set the standard for how brands and bloggers work together.

Garrubbo has worked with companies such as Discovery Communications and Oxygen Media, managing advertising sales divisions and helping launch new brands such as The Learning Channel. Most recently Garrubbo was one of the founders and CEO of Terralina, a unique line of natural, luxury skincare, where she continues to remain on the Board of Directors. She was also one of the builders of women.com, was an early board member of the Internet Advertising Bureau and pioneered new ways in which marketers could communicate with consumers on the Internet.

Ilana Rabinowitz has been developing branded media for Lion Brand since the launch of a catalog and website in 1996. Since then she has added social media including a blog, podcast, YouTube channel, Facebook and Twitter. The efforts of a talented marketing team have grown the company’s audience to number in the millions.

Jonathan Kopp, Partner & Global Director of Ketchum Digital, is the lead digital communications strategist for Ketchum worldwide. He launched and runs the Ketchum Global Digital Network and oversees all aspects of digital and social media strategy, counsel and program development; interactive design and development; graphical design and content; and rich media products and services.

Before Ketchum, Jonathan was a partner at SS+K, an integrated communications agency providing strategic counsel and integrated campaigns involving public relations, public affairs, issue advocacy, crisis management, marketing and advertising across all traditional and digital media. He joined SS+K in 1995.

In 2007-2008, while a partner at SS+K, Jonathan was a member of the Obama for America National Media Team, focused on online and offline communications to engage younger voters. His other clients have included the Lance Armstrong Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the ONE Campaign, DATA, Pfizer, CVS/pharmacy, Goldman Sachs, the Pew Charitable Trusts, Anheuser-Busch, Polo Ralph Lauren, Time Warner Cable, the Environmental Defense Fund, Comcast, Warner Home Video, Liz Claiborne, the Rockefeller Foundation, Human Rights First, and the National Cable & Telecom Association.

Prior to SS+K, Jonathan practiced telecommunications law and policy in the Washington, DC office of Willkie Farr & Gallagher. Before that, he served as Law Clerk to the Counsel to the President in the Clinton Administration, where he focused mainly on Ethics in Government, US Senate approval of Presidential appointees and aspects of international law for the Legal Counsel to the National Security Advisor. Jonathan was part of the Executive Orders working group on the 1992-1993 Presidential Transition Team. In 1991-1992, he was a member of the national "War Room" opposition research and rapid response team of the Clinton/Gore '92 campaign.

Jonathan is a member of the Advisory Board to aids2031 and the Emory Alumni Board Marketing Committee. He holds a BA, with Honors, in International Studies from Emory University and a JD, with Honors, from the George Washington University Law School. Jonathan lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two daughters. He can be connected with and followed on all major social media and location-based platforms.

Kelley Skoloda is a mom, an author, an MBA and a public relations executive.

A partner/director of Ketchum's Global Brand Marketing Practice, Skoloda is a recognized authority on marketing to women. She is the architect of the widely-publicized Women 25to54, a communications offering that offers a better way to reach “multi-minding” female consumers.

Her book, Too Busy to Shop: Marketing to Multi-Minding Women, (Praeger, March/2009) has been named a “must read” by Publishers Weekly and is already in its second printing. Skoloda’s blog, toobusytoshop.blogspot.com, helped to collect input from women for several chapters of the book.

Skoloda and her work have been featured in ADWEEK and BRANDWEEK, cnbc.com, tompeters.com, Business Week Online, Forbes.com, PRWeek Magazine and many others. She was named one of the most influential women in business in the Pittsburgh region by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in its "Women at the Helm" special edition. She has also served on the advisory board for PINK Magazine and was featured in a BBC-produced show for children, Beat the Boss USA, which aired in January, 2009.

In her distinguished career with the global, top-ten public relations firm, Ketchum, she has counseled dozens of companies and blue-chip brands including the American Iron and Steel Institute’s Canned Food Alliance, Aetna, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare, Daimler Chrysler, Kellogg’s Special K and other Kellogg’s brands, Kimberly-Clark, Libby’s and Rite Aid Corporation.

Previously, she was the agency’s director of business development, working with agency staffers around the world to build new business. She oversaw the implementation of the firm’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System and activated a global new business network. Kelley holds a certification in Customer-Focused Selling.

Skoloda earned her M.B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh Katz Graduate School of Business and her undergraduate degree from Seton Hill University, where she now sits on the Board of Trustees. She and her husband, David, reside in Pittsburgh with their two children, Jake and Ellie.

Lesley Pinckney is the General Manager for Essence.com, where she oversees sales and marketing efforts and site development. Responsible for strategic partnerships and multi-platform development, she plays an integral role in the development of the brand’s online content and the creation and distribution of original programming produced by the magazine’s multimedia division. With a broad range of online and television expertise, Pinckney also spearheaded the online integration of a number of ESSENCE’s events and initiatives including: ESSENCE’s Black Women in Hollywood Luncheon; the Essence Music Festival; ESSENCE’s Will You Marry Me? Contest; Essence.com’s Makeover Magic virtual tool (the first digital makeover application created for African-American women); the ESSENCE It Girl model search and much more.

Pinckney led the way in the cross-divisional collaboration between Telepictures and Essence Communications to launch Essence.com as the premier online destination for African-American women. . Essence.com is currently the largest and fastest growing African-American magazine website. The site's growth is unsurpassed and reaches more than a million monthly unique visitors. The new Essence.com launched in September 2008 as one of the first projects to come from the partnership between The Warner Bros. Television Group and Time Inc.’s Essence Communications Inc.

Prior to joining ESSENCE, Pinckney was a Vice President at MTV Networks’ Tempo and was previously Vice President, Talent Development & Casting at Spike TV. In that position, she handled all aspects of talent relations, negotiated contracts and managed schedules and logistics for several major television awards shows including the GQ Men of the Year Awards, Video Game Awards, Autorox and live event coverage at the Superbowl.

Prior to her positions at MTV Networks, Pinckney was an Account Director and Project Manager at several top interactive agencies and was responsible for developing websites and online marketing strategies for Fortune 500 companies.

Pinckney holds a bachelor’s degree in religion, and minored in philosophy from Hunter College in New York City.

Photo credit: Colin Williams

Lisa Stone co-founded BlogHer, Inc. in 2005 with Elisa Camahort Page and Jory Des Jardins, and serves as the company’s CEO. With Lisa’s leadership, the company has grown from an idea for a grassroots conference into a diversified media company and a Top 5 women’s network  online, according to comScore, with 2,500+ premium blog contributors, the world’s largest in-person events for bloggers, and an award-winning social hub at BlogHer.com. As principal architect of BlogHer’s distributed, cross-platform media business, Lisa developed innovative models for profitable, premium online media, and for recognizing and compensating a new wave of content creators.

Lisa has shepherded the company to revenue of eight figures trailing for the past two years, during which BlogHer, Inc. was named among the AlwaysOn OnMedia Top 100 for 2011 and Global 250 for 2010, and as one of America’s Most Promising Start-ups by BusinessWeek. BlogHer’s flagship site, BlogHer.com, was named one of the Top 100 Websites for Women by Forbes in 2010.

A traditional journalist who left CNN for the Internet in 1997, Lisa began developing new social media business models during her tenure as the first Internet journalist awarded a coveted Nieman Fellowship from Harvard University in 2002. Lisa first blogged as part of her 2004 election coverage for the Los Angeles Times, the same year she developed and launched the first sponsored blog network for Law.com. Lisa’s expertise and vision has led to numerous innovations in the social media space.

Prior to the Nieman Fellowship, Lisa was among the early drivers of some of the most successful online communities and interactive programming for women. As the executive producer and Editor in Chief/VP, Programming for Women.com, Lisa grew the 18-channel network to a Top 30 site and oversaw all original programming and the development and integration of content community initiatives with Hearst and Rodale magazines, E! Television/Online, HBO’s Sex and the City, Bloomberg, and Gallup and Knight Ridder. 

Together, BlogHer co-founders Lisa, Elisa and Jory have been named among the most influential women in Web 2.0 and technology by Fast Company (2008, 2009 and 2010), Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year semi-finalists (2010) and among the seven most powerful people in new media by Forbes Magazine (2009). In 2011 they were jointly awarded the PepsiCo Women’s Inspiration Award and in 2008, the Anita Borg Institute Social Impact Award.

Lisa has been honored among the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company (2010), the Most Powerful Moms in Media by Working Mother Magazine (2010), AlwaysOn Top 25 Women in Tech (2009) and the Influencers of Silicon Valley by the San Jose Mercury (2009). She is a frequent speaker at leading industry events, including the Montgomery Technology Conference, Online News Association Annual Conference, EconWomen Summit, Fairchild|WWD Summit, Web 2.0, SXSW Interactive, Supernova and the AlwaysOn Summit.

As the co-founder of a mission-based for-profit organization, Lisa is a member of the Advisory Boards for both the California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships and the Knight Digital Media Center of the USC Annenberg School for Communications. She lives in Silicon Valley with Christopher Carfi and their children.

Lynne d Johnson is the SVP, Social Media for the Advertising Research Foundation, where she is responsible for content, brand and social media development and strategy, as well as developing consumer insights, market research, and true metrics for the industry at large via the ARF Social Media Council. As a consultant, Lynne works with Web and media properties on content, brand, and social media development and strategy. She’s also a sought after speaker, and has presented keynotes and moderated panels around the world about the future of media, web 2.0, women in tech, African-Americans in tech, hip-hop and tech, and the intersection of music and technology.

A widely published author and blogger, Lynne wrote the foreward for Tactical Transparency: How Leaders Can Leverage Social Media to Maximize Value and Build their Brand, by Shel Holtz and John C. Havens (Wiley, 2008), was the technical editor for Google Voice For Dummies, by Bud E. Smith and Chris Dannen (For Dummies, 2009), and was a technical editorial contributor to the second edition of The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success by Lon Safko and David K. Brake (Wiley, TBD). Since 2001 Lynne has published Lynne d Johnson || Diary (Music, Media, My Life), the winner of the 2006 Black Weblog Awards Black Blogger Achievement Award. She also currently blogs social media insights for Jack Myers MediaBizBloggers.

Prior to the ARF, Lynne was Senior Editor & Community Director for Fastcompany.com where she oversaw both content and community functionality, wrote the Digital Media Diva blog covering technology, media & marketing, social media, and gadgets, and also built the foundation for the magazine’s expert bloggers’ network. Prior to Fast Company, Lynne served as General Manager, New Media for VIBE and SPIN magazines, where she and her team launched the first ever magazines for mobile devices.

Lynne is an advisor for BlackWeb20.com , Interactive One, and Girls In Tech NYC . She is also a co-founder of the The New York Android Software Developers Meetup. Lynne holds a BA in Journalism, an advanced certificate in multicultural studies, and an MBA in Media Management.

Marisa Thalberg has had a uniquely diverse and accomplished career spanning almost every facet of interactive and traditional marketing, advertising and communications, combining entrepreneurial thinking with blue-chip business discipline. Marisa’s experience is threaded with an expertise in communicating with women.

As the Vice President of Global Digital Marketing for The Estée Lauder Companies, Inc., Marisa has pioneered a unique cross-portfolio marketing function in the company, in which she is charged with strategizing and upgrading digital and social marketing programs across the company’s collection of 28 prestige beauty brands, to drive e-commerce sales and help the brands create more modern consumer engagements.

In addition to providing company-wide education on digital and social marketing and trends, Marisa lends her expertise externally as a member of the advisory board of Luxury Interactive and as a member of the Forrester Interactive Marketing Council. She has been a speaker on interactive marketing at prominent conferences including The CMO Summit, Luxury Interactive, WOMMA Supergenius, and the WWD Media+Style Summit and Technology Summits.

Leading up to this position, Marisa’s background spanned both the client and agency worlds. As Vice President of Global Advertising and Brand Strategy at Unilever Cosmetics International, she was responsible for a portfolio of the world’s top designers: Calvin Klein, Vera Wang, Nautica, BCBG, Valentino, Lagerfeld, Cerruti and Chloe. Notably there, in 1999 she originated the company’s interactive marketing unit, which pioneered award-winning digital initiatives for the category. Other highlights include a tenures as Senior Vice President of Marketing for the home furnishings company Sure Fit, Vice President of Advertising for Revlon, and brand account management on the agency side for a number of world-famous brands and companies, including P&G Haircare, Marshalls, Johnson & Johnson, Clairol and Victoria’s Secret stores.

Concurrent to her advertising and marketing career, in 2002 Marisa became the founder and president of the organization + website Executive Moms (www.executivemoms.com), which has become a leading social network and content provider to this important demographic. Executive Moms, which she continues to lead today, has garnered corporate support from companies like Scholastic, A&E Televsion Networks, Reuters, Viacom and Toys ‘R Us, and has turned Marisa into a frequent commentator on the subject of working mothers and busy women in general. In this capacity, she has appeared on NBC, CBS, FOX, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Redbook, and in numerous other TV and print media nationwide.

For her efforts, Marisa has been recognized by Advertising Age as a “Power Player” and by Project Legacy as a Pearl Honoree/Outstanding Women in Business.

She is a featured essayist in the anthology, “This Day: Diaries from American Women.” (Beyond Words Publishing, 2003) and was selected by UNICEF as their iconic representative of United States working mothers for their State of the World’s Children report. Marisa is a Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude graduate of Brown University. She lives in New York City with her forbearing husband David and their generally perfect daughters Hannah and Avery.

Paull Young is the Director of Digital at NYC based non-profit charity: water. Prior to charity: water Paull was a Senior Account Director at Converseon, and speaks at BlogHer Business on their behalf in his role as a 'Converseon Fellow'.

Paull is responsible for all digital efforts for charity: water as they pursue their mission of providing clean and safe drinking water to the 1 billion people currently without it. At Converseon Paull led award winning campaigns and organizational wide social media strategy for a variety of Fortune 100 brands. Paull has been blogging for 5 years, currently at paullyoung.com, and you can follow him @paullyoung. Paull has been attending BlogHer events since 2007.

Rita Arens is the assignment and syndication editor for BlogHer. Her writing has appeared in Scholastic Parent & Child, Babble, The Kansas City Star, SuperEco, The Rockhurst Review and other outstanding print and online publishing venues. Her personal blog, Surrender, Dorothy, has won her attention in Forbes Woman, Businessweek online and The Wall Street Journal. She is the editor of parenting anthology SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK (Chicago Review Press, 2008) and a contributor to KIRTSY TAKES A BOW (Bright Sky Press, 2010). She lives with her husband and daughter in Kansas City.

Stacey Ferguson is a Senior Attorney in the FTC’s Division of Advertising Practices, where her workload focuses primarily on advertising issues related to the Internet and high-tech goods and services, such as spyware and adware, peer-to-peer file sharing, digital rights management, and word-of-mouth marketing online. She assisted in coordinating the Commission’s town halls on mobile marketing and digital rights management.  She currently serves on the Interactive Technologies Task Force, the Federal-State Law Enforcement Spyware Task Force and the Diversity Council in the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection as well as on the agency-wide Social Media task Force.  Prior to joining the FTC, Ms. Ferguson practiced law at Proskauer Rose LLP, where she worked in the areas of privacy and intellectual property law. Stacey also blogs at Mamalaw.com and is a co-founder of the Blogalicious Weekend conferences. Follow her on Twitter: @JusticeFergie.