Troy Abraham
Senior Vice President of Global Services, Gigya, Inc.
Mr. Troy Abraham has been Senior Vice President of Global Services of Gigya, Inc. since November 19, 2015. Mr. Abraham served as Vice President of Global Services at Birst Inc. Mr. Abraham was responsible for leading Birst’s implementation teams, value-based design engagements, and partner enablement. He served as the Director of Information Architecture at Dell Computer. He served as the Vice President of MDM Practice at eVerge Group, Inc. He was responsible for the management of the growing Master Data Management operations at eVerge Group. He joined eVerge Group from the MDM/CDI Solution Consulting Group at Oracle. He is an accomplished Solution Architect with over 21 years of experience in Master Data Management (MDM) and Customer Data Integration (CDI) technologies, implementation strategies and organizational adoption drivers. He has managed numerous successful deployments of enterprise solution providers, including Dell, eVerge Group, Oracle, Siebel Systems, and Initiate Systems. Mr. Abraham holds a B.S. degree in Business Administration, Sales, Marketing and CIS from Indiana University.
Chuck Currin
Principal Data Architect, Mather Economics
Chuck Currin has nearly 20 years of Information Technology industry experience. He has worked across a variety of verticals, technologies and platforms. The majority of his experience has revolved around systems integration, business intelligence and process automation.
For the last two years, Chuck has worked on Mather’s Listener platform to facilitate data product development. He is responsible for understanding emerging and evolving data technologies and translating business requirements into a solutions and data architecture that maximizes ROI for Mather and clients. Chuck is also a frequent writing contributor on data topics, and has had articles published through avenues such as The Data Warehouse Institute’s Upside, the Inland Press, Data Science Central, Integration Developer News, and CIO Review. He has also spoken at the North American Hadoop Summit.
He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Southern Polytechnic State University, and a Master of Business Administration in Management of Technology degree from The Georgia Institute of Technology.
Chuck is a resident of Marietta, Georgia, with his wife, Alison, their two daughters, and two dogs.
Magnus Gabrielsen
CEO, Prediction Institute ApS
Magnus Gabrielsen holds a Bc.s in Mathematics from the University of Copenhagen, and a Master in Architecture from the Royal Danish Art Academy, School of Architecture. Magnus Gabrielsen is CEO and partner in Prediction Institute ApS a Copenhagen, Denmark based statistical IT and consultancy company. Prediction Institute is producing the single copy sale solution Cassandra, specialized at optimizing earnings for newspapers and magazines.
Ken Harding
Senior Managing Director and Global Publishing Practice Leader, FTI Consulting
Ken Harding is a senior managing director in the FTI Consulting Corporate Finance |Telecommunications, Media & Technology practice and is based in Denver. Mr. Harding is the global practice leader for the Publishing Group in TMT and has 30 years of professional experience in the publishing and media industry. He has provided strategic business, due diligence and operational advisory services and leadership to newspaper and media companies of varying size. Mr. Harding has worked at the corporate and business-unit level to lead business improvement and growth – performance improvement – as well as due diligence and merger integration.
With direct involvement in more than 300 newspaper and publishing projects, Mr. Harding’s industry experience is unmatched. His recent projects have delivered broad transformation and value-based solutions for advertiser and consumer revenue enhancement and expense optimization in advertising and editorial operations; production; transportation and distribution including postal expense optimization.
Mr. Harding has recently provided services to Publishers of varying scale; including Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Dallas Morning News, Denver Post, GFR Media, Houston Chronicle, Miami Herald, Palm Beach Post, Playboy, Portland Oregonian, San Francisco Chronicle, Tampa Bay Times and U-T San Diego.
Recent newspaper corporate clients include Advance Publications, AH. Belo, CNHI, Civitas Media, Cox Media Group, Digital First Media, Gannett, Hearst Newspapers, Journal Media Group, Lee Enterprises, McClatchy, Morris, Postmedia, SCNI, Sun Media, Tribune Publishing [tronc] and Unidad Editorial.
Recent magazine corporate clients include Condé Nast, Hearst magazines, Meredith National Media, Trusted Media Brands, The Enthusiast Network and Time Inc.
A recognized industry leader, Mr. Harding has served on nationally and globally-focused committees for the media industry. He has spoken at several industry events and conferences, including WAN|IFRA, IFRA Expo and various Newspaper Association of America events. He works closely with publishers and industry executives to develop project solutions that will garner immediate positive impact to the business.
Prior to joining FTI Consulting, Mr. Harding was president and chief executive officer of Harding Consulting Alliance, a boutique consulting firm specializing in performance optimization across media businesses’ core functional areas.
Before that, he was corporate vice president of operations and distribution for Tribune Publishing, where he was responsible for publishing group initiatives and support of operations and distribution at each of the business units through local vice presidents. In that position, Mr. Harding reviewed and approved capital projects for all Tribune newspapers and directed benchmarking and continuous improvement initiatives in operations and distribution, as well as other areas of publishing. Mr. Harding’s career has included ownership roles for established industry firms.
Gene Hoffman
Chairman and CEO, Vindicia
Recognized by the San Francisco Business Times with the “40 under 40 Emerging Leaders Award” in 2012, Gene has deep experience with building companies that disrupt markets. Prior to Vindicia, Gene co-founded eMusic in January 1998 and served as President, Chief Executive Officer, and a Director. As head of eMusic, Gene was featured on the cover of Forbes Magazine as a member of the July 1999 E-Gang, and named one of the 100 most influential entrepreneurs in technology in Upside Magazine’s November 2000 Elite 100. Gene led the acquisition of eMusic by Vivendi/Universal in June 2001.
Before founding eMusic Gene was Director of Business Development and Director of Interactive Marketing of Pretty Good Privacy. Gene joined Pretty Good Privacy after it acquired PrivNet, Inc., an Internet privacy software company, where he was co-founder, Director and Executive Vice President.
Jay Horton
Principal Consultant, Digital Who
Jay Horton is wired to help businesses with their development of strategy, designed exclusively to their resources and capabilities, with a path to execution and realization of organizational goals.
His past roles have included serving as the director of digital sales for the Newspaper Division of Scripps. In that role, Horton was responsible for the monetization of the Scripps newspaper audiences through all digital platforms, as well as the extensive agency services that Scripps provides. He is a 15-year veteran from the front lines of digital sales, product and platform development for newspapers, working also with Knight-Ridder and Gannett. He started his career with a small marketing agency, and has also held roles in product management and as a site director.
Aaron Kotarek
Vice President, Circulation Oahu Publications, Inc.
Aaron Kotarek joined Oahu Publications, Inc. and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in May 2015 as Vice President of Circulation. He is responsible for overall audience growth, revenue enhancement, digital platform engagement and distribution/transportation logistics for the media company’s entire print and digital product portfolio.
Oahu Publications, Inc. is the State of Hawaii’s largest media company and publishes a diverse product portfolio, including but not limited to: The Honolulu-Star Advertiser, staradvertiser.com, Hawaii.com, MidWeek, The Garden Island, The Hawaii Tribune-Herald, West Hawaii Today, and numerous other niche, alternative, tourism, military and custom publishing titles.
Prior to arriving in Honolulu, Aaron was Vice President of Audience Development at McClatchy’s Herald Leader Media operation based in Lexington, Kentucky. Kotarek has also held various executive management positions within several large media chains including Thomson, A.H. Belo, Cox Enterprises, Morris Communications, the Omaha World-Herald Company, and Ottaway-Dow Jones. While at Thomson Newspapers, Aaron was twice awarded the prestigious President’s Award for Marketing Excellence by Thomson President & CEO Stuart Garner.
Aaron is a former President of the Cal-Western Circulation Manager’s Association (CWCMA) and has served in many capacities assisting the Newspaper Association of America. He currently serves on the Board of Director’s for the International News Media Association’s (INMA) North America Division and the 360 Media Alliance.
Aaron is regularly a featured speaker at industry summits nationwide on topics ranging from top line revenue growth, streamlining distribution logistics, digital engagement strategies, and business transformation. Kotarek is a native of Manitowoc, Wisconsin and earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Marian College in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin where he also played NAIA collegiate basketball for the Sabres as team captain.
Aaron and his wife Jacquelyn reside in Honolulu and enjoy traveling, attending sporting events, wine and craft beer tasting and all the outdoor activities the beautiful State of Hawaii has to offer.
Matt Lindsay
President, Mather Economics
Matt Lindsay has over 20 years of experience in helping businesses improve business performance and drive revenue through economic modeling. In a consulting role over the past 15 years, he has shared this expertise and developed pricing strategies and predictive models for clients including the Intercontinental Exchange, Gannett, The Home Depot, NRG Energy, Tribune, IHG, McClatchy, the Everglades Foundation, the Walton Foundation, Dow Jones, and The New York Times.
Prior to founding Mather Economics, Matt worked with the corporate Economics Group to leverage information on price elasticity and marginal network costs to improve profitability by customer for the United Parcel Service (UPS). He began his consulting career with Arthur Andersen, working in the firm’s Atlanta strategy practice.
Matt’s extensive experience in marketing spend effectiveness optimization, customer retention, analysis and the resulting predictive models have been used to support strategic pricing decisions, marketing initiatives and customer acquisition tactics, ultimately generating millions of dollars in incremental profits for his clients. He is a sought after expert and frequently speaks at industry events including the NAA’s MediaXchange, the INMA World Congress, and the WAN-IFRA World Newspaper Conference.
Matt holds a Doctorate in Economics from the University of Georgia, a Master of Applied Economics from Clemson University and an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Georgia.
Dan Schaub
Corporate Director of Audience Development, McClatchy
Dan Schaub currently serves as The McClatchy Company’s Corporate Director of Audience Development. This role was designed to provide the necessary leadership and focus as McClatchy works to expand its print and digital offerings across the 28 markets the company serves.
Prior to his corporate assignment, Dan worked as Sr. VP Audience Development & Membership Services at The Sacramento Bee in California for 10 years and as Director of Circulation at the Star Tribune in Minnesota from 2001 to 2003.
Prior to joining The McClatchy Company, he worked at the Los Angeles Times for 16 years in positions ranging from carrier to Director of Circulation.
Dan is very active in both the industry and the local Sacramento community. He is a Past President of NAA’s Circulation Federation, has served on INMA’s Board of Directors, Currently serves on AAM Board of Directors and has served on a large number or Audience growth related committees. Locally in Sacramento he has served on Boards for The Boys and Girls Club and Love Inc.
On a personal note, Dan formerly coached a Junior Olympic Softball team which placed 4th in the nation. Nine of the twelve kids he coached received softball scholarships to colleges. Dan has been married to his lovely wife Rene for 35 years. He and his wife have five children; three girls and two boys, and six grand children .
John Schlander
Managing Editor, Taylor Media Corp.
John Schlander is the managing editor for Taylor Media Corp., which publishes thepennyhoarder.com. Inc. Magazine recently named it the nation’s fastest-growing media company. Before joining Taylor in August, John was digital general manager at the Tampa Bay Times, where he spent 32 years in a variety of editing and management roles. The Times is the Southeast’s largest newspaper.
Stacy Spikes
Co-Founder/Co-Chairman, MoviePass
Stacy Spikes is the Co-Founder/Co-Chairman of MoviePass® the nations first theatrical subscription service that allows subscribers the freedom to attend movies in theaters at a fixed monthly price. MoviePass was voted Top 25 most disruptive technology companies by Business Insider in 2013. He got his early film experience as the VP of Marketing at Miramax. Spikes is the Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Urbanworld® Film Festival which is the worlds largest competitive festival of its kind. In 2011 Spikes was honored by Mayor Bloomberg with the “Made In NY” Award for outstanding achievement in New York City media and entertainment industry. Stacy currently lives in Greenwich Village NYC with his wife and daughter.
Arvid Tchivzhel
Director of Product Development and Data Sciences, Mather Economics
Arvid Tchivzhel leads many key projects at Mather Economics with an emphasis on data-driven decision-making and actionable recommendations. As Director of Product Development, he oversees the growth and development of Mather’s Listener™ product, which helps companies collect and monetize their digital and offline data across advertising, subscriptions, and content. Listener enables the application of Big Data Science at the enterprise level, with a focus on long term strategic planning and implementation at the tactical level across all departments within an organization. Arvid leads the development of new services, products, and the application of quantitative methods for clients that enable the teams of economists, developers, and technical specialists at Mather to design custom solutions that solve client business needs and generate significant ROI.
Arvid works extensively within the publishing and media industries across all aspects of strategy and tactics, applying techniques such as econometric modeling, forecasting, economic analysis, statistics, financial analysis, machine learning, and other rigorous quantitative methods. Outside of the publishing and media industry, engagements with lotteries, hotels, services firms, non-profits and “big box” retailers have yielded insights on optimal prize payout, prize structure analysis, demand estimates, high-level sales forecasting and retailer-level stocking models, retailer segmentation, retailer density analysis, measuring price elasticity, measuring marketing impact, and customer segmentation.
Arvid holds degrees in Economics and Spanish from Furman University, where he also completed original research of automobile demand using econometric methods.
Patrick Tornebene
Vice President, Audience Development & Analytics, Newsday
Patrick Tornabene is the Vice President of Audience Development and Analytics for Newsday Media Group. In this role, Patrick leads the overall development of audience engagement, growth, and monetization across Newsday’s print and digital products; inclusive of strategy and analytics in consumer insights, market research, customer experience, subscriber acquisition and retention, data management, and predictive modeling.
Throughout Patrick’s 12 year tenure at Newsday, he has been recognized as a strategic and analytical leader with a proven track record of leading teams through the crafting and executing of strategies where analytical insights are applied to operational improvements; yielding significant gains in operational performance, service levels, revenue growth, and profitability.
Patrick holds a MBA in Finance from Hofstra University with undergraduate studies in Finance and Economics.
Xavier van Leeuwe
Director Marketing and Data, NRC
Xavier van Leeuwe (1975) worked several years as a journalist in the Netherlands after studying business administration. His passion for innovation lead him to become new business project manager at a popular national newspaper. For the past 7 years he has been marketing executive and made the transformation from decline to growth by building a customer-centric and data rich culture at a newspaper with 188 years of heritage in Amsterdam.
Matthijs van de Peppel
Manager Data Intelligence & CRM, NRC
Matthijs van de Peppel (1983) has been working in the newspaper industry for over ten years. Starting his career as circulation marketeer, he quickly developed as webshopmanager, online marketeer and projectmanager. Now manager of the data intelligence & CRM team at NRC, a Dutch quality news organisation, he is responsible for bringing data insights into decision making and amplifying the voice of the customer.
Earl J. Wilkinson
Executive Director and CEO, INMA
Earl J. Wilkinson is executive director and chief executive officer of the International News Media Association (INMA), a global community of market-leading companies reinventing how they engage audiences and grow revenue in a multi-media environment.
During his career, Earl has written reports and books related to the future of media, marketing, and the strategic outlook for the news media industry — notably the annual Newsmedia Outlook report.
The Texas native is the author of The Earl Blog at INMA.org, as well as a frequent speaker at media industry conferences worldwide. His views on where news media companies fit into the emerging landscape are sought after by the world’s leading companies, and he is widely quoted in trade magazines, newspapers, industry Web sites, and more.
Earl joined the staff of INMA in 1990 as publications editor, and was appointed executive director and CEO in 1992. During his 26 years with the Dallas-based INMA, he has helped transform the association into one of the world’s fastest-growing and most influential press associations.
He has logged nearly 4 million air miles visiting the leading media companies in 51 countries: Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America, and the South Pacific. His broad perspective is unique in the news media industry.
His mix of global trend-spotting with passion for journalism and a wry Texas wit make him one of the most popular and highest-ranked keynote speakers at conferences. Earl has spoken at more than 200 media industry conferences, as well as dozens of corporate boards and town-hall meetings with media company employees and college campuses.
Earl was honoured for his work with the 2005 Silver Shovel Award for meritorious service to the global media industry, as well as the 2001 Golden Tie Award for contributions made to the European news media industry.
A native of the Northeast Texas city of Tyler, Earl’s professional career began in 1982 as a reporter with the Smith County Weekly, a small weekly newspaper in the Tyler area. Between 1984 and 1988, he served as a reporter, editor, business editor, and political editor of the Tyler Morning Telegraph, a 50,000-circulation daily newspaper. A graduate of the University of Texas (Tyler) and the Institute on Political Journalism (Washington, D.C.), he later worked as press secretary and in communications capacities for the congressional campaign of Hampton Hodges (R-Texas), and the Washington, D.C.-based congressional staffs of U.S. Rep. Tom Tauke (R-Iowa) and U.S. Rep. Ralph M. Hall (D-Texas).
Earl’s hobbies are reflective of his professional background which include an insatiable appetite for media studies, politics, media, the Internet, and global travel. He also is a collector of rare U.S. presidential biographies.