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Erik Bursch
VP, Platform Technology
Gannett
Erik Bursch is responsible for technology in Gannett’s Product organization which includes web (Native/Mobile/Desktop), test automation, api services, cloud infrastructure and the content management platform used by all of Gannett’s journalists. A relentless disrupter, Erik pushes his teams for ongoing improvements in technology, process and approach. Erik is a huge Dodgers fan and is still rooting for them to recreate 1988!
Paul Caluori
VP, Global Products
The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Paul Caluori leads the packaging and delivery of AP journalism and services to diverse customers globally. His team manages content products in all formats - from live video to the venerable text wire to immediate, nationwide elections results. Caluori has been at AP for 20 years and led several business units for the news cooperative prior to his current role.
Gianluca D'Aniello
SVP and Chief Technology Officer
The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Gianluca D’Aniello is the senior vice president and chief technology officer of the Associated Press. As a global leader of AP’s technology, Gianluca is responsible for defining and implementing the strategic approach to innovation, which will empower the Associated Press in successfully continuing its mission of “informing the world” in the age of digital media.
Before joining the AP in 2016, Gianluca served as vice president of information technology at News Corp and as chief information officer at Sky Italia, the digital satellite television network, where he successfully led digital transformation initiatives.
He started his career as a consultant with Deloitte where he developed multi-year knowledge of media, entertainment and communications industries. A native Italian, he graduated from Politecnico di Milano, with a degree in Management Engineering – Enterprise Information Systems.
Brian Danza
Chief Operating Officer
The Daily Caller
Brian Danza serves as the Chief Operating Officer of The Daily Caller, where he oversees the day to day operations of the company as well as directly managing the site’s technical staff. Since joining The Daily Caller in 2011, Brian has launched three new verticals under the brand, completely reordered the hosting stack, and transitioned the site from a fairly stock Wordpress Front end, to a custom Node.js UI dramatically reducing server load while cutting end user page load times by 80%.
Prior to joining The Daily Caller, Brian served at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, where he managed a broad portfolio of telecom and spectrum policy issues, including the JPA between the US government and ICANN and the Digital Television Transition.
Jarrod Dicker
CEO
Po.et
Jarrod Dicker is an entrepreneurial technology and media executive. He is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Po.et, a platform for a new decentralized media economy.
Prior to Po.et, Dicker served as innovation chief at the Washington Post as Vice President of Innovation and founded RED, the Post's research experimentation and development team. There he oversaw the companies technology, product, operations and strategy across the entire business.
Before the Washington Post, Dicker lead strategy, product and technology teams at RebelMouse, Time Inc. and the Huffington Post. He also sits on the Board of Advisors for Rutgers University School of Innovation and Mogul Inc., a technology platform that enables women worldwide to share ideas and access content based on personal interests.
Dicker's writing and work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, AdAge, AdWeek, Digiday, Axios, AdExchanger, Poynter and more.
Maggie Louie
Co-Founder & CEO
DEV/CON DETECT
Maggie Louie is the CEO and CO-Founder of DEVCON, a cyber security software company, that develops anti-fraud and anti-money laundering (AML) software.
She started he career developing digital products at E.W. Scripps, The Los Angeles Times, American Public Media and Morris Communications, and has more than a decade expertise in product development and adtech.
Ms. Louie started DEVCON in 2017 after turning in a hacker she caught exploiting publisher ad tags, and syphoning off an estimated $921,000 dollars from the industry. This resulted in the first ever conviction for fraud and money laundering for online ad fraud, a 4-year prison sentence for the hacker, and payback of the stolen funds.
Ms. Louie started DEVCON in 2017 after turning in a hacker she caught exploiting publisher ad tags, and syphoning off an estimated $921,000 dollars from the industry. This resulted in the first ever conviction for fraud and money laundering for online ad fraud, a 4-year prison sentence for the hacker, and payback of the stolen funds.
Royce Martin
Senior Director, Product
Gannett
Royce Martin is the Sr. Director of Product at Gannett and the USA TODAY Network, where he leads the Content Capabilities Team. He focuses on newsroom tools, data-driven content experiences, discovery and testing. Beginning his career in a newsroom, Royce is passionate about solving problems at scale where digital products and journalism meet.
Gideon Mendels
Co-Founder & CEO
Comet.ml
Gideon Mendels is the CEO and co-founder of Comet.ml, the leading solution for managing machine learning workflows.
Before Comet.ml Gideon founded GroupWize where they trained and deployed over 50 Natural Language Processing (NLP) models on 15 different languages. His journey with NLP and Speech Recognition models began at Columbia University and Google where he worked on hate speech and deception detection.
Before Comet.ml Gideon founded GroupWize where they trained and deployed over 50 Natural Language Processing (NLP) models on 15 different languages. His journey with NLP and Speech Recognition models began at Columbia University and Google where he worked on hate speech and deception detection.
Al Ming
VP, Product
Discovery, Inc.
Al Ming is the VP of Product at Discovery’s Digital Lifestyle Studios, responsible for product development teams across web, mobile apps, and emerging platforms for lifestyle brands Food Network, HGTV, DIY, Cooking Channel, GAC, and Travel Channel. Under his leadership, his teams shipped successful redesigns and replatforms for the lifestyle brands’ responsive websites and the popular “In The Kitchen” iOS and Android apps. He consistently delivered first-to-market experiences in emerging technologies, including conversational bots on Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Facebook Messenger, and Microsoft Cortana, and AR features on iOS and Android.
He is a passionate change agent, design thinking practitioner, and champion for building strong, user-focused product cultures. Prior to joining Discovery, he led product, design and technology teams at The New York Times and Thomson Reuters. At various points in his career in Media, he’s been a developer, UX designer, product manager, ad creative, discovery coach, and management consultant, so he’s worn enough hats to outfit a (small) community theater.
Nina Ong
Director, Product Design
Discovery, Inc.
Nina Ong is the Director of Product Design at Discovery’s Digital Lifestyle Studios, where she shapes digital consumer experiences across brands including Food Network, HGTV, and Genius Kitchen. She has spent the past several years establishing work cultures that encourage teams to create collaboratively and think imaginatively, in industries such as media, education, and government.
Sebastian Serafin
CEO
Contentflow
Sebastian is Founder and CEO of Contentflow since 2015. Before that worked in the media- and event industry for 10+ years in Europe, working for the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation (NGO present in 100+ countries worldwide) as event-manager, being responsible for top-level international conferences worldwide. He was also chief-editor of an eSports coverage site (got awarded with the eSports Award 2004 for best Coverage worldwide) and founded a print-magazine in Germany, that got awarded with the European Newspaper Award in 2013.
