Andrew Fitzgerald is the Chief Digital Content Officer for Hearst Television, responsible for digital content across Hearst’s 26 local markets and national brands like Stitch. Prior to Hearst, Fitzgerald led Twitter’s global Curation team, responsible for editorial decision-making in Twitter Moments across five languages and fourteen markets and also worked with news organizations, journalists, and authors on Twitter’s Media Partnerships team. Before Twitter, he worked as a journalist focused on citizen journalism and social media story-telling at Al Jazeera English, Current TV, and elsewhere.
For almost two decades, Kendra Bracken-Ferguson has helped define and navigate the digital space as a creative force for brands and influencers, becoming a recognized and sought after innovative leader, visionary and transformative brand builder.
Most recently Kendra was the Chief Digital Officer of CAA-GBG, the largest brand management agency in the world with 24 offices in over 20 countries. BrainTrust, the social media agency that Kendra founded in 2016, joined CAA-GBG which is a joint venture between Global Brands Group Holding Limited (“Global Brands”), and Creative Artists Agency (“CAA”) in 2017. In April of 2019, Kendra bought back BrainTrust and the agency is now independent refocused on Brand Strategy and Social Media for brands, institutions and tastemakers.
Prior to BrainTrust gaining notoriety and success, Kendra saw an opening in the market for digital, social and influencer marketing and she co-founded Digital Brand Architects. DBA grew quickly from an idea at a kitchen table into the go-to firm for influencer management and was recently acquired by United Talent Agency (UTA).
Before launching DBA, Kendra created the social media footprint for fashion behemoth, Ralph Lauren, where she was the company’s first Director of Digital Media. Kendra’s work during and since her time at Ralph Lauren was informed by her years as Vice President, Digital at Fleishman-Hillard, New York, where she led the digital consumer team in developing social media strategies for clients including AT&T, DKNY, and P&G. A compelling and charismatic keynote speaker and industry leader, Kendra has been awarded the Emerging Voice Award by her alma mater Purdue University, named one of the “Most Influential African American Women” by Essence Magazine, Cayton Children’s Museum board member and noted by Mobile Marketer as a “Mobile Women to Watch” amongst other industry accolades. Kendra is also on the Forbes Agency Council and serves on the Advisory Board of Influencer Marketing Association.
Working ahead of trends and predicting opportunities, Carpe diem is not just a saying to Kendra – it is a way of life.
Board of Directors, Chief Global Officer, Association of CDO Club Japan
Graduate BA Law from Aoyama Gakuin University, Postgraduate in Geopolitics and Energy Policy from University College London in 2016. Joined Digital and Disruptive Technology Unit, PwC Japan Consulting Company after doing Global Research on smart cities and technologies in the electricity industry at the International Affairs Office, Tokyo Electric Power Company. Founder of the think tank Nabeshima Strategy Institute. As a Chief Global Officer at the Association of CDO Club Japan, interviews Chief Digital/Data Officers, researches global emerging technology and reports this information in various media such as article columns, keynote speeches and TV. Also make a specially to cyber security and interested in accelerating digital government to create innovation in Japan and world.
Chris Wiggins is an associate professor of applied mathematics at Columbia University and the Chief Data Scientist at The New York Times. At Columbia he is a founding member of the executive committee of the Data Science Institute, and of the Department of Systems Biology, and is affiliated faculty in Statistics.
He is a co-founder and co-organizer of hackNY (http://hackNY.org), a nonprofit which since 2010 has organized once a semester student hackathons and the hackNY Fellows Program, a structured summer internship at NYC startups.
Prior to joining the faculty at Columbia he was a Courant Instructor at NYU (1998-2001) and earned his PhD at Princeton University (1993-1998) in theoretical physics.
He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and is a recipient of Columbia’s Avanessians Diversity Award.
Dr. Mashariki leads Urban Analytics at Esri. Esri is a digital mapping pioneer that builds bigdata and analytics software that provides location intelligence and insights for almost every industry.
As the head of Urban Analytics at Esri, Dr. Mashariki is responsible for the messaging and strategy for applying data science principles to urban challenges, ensuring that data-driven decision makers will realize impactful and positive outcomes in urban policy and operations. Previously Dr. Mashariki was Chief Analytics Officer for the City of New York and the Director of the Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics. He ran the civic intelligence center that allowed one of the largest cities in the world to aggregate and analyze data from across agencies.
Dr. Mashariki also currently serves as a Fellow at the Harvard Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.
In 2012, Dr. Mashariki was one of eleven individuals appointed by the President of the United States to the 2012-2013 class of White House Fellows. Immediately after the Fellowship he was appointed the Chief Technology Officer for the Office of Personnel Management.
Amen earned a Doctorate in Engineering from Morgan State University, as well as a Master and Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Howard and Lincoln University respectively.
Slava Akmaev, Ph.D., is the Senior VP and Chief Analytics Officer at BERG. Dr. Akmaev is the industry leader in AI and machine learning applications in life sciences and healthcare. He heads the BERG Analytics business division and is the chief architect of Bayesian Artificial Intelligence software, bAIcis®. Dr. Akmaev is an avid advocate for data driven research and promotes wider utility of advanced mathematical modeling techniques in pharmaceutical and clinical research. Prior to his role at BERG, Dr. Akmaev spent a decade at Genzyme R&D and the CLIA diagnostic laboratory, Genzyme Genetics. He led the development and commercialization of novel multi-omic panel diagnostics in oncology and prenatal medicine. Dr. Akmaev has published numerous peer-reviewed manuscripts in genomics, systems biology, biochemistry and human genetics. He is a frequent speaker at AI, analytics and precision medicine conferences. Dr. Akmaev holds a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
