Nav Athwal is the Founder and CEO of RealtyShares, a curated online marketplace for real estate investing. His platform connects individual and institutional investors to private U.S. real estate investments, raising $200 million across more than 400 deals in 31 states. Prior to founding RealtyShares, Nav was a real estate and land use attorney in San Francisco, representing developers, fund managers, nonprofits and public and private REIT's on some of the largest US real estate and renewable energy projects. Nav holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from UC Davis and a J.D. from UC Berkeley Law School where he was Class Valedictorian. Nav is also is a regulator contributor to Forbes and TechCrunch.
“You can make the mistake of using data to make premature decisions that aren’t good for you.” - Nav Athwal
Tara-Nicholle Nelson is the Founder and CEO of Transformational Consumer Insights, Inc., a data, insight, and strategy firm. TCI helps brands understand, reach, and engage Transformational Consumers: a hyper-growth segment of consumers that view all of life as a series of campaigns to change their behavior in order to live healthier, wealthier, wiser lives.
Formerly, Tara was the first and only VP, Marketing for MyFitnessPal, now part of Under Armour Connected Fitness. Over 160 million people worldwide use Under Armour Connected Fitness apps to get an around-the-clock view of their food and fitness activities.
In Tara’s first year on the job, MyFitnessPal grew from 45 million to 100 million users, drove a 22 percent increase in user engagement, and went from raising an $18 million Series A to the acquisition by Under Armour for $475 million.
Tara created the Transformational Consumer Insights framework in 2012, and has continued to develop it throughout a career of working with the biggest brands in consumer tech to reach and engage hundreds of millions of consumers by helping them make the difficult behavior changes they struggle with as they aspire to live healthier, wealthier, and wiser lives.
Tara’s exuberant belief that business can be a powerful, transformational force for humanity and her team’s deep expertise in predictive data science, neuropsychology, behavioral economics, content marketing, brand, and digital strategy powers TCI’s approach and offerings.
Tara has developed and executed integrated marketing, content, PR and social media strategies that achieved the traffic, brand, PR, niche marketing, business development and revenue objectives of behavior-focused digital companies like HGTV, Eventbrite, ING Direct, Chegg, Lookout Mobile Security, ModCloth, and real estate search engine Trulia.com.
Tara holds a Master’s degree in Psychology and a Juris Doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. Tara is the Board President of City Slicker Farms, a non-profit community farming and food security organization in West Oakland.
“Part of the reason most B2B marketing is terrible is that people think they’re marketing to a company, but that’s not a thing. Every single person who is going to place the order is a human being.” - Tara-Nicholle Nelson
Digital marketing and online customer service are broken, and Jay Baer brings the repair kit.
Jay has created five multi-million dollar companies and was recently inducted into the Word of Mouth Marketing Hall of Fame.
He is the President of Convince & Convert, a consulting firm that helps the world’s most iconic brands like The United Nations, Nike, 3M, and Oracle use technology to gain an unfair competitive advantage.
A New York Times best-selling author of five books, Jay is also the host of the acclaimed Social Pros podcast. His latest book Hug Your Haters is on Lee’s must read list for all marketers, communicators, and CEOs.
He’s also an avid tequila collector and a certified barbecue judge.
“What has changed everything is that now customer service is a spectator sport. People can see if you’re good at customer service or not.” - Jay Baer
Renee Wilson is the president of the PR Council, the professional trade association for agencies practicing public relations, within the world of marketing and communications. The PR Council has 110+ members representing more than 11,000 employees in the US. PR Council advocates for and advances the business of communications firms by building the market and the value of firms as strategic business partners.
Previously, Renee spent 11 years at MSLGROUP most recently as a member of the global board of directors; and the firm’s Chief Client Officer, responsible for liaison with senior clients and the agency’s international client engagement program, which she created. She is also the former President of MSLGROUP in North America. Renee was president of the 2014 PR jury for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and served on one other Cannes Jury in 2011.
Renee spent four years living and working in London for another international PR consultancy. During this time she managed the EMEA communications for brands within Kellogg's and Johnson & Johnson.
Renee is a regularly featured speaker at various international conferences and most recently presented at the United Nations International Women's Day Conference, SxSw Social Good Hub, 2015, ColorComm and espnW 2015. A Cannes lion award winner herself, Renee’s teams have won more than 25 awards for exceptional, breakthrough work. A long-standing proponent for diversity, she sits on the Advisory Board for the Young Women's Leadership Schools of NYC and is a member of the NY Women in Communications. She has guest lectured on international communications at NYU and Baruch.
“The credibility that comes with an output from a public relations campaign -- how do you put the value on that?” - Renee Wilson
With more than 20 years of experience in technology, SaaS, and B2B offerings, Jay Krishnan, Automile’s Vice President of Marketing, brings deep expertise in small business and enterprise marketing to the rapidly growing company. Prior to joining Automile, she led product marketing at fast-growing startups, accelerating growth and market leadership. She also drove go to market strategy for mobile and was an innovation catalyst during her tenure with Intuit. An accomplished change agent and thought leader, she speaks at several leading industry events on technology trends impacting different industries.
“Marketers often get too busy that they forget to carve out needed time with their customers.” - Jay Krishnan
Described by Bella NYC Magazine as being passionate, energetic, and full of life, K2s founder and CEO, Heidi Krupp-Lisiten, is right at home in the world of marketing, promotion, and media. With over 25 years in the field, Heidi has become recognized as an industry leader who works closely with her clients to develop innovative 360-degree brand platforms designed to engage consumers, excite media, drive awareness, and most importantly, deliver quantifiable business outcomes.
As the head of K2, Heidi provides multi-disciplined marketing solutions, including unique strategic PR programs, on behalf of globally recognized brands such as Weight Watchers, Ann Taylor, Gaiam, and Everyday Health. Notably, her recent work with Nerium International (the fastest growing direct sales company in the world) has helped them to achieve their U.S. goals and expand into other countries.
After earning a Bachelor's degree in journalism and communications from Ohio University, Heidi moved on to play an integral role at ABC News 20/20, amassing an impressive string of production and publicity credits (including her first publicity credit for her work with Barbara Walters). It was while she was at ABC that she discovered her true calling as a PR professional and entrepreneur. This discovery led her to establish K2 in 1996.
Heidi is a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania native who now resides in New York City with her husband, Darren, their son, Caden, and beloved dog, Isaac.
“You have to find a clever way in. You can’t just take no for an answer.” - Heidi Krupp-Lisiten
Jen McClure is one of the original authorities on digital and social media. More than a decade ago, she anticipated the significant impact that these technologies would have on business, media, culture and society. This led her to cofound the Society for New Communications Research in 2005, a think tank focused on these technologies, which merged with The Conference Board in 2016. She now serves as a Program Director and Advisory Board Chair for The Conference Board.
Jen is CEO of JEM Consulting & Advisory Services, a Silicon Valley-based consultancy dedicated to helping organizations gain competitive advantage through the use of digital and social media. Services include: digital transformation, strategy development, digital and social media audits and maturity assessments, digital due diligence for M&A, social selling and employee advocacy program development.
Prior to founding JEM, she was VP of Digital & Social Media at Thomson Reuters, where she founded the company's Digital Center of Excellence and oversaw digital strategy, enablement and governance for web, mobile, social media, online communities, and search.
She is on the Board of Directors of the Observer Publishing Company and Justice Gap. She is an advisor to two start-ups, Opera Event Company and PaperQuilt. She also served on the Customer Advisory Boards of Adobe and Nexgate/Proofpoint, the Social Media Advisory Council of the UN's Population Fund in 2011 and was an Advisory Board member of the Future Arts & Media Node of the Millennium Project from 2009-2010.
Jen received her Bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College and her Master’s degree from Stanford University.
“Understand the expansiveness of the power of social media. Social is not just a communications tool.” - Jen McClure