June 30th, 2021 & July 1st, 2021

Brandi Boatner is an award-winning digital communications professional and prolific public speaker based in New York City. Currently, she serves as the social and influencer communications lead for Global Markets in IBM corporate communications, a newly created position.  Her responsibilities include developing a consistent approach to how global markets drive engagement across digital and social platforms, key events and with influencers (both internal and external) around strategic communications narratives such as Hybrid cloud, Blockchain, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity. 

Additionally, Boatner has extended responsibilities serving as the Brand Communications Manager for IBM Marketing supporting external engagements including press, events and social media for IBM’s Senior Vice President of Digital Sales and Chief Marketing Officer.

Recently, Boatner was inducted into the Loyola University New Orleans School of Mass Communications Hall of Fame known as the Den of Distinction, the youngest member ever inducted. She was also honored and inducted into the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) Hall of Fame in late 2018. 

Brandi is a true advocate for diversity and inclusion serving as a member of IBM’s Diversity and Inclusion Council and also serves as the former chair and current professional development chair of the IBM Black Network of New York business resource group. Given her efforts around diversity in the public relations industry, she is one of more than 40 PR leaders featured in the book Diverse Voices: Lessons in Leadership published by the Public Relations Society of America Foundation.  Boatner is very active in the public relations industry where she holds several leadership positions within PRSA on both the local and national level. She speaks all around the US and the world on a variety of industry and marketplace topics and enjoys traveling, shoe shopping and spending time with family and friends in her hometown of New Orleans.

Carmen Shirkey Collins is the Senior Social Media and Brand Manager for the Cisco award-winning Employee/r Brand team that you’ll find behind the @WeAreCisco social media accounts. She created the strategy behind making personal connections with current and future talent by amplifying the employee voices in Cisco’s 70K-person organization.

Carmen was named the 2020 Digital Communicator of the Year, a 2020 Top Woman in PR, the Social Media Professional of the Year four years in a row, and her team was named the 2020 Digital Team of the Year. You can find her @cshirkeycollins on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. When she’s not enjoying the Florida weather with her husband and ‘fur-kid” cat.

Ken Gibbs, Jr. is one of the foremost digital executives in the content space.  Most recently, he served as the first Vice President of Digital Video & Social Media Marketing Strategy for BET Networks, where he managed all digital video and social media content for BET, BET Her, BET JAMS, BET Soul, and the BET Experience.  Gibbs, Jr. has a passion for entertainment and technology.  He began his digital career as part of the original staff of Henry Louis Gates’ Africana.com and remained with the product as it was acquired by Time Warner, then merged with AOL to become what was eventually known as the new Aol BlackVoices.com. Since then Gibbs, Jr. has gone on to hold leadership positions at Interactive One, Essence, Loop21.com and BET Networks.  Today, he is the Social Lead for the newly formed Action/Thriller vertical at Amazon Prime, where he manages the social strategy for Amazon Prime Original series and films in the action and thriller genres.

Liz leads the US Scaled Marketing team at Twitter, responsible for developing integrated marketing campaigns and activations to inspire and educate the brand’s Fortune 500 advertising partners. Liz works internally and externally to increase consideration for Twitter amongst marketers and agency decision-makers while helping to drive business impact and increase revenue. Prior to joining Twitter, Liz led Campaign Strategy at Macy’s, where she managed the brand’s holiday and seasonal fashion campaigns with specialized focus on millennial customer acquisition and retention. Liz earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Marketing at Elon University in North Carolina.

Peter works on LinkedIn’s Brand Strategy Team, helping LinkedIn’s largest clients and their agencies develop best-in-class B2B marketing strategies.

Danny Gardner is the Social Intelligence Lead, US Digital Analytics at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a multi-national pharmaceutical company, where he is responsible for building an in-house social intelligence capability. While his responsibilities are constantly evolving, he regularly executes social listening, data analytics, and business intelligence reporting across GSK’s world-renowned consumer healthcare brands, such as Advil and Sensodyne, to inform and drive their enterprise digital marketing strategy.

Previously, he held the same role at Pfizer where he was acquired as part of the $12B consumer healthcare joint venture between them and GSK. Danny began his full-time career with W2O Group, an integrated healthcare marketing and communications agency, where he held cross-functional roles in data science, social listening, market research, and applied analytics.

Danny holds a BA in economics from the University of Maryland, College Park and an MBA in business analytics & marketing from American University’s Kogod School of Business.

Tiffany is the Senior Director of Digital & Social Communications at Comcast. She brings 15+ years of storytelling experience in marketing and communications roles for high-profile brands, including Dell and Motorola, and most recently was a Director of Communications for Walmart. 

Tiffany has an MBA from University of California, Irvine and dual bachelor degrees in Communications and Psychology from the University of Southern California (USC). She recently relocated from Pasadena, CA to the Philadelphia area with her husband and two children.

Marion Leary is the Director of Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Nursing. As the Director of Innovation at Penn Nursing she works to amplify and educate nurses as leaders in health and healthcare innovation. Ms. Leary is a member of the American Nurses Association’s Innovation Advisory Committee and a Founding member of the Society of Nurse Scientists, Innovators, Entrepreneurs and Leaders (SONSIEL). She is a host of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing podcast, Amplify Nursing, and a contributor to the American Nurses Association’s official journal, the American Nurse as part of the My Nurse Influencer’s column. In August 2019 she was named as an Influencer of Healthcare winner in the category of Excellence in Innovation by the Philadelphia Inquirer. In 2017, she was named Geek of the Year for her outstanding achievements in Philadelphia’s vibrant geek community in the areas of innovation, technology, and activism.

Elea Feit is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business where she has developed courses in data-driven digital marketing (undergraduate), marketing experiments (masters), and Bayesian and causal inference (PhD). Her recent research focuses on how marketers can use randomized experiments to measure advertising incrementality. She is also the co-author R for Marketing Research and Analytics with Chris Chapman. More at eleafeit.com.

Veronica McKee has built a career in marketing across a wide variety of firms. Currently the Vice President of Marketing for The Haverford Trust Company, Veronica has also led marketing for snack food, consulting, and commercial real estate companies. She has driven brand transitions for wealth management, transportation, and non-profit organization, developed social media programs for B2B and B2C businesses as well as non-profit campaigns, and worked in franchised environments to frame branded marketing across all platforms. Veronica has guided teams through business challenges like brand integrations during an acquisition, attribution of results across traditional and digital channels, and creating new revenue streams.

After graduating at the top of her class at Penn State, Veronica continued on at both Villanova and Wharton for graduate and certificate studies. In 2014 the Philadelphia Business Journal named her to their Women of Distinction list. She served for four years as president of the non-profit Career Wardrobe and remains on their advisory board. Veronica and her husband have two rescue dogs, who they adopted as puppies found on the streets of West Philadelphia – one blind and his brother who acted as his Seeing Eye dog. The dogs have more than 40,000 Facebook followers! She likes to relax by cooking and playing with the dogs, and by writing blogs and social media posts about both hobbies.

Follow her dogs @BrotherlyLovePups on Facebook

Leslie Mac is a Brooklyn girl, Organizer, Digital Strategist, and Communications expert. She currently serves as the Communications Director for The Frontline. A seasoned Digital Strategist & Social Media Advisor, via LM Consulting she helps her clients create diverse, imaginative campaigns and branding that focus on inclusivity and justice-minded content. Recent clients include Google, UltraViolet, Articulate, UMass Amherst, Amazon, Meadville Lombard Theological School, Canvas8, and The Advancement Project. For more information visit LeslieMac.com

Larry, a veteran high school English teacher at Lindenwold High School, started BookSmiles in September 2017.  Always an avid reader, he graduated from the University of Rochester with a BA in English and a day later received a commission as an officer in the US Navy. 

After his discharge, he considered going into advertising but instead became a Kinko’s manager while completing his Masters in Teaching at The College of New Jersey. He has taught high school English for twenty years.

He started BookSmiles, a 501(c)(3),  four years ago, stockpiling and distributing gently used children’s books out of his garage and classroom.  The nonprofit has to this date distributed over 500,000 books to children in need.  He believes that all children can have a personal library and he knows that an alliance of educators, parents, and literacy warriors can make it happen.

Cass (Oryl) Bailey is the president and CEO of Slice Communications, an agency in Philadelphia with fully dedicated public relations and social media teams that provides clients with actionable content and data-oriented approaches. She believes that integrated public relations and social media efforts are vital to accomplishing business goals when looking to grow and expand awareness of a company.

Cass brings a wide variety of experiences to the communications strategies she develops for the firm’s clients. With a background in international politics, economics, and philosophy, communications has become her passion and she has been tapped by various industry associations and the media to share her insights and experiences in the field.

Before founding Slice, Cass was a senior account executive at one of the top public relations agencies in the northeast region. She began her career at Ketchum Public Relations in Washington, DC, and has also held positions with the Honorable Mark Oaten, Member of Parliament for Winchester; the Tory Party in the United Kingdom; and New Economy Strategies.

She is deeply involved with her community, serving as Chair of the Board for Tree House Books, Secretary of the Board for Hopeworks ‘N Camden, and member of the Red Cross Philadelphia Leadership Council. Cass graduated from The Catholic University of America with a degree in international politics, economics and philosophy.

Julie leads the largest social media practice in the Philadelphia area, having grown it from a team of 4 to a team of 75+ dedicated social media strategists over the past five years. Incorporating social intelligence with paid social strategy, the practice allows Julie to bring her passion for healthcare along with her 15+ years of experience across a wide variety of industries including fashion, non-profit, technology, and consumer goods. CMI Media Group specializes in healthcare, and Julie’s innovation-focused leadership has brought many firsts to the industry, including pharma-firsts with companies like Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Reddit. Julie’s strengths lie in mentorship, client relationships, innovative ideation and strategic business growth. In 2020 she was a featured speaker at Social Media Day and was awarded the PM360 ELITE Award in the Transformational Leader category as well as the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association Rising Star Award.