Rafik Hanna is an accomplished technology and digital leader who has led numerous business and IT transformations. In his current role as Senior Director, All Access, Rafik leads Taco Bell’s digital transformation of 7,000 US restaurants with a national roll-out of self-service kiosks. During his tenure at Taco Bell, Rafik has helped elevate the guest and restaurant experience, including leadership for Taco Bell’s recent 2018 re-launch of eCommerce, featuring the new Ta.co website and new Taco Bell iOS and Android mobile apps. Previously, Rafik spearheaded the roll-out of digital menu boards, chip and pin payment devices, POS refresh and all technology for Taco Bell’s flagship restaurant.

John Padgett joined Carnival Corporation in 2014 as the chief experience & innovation officer spanning the company’s 10 global cruise line brands with a holistic focus on creating exceptional guest experiences. Leading a multi-disciplinary and cross-functional experience and innovation team, John is responsible for guest experience innovation, development, creation and operations integration across creative, digital, technical and operational functions. Prior to Carnival Corporation, John had an 18-year career with Walt Disney Parks and Resorts where he and his team led the company’s shift to guest experiences grounded in personalization, customization, simplicity and connectivity as the vice president of game changer experience development.

Michelle Adams is Founder of Marketing Brainology, a consulting practice focused on translating consumer and shopper insights to corporate America; especially the latest findings from virtual shopping, behavioral science and neuroscience. She speaks globally on neuromarketing and human decision-making; helping unlock the mystery of human emotion and how it impacts brands and companies. Working with PepsiCo for 10 years, most recently as VP of Customer Strategy and Shopper Insights, she was responsible for the SMART Learning Center, a retail theater focused on state-of-the art consumer and shopper research. While at PepsiCo, Michelle lead shopper insights for key retail accounts; connecting key shopper attitudes with behaviors.

Jaime is an accomplished leader recognized for designing world-class customer experiences for lifestyle brands. For the last 18 years, she has been in various marketing, branding and development roles working with global organizations to enhance their in-store experiences by leveraging media and technology solutions. She has been a valued partner for clients including AT&T Mobility, Coca-Cola, Target, Sephora, TJX, Luxottica, and Kendra Scott. Jaime has been featured in Forbes, Women’s Wear Daily, Chief Marketer, SMB Retail Technology News, Chain Store Age, Retail Dive, Retail Customer Experience, Mobile Strategies 360, HOW Magazine, Future Stores, ICX, Wearable Technology UX, and Retail Loco.

Shannan Coghill is a creative director with a longstanding background in advertising and UI design with product and environmental integration. A techy at heart and designer by trade, she is a firm believer that interactive should be an emotional experience that translates into a 360-degree story. Shannan has created and lead campaigns, product design and interactive experiences for some of the world’s most recognizable brands including; REI, SC Johnson, WebMD, Nike, Johnson and Johnson, Verizon, and Macy’s. These experiences included mobile, tablet, websites, interactive environmental experiences, product interfaces and product design.

Laura Rea Dickey currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants, Inc. Laura served as the Chief Information Officer for eight years, and made the transition to CEO after excelling in her previous role. She has worked in the marketing and information technology field for over 15 years, and has led the marketing, IT and training departments at Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants, Inc. during her time there. After graduating from Texas Christian University in 2001, Dickey went on to work at agencies such as Murray Brown Creative Group and The Richards Group. Laura’s specialty is the intersection of technology and marketing, turning data insights into brand and business solutions.

Dawn Dickson is a serial entrepreneur with over 16 years of experience in marketing and business development. She launched four successful cash flow positive companies since 2002, her most recent ventures Flat Out of Heels (rollable flats for women to get relief from painful heels) and Solutions Vending International (SVI) after identifying a need develop a software solution to make vending machines more intelligent. Dawn has received numerous awards and accolades for her business savvy and pitching skills, including being awarded first place in the PowerMoves NOLA Big Break pitch competition and second place in the 2016 SBA InnovateHer Challenge.

Christiana DiMattesa oversees Under Armour’s North America direct-to-consumer retail marketing team inclusive of marketing strategy, operations, in-store experience, and event activations. Christiana has spent 20 years working within the retail space and has a passion to utilize technology to change the interactive landscape of the retail environment. She has been with Under Armour since August 2014 and previously held marketing roles with Ann Inc. and Foot Locker.

David DiMeo is a smart creative, who recently left a Fortune 500 company to start a new business that is focused on a future where machine meets the customer. He has spent the last two decades working within the automotive industry on Connected Cars and the Internet of Things (IoT). In his new role at Robo Retail, David is focused on helping companies win at retail by applying advanced methods in a way that provides experiences their customers love and generate economic value for the business. Previoiusly, he was the Director of the Innovation Lab at FordDirect, where he was responsible for futuring on the connected car.

Jeff Donaldson is a 35-year veteran of the IT industry. Jeff won innovator awards in 2016 and 2015 and holds US and European patents. In 2017, Jeff founded Intriosity a company specializing in Design Research for robotic and cognitive automation. Prior to Intriosity, Jeff served as GameStop’s CIO for 16 years and was an integral member of GameStop’s founding leadership team. Jeff serves on the Advisory Board of the RevTech retail technology accelerator in Dallas, Texas where he is also Executive In Residence and is a member of the SMU Design Council.

Paul Epperley is an accomplished hospitality and retail professional, with decades of experience in international, regional and local environments. Specializing in consumer technology, Paul defines the technology and platforms to transform the consumer journey into an interactive and agile experience. Career highlights include streamlining operations and creating shopper experiences at Brinker International, Cracker Barrel, and Hooters. With Sodexo for the past 10 years, Paul’s current focus is bringing consumer technology solutions to the foodservice industry.

Jordan Fraser is on the Publisher Solutions Team at Vistar Media, an advertising technology firm that enables brands to reach consumers based on their behavior in the physical world. In his current position on the Publisher Solutions Team, Jordan specializes in providing solutions to digital out-of-home media owners that enable them to effectively manage their inventory and monetize it via digital advertising budgets. Prior to joining GameStop, Jordan held advertising and marketing roles at Clear Channel, Kinetic, Outfront Media, and GameStop.

Mitch Frazier serves as Chief Executive Officer of regional John Deere retailer Reynolds Farm Equipment. As the company’s first chief executive appointed from outside of the Reynolds family, Mitch leads a 250-person equipment sales and service organization serving farmers, landscapers, turf professionals and homeowners. Prior to Reynolds, Mitch served in marketing leadership and executive roles in the technology industry. He served as Vice President of Marketing at sales technology platform TinderBox and as Vice President of Marketing, Investor Relations Officer and Chief of Staff to the CEO at digital marketing technology leader ExactTarget. There, he founded the company’s investor relations program.

Amber Gadsby has over 20 years of digital marketing, e-commerce, digital innovation and product management experience. In her current role as Director of Digital Retail Experiences, she leads Domino’s in-store digital innovation efforts to enhance consumer and employees experiences – including kiosks, iOT, mobile experiences and self-driving pizza delivery experiences. In her time leading digital marketing and emerging interactive projects she helped drive Domino’s to a $2 billion + ecommerce business, 50%+ online/mobile sales. She was named to AdWeek’s 2015 Creative 100 list and Ad Age’s Creativity 50 list for her work on the Emoji ordering campaign.

Angela has led the vision and strategy to elevate the Sleep Number brand and transform the mattress shopping experience. Today, the Sleep Number store creates a consumer-centric, breakthrough interactive shopping environment that transforms a purely rational shopping experience to one that maximizes both rational and emotional appeals, differentiated from all other competitors. Seamlessly integrated digital experiences allow the store to become a 3-D selling tool to simplify and support a relationship-based selling process. Sleep Number is considered “best in class” retail leadership, resulting in over twice the productivity of the industry average. She has transformed the Sleep Number retail portfolio over the past 5 years.

Ignaz Gorischek is an award-winning designer who brings a unique blend of retail experience to CallisonRTKL’s Dallas team. His background in striking visual merchandising, store planning and design, graphics, art curation and collection, as well as an innovative application of technologies, has made him one of the industry’s most recognized figures.

With over 20 years of automotive engineering experience, Daniel brought a new engineering and business mindset to the electronics industry when founding Goldfinger. With Betson Enterprises as the master distributor for Goldfinger monitors, Goldfinger is the fastest growing monitor manufacturer in the world (over a 50% annual growth rate for 8 years) and is leading the industry in technological innovations.

Robert Abou Jaoude is a sales executive with over 20 years of experience in the electronics and unattended transactions industry. Leading the Goldfinger sales division at Betson, Robert is responsible for providing dependable and profitable solutions to our customer base that installs equipment in multiple industries such as Retail Kiosk, Amusement, Vending, Gaming, Hospitality, and ATM applications. Prior to working at Betson, Robert spent 17 years with an M&M Mars division called MARS Electronics Inc. that was the number one manufacturing company of payment system solutions in the world.

David Kepron is the Vice President of Design within the Global Design Strategies department at Marriott International. His focus is on the creation of compelling customer experiences within a unique group of Marriott flags called the “Distinctive Premium Brands” including: Renaissance, Westin, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio and Design Hotels. His multidisciplinary approach to design focuses on understanding consumer behavior and the creation of relevant brand experiences at the intersection of architecture, sociology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies. David’s first is book titled: “Retail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven World.”

Elliot Maras is editor of Kiosk Marketplace and Food Truck Operator. He is a former board member of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, a recipient of the Office Refreshment Development Foundation’s Award For Journalism, and a graduate of the National Automatic Merchandising Association’s Executive Development Program at Michigan State University.

Jeff Martin is an experienced Chief Executive Officer with a demonstrated history of success innovating retail audience solutions in the information technology and services industry. Prior to founding Right Media Solutions, Jeff held senior management positions at CBS Corporation and with CBS Outdoor managing GameStop TV and other digital networks. Jeff currently sits on the ICX Advisory Board and has recently been appointed to the Digital Signage Federation Global Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) Council Leadership Team.

In 2004, John was the second employee at Arrowhead, where he was responsible for developing flexible electronic devices. In 2011, after the sale of Arrowhead’s flexible electronics subsidiary, John founded Cali Group, which comprises CaliBurger, a global restaurant chain, and ownership stakes in various technology companies using new technologies to transform the restaurant and retail industries. As Chairman of Cali Group, John serves on the boards of the following Cali Group companies: Super League Gaming, FunWall, PopPacks, and Miso Robotics. John graduated from Stanford Law School and is an author of The Handbook of Nanotechnology Business, Policy, and Intellectual Property Law.

Heading up the Customer Insights team at Rent-A-Center, Jennifer has almost 15 years of agency, client, and vendor-side experience across a broad range of industries including construction, home entertainment, publishing, and now rent-to-own. With a strong background in quantitative and complementary experience in qualitative, her areas of focus include customer satisfaction, brand awareness and positioning, ad testing, blazing a trail for customer insights and bridging the gap between insights and customer experience.

Retail Customer Experience Editor Judy Mottl is an award-winning experienced senior editor, reporter, writer, and blogger who has worked for top media outlets, technology companies and publications including AOL, InformationWeek, CNET, Information Security Magazine, Investor’s Business Daily, InternetNews and Tech Times as corporate marketing divisions within IBM and HP. She’s written everything from breaking news on business and technology to in-depth articles on tech trends to profiles on top business leaders.

Vibenomics CEO and co-founder Brent Oakley began his career in medical device sales. An entrepreneur at heart, Brent left the field in 2014 to launch Prime Car Wash—a high-end, full-service car wash chain. As the business flourished and expanded, Oakley sought a way to create and manage the vibe within his stores while simultaneously sharing important information and upsell opportunities with customers. Recognizing the need for a software solution to location-based marketing and customer engagement, Oakley left his role as Prime Car Wash CEO in 2016 to launch Vibenomics, a music and messaging service.

As Head of Innovation at JWT Atlanta, Charles Ogilvie brings more than 20 years of global experience in innovation, marketing, and strategy spanning from retail and hospitality technology, mobile, satellite and terrestrial communications, aviation, transportation, FinTech and interactive platform architecture, content & analytics to traditional entertainment. In addition to client-side agency management, Charles has also developed, negotiated and executed interactive content deals with brands such as Google, Land Rover, Virgin Atlantic and others. Previously, he has served as a catalyst and designer in multi-million dollar startup and corporate efforts, including leading the design and execution of the award winning guest-engagement system, Red, at Virgin America.

Les O’Nan is the President & CEO of Gaming Solutions Worldwide. He served as the President and CEO at Alliance Group, Inc, a company that he founded. Serving as a shareholder and Chief Executive Officer at several industrial companies, Les has led transactions for international startups and North American acquisitions and divestitures in the casting, forging, and finishing sectors of industry. He serves as a Director of Alliance Medical Solutions, Inc, Discernity, Franco’s Cocktail Mixes, and Die Cast Holdings, Inc. He serves as a Director of Empower Benefits Inc. He has spent the majority of his career in industrial manufacturing and has experience in marketing.

Mason Page joined the Reflect team in 2015 and serves as the company’s Executive Vice President of Strategic Business Planning. In his role, he uses research, insights and digital expertise to create strategies that drive our clients’ businesses forward. He’s an expert at understanding business objectives and recommending digital executions that exceed goals and provide a competitive advantage in the market. Once the strategic roadmap is defined and a program is executed, his job isn’t done yet. Mason also measures and analyzes results, enabling him to optimize campaigns to yield the highest results possible.

Tori Peterson leads the digital deployment team for Video Wall, Digital Signage, and Device Imaging across Microsoft Stores Worldwide. She has been a part of the team as a key contributor across these digital experiences for the last 7 years. Microsoft Stores embarked on the digital transformation from the employee journey to the customer experience. Microsoft stores are considered a world leader in experiential retail and consistently shares its digital transformation with other retailers. As a key leader in the Visuals and Experience team, she is able to impact across all avenues of experiential design from concept, to creation, deployment, and operations.

Jeff Pinc is Director of Sales for Panasonic System Communications Company, a division of Panasonic Corporation. PSCNA delivers content creation, collaboration, information-sharing and decision-support solutions for customers in food service, retail, government, healthcare and education. Jeff has over 15 years of experience in providing cutting edge food service technology solutions with a variety of technology companies. He joined Panasonic in 2014 after previously working for MICROS Systems. As vice president of sales and strategies at MICROS Systems, he led many major projects resulting in large scale technology deployments, helping many global restaurant brands achieve a high return on investment.

Brad Pommen is Mr. Technology. He is President of SMRT1 Technologies, a hardware and software technology startup with an interactive touch vending machine called Brain STEM Toolbox. He has taught thousands of people of all ages how to code, design and adopt emerging digital fabrication technologies throughout British Columbia, Canada. Brad provides contract services as Lab Director for MIDAS Fab Lab, an MIT certified prototyping and commercialization facility in Trail, BC for the Kootenay Association for Science & Technology. He is also President and founder of the Nelson Tech Club Hackerspace since 2010.

Jason Raymer is a seasoned sales and operations manager, leader and strategist. He is no stranger to the fast pace world of the mobile industry, having spent the past six years at Bluegrass Cellular, a leading wireless carrier in Central Kentucky. As the Director of Sales, he is intimately familiar with all aspects of operations from sales to gross revenue. Jason has a great understanding for carrying the company’s profit and loss responsibility all while working to lower cost. He specializes in enhancing the company’s leadership development by instilling performance management and development programs. He has also driven to improve employee relations through corporate involvement and building solid incentive programs.

Christie Rice is the segment director responsible for Intel’s digital signage and interactive kiosk business worldwide in the Internet of Things Group at Intel. In her role she works to ensure that Intel technology meets the ever changing digital signage needs. She also works closely with the ecosystem to promote solutions that provide the immersive and interactive experience that our customers demand. Before assuming her current role, Christie’s 20 years at Intel included various technical, product, business development, and marketing management positions across a broad range of products and segments including memory, PCs, storage, networking, and IOT.

Chris Riveria has worked for several leading tech and tech consulting firms including Cisco Systems, MICROS and Booz Allen Hamilton. Chris went on to co-found a chain of environmentally friendly car washes located in the Baltimore area. There he leads a team of over 100+ employees where he oversees day-to-day operations and current expansion efforts. Chris has a computer science degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Jonathan Rosen leads the brand integration, content strategy, and creative teams at PRN. His focus is consumer activation and conversion at retail. Prior to joining PRN, Jonathan was Co-Founder at Spine Films, where he created original programming for Discovery Networks and National Geographic. Jonathan holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Columbia University, and was a Directing Fellow at the American Film Institute.

Jarred Smith leads the Digital Experience team and initiatives for Love’s Travel Stops and Country Stores in their more than 450 retail locations in North America. His background of graphic design, web development, video production and training and development help bring a new perspective to user engagement for retail digital experiences. He has led the way to expand Love’s Travel Stop’s digital footprint to include a vast digital signage network and interactive touch kiosk infrastructure in their coast to coast convenience store network.

Becky helped define and ultimately led the construction, opening, and full operations for the first ever Mizuno Experience Center in The Battery at SunTrust Park. As a Mizuno executive stated, Becky “made the seemingly impossible, possible,” steering the initiative from concept to reality in only four months. Her close partnership with Mizuno leadership, executives from the Atlanta Braves, The Battery, Cobb County and retail design, construction and architect firms led to a highly successful opening as well as thriving continuing operations. Becky’s business acumen spans her career beginning as founder/owner of her own successful sporting goods’ stores.

Lee Summers serves as Chief Executive Officer of Reflect and is responsible for leading the company into the forefront of the in-store digital media movement. Lee has more than 15 years of customer facing technology and advertising agency experience. His management expertise and creativity make him well-suited to lead Reflect. Prior to joining Reflect, Lee was Manager of Marketing/Technology for the Berkshire Hathaway companies of Nebraska Furniture Mart and Grandscape of Texas where he oversaw all immersive customer engagement and was responsible for the overall direction, resource allocation and operations of Customer Facing digital technology groups throughout all NFM markets.

Richard Ventura is the Vice President of Strategy for NEC Display Solutions of America’s, overseeing all strategy related activities for the organization. Focusing on leading the development and communications of strategies aimed at evolving the business and driving it forward, while working with the Executive Team to define the vision and direction for the company and establish strategic initiatives that disrupt current and future markets, explore alternative solutions, and result in short and long-term gains. Richard has spent 17+ years within the NEC sales and marketing organizations focusing on display solutions, display technologies, projectors and direct-view LED.

Tom Walsh is the Vice President of Global Store Development for Under Armour. Prior to joining Under Armour in 2008, Tom began his career in design and construction with NBBJ and then in new concept development with Abercrombie and Fitch. In his 8 years with UA, Tom has built a Global Store Development team that leads store design, construction and facilities management for North America and International Markets. Since its founding in 1996, UA has emerged as a leader in the performance apparel and footwear industry thrusting the GSD team to the forefront of delivering authentic and award winning experiences around the globe.

Winston Wright is a brand consultant in New York City. He has a professional passion for branding and brand communications, particularly how brands show themselves directly to the consumer. With a depth of experience in retail, having worked for Saks Fifth Avenue and Macy’s; over the past 20 years he has worked on “bringing brands to life” globally for Apple, Nokia and Jawbone. Most recently, he was bringing digital brands to life leading a team in Brand Consumer Marketing at AOL.

Tim Young is co-founder and CEO of eatsa, where he and his team are reimagining the restaurant of the future – one that combines a magical customer experience with faster, more efficient operations. A veteran technology leader with a deep background in product and business design, Tim was named to Nation’s Restaurant News “Power List 2016” as one of the most powerful people in foodservice. Tim founded eatsa after eight years at enterprise software company Autonomy, where he led product, engineering, and technical operations and ultimately became the company’s CTO. In 2011, Autonomy was acquired by Hewlett Packard for $11 billion in one of the largest software acquisitions in history.