Mark Stutzman serves as chief technology officer (CTO) for AREA15, the world’s first purpose-built immersive entertainment district located minutes from the Las Vegas Strip. Offering live events, immersive activations, monumental art installations, extraordinary design elements, unique retail, ground-breaking technology, bars and eateries and much more, AREA15 continues to grow in Las Vegas and across the globe. Welcoming nearly 4 million visitors since opening its doors in 2020, AREA15 Las Vegas will soon expand across 20 acres to its north. In addition, AREA15 announced its first licensed pop-up location as part of Riyadh’s Boulevard World and its second permanent location coming to Orlando in 2024. As CTO, Stutzman establishes and implements AREA15’s technical vision and infrastructure to bring the immersive entertainment and retail complex to life. Working collaboratively and cross-functionally with development and construction, design, marketing, production and operations, he built the technology infrastructure that enhances the visitor experience at AREA15.

Jerone Abueva is responsible for Business Development and creating new solutions to our customers’ real world problems. With experience in Business Development and Strategy globally across B2B verticals such as technology, finance, and government; Jerone brings a wealth of knowledge and of experience in Co-creating solutions with clients to drive their business growth. She recently joined Samsung B2B Mobile in 2022. Prior to Samsung she created and launched VCCP Singapore’s B2B offering, where she led strategic go-to-market strategies for global, regional and local B2B clients.

Gary Ash serves as Working Solutions’ Senior Vice President and is responsible for Sales and Business Development. Gary focuses on solving CX challenges for large and mid-sized companies and was instrumental in delivering more than 30% organic growth for Working Solutions in 2022. Prior to Working Solutions, Gary served as the Vice President of Network Solutions for Bearcom, a privately held communications company as the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Spok, a publicly traded software and telecom company, where he was responsible for Customer Experience and Call Center Operations. Previously, he was with Coopers & Lybrand early in his career.

Ramon Bourgeois has over 25 years in the restaurant and hospitality industry. He has worked for various restaurant chains as well as airport concessionaires, where he has been responsible of opening restaurants, developing multi-unit operational leaders, training, and domestic/ international business development. During his time in the restaurant industry, he has opened over 100 new restaurants in multiple countries around the world. Starting in 2021, Mr. Bourgeois was named as Chief Executive Officer upon completion of the acquisition by Equity Investors of New England, having previously served as the Senior Vice President, Global Franchise of Roma Franchise Corporation, Romacorp, Inc. and Roma Systems, Inc. as of November 2019, and was appointed a Director of Roma Systems, Inc., and Roma Franchise Corporation in January 2020. Previously, Mr. Bourgeois was Vice President, Global Franchise and was the Regional Vice President of Roma Systems, Inc.

Robyn Breshears is the Executive Director of Sales Service and Support at Arvest Bank. She and her teams support 220 branches within the Arvest network by managing sales, products, services, and associate development for the Arvest Bank retail support system. Robyn is passionate about leading and mentoring associates to help them achieve their career goals. She’s instrumental in working with retail teams to delight and exceed customer expectations. When not at work, Robyn finds joy in spending time with her family and friends, riding motorcycles, caring for her parents and playing with grandchildren.

Brad Browder is the Chief Executive Officer of HTx Services. HTx is a multi-vendor ATM and IT services provider based in New York. The company provides technical resources across the country to support financial institutions in their branch, headquarters and operation center facilities. With more than 30 years of industry experience, he leads HTx Services with a passion for customer engagement, service excellence, and HTx’s employees. Prior to joining HTx, Brad served as the Chief Executive Officer of Pendum, the nation’s largest third-party service organization for ATM and self-service devices in the retail (ISO/IAD) and financial institution markets. Before Pendum, Brad had a 15-year career with Diebold, most recently as Vice President of Sales Operations. Brad holds a B.A. in Economics from Indiana University in Bloomington, IN and earned his MBA from Xavier University in Cincinnati, OH.

Marbue Brown is the author of the book Blueprint for Customer Obsession and founder of The Customer Obsession Advantage, a firm dedicated to helping companies achieve extraordinary business results through Customer Obsession. He is an accomplished customer experience (CX) executive with a track record of thought leadership and signature business results at some of the most iconic companies on the planet, including JP Morgan Chase, Amazon.com, Microsoft Corporation, and Cisco Systems. Marbue's book, Blueprint for Customer Obsession, was featured in the Forbes article The Top Ten Business Books for 2022 by Shep Hyken. He co-authored oft-cited classic articles about customer experience measurements. His expertise has been featured on some of the largest radio stations and networks across the country as well as on some of the most widely distributed syndicated radio programs, including The Wharton Business Daily, This Morning with Gordon Deal and America in the Morning with John Trout.

Before joining Networld Media Group as Vice President of Events, Cherryh Cansler spent several years as VP of Editorial managing the Networld’s nine B2B publications. Throughout her 20-year career as a journalist, she’s written about a variety of topics, ranging from the restaurant industry and technology to health and fitness news. Her byline has appeared in a plethora of newspapers, magazines and websites, including Forbes, The Kansas City Star and American Fitness magazine. She also serves as the managing editor for FastCasual.com.

Jeremy Cauble, Director of Strategic Innovation for Canteen North America, has been exploring innovation in unattended retail for 15 years. Through his diversified background in marketing, digital commerce/SEO, field implementation and customer experience, Jeremy has learned how to leverage new technologies to continuously improve the shopping experience for customers in unattended retail.  Quick and easy checkout, interactive shopping tools, channels for consumer engagement and feedback, and operational technologies to ensure the right product in the right place at the right time—all of these and more combined to simplify the overall shopping process and elevate customer satisfaction.

In October, 2020 Casey Christopher was named Quontic Bank’s first Chief Empowerment Officer. This role provides a channel for Quontic employees to initiate change, to participate in change and to cultivate change. Casey focuses on talent acquisition and retention of diverse employees, reframing employee mindsets, promoting inclusive customer acquisition and retention, and reimagining services and how they are delivered. She believes in constantly asking for feedback, uplifting others, providing challenging work, empowering others to impact change and creating a work environment that fosters teams to flourish and grow. Quontic re-imagines how financial products and services are delivered to both customers and the industry. She attended the Florida School of Banking, earning The Dr. C. Arnold Matthews Honor Graduate Award upon graduation.

Ruth Crowley is a retail veteran with diverse experience across functions with some of the most Iconic Global Brands in the industry. Brands include Harley-Davidson, M&M Mars, Universal Studios, Lowe’s Home Improvement and Nascar. Today she is VP over Brand Strategy for Hudson Group, a division of Dufry, Together the largest Travel Retailer in the world. Ruth is a Customer Experience advocate continuing work to elevate the Customer Experience at all touchpoints along the Customer journey including concepts and mixed use solutions in Travel Retail. Ruth is a member of the ICXA Advisory Board and serves on the Board for UNT College of Retail, Merchandising, Tourism and Hospitality.

Amy Hom is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief People Officer at Bluestone Lane. She is leading and driving the culture within the organization, the human resources team as well as other departments such as training and development. In addition to serving as a Chief People Officer, she has led operations in large organizations as well as food safety, training, and culinary teams. Amy has more than 25 years of experience in the restaurant industry and has served in operations leadership roles for fine dining, casual dining and fast casual brands. Before joining Bluestone Lane, Amy led the North America retail and restaurant operations leadership team for REEF Technology Global, served as the Vice President of Operations with Sweetgreen, Red Robin and was the Senior Operations Director of Wolfgang Puck Catering. She has served in operations leadership roles for California Pizza Kitchen where she built a strong management foundation from where to continue to learn, grow and develop others.

Winston Kelley is the executive director of the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, North Carolina. Prior to joining the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2006, Kelley spent more than 27 years with Duke Power and Duke Energy serving in a wide variety of managerial and executive capacities, most recently as vice president of economic and business development and vice president of government and business relations for Duke Energy Carolinas.

Cheryl Mills Knight one of the founding members of Kendra Scott, a global fashion lifestyle jewelry brand. The first marketing hire in 2005, Cheryl has since built the internal Kendra Scott marketing, creative and brand functions from the ground up supporting the company in its growth to becoming a billion-dollar omni-channel brand with 140+ stores nationwide. An accomplished executive with digital and traditional marketing strategies and a proven track record of steering brand vision, Cheryl established the company's foundational strategies for brand, digital, and experiential marketing around Kendra Scott’s pillars of Family, Fashion & Philanthropy. She was also the creative architect of the initial e-commerce platform, including developing the interactive Color Bar™. With the demands of the hyper growth company, Cheryl built Kendra Scott's in-house marketing agency consisting of a multi-versed creative team including Art Direction, Graphic and UX Design, Photography, Digital Media, Copywriting, Content Strategy, Social Media, and Events.

EJ Kritz is a seasoned strategist, trainer, and keynote speaker with extensive experience working for some of the finest brands in Financial Services, Retail, Call Center, Franchising, and Media. As the Executive Vice President of apc's Training, EJ supports banking organizations of all sizes to build and deliver world-class training solutions focused on such critical topics as Customer Experience, Leadership, Management, Needs-Based Sales, Employee Engagement, Problem Resolution, and more.

With over 30 years of industry experience, Jean-Pierre Lacroix has garnered a reputation as a visionary design thinker, strategist, author, and speaker. Through an unwavering focus on future-proofing brands, Jean-Pierre is driven to produce measurable results through strategic insights that help brands own the at-purchase moment. Since the opening of Shikatani Lacroix Design (SLD), Jean-Pierre has grown his company into one of the most respected multi-disciplinary strategic design agencies in the world. Along the way, he has served as a board member of numerous associations and councils, as well as authored four books: The Business of Graphic Design, Belonging Experiences, Desire by Design, Think: The Future of Retail Banking, and most recently, Think: Inspiring the Future of Retail.

Steve Lieber is an expert in designing restaurant concepts, the art of pizza making and is a certified pizzaiolo from Italy. As Vice President of Franchise Development, Steve leads the team who sold over 150 franchises to over 50 franchise groups. His team has sold franchises in 20+ states and international deals in Kuwait and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Our teams built systemwide restaurant sales of $100+ million USD in under 5 years. Steve was on opening restaurant teams for 10+ states in the United States. He taught franchisees recruiting techniques, training and operating systems, professionalism, food ordering and preparation, inventory controls, labor controls, local store marketing to increase sales and profitability of all locations.

Chris Lorenzo is an experience optimizer who has spent nearly three decades committed to one philosophy: Product and technology are not enough – you must place the customer at the heart of every decision. His track record includes leadership in design, development, and delivery of world class omni-channel journeys across retail, formal wear rental, and custom clothing. Grounded in a belief that life’s most meaningful moments should involve high-quality, convenience and affordable options, Chris has recently joined Generation Tux. Founded by George Zimmer, GenTux has earned a reputation for shaking-up the men’s fashion industry through innovation on everything from inspiration to fit to delivery, all from the comfort of your own home.

Jason Mariasis is a results-driven entrepreneur and human-centered product leader with a track record of building, shipping and scaling disruptive products globally for Fortune 500 companies and startups. He currently serves as the Vice President of Digital Product Management & Customer Experience for Credit One Bank, one of the fastest-growing financial institutions with 15M+ customers, where he is responsible for leading digital product strategy and transformation initiatives. Jason has successfully built and sold blank-page startup businesses as well as launched and managed multimillion dollar product lines and business units for some of the world’s leading companies such as Capital One, U.S. News & World Report, Vistaprint and Sterling. Jason has been recognized as a “Top 100 Innovator and Entrepreneur” by the Top 100 Magazine, and as a “40 Under 40” recipient by Business Elite. He has also been named as a Future Leader by a prominent Massachusetts newspaper, and featured in the New York Times.

Katie Meyers is an accomplished and driven professional with a passion to continuously innovate and enhance client experience in a rapidly-evolving financial landscape. She has been a valued member of the Manasquan Bank team since 2009 and has steadily climbed the ranks over the years. Her outstanding work ethic, creativity, and dedication to excellence have earned her multiple promotions within the company. She has extensive knowledge of brand management, internal communications, and marketing strategy, all of which is invaluable in her leadership position. With the recent completion of her Master of Arts in Communications from Monmouth University, Katie is well poised to further elevate the Manasquan Bank’s client experience practice. As the appointed CXO, Katie leads the charge of developing an overall strategy that will culminate in the continuous improvement of the Bank's service and experience.

Dan Morton is VP, Guest Experience, at Hilton, where he's responsible for guest-facing technologies like Digital Key, Connected Room, Messaging, Chatbots, and Payments for Hilton's many brands worldwide. Previously, Dan led Product and Partnerships for Bose, a class-leading consumer audio company. He has also worked as a co-founder at consumer technology startups, an Assistant Professor at Berklee College of Music, an engineer, and a composer. He holds an MS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a BS from Texas A&M.

Glenn Murray has worked in the payments industry for over 20 years in various roles. He currently serves as Vice President – Strategic Growth for Sutton Payments a division of Sutton Bank, the issuer behind several high-profile programs including Robin Hood, Door Dash, Instacart and many others. His team oversees business, product and partnership development for the division. He has held positions in business development, product marketing and relationship management at Discover, MasterCard, and PayPal. He is a native of Memphis, TN and has a BA from DePaul University in Chicago. He’s co-authored 4 books on various topics and enjoys travel including frequent trips to Napa Valley.

Lindsey Ogan is the Marketing Director for Stride Bank, N.A. Stride is the bank behind brands like Chime, DoorDash, and Lyft. She has over a decade of experience in growth marketing and revenue optimization roles, and in 2021, she was named to American Banker’s Most Powerful Women in Banking: Next list. Ogan is an interdisciplinary professional that specializes in designing, optimizing, and scaling revenue strategies by aligning the disciplines of innovation, product management, marketing, and analytics in order to gain market share and maximize profitability. She sees modern marketing as a strategic driver of business outcomes and a cross-functional catalyst, breaking down silos and orchestrating processes across functional teams to execute more effective and efficient strategies in key growth areas.

Courtney O’Regan is SVP, Director of Marketing at Middlesex Savings Bank, one of the oldest and largest mutual banks in the country. In her time at the bank, Courtney has led exciting projects such as a rebrand, social media launch, digital marketing strategy, and most recently –the development of a formal customer experience program. She holds a BS in Mass Communications and Public Relations from Boston University.

Grace Pace is a digital innovator that has the unique ability to translate reimagined digital customer experiences into fully executed, ground-breaking bank capabilities. She combines the mindset of a community banker with the skillset of a financial technologist. Grace has spearheaded initiatives at community banks that enabled them to take their products and services to the next level. She is an expert in customer support and leveraging custom, real time core integration that allow community banks to offer personalized, precise service for customers and prospects. Prior to joining Quontic, Grace worked in digital products and implementation with Cardinal Bank, Republic Bank and First Financial Bank. She was an essential team member of Memory Bank, a neobank division of Republic Bank. During her time at First Financial Bank, she became an industry expert in online digital account opening and her expertise and vision has played a major role in how Quontic has revolutionized digital banking.

Sarah Rigsbee is the CFO at Farmer's Fridge with responsibility for finance, accounting, data analytics, legal and corporate HR. In her role, she leads development of the company's financial plans and forecasts, analysis and communication of performance, and interfaces accordingly with investors. She is also responsible for the full lifecycle of the corporate employee experience, from recruitment to retention and offboarding. Sarah started with the company in 2018 and prior to Farmer's Fridge, Sarah spent nearly 10 years at The Boeing Company, where she held several roles in financial and cost accounting, FP&A and corporate strategy. Sarah holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Masters of Business Administration from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She lives in Chicago with her dog and is an avid traveler.

Chimene Mayne-Ross is not only building a killer brand, she's reinventing the brownie category. As President of The Killer Brownie® Company, Chimene led the brand's increase of annual sales by 1900% since 2013. Their signature product — a layered, caramel-stuffed, gourmet brownie — was born in the bakery of her family's specialty grocery chain in Ohio. It quickly grew a cult following, inspiring them to open a wholesale company and sell the gourmet brownie nationwide. Killer Brownie offers a variety of flavors for retail and Foodservice. "We're elevating what customer's expect from a brownie experience," says Chimene, "and we're just getting started." To learn more about this iconic gourmet brownie, visit KillerBrownie.com.

TJ Schier is the Chief Operating Officer of BigShots Golf - the second largest player in the golf-entertainment venue space. Prior to that, he spent two decades as a leading speaker and hospitality consultant and as a multi-unit franchisee of Which Wich Superior Sandwiches. He also spent 18 years at Chuck E Cheese’s, leaving as VP of Field Support. He has written numerous books used by thousands of business leaders and over 100 articles on guest service and motivating today’s generation and has a BBA and MBA from the University of Texas.

Naser Shahverdi is the founder and CEO of Aria Mall, a retail and e-commerce platform. He founded the company in 2015 and it has since grown to become one of the leading online shopping destinations in the Middle East. Shahverdi has a background in computer science and AI, and has also worked with numerous startups and tech companies in the past. He founded the mall in 2015, and it has since become a popular destination for shoppers in the Region. The main project was born from an idea long time ago and finally has registered in Amir Kabir University of Applied Science and Technology (Tehran, Iran) under the name: Designing and Development of an Online Virtual Mall. There are 7 different special markets in Aria Mall named: Digital, Home, Health, Beauty, Culture, Family & Fashion. Aria Mall introduces the famous brands to customers. We have also Aria Mag (Magazine) for news about Aria Mall & Technology and etc. Aria Mall customer's club is one of the loyalty programs plus video marketing.

Chris Stamper is currently Senior Vice President, Strategy, Transformation and Business Development with Hudson’s Bay. Previous to that Chris was the Interim leader of Marketing Technology, Analytics, Media, Targeted Marketing, and Marketing Operations for HBC. Chris works directly with the Executive team and business units to lead strategy operations, acts as a strategic thought partner for the omni Hudson’s Bay business including Zellers, identifying strategic opportunities to help drive the evolution of the business, accelerate results and reach HBC’s customer. Chris is known for leading transformative change in dynamic and fast paced environments to set businesses up for short term and long term success. Chris is a recognized champion, advocate and ally for diversity and inclusion. His people first approach attracts top talent, enables teams to develop and grow and drives strong followership. Chris is a former Senior Vice President with TD Bank. Chris held a number of progressively senior roles in a variety of areas across the bank.

Julie Wade joined Taziki's with over 15 years of franchise and retail marketing experience. Beginning with a large franchisee of Blockbuster Video and then working for two franchisors in the restaurant segment, Julie has a deep knowledge of high-touch marketing strategies like local store marketing and a broad high-tech skill set with rewards programs, online ordering, and digital advertising. In 2018 she received her Certified Franchise Executive designation and continues to be active in the franchising community.

Marsha C. Womack joined the Citizens Trust Bank family in May 2017 as Vice President of the Alabama Division of the Commercial Banking Team. Ms. Womack brings over twenty years of experience in managing sales, business development, retail banking leadership and commercial lending strategies to the CTB Team. Marsha was promoted to First Vice President, Director of Retail Banking for Citizens Trust in February of 2021. In this role, Marsha manages the planning, development, implementation, production and administration of all phases of Retail Banking, which include service, sales and the financial center network. A native of Mobile, AL, Ms. Womack received her Bachelor of Science from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Always active in the community, Marsha has spent her spare time working and volunteering with many civic and non-profit groups throughout the greater Birmingham area. Currently, Marsha holds Executive Board seats for both BirminghamCREW (2023 President) and YouthServe Inc.

Born and raised in Casablanca, Morocco, Mehdi Zarhloul immigrated to the United States at the age of 16 to live the American dream and pursue his culinary passion. After graduating from Sanz School with a computer science degree in Washington DC, Zarhloul spent over 35 years in the hospitality industry where he managed many casual and fine dining restaurants throughout the globe including ten years as the Assistant Food and Beverage Director of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. In 2006, Zarhloul moved to Las Vegas, Nevada where he opened “Crazy Pita Rotisserie & Grill”. Crazy Pita has been rocketed to popularity and cemented as Las Vegas’s favorite eatery for over 17 years due to its amazing fresh-casual Mediterranean cuisine, friendly service, and welcoming atmosphere. In 2022, Mehdi Zarhloul decided to expand his vision by developing a national franchise program. Currently the company operates 3 corporate in Las Vegas and 10 stores under development in the Houston Texas area.