Speakers

Chief Financial Officer, Sole Society

Bio: Louisa Chen is the Chief Financial Officer of Sole Society, a direct to consumer brand of women’s shoes, handbags & accessories, previously backed by Nordstrom & Insight Venture Partners and acquired by the Camuto Group in 2016.

As Chief Financial Officer, she is responsible for the Company’s business/financial analytics and strategy, as well as digital marketing for Sole Society. Louisa’s scope of responsibility also includes customer service, legal and human resources groups. Prior to joining Sole Society, Louisa held a variety of positions in corporate finance, including with Guggenheim Investments, Barclays and Lehman Brothers. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Business Transformation & Growth Strategy Consultant

Bio: Barbara Close has helped transform operations and drive growth strategies for companies ranging from startups to top Fortune 500 brands. Over the last few years, she digitized the marketing operation for a traditional, vertically integrated B2B industrial manufacturer including leading the team building a Magento e-commerce site. She draws on a wide range of experiences from stints as a space systems test engineer, small business owner, Big Four consultant and as an operating executive in diverse functional roles with industrial and consumer products, green and recycled products and retail systems.

Chief Operating Officer, Painful Pleasures

Streamlining Operations – Managing Multiple Sites In One System – Magentom Netsuite & Celigo – A Powerful Combination

Bio: After spending her spare time selling on eBay for over a decade while earning a BS and MS in Civil Engineering at the University of Michigan, through her time in the Dominican Republic serving in the Peace Corps, and through her time earning a second masters in Project Management from the University of Maryland while working full time as a Project Engineer, Melissa decided to change careers and join PainfulPleasures in 2011.
Melissa oversees operations and works to maintain, build, and streamline the processes at PainfulPleasures. Melissa has led the organization through many changes; the most recent and impactful change was the migration from Magento 1 to Magento 2 and the implementation and connection of Netsuite to Magento.

CMO, Industry West

Want to hang with the big boys? Don’t be afraid to pivot

Bio: Ian is the chief marketing officer of Industry West, a pure play ecommerce furniture company based out of Florida. With more than 10 years of experience in integrated marketing communications, he has built highly effective campaigns within both the retail and higher education verticals, including work for the US Navy. Ian’s focus is on creating data-driven campaigns across multiple channels that empower people to evangelize on a brand’s behalf, while allowing the brand to measure campaign effectiveness on a cost-per-acquisition basis.

CEO, Black Point Seafood

DUH – Discover, Use, Habit. The path to recruiting customers and converting them to addicts.

Bio: Recognized as a leader in the field of Search Engine Marketing, combined with his unique approach and enthusiasm for his work, Mark is often sought after to consult other industries interested in expanding to or increasing visibility on the Internet. His expertise in leveraging the Internet to capture qualified prospects led to the development of unique marketing products and tools that automate sales efforts. Among his many clients are Morton Salt, Motorola, Dominos, Breck Shampoo, and Ovaltine.

A native to Maine, Mark moved to Chicago in 2005 to launch Mark Interactive.

Director of Digital Marketing, Ingersoll Rand

Optimizing for Search Beyond Search Engines

Bio: After four years of division one basketball and a short stint as a professional basketball player, Sean launched a successful web design and digital marketing company that catered to small businesses. He later took his talents to the NBA, where he expanded the digital footprint of the Charlotte Bobcats (now the Charlotte Hornets). As the Manager of Digital Innovation at Pentair, Sean looked for opportunities to break the old B2B manufacturing mold and transition this Fortune-500 company into a leading digital powerhouse. Sean remains on the cutting edge of new digital technologies and trends, and has recently been named the new Director of Digital Marketing at Ingersoll Rand.

VP & GM, Arrow Cloud Digital at Arrow Electronics

Applying The Science of Happiness To Your Website Design

Bio: Darryl Shaper is the VP and GM of Arrow Cloud Digital, focused on accelerating growth of Arrow’s cloud product and services revenue. Arrow Electronics is a Fortune 150 company and a global provider of products and solutions to commercial users of electronic components and enterprise computing solutions, with 2017 sales of $26.8 billion. Darryl joined Arrow Electronics in 2014 to drive digital transformation and eCommerce growth for the electronics component division. As VP of Digital Marketing and GM of the Verical brand for Arrow Digital, his teams have doubled eCommerce revenue each year since 2014 and built a business that now generates more than $1B in online revenue.

CIO, FultonFishMarket.com

Selling Fresh Seafood Online

Bio: CIO for FultonFishMarket.com, the exclusive e-commerce, fulfillment and logistics center for NYC’s Fulton Fish Market, the largest seafood market in the Western Hemisphere.

Head of Developer Ecosystem, Adobe

Closing Keynote

Bio: Matt Asay is Head of Developer Ecosystem for Adobe, where previously he was vice president of mobile strategy. Prior to Adobe, Asay held a range of roles at open source companies: VP of business development, marketing and community at MongoDB, a leading big data database company; VP of business development at real-time analytics company Nodeable (acquired by Appcelerator); VP of business development and interim CEO at mobile HTML5 start-up Strobe (acquired by Facebook); COO at Canonical, a leading Linux and cloud vendor; and head of the Americas at Alfresco, a content management startup. Asay is an emeritus board member of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) and holds a J.D. from Stanford, where he focused on open source and other IP licensing issues. Asay writes regular columns for The Register, TechRepublic, and InfoWorld.

Director of Architecture, Magento

Bio: Anton Kril joined Magento seven years ago as a Magento 1 core developer. He participated in the early stages of Magento 2 development, and currently leads the Magento architecture team.

Vice President, Commerce Strategy & Growth, Experience Business, Magento

Bio: Mark Lenhard joined Magento from JPMorgan Chase, where he was a Managing Director,leading digital and payments strategy. Previously, Mark led PayPal’s strategy team, developing and driving PayPal’s overall strategic direction and vision. His team was responsible for delivering key product and business unit strategies that shaped PayPal’s growth, including areas such as mobile, omnichannel, and product extensions (e.g., credit). He also co-founded Black Mountain Equity, a private equity firm focused on sourcing and making investments in mid- sized technology and service companies. He began his career in private equity and management consulting at various firms including Belvedere Capital, The Parthenon Group and Marakon Associates. Mark holds a BA in Economics from Yale University and an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

CEO, ShipperHQ

Exceeding Customer Expectations: How to Compete Against Amazon Shipping

Bio: Karen Baker is the CEO and founder of ShipperHQ, the leading platform for storefront shipping rate management. Karen has the first hand experience of dealing with many thousands of retailers shipping struggles since 2008, with over 20 years business experience in technology.

CEO, MediaSpa

Maverick Commerce

Bio: After spending time as a technology-focused investment banker and a digital strategist for EMI Music Marketing, Gary joined mediaspa in 2012. Today, Gary leads mediaspa’s strategy and UX practices while overseeing day-to-day operations. His favorite part of the job is digging into the businesses of mediaspa’s clients, and finding ways to help them accelerate their growth. He received his BA in Economics from Yale University and his MBA in Digital Media/Finance from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Magento Freelancer

Work Life Balance In 2018: What’s Right, What’s Wrong?

Bio: Carmen Bremen lives and works in Cologne and with the world wide web. She learned about Magento in 2010 and has since then never been willing to part with it. She is a freelancer who ís contracted by shop operators and agencies for her comprehensive service portfolio – ranging from A for analyses, B for bug fixing, C for cron job support, D for data imports, E for extension development, F for front-end interfaces, all the way up to Z for zero in on her goals. On her Neoshops.de blog, Carmen Bremen talks about her insights and encounters from her work with Magento and the community. When she is not working on her blog, she is either on mileage runs or collecting books.

Tech Lead, Something Digital

Redis Tips For Magento Developers

Bio: Max is the Technical Lead for Something Digital’s Strategic Engagement Group where he oversees a team of Magento developers and the solutions that are delivered to clients. He actively blogs about Magento, contributes to and maintains open source projects, and has spoken at several Magento events. Through his effort in these areas he was recognized as one of the top 50 Magento contributors in 2017.

President, Psyberware

Paid Is The New Organic: How Google Is Monetizing Search

Bio: David is the President of Psyberware, specializing in advanced PPC advertising for Magento merchants. He holds undergraduate degrees in Computer Science and Business Management, and a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA). David brings over 20 years of experience managing internet businesses, including 9 years as the head of IT and Ecommerce for a mid-sized Magento merchant.

Co-Founder, Vervaunt

Managing Google Shopping With Magento – Best Practice For Feed Management & Campaign Optimisation

Bio: Josh has been in the paid media space for nearly 8 years. He has managed accounts for and consulted for some of the biggest brands in the world, including Google, Nintendo, Aston Martin and many more. He currently runs the paid advertising side of Vervaunt, which has grown considerably since he started it 12 months ago. Tehy have grown to a team of 6 (4x paid consultants) and work with a host of well-known brands, including Simone Perele, Poundworld, O’Neills, Alto Music, PMT, Trotters and GEAR4.

Senior Vice President, Redstage

Bio: is an accomplished, award winning executive with over 15 years domestic and international experience. He helped shepherd organizations into the modern digital era with the ultimate goal to drive revenue, create an atmosphere for organizational efficiency, and provide deep and valuable customer insights to improve user experiences and the customer journey. He has demonstrated his ability to thrive and provide sound managerial support in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment. He’s an effective and self-motivated leader with experience managing global cross-functional, cross-cultural teams with a high energy, transparent leadership style. Hasan is passionate about digital transformation, data hygiene, data-driven decision making, and maniacal focus on the overall customer journey.

CEO, Jamersan

Things You are Not Doing On Your Magento Site That Are Costing You Money

Bio: Top 50 Magento Contributor, eCommerce Thought Provider, CEO of Jamersan, Certified+ Magento Developer

Head of Technology, Imagination Median

Bio: Rafael currently is the Head of Technology at Imagination Media. Prior to working at Imagination Media, he was a senior software engineer at Redstage and a software engineer at Webjump.

Vice President, Customer Service, Springbot

Bio: Amber Haack is the vice president of customer success at Springbot, where she joined the company in 2013. She is passionate about growing customers into fans and loves the intersection of eCommerce, marketing and technology. Before joining Springbot, Amber worked in corporate communications, marketing, sales process and project management at Unisource Worldwide. She enjoys traveling with her fiancé, spending time with her dog Lucky, and being outdoors. As a Wisconsin native, she is also a Badger and Packer enthusiast.

Magento Trainer and Consultant, MageTraining

Magento Certified Solutions Specialist, Future Clients Marketing and Training Ltd

Bio: Deryck is a Magento 1 & 2 Certified Solutions Specialist (MCSS) specialising in delivering Magento end-user and agency training. Deryck also provides consultation and advice for merchants who require help specifying, managing, and improving operational efficiencies on their Magento ecommerce stores.

Head of Tech, bitExpert AG

Magento from dev to prod with GitLab CI How to Build and Maintain your Continuous Delivery Pipeline using Tools like GitLab CI

Bio: Stephan Hochdörfer currently holds the position of Head of Technology at bitExpert AG, a company specializing in software and mobile development. His primary focus is everything related to web development as well as automation techniques ranging from code generation to deployment automation.

Senior Frontend Developer, Snowdog

Inclusion matters. How to benefit from digital accessibility in e-commerce.

Bio: Ania is a frontend developer with a marketing background and 3 years of experience with Magento. Currently a member of Snowdog’s team, she focuses on coding, innovative technologies, finding non-standard solutions and facing new challenges. Ania enjoys exploring the web accessibility as a key to remove barriers and get the human aspect of the digital frontend world.
Her Other interests include modern theatre, compelling literature, travel, hiking and exploring the world in an active way – mainly by meeting people.

Director of Sales & Marketing, Creatuity

Bio: Shannon comes to us from Dallas, Texas, where he builds Texas-sized Magento projects! Shannon Kelly is Director of Sales & Marketing for Creatuity, a Magento Enterprise Solution Partner, and he loves to be the center of attention. A sales executive in the hospitality and technology sectors for more than twenty years, Shannon has quickly become a fixture in the Magento space… at least on Twitter. He was voted “Most Likely to Take The Microphone from Kanye After He took It From Taylor”, “A Face Destined for Radio”, and “Class Clown… 26 years in a row”. He’s a little bit Irish and loves karaoke.

CMO, OneStep Checkout

Work Life Balance In 2018: What’s Right, What’s Wrong?

Bio: Thien-Lan is a French born Vietnamese woman with 20 years’ experience with Fortune 500 companies across Europe, Asia Pacific and US. These include big names like Accenture, Clarins, Johnson & Johnson, eBay and PayPal. Today she is CMO at OneStepCheckout, one of the best selling extension provider in the Magento ecosystem. She grew up in Paris and holds a Master degree from HEC Paris school of Management. She lived and worked in Australia for 11 years, spent one year in Zurich, Switzerland and settled in Oslo, Norway in 2015. She is a wife and mum of two boys aged 7 and 10. She is a keen traveller and foodie

Director of Business Development, Something Digital

One Amazon: Take Advantage of Every Opportunity on Amazon

Bio: Amazon estimated to represent 44% of all transactions on the web. About 50% of those transactions are from what Amazon calls “3rd party sellers”. If you don’t have a strategy for working with Amazon, you’re missing out on an addressable 22% of all web transactions. Amazon is a fairly siloed organization so sometimes building this strategy and taking advantage of what they have to offer can be overwhelming or difficult to navigate. This session will provide a look into the comprehensive opportunity that Amazon provides for merchants.

Strategic Engagement Manager, Something Digital

Bio: Caitlin is a certified Solution Specialist and Strategic Engagement Manager for Something Digital’s Strategic Engagement Group. She takes a hands-on approach in helping clients grow and maintain their Magento stores in collaboration with a talented team of developers at SD. Caitlin comes from a creative background and is passionate about building a competitive edge through customer experience.

CEO, Interactiv4

Case Study Of An Electronics Giant

Bio: CEO and founding partner of Interactiv4, Magento Enterprise Solution Partner since 2010 and recently Awarded at Imagine 2018. Ignacio is Computer Engineer, and since 1990 he was involved in the study and development trends of Internet use and mobile. Ignacio is a very active member of the Magento Community since 2010. He is responsible for organizing many Magento events such as MMES, MMNY, Madrid Magento MeetUp, Contribution Weekend Madrid.

Software Engineer, Architect, Magento

PageBuilder Extensibility

Bio: “Long time software engineer / 9 years of PHP and MySQL experience.
Originally from Ukraine. Igor started working with Magento 1 at 2009. Igor is Zend Certified PHP Engineer and Magento Certified Developer Plus. At 2015 Igor joined Magento. In a free time, Igor likes to do road trips.”

Director, Partnerships & Alliances North America, Emarsys

Bio: Joe Nicholas currently serves as Director, Partnerships & Alliances North America at Emarsys. He has worked in the Magento ecosystem for over 6 years in the marketing automation and email service providers industry in partnerships and product marketing roles. Prior to working with technology vendors, he spent seven years in the pet industry driving growth well beyond the industry average with Pet360 (www.petfooddirect.com) and Super-Dog Pet Food Company. Joe holds a BS in Business Administration from Albright College and an MBA in Marketing and Communications from Alvernia University. He is also Pragmatic Marketing Level VI certified.

Magento expert, Wagento Creative

Magento Is Easy

Bio: Brent has progressed through the ranks html, ASP, .net, MSSQL and finally Magento. Open source has taught him that working together is better than working in a silo. He loves to run, bike, ski and sometimes swim, in that order. He is often found at Magento events organizing running meetups with his wife Susan.

Co-Founder, Divante

Progressive Web Apps & Magento: Over One Year Developing (Pro Tips)

Bio: Filip Rakowski; Co-founder of Vue Storefront and Frontend developer at Divante. Mostly focused on modern web technologies including Progressive Web Apps, Vue.js, Angular, AMP, Voice Assistants and discovering their potential to improve eCommerce experience. Also, PWA evangelist sharing his knowledge on conferences and meetups around the world.

Developer, Yireo

Best coding practices, recommended by ExtDN

Bio: I’m a developer, trainer and enterpreneur in one. As founder of Yireo (based in The Netherlands), I have developed many Magento 1 and 2 extensions and am helping developers in the US and Europe with backend and frontend development trainings. Also, in Europe, I organized 2 technical conferences – Reacticon and MageTestFest – plus organized many local usergroup meetings and hackathons. For all of that, I’ve been awarded twice the Magento Mastership. Currently, I’m also involved in PWA efforts and ExtDN, which is trying to increase extension quality across the ecosyste

Co-Founder, Vervaunt

Understanding & Optimising eCommerce Search

Bio: Paul has been working with Magento since 2009, via various in-house, agency and consultancy roles. Paul works part-time for Klevu as a Solution Architect and primarily focuses on defining the product roadmap and supporting some of Klevu’s larger customer accounts.

COO, Shero Commerce

Bio: Beth is the COO and co-founder of Shero Commerce. Beth has a background in graphic design, UX/UI and has been working with eCommerce and web application development for 10 years. Her specialty is helping clients find the best eCommerce solutions to maximize their sales, and helping the Shero team achieve their goals. Beth is a Magento Solutions Specialist, that can assemble any eCommerce project from start to finish, addressing everything in between.

CEO, Shero Commerce

Bio: Gentian is the CEO and co-founder of Shero Commerce. Gentian is a visionary, driver, and entrepreneur. At Shero, Gentian assembles the teams and manages the direction of the company. He specializes in technical SEO, Inbound Marketing, Google Analytics, Paid Search, and acquisition channel optimization. Gentian ensures that all aspects of a project’s SEO needs are met. His favorite work is handling SEO migration elements to new platforms.

VP Ecommerce, Netsmartz

Case Study Of An Electronics Giant

Bio: Vikrant is a Magento® Certified Solution Specialist with 10+ years of experience in Magento, LAMP, Ecommerce and Agile Project Management. Vikrant helped a Fortune 100 company set up their brand store in India. He started his own Magento Agency, Envision Ecommerce, which was quickly acquired by a US-based agency. Vikrant is both an eCommerce enthusiast and Magento evangelist and loves to speak about Magento. Outside of technology, he loves to spend time with his pets and family.

Founder & CTO, Webscale

Bio: Jay Smith is the founder and CTO of Webscale. A Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Jay has co-authored over 30 peer reviewed articles in the area of parallel and distributed computing systems. During his time at IBM, Jay received over 20 patents and left as a Master Inventor in 2008. One of his papers, that looked at how cloud resources could be leveraged to give e-commerce businesses a right-sized infrastructure when they needed it the most, became the technology foundation for Webscale, which he founded in 2013. The company’s mission is to provide merchants with 100% uptime, during peak sales and sudden traffic events, along with infinite scalability, high performance, security and control in a single, powerful platform.

Senior Solutions Engineer, Redstage

Bio: Oliver has 10 years of experience in the aerospace testing industry with a background in Electrical Engineering. He left manufacturing in 2015 to join the e-commerce world, and has since been part of the Solutions Engineering team at Redstage Worldwide. There, he helps merchants find the most effective tech to meet their business goals. His biggest areas of focus have been the technical challenges of b2b e-commerce, such as fulfillment and user management, and the data-driven optimization of user interfaces.

CEO, TechDivision GmbH

Best coding practices, recommended by ExtDN

Bio: Stefan is Founder and CEO of TechDivision GmbH a provider for Digital Commerce , Omnichannel and agilisation. He has more than 15 years of experience in this area. Beyond he is an outspoken evangelist for open source and supports a serious number of national and international brands on their eCommerce and Omnichannel activities. Besides he is a gladly seen speaker at international conferences for digitization in commerce and company transformation in the new work environment.

Director of Marketing & Magento Certified Solutions Specialist, Human Element

A Guid to Measuring Social Media Effectiveness

Bio: For more than eight years, Dree has worked as a Business Analyst, eCommerce Strategist, Sales Executive, and Digital Marketing Maven for Human Element. Her background is in technology strategy and implementation, digital marketing, writing funny shit, and generally knowing how Magento works.
Dree has played a key role in ongoing strategy and development work for dozens of Magento stores and now leads digital marketing services for Human Element. Dree’s more notable accomplishments include hosting a very silly international web show called Yo, Adrienne!, living (intentionally) in a Ford Escort on a beach, writing daily for one of the only surviving newspapers in Southern California, and presenting a bill to the Ohio Legislature at the age of 13.