Melanie Altarescu

Chief Partnerships & Experiences Officer, The Wing

Melanie Altarescu is a creative marketing executive. She is Chief Partnerships Officer at The Wing, a company that builds co-working and community spaces for women. In this role, Melanie combines her passion for female-led entrepreneurialism with her extensive background in integrated sales and marketing. Her career includes ten years in publishing with Condé Nast and Hearst Media Group. Throughout her tenure in publishing, she held leadership roles at publications including The New Yorker, WIRED, and Vanity Fair, where she was responsible for revenue-generating creative partnerships. Prior to joining The Wing, Melanie spent two years as a brand partnership consultant, where she lent her creative acumen to startups, influencers and entrepreneurs in various industries. Melanie is a passionate mentor to a wide variety of colleagues and students and a frequent rejector of unnecessary apologies.

Kendra Bracken-Ferguson

Chief Digital Officer, BrainTrust CAA-GBG

Now the Chief Digital Officer of Braintrust CAA-GBG, the largest brand management agency in the world with 24 offices in over 20 countries, Kendra leads a global team of digital marketing experts and social media natives. The BrainTrust, the social media agency that Kendra founded in 2016, joined CAA-GBG which is a joint venture between Global Brands Group Holding Limited (“Global Brands”), and Creative Artists Agency (“CAA”).

Prior to BrainTrust gaining notoriety and success, Kendra saw an opening in the market for digital, social and influencer marketing, and she co-founded Digital Brand Architects. Now in its sixth year, DBA grew quickly from an idea at a kitchen table into the go-to firm for influencer management. Working ahead of trends and predicting opportunities, Carpe diem is not just a saying to Kendra — it is a way of life.

Brooke Capps-Yaroni

Editorial Content Director, Mastercard

Brooke Capps-Yaroni is Editorial Content Director at Mastercard. In her position, she oversees the company’s storytelling efforts across digital and other channels. Prior to joining Mastercard, Brooke was an Adjunct Associate Professor teaching writing and communications at NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. At the same time, she worked as a communications consultant, creating internal and external communications strategies and content for a variety of companies, brands and organizations, including Uniqlo, Hudson Whiskey, ?WhatIf! Innovation Partners, Cornell University, the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation and the Institute for Children, Poverty & Homelessness, to name a few.

Brooke holds an MA in Media Studies from The New School University’s School for Public Engagement, where she focused on multi-modal storytelling and building online communities. Brooke received her BA in Sociology & Anthropology from Middlebury College. She served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine from 1997 to 1999, teaching English as a foreign language. In the time in between then and now Brooke has also worked in book publishing at Penguin’s Gotham Books, in journalism as an ad agency reporter at Advertising Age magazine, and in marketing communications and creative direction as an executive with Euro RSCG (now known as Havas Worldwide), RAPP and UMWW.

Courtney Cox

Digital Marketing Expert and Speaker, Children’s Health

Courtney is a digital marketer, speaker, and co-author of Voice Search: The New Search Engine. She has helped dozens of companies abandon the gut-feeling approach to marketing, challenge the status quo, and drive digital innovation. Courtney currently serves as a digital marketing leader at Children’s Health in Dallas, TX.

Courtney was selected by Innovation Women’s The 2018 Marketing Super Panel, an honor that recognizes the best female speakers on marketing. She speaks at marketing events across the U.S. and has contributed to marketing publications such as the peer-reviewed Journal of Brand Strategy.

Courtney lives in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas, TX with her wife Hollis, their dog, and five cats (no, that’s not a typo). Curious to her core, Courtney devours audiobooks and podcasts, which are always playing in the background as she works.

Margaret Jones

Global Brand Content Strategy, Eventbrite

As head of brand content strategy at Eventbrite, Margaret works with a global team to connect independent artists, enterprise conferences, and goat yoga enthusiasts with their world of fans. An experienced strategist, managing editor, and writer, she’s passionate about using the internet for good — ideally to get people off the internet. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction writing from the New School, and an MS in Publishing from Portland State University.

Jamie Luke

Director, Content + Strategy, The Foundry @ Meredith Corp.

Jamie started her career in journalism at Conde Nast House & Garden magazine, assisting Wine Editor Jay McInerney, among others. After that, she moved to long-form news production at CNN to then launch an ongoing career as a freelance creative writer for lifestyle and luxury clients including Vanity Fair, Publicis, A+R, Ann Taylor, Tiffany & Co. and Brooks Brothers. Merging editorial, news and advertising experience, she then launched Gilt City as its Editorial Director, led native content at Daily Candy, and then landed at Meredith, where she now directs native content ideation and execution for clients in tech, finance and pharma across all brands ranging from Fortune to Martha Stewart Living (she collaborated on a team to create the award-winning “India 100” on Time.com). Jamie volunteers as a creative mentor in the NYC charter school system and at her alma mater, Indiana University.