Alia Kemet
Alia
Kemet
boon
Alia serves as the Chief Marketing Officer of Shipt, a subsidiary of Target and a leading same-day delivery service. With a comprehensive role, she directs all aspects of marketing, brand management, and consumer experience, including creative direction, production, advertising, consumer strategy, membership loyalty, and insights. Drawing from over 25 years of marketing expertise acquired from notable positions at McCormick & Company, IKEA, Whole Foods Market, and BET, Alia’s leadership has earned her industry accolades such as Adweek’s Brand Leader of the Year and inclusion in Ad Age’s Leading Women Class.
Beyond her professional achievements, Alia holds influential roles within the advertising community, serving on esteemed boards such as the National Advertising Review Board, and the University of Maryland Flex MBA Advisory Council. Committed to community service, she actively engages with organizations including Top Ladies of Distinction, Inc., Girl Scouts Council of America, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, and serves on the Maryland Food Bank Board of Directors.
Alia’s passion extends beyond her professional endeavors; she has produced The Phenomenal Grit podcast, hosting insightful Career Conversations for Women of Color. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications from Howard University, and amidst her 25 years of marriage, she is a devoted mother to four children.
Steering Committee
Steering Committee
Trevor Edwards
Trevor
Edwards
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Trevor A. Edwards, former President of the NIKE Brand. He resigned from his position in August 2018. Mr. Edwards was responsible for leading all category and geographic business units, the Jordan Brand and Action Sports, which includes Hurley International LLC, Digital Sport and brand management throughout the world as well as leading NIKE’s wholesale, retail and e-commerce operations.
Mr. Edwards was previously Global Brand & Category Management Executive Vice President, where he was responsible for helping to drive the NIKE Brand growth strategy by leading its category business units globally. Mr. Edwards joined the company in 1992 as a Regional Marketing Manager and has held senior marketing positions in the Americas, the Europe/Middle East/Africa region, the U.S. and Global Brand Management. Mr. Edwards has led some of the brand’s most significant break-through innovations, including spearheading the creation of Nike+, a revolutionary sports training experience that connects digitally enabled footwear with digital services. He has also helped transform the digital landscape and position Nike as a leader by using social media to connect with consumers globally.
Mr. Edwards earned a BA, business, 1984 and MBA, international marketing and finance, 1989 from Baruch College.
Steering Committee
Steering Committee
Ross Martin
Ross
Martin
boon
Emmy and Peabody award-winning marketer and business leader Ross Martin is President of Ad Age Agency A-List marketing firm Known and the Founder of venture capital fund Lunch Partners, an early-stage private investment vehicle for some of the world’s most inspiring CMO’s. He is the Executive Producer of Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy and the five-part docuseries Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space, both for Netflix, as well as Meal Ticket, the upcoming documentary about the McDonald’s All- American Games for Amazon Prime Video, and Deep Dive, a new series with Universal Music Group and TIME Magazine. He is the Executive Producer and Co-Host of the popular iHeart Media podcast “Future Legends of Advertising,” now entering its second season. Ross is a member of the National Board of Directors of the American Advertising Federation, the Yale University Center for Customer Insights and the Digital & Innovation Council for St. Jude Children’s Hospital. Recent accolades include Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People In Business,” an Advertising Age “Media Maven” distinction, Fortune Magazine’s “40 Under 40” top business leaders and Adweek’s “50 Most Indispensable Executives in Advertising.” In 2014, he was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Achievement.
Steering Committee
Steering Committee
Madeline Nelson
Madeline
Nelson
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Madeline Nelson is an Emmy-nominated producer and Grammy Award winning Artist Manager, who currently serves as the U.S. Head of Independent Label Relations at Amazon Music. Nelson is also the founder of Heads Music, a boutique music management company, and co-founder with Wyclef Jean, of SodoMoodLab, a scoring and jingle company.
Heads Music is led and staffed entirely by women, a reflection of Nelson’s dedication to making sure that women have a voice within the music industry. Her dedication to her work and fighting for her beliefs has been forged through Nelson’s illustrious career in the music industry, which can be seen in her work as a mentor in the Next Gen Femme mentorship program within the Femme It Forward umbrella, and her recent invitation to participate in the American Association of Independent Music’s annual Indie Week event as their Keynote Speaker.
Madeline has been instrumental in the shaping of entertainment and music culture behind the scenes in her roles as producer, executive, artist manager, and trusted advisor for over three decades. Her repertoire ranges from her work as manager of Grammy Award winning R&B supergroup Blackstreet in the 1990s, to her A&R work with Michael Jackson, followed by her role as SVP of Artist and Label Relations at Sony Music, and now, her current role at Amazon Music as well as management of Wyclef Jean.
In addition to her work at Amazon Music, Madeline recently signed on as the consultant to the “Wyclef and TIAA: Music for a New Legacy” campaign, which aims to raise awareness among America’s youth, in particular the large percent of African American youth, on the importance of investing into a financially secure future. This campaign saw the release of the Wyclef track “Paper Right” featuring Pusha T, Lola Brooke, Capella Grey, and Flau’jae, with streaming proceeds being donated directly to the non-profit organization First Generation Investors.
Steering Committee
Steering Committee
Larry Adams
Larry
Adams
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Larry Adams is the proud Black founder & CEO of XStereotype. Larry Adams is a digital marketing and media veteran, the former head of design for AT&T and Warner Media, he helped design and develop HBO Max and launched DIRECTV NOW, and most recently served as Sr. Advisor for the Bloomberg 2020 presidential campaign.
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John Pasmore
John
Pasmore
boon
John is the founder and CEO of Latimer.AI, an Artificial Intelligence company built to be the premier Large Language Model focused on accurate historical information and bias-free interaction for Black and Brown audiences and anyone who values precision in their data.
He recently served as a partner at the Family Office, TRS Capital and at Movita Organics, an organic supplement company led by filmmaker and social activist, Tonya Lewis Lee. John sits on the Board of Directors of Outward Bound USA. He holds a B.S. in Business Administration from SUNY and a B.A. in Computer Science from Columbia University.
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Jon Cook
Jon
Cook
boon
Jon serves as global CEO of VML, an agency he’s been an integral part of for the past 28 years. The merger of Wunderman Thompson and VMLY&R was announced in October 2023; the expanded company became operational in January 2024. The unified agency combines world-class creativity with deep expertise in data, marketing technology and platforms. VML — one of the world’s largest creative agencies — is a global network of approximately 28,000 individuals across more than 60 markets. Jon is a member of the WPP Executive Committee.
VML is proud to serve some of the world’s most recognized and respected brands, including AstraZeneca, Colgate-Palmolive, Dell, Ford, Intel, Microsoft, Nestlé, The Coca-Cola Company, and Wendy’s. Principal office locations currently include Detroit, Kansas City, London, New York City, São Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney.
Under Jon’s leadership, the agency was recognized as 2023 Network of the Year by the New York Festivals, the ANDYs and the ADC Awards. The agency was also recognized as top two on Ad Age’s A-List and ranked seventh globally at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity; it has also been named Cannes Lions Entertainment Agency of the Year three of the past six years.
The agency garnered a 2023 One Show Penta Pencil for Wendy’s, recognizing five years of marketing excellence. It was also recognized by the Forrester Wave™ Reports, which named WPP a “Leader” in Commerce Services, Global Digital Experience Services, Global Marketing Services and, most recently, Marketing Measurement & Optimization. Additionally, VML Health was a top 10 MM+M Agency 100 recipient.
Prior to taking the helm of VMLY&R in 2018, Jon served as VML global CEO starting in 2011. During his tenure with the original VML, the agency grew from 30 employees in Kansas City, Missouri, to more than 3,000 employees across six continents. Jon helped the agency garner A-List honors from 2016 to 2018.
Jon is committed to equity, inclusion and belonging at VML. In 2023, the agency was named Agency of the Year for the second consecutive year by New York Festivals 3D DE&I Awards and was recognized by Fast Company as a Best Workplace for Innovators. VML has twice been identified by the Human Rights Campaign as a Best Place to Work for LGBTQ+ Equality, and it repeatedly has been recognized by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption as one of the top 100 Adoption-Friendly Workplaces in the U.S. In 2022, the agency was named among the top three on LinkedIn’s list of the 25 best advertising and marketing companies for jobseekers, and a Best Place to Work and Best D&I Initiative by Campaign. The agency has twice received a perfect score on the HRC Corporate Equality Index.
Jon graduated from the University of Missouri in 1993 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. In 2018, Jon delivered the commencement address at the Missouri School of Journalism graduation ceremony. He was named to the 2023 Campaign US 40 Over 40 list and is a graduate of the FBI Citizens Academy. Jon relishes spending time with his wife, Lisa, and their three daughters. The family especially enjoys hiking together.
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Javier Farfan
Javier
Farfan
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Javier Farfan stands as a distinguished thought leader and practitioner, renowned for his expertise in culture and entertainment. As a professor in the Department of TV, Radio, and Film at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School Of Public Communications, he has made significant contributions to the fields of marketing and entertainment through his commitment to cultural integration and integrity. where he harnesses his expertise in creativity, storytelling, and leadership to nurture socially conscious entertainment business leaders.
His academic contributions extend to lectures at Seton Hall Stillman School Of Business and NYU Stern School of Business.
Farfan who is the founder of J Wolf Advisors where he leads a dynamic team of creative and cultural strategists in reshaping the future of iconic brands including NFL, Amazon Music, New Balance, McDonald’s, ABI, Walmart, Warner Bros., Tidal, and PepsiCo.
Farfan’s illustrious career includes pivotal roles such as VP of Marketing for Verizon, Head of Music and Entertainment at PepsiCo Beverages, and Director of Marketing at Microsoft’s Entertainment and Device Division. He also served as Marketing Director for MTV Networks, where he launched the Hispanic cable network MTV Tr3s.
Grounded in his early leadership work in education., Farfan founded JUMP Nation, a New York State non-profit youth mentoring organization, and co-founded the UA School of Business for Young Women, a high school charter school in New York City.
He holds a Master of Arts from Columbia University and an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business.
Farfan enjoys family time with his partner Nat, their son Jonah Wolf, and their pets Tina and Taylor in New Jersey.
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Gary Vaynerchuk
Gary
Vaynerchuk
boon
Gary Vaynerchuk is a serial entrepreneur and serves as the Chairman of VaynerX, the CEO of VaynerMedia, and the Creator and CEO of VeeFriends. Gary is considered one of the leading global minds on what’s next in culture, relevance, and the internet. Known as “GaryVee,” he is described as one of the most forward thinkers in business. He is a New York Times bestselling author, a sought-after public speaker, and a prolific investor in companies like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Venmo, Snapchat, Coinbase, and Uber. Gary serves on the board of Bojangles Restaurants, Global Citizen Forum, MikMak, and Pencils of Promise. He is also a longtime Well Member of charity: water.
Steering Committee
Steering Committee
