Dr. Anastasia Kārkliņa Gabriel is a cultural theorist, researcher, and strategist. Dr. Gabriel earned her doctorate in cultural studies from Duke University, where she trained as a scholar of culture and identity, specializing in Black critical theory, whiteness studies, and critical race, gender, and sexuality studies. Following her doctoral training, she consulted on cultural strategy for the world’s top brands at global agencies, including Wieden+Kennedy, McCann, and Dentsu Creative. Currently, she is the senior insights lead at Reddit. A lifelong activist, writer, and social critic, her insights have been featured by the AMA, ANA, the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, Advertising Week, Reuters, Campaign US, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Teen Vogue. She is a public intellectual whose commentary on racial justice, cultural transformation, and social change is followed by an audience of over 45,000 across socials. Dr. Gabriel is the award-winning author of Cultural Intelligence for Marketers, published by Kogan Page.

Zekeera leads efforts and programs to identify, analyze and address client’s needs at Collage Group. She and her team work in partnership with Fortune 500 companies, helping them gain a better understanding of diverse consumer segments to connect engage, and ultimately drive growth.

Zekeera is a proven leader with real world expertise and application of national, regional, and grassroots strategies. She is one of Collage’s experts on Black, Hispanic, women and LGBTQ+ consumers. Zekeera regularly leads presentations and brand/strategy workshops, demonstrating how companies can better connect and authentically engage with diverse segments.

She is a results-driven marketing and communications professional with 20+ years of experience developing and executing private and public (government) sector campaigns and programs. Prior to Collage, Zekeera served as a Marketing Director for Penn, Good & Associates, a Marketing Services Consulting firm located in Washington, DC. In previous years, she was a consultant at MarketBridge, a management consulting firm, leading sales and marketing optimization engagements for global corporates such as IBM, Microsoft, SAP and others.

Zekeera holds a B.S. in Business Administration, with a double concentration in Finance and Management, from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. She is originally from Harlem, New York City and now lives in Southern Maryland. In her spare time you may find her playing pick-up basketball, flag football, or hosting social gatherings in the DC area.

Allison Stadd is currently the SVP of Brand, Culture & Media at Shipt, a wholly owned subsidiary of Target, where she spearheads brand, transformational creativity, and full-funnel media. She has over 15 years of experience in marketing leadership roles at consumer-obsessed, digital-first brands, including 3 IPOs (Shake Shack, Sweetgreen, BarkBox) and led the global digital advertising and content transformation for Stella Artois at Anheuser Busch InBev.

Allison was a member of the inaugural U.S. class of 30 of The Marketing Academy, a 9-month fellowship targeting the fastest rising stars in U.S. marketing, and was selected as one of Ad Age’s “40 Under 40” and Brand Innovators’ “40 Under 40” in 2019.

Samuel Monnie is a marketing reformer and Co-Founder & CO-CEO of Purpose Hive a strategic brand purpose consultancy where guidance and support is provided to brands and organizations in their quest of prospering from good growth. He is the former SVP Revenue (Sales & Marketing) for Sustainable Brands. His global marketing leadership experiences include brand-building, integrated marketing, digital and eCommerce, innovation, thought leadership and culture mobilization at Procter & Gamble, Gillette, Campbell’s, Grainger, Safeway. He brings experience in transforming capabilities and organizational performance via Center of Excellence roles and as a marketing transformation consultant and co-host of the Marketing Transformed Podcast. He was an Adjunct Professor at DePaul University and has taught International Business, and Brand Strategy. From the UK, and of Ghanaian heritage, he’s lived in Germany, and Switzerland and now resides in the NYC area. He speaks German, French, and Ga (Ghana).

Bio coming soon.

Damian Benders is a multicultural digital media veteran with over 20 years of professional experience. As General Manager of B Code, a modern media company that specializes in multicultural marketing and advertising, he works to create real impact across the cultural media landscape and increase the scale, efficacy and authenticity of spend targeting Black Americans.

Previously, Damian spent three years building the digital video business at iONE Digital where he was responsible for driving video programming, production, and revenue across a portfolio of 70 brands as the Vice President of Video & Business Development. Damian has a rich media, marketing and strategy background having worked across digital publishing, film and television with companies including Moguldom Media Group, SnagFilms, FilmBuff, Metro International, American Express and Knight Ridder.