Speakers

Rohit Bhargava

Founder, Non-Obvious Company

Rohit Bhargava is on a mission to inspire more non-obvious thinking in the world. He is the 3-time Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of eight books and is widely considered one of the most entertaining and original speakers on trends, innovation and marketing in the world. Rohit has been invited to deliver sold-out keynotes and workshops in 32 countries around the world to change the way teams and leaders think at the World Bank, NASA, Intel, LinkedIn, MetLife, Under Armour, Univision, Disney and hundreds of other well-known organizations. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur and founding two companies, he previously spent 15 years as a marketing strategist at Ogilvy and Leo Burnett where he advised global brands on marketing and storytelling strategy. Outside his speaking and consulting, Rohit has taught persuasive speaking and global marketing as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, is frequently quoted in the global media and writes a monthly column on trends for GQ magazine in Brazil. Rohit lives in the Washington DC area with his wife and is a proud dad of two boys. He loves the Olympics (he’s been to five!) and actively hates cauliflower. 

Dale Bornstein

CEO, M Booth

M Booth CEO Dale Bornstein is a passionate and accomplished integrated marketer with over 30 years of experience building brands, leading transformational change and driving business growth. Celebrating her 10th year as CEO of M Booth, Dale’s leadership has led to a breathtaking 294% growth, from $16M when she joined to $63M today.

Dale’s unchanging North Star is people-first. She believes that people who live inspiring lives do inspiring work. This philosophy is at the core of M Booth’s employee-centric culture, where staff are encouraged to pursue their passions and apply that inspiration to driving client success. She is a tireless culture-bearer fostering a creative, entrepreneurial, fun and rewarding work environment that has been recognized multiple times as one of the industry’s “Best Places to Work” and “Best Mid-Sized Agencies.”

In her first decade at M Booth, Dale has led the firm’s drive to integration and expansion, building a formidable leadership team, deepening and creating new capabilities, and recruiting best-in-class talent. This led to the agency’s most successful period of client acquisition, revenue growth and industry recognition as a Global Agency of the Decade (Provoke Media). Dale is currently spearheading the firm’s expansion to the Booth Group, which now includes M Booth Health, formerly Health Unlimited and acquired in 2019. M Booth Health grew more than 30% last year, and today the Booth Group is $85M in revenue.

Dale took the reins of M Booth after a 27-year career at Ketchum, where she rose from assistant account executive to senior partner/director of global practices. In that role, she was responsible for driving strategic growth of the brand, food, technology, corporate and healthcare practices, and building the firm’s global media and creative networks. Dale was the first woman to head Ketchum’s New York office, a role she held for six years including leading the organization through 9/11 and the recession of 2001/2002 successfully.

In the last 5-6 years, M Booth has won over 70 industry awards for its clients and the agency and Dale have earned numerous leadership honors. In 2023, she received the Outstanding Individual Achievement SABRE from PRovoke Media, which recognizes leaders who have made a lasting impact on public relations. She was named to the Innovator 25 list, inducted into PRWeek’s Hall of Femme, named to the top 50 Power List five times over the last seven years, and honored by the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations for her commitment to mentoring. She was also named an Outstanding Alumni by her college at Cornell (CALS) and earned the Department of Communication's Outstanding Service Award.

Dale serves on the global board of directors for Dress for Success, a global non-profit that empowers women to achieve economic independence, and also served on the board of the PR Council, an industry association representing more than 100 agencies. She’s a founding member of the Strategic Advisory Board for the Department of Communications at Cornell University, and has served on the board since its inception in 2005. She is also a member of the Page Society and the industry’s Diversity Action Alliance. Combining her passions for mentorship and figure skating, Dale is an avid supporter of Figure Skating in Harlem, a non-profit that is “the only organization in the world for girls of color that combines the power of education with access to the artistic discipline of figure skating to build champions in life"

Martha Boudreau

EVP, Chief Communications & Marketing Officer, AARP

Julian Boulding

President, thenetworkone

Julian began his career in advertising sales, before working in independent agencies in London. He then joined the DMB&B Group, now part of Publicis, where he spent fourteen years in a succession of senior roles. While with DMB&B, he lived and worked in UK, Europe, USA and Latin America, where he spent 3 years as Regional Client Service Director for Salles DMB&B in Brazil.’ During this time, he directed global advertising campaigns for companies like Procter & Gamble, M&M Mars, Avon and Philips Electronics, rising to be President, International for DMB&B’s sister network, NW Ayer.

In 2003, Julian left the world of traditional agency networks, to co-found thenetworkone.

Candace Bushnell

Journalist and author, Sex and the City

From Sex and the City through ten successive novels, Bushnell has revealed a gift for tapping into the zeitgeist of any New York minute. With each book, she has deepened her range, but with a light touch that makes her complex literary accomplishments look easy. The Guardian Newspaper sums up Bushnell’s work this way: “She caustically addresses the conditions of materialism, cramped urban life, and metropolitan speed, where fame and wealth are all around, but never in one’s grasp . . . . Bushnell is courageous in bringing this to the fore, and she is blessed with an Austen-like mastery in doing so. She cuts through the lies that women tell themselves about the surface equality of Western society. As such, she has much more in common with Edith Wharton, Dorothy Parker and early Bret Easton Ellis.”

Bushnell (b. Dec. 1, 1958) grew up in Glastonbury, Ct, and moved to New York City at age 19. She attended Rice University and New York University, and began her professional career at 19 when she wrote a children’s book for Simon & Schuster. Throughout her twenties, Bushnell developed her trademark style as a freelancer, writing darkly humorous pieces about women, relationships and dating for Mademoiselle, Self Magazine, and Esquire.

In 1990, she wrote a column that would become a precursor for Sex and the City, called The Human Cartoon, a fictional serial published in Hamptons Magazine.

She began writing for the New York Observer in 1993; in November of 1994 she created the column Sex and the City, which ran in the New York Observer for two years. The column was bought as a book in 1995, and sold to HBO as a series in 1996. Bushnell hosted a radio show on Sirius Satellite Radio, called Sex, Success, and Sensibility, which aired from October 2006 to October 2008. She wrote and created a web series, The Broadroom, starring Jennie Garth, which launched in September 2009.

Through her books and television series, Bushnell’s work has influenced and defined two generations of women. She is the winner of the 2006 Matrix Award for books (other winners include Joan Didion and Amy Tan), and a recipient of the Albert Einstein Spirit of Achievement Award. She currently divides her time between New York City and Sag Harbor, New York.

Carol Carrubba

Principal, Highwire PR

Carol Carrubba, principal at Highwire, is a business leader and communications expert with a deep focus on and passion for technology. For clients, Carol specializes in category design, strategic messaging, executive speaker coaching and thought leadership for midsized to Fortune 50 technology companies like AWS, Splunk, Intel, Western Digital, IBM and many others. Carol partnered with companies like Gitlab, Digital Ocean, Qualtrics and others through their IPO processes from developing corporate narratives and establishing their business-as-usual to C-suite speaker training and listing day media and digital activations. For the Highwire team, Carol oversees People and Culture with the highest priority on diversity, inclusion and belonging. Highwire is committed to finding and elevating all voices as we nurture the next generation of communications leaders. 

Carol graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in English followed by Peace Corps service in Mali, West Africa for more than two years. Carol held leadership positions at Porter Novelli, Fleishman Hillard and Schwartz (now MSL) before building Highwire PR.

Matias Cartajena

Founder & CEO, Simplicity

Matias Cartajena founded Simplicity in 2012 and, as CEO, has led the company’s growth and diversification, including its expansion to the US since June 2021. He has run Simplicity with a purpose-driven philosophy, where persons and happiness are at the center. In 2014, Simplicity was the first Chilean communications agency certified as a B Corp and internationally awarded for Best Governance and Changemakers.

He holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy and has more than 20 years’ experience in media and communications, including serving as general manager at Hill+Knowlton Strategies in Chile and a journalist.

Throughout his career, he has advised more than 200 companies from different industries and countries in Latin America and the US. He’s an expert in corporate, financial and legal communication as well as crisis management.

Brianne Chai-Onn

Senior Partner, Finn Partners

Brianne Chai-Onn, Senior Partner, FINN, has more than 15 years of experience working on sustainable development, agriculture, climate change, public health, and wide range of issues at the intersection of sustainability and social impact. She has helped international organizations, start-ups, corporations, government agencies, and non-profit organizations develop and implement strategic communications programs that increase visibility, engage new audiences, and propel their work in an impactful way. She has attended multiple UN Climate Change Summits and has worked across the board with clients on nature-based solutions as well as sustainable tech. She is passionate about finding new ways to scale solutions and mobilize action.

Julie Colehour

Partner, C+C

Julie Colehour is a partner at C+C, a 100+ person social issues communications agency with offices in Seattle, Portland and Boston, and staff in 16 states. C+C's Mission: Do Good Work.

Julie is a leading social marketer who has spent her 33-year career working to motivate people to alter their behaviors for social good working on causes ranging from energy efficiency to COVID, wildfires, waste prevention, opioids and distracted driving. Most recently, Julie supported the Washington State Department of Health with their COVID response to increase adoption of COVID preventative behaviors and vaccination. She also helped support the EPA’s ENERGY STAR® program for the past 25 years, including co-leading the original national launch plan that led to a 41 percent national awareness of the ENERGY STAR® label in just three years.

Julie serves on the boards of the PR Council, the Pacific Northwest Social Marketing Association and PROI Worldwide, where she is co-chair for the Americas region.

Corey duBrowa

CEO, BCW

Ashley Etienne

Senior advisor, Powell Tate, Former senior advisor to Presidents Obama and Biden, and Vice President Harris

Widely recognized as the “queen of the war room” and “Obama’s bad-news fixer,” Ashley Etienne is among the nation’s most accomplished communications strategist who possess an unparalleled experience and insights into the White House, Congress, and the policies driving the national agenda. She has served as a trusted senior advisor to our nation’s most powerful leaders: Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

For more than 15 years, Etienne has specialized in facilitating high-stakes communications strategies to address the most pressing policy, economic, and social issues facing the nation. Her mastery of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, expansive media relationships and access to power-players across industries and advocacy make her an asset in mission critical settings.

Ashley most recently served as Deputy Assistant to President Biden and Communications Director for Vice President Harris. Before returning to the White House, she served on the Presidential Transition Team as the Director of Communications for Vice President Elect Kamala Harris and as Senior Advisor for Strategic Planning for Biden for President in 2020.

From 2017 to 2020, Ashley served as Communications Director and Senior Advisor to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the first woman and person of color to hold the position. There she led the integrated communications and legal strategy for the first impeachment and trial of President Trump and the communication strategy that resulted in the historic 2018 midterm victory for House Democrats and reelection of Pelosi as Speaker. 

Etienne was appointed Special Assistant to President Obama and Communications Director for the U.S. Cabinet in 2014 and led strategic communications for the President’s signature My Brother’s Keeper initiative.

Prior to joining the Obama White House, Etienne held several positions in Congress including Deputy Communications Director for Leader Pelosi and Communications Director for the Oversight Committee under Ranking Member Elijah Cummings.

Etienne joined The Weber Shandwick Collective in 2022 as a senior advisor where she counsels top executives on navigating disruption in politics, business, and society. She is a CBS News Political Contributor and served as a Spring 2022 Fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service. Etienne holds a Master of Arts in Political Communications from John Hopkins University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Sam Houston State University.

Julie Ginches

Co-Founder & Partner, Purpose WorldWide

Julie Ginches is the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Purpose Worldwide, a marketing and public relations consultancy that specializes in providing the talent and programs needed by organizations committed to purpose driven growth. Ginches is also best known as a B2B CMO and well known and highly respected member of the C Suite. With over four decades of experience, she has a proven track record for creating strategies that take a company from inception to high profile liquidity events.

Since founding Purpose WorldWide in 2020, she has led strategic efforts on behalf of more than 75 companies ranging from startups to publicly traded multinationals, including complete company, product repositioning campaigns and high profile launches.  Purpose educates the industry on Return on Purpose by growth metrics and is active across industry organizations including  co-chairing of the Purpose Council at ANA.

Gail Heimann

CEO, The Weber Shandwick Collective

Paul Holmes

Founder & Chair, PRovoke Media

Paul Holmes, founder and chair of PRovoke Media, has been writing about public relations for more than 25 years. Paul began his career in local newspapers in the north of England and also worked for a newspaper group in South London before joining PR Week as news editor in 1985.

In 1987 he moved to New York to launch the short-lived US edition of that publication, and after that project came to an inglorious end worked with Adweek and Adweek’s Marketing Week for a year.

In 1989, he launched his own company, initially publishing Inside PR, and later Reputation Management magazine, both focused on providing analysis of critical trends and issues in the public relations industry. He created the annual Public Relations Agency Report Card, which included profiles of the leading PR firms in the US, and the Creativity in Public Relations Awards, which grew to become the largest in North America.

Early in 2000, Holmes launched The Holmes Group, which provides knowledge and insight to public relations professionals across a variety of platforms, including a website, an e-newsletter, events, printed reports, research and consulting assignments, and the SABRE Awards competition. The group’s flagship title, PRovoke Media (p/k/a The Holmes Report), covers the public relations business in the Americas, EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) and the Asia-Pacific region. In 2011, Paul was inducted into the ICCO Hall of Fame.

Sydney Kitson

Chairman & CEO, Kitson & Partners

Syd Kitson is Chairman/CEO of Kitson & Partners, a Florida-based real estate company specializing in the creation and development of environmentally responsible, sustainable master-planned communities and commercial properties. Kitson is a graduate of Wake Forest University, with a notable career in the National Football League. Upon retirement, he began his career in real estate, founding Kitson & Partners in 1999. In 2006, Kitson completed the historic purchase of Babcock Ranch in Southwest Florida, encompassing an area five times the size of the island of Manhattan, with over 80% of the original land purchase set aside in the largest single land preservation agreement in the state’s history. Syd has served on multiple civic, education and non-profit boards. He is past Chair of the Florida Council of 100, served as Chair of the Board of Governors for the State University System of Florida in 2020 and 2021, and was elected the 2016-2017 Chair of the Florida Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.

Brad Laporte

CEO, WinCup

Brad is one of the top plastics engineers in North America where he has leveraged his skills in Lean Manufacturing and operational excellence to drive multiple corporate transformations. He currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of WinCup. Previously, Brad was VP of Operations at Larson Juhl (A Berkshire Hathaway Company), Okabashi Brands as VP of Manufacturing, and spent two decades as a leader at Guardian Industries, a tier 1 automotive supplier.  In September 2020, Brad helped position WinCup for sale to Atar Capital, who’s core principles is a commitment to investing in companies that work toward protecting the environment.

Stephanie Lett-Dawkins

Account Supervisor, Citizen Relations

Jean Linis-Dinco

Tech Policy Consultant, Manushya Foundation

Diana Marszalek

Senior Reporter, PRovoke Media

Michael Maslansky

CEO, maslansky + partners

Since writing The Language of Trust in 2010, Michael has become one of the leading experts on reputation and crisis communication in the world. He has served as a senior advisor to Wells Fargo, Kaiser Permanente, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Bank of America, PepsiCo, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer, among others, and has helped industry associations in financial services, energy, and personal care navigate major industry transformations and crises.

Rebecca Mayo

Joint Managing Director, Lansons, London & New York

Rebecca Mayo is a partner and managing director at Lansons, a communications and reputation management consultancy, which is 100% owned by one third of its people. She sits on executive committee and leads the consultancy’s international services, including in her role as the Lansons New York chair.

Lansons is a pioneer in its home market and its values have consistently shaped the strategic advice and creative ideas it delivers to clients, who are navigating a world that expects more. Rebecca is an award-winning consultant with decades of experience advising clients from the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. She works with senior leadership teams on a wide range of business issues, from complex corporate, issues and change communications through to market-leading brand building and purpose-led campaigns.

In addition to her roles at Lansons, Rebecca also sits on the PROI Worldwide Board and is the co-chair of the PROI EMEA Region. 

Maja Pawinska Sims

Associate Editor, PRovoke Media

Maja Pawinska Sims has been the EMEA editor of PRovoke Media since January 2018. She has been writing about public relations and communications for 22 years, first as features editor of PRWeek and then as a freelance writer and editor for PR agencies and their clients around the world, including three years as Weber Shandwick’s EMEA editor. She was named Journalist of the Year at the Global Women in Marketing Awards in 2019, where the judges noted: “Maja proves how empathy can drive brilliant editorial thinking. She is clearly an absolute expert in her field and proves that you can challenge an industry while also championing it.”

John Saunders

President & CEO, FleishmanHillard

Anita Spiller

Director of ESG, Tru Earth

Anita Spiller’s parallel careers are defined by passion. As a United Church minister, a private business owner, and now, directing ESG for Tru Earth, one of Canada’s fastest-growing companies, her work and life are characterized by social justice, collaboration, and leaving the planet better than she found it.

At Tru Earth, a Certified B Corp global household cleaning product company, Anita focuses on disrupting the CPG industry, eliminating household single use plastics, battling microplastics and donating earth-friendly products to organizations in need. Tru Earth has prevented 160 million plastic containers from being created and has donated 30 million of its environmentally friendly laundry detergent strips in just four years.

Since September 2022, Anita has served on the Board of Directors of HOPE International Development Agency in Canada, a collective of entrepreneurial and dedicated people responsive to the realities of overlooked families living in extreme poverty. As a board member, Anita brings her expertise in business and sustainability to support HOPE 's mission of empowering communities to overcome poverty and reach their full potential.

A gifted speaker and educator, Anita’s presentations are sprinkled with humor, insight, and real solutions to make true lasting change that helps save the planet.

Arun Sudhaman

CEO/Editor-in-Chief, PRovoke Media

Arun Sudhaman is CEO and editor-in-chief at PRovoke Media.

In this role Arun oversees PRovoke Media's global content offering, including its analysis and insight into reputation, public relations and communications trends and issues. Since joining PRovoke Media in 2010, Arun has comprehensively redefined the title’s content platform, which includes its digital presence and new products such as the Influence 100 compendium of key global influencers, the Global PR Agency Rankings, the Global Creative Index, and the PRovoke Media podcast. He also led the rebrand of the Holmes Report to PRovoke Media in 2020.

Arun has also played a pivotal role expanding PRovoke Media's coverage into Asia-Pacific and other emerging markets, and has helped steer the company’s international events programme, particularly the Global Public Relations Summit — which has featured such luminaries as Sir Martin Sorrell, P&G’s Marc Pritchard, Chuck Porter and IBM’s Jon Iwata. 

He brings to the position more than a decade’s experience as a journalist and digital content specialist, most of which has been spent analysing the media, marketing and communications industries. His career has encompassed coverage and analysis of reputation and leadership issues in numerous countries across the world, including the US and UK, Russia, China, India and South Africa. 

Prior to joining the Holmes Report, Arun spent more than seven years with Haymarket Media in Hong Kong, Singapore and London. He joined Haymarket title PRWeek UK in January 2009, after covering Asia’s media and marketing landscape at sister Haymarket title Campaign Asia-Pacific in Hong Kong and Singapore. 

Before Haymarket, Arun spent one year at public relations firm Weber Shandwick during its tumultuous mergers with Weber and BSMG. During his career as a journalist he has appeared on BBC News and has also contributed to The Guardian and the South China Morning Post, where he began his career as a business reporter.

In 2015, Arun became the youngest-ever inductee into the ICCO Hall of Fame.

Nick Thompson

CEO, The Atlantic

Kandace Williamson

Account Director, The Romans