Speakers.

Hear from industry-leading experts who are using WordPress to deliver breakthrough digital experiences.

Founder/CEO,
Herjavec Group

Robert Herjavec

Bio

Robert Herjavec is a dynamic entrepreneur and leading Shark on ABC’s Shark Tank. Born in Eastern Europe, he arrived in North America on a boat with his parents after escaping communism in the former Yugoslavia. From delivering newspapers, and waiting tables, to launching a computer company from his basement, his drive to achieve has led him to the fulfillment of a better life for himself and his family. In 2003, Robert founded Herjavec Group, and it quickly became one of North America’s fastest growing technology companies. Today, Herjavec Group is recognized as a global cybersecurity operations leader specializing in managed security services, compliance and incident response for enterprise level organizations. Robert’s motivational business advice has received millions of impressions through TV, print, radio and digital media. He shares his expertise with other entrepreneurs each week as a leading Shark on ABC’s Emmy Award-winning hit show Shark Tank.

CEO,
WP Engine

Heather Brunner

Bio

As Chairwoman and CEO for WP Engine, Heather Brunner has steered the company to hyper-growth and global expansion with offices in Austin, San Antonio, San Francisco, London, Limerick and Brisbane serving 75,000 customers in 130 countries. A 27-year technology veteran, Heather helped create billions in value and drove customer success and business strategy for companies including Bazaarvoice, Coremetrics, Trilogy, Oracle and Accenture. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international economics from Trinity University. Heather received the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2017 Central Texas Award for Technology. She serves on the Board of Directors for Camden Property Trust (NYSE: CPT), Localeur LLC and the Entrepreneurs Foundation.

Founder & Chief Product Officer, Yoast

Joost de Valk

Bio

Joost de Valk is the founder and Chief Product Officer at Yoast. Joost spends most of his time at Yoast working on Yoast SEO and its add-ons. As Chief Product Officer, he makes sure the roadmap for all our products is well managed. Joost has a background as an SEO, digital marketer and web developer. In the early days of his career, he worked in several IT companies, ranging from enterprise hosting to online marketing agencies. This allowed him to work with several large brands around the world. In 2010 he founded Yoast, which has as its mission to allow as many people as possible to build a findable website. It empowers people through software (most notably its Yoast SEO plugin) and training. Team Yoast currently consists of more than 100 people. Yoast SEO is currently available for four open source platforms and active on more than 9 million websites.

Product Manager, Search and Content Ecosystem, Google

Mariya Moeva

Bio

Founder/CTO,
WP Engine

Jason Cohen

Bio

With over 20 years of experience in business and software development, Jason Cohen is founder and CTO at WP Engine where he develops and refines the company’s technology and product roadmap. Jason is a serial entrepreneur, having built four technology startups to more than $1 million in annual revenue. He is a founding member and mentor at Capital Factory, and was previously a founder of Smart Bear and IT WatchDogs. Jason received the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2017 Central Texas Award for Technology.

CEO,
Crowd Favorite

Karim Marucchi

Bio

Karim Marucchi is the CEO of Crowd Favorite and Chairman of The VeloMedia Group. HIs career has included founding startups, working for large web agencies, and taking companies public. Karim has significant experience with mergers and acquisitions. He loves figuring out how to make diverse teams work as a cohesive unit. Karim is a key source of support for entrepreneurs in the midst of hyper-growth or leaders in the midst of significant business transitions.

SVP of Technology,
Organic

Isabel Kantor

Bio

VP of Strategic Alliances,
Americaneagle.com

Jerry Boduch

Bio

Jerry Boduch is a devoted team leader and has been working in the digital space for 20+ years. He has diverse experience in full lifecycle analysis, design, development, implementation, testing, and maintenance of custom web based applications and system integrations for high profile clients across various business verticals using the latest technologies. As the Vice President of Strategic Alliances at Americaneagle.com, he is responsible for building new global partnership innovations and solutions. He manages the relationships between our CMS and ecommerce partners and integrations with ERPs, CRMs, AMSs, and OMSs, among others. He also consults on the proper process for project management and programming. Jerry’s leadership and experience in driving the online success for various clients has been proven with high-level roles in over 700 projects with companies such as Portillo’s, CTA, and Stuart Weitzman. With an ability to understand the back-end architecture as well as the front-end usability aspect of a website, Jerry has a unique talent that is crucial in today’s application development world.

CMO,
WP Engine

Mary Ellen Dugan

Bio

Partner and Chief Creative Officer,
Modern Tribe

Reid Peifer

Bio

Founder & CEO,
Maark

Michael Colombo

Bio

Founder,
MediaMonks

Wesley ter Haar

Bio

Wesley ter Haar is the founder of MediaMonks, a creative production powerhouse with global reach, recognition and clients. He currently sits on the boards of SoDA (The Digital Society) and S4Capital. Under his ongoing leadership for nearly 20 years, Wesley has sought to wage war on mediocre digital production, growing MediaMonks from a humble production house into an end-to-end creative and production partner, through aggressive expansion and many mergers throughout the years. Employing over 3,300+ people across 40 locations and 29 countries, the MediaMonks team works across time zones and around the world to achieve unparalleled creative quality recognized by many Cannes Lions, FWA Awards and inclusion on the Ad Age Digital A-List.

Developer Relations,
Google

Paul Bakaus

Bio

Paul Bakaus is a product manager, software engineer and developer advocate leading the Web Creator Relations & AMP Ecosystem teams at Google. He and his team help developers, designers and decision makers to create better, faster, more immersive and more convincing digital experiences. Prior to joining Google, he created the popular UI library jQuery UI, and later the Aves Engine, the first interactive HTML5 game engine - which he ultimately sold to Zynga.

CEO
10up

John Eckman

Bio

John has been the CEO of 10up since 2014. He brings 20+ years experience to the role, having served previously as Managing Director at ISITE Design, Senior Director at Optaros, Director of Application Development at PixelMEDIA, and Director / Principal Consultant at Molecular.

He has worked with a wide range of clients: from early-stage startups and the Fortune 50 to higher ed and non-profits. As one of the co-founders of WordCamp Boston, John has been focused on open source since 2006, and is a well-known speaker at WordCamp, DrupalCamp, and numerous content management and digital strategy conferences.

VP of Technology
Elephant

Charles Duncan Jr.

Bio

VP Product Marketing,
WP Engine

Monica Cravotta

Bio

Monica Cravotta is a B2B tech marketing veteran, with 20+ years experience in marketing leadership roles for enterprise and SaaS companies. Now the senior marketing director at WP Engine, Monica oversees the product go-to-market strategy for the WordPress digital experience platform. Prior to WP Engine, Monica led product marketing at Spredfast and Mass Relevance, and held marketing and PR leadership roles at Bazaarvoice, Whole Foods Market, and i2 Technologies (now JDA Software).

Partnerships and Product Strategy, XWP

Leo Postovoit

Bio

In the 13 years that Leo Postovoit has been a professional stuff maker and problem solver, he has used WordPress at nearly every step of the process. A Journalism/Anthropology alum of San Jose State University, his work has appeared in publications like the San Francisco Chronicle, the Denver Post, and Lowrider Magazine. Beyond journalism, he’s worked in marketing, education and the film industry. Leo is passionate about open source, accessibility and usability. He is a WordPress core component maintainer for Privacy, plus helps organize for meetups and WordCamps in California.

Product Manager,
Flywheel

Jack Sellwood

Bio

VP Product,
WP Engine

Laura Kelso

Bio

Laura Kelso is a seasoned Product Management leader, with 15+ years experience managing high performing product teams, and building digital products for the likes of HomeAway/VRBO, Allrecipes.com, Whole Foods Market, and now WP Engine. She is passionate about the voice of the customer, and dually data and innovation driven. At WP Engine, she’s responsible for crafting and executing product strategy across the customer lifecycle, ensuring that we delight our customers, and help them win online.

VP Global Communications
WP Engine

Eric Jones

Bio

Eric Jones is the Vice President, Global Communications for WP Engine, overseeing the award-winning global communications teams that define WP Engine's narrative across all areas of the marketing and content mix. Eric has more than 20 years experience, having served as the Marketing Partner at North Bridge Growth Equity and Venture Partners and as Group Head of the New York Technology Practice at Edelman leading enterprise technology accounts including AMD, Citrix Systems, EMC and Motorola Solutions.

VP, Web Strategy,
WP Engine

David Vogelpohl

Bio

David is the VP of Web Strategy at WP Engine and has been working in service of WP Engine since 2010 as an agency vendor and then as part of the leadership starting in 2015. David leads WP ecosystem strategy, serves as brand lead for the Genesis & StudioPress product suites, and embarks on various special missions to support WordPress and the open source community.
David is a digital veteran with over 20 years experience building and promoting digital products and over a decade of experience supporting the WordPress community.
You can follow David on Twitter @wpdavidv and read more about WP Engine here https//wpengine.com

Product Marketing Manager,
WP Engine

Sarah Wells

Bio

Sarah has almost 10 years of experience in the tech startup industry—helping to define market strategy and bring innovating solutions to market. As a member of the WP Engine product marketing team, she is responsible for bringing new products to market that help their customers win online. Sarah is able to combine her passion for innovation, strategy, and technology to help bring the best solutions to our customers. Sarah also serves as a member for the Board of Trustees for Mount Holyoke College and the 2010 Mount Holyoke Class Board.

Sr. Director, Partnerships,
WP Engine

Ryan Ashby

Bio

A veteran sales, channel, and marketing leader specialized in addressing the growth challenges of B2B technology organizations, Ryan has developed passion and expertise within the marketing technology landscape—and the agencies and system integrators that bring these technologies to market. As Sr. Director of Partnerships and Global Agency Practice Lead, Ryan oversees all aspects of the agency customer and partner lifecycle, ensuring successful outcomes for the 2500 WP Engine Agency Partners.

Previously, Ryan served as Director of Partnerships for commerce tech leader BigCommerce, orchestrating a turnaround that resulted in 90% revenue growth. Ryan also gained a decade of experience with Rackspace during a period of hyper growth leading to a successful IPO in 2008. Most notably, Ryan served as Head of Sales and Business Development for Rackspace Digital, and was a key stakeholder in building the 140MM practice.

Associate Director of Revenue, 10up

Katie Wilkerson

Bio

Entering the world of advertising upon her move to Washington, D.C. many years ago, Katie has spent the past decade working with publishers on both the buy and sell side. Just prior to joining 10up in 2014, Katie was the Consumer Marketing Manager at The Atlantic, where she worked to widen the appeal of this already global brand into the digital space through acquisition, retention and strategic partnerships. Only one year in and countless campaigns later, business had grown 20% year-over-year every single month.

Since being at 10up, Katie has developed countless monetization and analytics strategies helping our clients not only see ROI from their newly built sites, but also ensuring continuous growth past our engagements. She believes every site, no matter how big or small, has an opportunity to see profit growth and increased competitiveness in its market. With almost a dozen plugins under her belt built specifically for publishers, she's constantly on the hunt for ways to make publisher's lives easier and more profitable.

Product Manager,
WP Engine

Peter Mocko

Bio

I'm an experienced technologist with a demonstrated history of working in the internet industry. I'm skilled in start-ups, building products that solve real problems, managing teams, and managing projects that continually change. I have a technology background as a developer in the early stage of my career. I graduated from the University of Science and Technology in Krakow, Poland, and the University of California, Berkeley.Apart from work, I like spending my time with my family, cycling, reading crime books, and repairing anything that needs fixing.

Technical Architect,
WP Engine

Matt Landers

Bio

At age 19, Matt was hired by Microsoft where he spent 10 years as a Software Architect. With his expertise in mobile development, Matt left Microsoft and co-founded a company with 2 of his Microsoft colleagues where they developed a single page application framework for web and mobile applications. Now, Matt is using his expertise in front-end JavaScript technologies as a Technical Architect at WP Engine focused on headless WordPress.

Senior Product Manager,
WP Engine

Annan Patel

Bio

Annan leads WP Engine's product group focused on software and tools that help WordPress developers manage and optimize their sites. Prior to WP Engine, he spent time at Microsoft on the Bing Ads platform and various startups around Austin, TX working on both consumer and SaaS products. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with his wife checking out all of Austin's new restaurants, traveling, and being way too invested in Atlanta Braves baseball.

Principal Product Manager of eCommerce, WP Engine

Stephan Millies

Bio

Stephan Millies, Principal Product Manager Ecommerce, is an internationally seasoned expert for digital shopping experiences, from branding to “returns management”. His life in the “conversion funnel” started at review platform Bazaarvoice, continued at cart provider Volusion and fulfillment aggregator ShipStation.
With 10+ years of Ecommerce expertise and undivided empathy for merchants and shoppers, Stephan joined WP Engine in 2020 to create distinguished offers in this rapidly accelerating segment. Prior to his move to the U.S., Stephan managed various entertainment products in Germany for leading TV stations and Deutsche Telekom.

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