Speakers
Engage With Industry Leaders at INSIGHT
Learn from and connect with some of the most experienced professionals in the events industry as they discuss everything from hybrid event planning to data optimization.
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Meet Our Featured Speakers
Check the session catalog for the complete speaker lineup.


JR Sherman
CEO
JR leads the elite team of high-performance innovators. Named one of the top 25 most influential execs, with 20+ years of crushing it in service and SaaS businesses, JR is highly regarded for his expertise in SaaS, events, marketing and now experiential marketing. After leading companies such as Right Source, Active Network BSG, and Lanyon, he now turns his eye to deliver on the vision other organizations have been chasing for years...but never could deliver.



Doug Baird
President
Doug is the president and heart of RainFocus, with 20-plus years of experience solving customer problems with technology. He went from programmer to founder and CEO at various small and large companies. His foresight and vision have shaped an industry, and he is heralded as a pioneer in the next wave of experiential marketing. Today, Doug’s original technology vision remains the foundation for most current enterprise events programs.



Nik Shroff
Senior Director, Global Technology Partners
Nik Shroff is senior director of global technology partners at Adobe. He is globally responsible for the strategy and execution of the joint selling and go-to-market efforts with Adobe’s most strategic cloud technology and ISV partners across Adobe’s enterprise business worldwide. Shroff is passionate about working closely with technology partners to drive holistic value realization for customers across their journey to becoming digital businesses. Shroff joined Adobe in 2014 as part of Corporate Development and earlier in his career held roles at Apple and Barclays Capital. Shroff is a graduate of the computer engineer program at the University of Waterloo and also holds an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Originally from Canada, Shroff has two kids and resides in the Bay Area with his wife.



Adam Parry
Co-Founder and Editor
Adam Parry is the co-founder and editor of the event industry's global online magazine, www.eventindustrynews.com (EIN). As an avid technology evangelist, Adam coupled his 10+ years' experience in the event industry with his passion for the latest tech trends to co-create Event Tech Live London and Event Tech Live Las Vegas the industry's two shows dedicated to event technology. On top of this, Adam is also the co-organiser of the Event Technology Awards and The Sustainable Event Awards EIN's vast readership comprises organisers, promoters, event management and production companies, suppliers, experiential agencies, the corporate sector, local government and organisations that host exhibitions and conferences.



Alicia Tillman
Board Member
Alicia is a highly passionate C-suite leader with over 20 years of experience in global marketing, strategy, operations, and digital transformation in public and private companies. Inspiring, approachable, authentic, creative and purpose-driven, Alicia engenders exceptional followership and trust with her team and stakeholder partnerships. Six years at SAP and 11 years at American Express, Alicia built and led high-performing teams and contributed to billions of dollars of growth and market capitalization. With a unique mix of high-level B2B and B2C marketing and operating executive expertise and board governance, she is an agile innovator leading brands through incredible periods of marketplace volatility and change, including a global pandemic. Alicia's work has earned her many awards including the 11th Most Influential CMO in the World from Forbes in late 2020.



Alison Cassettari
Senior Manager, Event Technology
Alison Cassettari is the senior manager of event technology for Rodan + Fields with over 10 years of event experience. She has worked at Rodan + Fields, for almost six years of those years. In her current role, she oversees a team working on all event technology for Rodan + Fields events including registration, virtual events, onsite technology, and onsite mobile applications. Before Rodan + Fields, she worked as an event registration and technology manager for a third-party events agency working with Fortune 500 companies in different sectors of events ranging from incentive and partner meetings to sales kickoffs to annual conferences.



Allison Crooker
Director, Experiential Marketing
As Director of Event Content, Allison manages the goal alignment, event content design and content operations for VMware’s annual global conferences. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School, Allison brings 20+ years in the conference content strategy and production arena to VMware. Allison is also the founder of the Event Content Council, an organization dedicated to exploring all things event content. In her spare time, Allison enjoys working out, spending time with loved ones, and experiencing God.



Ashleigh Cook
SVP, Marketing
Ashleigh is an accomplished marketing executive with deep experience in sales, marketing and product best practices and technology. She is currently SVP of Marketing at RainFocus and is driven by a passion for helping high-growth companies establish and scale marketing functions to deliver an exceptional customer experience that aligns with rapidly changing expectations and technology advancements. Prior to RainFocus, Ashleigh led marketing teams spanning GTM strategy, demand generation, ABM, client marketing, and operations at SiriusDecisions and Forrester. Ashleigh holds her BSBA in Marketing from the University of Richmond. In her spare time, Ashleigh can be found playing golf and spending time with family.



Beau Beckner
Principal Marketing Operations, Event Technology



Brian Gates
SVP, Industry Strategy
Brian Gates is the Senior Vice President of Market Strategy at RainFocus, the all-in-one event marketing platform that simplifies event success. As the leader of the go-to-market strategy, he created an award-winning account-based marketing program and is responsible for advancing the usage of data within event marketing. With over 20 years of marketing, product, and design leadership, Brian has gained expertise in elevating teams to do the seemingly impossible by aligning business outcomes to unimaginable client value.



Brian Wilson
Chief Customer Officer
As Chief Customer Officer, Brian is responsible for the client journey and lifecycle, which includes aligning all functions to focus on client adoption and satisfaction. Brian’s role includes responsibilities for client success (onboarding, support, services, adoption, advocacy, and retention) and outcomes (renewals, growth, and net promoter score). Brian brings over 20 years of profound leadership experience and has scaled teams to deliver notable customer programs in high-growth, global SaaS environments.



Christina Abou-Chalha
Senior Principal, Global Events Technology



Ken Pasternak
Author, Speaker, Consultant
Ken’s unique background combines experience in training, consulting, institution building and corporate banking in the USA and internationally, while working at Citibank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. During the past twenty-five years as a consultant, facilitator and keynote speaker he focuses on leadership, talent development, team effectiveness, improving communications skills and building cross-cultural understanding.


Naomi Clare
Founder & CEO
Naomi Clare Crellin is an Experience Strategist and Design-Thinker who is passionate about using empathy to power enterprise in the events we create. She is CEO and founder of Storycraft Lab, an Experiential Engagement agency with expertise in audience design and strategic development. She consults with organizations such as Google, NASA, Intel, Marriott and more, on projects from product launches to pop-ups, education to enablement, creative and content strategy. Naomi is a lifelong educator who loves teaching - she is adjunct faculty at NYU teaching engagement strategy for events - and is an artist whose work has been displayed as far afield as the Bauhaus Archiv in Berlin. She lives in Washington DC and her favorite escape is hiking in the Berkshires with her husband Peter and their kids Theo and Penny.



Rodney Hart
VP, Events
After spending the first 8 years of his career pre-pandemic optimizing the onsite tech stack for 15,000+ in-person enterprise events, Hart has spent two years pivoting into building large-scale digital and hybrid experiences. First, at Dell Technologies, Hart helped transition Dell Technologies World, Dell’s flagship user conference, to a fully-digital experience, resulting in over 200% growth in attendance. Just seven months later, Hart helped grow and execute the second fully-digital Dell Technologies World 2021 which saw 15% growth – Dell’s largest event to date. In December of 2021, Hart was hired as VP of Events at RainFocus where he has the ability to define the event portfolio while simultaneously showcasing the power of the RainFocus event platform. He is also focused on using event data to comprehensively measure event ROI across event types and specific event behaviors.



Sarah Mills
Senior Event Technology Manager
Sarah has 15 years of experience in Events with a focus on Event Technology. In 2021 Sarah joined the Twitch team to manage event technology for TwitchCon, a semiannual gathering for streamers and their community. When Sarah is not in front of a computer she enjoys running, cycling, boxing, watching basketball, planning her next tattoo, trying to keep her plants alive, cooking, and spending time with her family.



Stephanie Rogers
Marketing Director, Global Events
Stephanie has over 18 years of experience in the world of events including conference planning and execution, sponsorship sales, content management, and event logistics. For the past 9+ years, she’s been on the corporate events team at Deltek where she has managed the company’s global, sales and partner kickoffs, President’s Club and Deltek ProjectCon — Deltek’s annual user conference. Stephanie currently leads Deltek’s conference team and oversees the team’s use of RainFocus.



Travis Cushing
Chief Product Officer
Travis embodies the passion for people and experiences at RainFocus. His steady leadership has built bridges between customers and development allowing RainFocus to execute and develop incredible software. 15+ years in the events industry, Travis's compassion for others gives him great insights as he guides products and merges service and technology. A great strategist up for any puzzle, he equally likes to get his hands dirty.



Zach Bosin
VP, Product & Growth Marketing
