Jennifer Bergin

Vice President of Marketing
Brown Printing Company

Jennifer Bergin is Vice President of Marketing for Brown Printing Company and has twenty years of marketing experience in the printing and publishing industry. Jennifer manages Brown’s marketing communications, lead generation, market research and strategic partnerships. In addition Jennifer runs Brown Integrated Solutions business which brings true cross media publishing capabilities to market including mobile, social and digital solutions. Jennifer joined Brown in late 2010 after six years leading marketing and partnerships at Kodak’s Solutions for Business division of Eastman Kodak. Prior to Kodak, Jennifer was a marketing and public relations executive for Kodak Polychrome Graphics, Imation and 3M, leading market positioning, branding, and advertising and public relations efforts for the creative segment in the graphic arts industry. Jennifer is an active member of the industry having served as President of Partnership in Print Production (P3) in 2007 and on the IDEAlliance Board from 2003-2008. Currently Jennifer serves on New York University Media and Communications Board.

Michael & Teresa Capuzzo

Co-Publishers
Mountain Home

Michael Capuzzo is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Murder Room, a true detective story that was nominated for the National Book Award, and is under development as a CBS-TV weekly series. His previous bestseller, Close To Shore, was a People magazine "Top Ten Book of the Year" hailed as an "adventure classic" with "artistry reminiscent of Stephen Crane" by The New Yorker. He and his wife publish Mountain Home, a Pennsylvania-New York magazine that grew from 0 to 100,000 readers with dramatic revenue growth, winning numerous awards for excellence, and national accolades for pioneering a new story-first magazine journalism replicable in any market. A former staff writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Miami Herald, he is a six-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, has written for Esquire, Reader’s Digest, The Wall Street Journal, and was nominated by Sports Illustrated for a National Magazine Award. He has appeared often at colleges and on national media, including NPR, CNN, and ABC News, as an expert on storytelling.

Scott Coopwood

Publisher
Delta Magazine

Scott Coopwood graduated from Ole Miss with a B.A. in English. He started business journals in Jackson and Cleveland, the latter being the first of its kind in the Delta. He is the founder of Coopwood Communications, a full-service advertising, marketing, and public relations firm with offices in Cleveland and Ridgeland, Miss. In July 2003, Scott started Delta Magazine. Since then, Scott started Cypress Web Design, a web site design and hosting firm and The Cleveland Current, Cleveland’s Sunday morning newspaper.

Christine French Cully

Editor-in-Chief
Highlights for Children

Christine French Cully is the editor-in-chief of Highlights for Children, responsible for all children's product development, including the company's flagship publication, Highlights, which is the most recognizable and widely read children's magazine in the nation with more than one billion copies printed. Additionally, she oversees the publishing of Highlights High Five, for children 2-6, and Highlights Hello for babies and toddlers. She also directs the company's digital publishing program and its book publishing division. Her career in children's publishing spans more than 30 years, with almost 20 of them spent at Highlights.

Rebecca Darwin

President & CEO
Garden & Gun

Rebecca Darwin is President & CEO of the media company she formed with partners Pierre Manigualt and J. Edward Bell III that owns Garden & Gun. Darwin grew up in Columbia, SC, attended the University of North Carolina, and then moved to New York. Ms. Darwin launched Garden & Gun in Spring 2007, after moving back south to Charleston, South Carolina, following a successful career in publishing in NYC. In 2007, the magazine was named the #2 hottest launch of over 700 magazines that year and has just recently won a National Magazine Award in General Excellence by the American Society of Magazine Editors. Garden & Gun was also named to Advertising Age’s 2011 Magazine A-List (ranked #4 out of 10). The Garden & Gun brand has continued to develop under her direction through the creation of the Garden & Gun Club, the G&G Store, G&G Exclusives, and award-winning newsletters.

Jim Elliott

President
The James G. Elliott Co., Inc.

Jim Elliott has over 35 years experience in the advertising industry, including media management at major agencies, and both national research management and executive sales for a major publishing company. Today, the James G. Elliott Co., Inc. is a national media sales company with offices in the primary advertising centers.

Maarten Lens-FitzGerald

Co-Founder
Layar

Maarten Lens-FitzGerald is co-founder of Layar, the world’s leading mobile augmented reality (AR) & Interactive Print provider. With over 25 million downloads of the Layar app on iPhones and Androids, and thousands of publishers & brands creating AR experiences with the Layar creator, it’s one of the easiest ways to connect print with digital. Currently Maarten is managing the US office in New York.
Maarten started as an Internet professional in 1993. He helped national and international companies take their first steps online. Later he developed permission based strategies and campaign concepts focusing more on Web 2.0 and modern marketing.
He moved on to mobile in 2007 when he co-founded Mobile Monday Amsterdam and later SPRXmobile where Layar was born.
In 2008 Maarten was diagnosed with cancer and became known as patient 2.0. He shared all his experiences through twitter and his blog, maartenjourney.com. Maarten declared he was ex-patient 2.0 in the summer of 2009.
As a speaker and expert in Augmented Reality, Health 2.0 and online innovations, Maarten has had the opportunity to speak at Google Zeitgeist, Ted University, WPP Stream, TEDxMaastricht, the Augmented Reality Event, the Annual Meeting of the New Champions of the World Economic Forum, DLD, Intel CEO forum, Bankinter Foundation of Innovation and the Mobile World Congress.

David Fry

CTO
Fry Communications

David Fry, CTO of Fry Communications, was an Internet pioneer when he launched his e-commerce business Fry, Inc. in 1994. For the next fifteen years David grew the company into one of the largest e-commerce platforms in the nation, driving billions in online revenue annually for major retailers like Eddie Bauer, Ann Taylor, and Cabela’s. He saw first-hand how the Web, mobile, and social revolutions have changed the way we consume all things. After selling the business in 2008, David is now helping publishers manage the threats and opportunities posed by today’s new media environment. He leads the Fry Family Network, an integrated group of associated companies providing non-print services to publishers and catalogers. He has bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and physics and a master’s degree in mathematics from Johns Hopkins University, and a PhD in computer science from Harvard University.

Ali Ghanbarian

Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
SOMA Magazine

Since abandoning a promising career as a Bechtel engineer in favor of a passion for the arts and progressive culture, Ali Ghanbarian has achieved prominence for his visionary impact on the urban landscape of San Francisco, and for his ability to identify exceptional talent and bring it to the spotlight. As a mentor, Ghanbarian has nurtured and developed a generation of high profile artists, writers, designers and chefs who are now in the vanguard of their professions. As a visionary, he has been instrumental in the transformation of San Francisco into a magnet for creative talent, who are driving societal change through the convergence of the arts and technology.
In 1986 he founded highly acclaimed SOMA magazine, the international magazine of culture, fashion and the arts, which has served as a launch pad for a generation of design, editorial and artistic talent he has mentored, and are now making their mark in major media brands across the country. SOMA, which has its finger on the pulse of all things young, vibrant and creative, is widely heralded for its innovations in design and highly original content, winning Best of Category in a recent Printing Industries Association award.
In the same pattern by which he revitalized the Soma district, by 1991 he had taken on the gritty Hayes Valley with his restaurant Backstage, which later became Indigo, and a noted gathering spot for some of the most noted chefs in the country. In the same period he launched the first real internet café, the now legendary Icon Byte Bar and Grill. Hayes Valley is now one of the trendiest areas in the City.

Michael Gross

Owner & President
Paragon Media Inc.

Mike Gross is the President of Paragon Media Inc., an advertising industry leader in media training. His work is characterized by award-winning creativity, an involvement with online media going back to 1986, and a career-long participation in media education.
During his ad agency tenure, Mike developed and managed training programs for JWT and NW Ayer and their clients. For the 4A’s, Mike created a media seminar designed to improve the performance of small agency media departments. As a consultant, he authored the course for Adweek’s Media School and produced an interactive media module for marketing software developed by Management Science Associates.
Active in industry affairs, Mike was a member of two 4A’s media committees as well as the 4A’s media seminar faculty. Mike is a two-time winner of Adweek’s “Creative Media Award,” a winner of Inside Print’s “Perfect Print Plan” competition and winner of a JWT “White Pea Award” for creativity in media. Mike has appeared as a columnist in a number of industry publications and has been interviewed by and quoted in numerous media outlets.

John Harrington

Partner
Harrington Associates
Publisher/Editor
The New Single Copy

John Harrington is a partner in Harrington Associates, LLC, which publishes The New Single Copy newsletter and the annual Magazine Retail Sales Experience series of studies, provides services to the periodical distribution industry, and works with individual wholesalers, publishers, and national distributors. He and his work have often been quoted and cited in publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, Advertising Age and MediaWeek, as well as numerous retail trade publications.

Sid Holt

Executive Director
American Society of Magazine Editors

Sid Holt’s magazine career began in 1984, when he joined Rolling Stone as an assistant editor. In 1990, Holt was named managing editor, the chief editorial position at Rolling Stone. During Holt’s seven years as managing editor, Rolling Stone received four National Magazine Award nominations for General Excellence and won the award for the first time in history in 1998. From 1995, Holt was also editorial director of Us Magazine; in 1996 he was named vice president of Wenner Media.
From 1998 to 2004, Holt was editor in chief and executive vice president of Adweek Magazines, guiding the editorial direction of Adweek, Brandweek and Mediaweek, the leading newsmagazines and websites on advertising, marketing and media, and oversaw the publication of the Adweek Hot List. Holt was also the chief editor of Editor & Publisher, the “bible” of the newspaper industry, and oversaw the launch of Marketing y Medios, the first monthly magazine covering Hispanic advertising, marketing and media.
In 2008, Holt was appointed chief executive of the American Society of Magazine Editors, the principal organization for magazine journalists in the United States. ASME sponsors the National Magazine Awards in association with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Lisette Heemskerk

Publishing Director
Linda. magazine
Mood for Magazines, The Netherlands

Lisette Heemskerk is the Managing Director of Mood for Magazines, part of Sanoma Media Netherlands. She has been with the company for the last four years, after spending over twenty years in publishing and media strategy, most of it as Publishing Director and Managing Director. She studied communication and began her career at the advertising agency FHV/BBDO, where she focused on media strategy. After six years she moved to VNU Business Publications, where she was marketing manager for the labor market cluster. Lisette then joined VNU Magazines (now Sanoma Media), where she worked as publisher of youngwomen’s magazines, then women’s special interest magazines, the big women’s weeklies and later home interior magazines.

Carla Kalogeridis

Editorial Director
Association Media & Publishing

Carla Kalogeridis is editorial director of Association Media & Publishing, a nonprofit member organization that serves the needs of association publishers and communications professionals. She is also president of ARION Media Services, which provides custom publishing services to the Automotive Industry Action Group, Michigan Society of Association Executives, the Association of YMCA Professionals, Michigan Bankers Association, and Associated Food & Petroleum Dealers, among others. Under her leadership, Carla’s clients have received EXCEL Awards, American Design Awards, the MSAE Diamond Award and APEX Awards. She started her career in 1987 with McGraw-Hill, Inc. in Atlanta as a copy editor, and five years later, launched ARION Media Services and moved to Michigan. Carla has spoken on various publishing and media topics at Digital Now - ASAE’s Marketing, Membership, and Communication Conference, MSAE’s ORGPRO, AIAG Corporate Social Responsibility Conference, and the Association Forum of Chicagoland’s Holiday Showcase. Carla’s passions include children and horses.

Kevin P. Keefe

Vice President-Editorial, Publisher
Kalmbach Publishing Co.

Kevin P. Keefe is Vice President-Editorial at Kalmbach Publishing Co. in Waukesha, Wis., a suburb of Milwaukee. In addition to overseeing the staffs of 15 magazines and their approximately 75 editors, he serves as publisher of two of Kalmbach’s titles: Astronomy and Discover. He was a key member of the acquisition team that brought Discover to the company in September 2010.
Keefe is a graduate of Michigan State University’s School of Journalism and worked as a reporter and editor at a variety of daily newspapers in Michigan and Wisconsin, ultimately becoming entertainment editor at The Milwaukee Sentinel in 1982. A lifelong railroad enthusiast, he joined Kalmbach in 1987 as an associate editor on Trains magazine, which covers the railroad industry. He became editor of Trains in 1992 and served in that job for eight years before becoming a publisher. He was named to his current corporate post in 2005.

Jim Niemiec

Sr. Manager of Product Development
NewPage Corporation

Jim Niemiec is responsible for Fine Papers, Digital Printing and Intellectual Property, based at NewPage Research and Development in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. He is Project Leader for his company’s production inkjet initiative and has recently launched the TrueJet™ Digital Coated Papers product line which received a coveted PIA InterTech Award for its contribution to the advancement of the printing industry. He and his team also developed several coated paper grade lines for the production color laser market. Jim is also active in the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry (TAPPI), where he is currently Coating and Graphic Arts Division Chair. At TAPPI conferences, he has organized numerous technical panels on laser and inkjet printing, as well as the future of print technology. After graduating from RIT, Jim’s career began as printing ink chemist at Inmont Corporation and continued in the paper industry serving in R&D, Product Development and Business Development roles at Abitibi-Price, Fraser Papers, Consolidated Papers, Stora Enso and currently NewPage. Jim also received a business degree from York University (Toronto) and an MBA from Lakeland College and holds several patents involving printing technology including inkjet papers. He is also a member of TAGA and PDMA.

Mike Obert

Managing Partner
Open Look Business Solutions

Open Look Business Solutions is a global full-service provider that partners with companies that want to improve and maximize their revenue through supplemental sales and customer service staff. We research, recruit, and provide top-level inside sales staff to our client partners.
From 2007, Mike was Senior VP of Sales for Beckett Media, managing over 120 sales reps globally. His group was responsible for over $11 million annually from advertising sales and niche distribution (dealer) sales. Beckett Media publishes over 30 magazines totaling over 22 million printed copies. Mike was also responsible for Beckett launching a call center in the Philippines that has over 100 people and has been instrumental in increasing revenues.
In his 10-plus years with Beckett Media, Mike has also worked as Associate Publisher and Advertising Sales Manager.

Jamie Pallot

Executive Director,
Multimedia Projects
Vanity Fair

As Executive Director, Multimedia Projects at Vanity Fair, Jamie Pallot oversees all the digital extensions of the magazine, including vf.com; the monthly tablet app; and several other mobile and broadband projects currently in development.
Prior to joining Vanity Fair, Pallot was Editorial Director of Conde Nast Digital, where he was responsible for the content and user experience of the company’s Web brands, including fashion bible Style.com, pioneering food site Epicurious.com, and upscale travel site Concierge.com. In 2005, Pallot received the ASME award for General Excellence Online for Style.com.
Before Conde Nast, Pallot worked at Time Inc. Interactive, where he oversaw a redesign of People.com; and at New York Sidewalk, the online city guide published by Microsoft, where he spent three years as Editor in Chief. Pallot has also served as Editorial Director of Canadian magazine, Web, and TV company Shift Multimedia; Editorial Director of New Media for NewsCorp.; and as Editor of Britain’s Virgin Movie Guide.

John Parke

CEO
Democrat Printing & Lithographing Co.

John Parke is Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Democrat Printing and Lithographing Company, a publication and catalog printer servicing customers nationwide and represents the fourth generation of his family’s ownership in the company. A native of Little Rock, Parke is a graduate of Catholic High School and Vanderbilt University. In community affairs, John Parke has served Junior Achievement of Arkansas for several years by being a classroom consultant as well as serving on their Board of Directors. Parke served a two-year stint as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Discovery. His most significant accomplishment while leading the Museum was in spearheading the Museum’s merger with the Children’s Museum of Arkansas.

William Pollak

CEO/Board Member/Consultant
Media/Information Services Industries

Bill Pollak is a nationally recognized leader in the media and information industry with a record of guiding transformation and creating value in publicly owned, private equity and non-profit businesses. As CEO of ALM Media, Bill built significant enterprise value for the company’s private equity investors, while transforming a traditional legal publishing business into a powerhouse provider of research information and workflow tools. Through his work in the association and non-profit sectors, Bill has proven his ability to develop and implement turnaround and growth strategies in a wide variety of organizations.
Bill worked for 16 years at The New York Times in multiple advertising and marketing positions and led The Times’ Circulation Department for ten years, overseeing the newspaper’s expansion into a truly national product, and transforming a $150 million distribution focused department into an innovative $300 million marketing-driven organization. For two of those years he also led the Advertising Department, achieving over $700 million in revenues while leading a broad re-organization.
Bill serves on the boards of MultiView, Inc., publisher of digital advertising directories for associations, and iCopyright, a provider of content monetization services to publishers and bloggers. He was Media Week’s “Innovator of the Year” in 2006.

Jeramy Pritchett

Co-Founder
Blindfold Magazine

Jeramy Pritchett started taking pictures in the 2nd grade and was hooked. He loved the emotion that he could capture and the stories that each picture told. However, as he grew up he was tricked into thinking money was the key to happiness and having more and more was the right way to live. A few years ago he woke up and realized he had been very, very wrong. Now he is back to living his dream shooting photos, writing and running the first socially conscious photojournalism magazine in the world, Blindfold. A magazine he co-founded only a year ago that is now in every Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million, and Chapters Bookstores in North America, and is now featured in Whole Foods.

Roy Reiman

Founder, Reiman Publications

Roy Reiman graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in Agricultural Journalism, went into military service, then worked at a national magazine in Topeka, Kansas where he became the Managing Editor at age 23. He decided to move to Milwaukee and work for a publishing firm. There, he then left to launch his own publishing company, Reiman Publications and started 14 national magazines. What made these 14 magazines unique is that none of them contained any advertising; all of them were supported solely by subscriptions. Roy sold the company in 2004.

Bob Sacks

President
BoSacks.com and Precision Media Group

A veteran of the printing/publishing industry since 1970, Bob Sacks was always an innovator. Even back in the 70s he followed a more creative path than usual. He started his career where some people end -- with the founding of his own weekly newspaper in the metro New York area. After several years in the alternative press, publishing newspapers in New York and Tucson, Az., he went on to become one of the founding fathers of High Times Magazine. Since then, Bob has held positions that include Publisher, Editor, Freelance Writer, Director of Manufacturing and Distribution, Senior Sales Manager, Circulator, Chief of Operations, Pressman, Cameraman, Lecturer, and Developer of web site companies. Bob’s resume lists directorships at such prestigious companies as McCall’s, Time Inc, New York Times Magazine Group, International Paper, Ziff-Davis, CMP, and Bill Communications (VNU).

Tony Silber

General Manager
Red 7 Media

Tony Silber was part of the acquisition team at Red 7 Media that purchased FOLIO:, CM, and their related products in August 2004. Before the acquisition, Silber in 2003 launched M10, the executive-level magazine and information service for the magazine industry. Prior to M10, Silber was publisher of FOLIO: and Circulation Management when it was owned by Primedia. Silber was also editor of FOLIO: from 1998-2000. Silber has a bachelor’s degree in history from the State University of New York at Albany.

Michael Simon

Executive Vice President
Publishers Printing Company
Publishers Press

Michael Simon is Executive Vice President and co-owner of the fifth-generation, family-owned printing company, Publishers Press, one of the largest publication printers in North America. Here, he manages the front-end operations including estimating, production planning, customer service, prepress services, and sales. Michael graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology with a Bachelor’s Degree in Printing Management in 1983. Seen as a visionary by many in the industry, Michael holds patents in prepress technology, and led Publishers Press to become the first printer in the industry to transition from film to a complete computer-to-plate process. He also played a crucial role in helping the company grow from $85 million to $235 million in sales since he became Executive Vice President. Michael was inducted into the Printing Impressions/RIT Printing Industry Hall of Fame in 2002.

Sanne Visser

Publisher
Sanoma Media Netherlands

After her studies at the University of Nijenrode, Sanne Visser worked several years in marketing for various companies. She came to fortify Sanoma Media in 2000, and for the last four years has been the boosting publisher of Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Grazia, Beau Monde, Nouveau and By Danie. This year she also launched the one and only 40+ glossy magazines, Fab. Besides all this she is married, the mother of two little girls and a dedicated follower of fashion.

Dick Waterman

Legendary Photographer & Journalist

Agent, manager, producer, promoter, Dick Waterman is the only person inducted in The Blues Hall of Fame who was not either a performing artist or a record company executive. He established himself in the Blues community as a diligent advocate for the artists and the art of Blues. Waterman is primarily known today as an archivist and photographer of Blues, Country, Rock and Jazz legends from Mississippi John Hurt to Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton. His commitment to documenting the Blues artists he worked with and came into contact with throughout the years is legendary.