  Bonnie Hammer
President, NBCU Cable Entertainment and Universal Cable Productions
NBC Universal |
In March 2008, Bonnie Hammer added executive responsibility for Universal Cable Productions and NBC Universal’s Emerging Networks to her existing duties as president, USA Network and Syfy. In addition to overseeing USA and Syfy, her responsibilities include oversight of original scripted content for the company’s cable group and external cable channels, as well as leadership of the Emerging Networks group, which includes Chiller, Sleuth, and Universal HD. An industry leader in network programming and branding, she received responsibility for USA Network in May 2004, and has served as president of Syfy since April 2001. At USA, she oversees operations across all platforms for cable television's leader in original series and movies, entertainment events, off-net television shows, and blockbuster theatrical films. At Syfy, she is responsible for all facets of the network's growing divisions, including programming, marketing, magazine publishing, and the award-winning SCIFI.COM Web site. Under her leadership, USA Network has achieved the number one position in all of basic cable, with a stable of top-rated, Emmy and Golden Globe honored programs such as Monk, Psych, Burn Notice, In Plain Sight, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Royal Pains, and White Collar. |
 Steve Hasker
President, Media Product Leadership and Advertiser Solutions
The Nielsen Company |
Steve Hasker is responsible for Nielsen’s online, mobile, IAG, and advertising solutions businesses, as well as the development of Nielsen’s three screen audience measurement including mobile, online, and TV. Hasker joined Nielsen from McKinsey & Company, where he served as a partner in McKinsey’s global media, entertainment, and information practice. In this role, he was responsible for serving clients in a variety of media and mobile telecom sectors particularly on issues of strategy, growth, and innovation for leading companies in television, syndicated information, filmed entertainment, sports, and online advertising. Prior, Hasker spent five years in several financial roles in the US, Russia, and Australia. Hasker lectures regularly at Columbia University and his research into the influence of social networks on consumer behavior in media has been published in the Harvard Business Review. His writings on digital and online business models and marketing have been featured in the McKinsey Quarterly. Also, Hasker is vice chairman of the International Radio and Television Society, a board member of Junior Achievement New York, and member of the Australian Institute of Chartered Accountants. |
 Dave Howe
President
Syfy |
Dave Howe was named president, Syfy in January 2008. He oversees original development, programming, marketing, global brand strategy, and market development, strategic planning, Syfy Digital, Syfy Ventures, media relations, and Syfy's public affairs initiative, Visions for Tomorrow. In July 2009, Howe launched a new global brand identity by evolving SCI FI channel to Syfy. He is charged with expanding and diversifying its business portfolio beyond broadcast and digital media into new affinity areas such as video gaming, mobile, licensing, merchandising and the youth market. Appointed the channel's general manager and executive vice president in July 2004, Howe had served as executive vice president, marketing and brand strategy since joining the company in September 2001. Since becoming general manager, Howe has overseen the launch of some of Syfy's most successful and ground-breaking programming, including Tin Man—which was ad-supported and cable's top entertainment telecast among adults twenty-five to fifty-four for more than two years in addition to being the most-watched telecast in the channel’s history—and the critically acclaimed, Peabody Award-winning series Battlestar Galactica. |
 Karen Hughes
Worldwide Vice Chairman
Burson-Marsteller |
Karen Hughes provides clients with senior level communications strategy and counsel. Hughes served as under secretary of state for public diplomacy from August 2005 to December 2007. During that time, she led the US State Department’s effort to communicate America’s values abroad. As under secretary, Hughes led several thousand public diplomacy professionals working in almost every country in the world, and oversaw three State Department bureaus: Educational and Cultural Affairs, Public Affairs, and International Information Programs. Hughes has traveled to more than fifty nations in the past few years as part of her government service and personal humanitarian activities. Hughes also served as counselor to President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2002. In that role she served as a strategic advisor to the president on policy and communications and managed the White House Offices of Communications, Media Affairs, Speechwriting, and Press Secretary. |
 Jeff Jarvis
Associate Professor Director; Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism
CUNY |
Jeff Jarvis is a national leader in the development of online news, blogging, and other forms of collaborative journalism, and he writes an influential blog, Buzzmachine.com. He is author of the book, What Would Google Do?, which was released in January 2009 by an imprint of HarperCollins. He is new-media columnist for the Guardian in London, where he is also a consultant. He has also consulted for companies including Sky.com, Burda, Advance Publications, and The New York Times Company at About.com. Prior to coming to CUNY, Jarvis was president of Advance.net, the online arm of Advance Publications, which includes Condé Nast magazines and newspapers across America. He was the creator and founding managing editor of Entertainment Weekly magazine and has worked as a columnist, publisher, editor, and developer for a number of publications, including TV Guide, People, and the New York Daily News. His freelance articles have appeared in newspapers and magazines across the county, including the New York Times, the New York Post, The Nation, Rolling Stone, and Business Week. Jarvis holds a BSJ from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. |
 David Kirkpatrick
Author, The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That is Connecting the World |
David Kirkpatrick writes about tech and business for The Daily Beast and speaks widely on the significance of social media and technology change. His definitive history and explanation of Facebook, The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That is Connecting the World, was published in 2010 by Simon & Schuster in North America and Australia, and by Virgin Books in the UK and British Commonwealth. In early 2011 it will be published in Spanish, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, and other languages. Kirkpatrick is regularly ranked one of the world’s top technology journalists. His profile of Facebook founding president Sean Parker in the October 2010 Vanity Fair was one of that magazine's most-read articles ever. He was for many years senior editor for Internet and technology at Fortune, where he wrote cover stories and features about tech companies and trends, as well as a weekly "Fast Forward" column. He created and led Fortune's Brainstorm brand, beginning with a 2001 conference in Aspen that ran for five years. Since 2006 Kirkpatrick has been on the World Economic Forum’s International Media Council, consisting of 100 global media leaders. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. |
 Akshay Kothari
Cofounder and Chief Executive Officer
Alphonso Labs Pulse News |
Akshay Kothari is the cofounder and chief executive officer of Pulse News. Frustrated by his own experience of reading news on mobile devices, he and his cofounder developed the first version of Pulse in a Stanford University course, in six weeks. Today, Pulse News is among the top-selling applications on iPad, iPhone, and Android. It transforms your favorite news sources into a colorful and interactive mosaic. You can learn more about the company at www.alphonsolabs.com. |
 Edward Kozel
Chief Technology and Innovation Officer
Deutsche Telekom AG |
Edward R. Kozel has spent most of his career in the telecommunications industry in leading positions. He was a member of the management board of Cisco, served on the supervisory boards of Yahoo! and Reuters, and chaired the Supervisory Board of Telepo. He has also worked for other leading firms in the field of technology, including Red Hat, Network Appliance, Symbol Technology, and TIBCO Software. Kozel started his career as Research Engineer with SRI International working on the Arpanet and Internet projects, including distributed system and communication architectures. From 1989 to 2001 he held leading positions at Cisco, five years of which he served as CTO (Chief Technology Officer). At Cisco he was responsible for more than twenty-two technology acquisitions and twenty-five minority investments. After his twelve years at Cisco, Kozel founded a private investment and consulting company, Open Range LLC, and worked with a variety of private and public technology companies as an investor or board member. On May 3, 2010, Kozel was appointed as CTIO (Chief Technology and Innovation Officer) of Deutsche Telekom. |
 Betty Liu
Anchor, In the Loop with Betty Liu
Bloomberg Television |
Betty Liu is the anchor of Bloomberg Television’s In the Loop with Betty Liu (8-10 AM ET), a daily business morning news program that covers the opening of US markets and financial, economic, and political news from around the world. In the Loop with Betty Liu prepares viewers for the trading day with actionable interviews and insight from top business leaders and trusted coverage of market-moving data and analysis for investors. Liu brings an award-winning wealth of experience in print, radio, and television to her role. Before joining Bloomberg Television in 2007, she was an anchor and correspondent for CNBC Asia in Hong Kong and before that, Liu served as the Atlanta bureau chief for the Financial Times where her coverage of the largest Fortune 500 companies based in the South earned her a spot on TJFR's "Top 30 business journalists under 30 list" three years in a row. The Financial Times also nominated her for a Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for her series of articles on immigrant labor in the South. In 1997, she received a Dow Jones Newswires Award for her coverage of the Asian financial crisis. Liu published her first book, a financial lifestyle guide titled Age Smart: Discovering the Fountain of Youth at Midlife and Beyond, in 2006. |
 Lowell McAdam
President and Chief Operating Officer
Verizon |
Lowell McAdam is president and chief operating officer of Verizon Communications, with responsibility for the operations of the company’s network-based businesses—Verizon Wireless and Verizon Telecom and Business—as well as Verizon Services Operations. He is also responsible for the technology management and CIO functions. In addition, McAdam is chairman of the Verizon Wireless board of representatives. Before becoming president and COO in October 2010, McAdam held key executive positions at Verizon Wireless since its inception in 2000 and helped build the company into the industry’s leading wireless provider, with the nation's largest, most reliable wireless voice and 3G broadband data network. He was president and CEO of Verizon Wireless from 2006 until being named to his current position, and before that served as the company’s executive vice president and chief operating officer. Earlier, McAdam was president and CEO of PrimeCo Personal Communications, a joint venture owned by Bell Atlantic and Vodafone AirTouch. He also served as PrimeCo's chief operating officer, responsible for overseeing the build, deployment and successful launch of the new company's customer service operations and all-digital network. |
 Stephanie N. Mehta
Executive Editor
Fortune |
Stephanie Mehta is executive editor of Fortune, overseeing technology, international, and Washington coverage for Fortune. She also helps set the overall editorial direction for the magazine. She serves as cochair of Fortune Brainstorm TECH, an annual technology conference and advises on the magazine’s Most Powerful Women summit, an annual gathering of powerful women in business, politics, and culture. Previously, Mehta served as assistant managing editor and global editor. Before moving into editor roles, Mehta was one of the magazine’s most prolific writers. Her cover stories included a profile of telecommunications magnate Carlos Slim and an inside look at Providence Equity Partners, the successful buyout firm. Mehta joined Fortune in 2000 from the Wall Street Journal, where she was an assistant news editor, reporting and editing technology stories. She wrote extensively about telecommunications at the Journal. Prior to joining the Journal, she worked as a business reporter for the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, VA. She received a master's degree in journalism and a bachelor's degree in English at Northwestern University. |
 Matt Mireles
Chief Executive Officer
SpeakerText.com |
Matt Mireles is the founder and chief executive officer of SpeakerText.com. SpeakerText is an interactive transcript and metadata creation service for online video publishers. Its player plugin lets users read, search, and navigate through a video just like a text document. It markets to content owners as a powerful tool for video search engine optimization (SEO). Behind the scenes, SpeakerText has invented a machine-augmented crowd sourcing system that powers its video-to-text service. The guts of the system is a proprietary closed-loop quality control algorithm that lets SpeakerText offer consistent high-quality without any direct oversight or supervision. |
 Shelly Palmer
Host, Live Digital
Managing Member, Advanced Media Ventures Group |
Shelly Palmer is the host of NBC Universal’s, Live Digital with Shelly Palmer, a weekly half-hour television show about living and working in a digital world. He is Fox 5’s (WNYW-TV New York) tech expert and the host of United Stations Radio Network’s, MediaBytes, a daily syndicated radio report that features insightful commentary and a unique insiders take on the biggest stories in technology, media, and entertainment. He is managing director of Advanced Media Ventures Group, LLC, an industry-leading advisory and business development firm and the president of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY (the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy® Awards). He invented the underlying technology for Enhanced Television (Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Monday Night Football). He is a weekly columnist for the Jack Myers Media Business Report, The Huffington Post and a technology commentator for CNN and CNNi. Palmer is the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV 2nd Edition (York House Press, 2008) the seminal book about the technological, economic, and sociological forces that are changing everything; and the upcoming, Overcoming The Digital Divide: How to use Social Media and Digital Tools to Reinvent Yourself and Your Career (2010, Lake House Press). |
 Sean Parker
Cofounder, Napster, Plaxo, Facebook, and Facebook Causes,
Managing Partner, Founders Fund |
Sean Parker cofounded four category-defining Internet companies by the age of twenty-eight – Napster, Plaxo, Facebook, and the Causes application on Facebook – transforming the way people across the world interact and share information. He is currently the chairman of Causes and a managing partner at Founder’s Fund. Together with Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, Parker cofounded Facebook in June 2004. Parker served as the company’s first president, securing financing, assembling a world-class management team, and spearheading the design of the site’s transformational “news feed,” ”share,” and “photos” features. Parker recently established his fourth company, “Causes on Facebook,” where in the role of chairman, he oversees the company’s mission to harness the power of emerging communication platforms to enable large-scale political and social change. Under Parker’s leadership, the Causes application has become the fastest growing consumer Internet application in history, reaching fifty million users in just two years. Parker’s entrepreneurial career began at the age of nineteen, when he helped launch the revolutionary peer-to-peer file-sharing movement as cofounder of Napster. |
 Becky Quick
Coanchor; Squawk Box
CNBC |
Becky Quick is coanchor of Squawk Box, CNBC's signature morning program. Quick is based at CNBC’s global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Previously, Quick, a seven-year veteran of The Wall Street Journal, covered the Wall Street beat for CNBC as part of the network’s partnership with Dow Jones. Prior to joining CNBC in February 2001, Quick spent three years working the retail and e-commerce beat at The Wall Street Journal. Before that, she covered various Internet issues ranging from online privacy to domain-name disputes. She also played a crucial role in the launch of The Wall Street Journal Online in April 1996. She also served as the site’s international news editor, overseeing foreign affairs coverage. Prior to that, she worked at The Wall Street Journal’s overseas copy desk where she served as a copy editor, copyreader, and a research assistant. Quick received a bachelor of arts degree in political science from Rutgers University in 1993. As an undergraduate, she was awarded the Times Mirror Fellowship from the Journalism Resources Institute at Rutgers. She also served as editor in chief of The Daily Targum, the school’s newspaper. |
 Richard Sandomir
Columnist
The New York Times |
Richard Sandomir has covered sports media and sports business at the New York Times since 1991. He is the co-creator of "The Final Four of Everything" (Simon & Schuster), which should have sold a lot better, and "Bald Like Me" (Collier) a memoir about his lost hair which includes the story of how he met his wife while he was wearing a toupee at Disney World. He is still married to Griffin Miller and they have two cats. |
 Darian Shirazi
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Fwix |
Darian Shirazi is the founder and chief executive officer of Fwix, the local information company. Founded in October 2008, Fwix’s content network reaches an audience of thirty-five million unique visitors across more than 150 markets in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and receives 150 million impressions monthly. Prior to Fwix, Shirazi joined Facebook in 2005 as an intern on the engineering team. At Facebook, Shirazi worked on a myriad of projects. In 2003, he also worked as an intern for eBay on the third version of “Sell Your Item” and the launch of “Recently Viewed Item”. Shirazi is also one of the creators of Mall World on Facebook and advises several early-stage startups. Shirazi studied philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley before dropping out to start Fwix.  David J. Stern
Commissioner
National Basketball Association (NBA) David Stern has been the commissioner of the National Basketball Association (NBA) since February 1, 1984. Since then, the NBA has added seven franchises; enjoyed a twenty-fold increase in revenues; expanded its national television exposure dramatically; and launched the Women’s National Basketball Association and the NBA Development League. Interest generated by the league’s growing international initiatives has led to the televising of NBA games in 215 countries in more than forty languages. |
 Annie Wegelius
Director of Programs
Sveriges Television (SVT) |
Joining SVT in May 2007, Annie Wegelius has been one of the entrepreneurial drivers behind Sweden’s TV and media industry for the past twenty-five years. She was one of the founding team of Scandinavia’s first commercial broadcaster TV3, acting as the channel’s first director of programs. She then founded and headed her own production company, Wegelius TV, which grew to become one of the leading independent production companies in the Nordic region. After selling the company to Svensk Filmindustri, she went on to create one of Europe’s first e-learning companies, K World, which operated the first privately owned digital terrestrial broadcast channel in Sweden. Wegelius also founded the Kristallen Awards and accompanying television industry conference, a sort of Swedish Emmys, and acted as its chairperson until her appointment at SVT. At SVT, Wegelius heads the programming board deciding which programs to commission and acquire, the planning of schedules, and all online content for five broadcast channels including Sweden’s leading online video site. Her role today is key to the modernization of Swedish Public Service television and she plays an integral part in creative development strategies and collaboration with the independent production industry. |
 Susan D. Whiting
Vice Chair, Executive Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer
The Nielsen Company |
Susan D. Whiting is vice chair, executive vice president, and chief diversity officer of The Nielsen Company. She was named chief diversity officer in October 2010 and appointed to vice chair in November 2008. Sharing the office of the chief executive officer with chairman and chief executive officer David Calhoun, Whiting focuses on client relations and Nielsen’s diversity initiatives. She joined Nielsen Media Research in 1978 as part of the company's management training program. She became president and chief operating officer in 2001, and within nine months assumed the roles of chief executive officer and president. Whiting serves as a member of The Nielsen Company's executive council, and was a recipient of the 2009 Women Who Make a Difference Award from the International Women's Forum. In 2007, she was recognized by The Wall Street Journal as one of their “Women to Watch,” and she was named that same year by Crain's New York Business as one of the 100 Most Influential Women in New York City. |
