Speakers From Previous Editions

Iris Diaz, an award-winning marketing visionary, is the Director of Marketing and Brand for FIFA World Cup 2026, overseeing efforts in USA, Mexico, and Canada. She was previously the first Latina Chief Marketing Officer for the Dallas Maverick and the NBA.Diaz is dedicated to reshaping a diverse sports marketing lense, championing inclusivity, and creating pathways for more women of color in sports. She recently received the highest prestigious OHTLI award from the Mexican Government for her contributions to opening paths for others.

Andy Stalman, one of the world's leading brand experts, CEO of TOTEM Branding, acclaimed speaker and author of three bestsellers.Andy Stalman is a branding authority, a futurist, a world reference in his field. With more than 30 years of experience, he has developed projects on five continents. His work and influence in the world of branding has led Andy to be recognized as one of the world's leading branding experts, and globally referred to as “Mr. Branding”. He is currently co-founder and CEO of TOTEM Branding, recognized as one of the most reputable branding companies in the world.As a famed speaker, he has shared the stage with leaders such as Barack Obama. He is a professor at prestigious business schools.Author of 3 best sellers: “BrandOffOn. The Branding of the Future”, considered one of the most influential books of the 21st century. “HumanOffOn: Is the Internet changing us as human beings?”. AND “TOTEM. Transforming customers into believers”.It has the purpose of creating and transforming brands that bring people together. And the mission to help unlock the power of brands to help leaders, businesses and communities to grow.One of the “100 best speakers in Spain” according to the consulting firm Thinking Heads. Member of the LinkedIn Top Voices program.

Alex SEA is a 20s experienced market intelligence consultant, serving as research and analysis expert for finance, technology and telecom industry in Africa market.He is a prominent figure of fintech industry in French-speaking Africa. With a relentless passion for innovation, entrepreneurship and a commitment to fostering growth in the fintech ecosystem, Alex has made significant contributions as a founder, director, board member, advisor and team leader in various organizations and projects that drive the sector forward.

Aerospace engineer and entrepreneur, ​O​scar ​Pierre began his professional career as an aerodynamics engineer at Airbus, based in Toulouse. After 6 months he decided to look for new challenges and dedicate to creating a new business,and in early 2015, he created Glovo. Previously, while studying, Pierre had already founded Zikkomo.com, a charitable platform in Malawi, and LoveItLocal.es in 2014, a website dedicated to promoting local artisanal businesses. In 2017, two years after launching Glovo, Oscar was named among the most influential young Europeans by Forbes magazine.

Vaeth is the Director of Strategy at an award-winning agency in the U.S. with a passion for building magnetic brands and engaging 360 campaigns. She currently leads a team of social, digital and brand strategists with a singular goal: to create a lasting impression in a disposable culture. She has been fortunate to create strategies for some of the most beloved brands such as Anheuser-Busch, Atlantic Records, Benihana, Mattress Firm, Pizza Hut, Six Flags, Smoothie King, Southwest Airlines, and Twin Peaks. Vaeth is constantly crafting strategies that will break through culture, with her recent work winning an American Advertising Award for the Best AI Campaign.

Ahmadou Gueye is a marketer specialized in managing advertising media to help advertisers achieve optimal visibility by leveraging new offline and online communication platforms. He also focuses on optimizing their investments through his purchasing expertise. After several years of experience in trade marketing, media consulting, and media space buying at McCann communication agency, communications at Siagro, and business development with Oxfam and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Ahmadou has distinguished himself and established his own media agency through his network of media partners and his experience in managing media portfolios for multinational and local brands.His agency, Negomedia, now operates in three African countries, namely Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Morocco, with extensions in the sub-region. Skilled in large-scale campaigns, he has a mastery of the media scene in West Africa. His achievements also include the creation of a public advertising network ""Buy Space"" and a company specializing in trade marketing and distribution.

A 2023 Advertising Age 40 under 40 Honoree, Rob Sender is the Senior Director of Brand and Marketing for the Dallas Cowboys. With over 15 years of experience built from a unique blend of time in agency, Fortune 500 corporate brand and front office environments, Rob has worked across CPG, telecommunications, insurance and sports & entertainment building communications programs for some of the world's largest and most beloved brands. A graduate of both Trinity University and Baylor University, Rob lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife, two young children and never short on energy springer spaniel.

Tyrona Heath is a leading B2B marketer, speaker, author, athlete and community builder who explores these topics at the intersection of behavioral science, diversity, equity, inclusion and transformation. Ty is Director, Market Engagement, The B2B Institute at LinkedIn, a think tank funded by LinkedIn studying the future of B2B marketing and decision making. She is also Co-Founder of TransformHer, the premier conference for professional women of color and allies in technology.With research, Ty engages and educates the industry in partnership with the leading marketing effectiveness thinkers and organizations such as Cannes Lions, ANA, and IPA to help better define the category, and drive growth.Ty is passionate about connecting people with information needed to make intelligent decisions, sharing research to help marketers be more productive and successful with a bit of humor. An award winning marketer, speaker and two time Olympic Trials qualifier in the 800 meters, Ty is a top B2B marketing influencer teaching B2B marketing as well as leadership and diversity, equity and inclusion.Marketers benefit from Ty’s marketing experience at Google Inc, consulting within IBM as a social business manager and leading her own B2B consulting practice where she authored “Marketers of Tomorrow: A Step-by-Step Toolkit for Inbound Marketing”. Beyond marketing, Ty served as the President of LinkedIn’s Black Inclusion Group (BIG).Today, Ty serves on the Digital Marketing Institute’s Global Advisory Council, on the Board of Directors for the American Advertising Federation and as an Adobe Insider with top executives, experts, and pioneers in technology. Ty is a frequent industry and academic speaker on the marketing circuit, having appeared at INBOUND, Festival of Marketing, ADCOLOR, Marketing Society Changemakers, Ghana Tech Summit, Adobe Summit and the Digital Summit events to name a few. In her career, she has delivered marketing education to thousands.

Ali Salhi is the CTO at LOOP, an insurance technology company that leverages AI and data to create more fairly priced auto insurance products for all. Prior to LOOP he created a set of proprietary machine learning models to predict car crashes on the roads. Ali is also a Google Cloud Champion and a Forbes 30 under 30 recipient.

Osamede is an African sustainability campaigner, who is also a commercial thought leader with exceptional advertising and media communication skills. My passion for telling the African story has driven me to visit several African countries. I am currently the President of the Nigeria Advertisers Association (ADVAN) and an executive council member of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA).

Daniel founded QualiQuanti, a generalist market research company, in 1990. He is the author of four major publications in the marketing field :- Brand Content, How brands are transformed into media, in 2009 - Building Brand Culture : Unlock Your Brand’s Cultural Potential, in 2019. - Brand Content The Keys to an Effective and Sustainable Editorial Strategy, in 2020 - Big Quali The Power of Qualitative Research in the Age of Big Data, in 2022Former publicist (Saatchi, Lintas), Daniel graduated from HEC School of Management and holds master degree of sociology, from Sciences Com’ and the Carat Academy. He is considered the pioneer and expert in brand content in France.

Graduated from the EM Lyon Business School, he began his career in Procter & Gamble sales department. He joined Nestlé in 1994, where he held increasingly management positions in marketing and major account development, in France and then in Asia. Returning to Procter & Gamble, he was appointed head of the Commercial Management for France and Europe for several major accounts and, in 2009, he became the Marketing and Communication Director for Procter & Gamble France and a member of the executive committee.He was also a member of the executive committee of the French Advertisers Association. In October 2012, he was appointed President of Carat France (a subsidiary of Dentsu Aegis Network),a pioneer in media consulting and advertising space buying. In 2013, he also became the Vice-President of the French Media Buying and Consultancy Companies Union (Udecam), and then its President in 2015. In June 2017, he joined the Union of Brands as the Managing Director.

Dr. Ramla Jarrar, the president and co-founder of MASS Analytics, is a key figure in the field of marketing analytics. With a Ph.D. in Data Science from HEC Montreal, she possesses over 20 years of invaluable expertise in Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM), predictive analytics, budget optimization, and marketing strategy. As an MMM thought leader, Dr. Jarrar frequently participates as a speaker at prestigious industry conferences, including the Google Summit 2023, the I-COM Summit, the Attribution & Analytics Accelerator, Campaign Briefing, etc. where she shares her experience and insights on Marketing Measurement.Prior to her role at MASS Analytics, Dr. Jarrar served as a partner at renowned international media agencies such as MEC UK/WPP and OHAL/WPP. Beyond her entrepreneurial pursuits, Dr. Jarrar also devotes her time to academia where she gives lectures at Business Schools worldwide.Recognizing the importance of democratizing MMM, she has created a series of informative YouTube videos and Udemy courses on MMM. By making this valuable knowledge accessible to all, she empowers marketers worldwide to leverage data-driven strategies and solidifies her influential position in the world of marketing analytics.

Berna Bodur Frizzi is a thought leader and business developer with over 19 years of experience in the tech and telco industries, helping businesses grow, transform, and innovate. Her previous roles include positions at leading telecom operators in Turkey, such as Turkcell and Turkish Telecom Group, as well as du Telecom in the UAE. For over five years, she has been leading growth partnerships at Meta for the Africa, Middle East, and Turkey regions. Berna is also a leader and advocate for connecting women in the tech industry.

Thebe Ikalafeng is a Hall of Fame global African branding authority and THE leading advocate for a brand-led African agenda. He has been recognized as one of the 100 Most Influential Africans by New African Magazine (UK), Reputation International (UK) and Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD)(USA).A trailblazing marketer, since being awarded a Marquette University American Marketing Association for marketing excellence upon graduation in 1992 in the United States of America, he has made a sustained, distinguished and consequential contribution to branding and in reframing the African narrative for over 30 years.He is the founder of The Brand Leadership Group, a multi-disciplinary advisory group at the intersection of strategy, creativity and intellectual property law; the founder of the seminal independent non-profit Brand Africa movement for a brand-led African renaissance and ‘Brand Africa 100: Africa’s Best Brands’ initiative which is widely referenced as the definitive barometer of brands in Africa.He has received Lifetime Achievement awards by Financial Mail AdFocus and the Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa, and an EMY Africa Special Recognition Award in Ghana for driving a brand-led African revolution. He has been to every country in Africa and every continent in the world from Cape to Cairo, and the Arctic in Greenland to Antarctica; trekked the rare silverback gorillas in Rwanda and Uganda; summitted Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Sinai, and jumped the 216m high Bloukrans Bridge bunjee in South Africa, among his many breath-taking adventures to 120 destinations globally.Born and raised in Kimberly, South Africa, he was educated in the USA, Italy and South Africa. He holds BSc Business Administration, MBA and LLM (Intellectual Property Law) degrees. In 2024 the University of Johannesburg and University of South Africa conferred him with honorary doctoral degrees, PhD (Honoris Causa), for his thought leadership and contributions in Africa. A consummate pan-African, “Thebe is Africa,” (TedxGhana) and ‘foremost branding authority in Africa,’ (African Business).