Chicago Live 2026: Marketing

Connor is Vice President of Marketing & Go-to-Market at TSI, where he leads strategy across five business verticals in regulated, high-volume industries. He oversees brand, demand generation, marketing operations, analytics, and go-to-market execution, partnering closely with sales leadership to translate positioning into measurable revenue growth.

Known for bridging the gap between commercial strategy and technical execution, Connor combines deep B2B marketing expertise with hands-on AI and systems development. In 2025, he taught himself to code and built a 22-agent AI ecosystem that supports market research, content development, campaign planning, data analysis, and project management across TSI’s business lines. He also designed and deployed mcOS, an AI-powered operating system that coordinates marketing workflows at scale, and led the architecture of pipeline tracking and marketing analytics during a companywide CRM migration.

Prior to his work in AI-driven marketing operations, Connor spent more than a decade building brands, driving demand generation, and helping organizations in complex, regulated industries strengthen the connection between marketing performance and revenue outcomes. His work focuses on the future of go-to-market organizations, where strategic thinking, data, and technology increasingly converge.

Matthew Dewoskin is an SEO leader and digital marketing strategist with expertise in aligning search engine optimization best practices with broader business objectives to drive measurable results. He specializes in developing data-driven SEO strategies that improve website performance, increase organic visibility, and support sustainable business growth.

With experience across leading analytics and SEO platforms—including Google Analytics, Google Ads, Google Search Console, SEMrush, Moz, Screaming Frog, SEO Clarity, Adobe Analytics, and BuiltWith—Matthew brings a balanced approach that combines technical expertise, content strategy, and performance analysis.

His areas of expertise include technical SEO, keyword research, content strategy, Core Web Vitals, page speed optimization, on-page SEO, backlink strategy, and analytics reporting. Matthew is passionate about helping organizations translate complex SEO challenges into actionable strategies that deliver tangible outcomes.

Jay Flaherty is the VP of GTM & Operations at Gather, an AI-native market research and content platform built for marketing teams. Jay leads all go-to-market strategy and operations at Gather, bringing a track record of building and scaling revenue functions from the ground up. Before Gather, he was Head of Sales at Pulse, leading the team through exponential growth and a successful acquisition by Gartner. He was previously a top-ranked Account Executive at Zesty, finishing number one in the US and globally. He is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Peter Loftus is Chief Marketing Officer of Publicis Creative and Leo in the U.S., leading business development, marketing, and growth strategy across Publicis Creative’s U.S. portfolio of iconic creative agencies and Power of One teams. Responsible for how Publicis Creative competes and wins in market, Peter takes an insight-led, creatively ambitious approach to driving business impact and is known for helping brands break through with unexpected, culturally resonant ideas.

Prior to joining Publicis, Peter led Business Development at Energy BBDO, helping to establish partnerships with brands such as Kenvue, The General Insurance, Sodastream and more. Before Energy, he led Business Development and Marketing for the digital-first agency Barbarian, and prior to that, spent over seven years at Grey Group in both New Business and Account Management.

Throughout his career, Peter's work has been awarded across the industry’s most reputable shows & festivals including D&ADs, The One Show, The Effies, The Clios and Cannes Lions. He is an avid movie fan and enjoys writing film treatments in his spare time, but he is holding off on his next project until Daniel Day-Lewis gets back to him on his availability.

Eddie Kahle is the Head of Marketing - Golden Harvest at Syngenta.

David Gorman is the co-founder and SVP of Product at Opal – the visual home for strategies, execution, and true-to-life content. This year, Gorman spearheaded the creation of Opal’s Gem – the AI copilot actually built for marketers. Through his work leading the product organization at Opal, David Gorman has a front-row seat to how the biggest brands in the world think about marketing and AI.

Christian Farr joined NBC5 News as a general assignment reporter and fill-in anchor in August of 2009.

Christian comes to us from WTTW’s “Chicago Tonight” program, where he has been a correspondent for the last three years.

"I'm pleased to have Christian join NBC5 News" said Frank Whittaker, Station Manager and VP of News at NBC5 Chicago. "Christian is a member of one of Chicago’s famous broadcasting families.His wife, Karen Jordan, anchors weekends at WLS and his father-in-law, Robert Jordan, anchors weekends at WGN."

Prior to joining WTTW, Farr was a weekend anchor and reporter for the FOX affiliate WTXF in Philadelphia. He began there as a General Assignment Reporter and also anchored morning news. Both the New York State Broadcasters Association and the Ohio Associated Broadcasters Association have also recognized Farr for his outstanding contributions to the field of broadcast journalism. He also won the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism award for a series on Dangerous Roads in Ohio in 2000.

Farr is a graduate of University of Delaware.

Kishan Panpalia is a Founding Team Member at Pepper and a leading voice on Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), helping CMOs and enterprise teams navigate brand discovery in the AI search era. He works at the intersection of AI, content, and go-to-market strategy, advising Fortune 1000 companies on how to win visibility across search and AI platforms through systems built for retrieval, citation, and answer inclusion. Pepper, founded when he was 18, is an AI-native content and GEO platform serving 250+ enterprise brands including Amazon, Adobe, Google, Atlassian, ClickUp, Sprinklr, etc.. Kishan has delivered GEO strategy sessions globally, is recognized as a LinkedIn Top Voice on AI search, and was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for his work in building category-defining growth systems.

Allie Wilson is the CEO of GhostRanch, a presentation design agency that helps enterprise marketing teams communicate with clarity, consistency, and impact. She leads a world-class team specializing in narrative strategy, visual storytelling, and high-stakes presentation design for product launches, internal alignment, sales enablement, and executive communications. Allie is passionate about partnering with CMOs to elevate presentations from a last-minute task to a powerful lever for brand experience and business momentum.

Alex Maragos anchors the weekday 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. newscasts for NBC 5 and contributes stories to the station’s award-winning Investigates unit. Previously, Maragos anchored weekend evening newscasts and filed reports from the field three days a week. Prior to that, he spent four years as anchor of NBC 5 News Today. Alex started at NBC 5 in August 2015 as a general assignment reporter. Maragos primarily covers news, but has a passion for sports. Since 2016, he has served as the start and finish line reporter for the Bank of America Chicago Marathon. In 2022, he spent one month in Beijing, China, covering the Winter Olympic Games. This summer he earned another Olympic assignment, for the Summer Olympic Games in Paris. Maragos returned home to Chicago after spending two years as a morning anchor and reporter at WLFI-TV in West Lafayette, Indiana. While there, he won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Indiana Broadcasters Association for breaking news and feature reporting. During summers home from college, Alex held internships at ESPN Radio WMVP-AM 1000, news/talk WLS-AM 890 and NBC Sports Chicago. Alex graduated from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, where he majored in Journalism and Mass Communications and played baseball for four years. He is also a graduate of Loyola Academy in Wilmette. Alex is married and lives in Chicago.

Rob Austin-Williams is a proven global leader with 15 years of experience building and leading high-performance teams across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC. An engineer and highly analytical, data-driven growth strategist, Rob specializes in turning complex challenges into actionable strategies that drive measurable results across B2C2B, D2C, B2B, and B2C businesses.

He has helped legacy and emerging brands accelerate growth, strengthen engagement, and navigate complex international and matrix organizations. As an influential team builder, Rob is passionate about creating diverse, highly engaged, and innovative teams that deliver against ambitious, multimillion-dollar revenue targets.

Brett brings deep expertise across omnichannel marketing, performance branding, customer journeys, lifetime value and remarketing, direct response, healthcare, and retail marketing. He also specializes in e-commerce, CRM, data analytics, digital transformation, and marketing technology.

A passionate and innovative leader, Brett builds high-performing teams and organizations by attracting and developing top talent, optimizing structures and processes, and aligning marketing capabilities with broader business objectives.

Meg Moss is Head of Agency Partnerships at Canva, leading a global team to build a network of creative and marketing agencies to scale Canva's enterprise business with a key mission: make Canva the single AI-based design platform for enterprise. Before Canva, Meg spent seven-plus years at Adobe at the forefront of the AI-era. Earlier in her career, she co-founded and exited ImageBrief, a VC-backed digital content marketplace that saw her move from Sydney to New York City.

Jessica Wohl is managing editor at Ad Age, where she helps shape newsroom strategy, coverage, and editorial direction. She previously served as a reporter and senior editor at Ad Age, covering the advertising and media industries and helping lead the newsroom’s editorial efforts.

Before joining Ad Age, Jessica held reporting roles at the Chicago Tribune and Reuters. A proud Jersey girl turned Chicagoan, she is a graduate of Rutgers University, where she earned bachelor’s degrees in journalism and mass media and sociology.

Dina Fenili Niekamp is a seasoned brand and marketing executive with nearly two decades of experience driving growth across luxury hospitality, wellness, and lifestyle organizations, including Aparium Hotel Group, Miraval Resorts, Hyatt, Kimpton, and Virgin Hotels. Her expertise spans brand strategy, digital marketing, CRM, loyalty, customer acquisition, partnerships, and commercial strategy, with a focus on translating customer insight and innovation into measurable business results. She is also passionate about AI’s evolving role in marketing and customer experience, leading initiatives around AI adoption, workflow optimization, content development, and commercial enablement.

Andrew is the VP of Demand Generation and Growth at WRITER where he gets to use enterprise-grade AI to transform how the company does marketing.  He has over 20 years of experience and has helped companies like Fivetran, MongoDB, and HubSpot grow. 

Hope Trumbull is VP of Global Sales at Social Native, the AI-powered creator marketing platform used by more than 1,500 brands across fashion, beauty, CPG, retail, and travel to predict, produce, and scale content that performs. Since joining the company in 2017, Hope has worked at the intersection of brand strategy and platform algorithms, helping marketing teams move beyond guesswork and follower counts toward data-driven content that actually converts. As the industry's attention shifts from traditional SEO to answer engine optimization (AEO), Hope brings a rare, ground-level view of how brands can adapt their content to be discovered, trusted, and recommended by AI platforms — without sacrificing the authenticity that makes content work in the first place. 

Helping Enterprise Data & AI Teams Drive ROI 

Bradley, a seasoned start-up and growth-stage specialist, brings his expertise to Keen after successfully scaling two previous SaaS ventures in the CPG industry. His tenure includes leading companies from Series A with six-figure revenues to Series B with eight-figure ARR. Bradley’s strategic focus on growth and retention drives predictable and profitable scaling for the organization.

He is committed to enhancing Keen’s sales organization across the entire customer journey, encompassing marketing, new client acquisitions, account management, and analytical support to ensure comprehensive client engagement and satisfaction.

Ryan Arnold is a Senior Sales Manager at Quantcast, where he oversees the Chicago sales team. Backed by 15+ years in digital media, Ryan collaborates with brands to guide performance campaigns that actually deliver. Known for his hands-on, consultative approach, he works closely with both his team and partners to turn complex media strategies into clear, measurable outcomes.

Ben Svarczkopf is currently Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at Biocartis. With 25 years of experience in diagnostics, life sciences, and biotechnology, he has built his career by  relying upon a foundation of strong business, technology, and clinical acumen.

At Biocartis, Ben has built the marketing organization from the ground up across five functions, including the company's first market access and health economics team, and authored a five-year commercial plan now in execution driving US growth above 25%.

Prior to Biocartis, Ben served as Vice President of Global Hospital and Point-of-Care Product Innovation at Cepheid ( a Danaher company) where he set the global strategy for a $3B+ molecular testing portfolio and orchestrated the company’s pandemic response.

Earlier, at Nanosphere and Luminex, he built the customer acquisition model behind three years of 60%+ revenue growth and closed four M&A transactions.

Ben holds an MS from Johns Hopkins University and dual BS degrees from Purdue University with clinical licensure in laboratory science.