Live 2026: Chicago Marketing

Kim Quillen is a business editor at the Chicago Tribune. Earlier in her career, Kim held editing positions at The Arizona Republic and at The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, where she was involved in that newspaper's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of Hurricane Katrina. Kim is past president of the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing, a national business journalism organization.

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.

Pat Garland’s HR career spans 40 years, in roles that ranged from individual contributor to VP for a very large global division of a $16 billion corporation. Her expertise includes compensation and benefits design, organization development, labor relations and executive coaching. She is the author of “33 Ways Not to Screw Up HR” and is an adjunct instructor at the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University of Chicago.

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.