Sanjai is the Chief Marketing Officer of Coherent Corp.  He joined Coherent in 2003 and has held various progressive senior leadership roles in R&D, product management, business operations, strategy and marketing.  He was appointed the company’s first Chief Marketing Officer in 2019.  Sanjai played a pivotal role in the charting the strategy and driving the execution of the company’s transformation into an industry leading photonics powerhouse.  Over his 35+ year career he has broad technology industry experience across many markets, including datacenter, telecom, industrial, instrumentation, automotive and consumer.  Prior to Coherent, Sanjai held senior business and technical leadership positions in Oplink Communications, TeraStor, Western Digital, and Concurrent Technologies Corporation.

Sanjai has a B.Tech from IIT-Madras, M.S. from University of Virginia and Ph.D. from Penn State.

George Huff is the founder and CEO of Opal, the platform that helps marketing teams connect strategy to execution through unified, visual planning. Since founding Opal in 2011 in Portland, Oregon, George has led the company’s evolution from a creative collaboration tool into the marketing industry’s system of record for connected planning. Today, leading brands including Starbucks, SAP Concur, Target, General Motors, and Boeing use Opal to bring clarity, alignment, and confidence to their marketing operations. A lifelong builder and problem solver, George is passionate about helping marketers work with greater purpose and creativity by eliminating the friction that slows great ideas down.

Nizzi Karai Renaud is chief brand officer at Zazzle, the global print-on-demand marketplace, based in Menlo Park. Previously, she was a leader in marketing and merchandising at Refinery29 and Etsy. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees in marketing from Emerson College and a master's in applied positive psychology from the Unniversity of Pennsylvania.

Mike Lacey has spent more than a decade leading marketing teams at the intersection of brand strategy and business growth in B2B SaaS. As VP of Marketing at Canto, he leads teams in defining corporate identity, shaping differentiated product positioning, and building marketing strategies that fuel demand and growth. Prior to Canto, Mike was at ON24, where he built the original content strategy that helped take the company from a midmarket tech brand to a successful IPO. He's passionate about bridging creative storytelling and business impact, and speaks on topics including brand strategy, content innovation, and the role AI is playing in reshaping how marketing teams operate.

Andrea leads growth for Upwork’s SMB marketplace, building the cross-channel engine that turns attention into revenue. She owns acquisition, activation, and monetization for the platform’s highest-velocity customers, integrating martech ecosystems, paid and organic acquisition, lifecycle engagement, and AI-driven creative workflows.

Previously, she held marketing leadership roles at Amazon, Disney, and Yahoo. She was the co-founder Foodily, a Webby Award-winning social recipe network for food, which was acquired by IAC. She earned her BA in mass communication and media studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

James Kessinger is Group Vice President of Marketing at SolarWinds, where he leads global demand generation, product and digital marketing, partner and field marketing, content, campaigns, and SDR/BDR teams. At SolarWinds, James is focused on applying AI and data-driven experimentation to modernize go-to-market execution—using machine learning–powered insights to improve targeting, pipeline efficiency, and customer experience across the full revenue funnel.

A full‑stack marketing leader and operating executive, James has scaled organizations from early growth to multi‑billion‑dollar revenue, managing large global teams and budgets exceeding $50M across complex enterprise environments, private equity–backed companies, and growth-stage SaaS ventures. He has repeatedly transformed digital demand engines, built account-based and partner-led motions, and standardized data-driven operating models that connect marketing investment to revenue, profitability, and shareholder value.

As the Vice President of Marketing at O’Reilly, Allison is responsible for developing and executing the enterprise marketing strategy for a global leader in technology and business learning. She is always thinking about branding, lead generation, pipeline creation, ABM strategy, content marketing, and sales enablement, while continuing to empower her talented team to do their best work and enjoy what they do every day.

Bala Desikamani is VP of marketing at Temenos, a Swiss-based global leader in banking software. It provides core banking, digital, payments, and wealth management software to more than 3,000 financial institutions worldwide

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.

Rosalie Chan is a senior editor for Business Insider’s big tech team, which covers the biggest tech companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook, and more. Previously, she covered cloud computing and enterprise tech, where she reported on companies like Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Intel, Alibaba Cloud, Atlassian, GitHub, VMware, and more. She has written extensively on topics including cloud computing, developer companies, and open source. She received the Excellence in Business / Consumer / Tech Reporting award from the Asian American Journalists Association for her investigation into the coding bootcamp Holberton School.

Rosalie joined Insider after working as a software engineer and freelance journalist. She studied journalism, computer science, and technology and business law at Northwestern University. Her work has previously appeared in TIME, the Huffington Post, VICE, Pacific Standard, Inverse, Chicago magazine, the Chicago Reporter, and more. She's currently based in San Francisco.

Sajag Chikarsal is a transformative B2B marketing executive with over 18 years of experience building categories and scaling revenue engines for breakout startups and global technology giants. He currently serves in a marketing leadership role at DigiCert, focused on advancing digital trust and security for global enterprises.

A dedicated AI enthusiast, Sajag is known for his ability to navigate environments where technology and market trends move faster than customers or partners are prepared for. He thrives in these gaps, building the "missing playbooks" needed to translate technical innovation into market leadership. This expertise was foundational during his time as CMO of Celona, where he pioneered the Private 5G LAN category, driving a 4x increase in strategic pipeline and earning nine major awards.

Sajag’s career includes leadership roles at Google Cloud, where he scaled enterprise marketing functions, and Zscaler, where he served as the first marketing hire, helping steer the company from stealth mode through its successful IPO.

Recognized as a member of the CMO Alliance’s “CMOs to Watch 2025” and the Revenue Marketing Alliance’s “Ones to Watch 2024,” Sajag is a passionate advocate for eradicating silos between marketing and sales. Based in Silicon Valley, he is also an angel investor and advisor, dedicated to mentoring the next generation of marketing leaders and building high-performing teams grounded in empathy, clarity, and operational rigor.

Subadhra Sriram, an award-winning media executive and thought leader in the workforce-solutions ecosystem, is the founder and podcast host of Workforce Observer, a new online community of staffing industry professionals. With interviews of Fortune 500 and key industry executives, along with a news and link sharing portal, Workforce Observer is building an engaged connected community for the industry.  

Previously, Subadhra was Publisher & Editor at Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA) the staffing industry's leading research and advisory firm. A member of SIA's executive team since 2014, Subadhra is the founder of The Staffing 100, The Staffing Stream and other leading industry channels. She was responsible for the company’s global media and digital strategy, supervising all editorial functions. Her role allowed her to oversee SIA’s content channels while creating and managing brands that strengthened SIA’s cutting edge-research.

An award-winning communications professional, Subadhra has spent the last 17 years covering the world of work.  Her editorial and writing skills coupled with her management ability has led to a quick progression from a business journalist to her current role, managing and supervising a team of people, publications and budgets worldwide. She has ridden the paper to digital transition and has produced multiple successful web properties.

Prior to SIA, Subadhra has had over 15 years of journalism experience at premier Fortune 500 publishing houses including Time Warner publications i.e. Money magazine, Business 2.0 and Fortune Small Business.  She began her career in India working for a national newsmagazine. She holds a Masters from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism and a BA in English Literature and Economics from St. Xavier’s College, Calcutta University.

Hugh is managing both paid (SEM) and organic (SEO) marketing initiatives at Ford Motor Company. He builds strategy and drives implementation across Ford’s various properties, ensuring SEM and SEO continue to grow while partnering with talented teams across the organization in an ever-evolving digital landscape.

His specialties include online marketing strategy, presentation skills, business development, search engine marketing, media buying, media planning, online sales conversion and analysis, managing agency relationships, and working with internal and external partners.

Kumar Rathnam is a global product and technology executive with over 28 years of experience leading high‑impact product and technology innovation, digital transformation, and data‑driven strategy. As SVP and Global Head of Products for Digital, Sales & Marketing Solutions at Dun & Bradstreet, he leads the end‑to‑end global product vision, roadmap, and execution, including the development of Data for AI and Agentic AI solutions.

Kumar is recognized for developing privacy‑compliant global B2B and consumer data products. His leadership spans across global data, product, and technology strategy, technical innovation, and the scaling of high‑performing cross‑functional teams. Previously, Kumar led Digital Audience product strategy and Digital Solutions Consulting at D&B, advising Fortune 1000 companies on how to leverage data, analytics, and technology to transform their revenue stack for growth. Prior to this, he served as VP of B2B Product and Technology at CBS Interactive, where he oversaw product and engineering for the B2B digital media and marketing business across the U.S., EMEA, and APAC. His earlier leadership roles at CBS Interactive and other software development firms shaped his expertise in data platforms, big data management, AdTech/MarTech ecosystems, and enterprise‑grade digital marketing solutions.

Kumar’s rare blend of deep business and technical expertise gives him a unique ability to both strategize and execute at scale. He holds dual Master’s degrees in Business Administration and Computer Science.

KP Unnikrishnan is Senior Vice President of Marketing for the Americas at Palo Alto Networks, where he leads regional marketing across brand, demand generation, digital, field & partner marketing, and customer engagement to drive growth and market expansion.

A seasoned technology executive with over 25 years of experience, Unni previously served as Global Chief Marketing Officer at Palo Alto Networks, where he helped drive the company's global brand, demand engine, and thought leadership, supporting its rapid growth in the Al-driven cybersecurity market. His 12-year journey with the company began in Singapore as Marketing Director for Asia Pacific, where he played a key role in shaping early strategy and expansion across APAC and Japan. Prior to Palo Alto Networks, he held progressive leadership roles at Brocade Communications and Sun Microsystems. He started his career as a sales representative at HCL Hewlett-Packard.

Recognized as a leading voice in B2B marketing, he has been featured in the Wall Street Journal CMO 50 and the Hot Topics Global B2B CMO 100, and he frequently speaks at industry forums on marketing transformation, growth strategy, and cybersecurity. He holds an engineering degree and an MBA, and has completed executive leadership programs at Kellogg School of Management, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Singapore Management University.

A seasoned entrepreneur with a passion for understanding human behavior, Chad's career has been dedicated to uncovering the "why" behind human actions. This deep fascination led him to spearhead the creation of Vurvey, a platform that combines the speed and scale of AI with the nuance of human conversation. His leadership and innovative thinking have positioned Vurvey Labs at the forefront of the industry, helping brands connect with their audiences in more meaningful ways.

Kamal is currently leading the consumer marketing for the Invisalign brand across the Americas region. She is a marketing maven and a sought after speaker, with over 18 years of global marketing experience across major consumer, healthcare and technology brands. Kamal is an expert in understanding consumer behavior and in building strategies utilizing social media and other digital channels. With a team centric leadership style, Kamal leads her teams to be consumer centric and take on risks in order to test new marketing programs. In her current role, Kamal is leading a 60 person team consumer team for the Invisalign brand targeting adults, moms and teen consumers in the US, Canada and LATAM . She has led her team to create marketing initiatives targeting millennials and GenZ consumers, which have consistently delivered double-digit growth in sales and win several industry awards for best in class marketing. Kamal started her career in technology at Intel Corporation, working on both Latin America and North America businesses. From there, she spent several years in the software industry at Sun Microsystems in product management and led consumer-marketing teams at Johnson & Johnson within the diabetes industry targeting parents, children and adult consumers. Prior to joining Align Technology, Kamal led the global commercial team for a Bay Area start-up in the women’s health space. Kamal holds an MBA from the University of San Francisco, a Bachelor of Science Degree from Santa Clara University and a certificate from the Stanford University Executive Program.

Kumarbabu is a transformation-focused digital leader with over 20 years of global experience driving scalable, customer-centric solutions at the intersection of business, technology, and marketing. With a background in computer science engineering and more than a decade of experience working closely with business leaders, he bridges technical fluency with strategic impact.

His expertise spans digital experience, marketing technology, and generative AI, applied across websites, forums, sales enablement, and customer engagement platforms. He sees GenAI not just as a tool, but as a catalyst for modernizing how sales and marketing operate at scale.

Devin Roundy is the director of sales at Clozd, where he partners with revenue teams to help them understand why they win and lose deals and turn customer feedback into a competitive advantage. He works closely with various companies to drive more predictable growth and improve go-to-market performance.
Prior to Clozd, Devin held roles focused on revenue growth and business development, where he developed a passion for helping organizations better understand their customers and competitive positioning. Devin is known for his consultative approach and ability to connect strategic insights directly to revenue outcomes. Outside of work, he spends most of his time with his 3 kids, and another in July!

Vidhya is an accomplished Chief Product and Marketing Executive with extensive experience driving transformative growth and innovation. She has managed broad P&L responsibilities, overseen diverse global product portfolios, and led company-wide transformations.

She has successfully led strategic initiatives including company rebrands, transitions to subscription-based business models, and shifts from on-prem to cloud, achieving double-digit growth.

Vidhya brings deep private equity expertise and board-level collaboration, contributing to high-multiple exits while managing M&A due diligence and integration. She is skilled at aligning business strategy with market opportunity to drive growth.

Known for leadership excellence, she builds and leads high-performing teams and fosters a culture of continuous improvement. She is also actively engaged professionally as a founding member of Firstboard.io, an advisor at USPAACC, and a dedicated Wise Mentor.

Claire Reilly is a journalist, host, and producer who has spent her career making digital culture and emerging technology feel human and accessible. Her work has appeared across CNET, Axios, CBS, ABC, Al Jazeera, SBS and more, earning Webby and Telly Awards along the way.

At CNET, she led video coverage on space, science, robotics and futurism, writing and hosting the Webby Award-winning documentary series "Hacking the Apocalypse" and "Making Space: The Female Frontier." Most recently at Axios, she built and led the company's social-first storytelling studio in San Francisco.

Claire has hosted live events at CES, PAX, Vivid Festival and Sydney Town Hall and interviewed founders, scientists, astronauts and executives for science and technology coverage seen by millions. She began her career in Australia and holds a BA in English Literature from the University of New South Wales. She is based in San Francisco.

John Greely runs marketing for Navu, which makes AI chat easy for business websites. His career to date has been focused on understanding and adapting to user behavior across a wide variety of industries, including sports media, travel and industrial/manufacturing. He also has a small baby at home, so if you see his presentation and it sounds like his brain isn't connected to his mouth, blame sleep deprivation.