9 Speakers You Can’t Miss At UMSL’s Midwest Digital Marketing Conference

On April 21, University of Missouri-St. Louis will host the Midwest Digital Marketing Conference (MDMC16) at Union Station—the region’s largest digital and social media marking event.

“This conference is all about innovation in the tech, digital and social space,” says Perry Drake, academic director of programs in business at University of Missouri-St. Louis. “It’s all about pushing the limits and going places never thought possible.”

The event creates a forum for discussions about the cutting edge of innovation that take place across six tracks, featuring a total of 35 sessions. Here’s a look at some of the speakers who will be presenting at the conference.

Midwest Digital Marketing Conference Jason Alan Snyder, Momentum Worldwide: Snyder, an inventor, technologist, marketer, futurist and business strategist, will be leading a keynote address on “The Internet of Things.” He has almost 20 years of experience developing tech products and is CTO of Momentum Worldwide, a co-creation agency. 

michael-becker-250x270Michael Becker, “Mobile Marketing for Dummies”: Becker is the co-founder and managing partner of mCordis, a mobile marketing strategy consulting and education service and advises on strategy at several other companies.  His keynote address is on “The Rise of the Connected Marketer.” 

Midwest Digital Marketing Conference Katie Krum, Under Armour: Krum is the director of digital marking at Under Armour, managing content and engagement across the company’s Connected Fitness portfolio, the partnerships between the brand and MapMyFitness, MyFitnessPal and Under Armour Record. She’ll be focusing on engaging your community though both interactions and content. 

raashi-bhalla-250x270Raashi Bhalla, Pinterest: Bhalla is part of the social media platform’s creative strategy division with expertise in creative strategy, insights and integrated marketing and an agency background. She will be talking about the art and science of using Pinterest.  

jen-phillips-250x270

Jennifer Phillips, Salesforce.org: Phillips is the director of marketing cloud excellence for the “philanthropic heart” of Salesforce.com, partnering with higher education institutions and nonprofit organizations to help them get the most out of Salesforce products. For most of her career, the CRM expert has focused on how to use data to drive marketing.

don-breckenridge-250x270-1Don Breckenridge, Hatchbuck: Breckenridge is the cofounder of his company, a software designed to help small- to mid-sized businesses grow. Hatchbuck is a portfolio company of Cultivation Capital and Capital Innovators. He’ll be covering how to build out your marketing automation plan. 

kaiser-fung-250x270Kaiser Fung, Columbia University: Fung is the director of Columbia’s new Master of Science in Applied Analytics and the creator of Junk Charts, an influential blog about data visualization. He’s also one half of the Stat Busters column for the Daily Beast. He’ll focus will be on “The Art of Visualization” 

brandon-dempsey-250x270Brandon Dempsey, GoBrandGo!: As co-owner of one of STL’s top marketing agencies, Dempsey works with companies to build marketing and lead generation strategies and plans, then oversees execution to help them “get stuff done.” He’ll be speaking on LinkedIn strategy for B2B. 

brant-mclean-250x270Brant McLean, Buzzfeed: McLean is the senior vice president of brand strategy (central and southern regions) for the media giant and is one of the most sought-after leaders when brands come knocking for cross-format and –platform stories. 

“My goal for this conference is to bring in those companies that are thought-leaders in this space and to have deep and meaningful discussion for a day around these topics,” Drake adds. “It’s just so exciting to have BuzzFeed, Pandora, Oracle, Under Armour, Johnson & Johnson, Pinterest, Google, Yahoo and even the digital team from JetBlue all here in St. Louis under one roof. Can you image the conversations that will be happening?”

For more information and to register for the event, head to the MCDC16 website.