Jeffrey Ajluni
Director of Marketing & Business Development
Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Jeffrey Ajluni is the Director of Marketing and Business Development for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He is beginning his 9th year with the team and his eighteenth in professional sports. In his position Jeff oversees all aspects of Pewter Partner sales and account management as well as all marketing, advertising and branding for the team. Additionally, Jeff has had involvement in global sponsorship sales development for Manchester United Football Club, also owned by the Glazer family.

Jeff began his career in sports marketing as an intern for the Detroit Red Wings in 1991. Over the course of nine years, Jeff held a variety of positions with the Detroit Red Wings, Detroit Tigers and Olympia Entertainment, Inc. (all owned and operated by Little Caesars Pizza founder Michael Ilitch). At the time of his departure to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Jeff held the position of Director of Corporate Sponsorship Sales. Jeff is a native of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and now resides in Odessa, Florida with his wife Brigitte.

Mark Bohen
Senior Vice President Marketing
Assurant, Inc.

Mark Bohen is Senior VP, Marketing, Assurant, Inc.

Mark is responsible for building the Assurant brand and leading the company's Marketing Practice Group, a team comprised of marketing experts from all the Assurant businesses.

Mark is also responsible for leading the company's incubation team. This team is charged with launching new business concepts by generating ideas, screening, analyzing and conducting in-market testing. The team also enhances existing businesses by applying classical marketing principles and sharing marketing capabilities across the company.

Mark attended Duke University where he earned a Masters in Business Administration in 1985. He has held marketing and brand management positions at Citibank, Nabisco Biscuit Company and McCain Foods. Mark joined Assurant Employee Benefits in 1998, serving as Senior Vice President – Marketing and Customer Relations. He was named Senior Vice President, Marketing, Assurant, Inc. in September 2007.

Mark served a term as chair of the LIMRA Group Insurance Marketing Committee and is a graduate of Kansas City Tomorrow, a community leadership development program. He served on the Board of Directors of Harmony, a not-for-profit promoting diversity and on the Board of Directors of Community LINC, a not-for-profit organization that aids homeless families.

Assurant is a premier provider of specialized insurance products and related services in North America and selected international markets. Its four key businesses – Assurant Solutions; Assurant Specialty Property; Assurant Health; and Assurant Employee Benefits – have partnered with clients who are leaders in their industries and have built leadership positions in a number of specialty insurance market segments worldwide.

Assurant, a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500, is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AIZ. Assurant has over $25 billion in assets and $7 billion in annual revenue. www.assurant.com

Michael Capiraso
Principal, Michael Capiraso Consulting
and
Former Chief Marketing Officer, Cole Haan (Nike Inc.)

Michael Capiraso is a marketing executive of premium brands in the entertainment/media, lifestyle, fashion, retail and sports arenas. His credentials include strategic and operational success growing top U.S. and international businesses including the NFL, Cole Haan, Major League Baseball and Calvin Klein, together with a deep branding, marketing and media knowledge that has helped him to spot and exploit segmentation, channel, and audience-behavior shifts for dramatic revenue and profitability gains. Michael spent years in leadership roles, bringing an eye for new markets and opportunities to his general-management portfolio. His focus on concrete, revenue-building marketing/communications initiatives, and a combination of long-term trend-spotting, data-analysis and creative approaches have allowed Michael to generate game-changing revenue and profitability increases in each of his roles. Michael has a particular subject-matter expertise in interactive, e-commerce, digital marketing and community/affinity group cultivation and monetization.

Most recently Capiraso led the Marketing charge as the CMO of Nike owned Cole Haan, renovating the brand and product set to tap the burgeoning high-end denim/leisure market with the successful development of the Cole, Rood and Haan footwear line, a sub-brand targeted to affluent urban professionals. Capiraso also championed Cole Haan’s first celebrity endorsement/product development deal in the form of Maria Sharapova’s line of footwear and accessories. Michael also led Cole Haan’s digital efforts with the re-design of colehaan.com and entry into social media/online community-building with the organization’s first social networking marketing push.

Just prior to Cole Haan, Capiraso served as CEO of PRISM North America, a WPP Sports & Entertainment agency focused on strategy and marketing, ROO/ROI analysis and PR for clients including AT&T, Coca-Cola Bottling Co., Xerox, Rolex, PGA, Dolphins Enterprises and Ferrari.

Capiraso earlier served as Vice President of Marketing/Executive Creative Director at The National Football League, bringing new-millennium energy to the NFL’s brand strategy by architecting youth and Hispanic-targeted websites, a redesigned NFLshop.com and NFL.com websites in line with a broad messaging overhaul to suit a changing audience profile. Capiraso oversaw over $200M in media assets at the NFL, and led the integration of messaging and mission across business units and a partner roster including Coors, Visa, IBM, Burger King, FedEx, Sprint, Pepsi and Reebok. He created the Super Bowl XL “Road to Forty” platform, which led to $330 million in activation and media exposure revenues, the highest in NFL history.

Before joining the NFL, Capiraso consulted on content development and team advertising for Major League Baseball. Earlier, in a VP role at Calvin Klein, he enacted some of the most recognized advertising and PR campaigns for all Calvin Klein brands including cK one, Escape, Eternity, and Calvin Klein Jeans and Underwear.

Capiraso has an MBA and studied Film at New York University. He has completed the last 19 New York City Marathons.

Christa Carone
Chief Marketing Officer & Vice President Marketing & Communications
Xerox Corporation

Christa Carone is vice president, marketing and communications for Xerox Corporation, serving as the company’s chief marketing officer. She was named to this position in September 2008, and is responsible for global marketing strategy and initiatives that include advertising, experiential marketing, public relations, internal communications, integrated campaigns, xerox.com, and the Xerox Foundation. She is also the steward of the company’s brand, leading global brand management, product nomenclature, licensing and other related activities that serve to protect the value of the Xerox name and multi-billion dollar brand.

Prior to this role, Carone was vice president of global communications, leading Xerox's public relations, internal and corporate communications, and community relations initiatives. She joined Xerox in 1996 as communications manager for the company's manufacturing and supply chain division. She was named corporate media relations manager in 1998 and head of corporate public relations in 2001. In July 2007, she broadened her role to include all worldwide public relations activities and was named to head up Xerox's newly created Global Communications organization.

Before joining Xerox, Carone managed communications and public affairs for health care companies in Rochester, N.Y., and Baltimore. She received a bachelor's degree in communications from the State University of New York, College at Geneseo. She is an alumni advisor for SUNY Geneseo, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a board member of Dress for Success of Fairfield County, Conn.

Allison Cerra brings more than 15 years of telecommunications industry experience within service and equipment provider organizations to her position as Chief Marketing Officer for the Americas region at Alcatel-Lucent. In this role, Ms. Cerra is responsible for regional marketing activities to support service providers in the areas of strategic and customer marketing, operations, intelligence, and communications.

Prior to joining Alcatel-Lucent, Ms. Cerra served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Frontier Communications, responsible for access lines, high-speed Internet, video and wireless products across seven states. She also held senior management positions at GTE Network Services and, after its acquisition, for Verizon Communications, with activity in the areas of DSL, ISDN, IPTV infrastructure, fixed and mobile communications, and entertainment services.  She also served as Vice President of Marketing Communications with Alcatel North America.

Allison Cerra holds a bachelor’s of science degree from the University of South Florida, and master’s degrees in business administration and telecommunications from Southern Methodist University.

Previous speaking engagements include the West Virginia Higher Education Technology Conference and the Broadband Services Forum. She has contributed articles for the IEC, Converge Digest, and the FTTH Council.

Nigel Dessau

Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer

AMD

Nigel Dessau is Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of AMD, and is responsible for the company’s global marketing, image and campaign strategies. He joined AMD in March 2008, bringing more than 22 years of technology marketing leadership experience.

At Sun Microsystems, Dessau was Senior Vice President of Storage Marketing and Senior Vice President of Alliances and Licensing. Prior to that, he was Chief Marketing Officer of StorageTek and spent 19 years at IBM, most recently as Business Unit Executive for IBM Virtualization Solutions. While at IBM, Dessau managed the worldwide launch of IBM eServer zSeries, and headed up marketing programs for the S/390 brand. As part of the Corporate Marketing Team, he led the marketing strategy behind e-business and the transition to On Demand Business.

Mr. Dessau was born and educated in Nottingham, England.

Mark Dye
Senior Vice President, Sales & Business Development
Bizo, Inc.

Mark Dye, SVP Sales and Business Development: Mark is also a serial entrepreneur, and most recently ran business development at Vivisimo, an enterprise search company, where he developed and closed their largest relationships including AOL and Microsoft. Mark started his career at CheckFree, a payment processing technology company, where he helped to build it from a five person startup to a multi-national public company. Mark is an accomplished musician and enjoys spending time with his family at the lake.

Matt Goddard
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
R2integrated

Matt Goddard is the Co-Founder and CEO of R2integrated (R2i), a leading Internet marketing and technology company headquartered in Baltimore/Washington with business development/account services offices in Seattle and New York. R2i provides platforms and services that enable companies to more quickly and easily distribute critical marketing communications to drive brand value and revenues in the age of peer-to-peer communications. Under his leadership, R2integrated has grown over 50% in 2009, engaging many of the world’s best known brands with best-in-class design and technology.

Matt is widely recognized expert in the digital marketing industry and is frequently called upon to provide clients and partners help in developing their strategic plans. Matt has been a featured speaker and numerous industry events including the Digital Publishing and Advertising Conference, Internet Summit, Business Marketing Association, and more. Prior to founding R2i, Matt was co-founder of Impreza, a leading digital marketing and technology firm that was acquired by Sinclair Broadcast Group (SBGI). Building on his expertise with creative services, brand strategy, and online communications, Matt created R2i, incorporating next-generation Web 2.0 methods and technologies to help businesses engage customers in an increasingly fractured media landscape.

Matt’s leadership has helped R2i to gain the trust of many of the world’s largest corporations, helping them to improve their customer communications and relationships. Companies like Forbes, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Black and Decker, Time Warner and Yamaha have engaged R2i to provide them internet marketing systems that provide direct, compelling interaction with their customers. Matt is also responsible for R2 ventures, a division of R2i that makes equity investments in start-up companies launching unique and innovative technologies.

Eden Goldberg
Vice President, Marketing & Business Development
InMotion Entertainment

Eden Goldberg is currently the Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at InMotion Entertainment, the largest entertainment and electronics retailer in the airport market. In her current role, Eden is responsible for conceiving the national chain's brand through store design, merchandising and marketing materials, positioning the company for exclusive partnerships and award-winning recognition. On the forefront of innovation, Eden launched the first digital download kiosks in the airports across the country. Eden is currently launching the first eco-friendly store concept in US airports. She brings more than 10 years of experience in branding, sponsorships, entertainment and consumer electronics in the retail industry. Before joining InMotion, she served as the VP of Marketing (since 2002) for Altitunes, the music and movie airport retailer acquired by InMotion. Earlier, Eden was the marketing manager with HMV Record Stores. Eden holds a Strategic Marketing degree at New York University and a B.S. in Journalism at Indiana University.

Jeffrey W. Hayzlett
Chief Marketing Officer
Eastman Kodak Company

Jeffrey Hayzlett serves as the Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President, Eastman Kodak Company, reporting to Kodak Chairman and CEO Antonio M. Perez. As CMO, Mr. Hayzlett is responsible for the company's worldwide marketing operations including the design and implementation of all marketing strategies, investments, policies, and processes. He leads the company's efforts for Strategy and Planning, Marketing Programs, Marketing Network Operations, Brand Development and Management, Business Development, and Corporate Sponsorships. He is also responsible for the company's Corporate Communications, Public Relations and Public Affairs organizations. Kodak’s Board of Directors elected him a corporate vice president in October 2007.

Mr. Hayzlett speaks frequently around the world on business growth, communications, and marketing, including keynotes at events such as The Economist Marketing Summit, THE Conference on Marketing, the 140 Character Twitter Conference, CMO Summits, Mobile Marketing Forum, Digital Life Design Conference, Photo Marketing Association Conference, Direct Marketing Association Leadership Forum, and National Postal Forum. He is cited as a leading marketing expert in numerous books, magazines, and newspapers worldwide, and is a frequent television guest and commentator, having appeared on shows including CNBC’s The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, Fox Business News, and NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice with Donald Trump.

He has received numerous global marketing and business awards and honors, including the Frost & Sullivan Lifetime Achievement Award for marketing. He was named "Business to Business Marketer of the Year" by BtoB Magazine and "Direct Marketer of the Year" by the University of Akron Taylor Institute for Direct Marketing. In 2008, Mr. Hayzlett was inducted into the College of Business Administration Direct Marketers Hall of Fame. In June 2009, he was awarded the prestigious "G.D. Crain Jr. Award for Marketing Excellence" and inducted into the BMA Hall of Fame at the Business Marketing Association's annual conference. Previously, the U.S. Small Business Association named him "Entrepreneur of the Year."

In the graphic arts industry, Mr. Hayzlett has been honored as the International Business Person of the Year Award by the International Printers’ Network (IPN); received The British Association for Print and Communication (BAPC) Honorary Life Member award; was given the National Association of Quick Printing (NAQP) Industry Award of Distinction; and most recently was awarded the prestigious Earl I. Sundeen Award from the International Graphic Arts Education Association (IGAEA).

Mr. Hayzlett currently sits on the Business Marketing Association (BMA) board of directors and is a past chairman of BMA. He is a member of the advisory board of the CMO Council, chairman of the Sales and Marketing Executives International (SMEI) Foundation for Marketing Education, a permanent trustee of the SMEI Academy of Achievement Sales and Marketing Hall of Fame, and a two-term past chairman of SMEI. He serves on Sales & Marketing Management Magazine’s 2009 Editorial Advisory Board. Mr. Hayzlett remains a trustee of Pi Sigma Epsilon National Education Foundation, an international sales and marketing fraternity.

Mr. Hayzlett has nearly 25 years of international marketing, sales, and customer relations management experience. He joined Kodak in April 2006 as Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President of the Graphic Communications Group (GCG). In this role, he was responsible for leading all marketing activities for the business, including product positioning, segment marketing, branding, marketing communications, customer development, business research, marketing strategy, and business development activity. He became Chief Business Development Officer in September 2007 and was responsible for Brand Development and Management, Market Development, Corporate and Product Public Relations, Communications and Public Affairs, Corporate Sponsorships, Business Development, Corporate Relationships and Partnerships, and Marketing.

Prior to joining Kodak, he led a private business development and public relations firm specializing in the technology and visual communications industries. He also held senior management positions in strategic business development and marketing at several companies, including Cenveo, Webprint, and Colorbus, Inc., and served in staff positions in the United States Senate and House of Representatives.

Burt Helm
Marketing Editor
Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Mike Hilts
President & General Manager
Yesmail

Michael Hilts has been in the email service provider space since its early days of the late 1990s. Mr. Hilts has served as President and General Manager of Yesmail since January of 2005 following the acquisition of @Once Corp. a Portland, OR based email service provider, where he served in the same capacity. During his tenure at @Once, Mr. Hilts served in various executive capacities including Vice President, Client Services and Vice President, Finance and CFO. From 1997 to 1999, Mr. Hilts provided contract CFO, and operational and financial advisory services to troubled companies in the technology, aviation, food services, agricultural and technology industries. From 1990 to 1997, Mr. Hilts was employed by Evergreen International Aviation, Inc., a multinational provider of aviation services, where he served in various operational and financial positions and last served as Corporate Controller for the $1.0 billion privately held firm. He holds a B.A. in finance and accounting from Washington State University and an M.B.A. from Portland State University.

Peter Horst
Chief Marketing Officer
Capital One Bank

Peter Horst is a 21-year marketing veteran with experience spanning products, services and technology at Capital One, Ameritrade, General Mills and US WEST. As Chief Marketing Officer of Capital One Bank, the #8-ranked U.S. bank, Horst leads the teams responsible for the full spectrum of marketing activities from integrated marketing, value proposition development, marketing research to customer management. His team led the brand conversions following Capital One’s acquisitions of Hibernia Bank and North Fork Bank, and is currently preparing for conversion of Chevy Chase Bank. .

From 2000 to 2003, prior to joining Capital One, Horst was Chief Marketing Officer of TruSecure Corporation, a leading provider of information security services and technologies. While at TruSecure, Horst re-branded and re-positioned the company, launched a new generation of patented enterprise solutions, and implemented new sales processes, resulting in over 400% growth.

Prior to TruSecure, Horst was Chief Marketing Officer of Ameritrade, where he built the brand and the marketing department and created some of the industry’s most successful marketing campaigns, including the cult-classic “Stewart” advertising.

From 1994 to 1997 Horst held a variety of strategy and line management roles at US WEST (now Qwest), focused on new Internet and cable television opportunities. He developed the strategy for US WEST’s Internet Yellow Pages and led its marketing and national sales, eventually becoming the #1 site in its region. He also worked on the positioning and launch of US WEST’s MediaOne cable television business, which coined “broadband” as consumer language.

Horst began his marketing career at General Mills, where he spent six years managing such brands as Pop Secret Popcorn and Betty Crocker snacks and meals.

Horst holds an MBA from the Tuck School at Dartmouth and a BA from Harvard. He lives in McLean with his wife, four children and two dogs.

Andrew Jenks
CEO of Autonomy Optimost
Autonomy

As the CEO of Autonomy Optimost, Andy is responsible for the vision, strategy, and execution of Autonomy's website optimization solutions which are a key part of its Meaning Based Marketing solutions. Previous to Autonomy Optimost, he was the founder and architect of Discovery Mining, an electronic discovery company. Prior to Discovery Mining, Andy was in charge of the team at Compete, Inc. that developed the software used to analyze the click stream data of more than two million internet users. Prior to Compete, Andy worked within the Research division at Alexa Internet, where he developed a software that was used to aggregate the multi-terabyte web crawl for analytics, search, relationships, and retrieval. Alexa was subsequently acquired by Amazon.com, where he continued to contribute to Amazon's recommendation engine. Andy holds a BS in Economics from the University of Utah.

William H. Lunderman
Vice President, Global Strategic Brand Design
Colgate-Palmolive Company

As Vice President Global Strategic Brand Design, William is responsible for creative brand communications for all Colgate Palmolive brands globally. He has management responsibility and oversight, both creatively and strategically, of all package design, maintaining brand identity and consistent global brand communication.

William has an extensive creative career, which began with his work in several of the prestigious design studios in New York City. There he gained experience on a brand spectrum of products and brands. This versatile foundation in design categories, ranging from liquor, tobacco, food, fragrances, cosmetics, etc., soon led him to the corporate environment.

William joined Colgate Palmolive in July, 2005; his prior corporate assignments were: Campbell Soup Company; Vice President, Global Design where he spent twelve years and before that Revlon, Inc. in New York City where he rose through the ranks from Designer to Vice President of Creative Services. He has been the recipient of numerous industry awards, including DESI and Packaging Executive Club gold and silver awards, along with recognition from the American Marketing Association.

William is a frequent guest lecturer at industry events and active in promoting interest in design among young people. He is a board member of the World Studio Foundation in New York City, as well as, a member of the board of trustees at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia. William has a Master of Arts Degree in Design and Communication from Pratt Institute in New York and a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Southern Illinois University, where he studied under Buckminster Fuller.

Dan Marks
Chief Marketing Officer
First Tennessee Bank

Dan Marks is the Chief Marketing Officer for First Tennessee Bank, one of the two primary business units of First Horizon National Corporation. First Tennessee is the leading bank in Tennessee and has other offices in the southeast. It has been nationally recognized by independent research organizations such as Brand Informatics, JD Power, and Greenwich Associates for leading customer satisfaction.

Dan is responsible for the overall cross-channel marketing strategy for First Tennessee including a $26 million annual marketing budget that generates a measurable ROI. The functions included in the group include Customer Insights, Web content/analytics,
Database Marketing, Retail Marketing, Business Marketing, and Affluent/WM Marketing, and Creative Brand Management.

One of Dan’s driving passions is continuous improvement of marketing programs based on rigorous ROI measurement and guided by test and learn processes. Dan is recognized for his thought leadership in Financial Services and in Marketing. He is frequently cited by BAI Banking Strategies, Forrester Research, and other publications. He is also asked to speak at industry conferences and trade meetings.

He has been with First Tennessee for over six years through a progression of roles and has served in management and senior consultant capacities with consulting organizations.

Dan has a MBA from Vanderbilt University and a BS in Accounting from Belhaven College. He also actively serves in the Memphis community, as an officer at
Second Presbyterian Church and on the boards of the Memphis Music Foundation and the Dixon Gallery and Gardens.

Jeff Rohrs
Vice President, Marketing
ExactTarget

Linda G. Shea
Senior Vice President & Global Managing Director, Customer Strategies
Opinion Research Corporation

Ms. Shea provides leadership and direction to Opinion Research Corporation’s global focus on customer strategy and management. She has spent the last 25 years helping organizations maximize customer relationships in ways that impact the overall performance of their business.

She speaks at national conferences on a routine basis and has authored several articles, including “The Economic Value of Loyalty”, “Goal Setting” and “Forget the Theory: Practical Considerations for Listening to the Customer Experience” and “The Art of Engaging the Customer: Proactive Steps To Delivering A Superior Customer Experience.”

Linda is routinely quoted in a variety of business and customer –focused publications and news sources such as: Business Week, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal radio. Her quotes have also appeared in online news outlets such as ABC.com, MSNBC.com, and CNBC.com.

Bev Thorne
Chief Marketing Officer
Century 21 Real Estate LLC

In her role as Senior Vice President, Marketing for Century 21 Real Estate LLC, Bev Thorne leads the planning and execution of the domestic marketing strategies in support of market share growth for the largest real estate franchise organization in the world. She is responsible for leading the strategy development and program execution of all consumer, broker and agent marketing programs. These efforts include: brand strategy and execution, direct marketing, national advertising, localized marketing and coop advertising, interactive marketing and technology, agent and broker marketing, targeted market promotions and marketing, sales support, public relations, media relations, internal communications and all promotional activities. She oversees the optimization of a National Advertising Fund on behalf of all CENTURY 21® System members to ensure that preference for the brand is increasing in the market, that qualified customer leads are being generated, and that market share growth is achieved.

Thorne earned her MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and has worked extensively in the areas of consumer marketing, strategic branding and event marketing management over her twenty-plus year career. She has a wealth of experience working with organizations modeled like the CENTURY 21 System. Most recently she was with JPMorgan Chase & Company where she served as senior vice president, customer marketing for the Home Finance business unit. Prior to that, Thorne worked at AT&T for nearly two decades in a series of increasingly senior roles, planning and executing marketing and communications strategies nationwide. She was instrumental in key telecommunications initiatives that spanned from the launch of cellular service to AT&T’s return to the local service market. Her experiences at AT&T included product management, sales management and targeted market management. She and her husband are raising three children on a tree farm in Central New Jersey.

Atul Vohra
Vice President, Marketing, Dell Services
and
Former Chief Marketing Officer, Perot Systems Corporation

Atul Vohra is the Vice President, Marketing for Dell Services, where he leads global marketing for this new $ 8 billion business within Dell,a $ 60 billion Fortune 29 company . He works closely with the company’s leadership to build the brand,servcie offerrings,channel s and demand generation worldwide..

Mr. Vohra was previously Chief Marketing Officer for Perot Systems where he built the marketing and communications function including globalizing of marketing operations.Previously his career has spanned three industries (packaged goods, financial, and technology services) and continents (Asia, Europe and North America) where he has built brands, businesses, and teams globally for large multi-nationals like Unilever, American Express and Citigroup. At Citigroup he led the establishment of the Consumer Bank in Hungary in 1995.

A recognized globalization and marketing expert, Mr. Vohra earned his bachelor’s degree with honors from St. Stephens College in New Delhi, India, and his master of business administration degree from India’s premier business school, the Indian Institute of Management. He is also an adjunct professor at Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business where he teaches an MBA course on Global Strategy, and author of the book, A Personal Guide to Offshoring in India.

Melanie Wells
Executive Editor, Forbes Media and Editor, Forbes.com CMO Network
Forbes Media

Melanie Wells is an Executive Editor at Forbes in New York, where she edits marketing and media stories for the magazine and Forbes.com. This year Melanie created the popular CMO Network on Forbes.com, a site with original content and video created for high-level marketing, media and advertising professionals. As part of that, Melanie hosts a video interview series with CEOs and chief marketing executives.

Melanie joined Forbes magazine as a senior editor in 1999 and since then she has authored or edited more than 10 major cover stories, including the first piece on “neuromarketing,” a story that inspired a book out now called “Buyology.” She also wrote a popular piece that examined the strange power of so-called cult brands. In 2007 she was promoted to Assistant Managing Editor of the magazine---one of the youngest editors in the history of the magazine to earn that title.

Before joining Forbes, Ms. Wells spent five years as a business reporter and marketing columnist for the "Money" section at USA Today in New York. Prior to that, she was a writer and columnist at Advertising Age.

Ms. Wells has also contributed articles to The Wall Street Journal, Psychology Today, among other publications. She is frequently invited to discuss business and marketing trends on TV outlets, including CNN, CNBC, Fox News Channel and ABC’s “Good Morning, America.”