Tim Ferriss

4 Hour Workweek

Timothy Ferriss, nominated as one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Business People of 2007,” is author of the #1 New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek bestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek, which has been sold into 33 languages.

He has been featured by more than 100 media outlets, including The New York Times, The Economist, TIME, Forbes, Fortune, CNN, and CBS. He speaks six languages, runs a multinational firm from wireless locations worldwide, and has been a popular guest lecturer at Princeton University since 2003, where he presents entrepreneurship as a tool for ideal lifestyle design and world change.

George Wright

Blendtec.com

Described as the “The best viral marketing campaign ever,” George Wright’s Will it Blend? viral marketing campaign has changed the face and the future of online marketing. Seen by more than 100 million people on the Internet and reported on by traditional media outlets like the Today Show, the Tonight Show, the History Channel, The Big Idea, etc. Will it Blend? continues to deliver unprecedented corporate awareness through social media channels. This new form of marketing has delivered a 700 percent increase in sales for Blendtec, a small Utah based blender manufacturer, with an initial investment of $50.

George has a proven track record of delivering strategic thinking, brand awareness and cutting-edge marketing and advertising strategy to local and international corporations to drive strategic, sustainable growth. These new strategies and tactics can be adapted and implemented by other companies without a large financial investment.

During his career, George has produced several award-winning campaigns and is the recipient of multiple awards, including a Clio, the .net Award for the best viral marketing site in 2006, YouTube Awards short list, PRSA’s Silver Anvil, IABC’s Golden Spike Award, and 2007 Best of Broadband and two Gold Communicator awards.

Megan Casey

Squidoo.com

Megan is a co-founder and the Editor in Chief of Squidoo.com, the popular publishing platform started 3 years ago with bestselling author and blogger Seth Godin. Before starting Squidoo, Megan spent 6 years in book publishing, most recently at the Portfolio business books imprint of Penguin Group, USA. There she developed pioneering marketing and technology books from the likes of John Battelle, Seth Godin, Bo Burlingham, Rod Beckstrom and Ori Braufman, and Dave Balter — among countless others. Megan is now widely regarded as one of the most inspiring community leaders online (and, irrelevantly, the youngest). She is also a user experience and marketing consultant for several author websites, and once upon a time ran her own author website development company. Megan’s favorite parts about Squidoo are their Org 2.0 movement for charity, putting the community in charge, the totally arcane topics that show up on lenses, and the fact that there are actually dozens of incredible lenses on zombies.

Stu Carty

Constant Contact

Stu Carty is a veteran sales and marketing specialist with 20+ years progressive experience in the enterprise software industry,. Stu has served as both an expert consultant and top executive with several software start-ups and small businesses, helping to define and launch their sales and marketing programs. Carty is currently a Regional Development Director at Constant Contact, where he delivered 90+ workshops to 2600+ attendees in the San Francisco bay area in 2007. Stu offers proven success in both B2B and B2C email marketing.

Ann Evanston

eWomenNetwork

Founder of eWomenNetwork San Francisco, popular blogger and social network creator. Ann has over 15 years of experience in the field of leadership and program development, founding 3 organizations that are still running today. She has consulted extensively with Cisco, Stanford Medical Center and Clinics, Sutter Health Network, Redding Rancheria Tribal Organization, Teichert Aggregates Construction, Strategies to Empower People, and many other clients. She has traveled nationally over the last seven years teaching First Time Supervisors, Leadership Conferences, and Stress Management for Women. In 2001, Ann had the honor of traveling Nationally and teaching “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff,” by Dr. Richard Carlson.

Jack Mardack

Eventbrite

Jack comes to Eventbrite after a multi-faceted career that includes stints in both B2B and consumer marketing. His experience spans communications, branding, Web product management, online customer acquisition, affiliate marketing and business development.

He began his technology marketing career as a writer and message architect for IBM, where he helped re-position IBM enterprise software in light of the emerging Internet opportunity under the banner of “e-business.” After IBM, Jack joined Altavista soon after its acquisition by CMGI, where he shaped multiple Web properties including Shopping.com and the Raging Search Engine. After AltaVista, Jack was General Manager of the FriendFinder Network, where he drove traffic to 19 dating sites, internationalized traffic acquisition and managed one of the Web’s largest affiliate programs.

Prior to joining Eventbrite, Jack was the lead consultant at Proton Cannon an SEO consultancy he started in 2005.

Jack has been numerously published on the subjects of affiliate marketing, search engine optimization and Web publisher responsibility.

He describes himself as a “technical marketer,” which is his way of coming to terms with the incurable inadequacy he feels for not being a programmer.

Jack holds a BS in Physics and Applied Math from NYU.

Nancy Tubbs

FullCalendar

Nancy Tubbs has more than 15 years of experience creating and managing technical and non-technical products for consumers. Before founding FullCalendar, she led marketing, product management and most business development for Intuit’s ground-breaking web-based personal finance service, known internally as “WebQuicken”. Previously, Nancy managed leading consumer products for Lever Brothers and Dole, and she began her career in the New York offices of what is now Accenture and Bearingpoint. Nancy has an engineering degree from Cornell and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Ian Griffin

Pro-Podcaster, NSA

Ian is an active blogger and podcaster on http://www.exec-comms.com/blog/. He has been podcasting for over 3 years and conducted over 70 interviews in person, by phone and via SKYPE. In addition to his personal podcasts on Executive Communications and speech writing, he has developed podcasts for internal use at Hewlett-Packard. These include executive profiles as well as live reports from conferences. Ian uses the Podpress plugin to Wordpress, Audacity editing software on the PC and an Olympus digital recorder.

Pam Strayer

Awarding Winning Journalist and Media Creator
www.pamstrayer.com
www.createyourowndigitalmovies.com
www.YouTube101.tv

Pam Strayer, a digital video pioneer, made the first video on a computer for Apple in 1992 and produced videos for top Silicon Valley companies, publishers, educators, government, and broadcasters - and Jerry Garcia, the UN and the Dalai Lama. Her 2005 book Create Your Own Digital Movies was a bestseller, with more than 5,000 copies sold. Most recently she’s helped Wells Fargo, Symantec, small businesses and nonprofits use Web 2.0 and web video for online marketing. Her newest book YouTube 101: Using Web Video to Turbocharge Your Business will be published this fall. Visit her new developed for conference attendees site at www.YouTube101.tv.

Nicole Nicolay

Effektive Solutions
MyTechOpinion.com

Nicolay is co-founder of Effektive Solutions, a marketing and technology solutions company for real estate professionals and title insurance companies. She has created products and services which have assisted over 30 title county operations, and growing! Nicole’s passion for writing how-to articles is evident in her blogging. She is author and editor at MyTechOpinion, the go-to blog for real estate technology. Nicole works diligently to provide readers with a comprehensive technology base for the real estate industry. She is also member of the Inman Blog Network, contributor to the HomeGain Blog and tech columnist for Chicago & Miami Agent Magazines.

Christian Perry

Room Full of People

Christian is the co-founder of Room Full of People, a leading producer of events and conferences focused on the Social Web. In his role, he oversees the company’s strategy, explores new opportunities and partnerships, and maintains an active role in developing and producing events. Christian stands among the leading influencers in emerging technology under the age of 25. He has been featured in Wired, Business 2.0, Red Herring, CNet, and a number of prominent technology blogs. Prior to founding Room Full of People, he was the founder of ZapTix, an online ticketing service, which was acquired in 2008. He holds an Associates Degree from Simon’s Rock College and a B.A. from the University of Chicago, Class of 2006.

Patrick Schwerdtfeger

Tactical Execution

Patrick Schwerdtfeger is the founder of Tactical Execution, a company that leverages cutting-edge internet marketing strategies to build credibility and exposure for its clients. He is the author of “Make Yourself Useful; Marketing in the 21st Century” and is known for explaining complicated subjects in an accessible and empowering way. Patrick is an award winning speaker and has given hundreds of workshops and seminars across the United States and western Canada. His podcasts have been downloaded over 20,000 times in 27 countries and his articles have been published on thousands of different websites. He was also an instructor at the Internet Marketing Conference held in Stockholm, Sweden (2007), and Vancouver, Canada (2008).

Vincent Lauria

Silicon Valley NewTech

Lefora

Vincent Lauria is the co-founder of lefora.com, a free forum hosting service for communities on the web. Additionally, Mr. Lauria runs a monthly New Technology Meetup group in Silicon Valley, featuring over 2,000 members and 100+ companies that have demoed their product since 2006.

He spends much of his time following the trend of social software and its cultural impact on society. Outside of work, he has taken on a number of adventures, including live webcamming a tour of the southern United States, backpacking a summer across Europe, and taking the helm of an open cockpit biplane.

Angie Chang

Women 2.0

Angie is a product manager by day, web designer by habit, and entrepreneur at heart. In 2006, she co-founded Women 2.0, a network for women entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley, and leads their marketing and community efforts. Angie also curates Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners with help from girl-geek-friendly companies like Google and Facebook, requiring that guys come as the “+1? for once. Previously, Angie worked as a web/UI designer for startups like Azureus and YouSendIt. Angie holds a B.A. in English and Social Welfare from UC Berkeley.

Robyn Tippins

Community Manager, Yahoo! Developer Network

Robyn Tippins is a community advocate with almost 10 years experience in the social media space. From her early days marketing her own small business using forums and email lists, to blogging, podcasting, vlogging and video game immersion, she’s often used social networking to engage and communicate. In her current role, Robyn oversees the community aspect of the external developers on the Yahoo! Developer Network. Her book, co-authored with Miranda Marquit, “Got Community?”, will be released in 2009.
Robyn has blogged for blog networks and corporations, podcasted for small and large businesses, worked closely with social networking sites, and advised Fortune 50 companies on social media and community. Her podcasts feature some of the web’s most interesting and well-known Web 2.0 experts in fields such as VoIP, Technology, Open Source, Marketing, Social Networking, Video Games and Blogging.
She finds her greatest joys in moments away from her computer, spending time with her husband and four children, ages 3 to 10. She and her family reside in the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California.

Cesar Plata

EveryCircle.com

Founder everyCircle.com, infoBayArea.com, mybueno.net. Cesar Plata founded www.muybueno.net in September 1998 in Silicon Valley. Renamed as InfoBayArea.com.net and then everyCircle.com, this website aims to inform and unite the Bay Area Community by promoting Business, Community, Culture, and Education. Cesar disributes a weekly e-newsletter and hosts Monthly Business Networking Mixers throughout the Bay Area which offer opportunities for professionals, business owners, corporate and community leaders, and college students to network in a friendly, fun, and comfortable environment. InfoBayArea.com also serves as a directory of Bay Area jobs, events and community and career resources.

Through his efforts, Cesar promotes community awareness and involvement to professionals and community leaders throughout the Bay Area. Cesar has been featured in 2 books so far and believes strongly in the following statement: One major key to success is: Not what you know, or who you know, but who knows YOU! Make a name for yourself - do what is right, and let your reputation and your efforts precede you.

Yaniv Bensadon

Fixya.com

Yaniv Bensadon is a seasoned internet entrepreneur who over the past 8 years founded and led several successful consumer internet ventures. His recent venture, FixYa, is establishing itself as the first and largest crowd sourced tech support community for consumer products on the web. Bensadon’s core expertise focuses on envisioning innovative solutions that accommodate the growing needs of online consumers, yet are holding an abundant economic potential for monetization.

Prior to entering the Internet space, as a Spokesperson for the Consul General of Israel in Miami, Bensadon represented the Israeli Government’s foreign affairs policies in speaking engagements throughout Florida. Bensadon is a native of Israel and a veteran Captain of the Israeli Air Force.

Rick Rochon

AdSymetrix.com

GetIllumination.com

Rick Rochon is dedicated to educating and training small business owners to market smarter. Rick was born with an entrepreneurial spirit and intimately understands the challenges small business owners face, especially when marketing their businesses in a rapidly changing environment. Planning, placing and perfecting marketing plans and strategies are essential to all small businesses and Rick’s hands-on approach empowers the small business to make immediate and measurable changes to their marketing plan. While Rick is submerged in new media, he also brings to the table an in-depth knowledge of traditional marketing and understands how to leverage both avenues to grow your business, save money and improve the bottom line.

Destined to be an entrepreneur, Rick honed his entrepreneurial skills from an early age as the standout chocolate bar salesman at St. Benedict’s School. In the late 80’s, Rick cut his teeth in his first “real” enterprise by launching Bravado, a successful espresso catering company in Seattle. What was becoming clear to Rick at this early stage in his path was that learning how to fail in business and get back up and try it again was critical; that the knowledge you gain from failure was even more important than the knowledge gained from the small victories.

In the 90’s and 00’s, Rick dove headlong into the new and exciting world of Internet marketing and advertising. In addition to working at a number of dot-com start-ups, Rick also applied his knowledge of sales and marketing and new business development at traditional media companies like Knight Ridder and Classified Ventures, helping them to move from exclusively print and paper to the exploration of new media options. In 2005 Rick founded AdSymetrix, Inc., a marketing measurement platform for small businesses to evaluate their marketing’s ability to drive business, where he currently serves as CEO. Based on the resounding need he kept hearing from his small business clients, Rick spun-off a new brand from Adsymetrix, a company called Illuminate Marketing. Illuminate is driven to educate small businesses on how to market smarter and more effectively with best-of-breed marketing tools and products.

Stephan M. Spencer

Netconcepts.com

Stephan M. Spencer, M.Sc., is president of Netconcepts, a leading natural search marketing firm. Clients include Home Shopping Network, AOL, Verizon SuperPages.com, Discovery Channel, and REI, to name a few.

Stephan is an author of the upcoming O’Reilly book “The Art of SEO” with co-authors Rand Fishkin and Jessie Stricchiola, due out in 2009. Stephan is also a Senior Contributor to MarketingProfs.com and to Practical Ecommerce, a monthly columnist on Search Engine Land, and he’s contributed to Multichannel Merchant, DM News, Catalog Age, Catalog Success, Building Online Business, Unlimited, and NZ Marketing magazine among others. He is co-author of the analyst report “The State of Search Engine Marketing 1.0 - New Strategies for Successful Cataloging” published by Catalog Age.

Stephan is a frequent speaker at Internet conferences around the globe (including Berlin, London, Toronto, Santiago, Auckland, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and places in between) for organizations such as the DMA, the AMA, Shop.org, Internet Retailer, SMX, IncisiveMedia (Search Engine Strategies), IQPC and IIR.

Stephan is an avid blogger. He blogs primarily on his own blog, Stephan Spencer’s Scatterings. But he also blogs on the the Search Engine Land 100% Organic Column, the Shop.org Blog, Natural Search Blog, BusinessBlogConsulting.com, MarketingProfs Daily Fix, Changes For Good, and Google, I Suggest….

Elsa Chang

Yahoo! Local and Upcoming
As a community manager for Upcoming, Elsa’s job focuses on bringing users together and helping them find things to do and places to go. In her personal time, she enjoys organizing parties and events. Besides her responsibilities at Upcoming, she manages the communities under Yahoo! Local Neighbors – a discussion board where users can make suggestions, ask questions or just find out what their neighbors think about local issues.

Elsa has over four years experience in search engine marketing and optimization, spending several years at Google AdWords and Google search quality, and more recently as a consultant to many small businesses. Lately, Elsa has switched her focus towards social media and believes that the future of internet is about building strong communities. She holds a Business degree from York University and a B.S in Psychology from Northwestern University.

Alex Craddock

Head of Small Business Marketing
Visa Inc.

Alex Craddock is head of small business marketing at Visa Inc. and is responsible for the development of marketing strategies and integrated marketing programs for Visa Business products targeted at the small business market.

Prior to joining Visa Inc., Craddock held two roles in Visa International’s Asia Pacific Marketing Department. He served as regional director of product and channel marketing overseeing the development marketing programs to support Visa’s product and channel initiatives across the Asia Pacific region. In addition, he was the marketing director of S&SE Asia, managing the development of marketing initiatives around the Visa payment card business and the Visa brand across India, Pakistan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Indochina.

Alex has over 17 years experience in international marketing and business development. Previously, he was the European Group head of brand and marketing for the Xerox Corporation and prior to that senior vice president and head of marketing for Visa International CEMEA (Eastern Europe, Russia, Middle East and Africa). Alex also spent several years working for marketing agencies, with responsibility for client management and business development with clients such as NatWest, British Gas, Volvo and Sony. Alex began his career in the automotive industry with Renault and subsequently Honda.

Craddock earned degrees in European Business and French from Nottingham Trent University.

Scott Sigler

ScottSigler.com

Scott is the author of INFECTED and CONTAGIOUS, major hardcover thrillers from Crown Publishing. He landed his book deal by giving away multiple novels as free, serialized podcasts that generated a large online following and saw over 4 million downloads of the individual episodes. Scott reinvented book publishing when he released EARTHCORE as the world’s first “podcast-only” novel. Released in twenty weekly episodes, EARTHCORE harkened back to the days of serialized radio fiction and picked up 10,000 subscribers along the way.

His next podcast novel, ANCESTOR, drew 30,000 listeners and saw 700,000 episodes downloaded by fans. The buzz caused Sirius Satellite to pick up the novel, making it the first audiobook serialized on the satellite network. When ANCESTOR was released in print from a small independent publisher, it hit #7 overall on Amazon.com despite no marketing, no advertising and no media coverage.

Scott’s innovative use of technology puts him at the forefront of modern-day publishing, and has garnered brand-name exposure among hundreds of thousands of fiction fans and technology buffs. He’s been covered in the New York Times, NPR, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher’s Weekly, The Huffington Post, Business Week and Fangoria.

Dan McComb

Co Founder Biznik.com

Dan is a former photojournalist whose work has appeared in newspapers and magazine such as Time and Newsweek. In 2005, he and Lara Eve Feltin cofounded Biznik (http://biznik.com), with a simple premise: business networking shouldn’t suck. Today Biznik is an award-winning community that currently connects 17,000 members in 118 countries. Biznik’s approach blends the best of online social networking tools with the immediacy of face-to-face events hosted by members. In 2006, Dan cofounded BizJam Seattle, a business conference now in its third year. He is a frequent public speaker on the topic of business social networking.

Jason Billingsley

Co-Founder Elastic Path Software

Jason Billingsley is a Co-founder & VP Innovation at Elastic Path Software where is responsible for exploring new ecommerce technologies and methods for online retail. As principal ecommerce analyst, he consults with some of the largest and most successful online retailers in the world – most recently managing online strategy for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games online store. Jason has authored industry research such as “The Ecommerce Checkout Report”, hosts a monthly ecommerce webinar series, and oversees the most subscribed ecommerce blog on the internet - Get Elastic. He is a regular speaker at industry events such as Shop.org, Online Market World, and MarketingSherpa. An online marketer for well over a decade, Jason has been quoted in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Internet Retailer, BtoB Magazine, Apparel magazine, and Multi-Channel Merchant.

Scott Heiferman

Co-Founder Meetup.com

Scott Heiferman co-founded Meetup.com in 2002 (the global group gathering tool), Fotolog.net in 2002 (the leading photo weblog platform, used by over a quarter million people, and viewed by nearly 1 million people daily), and i-traffic in 1995 (the first online ad agency, a pioneer in search-keyword media placement, and now one of the largest online media buyers, with offices in the U.S. and Europe).

Scott is CEO of Meetup.com, a global non-partisan platform that helps people organize monthly local real-world gatherings about anything anywhere. Nearly 1 million people (and growing) have signed up to Meetup with a group of neighbors about knitting, chihuahuas, diabetes, George Bush, and thousands of other topics. Meetup’s investors and Board Members include Esther Dyson, Andreas Stavropoulos (DFJ), and Pierre Omidyar (Founder/Chairman, eBay). In 1994, Scott was “Interactive Marketing Frontiersman” at Sony, where he created Sony’s first consumer online presence. He graduated from The University of Iowa and has posted a photo on his personal Fotolog every day for three years.

Hazel Grace Dircksen

Social Networking Expert

A sought-after consultant and entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley, Hazel Grace Dircksen has helped numerous companies leverage social networking tools to expand visibility and reach new audiences. Her most recent company Socialbees Strategy, though still in its pre-launch phase, has already crafted Facebook business pages and ads for more than twenty companies.

As an early adopter, product expert, and industry insider, Hazel Grace has organically gravitated toward social networking sites, from Friendster to Facebook and everything in between. Her technical savvy, forward thinking, and personal connections to numerous social networking companies allows her to immediately cut through the clutter to see the true potential in a particular product and, ultimately, the business value for her clients.

Prior to debuting Socialbees, Hazel Grace was an award winning fashion designer and later launched FashionIV (a social fashion site that was a Facebook Developer Platform launch partner at F8 2007), via the San Francisco Ladies Who Launch Incubator Program. She went on to become the Ladies Who Launch Silicon Valley leader and San Francisco co-leader where she continues helping female entrepreneurs launch and grow their businesses.

Her recent clients include: Closet Couture (a TechCrunch50 startup), The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, Ladies Who Launch, Family Wealth Planning Institute, 29-Day Giving Challenge, Twist Studios, Urban Darling, Lula Lu and Peternity.

When she’s not working on a project for one of her many clients, you can find Hazel Grace on MySpace (member at the 500,000 mark), Yelp (Elite member for the past three years), Facebook (first GEO network user–ask about her top secret Facebook account!), and Twitter… just to name a few.

Christine Comaford

Former Google Angel Investor
Mighty Ventures

Bill Gates calls her “super high bandwidth.” Bill Clinton has thanked her for “fostering American entrepreneurship.” Newsweek says “by reputation, Christine is the person you want to partner with.”

New York Times bestselling author Christine Comaford is CEO of Mighty Ventures, a business accelerator which helps businesses to massively increase sales, product offerings, and company value. She has built and sold 5 of her own businesses with an average 700% return on investment, served as a board director or in-the-trenches advisor to 36 startups, and has invested in over 200 startups (including Google) as a venture capitalist or angel investor. Christine has consulted to the White House (Clinton and Bush), 700 of the Fortune 1000, and over 300 small businesses. She has repeatedly identified and championed key trends and technologies years before market acceptance.

Christine has led many lives: Buddhist monk, Microsoft engineer, geisha trainee, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. Her triumphs and disasters are revealed in her New York Times (and USA Today, Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and Amazon.com ) bestselling business book: Rules for Renegades: How to Make More Money, Rock Your Career, and Revel in Your Individuality. The book is available at all major retailers or via www.RulesForRenegades.com.

Christine has appeared on Good Morning America, The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, FOX Business Network, PBS, CNET and is frequently quoted in the business, technology and general press at large. Stanford Graduate School of Business has done two case studies on her and PBS has featured her in three specials (Triumph of the Nerds, Nerds 2.0.1, and Nerd TV ). CNET has broadcast two specials covering her unconventional rise to success as a woman with neither a high school diploma nor college degree. Christine believes we can do well and do good, using business as a path for personal development, wealth creation, and philanthropy.

Kelly O’Neil

Chief Strategy Officer, UpLevel Strategies
Master Business Coach, Speaker & Author

Business & Marketing guru, Kelly O’Neil, is passionate about helping entrepreneurs unleash their bigger game. She is the owner of UpLevel Strategies, Inc., The UpLevel Agency and Bow Wow Bootcamp, LLC. The lead author of “Visionary Women Inspiring the World: 12 Paths to Personal Power” (Skyward, 2005), she has recently teamed up with mega-marketing genius, Jay Conrad Levinson, to co-author the next book in his international best selling series called, Guerrilla Business Strategies for Entrepreneurs.

As a National Award-Winning Marketer and Business Strategist, Kelly has given more than 10,000 media interviews, including: The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Bloomberg, AP, The New York Times, USA Today, Time, Business Week, Forbes, Fortune and MTV.

Known for her devotion to excellence, Kelly’s company has won a multitude of awards, including the PR Compass Award for Outstanding Public Relations and The ADDY Award for Branding. In addition, her company was named one of the 500 most innovative companies in America, for which she was awarded a 2004 Purple Cow Innovator award, by NY Times best selling author, Seth Godin.

The creator of the Business Mastery Success System™, Kelly provides affordable business and marketing solutions that empower business owners to work smarter, not harder, overcome barriers, and achieve massive success.

About UpLevel Strategies
UpLevel Strategies is an award-winning business and marketing coaching company that specializes in helping small businesses make more money through low-cost business and marketing strategies. We’ll show you how to create the business that will help you achieve your biggest goals. To learn more, please visit: www.uplevelstrategies.com

About The UpLevel Agency
The UpLevel Agency offers small businesses and emerging company’s award-winning, full service marketing and promotion campaigns to create big business results on a small business budget. To learn more, please visit www.uplevelstrategies.com/agency

Chris Pareja

B2B Power Exchange
Chris founded the B2B Power Exchange to fill a networking void for business developers looking for introductions to senior decision makers at mid-sized and larger companies. Chris has specialized in expanding businesses’ bottom lines for over a dozen years in a variety of marketing, management and sales positions. He currently owns LeadGenaires, a results-driven marketing agency. He previously served as Vice President of Business Development at Kassner, where he generated new marketing and design projects with companies such as Intel, ACCPAC, TechVentures Network and C&C Group. He has also served as a business development consultant; Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Flowtix-Small Business Solutions; the Director of US and Canadian Field Marketing for NAME Solutions Corp.; plus several marketing and sales positions for Cambridge Technology Partners (now part of Novell). Chris is a former Board Member at Business Marketing Association’s Northern California Chapter and is former Co-Chair of the East Bay IT Group’s Sales & Marketing Special Interest Group. He has spoken at SDForum, EBIG, CommArt, TechVentures Corporation; been quoted and had a recent article in the East Bay Business Times; and appeared as a guest expert in the Northern California chapter of the Business Marketing Association’s Copy Magazine.

Adriana Gascoigne

hi5.com

Adriana is the Director of Corporate Communications for hi5. Launched in 2003, hi5 is now of the world’s largest social networks - ranked as a top 20 website globally and the #1 social network in 26 countries across Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. According to comScore, more than 56 million individuals every month visit hi5, which is currently available in 26 languages options.

Adriana was most recently Vice President of the 360 Digital Influence Group at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide where she spearheaded operations for social media, word-of-mouth marketing and digital integrations campaigns for clients such as Intel, Wells Fargo, Brocade, ACC, Sun Power, Case Logic, YieldBuild and Naked Juice.

Prior to working at Ogilvy, she served as the Vice President of FutureWorks Media in San Francisco, managing all aspects of operations including business development, digital strategy and account management. Some of her clients included MeeVee, WooMe, Yojo Mobile, DocStoc, Magnify, Fantasy Sports Matrix, Ujogo, StreetAdvisor, Yoono, HeyCosmo, SayHeyHey, GoBig and YourTrumanShow.

A seasoned Web 2.0′er, Adriana is a vlogger for Bubblicious, MeeVee, TheWeakSpot, publishes her own tech lifestyle blog and buzzes around Silicon Valley speaking at industry events such as the Web Video Summit and Tech Innovations Summit. In March 2007, Adriana launched Girs in Tech, an organization focused on touting women’s achievements in tech and beyond.

In December 2008, she will be launching Smitten With Mittens, a non-profit providing warm mittens and clothing to orphans in third world countries during their respective Winter seasons.

Adriana holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Economics from the University of California at Davis, received a certification from El Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico, and was enrolled in Semester at Sea, University of Pittsburgh in 1997. Adriana is also fluent in Spanish and speaks some Japanese and French.

Nish Nadaraja

Yelp.com

Nish Nadaraja has served as Yelp’s Marketing Director since 2005. In 2007, he was appointed Editor-in-Chief, thus overseeing the 20+ Weekly Yelp newsletters running in as many cities in the U.S. Prior to Yelp, Nish worked at Ammo Marketing, a boutique buzz marketing agency based in San Francisco.

Mark O’Leary

Comcast

Over the last 24 years, Mark has held various executive positions in the telecommunications, cable, software and networking industries. Mark’s career includes VP/GM roles in Fortune 500 companies and as CEO of venture-backed start-ups in the technology sector. In these roles, he has had a track record of successfully scaling companies and business units in high growth environments.

Mark is currently the Regional Vice President for Business Services for Comcast in Central California. In this capacity, Mark is responsible for building a B2B organization that will provide data, telecommunications and video products to the commercial market.

Prior to joining Comcast, Mark was Founder of Phi Performance Systems, a consulting firm that worked with technology companies in aligning overall execution with corporate strategy. Mark was also CEO of HCORP, a health care applications company that provided in-hospital patient and clinical applications via a broadband content network. After establishing early market leadership in their segment, Mark sold HCORP in 2002.

Prior to HCORP, Mark served as CEO of Euclid Inc. where he and his team in the US and India brought to market a suite of IT Operational Support System (OSS) software and services to provide large commercial IT departments visibility into their service delivery quality and true cost of IT resources by product, LOB or customer.

Mark also served as the Executive Vice President of Broadband Services at Excite@Home responsible for the $450 Million @Home and @Work business units. Mark’s responsibilities included, P&L, Operations, Sales and Marketing, Product Development and overall Service Delivery of consumer and commercial Internet products. In this capacity, Mark and his team scaled the Excite@Home’s consumer broadband Internet base from 1.8 to 3.6 Million subscribers, resulting in the largest broadband Internet network in existence.

Mark spent 19 years with AT&T in various executive and management positions including Vice President of Managed Network Services, Director of Global Technical Marketing and GM of National Accounts. In these capacities Mark was one of the principals of the transformational management of AT&T Business Services that led to it’s market leadership in the data services industry.

Mark has been active in professional and non-profit organizations over the last 10 years including Board Chairman of Junior Achievement in San Mateo County, Board Chairman of Deuce LLC, Advisory Board positions with Helia Inc., TruVideo Inc. and Global Inventures. He also was the principal representative for AT&T at the Society of Organizational Learning.

Mark holds a BA from SUNY Oneonta and an MBA from St. Mary’s College.

Paul Jensen

Microsoft

Paul Jensen has been with Microsoft for nine years, working with partners and customers. As the Business Development & Strategy Manager for the Small Business Local Engagement Team, Paul is interested in helping entrepreneurs of all sizes and specialties to find solutions to their business needs. See www.mslocalbiz.com.

Myles Weissleder

SF New Tech

Myles Weissleder is an original Internet cowboy who’s been empowering people online ever since he caught the Internet bug in San Francisco in 1994.

He’s a co-founder of chi.mp, the domain that’ll set your online identity free; the founder of the 3500+ member SF New Tech community and event series; and is the primary taskmaster of a tiny little PR & marketing firm called Mylermedia, serving the likes of CNN,The National Presidential Caucus, Familybuilder,Sir Groovy,EkkoTV,MyThings, ReFrame It, and others.

Myles was one of the founding fathers of the first online direct marketing agency (i-traffic) and the first offline meeting phenomenon (Meetup), wherein he served under Scott Heiferman, who he’s psyched to see in SF for this conference.

When he’s not online or hanging out with his small (but growing) family in Sausalito, CA, Myles can be found jumping his dog Pico over the Golden Gate Bridge or carving turns on his longboard down the Embarcadero.

Jaana Linsenmayer

Microsoft

Jaana Linsenmayer is the Small Business Product Manager for Microsoft Office and has been with Microsoft for the last two and a half years. Her focus is to educate and market Office SBE and Professional Plus to small business ranging from home-based businesses to lower mid-market companies. Jaana received a B.A. in Business from Washington State University and a Master’s of Science in Technical Communication from the University of Washington school of Engineering. She lives in Poulsbo with her husband Erik and son Nigel.

Michael Kelly

HP

Mike Kelly began working with HP five years ago specializing in consumer computing printing and photography. He spent four years traveling the nation showing people how HP products could improve their life at home and the office. He has worked on multiple marketing campaigns for HP and appeared on shows such as Martha Stewart. He currently specializes in the HP Small to Medium Business (SMB) product line including Officejet printers, LaserJet printers, Multi-functions printers, online marketing resources and notebooks. Today he travels the country teaching people how to use HP to better their business with an easy way to create professional marketing materials in-house and at a low cost. He can show you simple ways to save money on printing, how to create your own marketing materials and sales presentations! It’s easy to look like a fortune 500 company and he can help get you there!

Allen Weinberg

Glenbrook

Allen’s analysis work is informed by more than 20 years of experience as a consultant and executive at leading financial services and Internet companies. Before founding Glenbrook, he worked in new product development, channel strategies, and pricing in the point-of-sale, e-Commerce, mobile commerce, and money transfer markets. Allen worked at First Data Corporation as senior vice president of product development and marketing with overall responsibility for POS, Internet, and back office products in First Data’s multi-billion dollar merchant processing business.

Before joining FDC, Allen was a vice president at Visa USA, where he oversaw merchant pricing (interchange) and new market development. He served as Senior Manager in Accenture’s Strategic Services practice, where he led strategic planning, operations, marketing, and product development engagements and was one of the firm’s worldwide payments experts. In addition, he was a founder and vice president of business development at BarterTrust (acquired by Intagio.com), a business-to-business exchange serving 50,000 client companies.

Allen’s current area of focus is the rapidly changing landscape of both physical and ecommerce products and technologies from the merchant, processor, consumer, and card system perspectives. He works with dozens of the largest ecommerce and physical world merchants and their technology providers, as well as the credit and debit/POS card networks, acquirers, and venture capital investors focused on emerging payments opportunities.