Mary Ann Brennan is a Global Marketing, Sales and Supply Chain leader with over 26 years’ experience within the Retail, Telecommunications, Non-Profit, Entertainment, Financial Services and CPG industries.At Mattel, the world’s largest toy company, Mary Ann currently serves as the Senior Director of Global Indirect Procurement managing nearly $1B in spend. She is based out of the Mattel Headquarters in El Segundo, CA managing a global team. During her tenure, she has partnered with executives of leading Fortune 500 companies to develop successful and sustainable relationships and is responsible for building leading edge indirect procurement teams contributing to more than $300MM in efficiencies. As a marketer, Mary Ann worked on brands such as Time Warner/Six Flags, Countrywide/Bank of America, and Wells Fargo and as a procurement professional she now works on brands such as Barbie, Hot Wheels, American Girl, and Fisher Price. Mary Ann earned her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business with a dual emphasis in Marketing and Finance

Bill Duggan is group executive vice president at ANA (Association of National Advertisers) with responsibilities focused on management of the organization’s portfolio of marketing/media committees and associated conferences, as well as thought leadership. He has played a lead role in the development of recent ANA white papers including Enhancing Client/Agency Relationships, Advertising is Going Native, Fraud in Digital Advertising and also manages the ANA Transparency Task Force. He is an active contributor to the ANA Marketing Maestros blog.

Mr. Duggan joined ANA in 2000, bringing extensive marketing and advertising experience gained on the agency side. He worked in account management at Grey Advertising for 16 years, supervising major clients including Canon U.S.A. (winning two Effie Awards for effective advertising), Kraft Foods, SmithKline Beecham, and Sara Lee. He has been an adjunct faculty member at New York University’s Stern School of Business, teaching advertising management on both the graduate and undergraduate levels, and has a bachelor’s degree from Boston College and an M.B.A. from New York University.

J. Francisco Escobar serves as a business management advisor to advertisers, service providers, and intermediaries in the marketing services industry.  The organization was formed in 2003 as a Minority Business Enterprise.  Francisco has developed and implemented numerous processes to improve relationships between marketing stakeholders and their supplier-partners.  Additionally, JFE International Consultants regularly conducts seminars on optimizing relationships with Marketing Procurement, educating all parties about the latest trends and best practices.

Francisco has been heavily involved in all aspects of commercial relationship management for over three decades, structuring, negotiating and executing “win-win” agreements across a number of categories including advertising, public relations, promotions, experiential/events, interactive, and co-op marketing. 

Francisco was educated in a multicultural environment gaining fluency in Spanish, French and Italian.  Following advanced studies in Economics and a Masters in Business Administration, he gained 23 years of experience with Texas Instruments in global financial, marketing and procurement management.   

Steve has over 24 years of experience sourcing advertising, marketing and print in the CPG, financial services, healthcare, hospitality, insurance and Internet industries – well before Sourcing became what it is today. While Steve spent most of his career on the client side, he also has experience on the agency side. Having worked at some of the best known Fortune 500 companies, including Cigna, Starwood Hotels Worldwide and Aol, he currently serves as Director, Global Procurement at MetLife.  He leads the Advertising, Marketing and Print team responsible for supporting North America, AsiaPac, EMEA and LatAm and is based out of MetLife’s new corporate offices in Raleigh, NC.

A senior business leader and international best-selling author, Bruno has extensive Fortune 100 and agency experience at fast-growing organizations. Bruno is the Co-Founder and Principal of Agency Mania Solutions, a service and technology firm specialized in helping marketing organizations realize the transformational value of managed agency partnerships. Bruno is the former Head of Global Marketing Operations at Visa Inc. where he was responsible for agency partnerships, and for driving marketing excellence around the world. As Director of Global Agency Strategy at Microsoft, he developed a company-wide approach to strengthening the brand globally, driving business impact through successful partnerships. Among other noteworthy accomplishments at Microsoft where he spent a decade, Bruno was instrumental in establishing Agency Management, digital marketing and CRM as central global disciplines. He received the prestigious Marketing Excellence Award from Steve Ballmer, CEO, for his continued leadership. Bruno held leadership positions in pre-IPO high-tech companies - AvenueA/Razorfish and Visio where he played a critical role in driving customer relationships using robust data, analytics and digital competencies. Bruno is the former Head of Relationship Marketing at Clearwire/Sprint, where he built a growth customer engine that contributed to the company's growth. He held various senior positions in France at Hachette and the Ministry of Defense. Bruno grew up in France, where he graduated from business school. He holds a MBA in Marketing and International Business and he is a frequent author/speaker. Bruno is the author of best-seller "Agency Mania" (available in multiple languages) and the former chair of the Association of National Advertisers Client/Agency Committee.

Vivien Harmon is a Sourcing professional and highly effective negotiator with a passion for the Marketing space. She believes an understanding of motivation is key to delivering results. After spending 15 years in Sourcing for major Fortune 100 companies such as Delta, The Home Depot and SunTrust Banks, Vivien knows that an understanding of the business goals blended with data driven analysis, proven sourcing processes and defined negotiation strategies are key to any deal. Over the past year, Vivien has been focused on helping McKesson deliver an MSP print model across a global footprint, employing innovative sourcing strategies in non-traditional direct categories, and designing a pharmacy model to enable savings for McKesson and its member pharmacies. Vivien holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Tech (go Yellow Jackets!). She is based out of Atlanta, GA and is always open to networking with peers and regularly participating in conferences as a speaker or panelist.

Following a career launch in the nonprofit space, Stacy's 15 years of experience in procurement began in e-sourcing, and later developed into procurement consulting work across sectors and categories, and finally into Marketing procurement leadership roles in the pharmaceutical and technology industries.  A few of her areas of current focus and interest include supplier-enabled innovation, agency engagement optimization, and procurement approaches for not-for-profit organizations and small businesses. 

Stacy currently serves as Americas Indirect and Global Marketing Procurement Lead for Citrix, where she manages the compete profile of marketing and media spend across regions and divisions.  Prior to Citrix, Stacy held roles in global Agencies category leadership and Marketing transformation implementation with Novartis.

Stacy holds a BA in English and Spanish from Dickinson College, as well as both an MBA in Marketing and Master of International Business from the University of Pittsburgh.

Crystal Khalil brings 20 plus years of global supply chain industry experience, including manufacturing scheduling, indirect & direct commodity sourcing, negotiation, and contract management. As Manager, Procurement and Supplier Contracts for Porsche Cars North America, Inc., Crystal leads a strong centralized team responsible for strategic sourcing and procurement of all goods and services in North America. Prior to joining Porsche, Khalil held leadership roles at Coca-Cola Enterprises, and National Service Industries. Her previous roles included Travel Manager; where she was responsible for managing the global travel spend for Coca-Cola Enterprises.  Khalil also served in additional positions in indirect procurement managing over $600 million dollars in professional services spend. Khalil has a master’s degree from Central Michigan University and a bachelor’s degree in operations from DeVry University.

Michael Rafferty is the Executive Director of Global Marketing Procurement for Kaplan Inc. where he partners with Marketing on managing their $400 million global investment. Prior to Kaplan, Michael led the Marketing Procurement Organization at Altria Group Inc. where, under his leadership, his team collaborated with Marketing to collectively identify and deliver over $50 million in savings to reinvest in brand building opportunities. His leadership roles at Altria Group in Finance, Sales and Marketing Services provided Michael the understanding and credibility to transform Marketing Procurement from a back seat position of solely focusing on the lowest cost to become an equal strategic thinking partner providing the right quality and value for the return on Marketing’s investment. Michael spends his time between his home in Knoxville, TN and Kaplan’s Fort Lauderdale, FL headquarters.

Larry has worked in positions of increasing responsibility in Consumer Package goods companies such as Philips Lighting, The Body Shop, Reckitt and Colman, Warner Lambert Consumer HealthCare, Kraft/Nabisco, BP and Wrigley/Mars. While he has managed just about every commercial category from Raw Materials to Capital, his passion is Marketing Services. He specialises in being the "glue" that brings many functions together in a mutually beneficial manner to drive value and growth. Larry joined Wrigley in 2008 just in time to have the company merge with Mars and is now a director in the marketing & sales team within a global indirect procurement organisation, responsible for Global Commercial Strategy and Management of $250M in Creative and Production spend with Mars Advertising Agencies. In concert with Mars CMO’s, Finance and Commercial associates Larry and his team are developing a 5 year strategy and vision for creative and production at Mars. Larry will be participating in an In Conversation session, examining ‘Empowering Marketing Procurement To Take Control Of Media Spend: How Can You Gain The Key Business Skills Required To Become An Expert In This Domain?’.

Kevin Stacey is a Category Manager at TD Ameritrade, focusing on Marketing and Advertising spend, and brings eight years of professional experience in the Marketing and Advertising space from both the client-side and agency perspectives.  He specializes in agency selections, retainer and project fee negotiations, media-related initiatives, and agency production arrangements.  Kevin earned his BS in Finance from the University of Dayton and his MBA from Cleveland State University.

Fiona Foy began her Marketing Procurement career at RBS Group in 2000, where she commercially managed the largest UK media pitch to that date. From there she has led both the UK & Global Marketing Procurement teams at Orange followed by 10 years in Vodafone’s Global Marketing Procurement team based in Luxembourg. In her Marketing Procurement roles, Fiona has worked across all marketing disciplines with a keen focus on driving media agency value and transparency. She has commercially led all of Vodafone’s media reviews in the last 10 years, from local in-market reviews to the 2 global reviews in the last 6 years with an annual media spend in excess of €650m. She has delivered double digit media value through the agency negotiations, looking to continuously be ahead of the marketplace and locking this into a formal contract with the agency. She is very much looking forward to moving to the ‘other-side’, where she can share her experiences and procurement knowledge with our clients.

Jon is a Managing Partner at Gain Theory, a global consultancy that partners with brands to maximise marketing value. Jon helps clients understand how to optimise the value of marketing investments by leveraging market-leading tactics devised through intelligent data, analytics, insight and consultancy. His work in this area has helped leading brands improve new launch forecasting; optimising the mix between paid, owned and earned media as well as course correction in-campaign. Jon’s work is committed to delivering insights that are focused towards specific KPIs that can have a real and demonstrable impact on the bottom line and Jon’s high-touch consultative approach ensures successful activation in ranges as diverse as retail, financial services, tech brands and entertainment.

Richard Benyon is the CEO and co-founder of Decideware Inc, a role that sees him work closely with executives in the world’s largest advertisers helping them manage the performance of, and relationships with their marketing and communication agencies.

The combination of a 20 year background in enterprise software development, along with a deep understanding of the marketing procurement and agency management arena, provides Richard a unique perspective of the industry.

Richard has a Bachelor of Science Electronic Engineering (Honors) from the University of Natal, South Africa.

Ed is currently the Head of Procurement for North America at AstraZeneca. In this role he leads the US and Canada in market procurement teams. He also has global accountability for AstraZeneca’s core commercial categories including Advertising, Digital/Media, Market Research, Contract Sales and PR. Prior to his role as Head of Procurement, Ed held multiple Global Category Leader roles where he developed and implemented global category strategies across key global markets. Established, developed, and managed key global supplier relationships and implemented global category best practices and sourcing programs. Ed has experience in procurement technology implementing Ariba platforms on a global scale and process expertise in strategic sourcing and category management. Ed holds a Bachelors Degree from Eastern University and an MBA from St. Josephs University.

Melinda is Chief Marketing Officer of Extreme Reach, the cloud technology platform for TV & Video ad workflow and Talent & Rights management. She spearheads all aspects of the company’s global marketing and communications in addition to driving market research, product development strategy and sales enablement.

Melinda’s career spans the massive evolution of the ad industry over the last 25+ years, spending 15 years on the ad agency side and a decade at A+E Networks. Prior to joining Extreme Reach in 2015, she was CMO at Tremor Video, a video advertising technology company for brand marketing.