Karen Kranack, Group Director of Applied AI at DEPT Agency, is a digital innovation strategist specializing in GenAI and emerging technologies, including conversational search integration for Big Four accounting firms and CPG brands. She bridges business objectives with customer needs by strategically activating technology across customer journeys, helping organizations transform ideas into AI-powered market-ready digital products and services. She has been an adjunct professor teaching Qualitative Research Methods in Georgetown University's Communication, Culture & Technology Master's program, and has held leadership positions in CX and UX at Monks, Decoded Advertising, and Eversana Intouch. She brings both entrepreneurial and enterprise experience from agency and client-side roles. She has worked with everyone, from high-tech to high fashion: PwC, Google, Intuit/QuickBooks, SCJohnson, Lucasfilm, and Estee Lauder, among others.

Mike Anderson is an award-winning director and animator who brings a mastery of technology and craft to create work often with a subtly absurd or unsettling edge. As a versatile storyteller, he moves effortlessly between aesthetics and techniques, from original series like Good Morning, Pickles! (FXX) and Hot Future (Adult Swim) to music videos for Steve Aoki and Ashnikko, seamlessly blending digital gaming visuals, motion capture, or traditional animation. Mike served as Creative Lead for Blumhouse Enhanced Cinema, guiding the project to create a deeply immersive and engaging experience for audiences. A director in his own right, he applied his narrative insight to interpret and amplify the original director’s intent. Having led creative work for top brands including Apple, Meta, and major IP from Amazon Prime, NBCUniversal, and the NBA, he brings a sharp understanding of storytelling across formats. An avid Quest cinema viewer, he has long envisioned ways to spatialize film, ensuring the experience fully leverages the medium’s emotional and narrative potential.

Nigel Tierney is an award-winning director and producer, who currently sits as Executive Creative Director at Yahoo!, where he leads high-impact, brand-defining visual storytelling. He guides the integration of creative, brand, and product-design while advancing immersive, future-forward formats and techniques in collaboration with partners such as Disney, Snap, NFL, IMG, and TIME. Nigel directed Bad Bunny’s immersive 360° visualizers, which have garnered over 2.5 billion views, and served as Creative Director for New York Fashion Week, where he launched the first NFT gallery for Rebecca Minkoffand sent Christian Cowan and Maisie Wilen’s fashion collections into the metaverse via holograms. He also directed and produced the critically acclaimed and award-winning animated short “Earth” featuring Lil Dicky, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ariana Grande, and over 30 other artists. The project launched the global climate campaign WeLoveTheEarth.org. Previously, Nigel was Head of Content at RYOT, Verizon’s internal content innovation studio. He oversaw the creative, art, XR, and marketing teams while developing more than 20 titles spanning animation, games, and immersive experiences. He also led the creation of a first-of-its-kind 5G Innovation Studio in Los Angeles equipped with volumetric capture, motion, and broadcast technologies. Earlier in his career, Nigel was Senior Technical Director at DreamWorks Animation, contributing to major franchises including Shrek, The Croods, Kung Fu Panda, and Captain Underpants. He is also the founder of the J/K Comedy Club, a hidden comedy speakeasy on the DreamWorks campus that features performances from top-tier comedic talent.

Nik Kleverov, an Emmy-grade storyteller, is CCO of Native Foreign, a renowned agency celebrated for its innovative approach to brand storytelling and design. From his viral AI-powered film for Toys"R"Us to the iconic Narcos title sequence for Netflix, Nik’s work highlights his expertise in merging creativity with technology. He is a leading voice on how AI is reshaping the future of storytelling.

Diana Caverly is currently Global Chief Strategy Officer at MRM, where she is leading the global strategy practice (and living her geek dream), with a focus on modern relationship marketing, digital marketing, customer experience and creative commerce. She is relentlessly driving connectivity between strategy, data science and analytics, creative and technology, alongside a stellar teams of subject matter experts. In her role, she also continues to be a dedicated C-suite advisor on strategic applications of cutting edge innovation, as well as a passionate advocate for diversity, borderless ways of working, and women in tech. Diana’s iconic work has been consistently recognized for creativity, effectiveness, and sustained success with more than 50 awards, by the Effie Awards – including 4 Grand Prix, Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity – including Cannes Effectiveness, WARC Award for Innovation, Fast Company Brands that Matter & World Changing Ideas, Best of CES, Best of Super Bowl, Biz “Most Powerful Women”, The Drum “Top Planning Directors in the World” and more. She’s a true globalist, having worked on both deeply local and massively complex global brands – with extensive B2C and B2B experience across multiple categories including automotive, telecom, financial services, retail and consumer goods, and across multiple clients, including General Motors, Mastercard, Sanofi/ Opella, Vodafone, The Coca-Cola Company, Yum! Brands, Beko, UniCredit Bank. Juror in Effies, Cannes Lions, Gerety Awards, Clios. Fearless believer in making an impact, Diana is a transformative leader at the forefront of business, technology, culture, and innovation. She has a two-decade-long proven track record of effective brand, corporate and experience strategies that win in culture, drive transformation at scale, reshape categories and fast track business growth. She is a proud catalyst of creatively minded and fiercely ambitious organizational cultures.

Dustin Callif, President at Tool: As President, Dustin leads the day-to-day management of Tool, an award-winning creative production partner for some of the world's most recognized brands, ad agencies and entertainment studios. Through a mix of best-in-class live-action content, experiences and creative technology executions, Tool helps brands conceptualize and produce creative marketing that stands out. A sought-after thought leader who specializes in the intersection of brand storytelling, creative technology and commercial production, Dustin’s is at the forefront of developing advertising campaigns supercharged by Artificial Intelligence. He believes there is a game-changing opportunity to leverage AI to revolutionize the content production pipeline, and his work/speaking focuses on how marketing teams can leverage new technology to develop powerful creative tools that make the production process better and more efficient. Tool has been a leading voice in AI since 2016, having worked closely with brands such as Coke, Toyota and New Balance to develop AI-powered campaigns that leverage NLP, Generative, Prompt Based and Computer Vision technology. Throughout his career, Dustin has worked with many of the world’s most notable brands, including Amazon, Uber, Airbnb,, Chobani, Facebook, Netflix, Google, Under Armour, Landrover, Intel, Starbucks, Nike and others. His projects have been recognized with 1000+ awards, including two Emmys, a Cannes Lions Palme d'Or, and honors from the Webby Awards, AICP Next, the Clios, One Show, SXSW, Ciclope, FWA, Awwwards, MTV VMAs, AICP, OMMA and Davey Awards. Dustin has spoken and judged at many of the advertising and marketing world’s largest conferences and awards shows, including the AICP Conference, SXSW, Collision, Ciclope, TV of Tomorrow, F5 Fest, Cannes Advertising Festival, NAB Conference, Seattle Interactive Conference, DMEXCO and Digital Hollywood. He’s also a frequent contributor with Forbes on the subject of AI & advertising.

Elizabeth Kiehner is Chief Growth Officer at Nortal, a multinational digital transformation company leading sales and business development, marketing, and strategic growth through M&A. She has 8 years of experience as an executive in the global technology services space with a 25 year career history as an entrepreneur, keynote speaker and award-winning author. Before joining Nortal, Kiehner was a Vice President of Enterprise Transformation at Capgemini Invent. During the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic, she set up the Digital Transformation Office of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Before that, she spent over 5 years at IBM, establishing a global Experience Design Center of Excellence within IBM Services as well as a sales team focused on IBM’s largest global accounts.