Previous to founding Tether, Stanley was VP Global Creative of Starbucks where he oversaw all creative aspects of Starbucks - new products, packaging systems, seasonal promotions, brand campaigns, advertising and collateral materials.

Stanley spent twelve years at Nike as a Creative Director working on everything from product launches to Niketowns to the Olympics. After Nike, he moved to Denmark to join the Lego Company as their Global Creative Director. There he directed a total visual overhaul of the Lego brand from top to bottom, including packaging, the web, retail and brand stores.

Stanley is a national board member of AIGA, a featured speaker on Creativity worldwide and the recipient of awards from ID Magazine, Communication Arts, The Library of Congress, Graphis, Type Directors Club, HOW International, HOW Regional, NW Design Awards, PRINT International, AIGA National, AIGA Regional, Rosie’s, POP Times, and Communication Arts Illustration, Retail Interiors (Best International Store and Best Retail Theater) and MAPIC (Best Retail Store).

Rachel Witalec has been at Google since 2007 and currently works as the Global Google Analytics Lead. In her current role, Rachel works between the sales and product teams to commercialize features and help businesses use Google Analytics to better understand their customer funnels and incorporate their feedback into the product development process. She primarily focuses on proper measurement and attribution strategies to inform more efficient marketing decisions. Rachel evangelizes the power of web analytics internally with Google account management teams and externally with clients of all sizes.

Prior to joining the Google Analytics team, Rachel worked as an account executive within the financial services industry. Rachel also serves on the Alumni Association Executive Board at the London School of Economics as Chair of the Communications Subcommittee.

Rachel earned a Bachelor’s degree in economic and business from Kalamazoo College, spending a year studying industrial relations at the London School of Economics.

Tim Schmuckal is CEO of DIGITALKITCHEN, an agency at the crossroads of content and marketing.  Tim provides strategic direction for DIGITALKITCHEN and oversees management of the agency’s offices in Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles.  The agency’s roster of brand and entertainment clients includes The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, HBO, AT&T’s U-verse group, TNT, and Microsoft.  Last year, the agency was awarded the prestigious Grand Prix Lion at Cannes and One Show Gold Design Pencil.

Prior to joining DIGITALKITCHEN in 2005, Tim spent ten years in the e-commerce, online advertising, and technology industries, working at Expedia, Inc. and the national law firms of Cooley Godward and Kirkland & Ellis.  Tim graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in December 1996.  He is proud to be an English major and former high school teacher.  He serves on the advisory board of the Seattle Interactive Conference.

Eric Duerr is a founding partner of Extreme Arts + Sciences. Trained as a jazz musician, with degrees in philosophy and business, he brings a fresh perspective to today’s digital landscape. Eric carries the firm’s mission of fusing media, business, and creative to develop deeply researched, deeply understood narratives.

For the past decade, Eric has been at the forefront of the convergence of media and technology – putting into words and strategy its long term effects for businesses and consumers. He’s worked extensively with large organizations such as Microsoft, Adobe, and Amazon.com as well as small companies that didn’t have a trademark a few months ago. He has also advised numerous agencies including WPP, IPG, and Publicis.

An avid runner and connoisseur of northwest microbrews, Eric makes his home in Seattle with his family.

Richard Tom serves as Hulu's senior vice president and chief technology officer where he is responsible for all aspects of the company's core technology and infrastructure. Richard joined Hulu in 2007 after spending eight years at Microsoft in a variety of software development roles, from building database replication engines on the SQL server team to leading a team of engineers architecting the business application platform for Office Live, one of Microsoft's first entries into software as a service. Most recently he served as Hulu's vice president of advertising technology and operations overseeing the development of Hulu's advertising platforms and leading the sales operations strategy. Richard holds a BS in computer science and engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

Abe Thomas is the General Manager for the Microsoft.com team.  As one of the top 10 most visited websites in the world, Microsoft.com serves a global audience of more than 270+ million unique users every month.  Abe is responsible for ensuring that Microsoft.com is the cornerstone of Microsoft’s online marketing efforts by enabling the network to deliver increased customer relevance and network experience, increased quality and volume of user traffic to and through Microsoft.com and promoting self-serve sales and support.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Abe served as Vice President of Online Marketing for MySpace. In this role Abe was responsible for developing the overall strategy for acquiring new customers through online advertising, affiliates and search marketing. In his time at MySpace, Abe revamped the use of SEO and more than tripled sign-ups from organic search, increased signup conversions in total by 40%, and built new data systems enabling a data-driven approach
to marketing decisions.

In Jan 2007, Abe moved to PayPal Merchant Services where he was focused on marketing PayPal to their Large Merchant Services business. In 2006, Abe spent a year in Mumbai, India leading eBay India’s Internet Marketing team. With Google still in its infancy in India, successful optimization of eBay’s Search program resulted in a high representation of eBay pages in Google’s Paid Search program and Google’s Natural Search results.

Prior to joining eBay, Abe held multiple business development, product marketing and consulting positions at AltaVista, Palm, IBM Consulting and Motorola.
Abe received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University, a MSEE from USC and then an MBA from the University of Chicago. He lives in Seattle with his wife and two girls.

Johanna Wright is Director of Product Management, Web Search at Google. She leads the team developing Google’s search user interface and features, including Google Instant, Mobile Search, Universal Search, and Autocomplete, as well as hundreds of improvements made to Google search each year. Prior to joining Google, Johanna worked at a number of software start-ups in New York City.

Johanna holds an MBA from UCLA and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Barnard College.

Elan Lee is the Chief Creative Officer and Founder of Fourth Wall Studios.  Lee heads the studio’s creative concepts from product development to brand identity.

Lee began his career at the Microsoft Game Studio as the lead designer for the Xbox launch portfolio where he also directed the world’s first alternate reality game, The Beast for Steven Spielberg’s thriller A.I.: Artificial Intelligence.  Today, he is considered one of the creators of the ARG genre, and he continues to influence next-generation entertainment as he speaks all over the world.

As a co-founder and Vice President of Design for 42 Entertainment, Lee championed some of the most influential titles intransmedia entertainment such as I Love Bees for Halo 2, and Year Zero for Nine Inch Nails. Lee has won awards for Best Web Game of the Year, Best Advertising Campaign of the Year, and Best Idea of the Year.

Clark Kokich is the Chairman at Razorfish and is one of the premier thought leaders in the world of digital marketing.  He has been quoted frequently in the Wall Street Journal, Ad Age, and the New York Times, among others.  A popular speaker, he brings his unique perspective on the future of marketing to business audiences world-wide.  In the fall of last year, Clark wrote and released Do or Die, the world’s first business book published exclusively as a fully-interactive iPad app.

In 1999, Clark Kokich took a giant leap of faith and traded in a successful career working for traditional ad agencies to join Razorfish--then called Avenue A. At the time, few people had even heard the term "digital agency," and fewer still thought it was an area of great promise. They were wrong, of course. Over the next few years, Razorfish grew from one office in Seattle to the current 14 in eight countries around the world--while Clark rapidly ascended to the CEO's office. Razorfish now serves nearly a quarter of all Fortune 100 companies, including Nike, Dell, Microsoft, Disney, Kraft, Ford, Delta Airlines, Starwood Hotels, and Intel. Now the chairman of Razorfish, which is now part of Publicis Groupe, Clark sums up his career and the theme of his book, Do or Die, in one succinct statement: "I used to be in advertising. Now I do things.”

Jon is Vice President, Product at Rhapsody. In his role, Jon Maples oversees the design, creation and improvement of the Rhapsody product and service. Jon's career spans over 20 years, and includes developing digital audiences, building great user experience and content programming. Under Maples' direction, Rhapsody's products have driven significant business growth and increased customer engagement.

Jon brings a deep journalism background to Rhapsody, where he also oversees the company's editorial practice. Previously, Jon managed online properties for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Netscape and Real Networks.  He was a senior writer and managing editor at Red Herring covering digital media with an emphasis on  music, at the time the magazine was the tech industry zeitgeist.  Jon is a native of Chicago and resides in San Francisco and Seattle.

Kim is the Executive Creative Director, Vice President, Digital Services at Filter. She leads the digital services division at  with a unique combination of branding and marketing expertise, cutting-edge design abilities, and an in-depth understanding of technology and digital media.

An accomplished web strategist, Kim has helped companies achieve their business goals through technology-based solutions and user-centered design. She is widely recognized as a leader in interactive marketing and interface design, with almost two decades of experience building upon some of the world's most trusted and recognizable global brands, including Sony, Microsoft, Xbox, MSN, EMI Records, BMG, Elton John, Dole, and Boeing.

A seasoned entrepreneur, in 1996, she founded the award-winning interactive agency Tattoo Media, Inc. The company was then successfully acquired by Ascentium Corporation in 2004, where she was a managing partner and led the company's growing Interactive Marketing division. Earlier in her career, Obbink spent seven years at Microsoft. There, as a creative director, she designed and launched several consumer software products and also marketed the full range of Microsoft's brand portfolio as a senior art director in the central Corporate Communications group. Most notably, Kim drove the company to break new ground in consumer packaging to achieve critical presence at retail and online.

Kim is an accomplished public speaker and is considered a thought leader and marketing pioneer in online and interactive media. In 2003, Puget Sound Business Journal recognized her as a "40 Under 40" honoree. Kim earned a B.A. in Communications Design and Art History from California State University and a B.F.A. in Graphics and Packaging Design from the world renowned Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

Greg Coomer is a designer at Valve. He has been part of the software industry for 20 years, working both in-house for companies like Nintendo and Microsoft and for a host of clients as principal of a Seattle UX design studio. He designs products, services, identities, experiences, and everything in-between, and he’s an expert in designing companies and cultures in which design can thrive.

Since helping Valve get off the ground, Greg has contributed significantly to most of the company’s products and to Steam, the massively popular online gaming platform. Greg is a champion of what he calls a new kind of design for innovation, in which design is radically redefined to include nearly all parts of the entrepreneurial creative process. He’ll tell anyone who will listen about why we’ll soon look back at the early part of this century as an era of quaint, artificial limits that we imposed on our own creativity. And as an era of fried food and incandescent light bulbs–two beautiful things which obviously will soon be illegal.

Greg has a degree in Visual Communication from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His secret dream is to create a game called Akzidenz-Grotesk. You know, for kids.

Ben Huh is the CEO and founder of Cheezburger. He's a former journalist turned dot com entrepreneur who has a knack for nailing the zeitgeist and has been credited with bringing Internet memes to the mainstream and popularizing Internet culture. The success of Cheezburger is attributed to Ben’s knowledge of memes, viral content, and crowd sourcing. Ben graduated with a BSJ from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Mike Reeder is Group Director, Global Strategy and Planning for the Wunderman Network.  Working with Strategists in the USA, Asia, Europe, and Latin America, Reeder and team combine the best parts of traditional MBA training with account planning, analytics, and storytelling in an effort to place Wunderman strategy at the very intersection of business acumen and critical consumer insight.  In prior lives Reeder has worked at Publicis, Avenue A, DDB and Razorfish.  During these periods he was lucky enough to lead digital strategy for brands including NIKE, Microsoft, Levi's, Best Buy, Miller Coors, REI and Disney.  He has been invited to speak on subjects such as Connected Global Culture, The Consumerization of IT, Digital Youth Behaviors and Moving from Ads to Experiences to audiences including the Executive Briefing Center at Microsoft, Seattle Ad Club, Ad Tech, University of Washington and the full student body of Captain John Wilkes Elementary School, Bainbridge Island, WA.  An art school dropout and failed novelist, Reeder salvaged his life by graduating from the University of Washington where he majored in Marketing with concentrations in Consumer Behavior and Entrepreneurship.

Andy Liu is CEO of BuddyTV, the largest independently held TV site on the Internet. Prior to BuddyTV, Mr. Liu served as President and CEO of NetConversions from 1999-2004 prior to its sale to aQuantive and served as VP and GM of its Site Optimization unit from 2004-2005. He is also a founder of a non-profit that is focused on technology in developing countries and is very passionate about entrepreneurship.

Mr. Liu brings deep experience in building companies, site optimization, viral marketing, SEO, community building and product development. In 2003, he was named to Puget Sound Business Journal’s “40 Under 40.” In 2010, he was named Best Angel Investor by Seattle 2.0 in 2010 having invested in over 42 early stage deals including Cheezburger Network, BizXchange, Judy's Book, and Evo Gear.  Mr. Liu received his MBA from Wharton.

Neil Patel is the co-founder of 2 Internet companies: Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics. Through his entrepreneurial career he has helped large corporations such as Amazon, AOL, GM, HP and Viacom make more money from the web. By the age of 21 not only was he named one of the top influencers on the web according to the Wall Street Journal, but he was also named one of the top entrepreneurs in the nation by Entrepreneur magazine. Neil has also received Congressional Recognition from the U.S. House of Representatives for his work in the nonprofit sector.

Ross Hudgens is the SEO Manager for Full Beaker, Inc in Bellevue, WA - a lead generation company specializing in finance.

Ross is a frequent speaker at SEO industry events such as Distilled's Linklove, SMX Advanced, and the Blueglass conference. He is regularly referenced as a thought leader in the SEO space and runs a popular SEO blog at RossHudgens.com. Ross has also been featured on AOL,  Search Engine Land, Hacker News, Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Watch, and many other top media outlets in the world of search.

As vice president of Global Digital Marketing, Alex leads the strategy and management of the Starbucks digital advertising, social media, and digital content and creative development across
web, mobile and in-store digital platforms. Since joining Starbucks in 2006, Alex has also served rotational assignments within the U.S. Marketing and Promotions team (leading the 2010 relaunch of Frappuccino) and Brand Advertising team.

Recently, Starbucks has experienced a dramatic turnaround of its business fortunes – notably beginning with the 2008 return of Howard Schultz as ceo, a story chronicled in the New York
Times #1 Best Seller, Onward. Part of that transformation was the successful creation of a unique marketing strategy and organizational capability for a company that historically “didn’t do marketing or advertising” to become an acknowledged leader in effective use of social and digital media.

In 2008, Alex led the Digital team’s successful launch of the company’s community site My Starbucks Idea, now 300,000 members strong and with more than 190 ideas launched to date. Her team’s 2009 Starbucks Love Project, launched during the holiday season, won a Cyber Lion at Cannes and set a
Guinness World Record for Most Nations in an Online Sing-Along. With more than 41 million global Facebook fans, two million Twitter followers and as the most followed brand on Instagram, Alex and her team have developed creative, engaging digital experiences that connects Starbucks with its customers and enhances their relationship with the brand.

Alex’s career spans more than fifteen years, with expertise in brand development, integrated advertising campaigns, digital strategy and social media. She’s done digital strategy work for Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Nintendo, Microsoft, University of Phoenix and Texas Instruments. Prior to joining Starbucks Alex served as Account Director for WPP’s agency Cole & Weber.

Alex holds a Bachelor of Speech Communication degree from University of Washington. She grew up in the Seattle area and is passionate about working for her favorite hometown company and sustainability. When not in the office, Alex enjoys spending time with her two children, playing soccer and running. Her favorite Starbucks beverage is a double short wet cappuccino with one raw sugar.

Laura Porto Stockwell is the VP, Experience Strategy at POP, where she leads a team of Interaction Designers, Content Strategists, Digital Strategists and Analysts to create innovative digital solutions based on client goals and consumer insights. Prior to joining POP, Laura worked at agencies in the US and Italy including Razorish, Publicis and marchFIRST, and she has had the pleasure of working with clients including Ford, Nike, Microsoft and T-Mobile. Laura holds a Master of Arts in Media Studies with a concentration in social media from The New School in New York City and a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Rand Fishkin is the CEO & Co-Founder of the web's most popular SEO Software provider; SEOmoz. He co-authored the Art of SEO from O'Reilly Media and was named on the 40 Under 40 List and 30 Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs Under 30. Rand has been written about in The Seattle Times, Newsweek and PC World among others and keynoted conferences on search around the world. In his minuscule spare time, Rand enjoys the company of his amazing wife, whose serendipitous travel blog chronicles their journeys.

Susan Moskwa works with Google's Webmaster Central and Search Quality teams as a Webmaster Trends Analyst. She follows industry trends in search engine optimization and web development in order to help Google build better tools for webmasters and improve search quality. Susan also participates in webmaster blogs and forums, helping site owners troubleshoot search-related problems and get the most out of Google Webmaster Tools. Susan has a degree in Linguistics from Cornell University.

Eric directs the imaginative output for VML around the world. As the agency’s Chief Innovation Officer, he is focused on making VML one of the world’s most inventive digital marketing networks available.

Eric joined VML in 1994, and designed and implemented many top companies’ first-ever online presence. Additionally, for more than 15 years, he has helped guide the evolution of many brands to the online space. Eric’s past clients include Diageo, Ernst & Young, WPP and T-Mobile, where he led creative strategy and development.

Eric continues to deliver global innovation for some of the world's most distinguished brands. He currently serves as the Global Creative Lead for Team Microsoft, which consists of five companies and more than 300 Creative team members in 50 countries.

His works has won numerous awards from W3 to the International Academy of Visual Arts, ADDYs, CA, Print, Webbys and more.

Eric continues to stretch the boundaries of digital engagement, design, innovation and communication technology in the business-to-business and consumer space, as well as application development, mobile and social marketing. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and workshops around the world.

Jason Lajeunesse was born in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada and moved to Seattle, WA in Oct. 2001, via Vancouver, BC.

Jason moved to Seattle to become the talent buyer at Graceland where he worked from Oct. 2011 to Feb. 2004. During this time, Jason also started Sealed With A Kiss Presents, a concert promotion company based out of Vancouver, BC with a Seattle division, that has produced Western Canadian tours for bands like Death Cab For Cutie, Bright Eyes, Silversun Pickups, Peaches, and TV On The Radio. Sealed With A Kiss grew from a fairly small company to a mid size concert promotion company producing as much as 140 events in a year.

Jason left Graceland to become the talent buyer for Neumos Crystal Ball Reading Room when it opened. In 2006, he became an owner of Neumos. Since then Jason, with his business partners, has opened Moe Bar, Big Marios Pizza, and Barboza, the new 200 cap venue located in the Neumos complex.

In 2005, Jason became the program director for the Capitol Hill Block Party. A few years later in 2011, he became the co-producer and in 2012, the sole producer in addition to programming director.

He has played in NW bands Juno, Hint Hint, Lovesick Empire and did a stint with IQU in Japan in 2006.

Norman is a Principal Developer at BVision, a web development consultancy based out of San Francisco and Buenos Aires. At BVision he manages a small team of highly talented developers, and works with startups to help them quickly develop their ideas into scalable, reliable software.

Prior to joining BVision, Norman was a cofounder and partner at Add Three, an online advertising and marketing agency based in Seattle.

Norman grew up in New York's Hudson Valley and studied theoretical linguistics at UMass Boston and The University of Connecticut prior to moving to Seattle to start a career in technology. After 10 years in Seattle, he relocated to drier pastures in Buenos Aires, where he currently makes his home.

Fluent in both Spanish and Portuguese, he is a well-known in the South American developer community as the author of several widely used open source libraries for the Ruby and Lua programming languages. In 2009 he organized "Locos Por Rails," at the time the largest Ruby conference in Spanish-speaking Latin America, and has spoken at major Ruby-related events in Brazil and Argentina.

Ian Lurie is CEO of Portent, a digital agency that's provided internet marketing, including search, social and analytics services, since 1995.

Ian believes strongly that great marketing, online and off, relies on clarity and helps customers make good decisions about products, services and people. Several years ago he wrote the book Conversation Marketing to be a common-sense guide to internet marketing. He's a student of old-style marketing principles adapted and applied to the online world.

But he's no luddite. Ian is one of the world's top experts on SEO, web technology and digital marketing. He co-published the Web Marketing for Dummies All In One Desk Reference. In it, he wrote the sections on SEO, blogging, social media and web analytics (400 pages - not that he was counting).

In his spare time, he attends and speaks at various marketing conferences, including Ad-Tech, SMX West, Pubcon and Blogworld. He brings humor, deep insight and actionable advice to every event.