Philly Tech Week 2018

Katrina Rios is the Director of Strategic Partnerships for Public Health at emocha Mobile Health. A Johns Hopkins public health graduate, Katrina helps transition emocha's evidence-based mobile technology from research to practice. In her role, she works with over 30 state and local health departments, academic medical centers, and health systems to improve medication adherence through asynchronous video directly observed therapy across a number of diseases including but not limited to tuberculosis, HCV, HIV, and opioid use disorder. emocha was recently named one of the top 10 most innovative companies in healthcare by FastCompany alongside CVS Health for it's work in scaling directly observed therapy, which originated in local health department tuberculosis programs, to other disease states.

Rebecca Etter is the Senior Manager of Innovation at Acelerada, a division of Bimbo Bakeries USA, where she is designing an innovation roadmap in the bread & baked goods categories. Rebecca’s innovation experience extends into the snack and wine categories, where she worked in ideation and commercialization at KRAVE Pure Foods/The Hershey Company and Diageo.

Prior to traditional roles in innovation Rebecca spent several years on the agency side (Raison Pure, Interbrand and Landor Associates) supporting strategic development for her clients; and three years at Conde Nast Publications as a travel and photo editor for Cookie Magazine.

Rebecca has a B.A in Communications from the University of Arizona and a Masters of Professional Studies in Branding from the School of the Visual Arts in New York.

Russ Kliman is an innovator, design leader, and evangelist for creativity and challenging mental models at SEI. Russ’ focus is to lead various programs and having direct strategic impact across all of SEI’s markets globally. In addition to leading various strategic programs, Russ is also the Head of SEI’s Global Innovation Program. In his strategic role, Russ engages with SEI’s business units to help creatively solve business challenges or explore new business opportunities. As the Global Innovation Program leader, Russ champions engaging SEI’s global community of employees in adopting design thinking, user-centered design principles, and creative and problem-solving facilitation techniques. Throughout Russ’ career, he has led product design, technology, and innovation strategies for businesses ranging from start-ups to billion-dollar enterprises. At various stages of his 16-year tenure with SEI, he has led various strategic initiatives from new business marketing and business development, to product design and technology leadership. Russ has held previous positions at Aetna, CIGNA, Advanta, Fleet Bank, as well as internet startups CDNOW and eSchoolMall. Russ holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Systems Design from Drexel University, located in Philadelphia, PA.

Lisha Davis is the Head of the Innovation Studio at Vanguard, overseeing the strategy and execution of enterprise innovation goals. She leads a team comprised of Strategists, Project Leaders, Business Partners and Innovators who focus on delivering proof of concept solutions for the innovation portfolio and works to spread the use of innovative methodologies throughout the enterprise. Previously, she worked in the High New Worth retail division where she and her leadership team oversaw a $65B client base and was also responsible for evolving the client experience across various channels including digital.
Lisha also formerly served as Head of Services Design and Strategy in the intermediary division, where she applied design thinking and lean methodologies to create service offerings, tools, and experiences for advisors across platforms. Other past roles include intermediary sales management, portfolio review group, and client experience program office. Prior to joining Vanguard, Lisha ran her own financial planning practice in New York and Los Angeles, as well as worked for NYLife Securities as Sales Development Manager, overseeing a branch office of advisors. Lisha earned her B.S. from the Stern School of Business at NYU in Finance and Marketing and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. She holds the CFP designation and also a Masters of Strategic Design and Management from the Parsons School of Design.

Jessica Estepa is the lead writer and editor for OnPolitics, USA TODAY's politics blog and newsletter, where her coverage runs the gamut from President Trump's tweets to interviewing pardoned turkeys of yesteryear. In past lives, she worked at National Geographic, E&E News and Roll Call. Other journalism things: She leads the Online News Association's Washington, D.C., group and is a fellow with the National Press Foundation. Non-journalism things: She sings constantly with the Capitol Hill Chorale and District Karaoke.

Mark Willis is a designer, strategist and entrepreneur. After a decade directing digital strategy at Harvard University, he recently moved the Philadelphia area to grow his design firm, Clean Sheet Co., and to consult with startups and digital projects at the intersection of art and technology. He’s a co-founder at the Philly-based Texel Foundation, a new consortium creating open-source infrastructure to power blockchain-driven artwork projects.

Everette Taylor is serial entrepreneur and marketing executive who founded 4 million-dollar companies before the age of 28. After overcoming homelessness as a teenager, he started his first company at the age of 19 and successfully sold it 2 years later. Since then he has founded the social media software company PopSocial and marketing firm MilliSense where he both currently serves as CEO and also co-founded GrowthHackers in 2013.

As a marketing executive, he led both Qualaroo (acquired by Xenon Ventures) and Skurt (acquired by Fair.com) to successful exits and StickerMule to unprecedented growth as CMO.

His most recent work includes serving as the National Brand Ambassador of NASA's Startup Initiative, launching the media company BESE with Zoe Saldana which highlights the stories and voices of the LatinX community and Hayver, an app to prevent drug and alcohol addiction. He was most recently named "one of the most influential African Americans in 2017" by The Root and Forbes 30 under 30 for 2018.

Nisha Garigarn is the founder of Croissant, an app that lets you drop in to your city's best workspaces. She loves talking about all things branding and marketing.