Linda Kinning
Director, Venture Studio,
Equitech Ventures

Linda has spent the past 10 years bringing ideas, products, and communities to life in domains ranging from theatre, AI research, to startups in the US and Asia. She is the director of the venture studio at Equitech Ventures working hand-in-hand with founders on building AI tools for the global majority.  She helps first time founders innovate and build human-centered startups from idea stage to launch. She has worked in AI research at the University of Chicago and in the nonprofit sector in higher education and the arts. She received her MBA from Chicago Booth in behavioral science, strategy, and entrepreneurship and is currently based in Chicago. You can read more about her work and experience here.

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Jennifer Pelino
Chief Commercial Officer and President,
Sports Innovation Lab

Jennifer has been at the forefront of advising the world’s top brands, retailers, media agencies and platforms on how integrated technology, analytics and data can significantly improve marketing effectiveness and efficiencies to drive marketing campaign performance and achieve measurable sales lift. She helps brands strategically plan, target, measure and optimize their media plans and campaigns across channels, saving them millions of dollars in the paid, owned and earned media space.

Her global expertise crosses several critical business functions, including marketing, go to market strategy, business transformation, innovation, partnerships & integration, analytics, and operations, offers a unique integrated perspective to improving business results.

In addition to her growth strategy work, Jennifer is a recognized industry thought leader, frequent contributor to top advertising publications and a sought-after speaker for key industry organizations, including ANA, ARF and WARC. She uses her industry position to champion diversity, inclusion and equity and specifically conducts research to help accelerate the achievement of gender equality promoting the economic benefits of a diverse ecosystem in business, media, technology and sports.

Jennifer has an MBA in marketing from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Her whitepapers and points of view can be found on Linkedin @JenniferPelino.

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Nicole Whitlow
Global Head of Consumer Insights, KitchenAid Small Appliances
Whirlpool

Nicole Whitlow is the global head of Consumer Insights for KitchenAid Small Appliances at Whirlpool Corporation. She also led Brand/Advertising Insights for all US major appliances brands for 2 years, covering the Whirlpool, Maytag, KitchenAid, Amana, JennAir and Gladiator brands. Prior to Whirlpool, she led Consumer Insights for Barilla America and was responsible for the company’s market research team for the United States, Canada, Mexico and Brazil. She has also held client and vendor side research roles at companies such as McCain Foods, Millward Brown/Kantar and Catalina Marketing. Nicole is passionate about translating data and trends into meaningful growth opportunities for brands.

She earned her Bachelor’s degree from Illinois State University with a concentration in Marketing and Mathematics and her MBA from DePaul University with a concentration in New Product Development.

She is a member of the Advertising Research Foundation’s Board of Trustees and has also served as an Ogilvy advertising judge.

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Jing Yang
Associate Professor of Digital Advertising
Loyola University Chicago

Dr. Jing Yang is an Associate Professor of Digital Advertising at Loyola University Chicago and Director of the M.S. in Digital Advertising program. She earned her Ph.D. from Michigan State University and has been at the forefront of AI education in advertising, developing one of the first AI in Advertising courses in the United States in 2019.

Her research focuses on the responsible adoption and usage of artificial intelligence, investigating AI’s impact on industry practices, consumer psychology, and overall well-being. Dr. Yang’s earlier research explored brand transparency, brand authenticity, live-streaming commerce, social media consumer engagement, and authentic influencer marketing.

Her work appears in leading publications, including the Journal of Interactive Marketing, Journal of Advertising, Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, and Journal of Interactive Advertising. She has received multiple top paper awards from prestigious journals and the advertising academy conference.

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