FORECASTING 2022 Featured Speaker’s Bios
Carolyn Bykowski
Senior Manager, CMI Performance & Analytics
Unilever
Carolyn Bykowski has spent the last 6+ years at Unilever, where she currently leads the CMI Performance & Analytics team in the US. In this role, she is responsible for advanced analytics across all categories, including Forecasting, Marketing Mix Models, and Price & Promotion studies, as well as managing data and relationships with our core agency partners. Prior to Unilever, Carolyn spent time at Nielsen supporting clients in the Cereal and BevAl spaces, and she started her career at StarKist in Marketing. She holds a Master of Arts Degree in Statistics from the University of Pittsburgh, as well as a Bachelor of Science degree from Columbia University in Applied Mathematics. Carolyn lives in New Jersey with her husband and two young girls.
J. Michael Dennis
SVP and Executive Director, AmeriSpeak
NORC
J. Michael Dennis is a senior vice president in NORC’s Business Ventures and Innovation unit (BVI) and Executive Director of AmeriSpeak, NORC’s multi-client panel-based research platform. Dennis oversees all of AmeriSpeak’s operations, including business development and panel recruitment.
Dennis is a nationally recognized expert on survey research methods, with a particular focus on online surveys and household panels. He has overseen more than 100 statistical studies using online data collection and was appointed to serve as a member of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) Task Force that developed online survey recommendations for researchers. His areas of methodological interest are in mixed-mode data collections, measurement of non-response bias and panel conditioning, uses of administrative data for enhancing survey sampling and analysis, and passive measurement of digital behaviors.
Prior to joining NORC, Dennis held several executive positions over fourteen years at Knowledge Networks, which was acquired by GfK Custom Research in 2012. Dennis founded Knowledge Networks’ Government and Academic Research Unit and managed all of the company’s federal, academic, and foundation funded research for clients such as the Centers for Disease Control, the Environmental Protection Agency, University of Pennsylvania, the National Science Foundation, and Stanford University.
In addition, Dennis provided management and scientific oversight for KnowledgePanel®. Before joining Knowledge Networks, Dennis directed telephone and field data collections for Abt Associates on federally funded surveys, including the National Immunization Survey. In addition to his work on publicly funded studies, Dennis has designed and directed consumer market research studies regarding food products, smartphones, personal computing, and other products. He has authored more than 60 articles, conference and seminar papers, and book chapters and is a frequent speaker at annual meetings of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.
Michael Heberle
Global Chief Analytics Officer
Kinesso
Michael Heberle is the Global Chief Analytics Officer at Kinesso. He leads a team of more than 800 data scientists and analysts who provide best-in-class, data-driven measurement and analytics solutions for the Marketing Intelligence Engine technology platform. With more than 25 years of analytics practitioner and leadership experience, Michael has deep expertise in data strategy, data science, and predictive analytics and is most passionate about developing teams with a strong sense of inclusion and collaboration. Michael has a proven track record of growing client business, fostering top talent, and driving innovation. With his passion for client success, Michael is responsible for aligning Kinesso Services with client needs and establishing methods and best practices to ensure successful measurement and analytics outcomes.
Vani Petkar
Senior Manager, Marketing Analytics
Twitter
Vani is a Senior Manager, Marketing Analytics at Twitter where she leads Marketing Attribution and Impact measurement for Twitter’s Global Marketing and Communications org. Her experience includes digital analytics, marketing attribution, and applied data science across Tech and Healthcare industries. Vani holds Masters degrees in Data Science and Media and Communications.
Mollie Poppie
SVP, Product Strategy & Research
Nielsen
Molly Poppie is a SVP, Product Strategy & Research at The Nielsen Company. In this role she leads the company strategy for integrating Nielsen’s audience outcomes measurement and reach measurement products. In this role she focuses on driving more client value by finding connections between our current products and building new capabilities to compare reach and behavioral outcomes metrics. She also leads the audience outcomes data science organization.
During her 14 years with Nielsen, Molly has been a leader of innovation, focused on transforming how we measure consumers content exposure and purchase behavior. She’s led several transformation initiatives from integration of cable set top box data into TV measurement to utilizing receipt capture data for consumer purchase insights.
Molly is passionate about diversity and leadership development. She is an executive sponsor of Nielsen Cares and Green business resource group that support sustainability and social responsibility. She is also a mentor to numerous individuals, furthering Nielsen’s goal of growing talent and developing a strong leadership pipeline.
Molly earned two Bachelor of Arts degrees in Sociology and Psychology and a Masters degree in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee and currently lives in Chicago.
Mike Storms
Vice President
Analytic Partners
For over 20 years, Mike has been creating effective change and revenue growth for Fortune 100 companies through analytics and business intelligence. He has deep experience in architecting data strategies and building teams to generate sustainable competitive advantage. Mike has a BSE from Princeton University and has led large analytic departments focused on optimizing value and extracting actionable insights.
Scott McDonald, Ph.D.
CEO & President
ARF
Scott McDonald became the CEO and President of the Advertising Research Foundation in March 2017. Prior to joining the ARF, he held senior research positions at leading global media companies, including 18 years at Time Warner, and 14 years at Conde Nast, covering both the consumer and the advertising sides of the media business. Throughout his career, he has kept a foot in both the academic and business worlds, teaching for 5 years at NYU and for 18 years at Columbia Business School. He serves as an adviser to the Social Science Matrix Program at UC Berkeley, and is on the Board of the Population Reference Bureau. An avid art lover, he also is on the board of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He holds an A.B. degree from UC Berkeley and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.