Bharath Gaddam
Founder & CEO
DATA POEM
Bharath Gaddam founded DATA POEM to solve what he recognized as marketing’s most fundamental challenge: the inability to make unified, causal revenue decisions across all growth drivers simultaneously. Under his leadership, DATA POEM developed POEM365, the world’s first Large Causal Foundation Model, trained on $5 trillion in transaction data across 15,000 brands spanning CPG, automotive, financial services, retail, and lifestyle industries. Prior to founding DATA POEM, Bharath led analytics transformation initiatives for Fortune 500 companies including Omnicom and major multinational brands, where he witnessed firsthand how correlation-based measurement frameworks limited strategic decision-making. His work focuses on advancing causal AI applications in marketing, moving the industry from attribution debates to unified revenue intelligence. Bharath holds expertise in causal inference, machine learning at scale, and enterprise decision intelligence platforms.

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Robert Baker
Chief Growth Officer
DATA POEM

Robert has over three decades of experience in the Consumer Goods Industry, primarily in Trade Marketing and Business Development. Prior to joining DATA POEM, he has served in several industry leadership roles, most recently as the Global Consumer Goods practice lead partner for Roland Berger where he led transformational programs for the for some of the world’s largest consumer brands. Robert has deep experience in Sales effectiveness, revenue growth management and data and analytics supporting organic and inorganic growth.

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Paul Donato
Chief Research Officer
ARF

Paul Donato joined the ARF as Chief Research Officer in October 2017. Paul is a highly regarded leader in media and advertising research with more than two decades of industry experience. Earlier in his career he co-founded WPP’s Media Research Business Unit, served as CEO of Kantar Media, and Technical Director of IBOPE Latin America. He was the EVP and CRO for The Nielsen Company for more than a decade, overseeing Nielsen retail, consumer, mobile, and media measurement methodologies. Upon leaving Nielsen, Paul founded Jatopond, a media and market research firm. He also has led business units at Simmons, and at Audits and Surveys Worldwide. He currently sits on the Future State Committee of the National Air and Space Museum. In addition to leading the research team, Paul will also play an active role in overall ARF leadership, helping to guide future direction.

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