Washington 2014 Symposium Speakers

Amy Bastian, Analytics Strategist, The Nature Conservancy

Amy Bastian has spent 15 years helping non-profits grow and retain their supporter base with a focus on utilizing technology and streamlining processes to advance an organization's mission. As the Analytics  Strategist for The Nature Conservancy's Global Digital Group, she leads the department's analytics and testing roadmaps and strategies, with a focus on defining business questions for which data can provide actionable and scalable results. In her former role as Associate Director of Online Fundraising for the Conservancy, she integrated multi-channel fundraising efforts to grow online revenue. Amy has a strong background in analysis, including an MPH in Biostatistics from UCLA, which she is currently using to help institute reports that provide data across marketing channels. Prior to joining the Conservancy, Amy was an Account Director at Blackbaud where she specialized in the public broadcast market, and she was the Membership Director of KCRW, a public radio station and NPR affiliate in Santa Monica, CA.

Vanessa Fox, Author

Vanessa Fox is the author of  Marketing in the Age of Google: Your Online Strategy IS Your Business Strategy (Wiley, 2nd edition, April 2012), which has been called the “first must-read-to-survive business book of the twenty-first century”.

She’s been named one of Seattle’s Top 40 Under 40” one of Seattle’s “Top 25 Innovators and Entrepreneurs“,  and one of the “Top 100 Seattle Women in Seattle Tech“.

Vanessa has traveled the globe discussing the evolution of how we search for and consume information. She writes regularly about the search engine industry, searcher behavior, and technical site architecture.

In 2013, she sold Nine By Blue, the search analytics software and strategic consulting company she founded.  Vanessa previously created Google’s Webmaster Central, which provides both tools and community support to help website owners improve their sites with an eye towards gaining more customers from organic search. She was instrumental in the sitemaps.org alliance of Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft Live Search (now Bing). Fox has also been an entrepreneur-in-residence with Ignition Partners and has served as an advisor for several startups. Her latest venture, Keylime Toolbox, provides SEO and user-focused online metrics and education for companies of all sizes. Find her on Twitter.

Amy Ganderson, Director of Digital Marketing, The Nature Conservancy

As a Director of Digital Marketing for The Nature Conservancy, Amy Ganderson leads the development of strategic online marketing programs and campaigns designed to advance the Conservancy's guiding marketing strategies to build reputation, influence conservation action and achieve fundraising goals.  She manages the team that drives growth in social media, mobile, new business development, content marketing and online advertising.  Amy began her career with The Nature Conservancy five years ago building their social media, online advertising, and web analytics strategy.  Prior to joining The Nature Conservancy, Amy worked in e-commerce for Discovery Communications.  While at Discovery Communications, she managed paid search and developed partnerships with Amazon and EBay, both in conjunction with Discovery Channel's online store.  She also launched a corporate sales business.  Amy began her career in retail buying and planning for Perry Ellis International and Bloomingdale's Department Stores. Amy received an MBA from The George Washington University and a B.S. from Cornell University. In her spare time she juggles two-year-old twins.

Steve Harris, Capital One

With more than 17 years of digital measurement, mobile and technology experience, Steve Harris leads the enterprise-wide digital analytics efforts for Capital One, driving implementation, integration, propagation and visualization of Digital data across the enterprise. He is responsible for setting and executing the corporate vision and strategy for digital analytics, data visualization and cross-channel analytics, driving innovation, adoption and monetization of enterprise digital analytics solutions and capabilities across the company.

Prior to joining Capital One, Steve served as the Director and Global Head of Web Analytics at Hilton Worldwide, where he led the global Web Analytics practice for the company’s nine brands and more than 3,000 hotels, providing data, analysis, insights and recommendations for on-site performance and marketing efforts to senior management, brands and hotels across the world. Steve also worked as the Director of Performance Management for Clearspring Technologies/AddThis, where he developed and delivered all client-facing analyses and industry data on social media performance, and he was instrumental in developing and presenting industry standards on viral and social media analytics.

Before that, Steve led a multinational business intelligence team at AOL Search and served as a client services manager at comScore. In his early career, Steve worked as an electrical engineer, designing cellphone sites and providing various engineering solutions for communication systems sharing the same spectrum. Steve holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland and an MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University

Aaron Maass, MaassMedia, LLC

Aaron is the founder and CEO of MaassMedia, LLC, and oversees the development of some of the e-marketing industry’s most notable digital analytics programs and professionals.

With nearly 20 years of online marketing industry experience, Aaron is one of the early pioneers of tag-based web analytics. He co-founded and sold a website traffic tracking and reporting software service called Sitegauge to Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts in 2000, and has led web analytics initiatives in senior internet marketing management roles at companies like KPMG, EF Language, Fidelity, DuPont and most recently Comcast, where he was head of e-commerce and web operations.

Since launching MaassMedia, Aaron and his team have helped numerous Fortune 500 clients like Verisign, Comcast, ESPN, Lenovo, Nasdaq, Gore-tex, Coldwell Banker, Waterford Wedgwood Royal Doulton, SCORE Association, Southwire and Publishers Clearing House design, develop and analyze e-marketing analytics programs that deliver measurable and immediate ROI.

Aaron holds a B.A. from Cornell University, is certified in Google Analytics, Adobe Site Catalyst and Six Sigma implementation and has been recognized for his achievements by the Digital Analytics Association (DAA), Interactive Media Council and Web Marketing Association. He also chairs the DAA awards for excellence gala, teaches a course on Web Analytics for the Online Marketing Institute and co-chairs the George S. Pepper Society Council of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

Nick Panayi, CSC

Nick joined CSC in June 2011 and has responsibility for Global Brand and Digital Marketing. His areas of responsibility include global brand management, CSC.com, digital content management, marketing programs and marketing automation. Nick's 20+ years experience in the technology sector encompasses a variety of management, strategic planning and marketing roles with Avaya and Compaq, startups in online services and marketing automation as well as marketing consulting aimed at emerging companies. He has a Bachelors degree in Marketing and an MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University and works out of CSC HQ in Falls Church, Virginia.

Bill Tancer, General Manager of Global Research, Experian Marketing Services

A New York Times bestselling author and former columnist for TIME magazine, Bill Tancer brings more than 15 years of marketing, market research and business strategy experience to Experian Marketing Services.  As the general manager for global research, Bill leads a team of research analysts that specialize in providing cutting-edge research and insight into consumer behavior, both retail and shopping trends and the application of competitive intelligence.

Bill is the author of two books, Everyone's a Critic - Winning Customers in a Review-Driven World to be released in August 2014 by Penguin Portfolio and The New York Times Best Seller Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why it Matters. Bill's analysis of the online landscape has been quoted extensively in the press, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Businessweek, Forbes and CNN, among others. Named Television Week’s “12 to Watch” for 2008, Bill is a frequent guest on business television and radio programming including CNBC and Fox Business News and his analysis of the online landscape was a feature subject in ABC News’ hit series 20/20.

Bill has served on the board of directors for SEMPO, and he is currently on the advisory board for the PEW Internet and American Life Project.  Prior to joining Experian Marketing, Bill led market research and strategy teams at LookSmart, Zaplet, NBC Internet and Pacific Bell Internet Services.  Bill has also covered the internet sector for Gartner Group as a senior technology marketplace consultant.

Bill is located in San Francisco, CA.