Conference Agenda

FIRST TIME ATTENDEE RECEPTION

Welcome to your first ANA Advertising Financial Management Conference! Join us for an informal afternoon of conversation, networking, and fun at the First-Time Attendee Reception. It's a great way to meet new colleagues and AFM Conference veterans who are available to answer questions to help give you great start to your first conference. This reception is open to all first-time conference attendees. We look forward to meeting you!

WELCOME REMARKS

Peter Kenigsberg

Senior Director, Brand and Media ANA

FROM VENDOR CHAOS TO CREATIVE ENGINE: HOW SERVICENOW CONSOLIDATED 100+ PARTNERS INTO ONE AI-NATIVE CONTENT STUDIO

Most enterprise marketing teams are drowning in vendor complexity—hundreds of creative partners producing inconsistent work across regions with zero accountability. ServiceNow's Marketing Procurement and Brand Operations teams took a different approach: they didn't just consolidate vendors, they built an entirely new operating model. In this session, hear how they transformed fragmented creative production into a single embedded studio powered by AI, delivering higher quality work at global speed. Speakers will share how they structured the partnership to separate creative vision (owned internally) from scaled execution (delivered by the studio), how AI fits into the workflow without compromising brand standards, and what it takes to get Marketing, Creative, and Procurement aligned around one model.

Sara Kayser

Senior Sourcing Manager, Global Marketing ServiceNow

INFLUENCER MARKETING AGENCY COMPENSATION

Influencer/creator marketing is exploding. Creator ad spending is projected to grow four times faster than the media industry overall (per the IAB). For the first time, the ANA, working with JLB + Partners, has conducted a comprehensive study on influencer marketing agency compensation, also covering key KPIs and in-housing.

Tom Browning

President and CEO JLB + Partners

MADISON AVENUE REVISITED – AND WHAT THAT MEANS FOR ADVERTISERS AND AGENCIES

During the past 20 years, media has radically transformed itself – from channel simplicity to complexity, from advertising certainty to insecurity, from holding company growth to stagnation, and from media agency profitability to austerity. Big tech took over revenue and the technological infrastructure, media mixes shifted to low-cost programmatic, and many legacy brands suffered a serious slowdown in growth. Holding companies have attempted to reverse their deterioration through principal-based media trading and other radical means. What decisions have C-suite executives at marketers and agencies made that have worsened their outcomes? What do these executives need to now do to change course, particularly in light of AI? Madison Avenue Revisited is Michael Farmer’s newest book, following Madison Avenue Manslaughter, and Madison Avenue Makeover.

Michael Farmer

Chairman & CEO / Author Farmer & Company / Madison Avenue Revisited

THE TRANSPARENCY TRAP: NAVIGATING THE DIVIDE ON AGENCY COMPENSATION

This panel will examine the critical tension between the demand for financial transparency and the push for outcome-based compensation models. Panelists will explore why the industry remains divided on whether disclosing overhead and profit data builds trust or simply acts as an invasive barrier. Panelists will also share the operational obstacles that hinder the adoption of deliverables-based frameworks. Join us to learn how to move beyond legacy pricing structures and foster mutually constructive relationships that value impact over inputs.

Moderator: Nicole Rizzo

SVP, Business, Intelligence & Insight - Strategy, Insight & Innovation 4As

FROM INVOICE TO IMPACT: TURNING FINANCIAL OPERATIONS INTO A STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE

Advertising finance is under more pressure than ever: tight budgets, rising scrutiny, and a mandate to optimize every dollar.  Yet many organizations still rely on fragmented, manual processes that drive hidden costs and limit control.  In this session, we’ll share new insights into AP and AR trends, revealing where visibility breaks down, the true cost of disconnected processes, and how leading organizations are transforming invoice-to-pay into a strategic advantage.  You’ll leave with a clear, practical roadmap to modernize financial operations and gain greater control over advertising spend.

Mark Brousseau

President Brousseau and Associates

CLOSING REMARKS

Peter Kenigsberg

Senior Director, Brand and Media ANA

ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSIONS

During breakfast, we are offering five themed and facilitated discussions. Conference attendees will have the option to join a themed table and have breakfast with peers knowledgeable about and interested in a similar topic starting at 7:30am. It will be an informal discussion that allows attendees to network with each other to start the day. To join a table, simply look towards the front of the breakfast room for the tabletop sign with the breakfast theme you would like to attend. You do not need to register or reserve a seat at your desired table in advance of breakfast.

1. Influencer Agency Compensation
   Moderated by:
   Tom Browning, President and CEO – JLB+Partners
   Kimberly Reavill, Agency Operations Leader, Marketing North America – Molson Coors
2. Media MSA Best Practices
   Moderated by:
   Keri Bruce, Partner – Reed Smith
3. Navigating the Marketing Procurement Technology Ecosystem
   Moderated by:
   Dana Kleiser, Senior Manager Indirect Procurement – The Hershey Company
4. Bridging the Brand-Procurement Relationship
   Moderated by:
   Julia Fedor, Head of Operations, Director, Brand Marketing – United Airlines
   Creg Mixon, Senior Contract Manager – United Airlines
5. Brewed for Savings: The Best-Kept Incentive Strategies
   Moderated by:
   John Ryan, CPA, Founder and President – Alta Incentives Group

WELCOME REMARKS BY DECIDEWARE

Steven Wales

Chief Revenue Officer Decideware

OPENING REMARKS

Bob Liodice

Chief Executive Officer ANA

HOST REMARKS AND HOUSEKEEPING

Warren Byrum

Senior Vice President, Strategic Sourcing & Procurement Truist

PROACTIVE PARTNERSHIP IN MARKETING PROCUREMENT

By shifting from transactional interactions to strategic alliances, sourcing and procurement can unlock new efficiencies and foster resilient, mutually beneficial relationships. Join Morgan Smith, director of marketing sourcing, and Annette Coulombe, director of marketing budget and operations, as they explore the impact procurement can have in developing proactive partnerships with internal marketers and external agency partners.

Annette Coulombe

Director, Marketing Budget & Operations McDonald’s

PERSPECTIVE FROM 4As CEO

Justin Thomas-Copeland joined the 4As in May 2025 and says, “The reason was simple… it was a chance to reimagine this great organization in a way that would have maximum impact in our changing industry.” The agency (and marketing) world is undergoing unprecedented disruption – including holding company consolidation, AI, the rise of the creator economy, and continued media fragmentation. Justin will be a year into his tenure at this conference and provide perspective on these changes and implications for client/agency relationships.

Justin Thomas-Copeland

CEO 4As

PERSPECTIVE FROM AN ADVERTISING LAWYER

Keri Bruce is a partner in the Entertainment and Media Industry Group and head of the Advertising Subsector Group at Reed Smith. Keri advises clients on a broad array of issues including negotiating adtech agreements, media transparency, influencer marketing, and the intersection of emerging technologies and risk management, specifically how AI and shifting data privacy frameworks impact advertising law. Keri has been a regular and highly rated speaker at this conference, always leaving attendees with actionable takeaways.

Keri Bruce

Partner Reed Smith

HOLDING COMPANY CFO KEYNOTE

Diane Holland is a strategic financial leader with deep roots in advertising agency operations. Her topics in this session are likely to cover how holding companies are allocating capital toward AI to drive commercial excellence rather than just cost-cutting; navigating economic headwinds and shifting client demands, while pivoting toward high-growth areas like commerce and data collaboration; and reimaging agency models for speed and scale.

Diane Holland

Deputy CFO WPP

NBCUNIVERSAL FINANCE AND MARKETING: FROM SPREADSHEETS TO STRATEGIC CONTROL

Marketing spend has historically been one of the most complex areas to manage, often characterized by decentralized teams and disconnected tools. Join Santiago Cajas to learn how NBCUniversal bridged the gap between Finance, Procurement, and Marketing to turn their creative organization into a governable, measurable investment portfolio. This session explores the cultural shift required to foster high adoption and accountability, effectively turning "non-numbers" marketers into strategic budget owners. By establishing a unified system of record, NBCUniversal has moved beyond simple visibility to achieve true operational excellence—protecting the business from risk while empowering teams to drive higher-performing programs and stronger vendor partnerships.

Santiago Cajas

Senior Finance Manager FP&A and Transformation NBCUniversal

LEVERAGING MACRO-ANALYTICS TO MEASURE MARKETING INVESTMENT

Decideware combines technology, insights, and advisory services to provide best-in-class agency management solutions for advertisers. In this presentation Steven Wales from Decideware and Barry Kull, senior director, enterprise marketing and market access at Astra Zeneca, will explore the power of applying macro-analytics to understand an organization's entire marketing investment, going far beyond single scope analysis and approval.

Barry Kull

Senior Director, Enterprise Marketing and Market Access Astra Zeneca

THE POWER OF & : HOW CURIOSITY & COLLABORATION PRODUCE DISPROPORTIONATE GROWTH

We need a new approach to the business of behavioral change. To shake up markets and shift consumer behavior, we must get obsessively curious about people, so they invite our brands to share in their lives. That’s the key to disproportionate growth. Curiosity accelerates creativity across the communications we rely on—from content and media to public relations, search, influencer and more. The result is integrated intelligence, which CMOs across the U.S. pin as the future of marketing. Curious agencies that collaborate are turning their operating systems into growth engines by discovering shared value and creativity with the power to transform business.

Andrew Graff

CEO Allen & Gerritsen

CLIENT/AGENCY RELATIONSHIPS – AUTHENTICITY OR OPPORTUNISM?

This candid conversation will explore the tension between authenticity and opportunism in client/agency relationships. As marketing leadership roles evolve faster than ever, both sides have an opportunity to redefine what trust, honesty, and respect really look like — not just during the pitch, but over the course of a career. This session will unpack real experiences, challenge the industry’s unspoken norms, and discuss how long-term thinking can create partnerships that last beyond the contract.

Joanne Davis

President, Joanne Davis Consulting, Inc. Partner and Co-CEO, SCAN International

MAXIMIZING CREATIVE VALUE AND AGENCY PARTNERSHIPS

The partnership between United Airlines' Brand Marketing and Global Procurement teams is essential. This session will spotlight the airline's recent brand advertising and how internal alignment and collaboration drive creative excellence and marketing success. Hear how United navigates creative agency relationships, negotiations, and practical ways of working between Marketing and Procurement. Whether you're optimizing agency relationships or refining internal processes, this session will offer actionable ideas to bring back to your organization.

Julia Fedor

Head of Operations, Director, Brand Marketing United Airlines

PR AND PROCUREMENT

Craig Buchholz

CEO, U.S. Burson

MAXIMIZING MEDIA VALUE AND REDUCING RISK: NEW TECHNIQUES FOR A COMPLEX MARKET

Effective media management needs measurement and auditing that is integrated and up-to-date. This session looks at the latest techniques for converged performance metrics and compliance verification. Building on these foundations, the presentation will examine how marketers can connect financial controls, media performance data, and contractual compliance into a single, decision-ready framework. Attendees will learn how modern auditing approaches are evolving to address platform complexity, emerging buying models, and greater expectations for transparency and accountability.

Fiona Foy

Chief Operating Officer, Americas Media Marketing Compliance

ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSIONS

During breakfast, we are offering five themed and facilitated discussions. Conference attendees will have the option to join a themed table and have breakfast with peers knowledgeable about and interested in a similar topic starting at 7:30am. It will be an informal discussion that allows attendees to network with each other to start the day. To join a table, simply look towards the front of the breakfast room for the tabletop sign with the breakfast theme you would like to attend. You do not need to register or reserve a seat at your desired table in advance of breakfast.

1. Influencer Agency Compensation
   Moderated by:
   Tom Browning, President and CEO – JLB+Partners
2. Media MSA Best Practices
   Moderated by:
   Keri Bruce, Partner – Reed Smith
3. Implementing AI in Marketing Procurement
   Moderated by:
   Steven Wales, Chief Revenue Officer – Decideware
4. Principal Media Buying 101
   Moderated by:
   Jay Pattisall, Vice President, Principal Analyst – Forrester
5. Delivering Value Beyond Cost Savings
   Moderated by:
   Ben Henderson, Director, Marketing Investment Planning – AT&T
   Mark Hudson, Marketing Procurement Group Manager, Media and Agency – Walgreens
6. Don’t Leave Money on the (Breakfast) Table: Production Incentive Strategies
   Moderated by:
   Kylie Ruehl, Managing Director – TPC (Three Point Capital)

WHAT ARE YOU ACTUALLY PAYING FOR?

Beyond transparency: how to connect compensation, KPIs, and operating model in creator marketing

As influencer and creator marketing becomes a core growth channel, marketers and procurement teams are under pressure to bring greater discipline to how it is bought and managed.

While industry conversations have focused on transparency, KPIs, and evolving compensation models, these elements are often addressed in isolation—leading to inconsistent decisions and unclear value.

This session introduces a practical framework for connecting compensation structures, performance measurement, and operating model choices. Attendees will leave with a clearer way to evaluate different commercial models, align them to business objectives, and make more effective creator marketing investments.

Peter Grossman

Head of Americas Flock Associates

WELCOME REMARKS AND HOUSEKEEPING

Warren Byrum

Senior Vice President, Strategic Sourcing & Procurement Truist

AGENCY MEDIA LEADER KEYNOTE

Ralph Pardo has been CEO of Omnicom Media North America since 2022. His tenure has seen a 20 percent increase in billings. This session will address the massive structural shifts in the global advertising and media landscape with topics including agentic AI, data, identity, commerce, talent, sustainability in media, and more.

Ralph Pardo

Chief Executive Officer Omnicom Media North America

CHIEF BRAND OFFICER KEYNOTE

Michael Fanuele is the Chief Brand Officer of Shake Shack, the first such position in the restaurant chain’s history. As Chief Brand Officer, Fanuele oversees advertising, paid media and insights and analytics. He has been supporting Shake Shack as a consultant since early 2025, where he played a key role in strategic brand positioning and the selection of a new creative agency partner. With his market-shaping experience from companies including Arby’s, Cadillac, Charles Schwab, and Volvo, Fanuele is reinforcing Shake Shack’s focus on growth and marketing investments.

Michael Fanuele

Chief Brand Officer Shake Shack

THE CFO SURVEY

The CFO Survey is one of the most comprehensive and longest‐running surveys of financial decision-makers. Started in 1996 by Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, the quarterly survey is now conducted in partnership with the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta. The survey offers insights from business leaders on the financial outlook for their firms, the challenges they face, and their expectations for the economy. The survey’s leader from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, will give us an overview of its latest findings, and how those results are an indicator for future economic outlooks.

Sonya Ravindranath Waddell

Vice President, Economist Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

INDUSTRY CROSS-MEDIA MEASUREMENT

Bill Tucker will share how Aquila, an industry leading marketer-led measurement initiative, is enabling true cross media planning through deduplicated reach and frequency across the walled gardens, digital and broadcast environments. Built on privacy safe, first party, tagless data, Aquila represents unprecedented collaboration among advertisers, platforms, and broadcasters.

Bill Tucker

CEO Aquila LLC

PROFITABILITY AS A CREATIVE CATALYST

Avigail Schlosser is CFO at Yes& Agency, an independent, integrated marketing and advertising firm headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia. There, she focuses on M&A integrations, driving growth, value creation, operational excellence, and doing it all in a cultural environment focused on enabling the creative process. As CFO, her philosophy is that profitability is the true creative act of any agency or company. Profitability is essentially the fuel that propels agencies into the future and enables people to create, innovate, and build. Simply put, sound financial management directly enables better creative output.

Avigail Schlosser

Chief Financial Officer Yes& Agency

THE STATE OF PRINCIPAL MEDIA BUYING

The practice of agencies acting as principals by selling purchased ad inventory at a markup to their clients, known as principal media buying, has been a controversial industry practice. For more clarification on this trend and how it is expected to impact the industry at large, Jay Pattisall from Forrester will share his latest research and guidance for both marketers and agencies navigating the principal media buying landscape.

Jay Pattisall

Vice President, Principal Analyst Forrester

DECODING AI FOR FINANCE & PROCUREMENT: UNLOCKING THE VALUE EVERYONE ELSE MISSES

Finance and procurement leaders have built careers on spotting value - in every negotiation, every vendor decision, every business case. But AI isn't the thousandth agency contract or software license. It's uncharted, fast-moving, and surrounded by noise - and your stakeholders are looking to you for answers.

In this session, monday.com's Luis Clark offers a practical perspective on what AI actually does, where it delivers real operational value versus hype, and how to guide your organisation's adoption with confidence. You'll walk away with a clearer lens for recognising and unlocking entirely new value from the resource you already have: your people.

Luis Clark

GTM Manager monday.com

THE MARKETING INFRASTRUCTURE SHIFT: WHY FANATICS BUILT A CONTENT AND MEDIA PLATFORM

When Fanatics acquired Topps, the goal wasn’t incremental growth, it was to increase the collectibles business ten-fold. Instead of investing heavily in traditional marketing or paid media, Fanatics partnered with Lighthouse Creative to build Ripped, a content and media platform designed to make collecting accessible to an entirely new generation of fans. This session explores how brands can shift from campaign thinking to marketing infrastructure, and how owned content and media platforms can drive engagement, expand categories, and power measurable commerce.

Kevin Kosanovich

Director of Content Production, Marketing Fanatics Coll

THE VALUE OF MENTORSHIP IN MARKETING PROCUREMENT

The ANA’s Procurement Mentoring Program connects junior and entry-level professionals with industry veterans to gain invaluable advice on building sustainable and successful marketing procurement careers. For years, Diane Gibbons (mentor) and Marcus Jeter (mentee) have engaged in monthly meetings that have revealed the value of mentorship for both mentor and mentee. Learn how the ANA Procurement Mentoring Program has changed the way they have each approached their respective roles.

Moderator: Peter Kenigsberg

Senior Director, Brand & Media ANA

SYSTEMS THINKING FOR CMOS: A BLUEPRINT FOR ENTERPRISE GROWTH

The strategic partnership between marketing and finance has reached a critical turning point where the traditional friction over capital allocation must evolve into a synchronized growth engine. As organizations face increasing pressure to bridge the capability gap between marketing outcomes and CEO expectations, the role of the CMO is being redefined by a new fiduciary responsibility. In this session, David Kaul, Google’s Managing Director of Data, Measurement, and Analytics, shares a systems thinking blueprint designed to align marketing performance with the broader business metrics and long-term time horizons that the C-suite actually reviews. Join us to explore a framework for moving beyond siloed channel thinking toward an integrated, AI-driven approach that transforms marketing from a cost center into a liquid competitive advantage. Learn how to reallocate resources to ensure your investment works relentlessly to drive enterprise value.

David Kaul

Managing Director - Data, Measurement & Analytics Google

ELEVATING BRAND AS A DRIVER OF ENTERPRISE VALUE

Alfred DuPuy

Valuation & Strategy Director, North America Brand Finance

HOW DIGITAL TWINS CAN UNLOCK NEW ADVANTAGES IN FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT

For decades, manufacturers and engineers have harnessed the power of digital twins—virtual replicas of physical processes or systems—to optimize operational performance. But new digital twin use cases are on the rise, empowering businesses across industries to simulate more complex, open environments that were often previously too difficult to model in a virtual environment. Now, technological innovations with digital twins can create new opportunities for value creation, including uncovering more efficient capital allocation and more effective strategy decisions that can enable new growth opportunities, executed in a cost-effective and worker-friendly manner. Learn from Deloitte Consulting about the impact digital twins can have in advertising financial management.

Frances Yu

Deloitte Unlimited Reality GM Business Lead Deloitte

DRIVING VALUE: OUTCOME-BASED AGENCY COMPENSATION IN THE AGE OF AI

With 74 percent of global advertisers seeking to better align agency remuneration with business performance, the traditional labor-based model is becoming increasingly obsolete in an AI-driven landscape. Panelists in this session will provide a practical roadmap for client-side finance and procurement leaders to transition towards outcome-based compensation, anchoring fees to tangible metrics like revenue growth, conversion rates, and speed to market rather than staff hours. Panelists will share how they structured commercial agreements that treat AI as embedded infrastructure, while securing the efficiency and innovation gains that modern marketing demands. Join us to discover how to proactively evolve your RFP processes and agency contracts to pay for actual value delivered instead of time spent.

Moderator: J. Francisco Escobar

Founder, CEO JFE International Consultants, Inc.

CLOSING REMARKS

Warren Byrum

Senior Vice President, Strategic Sourcing & Procurement Truist

WELCOME REMARKS AND HOUSEKEEPING

Warren Byrum

Senior Vice President, Strategic Sourcing & Procurement Truist

MEDIA TOWN HALL

On the final morning, we’ll revisit some of the key media topics discussed throughout the conference and encourage active participation, debate, and discussion. We’ll cover principal media, programmatic, influencer marketing, and more.

Provocateur:

SPEED WITH GUARDRAILS: HOW AI POWERS COMPLIANT MARKETING AT SCALE

As marketing teams move faster, risk and regulatory expectations haven’t slowed down. This session explores how AI can be embedded across the marketing lifecycle—from concept and creation to review, approval, and distribution—to increase speed and control at the same time. Attendees will see how tools like WRITER, NORM AI, and Gradial can be combined into a single, compliant marketing workflow that benefits creatives, reviewers, and operators alike.

Jennifer Massicotte

Director, Marketing Governance Prudential Financial

10 THINGS EVERY PITCH GETS WRONG

Agency searches are among the most expensive, emotionally loaded, and poorly standardized processes in marketing. Join the ANA, 4As, Walgreens, and Cheil for a session built on principles designed to fix that — covering everything from how to structure a fair RFI to how to negotiate an agreement that doesn't generate resentment before the work even begins. Practical, direct, and informed by decades of combined experience and research into what makes client-agency relationships start strong and last.

Matthew Kasindorf

Senior Vice President, Business Intelligence & Insight 4As

ACCELERATE YOUR MARTECH PROCUREMENT STRATEGY

With the explosive growth of AI comes a rising demand for marketing technology to meet the moment. Procurement must be smarter about the technology their marketers are currently using. Aaron Riippa has been leading the martech procurement charge at General Mills, managing over $1 billion in annual spend across software, AI solutions, and media/creative services. Here, learn more about Aaron’s sourcing strategies for AI hardware and software including model training infrastructure, compute capacity, and strategic partnerships with emerging AI vendors.

Aaron Riippa

Global Sourcing Director, Digital, Technology, and Marketing General Mills

INSIGHTS FROM THE CONVERSATION BOARD

The Advertising Financial Management Conference will conclude by reviewing posts made to the Conversation Boards stationed around the conference floor. If you post a marketing procurement, sourcing, or financial management challenge and/or question to the board, our panel of experts will take this time to offer their advice.

Moderator: Peter Kenigsberg

Senior Director, Brand & Media ANA

CLOSING REMARKS

Warren Byrum

Senior Vice President, Strategic Sourcing & Procurement Truist