Caroline O'Reilly

Director, Digital Activation - OMD USA

With almost a decade of agency experience between OMD and Publicis, Caroline actively works with some of Chicago's CPG brands. A past CIMA Board member, she'll share how she has utilized the attention and audiences available through Mobile Gaming to help her clients achieve their KPIs and reach incremental audiences.

Clare Liston

Sr Manager, Audience & Media Strategy - Discover

Clare’s an accomplished marketing and media professional with 15 years of experience across CPG, Retail, Hospitality and Finserv categories in both agency and client-side roles. Currently, Clare manages the Media & Audience Strategy for Discover Card at Discover Financial Services, where she uses mobile gaming to intercept audiences, leaned into a rewards mindset. Prior to joining Discover, Clare led the media practice at Tyson Foods, overseeing the working media investment across 9+ retail brands, guiding several branded gaming and esports integrations (eg. Ball Park & Tigers Stadium via MLB: The Show, Chicken and a Video Game). A media enthusiast at heart, Clare’s client-side work focuses on marketer education and aims to infuse strategic media thinking into Analytics, Consumer Insights and Brand Marketing functions.

Outside of the day job, Clare is an active member of She Runs It and The Room. She loves running, yoga, live music and talking about her three kids and her mad Powerpoint skills.

Josh Brown

Director, Gaming Content & Partnerships - Starcom

Josh Brown is a 10+ year media veteran with experience that spans across the agency and publisher sides of the business. Josh has a rich history of concepting and executing player-first Gaming experiences for a variety of clients like Gatorade, Kraft, General Mills, Best Buy, and Progressive Insurance. In his current role as Content Director, Josh leads Gaming Strategy Development and Partnership execution for Starcom clients like McDonald’s and LEGO. Josh’s Team is also responsible for merchandising Gaming throughout Starcom, with one example being a Gaming Office Hour, hosted live on Twitch.

Mike Daugherty

Director, Brand Partnerships - TMS

9+ yrs with Electronic Arts (Electronic Arts, EA SPORTS) Global Brand Partnerships & Media Solutions unit, delivering commercial partnerships for advertisers and sponsors (Bose, Coca-Cola, ESPN, Ford, Gatorade, PepsiCo, Progressive, Mars/Snickers, Toyota, Twitter, Verizon) who wanted to engage EA’s desirable player base. Helped build and manage EA’s first competitive gaming (esports) sponsorship platforms across Apex Legends, FIFA, Madden, and The Sims, through marketing partnerships with adidas, Sony-PlayStation, Microsoft-Xbox, Gillette, McDonald’s, Lenovo/Legion, BenQ/Zowie, and Turtle Beach, among others.

Most recently, was part of Crypto.com’s Global Sponsorship team, managing gaming partnerships with Twitch/Rivals and Fanatic esports, as well as NFT marketing programs surrounding the Qatar ’22 FIFA World Cup, designing blockchain-based fan experiences for Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and VISA.

Matt Sharpe

Creative Director of Advertising - Zynga

Matt serves as Creative Director, Advertising at Zynga, where he helps guide campaigns for brand partners across the company’s portfolio of titles. He is a 15 year veteran of the tech and advertising space with a focus on creating engaging experiences for audiences.

Ashley Loyal Montero

Senior Account Executive - Zynga

Ashley is a seasoned strategic media and marketing expert, with trusted partnerships across CPG, retail, finance, QSR brands and agency teams. She is adept at bringing people and brands together, to forge holistic multi-platform integrations in the modern digital landscape, that drive results. Her expertise extends across Mobile Gaming, Branded Content, Digital Video, Social Media and Events.

Dan Pecoraro

Account Executive - Zynga

An Account Executive at Zynga overseeing media advertising sales to enterprise-level brands and agencies with brand awareness or performance marketing initiatives. Within the mobile space, I offer digital marketing strategy & activation to achieve awareness or conversions leveraging programmatic, display, video, data, and targeting solutions. I'm also currently serving as an Adjunct Marketing Professor teaching both undergrad and graduate-level classes at Loyola University Chicago's "Quinlan School of Business."

My resume encompasses 16 years in integrated marketing for brand partnerships (ideation and activation) across Digital, Programmatic, Social, TV, Audio, and Live Events. Primarily, the strategic handling of brand initiatives weaved into custom content to achieve desired KPIs.