AMA Virtual Conference: Marketing in Higher Education

Dale Bertrand

Dale Bertrand has been an SEO specialist to Fortune 500 companies and venture-backed startups around the world for two decades. His clients include global brands such as Citizen Watch, Nestle, Raymond Weil and Bulova. He applies his graduate school work in artificial intelligence to search engine marketing. Dale speaks at industry conferences, leads corporate training events and serves at Entrepreneur in Residence at the Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs Organization. He has trained marketing professionals from TripAdvisor, Microsoft, HubSpot, Digitas and Proctor & Gamble. Dale has BS and MS degrees in Computer Engineering from Brown University.

Shannon Denton

Shannon is a Co-Founder and CEO of Wripple and the former Global CEO of leading digital agency Razorfish.  Wripple, co-founded by Shannon and two other Razorfish executives Bonny Block and Ray Samuels, is a talent marketplace and freelance management system for finding expert, on-demand marketing talent (including ready-made project teams as well as individual freelancers).    In only 18 months since launch, the Wripple platform has been adopted by over 100 clients and thousands of freelancers as the premier platform for top-quality, on-demand marketing work.

During his 16-year career at Razorfish, Shannon was a key executive leader that helped Razorfish grow to a large, $800M business serving top brands worldwide.   During Shannon’s tenure as CEO, the company received numerous industry recognitions including multiple appearances on Ad Age’s A-List and top rankings in high-profile analyst reports such as Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Digital Marketing Services and Forrester’s Wave’s for Digital Experience and Commerce Consultancies.  During his tenure, Shannon gained extensive experience as a speaker and panel cost at top industry events including the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Forrester’s conferences and several Digiday marketing events.

Shanita Baraka Akintonde

Shanita is an author, educator, AMA Chicago board member and host of McGraw Hill’s Marketing Insights podcast. She has over two decades of experience as a brand specialist for organizations like Burrell, BBDO, Porter Novelli and DDB. Shanita is also the Immediate Past National Chair of The Public Relations Society of America Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

Jillian Als

Jillian Als is the VP of Marketing of Commercial and International Markets at Optimere, heading up a global team focused on digital, brand, product, and channel marketing for its suite of SaaS solutions for digital governance and compliance. Jillian has over 15 years of international B2B marketing experience from startups to Fortune 500 and is passionate about data, technology, customers, creativity, and where they all intersect.

Jasmine de Guzman

Jasmine de Guzman is the Manager, Revenue Marketing at Monsido. She has a background in the website builder and SaaS space, and she’s all about sharing her knowledge to help others improve their website and marketing initiatives. On a daily basis, Jasmine leads the Revenue Marketing Team for Monsido’s Commercial, International and Partnerships team, and focuses on sharing insights via Monsido’s webinars, blog posts, partner channel and more.

Rob Vignali

As Regional SalesDirector at Cvent, Robert oversees Cvent’s event solutions sales team supporting colleges and universities. For more than 15 years, he has helped implement technology solutions for events teams at major universities, including NYU, Harvard, Boston College, Columbia, Cornell, UT Austin, Purdue, and many others.Robert graduated from the University of Virginia.

Jenna Johnson

Jenna Johnson joined the Charleston Southern University Marketing and Communication team in 2017 and oversees strategic marketing initiatives and serves as the executive director of marketing and communication and chief communication officer for the university. Johnson’s career began in media relations for political camps and continued on in both the private and nonprofit sector. She has unique perspective and experience in brand management, marketing strategy, grant writing and public relations.

Ariana Keil

Ariana Keil is a marketing manager at Canto, where she oversees both North American demand generation and ABM programs. Since joining Canto in 2020, she has focused on developing marketing campaigns which resonate with Canto’s target markets in Higher Education, Retail, the Non-profit sector, and Manufacturing. Prior to that, she cultivated experience in both marketing and sales roles in the Finance and Agency industries.

Mitchell Bausch

Mitchell Bausch PMP is the Assistant Director of Marketing & Communications at the Texas A&M University Law School. In the five years, he has worked at Texas A&M, he has served in a number of roles and has learned to utilize technologies like Wrike to improve himself, his colleagues, his teams, and the university. Continuously building his skillset year after year, he has credited Wrike with inspiring him to acquire his PMP and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt to help his organization develop stronger Marketing Operations best practices to break down siloes and barriers to collaboration.

Andrea Shaw

Andrea Shaw is an education advocate, passionate about the power of learning to transform lives. She brings over 25 years of strategic leadership across public, private and for-profit higher education institutions driving marketing, admissions, career and student programs and curriculum innovation with an eye toward change. Andrea has also held executive positions at global educational publishing organizations such as Pearson, Cengage and Houghton Mifflin. She holds an Economics degree from Cornell University and an MBA from the University of Virginia.

John Reid

John Reid has nearly a decade of experience in the youth advertising space, developing and executing innovative digital media campaigns of all sizes. John has had the pleasure of working with prominent higher education institutions such as Columbia University, Dalhousie University, and many others.

In his role at Glacier, John oversees concept development and strategic direction. He utilizes his experience and Glacier’s heavy investment in research to understand the best way to reach youth while conveying values they identify with. Whether it is an open house promotion or a top-to-bottom organizational rebrand, John understands the tactics and strategies required to deliver the best results without breaking the bank.

Jamie Pragnell

Jamie Pragnell has worked in the higher education marketing space for over 5 years. During that time, she has had the opportunity to strategize, build and execute marketing campaigns for some of North America’s top institutions. In her role at Glacier, Jamie works directly with over 40 higher ed institutions annually, running a multitude of campaigns with goals ranging from increased enrollments to brand lift. Jamie utilizes her experience and knowledge to deliver customized campaigns for any objective.

Molly Soat

Tanya Pankratz

Mike O’Brien

Michael (Mike) O’Brien is passionate about innovation. He is currently the founder and CEO Mingle, LLC whose properties include Conext.me & Postings.com. Postings.com enables companies to distribute job postings and manage candidates in the cloud, while saving up to 60% on their recruitment advertising. Conext improves business insight and electronically streamlines communication with students, graduates and employers.

In 2012, Mingle was recognized as the 6th fastest growing company in San Diego and 673rd fastest growing company nationwide by Inc, 500|5000. The company also made Inc 500|5000 list in 2013 and 2014.

Mike is an investor and advisor to Understand.com, RehearsalVRP and LawVeritas.com. Mike is currently a Board Member of the Pacific Southwest BBB. Mike is an advisor and investor to crypto asset fund Luna Capital, LLC.

Prior to Mingle, Mike was a co-founder and the CEO of financialaid.com, a pioneer in providing college finance solutions online. Founded in 2000, financialaid.com became one of the most successful student loan companies in the U.S., capitalizing on Mike’s direction and innovative Internet marketing strategies. financialaid.com funded more than $1 Billion in student loans each year. At financialaid.com, Mike conceptualized and created CampusDirt.com (at the time, the number one online college search engine), RateYourCampus.com (online feedback community) and CampusClix.com (a college social networking website). In October of 2004, Mike sold financialaid.com and properties to Education Lending Group (now Student Loan Xpress) which in turn was purchased by CIT (NYSE: CIT) for $400MM in January 2005.

Utilized as a media expert in higher education finance and Internet marketing, Mike has been interviewed by numerous national television and print news media — including The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, NBC Nightly News, Fox News Network, the Chicago Tribune and Kiplingers.

Mike received a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing from California State University, Fresno. In 2006, he was recognized as Entrepreneur in Residence in 2006 at his alma mater. In 2007, he was on the Fresno State Alumni Association Board. In 2015, Mike was recognized as a finalist for the Most Admired CEO’s in San Diego by the San Diego Business Journal.

Gene Lewis

Gene began his career in digital marketing when the blink tag was still popular. His fascination with the experiments and puzzles of the early web bloomed into an obsession with digital media. It’s a focus that is fundamentally driven by his love of technology, a passion for clarity in communication and the power of engagement. Gene is a founding partner of Digital Pulp and now leads the agency’s creative force – and is celebrated as a thought leader by his peers in the industry. Gene studied English at Vassar College, and emphatically insists that there aren’t two spaces after a period. Dedicated to learning his client’s professional language and adapting to their needs, he balances concerns of marketing, design, branding, technology and content to communicate with precision and transform ideas into experiential realities.