Alan Rambam

The founder of Gravitater, Alan Rambam developed his experience in the space by excelling in senior executive positions in the industry for 20 years including 10 years at Omnicom Group, where he was Chief Mobile Officer for Tribal DDB, and Chief Strategy Officer for an agency he founded within Fleishman-Hillard called MobileBehavior. He was also the Founder/Executive Director of Shine, Inc., where he developed the MTV Fight for Your Rights Campaign and established the Muhammad Ali Scholarship Fund. Prior to this, he was appointed as the Director of the National Campaign Against Youth Violence making him one of the youngest staff members of the Clinton Administration. He also founded one of the first Digital Youth Agencies, Zoot Suit, which was acquired in its third year of operation by Gillespie/McCann.

 

Alan is a globally recognized thought leader having spoken at dozens of high-profile industry events including the World Knowledge Forum, Seoul; Wireless Influencers, Silicon Valley; Commonwealth Club, Palo Alto; and Business Week CEO Forum, Beijing.

 

Jeff Marcus

Jeff Marcus, Gravitater's CTO, who previously served as CTO of 24/7 Real Media leading up to their sale to WPP for $650 million. As a VP and GM at Mirror Image he founded their Streaming Media division. He was VP of networking at DoubleClick and VP of Operations at JvNCNET (John von Neumann Center Network at Princeton), one of the original six backbone nodes of the Internet. He also held key management positions at KPMG and UPS and began his career as a software engineer at IBM. As Sparkway’s CEO, his deep industry experience is now widely applied toward helping our clients succeed.

 

Additional Staff:

• Lauren Seber           

• George Gallo

• Dave Jones

• Hillary Hedges-Rayport

• Michan Pour-Azar

 

Advisors:

Jeffrey Rayport

Jeffrey Rayport consults, speaks, and writes on a variety of topics, including the impacts of digital technologies on media, marketing, and services; new strategies for customer engagement and customer experience; and achieving competitive advantage in service sector businesses. He is Founder and Managing Partner of MarketspaceNext LLC, a digital strategy and advisory firm, and has served as a Director and advisor to many public and private companies and to private equity firms. 

Rayport is a Fellow in Executive Education at Harvard Business School, where he taught for nearly a decade in Marketing and Service Management. While there, he developed and delivered the first graduate-level e-commerce course in the nation, enrolling nearly 2,000 MBA students. In building the course, Rayport authored nearly a hundred case studies. Business plans written by students gave rise to dozens of start-ups, including Yahoo! Prior to his taking a leave from HBS, Rayport coined the term and concept of “viral marketing.” He was the School’s only faculty member voted Outstanding Professor for three years in a row by the HBS Students Association. 

Rayport is a co-founder and faculty member of several corporate universities, including at Omnicom Group (NYSE:OMC); Bertelsmann AG; and Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN). He also launched and grew a custom executive development business, which he established as an affiliate of Monitor Group, where he was a Senior Partner. As a keynote speaker, he is represented exclusively by the Washington Speakers Bureau.

 

John Pasmore

Served as co-founder, Board Member and CEO in the venture-backed, video-based travel platform VoyageTV. VoyageTV raised $10 million in an A-Round led by Syncom Venture Partners in 2008, and in 2013 was sold to Next 1 Interactive.  Wisconsin-based Mark Travel, an enterprise with over $1 billion in annual sales, co-invested with Syncom. Voyages created over 300 property specific videos for hotels in Las Vegas, Mexico, New York, and the Caribbean and syndicated its video to 40 million cable homes.

 

John spent his early career in consumer banking at Chase Bank and Texas Commerce Bank and brokerage (Series 7 & 63 licensed). Launched first business in 1991, a consumer magazine, Intriguein Houston, Texas, which was purchased by South Texas Corporation.

From 1995 to 2004, John had partnered with music impresario Russell Simmons of Def Jam Records to create Oneworld Media, Inc. where he served as President for 8 years.

 

He currently sits on the Board of Directors, Outward Bound USA, and the Board of Advisors, Platform.org, an organization seeking inclusion within technology. Platform held is inaugural conference at MIT’s Media Lab and continues to push to level the digital playing field. (2013 – present).

 

John lives in New York City, is married to Kobi Wu-Pasmore with one child. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the State University of New York and attends Columbia University pursuing a degree in Computer Science.

 

Sam McCleery

Chief Technologist, Strategic Technology Partnerships. Responsible for defining and implementing the plan to unite external innovation with internal ESPN capabilities. Working with the venture capital, private equity, start-ups, sports brands, leagues and teams to craft a strategy that will lead to increased products and solutions to drive fan engagement across ESPN platforms. Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. PVI Virtual Media Services, a Cablevision Company. Responsible for defining and implementing the plan to unite external innovation with internal ESPN capabilities. Working with the venture capital, private equity, start-ups, sports brands, leagues and teams to craft a strategy that will lead to increased products and solutions to drive fan engagement across ESPN platforms.

 

An industry recognized and proven executive specializing in forming product, markets and businesses around new and emerging technologies. Excels at bridging the gap between technology and business, providing unique management expertise when developing product strategies and go-to-market plans. Exceptional relationship management skills drive alignment and execution in dynamic markets.

 

Kendra Bracken

Kendra Bracken-Ferguson is the Co-Founder of Digital Brand Architects. DBA provides social media strategic direction to brands as well as provides talent management to online influencers. 

Kendra was previously the Director, Digital Media, Corporate Communications at Polo Ralph Lauren. She worked across the brand management, marketing, advertising and public relations teams to develop and drive a cohesive approach to social media. She is responsible for the launch of the company’s first dedicated social media influencer program and helped drive the brand to over 1 million Facebook fans leading to a 2nd place ranking in the Digital IQ Luxury index survey. 

As Vice President, Digital at Fleishman-Hillard New York, she specifically responsible for overseeing the digital consumer team and developing social media strategies for her clients including AT&T, Motorola, DKNY, Reebok, Nine West, Gatorade, P&G. 

She is a global digital strategist specializing in content marketing, influencer relations, media marketing strategy, viral/Word-of-Mouth marketing and event management with a deep focus in fashion, beauty, consumer and lifestyle. 

Kendra has a Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration in Public Relations, a minor in English and certificate of completion in Spanish from Purdue University. She completed her Masters of Business Administration. In 2013, she was awarded by Purdue University College of Liberal Arts with the prestigious Emerging Voice Award. She was previously featured as one of the twenty-eight most influential African American women in Essence Magazine and Mobile Marketer's "Mobile Women to Watch." 

Kendra is currently a member of The Fulbright Program PR Council, digitalundivided and former New York Women in Communications board member, Kendra splits her free time between numerous speaking engagements for keynote events like SXSW and Social Media Week and mentoring young communication professionals eager to break into the industry.