SPEAKERS
Liza Adams
AI Advisor & GTM Strategist
When Your Customers Change Faster Than Your Marketing
Customer behavior is evolving rapidly as AI, peer reviews, and rising expectations reshape how people search, evaluate, and make purchasing decisions. In this keynote, AI advisor and go-to-market strategist Liza Adams demonstrates how AI can identify what matters most to customers and translate those insights into messaging that resonates. She shares a live example built from real customer feedback and highlights how organizations can scale these successes by integrating AI teammates that enhance marketing’s effectiveness and strengthen its impact across the customer journey.
Learning Objectives
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How AI is driving changes in customer behavior and expectations
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How to quickly find patterns in customer feedback that reveal what matters most
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How to turn those insights into messaging that is clear, relevant, and consistent
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How to use AI to make this process faster and more consistent
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How to grow from single AI wins to high-performing human–AI team
Biography
Liza Adams is an AI Advisor and GTM strategist who transforms go-to-market teams for the AI era. With 20+ years as a senior marketing executive at companies like Smartsheet, Juniper Networks, Pure Storage, and Encompass Technologies, she brings deep expertise in leading through technological shifts. Her people-first, AI-forward approach helps organizations unlock what’s possible through real-world use cases, delivered via applied AI workshops and strategic advisory engagements, and her biweekly LinkedIn newsletter “Applied AI in GTM.” Across multiple companies, she has led transformations into high-performing teams where human and AI teammates work together to achieve breakthrough results in just a few months.
Aaron Pomerantz
Assistant Director of Research and Evaluation, The Doerr Institute for New Leaders at Rice University
Cruise Control, Not Copilot – The Psychology and Practice of Responsible AI
While AI is revolutionary, powerful, and useful, it is still, ultimately, a tool, and powerful tools come with powerful risks. AI is designed to emulate human thought and communication, which means it shares many of our flaws: bias, hallucination, even outright fabrication, all of which can produce disastrous outcomes. Thus, responsible AI use requires understanding not just how AI works, but also how we work.
In this session, Dr. Aaron Pomerantz, a psychologist who uses AI daily in leader development, program assessment, and content creation, shows participants how to keep both AI and themselves in check. He’ll break down the psychological biases that shape AI’s behavior and our reactions to it, and share practical frameworks for integrating AI into workflows: where it accelerates iteration, brainstorming, and data analysis, and where human oversight must be non‑negotiable.
This isn’t “AI 101.” It’s about actually working with AI – designing tasks, validating results, and leveraging it in creative and analytical work – without losing your judgment, credibility, or voice.
Learning Objectives
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Identify how AI mirrors human psychological biases and why that matters for marketing decisions.
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Recognize their own psychological strengths and vulnerabilities in using AI responsibly.
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Apply practical frameworks for integrating AI into research, content, and strategy without over-trusting the tool.
Biography
Dr. Aaron Pomerantz is a social-organizational psychologist and the Assistant Director of Research and Evaluation at Rice University’s Doerr Institute for New Leaders. He studies how cultural values and self-concept shape leader/follower dynamics, including topics like political polarization, conspiracy theories, and prejudice. He also consults with professionals and organizations in fields such as mental health, medicine, and education to design evidence-based, data-driven programs.
Haddie Djemal
Media Trainer for Executives and Brands
Story as a Strategy: The Marketer’s Edge in an AI World
In an era where marketers are pressured to achieve more with fewer resources—and automation risks making everything feel interchangeable—the competitive edge is human connection. This session reframes marketing through the lens of storytelling as a strategic driver of trust, authority, and community. The presenter examines why audiences value authenticity over volume, why connection outperforms persuasion, and how marketers can think like journalists to uncover and frame stories within their organizations. Participants will gain practical guidance for translating those narratives into measurable marketing value, building relationships, and fostering credibility in a low-trust, AI-driven environment.
Learning Objectives
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Identify why authentic storytelling builds trust, authority, and community in a low-trust, AI-driven marketplace.
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Learn how to uncover, frame, and share stories inside an organization to create measurable marketing impact.
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Apply practical techniques to integrate storytelling into campaigns, content, and relationship-building strategies for stronger audience connections.
Biography
Haddie Djemal is a media trainer, consultant, and founder of the #HireAJournalist initiative, advocating for journalists’ skills in today’s communications landscape. With more than a decade as a national TV Host/correspondent, and producer, she built her career in both traditional newsrooms and branded entertainment, known for turning complex ideas into compelling stories. As a consultant, Haddie helps executives sharpen their storytelling, strengthen brand identity, and expand visibility through workshops, trainings, and newsroom-style frameworks. Her mission: equip leaders with media mastery, elevate journalists’ value, and help brands create authentic stories that drive results, build trust, and deepen connection.
Jim Sowden
Head of Creative, Arcadia Innovation Studio
The Infinity Machine: How AR is Bringing Meaning to AI for Brands
Advancements in augmented reality and artificial intelligence are merging to create unprecedented opportunities for brands to move beyond traditional boundaries. In this session, Jim Sowden introduces “The Infinity Machine,” a framework that demonstrates how AR’s immersive canvas and AI’s generative intelligence can transform brand communication into three-dimensional experiences. He explores a future vision for ambient computing, powered by emerging hardware, where customer interactions are both useful and delightful. Participants will learn from real-world immersive brand experiences, discover practical approaches to AI integration that prioritize meaningful engagement, and gain strategies to reimagine the customer journey as an interactive, value-driven conversation.
Learning Objectives
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Learn from immersive brand experiences that leverage AI, transforming communication into three-dimensional experiences
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Elevate your customer’s journey into a conversation where brands are providing utility and delight.
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Create an AI integration frameworks that prioritize meaningful engagement
Biography
Jim is Head of Creative at Snap’s Arcadia Innovation Studio, where he partners with brands to use new technology to create innovative and immersive experiences that bend reality and deliver measurable business results. He has led programs with with the world’s biggest brands and is passionate about exploring the intersection of art and commerce through new platforms applied to creative challenges.
Dr. Nadia Morozova
Chief Analytics & Insights Officer, Enriched Insights
The Infinity Machine: How AR is Bringing Meaning to AI for Brands
Advancements in augmented reality and artificial intelligence are merging to create unprecedented opportunities for brands to move beyond traditional boundaries. In this session, Jim Sowden introduces “The Infinity Machine,” a framework that demonstrates how AR’s immersive canvas and AI’s generative intelligence can transform brand communication into three-dimensional experiences. He explores a future vision for ambient computing, powered by emerging hardware, where customer interactions are both useful and delightful. Participants will learn from real-world immersive brand experiences, discover practical approaches to AI integration that prioritize meaningful engagement, and gain strategies to reimagine the customer journey as an interactive, value-driven conversation.
Learning Objectives
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Learn from immersive brand experiences that leverage AI, transforming communication into three-dimensional experiences
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Elevate your customer’s journey into a conversation where brands are providing utility and delight.
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Create an AI integration frameworks that prioritize meaningful engagement
Biography
Jim is Head of Creative at Snap’s Arcadia Innovation Studio, where he partners with brands to use new technology to create innovative and immersive experiences that bend reality and deliver measurable business results. He has led programs with with the world’s biggest brands and is passionate about exploring the intersection of art and commerce through new platforms applied to creative challenges.
Danny Gavin
Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Optidge
AI Without the Hype: Building a Culture of Quick Wins
AI is reshaping how agencies think, work, and deliver results—but transformation does not happen overnight. In this session, Danny Gavin, Chief Strategy Officer at Optidge, shares how his agency cultivated a culture where AI and automation empower teams rather than intimidate them. He outlines the mindset shifts that have produced measurable wins for clients and provides both a cultural framework and tactical quick wins that demonstrate how experimentation can lead to agency-wide transformation.
Learning Objectives
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Culture and Buy-In: How to build an AI-positive mindset and overcome internal resistance.
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Quick Wins Playbook: Practical, real-world AI and automation use cases that drive immediate client and operational impact.
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From Test to Transformation: How to scale successful experiments into repeatable systems and a lasting competitive edge.
Biography
Danny Gavin is the founder and chief strategist at Optidge since 2011, an award-winning Houston-based digital marketing agency where he leads a team of 30+ that provides expert SEO, Paid Search, Paid Social, and CRM services for established businesses looking for serious ROI. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Houston’s C.T. Bauer College of Business where he teaches Master’s level classes and Executive education on social media and search engine marketing. In 2021, Danny launched ODEO Academy, an online training program in digital marketing for the public. He has trained 600+ students to date in graduate-level digital marketing strategies. Finally, Danny is the host of “The Digital Marketing Mentor”, a podcast he started in January of this year, where he explores his guests’ history with mentorship and guiding others and delves into how these connections have affected their careers, marketing strategies, and lives.
Heather Hernandez
Principal Account Manager,
CVENT
You & AI: Creating Personalized Event Experiences
Creating a personal touch for every attendee can feel like a full-time job, yet unique experiences are essential to engagement and retention. In this session, Heather Hernandez of Cvent explores how marketers and planners can design tailored experiences at scale without exhausting their teams. She discusses the most common challenges organizations face with personalization, why maintaining clean and reliable data is critical, and how artificial intelligence can turn attendee insights into actionable, memorable moments. Participants will leave with practical strategies and AI-driven tools to craft campaigns and events that resonate from first invitation through post-event follow-up.
Learning Objectives
- Common challenges with personalization and effective solutions
- Why data hygiene is crucial for creating customization at scale
- Practical ways AI can enhance your marketing campaigns and event experiences
Heather's Bio
Heather Hernandez is a Principal Account Manager on the Third-Party Partnerships Team at Cvent, Inc. She cultivated a multi-faceted career in the hospitality industry that ultimately led her to Cvent in early 2022. After graduating from Texas A&M University with a BBA in Marketing, through happenstance she landed a position at the then brand-new downtown convention hotel in Houston and the rest is history as they say. Heather has worked in hotel sales and operations, convention center sales, CVB city wide sales for the 4th largest city in the US and has overseen event sales and operations for a Texas-based restaurant management group.
Over the years, she has held leadership positions with the Meeting Professionals International Houston Area Chapter and the Fort Bend Junior Service League, has been actively involved with the Executive Women International Houston Chapter, and she still supports her high school alma mater St. Agnes Academy as an Alumni Class Agent. Heather is a born and bred Houstonian who lives just south of Houston in Fort Bend County with her husband, 5-year-old son, and rescue dog Sonny.