Past SPEAKERS

GROW Speakers have been there, done that. During main stage talks, panels & interactive workshops, you’ll hear from senior executives & operators from:

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Michelle Carrara

Vice President of Growth and Analytics, Boll & Branch

RETENTION PANEL: Turning First-Time Buyers into Lifelong Customers

Acquiring a customer is the beginning, not the win. The brands growing most efficiently today are the ones converting first purchases into second, third, and tenth — through better onboarding, smarter lifecycle programs, and loyalty mechanics that actually change behavior. This panel explores what retention looks like in practice: how to identify high-LTV customers early, what keeps people coming back, and where most brands are leaving money on the table after the first sale.

Samuel Sternberg

Chief Growth Officer, Jomashop

Rethinking Reach: Media Mix and Customer Realignment

The channels that drove growth three years ago aren't the channels driving it today. Paid social costs have risen, search behavior is shifting with AI, and brands are being forced to rethink where and how they reach customers — and which customers are actually worth reaching. This panel examines how leading brands are rebalancing their media mix in real time: where budgets are moving, how customer segmentation is evolving, and what a sustainable acquisition strategy looks like when the old playbook no longer applies.

Ricky Grenis

VP & General Manager, Swirl Wine Shop

Uninterrupted: How Brands Reach Customers in Moments Where Attention Already Exists

Customer acquisition has traditionally been built around interruption: stopping the scroll, breaking into the feed or competing for another click. But the most valuable attention may already exist. Leaders from ButcherBox, Swirl Wine Shop and Nift will explore how brands can reach new customers inside trusted, positive moments—when people are already engaged and open to discovery.

Rachel Thaw-Steindel

VP, Customer Success & Advocacy, kim.cc

Your Automation Rate is Wrong. What Can You Do About it?

Most DTC brands deploying AI in CX are promised automation rates of 60–80% but running around 15% in production. My goal is to get operators to diagnose that gap. The thesis: the issue lies in the lack of human involvement in AI deployment and upkeep. From there, the conversation moves toward what closing that gap looks like in practice: what human agents do differently, and how they are supported beyond the ticket queue. Participants should leave with one question: not "do we need better AI?" but "do we have the right human model around the AI we already have?"

Jordan Thompson

AI Commerce Product Leader, ESW

The Agent Placed the Order. Here's What Happens Next.

AI agents can now discover products, compare options, and complete purchases on behalf of shoppers—but far less attention has been paid to what happens after the transaction. In this fireside chat, ESW explores why the next phase of agentic commerce won't be defined by who owns discovery. The brands that win will be the ones that can stand behind the order after the agent clicks "buy" - with the confidence that it will be fulfilled correctly, delivered as promised, and supported end-to-end.

Mike Krau

Sr. Director, Growth Marketing, Shutterstock

Beyond Paid Media: How Brands Are Investing in Organic Growth and AI Search Discovery 

As customer acquisition costs rise and consumers both discover and evaluate brands across Google, social platforms, creators, and AI-powered search, organic visibility is becoming a more important part of the growth strategy.This roundtable explores how brands are bringing SEO, content, organic social, digital PR, and AI search together as one connected system. We’ll compare where teams are investing, what is driving meaningful traffic and revenue, and how marketers are measuring channels that do not fit neatly into last-click attribution. Get the real operator perspective: what is working, what is not, how teams are improving their visibility in AI search, and how they are building the internal case for greater organic investment.

Corey Balint

Principal Product Lead, Partnerships, Klaviyo

Turning Klaviyo Segments into Streaming TV Performance | Vibe.co x Klaviyo

CPMs keep climbing and everyone's retargeting the same 3% of shoppers. More performance marketers are turning to streaming TV for real growth.Vibe.co and Klaviyo work together in the same stack. This session gets into exactly how. A Klaviyo growth expert grills Vibe.co's Rachel McGovern and Shinesty's Head of Growth, Danny Hershey, on how Shinesty synced segments like cart abandoners, VIPs, and lapsed customers straight into premium CTV inventory. No managed service, no black-box reporting, no minimums. Campaigns launch in 24 hours, on channels people actually watch.

Jordan White

Innovation Manager, Customer Success, GS1

OPS PANEL: The New Era of Retail Operations

The back end of retail has never been under more pressure. Consumer expectations for speed, flexibility, and transparency have outpaced the infrastructure many brands were built on — and the cost of getting it wrong shows up immediately in returns, reviews, and churn. This panel digs into how operators are modernizing fulfillment, inventory, and logistics in a landscape where margin is thin and execution is everything.

Drew Marconi

CEO & Co-Founder, Intelligems

The AI Experimentation Stack: Don't Guess at Your Growth

No brand wants to guess at growth. The problem has never been a lack of testing tools or ambition. It's bandwidth. In this fireside chat, Drew Marconi sits down with Cody Plofker to break down how he built a high-output experimentation practice, using AI to do the heavy lifting. Cody shares exactly how he's wired together Intelligems, Claude, and a handful of connected tools into a system that ideates faster, ships tests without waiting on a developer, and reports in real time. If you want to discover and validate your growth paths with AI, this session is for you.

Rebecca Fitts

Founder, The Wild West of Retail & Double03 Retail

Rethinking Reach: Media Mix and Customer Realignment

The channels that drove growth three years ago aren't the channels driving it today. Paid social costs have risen, search behavior is shifting with AI, and brands are being forced to rethink where and how they reach customers — and which customers are actually worth reaching. This panel examines how leading brands are rebalancing their media mix in real time: where budgets are moving, how customer segmentation is evolving, and what a sustainable acquisition strategy looks like when the old playbook no longer applies.