Forward 2022 Sponsors

If you’re interested in sponsoring Forward Conference 2023, contact us.

AdCellerant

Brock Berry, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder
brock@adcellerant.com
Melissa Sheehan, Chief Revenue Officer
msheehan@adcellerant.com
www.adcellerant.com

AdCellerant partners with television broadcast companies to provide local advertisers access to high-quality digital marketing technology and solutions. Focused on generating results and growth for businesses of all sizes, AdCellerant’s partner support includes best-in-class technology and software, award-winning customer service, expert education, and exceptional operational support to ensure campaign performance for customers.

AdImpact

John Link, VP Sales and Marketing
jlink@adimpact.com
https://adimpact.com/

AdImpact provides media companies, agencies, platforms, and data aggregators with ad intelligence insights that facilitate enhanced attribution, research, and other media and marketing outcomes. AdImpact provides a 360-dgree view of the TV ad intelligence universe through real-time monitoring linear television, local cable, and CTV at DMA, Zip and household levels, allowing for deeply enriched analysis.

BIA Advisory Services

Tom Buono, Founder & CEO
tbuono@bia.com | info@bia.com
703-802-2960
www.bia.com

Local advertising revenue is the cornerstone of everything BIA does. We track it, estimate it, and strategize on how to make more of it. Our team of strategists, economists, and analysts help our clients with local selling, competitive assessments, business planning, and budgeting. For any sales activities, our valuation team offers expert appraisal reports. Our leading data platforms include BIA ADVantage™, which provides traditional and digital media advertising forecasts across local TV and Radio markets and business verticals, and Media Access Pro™, which profiles TV and Radio stations. We invite you to contact us and tell us what’s most pressing for your business and goals. We can develop a custom solution for your executive and local selling teams. See what we’re up to: www.bia.com. Email us at advantage@bia.com to talk.

Cadent

Rick Beispel, Senior Vice President, Sales and Strategy
rbeispiel@cadent.tv
cadent.tv/

Cadent powers the evolution of TV brand advertising. We provide marketers, agencies, operators, and media owners with data-driven solutions for buying and selling TV advertising. By connecting brands with opportunities across national inventory sources—cable, broadcast, and OTT—our technology improves efficiencies and boosts the results of linear, addressable, and cross-screen campaigns. For more information, visit cadent.tv or follow @CadentTV.

Comscore

Adam Bush, Senior Vice President, Sell-Side Account Management
abush@comscore.com
www.comscore.com

Comscore is a trusted partner for planning, transacting and evaluating media across platforms. With transformative data science and vast audience insights across digital, linear TV, over-the-top (OTT) and theatrical viewership, we are a powerful third-party source for reliable measurement of cross-platform audiences.

Consumer Orbit

Steve Walsh, Chief Revenue Officer
stevewalsh@consumerorbit.com
347-637-0708
www.consumerorbit.com

Consumer Orbit provides insights and analytics which help materially improve the effectiveness and efficiency of Local crossplatform advertising campaigns for both the buy- and sell-sides, resulting in more effective ad campaigns which generate increased revenues and higher profits for our clients. We provide this in every Local television market by moving beyond age/gender demographics into actual, integrated customer purchase, visitation and media consumption behaviors providing a far more relevant, accurate and actionable understanding of what consumers shop for, where they shop for it, and how they consume media through one of the largest deterministic consumer behavior datasets in the world. Consumer Orbit’s industry-leading crossplatform integration of consumer behavior across the shopping and media consumption spectrums empowers media sellers, advertising agencies and the marketers they serve to far more effectively identify where and how best to reach their actual customers and prospects in near-real time.

FastPay

Drew Klopp, Senior Account Executive
aklopp@avidxchange.com
www.gofastpay.com

FastPay works with hundreds of advertising agencies and thousands of vendors processing billions of dollars each year in media invoices and payments. Our FastPay Network allows suppliers to choose their preferred payment method and gain access to faster payments, rich remittance data, lower transaction costs, and easier reconciliation.

Gamut, the award-winning leader in local OTT media, helps brands connect with relevant streaming audiences in every DMA. Leveraging its direct access to brand-safe, premium OTT inventory, and advanced advertising tools, marketers can reach desired local audiences on a national scale with highly engaging and personalized ads. With more than 20 years of digital media experience, Gamut is committed to delivering the highest level of service and expertise to ensure maximum results for its clients and partners.

Imagine Communications

Imagine Communications Sales
insidesales@imaginecommunications.com
101 West Colfax Avenue, Suite 600, Denver CO 80202
www.imaginecommunications.com

Imagine Communications empowers the media and entertainment industry through transformative innovation. Broadcasters, networks, video service providers and enterprises around the world rely on our optimized, future-proof, multiscreen video and revenue enablement solutions every day to support their mission-critical operations. Today, nearly half of the world’s video channels traverse our products, and our software solutions drive close to a third of global ad revenue. Through continuous innovation, we are delivering the most advanced IP, cloud-enabled, software-defined network and workflow solutions in the industry. Visit www.imaginecommunications.com for more information, and follow us on Twitter @imagine_comms.

Kantar

Steve Passwaiter, VP, Growth & Strategy, Kantar Ad Intelligence & CMAG
Steven.Passwaiter@kantar.com
703-296-3789
3 World Trade Center
175 Greenwich St, 35th Floor, New York NY 10007
www.kantar.com/north-america

Kantar is the world’s leading marketing data and analytics company. We have a complete, unique and rounded understanding of how people think, feel and act; globally and locally in over 90 markets. By combining the deep expertise of our people, our data resources and benchmarks and our innovative analytics and technology, we help our clients understand people and inspire growth.

Madhive

Don Desawade, Director, Communications and Events
don@madhive.com
225 Broadway, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10007
www.Madhive.com

Madhive is the leading technology company engineered for modern TV advertising. Through its self-service platform, advertisers can seamlessly customize and automate the buying process into one operating system. This allows advertisers to plan, target, activate, and measure their campaigns with greater simplicity, accountability, reach, and control. Powered by an industry-leading bidder and device graph that processes 200 billion available impressions per day, Madhive delivers precise, brand-safe audience connections efficiently at scale. The company is trusted by over 80% of local content owners, creators and distributors, including FOX, Scripps and TEGNA’s Premion, as well as national agencies and brands, powering more than half a billion dollars in media across 12,000+ daily campaigns. To learn more, visit madhive.com.

Marathon Ventures

David Brenner, Partner
dhbrenner@marathonventures.com
917-992-3916
www.marathonventures.com

Marathon maximizes revenue from direct response and paid programming inventory for some of the largest companies in media by combining proprietary inventory management systems with a disciplined, data-driven sales approach that drives inventory allocation and pricing. Marathon expedites cash collections so that revenue is returned to content rights holders quickly and efficiently.  Marathon is one of the largest independent sales organizations in television. www.marathonventures.com

Marketron

Todd Kalman, SVP of Sales
tkalman@marketron.com
612-790-8464
www.marketron.com

Marketron empowers innovators in the broadcast and media industry to strengthen their market leadership by delivering more scalable, predictable, and reliable revenue. With Marketron’s products and services, users can successfully propose, price, and execute multimedia advertising campaigns across all revenue streams including television, radio, O&O, and digital media. With 50 years of industry leadership, Marketron serves more than 6,000 media organizations globally and manages $5 billion in annual U.S. advertising revenue representing more than 1 million advertisers. Marketron is owned by Diversis Capital. More information is available at www.marketron.com.

Media Payments Inc

Jim Hughes, President
Jim.hughes@mediapaymentsinc.com
www.mediapaymentsinc.com

Media Payments, Inc. (MPI) has been the leading electronic B2B payment solution serving the political advertising industry for over six years. Now, part of REPAY Holdings Corporation (Nasdaq: RPAY); a leading provider of vertically integrated payment solutions, MPI offers the most innovative AP automation and B2B payment technology available for the media industry.

The Media Sales Institute (MSI)

Jeffrey P. Myers, Developer
Jeffrey@PSPConsulting.net
301-509-0898
themsi.net
www.PSPConsulting.net

The Media Sales Institute (MSI), the nation’s leading talent development program for media sales professionals of diverse backgrounds has been addressing the challenge of diversity and inclusion within media for over 20 years. In partnership with the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters Foundation (NABOB) and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the MSI has certified over 1000 media sales graduates; and is the best long-term plan to recruit diverse, pre-screened, and highly qualified entry-level employees into the media industry.  The intense, ten-day media sales, operations & marketing training program for recent college graduates, career changers and military personnel is designed to prepare talented individuals of diverse backgrounds for positions in radio, television, cable, print, digital and interactive sales/marketing/operations. Industry recruiters observe candidates’ real-worldsales presentations and hire for entry-level sales positions. Recruit at the 2023 Media Sales Institute (MSI), scheduled June 5 – 15, 2023 (recruitment dates June 13th & 14th) at the Atlanta University Center. Visit themsi.net for more information.​

Nielsen

Catherine Herkovic, EVP, Managing Director, Local Television
Catherine.Herkovic@nielsen.com
646-654-5000
www.nielsen.com

Nielsen shapes the world’s media and content as a global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics. Through our understanding of people and their behaviors across all channels and platforms, we empower our clients with independent and actionable intelligence so they can connect and engage with their audiences—now and into the future. An S&P 500 company, Nielsen (NYSE: NLSN) operates around the world in more than 55 countries. Learn more at www.nielsen.com or www.nielsen.com/investors and connect with us on social media.

Operative

Jamie Calandruccio, SVP, Marketing
www.operative.com

Operative accelerates revenue growth for over 300 of the world’s top media brands, making it easy for them to deliver any audience and outcome to their buyers. No other software company brings a comparable depth of experience combined with an open, modular framework to deliver innovative software supporting all platforms, revenue models, and business units. Since 2000, Operative has grown to over 1200+ global employees and processes more than $40 billion in linear and digital advertising revenue for the best-known companies in the industry.​

Pearl TV is a business organization of U.S. broadcast companies with a shared interest in exploring forward-looking broadcasting opportunities, including innovative ways of promoting local broadcast TV content and developing digital media and wireless platforms for the broadcast industry. Pearl’s membership, comprising more than 820 network-affiliated TV stations, consists of nine of the largest broadcast companies in America including: Cox Media Group, the E.W. Scripps Company, Graham Media Group, Hearst Television Inc., Nexstar Media Group, Gray Television, Sinclair Broadcast Group and TEGNA, Inc.

PremiumMedia360

Robert DeGennaro, President and CEO
Robert@PremiumMedia360.com
503-708-1577
Cordie P. De Pascale, Chief Strategy Officer
Cordie@PremiumMedia360.com
917-667-2447
530 7th Avenue, New York, NY 10018
www.premiummedia360.com

PremiumMedia360 helps media agencies and sellers buy, sell, and partner more effectively—by letting them take control of the data that guides their interactions. Its reporting and collaboration tools dramatically reduce the time and resources it takes to understand where campaigns stand—from order to invoice—and readies media companies to conduct business across new formats and standards such as TIP. The result: airings records stop being bottlenecks, and start being the source of business insight they should be. Learn more at www.PremiumMedia360.com.

ShareBuilders offers media sales empowerment and revenue growth tools, backed by a team of dedicated industry experts. We work closely with our customers to build data-driven sales strategies and equip them with the platforms that can help manage it all — from activity tracking to inventory management. Simply put, we make your data make sense.

SureWaves

Dan Lyons, President
danlyons@surewaves.com
713-906-2929
www.surewaves.com

Founded in 2006, SureWaves is a TV Ad Tech pioneer leading the global transformation in linear TV buying and selling with 50+ technology patents. ANNA, an advanced AI driven Sales Automation platform from SureWaves, acts as a Revenue Optimization Brain for TV stations and integrates seamlessly with existing systems using modern APIs and Smart Process Automation. ANNA can download, process, decision data and execute hundreds of thousands of Makegoods and Audience Under-Delivery spots for every TV Station owned by a broadcaster at dead of the night in less than 2 hours, thus, saving thousands of hours in complex repetitive tasks, and millions in missed revenue opportunity for the TV stations and ad agencies. SureWaves technology connects “broken pipes” in the sales workflows and is all set to revolutionize television commerce, allowing broadcasters to maximize existing revenue, unlock new revenue streams and boost productivity.

vCreative

Mary DelGrande, SVP of Sales
mary@vcreativeinc.com
908-630-0702
www.vcreative.co

Save time, save money, and be more productive with vCreative’s cloud-based workflow software solutions for TV, radio, and digital. Our easy-to-use, dependable software products empower sales, production, traffic, promotions, on-air, creative services, and digital teams to collaborate from anywhere and work more efficiently by simplifying workflow processes and eliminating costly errors. 6,000+ stations and networks trust vCreative to streamline internal operations by centralizing status updates, communication, approvals, and more into a single platform.

Whether you’re operating one station or managing multiple departments across markets, we understand the unique challenges that you face every day in broadcast media. vCreative software is built to help you succeed by simplifying your day and giving you the tools you need to be highly functional, efficient, and profitable.

WideOrbit

Toni CoonceEVP Sales
tcoonce@wideorbit.com
1160 Battery Street, Suite 300 San Francisco, CA 94111
www.wideorbit.com

WideOrbit helps media companies do more business by making it easier to buy and sell advertising. WideOrbit is the system of record for more than $38 billion in advertising transactions annually. Say Hello to a Wider World with WideOrbit, the one platform that ties everything together, from pitch to payment. In a rapidly evolving media landscape, doing more business means doing less paper-chasing, less chair-swiveling, and less data re-re-entry. Only WideOrbit brings a Wider-World approach, providing the broader capabilities, bigger insights, and better connections that media companies need. That’s why so many industry leaders – including E.W. Scripps, the Sinclair Broadcast Group, Gray Television, TEGNA, Graham Media Group, and Audacy – have partnered with us since 1999. WideOrbit is headquartered in San Francisco with offices worldwide. Learn more at wideorbit.com.