At CurrentMom 2010 you will hear from digital media and entrepreneurial leaders including:
In 2002 she came to Washington as a correspondent for CBS News covering Capitol Hill and White House. She was a frequent contributor to CBS Sunday Morning and was recognized with a national Emmy and Gerald Loeb award.
Joie is a prominent figure among Asian Americans, and has for many years been an active leader in the Asian American Journalists Association as well as Unity, Journalists of Color and the Radio and Television News Directors Association. She is active with student groups and speaking on college campuses. She holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, and serves on the school's Board of Advisors. She is a communications advisor and strategist to the organization APIAVote, which encourages voter participation among Asian American/Pacific Islanders.
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Kelley Murray Skoloda is an author, MBA and public relations executive. A partner/director of Ketchum's Global Brand Marketing Practice, Skoloda is a recognized authority on marketing to women and is the architect of the widely-publicized Women 25to54, a communications offering that offers a better way to reach "multi-minding" female consumers. Her book, Too Busy to Shop: Marketing to Multi-Minding Women, is published by Praeger Publishers and Skoloda’s blog, toobusytoshop.blogspot.com, helped to collect input from women for the book.
Skoloda is a sought-after speaker and commentator on the topic of marketing to women and her work has been featured in Business Week Online, BRANDWEEKMagazine, CNNMoney.com, Today’s Chicago Woman, The Washington Post, PRWeek Magazine and others. She was named one of the most influential women in business in the Pittsburgh region by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in its "Women at the Helm" special edition. She has counseled dozens of companies and blue-chip brands including the American Iron and Steel Institute’s Canned Food Alliance, Aetna, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare, Daimler Chrysler, Kellogg’s Special K and other Kellogg’s brands, Kimberly-Clark, Libby’s and Rite Aid Corporation.
Previously, she was the agency’s director of business development and oversaw the implementation of the firm’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System and activated a global new business network. Skoloda earned her M.B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh Katz Graduate School of Business and her undergraduate degree from Seton Hill University, where she now sits on the Board of Trustees. She and her husband, David, reside in Pittsburgh with their two children, Jake and Ellie.
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Joanne Bamberger, who runs PunditMom, is a recovering attorney, politically progressive mom and political analyst living in the shadow of the nation’s capital. A former op-ed columnist for The Washington Examiner, Joanne is a Contributing Editor at BlogHer and a regular contributor to The Huffington Post. Her political commentary has appeared on CNN, Fox News, ABC.com, BBC Radio, Al Jazeera English & XM Radio POTUS ‘08, among others.
Joanne speaks frequently at conferences and to private groups about the growing influence of women/mothers in politics and social media. She has presented and participated in panels at Netroots Nation, the Feminist Majority Foundation, BlogHer ‘08, BlogHer DC ‘08, Fem 2.0, Type-A Mom Conference, WAM! 2009, the Women’s Media Center and others.
Joanne is a Fellow at the Women’s Media Center and was in the inaugural class of its Progressive Women’s Voices program. Joanne’s book, Mothers of Intention, based on her blog feature of the same name, will be published by Bright Sky Press in the Fall of 2010. Her work is also featured in the just-releassed book Kirtsy Takes a Bow: A Celebration of Women’s Online Favorites and Courageous Parenting. Joanne claims to have time for other things, but has given up sleep.
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Vanessa Fox, called a "cyberspace visionary" by Seattle Business Monthly, is an expert in understanding customer acquisition from organic search. She shares her perspective on how this impacts marketing and user experience at ninebyblue.com and provides authoritative search-friendly design patterns for developers at janeandrobot.com. She's also an entrepreneur-in-residence with Ignition Partners, Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land, and host of the weekly podcast Office Hours. Vanessa speaks regularly at conferences and corporate events and has written for a number of publications. She previously created Google’s Webmaster Central, which provides both tools and community to help website owners improve their sites to gain more customers from search and was instrumental in the sitemaps.org alliance of Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft Live Search. She was recently named one of Seattle’s top 25 innovators and entrepreneurs for 2008.
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Kelly King Anderson is the founder of Start Up Princess.com, a site dedicated to women entrepreneurs.
Kelly is passionate about helping others succeed and believes all people have every gift, talent and ability to make their dreams come true, they just need a little encouragement and a great network. Kelly and her prince, Matt try to live happily ever after with their three young children.
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Melinda Emerson, “Smallbizlady” is a seasoned entrepreneur, professional speaker, and small business coach. Her areas of expertise include small business start-up, business development and social media strategy. Melinda hosts #Smallbizchat, a weekly talk show on Twitter. #Smallbizchat is the trusted resource on Twitter to discuss everything entrepreneurs need to know about launching and running a profitable small business.
Melinda has been featured on NBC Nightly News and in the Wall Street Journal, U.S. News and World Report and Black Enterprise. Melinda publishes a resource blog www.succeedasyourownboss.com and has several special reports on small business best practices. Melinda's first book "Become Your Own Boss in 12 months; A Month-by-Month Guide to Start a Business that Works!" will be released in February 2010 by Adams Media.
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Marcia Hansen is a Marketing Manager in the Direct Marketing group at Allstate responsible for social media marketing. In addition to acting as editor for VehicleVibes.com, she is the voice behind the Allstate Twitter channel (@allstate) and manages the company’s Facebook Fan page, as well as other Allstate social media initiatives.
Marcia received her M.A. from the University of Missouri where she wrote a thesis on digital literacies. At Mizzou, her research interests spanned networked rhetorics, new media/digital composition, and how teachers and students can use social technologies for learning.
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Devra Renner, MSW, is co-founder of Parentopia, LLC, a consultation and training firm. She earned her BA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Arizona. Devra enjoyed the combination of really hot weather and higher education so much she went on to earn a Master's Degree in Social Work from Grambling State University in Louisiana. Devra is an author of the award-winning book "Mommy Guilt: Learn To Worry Less, Focus On What Matters Most and Raise Happier Kids." She is a nationally recognized parenting expert and her commentary has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Brain,Child Magazine, Parents, BabyCenter, and Woman's Day Magazine.
Devra is a guest editor at BlogHer. She currently serves on a professional advisory panel for PBS Frontline's Digital Nation, is a founding partner of the Museum of Motherhood and is a consultant for Zero To Three's Military Projects program. Devra and is a columnist at WalletPop where she, and her business partner Aviva Pflock, write about family finances. Devra and her family live outside of Washington, DC.
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Brenda Berg is founder and president of Scandinavian Child, the exclusive North American distributor of children's products including Svan, Anka, Cariboo, lillébaby, Micralite, and Beaba. After spending several years as a management consultant, Brenda became an entrepreneur so she could spend more time at home and less time traveling spontaneously to meet customer needs. Scandinavian Child's family of products now includes innovative new products in classic Scandinavian design, timeless bassinets and changing tables from New Zealand, the innovative TORO stroller from the United Kingdom's Micralite, the original Beaba Babycook from France, and multi-function sleep and travel products from lillébaby. Each of the products introduced to North American by Scandinavian Child must meet the company philosophy of "Designs Without Compromise."
As a result of her involvement in the juvenile products industry, Brenda is a passionate children's product safety advocate. She sits on the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA) Board of Directors and is a voting member of two ASTM committees – setting safety standards for juvenile products. She also has met with legislators and their staffs on Capitol Hill for more consistent and viable safety standards.
A graduate of Georgetown University, Brenda has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and a Masters in Public Policy. Prior to founding Scandinavian Child, Brenda was the co-founder of TransTech Management, Inc., a boutique management consulting firm primarily focused on executive consulting for the transportation industry. Key clients included state Departments of Transportation, AASHTO, FHWA, Amtrak, and DRPA. She also has worked for the U.S. Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee and as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Education.
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Stacy DeBroff left a successful career as a lawyer and founder of the public interest advising office at Harvard Law School to write books for parents and spend more time with her own two children, now ages 13 and 15. She went on to become a nationally acclaimed parenting expert and bestselling author of The Mom Book, The Mom Book Goes to School, SIGN ME UP!, and Mom Central: The Ultimate Family Organizer, as well as the creator of www.momcentral.com.
In the last year, Mom Central Consulting has partnered with over 80 national brands, Fortune 500 companies, PR firms, and venture-backed start-ups to build brand awareness and activate moms to significant retail purchases or online participation. Stacy’s expert marketing advice and insights have been featured in such publications as USA Today and the Wall Street Journal, and on TV shows from CNN's American Morning and Headline News to Fox and Bloomberg News.
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Allison Nazarian is widely known as one of the most honest, innovative and fresh voices in copywriting and Internet marketing today. In 2001, Allison founded Get It In Writing, Inc., a company that provides copywriting and marketing services and consulting to businesses throughout the world. Now the principal of Allison Nazarian Unlimited, Allison focuses on blogs and blog ghostwriting; video scripting, book authoring/ghostwriting; copywriting for social media and one-on-one coaching for other copywriters and Internet marketers. The author of Copywriting 101 for Small Businesses, Entrepreneurs, Coaches and Consultants, Allison also mentors many up-and-coming copywriters and teaches DIY (Do It Yourself) techniques and tools to business people who write their own copy. Together with a friend, Allison also started www.WorkingMomLifeline.com, a humorous, irreverent and honest place for working moms to learn, laugh and save their sanity.
Allison, who holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.S. from Columbia University’s School of Journalism, has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, INC Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor, Fortune Small Business and WomenEntrepreneur.com. She blogs on copywriting and marketing at TheCopywritingStore.com, on the humor, craziness and fun of the entrepreneurial life at AllisonNazarian.com and on just about everything else at twitter.com/AllisonNazarian. Originally from the Washington, D.C. area, Allison is a walker, reader and wanna-be full-time author who lives in Boca Raton, Florida, with her two children and Black Lab, Ebony.
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Catherine Holecko is a writer and editor with 17 years' experience in online and print publishing. In 2008, she left a long career as a staff editor and producer to hang out her shingle as a freelance writer. Her work appears in national magazines such as Glamour, Modern Bride and All You, and on Scholastic.com and EverydayHealth.com, among others. She is also the guide to Family Fitness at About.com.
Catherine has been blogging since 2006 at MayberryMom.com and is an avid consumer of and participant in social media. She has two young children and lives in an unbelievably quaint town in the upper Midwest.
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Terry Santini, a certified public accountant licensed in Florida, is the president and founder of Santini & Sedawie, with expertise in business development and tax rules. She has a practical knowledge of small business operations, having owned and operated a private pre-school in Davie from 1985 to 1995. Terry earned her bachelor's of business administration degree from Florida Atlantic University and attended Nova Southeastern University to earn credits in the master's in accounting program with a financial planning component.
She was elected to the Davie Town Council, serving from 1995 to 1998. She served as a member of the Broward County Charter Review Commission. Terry was appointed by former Gov. Jeb Bush to serve two terms on the Florida Housing Finance Corporation board of directors through 2006. She was appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist in 2007 to serve on the Children Services Council board of directors, which oversees the administration of program funding to improve the quality of life for children and families in Broward County.
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Rich Sierra is the principal at Richard Sierra & Associates, PA (Businesslawyer.biz), located in Coral Springs, Florida. During the last five years Rich's law practice has been dedicated to helping small business owners with legal issues such as starting a business, contract issues, franchise law, commercial litigation, joint ventures, and many other legal issues that affect today's entrepreneur. Prior to opening his firm, Rich was the founder and CEO of the Internet based job board HealthcareRecruitment.com for eight years until it was acquired in 2004. His entrepreneurial experience coupled with his legal experience gives him a unique perspective on the legal issues that businesses face, enabling him to understand first-hand the need for timely and affordable legal advice.
Rich earned a Bachelors of Science degree with a concentration in Marketing from the University of Tampa and a J.D. degree from Nova Southeastern University Law Center in Ft. Lauderdale. In addition to being admitted to the Florida Bar, he is also admitted to the United States District Court of the Southern and Middle Districts of Florida.
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Karin Kennedy is an intellectual property attorney who advises businesses on trademarks and copyright issues such as the importance of selecting a trademark and enforcing trademark and copyright rights to protect the small fortunes businesses spend in advertising, building goodwill and developing clients.
In addition, she counsels businesses on Internet law and trademark issues related to advertising on the Internet. She also devotes her practice to the preparation and prosecution of patent applications in the electrical and software arts. A former engineer with Daimler Chrysler, IBM, Synopsys and Tektronix, she has extensive experience developing code and working with most software programming languages, hardware description languages and operating systems, as well as experience in chip and circuit design.
Karin also has experience working as a system administrator maintaining Unix and Windows networks. Karin holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering as well as a B.S. in Physics from Portland State University, where she belonged to the Tau Beta Pi engineering Honor Society. Karin holds a J.D., cum laude, from the University of Florida. Karin was an active member of the Journal of Technology and Policy at the University of Florida. Karin is fluent in Spanish and conversant in German and Japanese.