Wendy Bounds
Executive Director, Content
Consumer Reports
Gwendolyn (Wendy) Bounds is Executive Director of Content for Consumer Reports, overseeing content creation and strategy for the magazine, Web sites and video products of the nation’s leading consumer intelligence publisher and nonprofit advocacy group.
Bounds joined Consumer Reports in January 2014 from The Wall Street Journal, where she held multiple leadership roles in its digital, print and video divisions. Her journalism work includes roles as a regular on-air contributor to ABC News, including its "Good Morning America" and CNBC. Her written work has appeared in multiple national publications including The New York Times.
Bounds is the author of two books, most recently “Little Chapel on the River” published by HarperCollins, which chronicles her experiences at an old Irish pub in New York's Hudson River Valley after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. In 2010, Bounds was awarded the Next Generation Leadership Award from the North Carolina Halls of Fame. She was executive producer on a short-form documentary, “A Beautiful Death” – part of a Consumer Reports multimedia package that was a National Magazine Award finalist in 2015.
Bounds graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and serves on the Board of Advisors for the UNC School of Media & Journalism. She lives in New York’s Hudson River Valley.
Session: Storytelling & Story Collection Reignites a Legacy Brand
Benny Johnson
Content Director
Independent Journal Review
Benny Johnson is obsessed with the intersection of politics and the social web. He works day-to-day on curating complex political discourse into a relatable, online dialogue for a socially native audience. Often times, that involves destroying flip phones with a blender and cooking bacon on a machine gun. He worked previously as the Viral Politics Editor at BuzzFeed, the Viral Politics editor at TheBlaze the Digital Director of National Review. Benny is based in Washington D.C. and hails from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Session: The Physical Architecture of Writing for the Internet
Alyson Shontell
Editor in Chief
Business Insider US
Alyson joined Business Insider, Tech Insider's parent company, in July 2008 as its sixth employee. She started as a sales planner before joining the editorial team in 2010, where she became a startup reporter and then a senior correspondent. She later served as Business Insider's Deputy Editor, overseeing the Executive Lifestyle, Technology, Science and Entertainment sections.
You can read some of her long-form investigative articles here:
- The downfall of billion-dollar startup, Fab
- The inside story of Yik Yak, a controversial app that became worth $400 million in 365 days
- The inside story of Clinkle, a startup that raised $30 million then failed to launch
- The dark side of Facebook, where people lie, cheat, and make millions
- A profile of Uber's controversial CEO, Travis Kalanick
- The story of Jody Sherman, a founder who was driven to suicide
Alyson is the host of Business Insider's conferences. She has appeared on ABC with Katie Couric, Good Morning America, Al Jazeera, MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, and CBC, and she has interviewed media personalities such as Dr. Oz and technology leaders like Fred Wilson.
She graduated from Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications, where she majored in psychology and advertising.
Session: Making Smart Decisions about Storytelling Format
Jake Silverstein
Editor
The New York Times Sunday Magazine
Jake Silverstein is the editor in chief of The New York Times Magazine. He was the editor of Texas Monthly from 2008 to 2014, during which time the magazine was nominated for 13 National Magazine Awards and won four. A former contributing editor to Harper's Magazine, he is the author of Nothing Happened and Then It Did: A Chronicle in Fact and Fiction, which was published in 2010 by W.W. Norton. He attended Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut; received graduate degrees from Hollins University, in Roanoke, Virginia, and the Michener Center for Writers, at the University of Texas at Austin; and was a was a Fulbright scholar in Mexico in 2002. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with his wife and two sons.
Session: How The New York Times Has Embedded VR Thinking in the Newsroom
Alan Smith
Data Visualisation Editor
The Financial Times
Alan Smith OBE is Data Visualisation Editor at The Financial Times. He works with the graphics, interactive and statistics teams to breathe new life into how data is presented online and in print. Alan recently joined The FT from the Office for National Statistics where he was Head of Digital Content and created the ONS’s Data Visualisation Centre. Alan was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth in 2011.
Session: Why Data Charts are leading stories at FT
Mike Yapp
Founder, COO and Director
The ZOO Americas
As Founder and Chief Creative Officer of The ZOO Americas at Google, Mike is responsible for guiding and inspiring a team of creatives, technologist, and strategists connecting brands and agencies with users through innovative digital creative ideas.
Mike was present in the formative years of the internet as Creative Director and Partner of the San Francisco interactive advertising agency, Freestyle Interactive. Mike built and lead the Freestyle creative team that won awards and industry-wide acclaim for interactive campaigns for clients such as HP, Microsoft, Sega, and X-Box.
In 2003 Mike and partners sold Freestyle to Aegis and he was instrumental in building Carat’s interactive creative capabilities; developing marketing and creative ideas for adidas, Reebok, Seagate, Kodak, RadioShack, Dish Network, Wachovia, Revlon, and Virgin America. As the Executive Creative Director at Carat he was responsible for developing and overseeing Carat’s creative, tech and project management groups.
Before arriving at Google, Mike lead the merger of three creative shops in the US under one brand, Isobar North America, developing cross platform creative campaigns for EA, Motorola, Alberto Culver, Boost and Kohler.
Mike's true art? His love affair with surfing started as an 11 year old and he's been at it ever since!
Session: Hypertellling: The Future of Storytelling
