Apparel Media Panel at Techweek; Why Big Companies and Start-ups Should Work Together

Techweek panel “The Executive Decision: Why Large Companies Should Work with Start-ups” will explore the benefits of big companies and start-ups working together. We welcome perspectives from five accomplished executives to help us explore the topic. Jared Golden, Apparel Media Co-founder and CEO will moderate.

“The Executive Decision: Why Large Companies Should Work with Start-ups”

Big companies and start-ups can benefit from working together, but sometimes they don’t know how or why. We’ll be exploring this with our panelists. We want everyone to walk away with key pointers to ensure that when big companies and start-ups come together, both are able to achieve their business objectives.

At Apparel Media, we team up with big companies all the time. We want to share our experiences by moderating this Techweek panel with executives who have been instrumental in bringing start-ups into their own companies. Apparel Media Co-founder and CEO, Jared Golden, will moderate the discussion. To help us explore this subject we have five perspectives from accomplished executives:

Ben Foster, VP & Digital Strategist at Ketchum
Wendy Colby, Senior Vice President, Innovation & New Ventures at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Andrew Salzman, Partner at the Chasm Group
Steve Moffat, Gatorade Global Director of Marketing
Jonathan Ruff, Senior Director of Technology Solutions Management, Applied Research Center, Motorola Mobility

Moderator: Jared Golden
Apparel Media Co-founder and CEO

Get to Know our panelists:

Ben Foster, VP & Digital Strategist at Ketchum

Ben Foster is a Vice President and Digital Strategist for Ketchum. In this role, he provides strategic guidance on Integrated New Media for clients including ConAgra Foods, Purina, FedEx, Kimberly Clark, and Kellogg’s.

Ben also teaches at DePaul University in the Graduate Program at the College of Communications as an Adjunct Faculty member.

Prior to joining Ketchum, Ben was the Senior Strategy and Content Manager for Social Networking. At Allstate, he helped create Allstate’s Social Media group and provided strategic leadership to Social Media initiatives related to Allstate’s vision of reinventing protection and retirement for the consumer. Before joining Allstate, Ben was a management consultant specializing in innovation strategy with Kuczmarski and Associates. Ben began his career at GE Capital where he worked for numerous GE businesses across Europe and the United States in Technology Strategy and Six Sigma.

Ben holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in Economics and Finance and a BS from Miami University in Marketing and Management Information Systems. He is also a GE Certified Six Sigma Black Belt.

Andrew Salzman, Partner at the Chasm Group

Andrew Salzman is a 25+ year marketing veteran known for his innovative thinking and
work in supporting business transformations at Global 1000, mid-market, and emerging
consumer and technology firms. He has focused his career on helping organizations
re-invent business models, identify new growth venues, tap existing market potential,
and fully capitalize on consumer and market purchasing dynamics. His capabilities
include business planning and product direction, corporate and product marketing, new
product development, go-to-market programs, marketing-sales alignment, sales training
and support, alliance and partner marketing, PR/social media programs, and analyst/
investor relations at B2B and B2C firms across the US, Europe, and Asia.

Andrew served as CMO at early stage and mid-sized technology firms including E2open
in SaaS-based SCM, Saba in on-premise/SaaS HCM, Informational Resources (IRI) in
consumer-retail insights, and Siebel Systems during its period of meteoric growth in
creating the CRM category. He led global marketing operations at Compaq during the
acquisitions of Tandem Computer and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), and at
Kodak during the transition period from traditional film to digital imaging and hybrid
technologies. He also spent 14 years in the advertising business as a regional managing
director in the US (6 years), Europe (2 years), and Asia (6 years) managing blue-chip
accounts at P&G, Nestle, Sharp, Mars/Masterfoods, and other leading global firms.

Among his many achievements, Salzman drove marketing and supported product
planning underpinning Siebel’s growth in CRM from SFA to marketing, analytics, and
the creation of vertical product marketing and development. During his tenure, Siebel
grew from $700M to $1.8B. He led Kodak’s push into digital imaging through a unifying
umbrella strategy around repurposing images for new uses (“Kodak is changing the
picture”) working with CEO George Fisher. This period included the development
and channel expansion of digital photography products into retail kiosks and imaging
centers. He worked with CEO Eckhard Pfeiffer at Compaq on the development of an
enterprise solutions strategy and operations effort rationalizing product and services
resources across Compaq, Tandem, and DEC. And he pushed IRI into development
of new data engines, analytics and decision support software to sell high and wide
into large consumer, pharma, and retail companies after its 25 year legacy of selling
consumer scanner data runs into MRD teams. He is a board member at Cross Cultural Communications in San Francisco, and serves on the advisory boards of Target Data, OnRequest Images, and Naviscribe.

Andrew graduated Phi Beta Kappa/Summa Cum Laude from UC Berkeley and resides in
San Francisco with his wife and two girls aged 2 and 10.

Wendy Colby, Senior Vice President, Innovation & New Ventures at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Wendy Colby is Senior Vice President of Innovation & New Ventures at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, where her primary focus is on new product and business creation designed to revitalize, empower and transform the art and business of teaching and learning.

Wendy joined Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2006 as part of a new management team focused on establishing the company’s first business unit for digital media and learning. Since that time, she has spearheaded a range of new growth initiatives and partnerships with education and industry leaders, successfully guiding market and business strategy from product conception and customer acquisition through commercial release.

For the past 10 years, Wendy has enthusiastically worked to advance new business models and opportunities for learning as both an entrepreneur and an intrapreneur. She has served in senior executive roles for several high profile Silicon Valley interactive technology startups – overseeing the genesis of new online offerings, steering brand value and market and sales execution, and building growth models that yielded successful organic growth, IPO and acquisition transactions.

In addition, Wendy spent nearly five years as a Global Senior Vice President at Thomson Reuters, initially focused on establishing a digital learning footprint for this Fortune 500 in the higher education and corporate segments. Her achievements included introducing a series of new synchronous and asynchronous offerings, opening new markets outside of the US, and building value and dominance through a focused acquisition rollup strategy.

Wendy’s full career experience ranges from internet startup to enterprise technology and collaboration systems, and sectors including K-12 and higher education, media, travel, and hospitality.

Wendy holds a Bachelor’s degree from Illinois State University, and a Master’s Degree from University of San Francisco. She is also on the board of the Shanti Foundation for Peace, a non-profit organization committed to promoting peace and nonviolence through education and the arts in schools and communities.

Steve Moffat, Gatorade Global Director of Marketing

Steve Moffat is a Brand Marketer & Strategist, leading global consumer engagement for Gatorade. Moffat assumed this global role in April 2011, after launching Gatorade’s G Series platform in 2010, based on the latest science and developed in collaboration with the world’s greatest athletes to deliver fuel, fluid and nutrients to athletes before, during and after physical activity. A lifelong athlete, Steve relishes his role at the confluence of business & sport.

Steve holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, and lives in Chicago with his wife, Kim Vender Moffat, and children Gavin and Margaux.

Jonathan Ruff, Senior Director of Technology Solutions Management, Applied Research Center Motorola Mobility

Jonathan Ruff is senior director of technology solutions management for the Applied Research Center, Motorola Mobility, where he is responsible for positioning the Company’s future technologies and innovations.

Ruff joined Motorola in 1989. He has participated in the evolution of the mobile and wireless data and communications industry and led internal start-up efforts in new data and multimedia communications services, most recently in next generation TV experiences across multiple screens and devices.

Ruff is one of the founders of Motorola’s internally focused venturing team, providing business development leadership in the acquisition of technology to support future research efforts. He was also chief to the Chief Technology Officer and responsible for technology product marketing.

Prior to that, Ruff was senior director of portfolio marketing for Motorola’s Internet services and content group positioning, where he directed the group’s efforts in new Internet services and experiences on mobile devices. Ruff has been at the forefront of the evolution in mobile networking. He helped double the size of the first analog cellular network in the United Kingdom and led product marketing and business development for Motorola’s early foray into WLANs, wireless corporate e-mail, camera phones and synchronization technologies.

Energetic and a strong believer in participative efforts, Ruff was one of Motorola’s leadership team members in the wireless application forum (now OMA), Symbian, and the SyncML Forum and a judge in 2007 for Chicago’s Science in the City Top Ten Scientific Achievements.

His first introduction to the Cable and TV industry was in the product marketing of Motorola’s Next Generation TV solution, enabling delivery of linear, on-demand in channel TV and SocialTV to the set top-TV screen, mobile device and tablets such as the Motorola XOOM.

Ruff has a Bachelor’s of Science Honors Degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Brunel University in London England.