Media, Marketing, & Venture Capital Forum

Carmela Cugini is the Vice President of Merchandising and Private Brands for Jet.com. Prior to this role, she was the GM for of Grocery for Walmart US eCommerce and Jet.com. She joined the Jet.com startup after spending 18 years with PepsiCo and 5 years at Merrill Lynch, and was part of the Walmart acquisition in late 2016. Throughout her career, she has held many positions ranging from general management, sales, operations, business development, revenue management, finance strategy, marketing and brand development. One of the roles she has most enjoyed is being the executive sponsor for the LGBTQ ARG in Hoboken. She has a strong passion for supporting Leadership Development and is a true believer that Diversity & Inclusion is at the core of high performance in all organizations.

On a personal note, Carmela was born and raised in Columbus Ohio, completed her Bachelors in Pittsburgh PA and furthered her education at Carnegie Mellon & Harvard University where she spent time studying Organizational Dynamics. She was recently married to her long-time partner of 23 years and loves spending time traveling, going to the spa, taking a long bicycle ride and believes family, friends, faith and maintaining a great sense of humor are the keys to her success and happiness.

Jeffrey Litvack is Chief Executive Officer and a member of the board at Adweek. He is
a digital media native who leverages his 25 years of operational, strategic and financial
expertise to help media companies and private equity firms in sourcing, evaluating, and
transforming acquisitions. Prior to Adweek he was COO at Robb Report and Managing
Director of Xcel Advisors. Before joining Robb Report he was Group President and Chief
Digital Officer at ALM. Mr. Litvack led the turnaround for ALM, transforming them into a
Digital First company, and then successfully co-leading the sale of the Apax Partners
back company to Wasserstein & Co. Prior to ALM, he held a variety of executive
positions at the Associated Press, The Museum of Television & Radio, and Mitchell
Madison Group. Mr. Litvack is a highly regarded executive credited with winning more
than 30 coveted honors and awards for product breakthroughs and industry leadership
from Apple, IAB, The Webbys, and others. He was selected by Folio Magazine as a top
digital executive twice and was inducted into min’s Digital Hall of Fame. He is a
recognized speaker at industry events providing insights into a wide array of topics
challenging the media industry. Mr. Litvack holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and
a B.S. in Economics from The Wharton School of Business.

John Frankel is the founding partner of ff Venture Capital. He founded the firm in 2008 and has been a seed- and early-stage investor since late 1999. John focuses on advising and growing technology and technology-enabled companies across emerging industries, including artificial intelligence, cyber security, drones, enterprise software, crowdfunding, and data analytics, among others. He has served on the boards of more than 35 companies and has led investments in more than 80 companies, including Cornerstone OnDemand (CSOD), Indiegogo, Ionic Security, Unikey, Skycatch, Plated, 500px, Distil Networks, Pebblepost, and Owlet. John also sits on The NYU Tandon School of Engineering's Board of Overseers.

Prior to founding ffVC, John worked at Goldman Sachs for 21 years in a variety of roles that involved technology development, reengineering and capital markets. At Goldman Sachs, he worked closely with some of the world’s leading hedge fund managers and developed a keen understanding of emerging technologies and portfolio risk/return management.

John started his business career in London with Arthur Andersen having earned a Master of Arts from New College, Oxford, where he studied Mathematics, Philosophy and Logic. He is a Fellow Chartered Accountant of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Jon Bond is one of the advertising and marketing industry's most recognized thought leaders and entrepreneurs. He has developed several significant companies and marketing concepts over his 30-year career.

Jon was Co-founder and CEO of Kirshenbaum Bond and Partners (KBP). KBP was arguably the original “word of mouth” agency, well before social media appeared on the scene. KBP was the first to develop the modern multi-disciplinary, integrated agency. KBP created the first pop-up store, and built one in only 18 hours for television show The Apprentice. KBP launched one of the industry's first trading desks, Varick Media Management, and was voted agency of the year (under $1B range) in 2008. KBP was featured in an episode of the “The Simple Life” and in the 2007 film “A Perfect Stranger.” In 2010, KBP sold to MDC. Billings were approximately $1B at the time and clients included BMW, Citi, Victoria's Secret, Target, Wendy's, and the Coca Cola Company.

From 2010 to 2012, Jon was CEO of Big Fuel (now part of Publicis), one of the world’s largest social media agencies. Big Fuel’s clients included General Motors, Gatorade, Chase, and T-Mobile. In addition, Jon co-founded and sold one of the first online media agencies (iballs) to Microsoft in 2000.

Currently, Jon is Founder and Chief Tomorroist at TOMORRO\\\. Established in 2012, TOMORRO\\\ is a value accelerator using marketing, innovation, and strategic business development to help visionary companies achieve their ambitions. TOMORRO\\\ works in partnerships with clients, taking equity stakes in lieu of fees and effectively outsourcing their marketing departments. TOMORRO\\\’s sweet spot is startup to IPO or exit. TOMORRO\\\’s clients include: BlackBook, High50, Dstillery, Crosspixel, Sonobi, White Ops, Virgin, Lumos Networks, and Mozilla.

Jon is also the Co-founder of Evolve, the only non-partisan gun safety and responsibility group. He is a board member of Gods Love We Deliver and a former board member of the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Ad Council. Jon has investments and board roles at: White Ops, Metamorphic VC fund, TZP Private Equity Fund, Victors and Spoils (now part of Havas), Appinions, and Klout.

Jon co-authored “Under the Radar,” a book about talking to today’s cynical consumer. He has also written a column called “Truth In Advertising” for Mediapost, and was a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. He is a keynote speaker represented by The Guild Group and has lectured at Harvard Business School, Columbia, NYU, The University of Texas (Austin), and Washington University.

In 2011, Jon appeared in Morgan Spurlock’s documentary The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. Jon has also appeared on CNN, 20/20, CNBC, 20/20, Barbara Walters, Deborah Norville, and Piers Morgan. In 2010, Jon was voted number 4 in Adweek’s “Executive of the Decade” poll.