2016 IDPF DigiCon @ BEA Speakers and Panelists

Kent R. Anderson is the founder of Caldera Publishing Solutions. He is a past-President of the Society for Scholarly Publishing, the founder of the Scholarly Kitchen, and a member of the Journal Oversight Committee for the Journal of the American Medical Association. Over the past 20 years, he has been Publisher for Science and the Science family of journals at AAAS; CEO and Publisher for the Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery and its parent company, STRIATUS; an executive in the Massachusetts Medical Society’s Publishing Division; Publishing Director for theNew England Journal of Medicine; and Director of Medical Journals at the American Academy of Pediatrics. He writes and speaks occasionally on topics of interest to scholarly publishers and leaders. Kent has a graduate degree in business, and an undergraduate degree in English.

Rick Anderson is Associate Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication in the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah.  He has worked previously as a bibliographer for YBP, Inc., as Head Acquisitions Librarian for the University of North Carolina, Greensboro and as Director of Resource Acquisition at the University of Nevada, Reno. He serves on numerous editorial and advisory boards and is a regular contributor to the Scholarly Kitchen. He has served as president of the North American Serials Interest Group, and was the recipient of the HARRASSOWITZ Leadership in Library Acquisitions Award. In 2015 he was elected President of the Society for Scholarly Publishing.

Mike Baker, Technical Director, Content Strategy & Implementation works as part of a cross functional team within HMH define technology/technical standards and best practices that is resulting in the successful implementation of content/UX requirements and delivery of portable, interoperable content. He has helped to drive and implement a content first approach that enables HMH to develop and deliver content to scale, applying responsive design, semantic markup and structure content to create EPUB3 content that is interactive and is delivered to multiple screen sizes and media including to print.

Prior to his recent appointment as the organization’s Executive Director, Graham served EDItEUR as its Chief Data Architect, where he focused on the continuing development and application of ONIX for Books, and on other EDItEUR standards for both the book and serials sectors. He joined EDItEUR in 2010. Graham previously worked for HarperCollins Publishers in the UK where most recently he was Head of Publishing Systems. He has over a decade of experience with ONIX for Books.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989.   He is the Founder and Director of the World Wide Consortium (W3C), the standards forum for technical development of the Web, and the Web Foundation whose mission is that the World Wide Web serves Humanity. He co-founded  and is President of the Open Data Institute in London. He is a Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Computer Science and AI Lab ("CSAIL”). His research group at MIT's Computer Science and AI Lab ("CSAIL") works to re-decentralize the Web.

A graduate of Oxford University, in 1989 Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the Web while at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory. He wrote the first web client and server in 1990. His specifications of URIs, HTTP and HTML were refined as Web technology spread.   In 2001 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. He has been the recipient of several international awards including the Japan Prize, the Prince of Asturias Foundation Prize, the Millennium Technology Prize and Germany's Die Quadriga award. In 2004 he was knighted by H.M. Queen Elizabeth and in 2007 he was awarded the Order of Merit. Sir Tim is a long time defender of rights such as privacy, freedom, Net Neutrality and the openness of the Web.

Micah Bowers is Founder and CEO of Bluefire, a mobile software company that provides technologies and cloud sevices to ebook retailers, distributors, and publishers in 34 countries. Micah has always been passionate about creating great digiatal media user experiences throughout his 30 years of work in interactive media. Bluefire is an active member of IDPF, W3C, and the Readium Foundation where Micah serves as an Officer on the Board of Directors.

Nick Brown leads the product team for Vitalsource Bookshelf®, the most widely used platform for the delivery of electronic textbooks available today. He is proud to help deliver digital content to more than 8 million students at more than 6,000 institutions around the world, working alongside more than 750 educational publishers and partners.Nick drives the strategic direction for Bookshelf, steering the platform towards a future filled with great, modern content for learners everywhere. You can often find Nick speaking at events on open standards, accessibility, interactive content and more - usually illustrating the technical details with demos of innovative and cutting edge books being used today by students in Bookshelf.

James Bryant is Founder and CEO of Trajectory, Inc., an intelligent network connecting publishers to retailers, libraries and readers around the world. Trajectory is the first company to develop an algorithmic recommendation system for books and was awarded the BISG 2015 Innovation Award. He is Founder and CEO of Information Please LLC, which developed the first comprehensive site on the internet designed to help students with their homework, and is now owned by Pearson. He is Founder and CEO of Pro CD, Inc, which originated the idea of publishing white and yellow page directories in electronic form. Pro CD was the first company to compile all of the telephone company published directories in the United States and Canada. Pro CD grew to become the largest CD-ROM reference publishing company in the world. Pro CD merged with Acxiom in 1996. Acxiom integrates data, services and technology to create and deliver customer and information management solutions for companies worldwide.

Sean Callahan is Senior Manager, Content Marketing at LinkedIn, which he joined in 2014. He previously held a similar role at Bizo. Prior to that he was an editor and reporter at Crain Communications, GeezerJock Media, and a Chicago newspaper. He is the co-author, along with Russell Glass, of The Big Data-Driven Business (Wiley). His freelance journalism has appeared in the New York Times, Salon.com, the Washington Post, and Notre Dame Magazine.

Mr. Xiangjun Chengis Chief Executive OfficeriReade Beijing. iReader may be the largest bookseller on the planet. They report having sold books to more than 100,000,000 during the month of December.

Katherine Christian is the Chief Operating Officer for Altmetric, a company that provides article-level metrics to publishers, funders and institutions. Katherine is responsible for sales and operations and jointly oversees product development and company strategy with CEO, Euan Adie. Prior to joining Altmetric in 2014, Katherine was at Elsevier for 6 years where she worked primarily within the Academic and Government product group overseeing Product Management in the SciVal team.  In addition to an MBA from London Business School, Katherine has over 9 years experience in drug development, primarily working at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development.

Mitchell Davis is a publishing and media entrepreneur. He was a founder in 2000 of BookSurge the world’s first integrated global print-on-demand and publishing services company (sold to Amazon.com in 2005 and re-branded as CreateSpace). Since 2008 he has been founder & chief business officer of BiblioLabs -- the creators of BiblioBoard, an award-winning platform that makes community engagement publishing tools and simultaneous use digital content from leading publishers available to public, school and academic libraries. Today they work with thousands of libraries and publishers around the world in pursuit of a new vision for libraries.

Laura Dawson has worked in publishing, information, and library standards since 1995. An original member of the cross-industry team that implemented ONIX in the US, she has held positions at Barnes & Noble, SirsiDynix, Firebrand, Bowker/Proquest, and has also served as an independent consultant for many years.

Debra Deyan is a 25-year veteran producer of audiobooks, having produced over 15,000 audiobooks.  Debra is the CEO/President of Deyan Audio, the world's largest independent producer of audiobooks.  She has won numerous awards including 5 Grammys, 12 Grammy nominations, countless Audies, Odyssey, Carnegie and Earphone awards.  She was awarded the Life Time Achievement award from the Audio Publishers Association in 2013 for her efforts in helping pioneer the audiobook industry.  Debra owns two Los Angeles recording studios with 9 recording booths.  She also owns a video game/interactive toy venture and co-founded an institute, which teaches audiobook narration and production.

Keith Michael Fiels has served as Executive Director of the American Library Association since 2002. Under his leadership, ALA has dramatically expanded professional publishing, scholarship and professional development programs, brought thousands of library Friends groups into the Association, launched a major community engagement initiative for libraries and, most recently, established a new ALA Center for the Future of Libraries.Prior to that, he served as Director of the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. There, he led efforts to secure over $500 million in new state funds for public library reconstruction and universal access to shared automated networks. He has also served as President of the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies, as the founding director of a library consortium in New Jersey, and as a planning consultant for the New York and New Jersey State Libraries. He has also worked as a public and school librarian and as an independent library-planning consultant. Over the past three years, he has been actively involved in ALA’s work with publishers to increase library access to e-books, and is currently serving on the Board of the Book Industry Study Group.

Samuel Fifer has extensive experience in the fields of intellectual property, and entertainment and media law, including litigation and counseling. He is the US practice leader of Dentons' Intellectual Property and Technology practice. In the area of intellectual property law, Sam has advised a wide variety of clients in the areas of trademark selection, registration, protection and enforcement. In the field of entertainment law, Sam has advised clients in the areas of motion picture, theatrical and television production and distribution, music, newspaper, magazine and book publishing and syndication and talent and employment agreements and advertising compliance and promotion law. In the area of media law, Sam has advised clients and handled precedent‑setting litigation in the areas of defamation, rights of privacy and publicity, access to courts, reporters’ rights, subpoena defense and freedom of information. He also advises clients in the areas of pre‑broadcast and pre‑publication review. For twenty five years, Sam has been identified as among a select group of lawyers in The Best Lawyers in America in the field of First Amendment Law. For ten years running, Sam has been recognized by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business as a leading lawyer (Band 1) in Illinois in the field of Media and Entertainment Litigation and for eight consecutive years in the field of Intellectual Property, and is the only Illinois lawyer to achieve rankings in both categories.

Ashleigh Gardner, Head of Writer and Publisher Partnerships at Wattpad, helps publishers and writers seize new engagement opportunities on Wattpad. Before joining Wattpad, Ashleigh was director of content management at Kobo, where she focused on expanding Kobo’s existing catalogue while developing new ebook stores in international markets. Prior to Kobo, she was manager of digital development at Dundurn Press. Ashleigh graduated from York University with a Philosophy and Law degree.

Seth Gershel has fifteen years of publishing industry consulting after a decade as Publisher of Simon & Schuster Audio.  Previously Sales Director at Caedmon, an early producer of spoken recordings, after sales positions at Grosset & Dunlap, Sunset Books, Playboy Paperbacks, and IBM in their Office Products division.  First President of the Audio Publishers Association, the industry trade organization; credited with having coined the term “audiobook” to describe the category. Knowledgeable in book publishing operations and distribution, acknowledged pioneer in audiobooks. Advises publishers and distributors as independent consultant.  Brings an informed perspective and strong sales background with business acumen to enable his clients' success.  MBA from Thunderbird, School of Global Management; Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Fairleigh Dickinson University.  Resides in New York City.

Michael Hale, PhD, Vice President of Sales for VitalSource. Mike has over 25 years in the field of education, the last 12 with VitalSource helping create the world’s leading content Currently he leads the sales teams for the publisher, institution, and reseller facing businesses. He has served in a number of other roles at VitalSource including publisher business development and curriculum consulting. Prior to joining Vital Source in 2004, Mike spent 14 years in the field of education as a college professor, high school teacher, and served as a co-founder and director of a successful charter school, and as the director of a statewide college access program. He is also the author of “The Teacher's Guide to Leading Student-Centered Discussions” as well as several articles and books chapters relating to educational transformation. He has a B.A. in Philosophy from Auburn University and a M.A. and Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of North Carolina.

Michael Healy is the Executive Director, International Relations, at Copyright Clearance Center. Prior to joining CCC, Michael was Executive Director of The Book Rights Registry, and previously Executive Director of the Book Industry Study Group, a New York-based non-profit body dedicated to improving the efficiency of the book industry by providing standards, research, education and information. Michael has worked in the book industry for more than 25 years and has spent most of that time in senior editorial, sales and distribution roles in digital publishing. He has been closely involved in the development of standards for the international book trade, and is particularly associated with standards for metadata, product information and electronic commerce. Michael has led many international standards groups, was Chairman of the International ISBN Agency, a Director of the International DOI Foundation, and led the international ISO committee that developed ISBN-13. He is currently a member of the Partners Board of the UK Copyright Hub.

Grady Hesters is an audiobook publishing pioneer and expert. He is a strategist, and futurist with 35-years of audiobook experience.

Alice Huang is Executive Director – China, Trajectory, Inc. and is translating for Mr. Cheng.

Nathan Hull is Chief Business Development Officer at Mofibo, Europe’s success story in the world of eBook subscription models, Nathan's role is to identify the markets in which Mofibo will roll out as well as establishing relationships with media, telco and hardware partners, and negotiating terms with publishers and authors. Previously, he was notably Penguin Random House’s Digital Product Director, with strategic responsibility for its blossoming digital portfolio and a strong focus on product innovation. Nathan sought out and brokered partnerships to bring the best of current and future technologies to projects, and implemented product development across all digital channels and in multiple markets. This range included multiple app platforms and new eBook and web technologies, culminating most recently in the global Stephen Fry: YourFry initiative to explore storytelling globally with tech hubs, innovation labs and universities.

Jeff Jankowski founded hoopla digital (hoopladigital.com) in 2011 to service libraries and evolve the patron experience as well as mobile content offerings. Jeff is also the founder and co-owner of parent company, Midwest Tape, LLC. – a provider of physical materials to libraries to over 25 years. The company ships and delivers more than 13 million physical and digital CDs, DVDs and audiobooks annually.

Bill Kasdorf, General Editor of The Columbia Guide to Digital Publishing, is Vice President and principal consultant of Apex Content Solutions, a leading supplier of data conversion, editorial, production, and content enhancement services to publishers and other organizations worldwide. Past President of the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP), Bill is a recipient of SSP’s Distinguished Service Award, the IDEAlliance/DEER Luminaire Award, and the Book Industry Study Group’s 2014 Industry Champion Award. Active in many standards initiatives, Bill serves on the Board of Directors of the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) and its EPUB 3 Working Group; the W3C Digital Publishing Interest Group and the W3C Open Annotations Working Group; he is Chair of the BISG Content Structure Committee; and he is an active member of the EDUPUB Alliance and the IDEAlliance Technical Council.. Bill has led seminars, written articles, and spoken widely for publishing industry organizations such as SSP, O’Reilly TOC, NISO, BISG, IDPF, DBW, AAP, AAUP, ALPSP, STM, ALA, Publishing Business, Seybold Seminars, and the Library of Congress. Bill serves clients globally, including large international publishers such as Pearson, Wolters Kluwer, and Sage; scholarly presses such as Harvard, Toronto, Taylor & Francis, and Cambridge; and global publishing organizations such as the World Bank, the British Library, and the European Union.

Christopher Kenneally is the Director of Business Development at Copyright Clearance Center (CCC). At CCC, Christopher Kenneally develops content and programming covering issues facing the information industry. He also works with his Business Development colleagues to help the company attract new customers and achieve greater penetration in existing markets. Kenneally is host and producer of CCC’s weekly podcast series, “Beyond the Book.” As a freelance journalist, Christopher Kenneally reported on education, business, travel, culture and technology for the New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and The Independent of London, among many other publications. He also reported for WBUR-FM (Boston), National Public Radio, and WGBH-TV (PBS-Boston). He is author of “Massachusetts 101” (Applewood Books), a history of the state “from Redcoats to Red Sox” (www.mass101.com)

George Kerscher began his IT innovations in 1987 and coined the term "print disabled." George is dedicated to developing technologies that make information not only accessible, but also fully functional in the hands of persons who are blind or who have a print disability. He believes properly designed information systems can make information accessible to all people. George is an advocate for semantically rich content which can be used effectively by everybody.

As Secretary General of the DAISY Consortium and President of the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), Kerscher is a recognized international leader in document access. In addition, Kerscher is the Senior Officer of Accessible Technology at Learning Ally in the USA. He chairs the DAISY/NISO Standards committee, and also serves on the Advisory Board of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

Jens Klingelhöfer is CEO and co-founder of the internationally established German ebook distribution company Bookwire with offices in Frankfurt, Barcelona, Sao Paulo, Mexico-City and Moscow. Prior to creating this platform, he was managing director of MFM Entertainment, a service to the music industry specialized in artist management, marketing cooperation’s and digital distribution. At the early days of his career, he was an art director for media products, so that by creating Bookwire, he returned to his initial industry.

Lauren Klouda is Marketing Manager, Print & Digital at Independent Publishers Group (IPG). Lauren has been a part of independent publishing at IPG since 2010. Her background in social media and online marketing services has led to the development of IPG's robust marketing and advertising programs and significant increases in web traffic and online sales. Initially focused primarily on developing strategies and tools to market ebooks and digital content, Lauren now works with IPG client publishers, authors, partners, booksellers, and libraries across the book industry to create engaging online content and marketing materials designed to help readers discover books, whether in digital or print, at their local bookstore or library or online. She manages the Marketing team at IPG.

Mark Kuyper is the Executive Director of the Book Industry Study Group (BISG).  He has over 30 years of experience in the publishing and bookselling industry. Previously he served as the President and CEO of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, and VP of Business Development and Marketing for the Christian Booksellers Association. He also worked for NavPress for over 10 years in sales while also serving on the Leadership and Publishing teams for the organization. He began his career as a manager for Family Christian Stores.

Erica Lazzaro is General Counsel and Director of Publisher Services for OverDrive, Inc., a global digital media distributor. She leads OverDrive's licensing, content acquisition and business development efforts, helping booksellers and publishers worldwide find success with multichannel digital distribution. Erica also works closely with OverDrive’s executive team on strategic relationships and has negotiated agreements with leading companies in the digital media industry.

Andrew Smith Lewis, Co-Founder And Executive Chairman, Cerego, was born in New York City in 1967 and studied at the Bronx High School of Science, where he became a Westinghouse Science Talent Search semifinalist. He went onto the University of Virginia where he graduated in 1989. Andrew is one of the original co-inventors of the Cerego Learning Methodology and has several patents in his name. Prior to becoming Executive Chairman of Cerego, in 1989, Andrew founded AGOS Japan (formerly known as The Princeton Review of Japan)–a prep school for Japanese students applying for MBA and graduate courses. He then co-founded Cerego in 2000. He wrote his first book in Japanese “Learn Faster, Remember Longer,” published by Nikkei BP in 2002, and he co-authored “Social Learning Revolution” in 2008. Andrew heads Cerego’s US operations and runs Cerego’s Advisory Board, which is an international group of experts and practitioners in scientific, technological, and commercial areas directly relevant to the company’s activities. Currently based in Palo Alto, Andrew lived in Japan for 25 years and is fluent in Japanese.

Alvin Lu currently runs Kodansha Advanced Media, Japanese publishing giant Kodansha Co., Ltd.'s digital-publishing arm based out of San Francisco. Lu was formerly an editor and publisher at VIZ Media, where he spearheaded the development of the first proprietary digital manga apps in English and the first digital manga serials that were available in English the same day they were published in Japan. 

Phil Madans is Executive Director of Digital Publishing Technology at Hachette Book Group. Since creating his company’s first intranet two decades ago, Phil Madans has been dedicated to using technology to make information more accessible and content creation more flexible and efficient. In his current role as Executive Director of Digital Publishing Technology for the Hachette Book Group, Phil applies his vast publishing knowledge to evangelize and implement new solutions for content creation, workflow efficiency and metadata optimization. A long-time member of the Book Industry Study Group, Phil chairs its Identification Committee, serves on its Coordinating Council and leads HBG’s participation in the organization. He is also a member of the W3C Digital Publishing Interest Group. A frequent speaker at industry conferences, Phil has contributed to Publishing Research Quarterly and the Independent Book Publishers Association’s Independent,as well as taught Digital Publishing at NYU’s School of Continuing Professional Studies. In 2013, Phil was honored with the first annual BISG Friend of the Industry Award.

Nathan Maharaj is Director of Merchandising of Kobo, and has always been a bookseller, starting part-time at Chapters, Canada’s top national bookselling chain in 1997. He joined Chapters-Indigo’s procurement team in 2006 as category manager for audiobooks and a handful of non-fiction categories. In 2009 he joined Shortcovers, Indigo’s e-book initiative which later that year became Kobo, the global e-bookseller partnered with bookstores around the world. Nathan manages an international team of digital booksellers spanning 8 languages and over a dozen countries as Rakuten Kobo’s director of merchandising.  He lives in Toronto with his wife, two boys, and aging coonhound.

Mikolaj Malaczynski is the CEO and co-founder of Legimi Sp. o.o. which is running and further developing Poland's first e-books lending platform (www.legimi.com) and all technologies for the e-book market (biz.legimi.com). From a startup launched in 2009 Legimi, under his leadership, was recognized by experts in the Global Media market as the company of the Year for 2013. The monthly magazine "Brief" ranked him as one of the 50 most creative people in the business industry for 2014. He was designated number 16 in the ranking of "Puls Biznesu" (the most ifluential business daily newspaper in Poland) of the top 500 managers of 2013. He was among the 100 finalists of innovation leaders from the region of Central and Eastern Europe in the New Europe 100 ranking (according to. "Financial Times", Google and Res Publica). He is an author of numerous presentations and studies relating to the development of the market for electronic publications in Poland and abroad, among these: "Tools of Change for Publishing in New York and Frankfurt." 

Liisa McCloy-Kelley is responsible for ebook standards and leading the charge as Penguin Random House works to create innovative new products and drive new functionality for the ebook marketplace. She has been with the company for more than 25 years and leads a team of nearly 30 developers, designers and producers. Since 2000, she has worked on a variety of ebook standards with numerous organizations and serves on the Board of Directors of the IDPF.

Bill McCoy is Executive Director of the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), the trade and standards group responsible for the EPUB standard interchange and delivery format for eBooks and other digital publications. Mr. McCoy was previously General Manager, Digital Publishing at Adobe Systems. McCoy has been involved in publishing technology for over 20 years, and has contributed to the establishment of numerous industry-standard platforms including EPUB as well as PDF, OpenType, and PostScript.

Andrew Medlar is Assistant Chief for Technology, Content & Innovation at Chicago Public Library, overseeing e-content service to millions of Chicagoans. He has served on multiple publisher advisory boards; is a past America Reads Spanish Librarian of the Year; and has spoken widely, from MIT to the National Library of the Philippines. Andrew is serving as the 2015-16 President of the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, and received the Illinois Library Association's 2015 Davis Cup for his contributions in library service to young people.

Chip Nigles originally joined OCLC in 1994 as a member of the FirstSearch team. In his career with OCLC, he has managed OCLC reference and interlibrary loan services and has led a variety of new product planning efforts, including WorldCat.org, QuestionPoint and WorldCat Local. Chip became Vice President of Business Development in 2007. In his current role, Chip and his team manage OCLC's data services division, its inbound content licensing program, and its commercial partnerships with publishers, consumer Web sites and library service providers. Chip's interests are well-aligned with the mission of libraries. He holds an MA in English Literature and an MBA, and came to OCLC from an early literacy program for at-risk first grade readers. Chip credits his initial interest in OCLC to a lifetime of library enjoyment and a desire to be a part of the public mission that is so critical to both OCLC and its members. Chip is active as a speaker and expert on library technology, databases and e-content. He sits on the professional board of CLOCKSS (Controlled Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe). In addition to his MBA and MA degrees, Chip holds a bachelor's degree in English; all are from The Ohio State University.

Kelly Peterson is Director of Client Services at INscribe Digital, and brings 20 years of marketing and merchandising experience to her current role, helping major trade publishers, university presses, and independent publishers, agents and authors maximize their eBook sales and marketing efforts at the major retailers. Prior to INscribe, Kelly worked at Borders Group, Inc. for 14 years, initially at Waldenbooks and later running the eBook program.

Randy Petway is Chief Revenue Officer for Publishing Technology.  Randy is responsible for aligning and cultivating all revenue-related functions throughout the organization in order to ensure that all streams and the commercial teams accountable for them are working in parallel. In his capacity at CRO, Randy also manages the company’s Partners program, which enables Publishing Technology and its products further penetration of its existing markets and extend its reach into new ones.

Veronda J. Pitchford is the Director of Membership Development and Resource Sharing for the Reaching Across Illinois Library System (RAILS), a regional consortium that serves over 1,300 academic, public, school and special libraries. She is the program director for the eRead Illinois Axis 360 program, a shared e-book collection for over 400 libraries across Illinois. Her next step in spreading digital awesomeness across the library planet is to explore innovation and experimentation of discovery and delivery of self-published, independent and simultaneous use e-book content for libraries. She started her illustrious professional career as a Gap sales person who also worked part time in a local record store. She serves as the co-share of the Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies (ASCLA) Consortial E-Book Interest group, which she co-founded with RAILS executive director Dee Brennan. She was named a Library Journal Mover and Shaker in 2005.

Steve Potash is President and CEO of OverDrive, a company that he founded in 1986. Under his leadership, OverDrive has become the leading global platform for eBooks, audiobooks and other digital media for libraries, schools, government, and retailers worldwide. Active in the electronic publishing industry since the 1980s with innovative CD-ROM and print-to-digital conversion services, Steve launched OverDrive’s flagship content distribution service in 2000. Under his leadership, OverDrive has built longstanding trusted relationships with channel and supplier partners resulting in a global network spanning more than 50 countries and one of the largest digital content catalogs in the world. Steve was a founding member of, and has served as President and Board member for, the International Digital Publishing Forum (www.idpf.org). Through his collaboration with the federal and state agencies, Steve has worked extensively for improved digital media accessibility for the visually impaired and blind. He received the first Ambassador Award from the book and publishing industry at BookExpo America in 2011.

John Prabhu has 21+ years of experience in the publishing industry developing solutions through all stages of the publishing life cycle. John's focus has been in developing a unified approach to content publishing and operational workflow strategies around eBook / XML production, semantic coding and enrichment, content engineering, publishing platforms, CMS / LMS and customer back-office support. John is a member of the IDPF working group evolving EPUB3 specifications and IMS Global Consortium (Common Cartridge & QTI standards) towards Educational Technology industry.

As the Vice President, Solutions Architect at SPi Global, John is focused in developing new services and products; implementing business models for next generation publishing workflows with a goal of ensuring customer voice integrated to the solution.

Skip Prichard is the fifth President and CEO of OCLC since its founding in 1967. He joined OCLC in 2013 after leading several multi-national organizations that provide a variety of services and content to libraries around the world.Before joining OCLC, Skip was President and CEO of Ingram Content Group Inc., a leading global content and services provider. Prior to his leadership at Ingram, he was President and CEO of ProQuest Information and Learning. Earlier in his career, he held a number of executive positions with LexisNexis. Among Skip’s many passions is his award-winning “Leadership Insights” blog, where he interviews authors and shares his views on a number of topics. His views on the future of books, publishing, and libraries have been featured in various national and international media. Skip is a frequent keynote speaker at various conferences around the world and was recently named by Inc. Magazine as a Top 100 Leadership Speaker.

Dominique Raccah is the entrepreneurial CEO of Sourcebooks, which she founded in 1987. Today, Sourcebooks is one of the largest independent book publishers in the U.S. and is home to dozens of bestselling authors. Growing through small and large innovations, Sourcebooks has repeatedly created new ways for readers to interact with books, from Poetry Speaks (called the “definitive anthology” of poets reading their own work) to Put Me In The Story, the successful app and website that allows you to personalize bestselling books. Today, Dominique is fascinated by the digital transformation of the book and wonders what more the future might hold for books and readers.

Robin Seaman is Director of Content for the Silicon Valley nonprofit Benetech, which runs Bookshare, the global digital library for people with print disabilities.  She also oversees Benetech’s Born Accessible Initiative, and chairs the BISG’s Accessible Publishing Working Group, which has just published the BISG Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing.  She has over 25 years of experience in print and digital publishing spanning trade, academic, educational, and technology publishing sectors.  She was the Director of Content for the Rocket eBook, the first handheld electronic reading device, and has held a variety of marketing roles in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area with Macmillan, Oxford University Press, The Crown Publishing Group, HarperSanFrancisco and IDG Books. 

Ian Small has spent the past 4 years guiding the successful launch and growth of Audiobooks.com making it the second largest online audiobook retailer behind only Amazon. Through their iOS and Android applications Audiobooks.com is currently available in 150 different countries; they’ve also quickly become the most widely available book service in the connected car space and can be found on the “At Your Service” platform on all General Motors vehicles, the InControl platform available on Jaguar Land Rover, CarPlay, Android Auto, and AT&T’s connect car service “Drive”. Ian is also a husband, a father of 2 boys, and a member of the Young Presidents Organization. Ask him what he’s listening to.

Tim Stookesberry is Vice-President and Education Group Director for the Knowledge and Learning division at John Wiley and Sons. Prior to joining Wiley in 2010, Mr. Stookesberry held various sales, marketing, and editorial roles in higher education at both McGraw-Hill and Pearson.

Joshua Tallent, the Director of Outreach and Education at Firebrand Technologies, is dedicated to helping publishers around the world create better books. In addition to heading up training and outreach efforts within Firebrand, Joshua serves on multiple industry committees and working groups and teaches at publishing conferences year-round. He also leads the development of FlightDeck, the most robust EPUB quality assurance tool available. Website: http://www.firebrandtech.com; Twitter: @jtallent, @firebrandtech

Michael Tamblyn is the President and Chief Executive Officer at Rakuten Kobo. Driving growth, profitability and international expansion in a fiercely competitive market, he combines a passion for reading with a deep focus on the hardware and software experiences that can make a customer’s reading life better. Additionally, he oversees Rakuten's other eReading businesses including OverDrive, the world leader in ebook services for libraries, and Aquafadas, a world leader in interactive publishing. Michael has been a part of Rakuten Kobo’s executive team since its founding in 2009, and previously held the role of Chief Content Officer.

Veronica Thompson leads a team of designers and content engineers at Inkling, the all-in-one content platform which makes it easy to deliver knowledge at the point of need. Prior to joining Inkling Veronica was an ePUB developer and attained an MBA in Digital Design/Publishing from Emerson College. She and her team now build beautifully curated and highly functional web designs for ePUB, Inkling's Apps and Web Experience, and Habitat - Inkling's authoring platform.

Andrew Weinstein is Vice President of Content Acquisition at Scribd. A veteran in the publishing industry with more than 15 years experience, Andrew is responsible for Scribd's content partnerships and business development. Before joining the Scribd team, Andrew founded AW Media LLC, a publishing start-up focused on the development of strategies and solutions to deliver the future of publishing. Andrew spent over a decade at Ingram Content Group most recently serving as Vice President and General Manager, Retail Solutions. During his 11-year career at Ingram, Andrew was a change agent for two of the largest trends in book publishing, ebooks and print-on-demand. Prior to Ingram Content Group, Andrew was a co-founder of an electronic publishing start-up, JNMedia, which sold its assets to Ingram's Lightning Source in 2000. Andrew earned his MBA in Finance and Marketing from New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, and BA in Economics from Brandeis University.

David Ziembiec is the Western Region Manager for Gale Cengage and co-creator of Analytics on Demand (AOD), Gale's analytics platform. He holds a BA from the University of Minnesota and resides in the Twin Cities.