Brand Finance NYC Global Forum 2017

David is the Chairman and CEO of Brand Finance Plc – the world’s leading brand valuation consultancy. He has worked in the area of branded business, brand, and intangible asset valuation since 1991. He specialised entirely in the field after becoming the Director of Brand Valuation for Interbrand in 1995. He subsequently left Interbrand in 1996 to launch Brand Finance which is celebrating 25 years in business this year.

David represented the British Standards Institution in the working parties responsible for crafting international industry standards: ISO 10668 on Brand Valuation in 2010 and ISO 20671 on Brand Evaluation in 2019.

David is a passionate writer and has authored many articles on brand valuation, published in numerous marketing and finance newspapers and magazines, such as: Financial Times, Accountancy Age, and Marketing Week. He has also lectured on the topic of brand valuation for Harvard, Chicago, and London Business Schools.

David graduated from Bristol University with an English degree, qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse in London, and obtained a postgraduate diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). He is a Fellow of The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and has a practising certificate with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).

Matt Preschern is the EVP and CMO for HCL Technologies, a 7.4 Billion USD Technology Services Provider. Matt leads all global marketing functions for the HCL brand, including business development, strategic marketing, sales enablement, and corporate communications.

Under Matt’s leadership, HCL entered into the Brand Finance Global 400 index for the first time and became one of the fastest growing IT Services Brand as per the latest 2017 reports by Brand Finance and Interbrand in addition to being recognized for its marketing excellence receiving more than 100 global awards. Matt is known for his commitment to marketing innovation, and he was recently named one of the World’s most Influential CMOs by Forbes being placed at #20 in the global list in addition to being named the B2B marketer of the year by Association of National Advertisers.

Prior to joining HCL, Matt was the Senior Vice President and CMO at Windstream, a Fortune 500 provider of advanced network communication and technology solutions. In addition, Matt has held several leadership positions at IBM, including Vice President of Marketing for North America Business Consulting Services, where he repositioned the organization for growth.

Peter is a global marketing and innovation senior executive and CMO with 28 years of leadership across consumer and business products, services, and technology for Hershey, Capital One, US WEST, Ameritrade, and General Mills. His ability to ignite dramatic growth & profits with breakthrough strategies/innovation has enriched all his work.

As CMO at Hershey, Peter led global brands, innovation and digital transformation. As SVP, Brand Marketing at Capital One Financial, Peter led teams that developed & launched successful products across card, retail and digital banking. Prior to Capital One Financial, Peter served as CMO at TruSecure Corporation, CMO at Ameritrade, and held marketing leadership positions at US WEST, and began his marketing career at General Mills. Peter earned a BA from Harvard and an MBA from Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business.

Ian is currently Global Brand Managing Director at PwC, a $36bn professional services network employing over 220,000 people in 157 countries. For the last six years Ian has been leading the relaunch of the brand globally, as the business evolves into a multi-competency provider of accounting, consulting, digital, cyber and data analytics services. Prior to PwC Ian held a number of brand and marketing roles in both B-to-B and B-to-C organizations in the US, UK and Central and Eastern Europe. His diverse sector experience prior to PwC includes brand management and marketing innovation in the UK beer industry with Bass Plc, brand portfolio marketing with Rothmans International, and sector marketing with Bank of America. Originally from Newcastle in the North East of England, Ian is now a dual US-UK citizen based in New York and living in Connecticut. 

Clayton F. Ruebensaal is Senior Director of Workforce Development Programs, leading Global Brand Strategy and Marketing Integration teams at American Express in New York and London. Under his leadership, brand management is focused on developing a strategy that drives price premium and engenders loyalty with customers globally. Clayton was named one of the world’s most influential Global Marketing Leaders by The Internationalist. He has held leadership roles at some of the world’s best advertising agencies including running the New York office of BMB. Prior to that he led the E*trade, Pepsi, and The Economist accounts as EVP, Planning Director at BBDO. Clayton’s first client role was leading global marketing at The Ritz-Carlton where he launched their “Let Us Stay With You” brand platform five years ago which put the luxury brand in the business of selling memories, not hotel rooms.

Anna Blender is a Senior Vice President at BAV Consulting. Anna’s clients span across a variety of sectors, from financial services, to auto, real estate, sports, media and people. She also leads BAV’s Nation Branding Practice. Anna’s goal is to help her clients create more purposeful and sustainable global brands with the help of data. Anna has been a guest lecturer at NYU-Stern and Columbia Business School, a featured industry expert on Wharton University’s Business Radio, and is regularly sought out for her expertise by publications like The Wall Street Journal and US News and World Report. She has also been a featured speaker at numerous conferences, including SXSW and Ad Week Canada, and has also spoken at the United Nations. She graduated from Wharton with majors in International Studies, Finance and Marketing.

Bill Holiber is CEO of the N.Y. Daily News and U.S. News & World Report. Bill's career in the media industry began in 1981 at Cowles Business Media. In 1994, Bill joined Zuckerman's media business, where he integrated the sales department across all Zuckerman properties, which then included U.S. News & World Report, The Atlantic Monthly, Fast Company, and Applied Graphics Technologies. After leaving Zuckerman, Bill assisted with the expansion of CurtCo Freedom Group, a magazine company. Bill returned to work with Mortimer Zuckerman in 1999, as publisher of The Atlantic Monthly, then publisher of U.S. News before becoming its president and CEO. Bill and his executive team transformed the U.S. News brand to a digital business model. Additionally, Bill is CEO of the Daily News since August 2010 and developed a multi-faceted strategy taking Daily News's web site national.

Karl Wells is VP of Sales and Marketing at the Wall Street Journal. He leads a New York-based team responsible for global new subscriber acquisition, retention, and marketing, across the Wall Street Journal, and previously served as Global Sales Director. Prior to Dow Jones, Karl worked at News UK, leading a team of digital acquisition and retention specialists, to deliver net growth for The Sun's digital subscriber business (Sun+). Karl has a background in communications planning, and vast media agency and communications strategy experience.