Wednesday November 7th | 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
(International Ballroom III-V)
Nick Westergaard is a strategist, speaker, author, and educator. As Chief Brand Strategist at Brand Driven Digital, he helps build better brands at organizations of all sizes — from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies to the President’s Jobs Council.
Nick is the author of Get Scrappy: Smarter Digital Marketing for Businesses Big and Small. In addition to posting insights on branding and marketing at branddrivendigital.com, Nick is a contributor to the Harvard Business Review and host of the popular On Brand podcast. His thoughts have been featured in news sources such as US News & World Report, Entrepreneur, Forbes, Mashable, and more.
Nick is a sought-after keynote speaker at conferences and corporate events throughout the world. He teaches at the University of Iowa, where he sits on the Advisory Council of the Marketing Institute at the Tippie College of Business and the Professional Advisory Board for the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He is also organizer and host of the Social Brand Forum and a mentor at the Iowa Startup Accelerator.
Nick lives with his wife and five kids in Coralville, Iowa.
Thursday November 8th | 3:30 PM - 4:45 PM
(International Ballroom III-V)
Liz GrossDr. Liz Gross is a data-driven researcher and scholar who specializes in creating entrepreneurial social media strategies in higher education. Her professional super power is to embolden colleges and universities and help them launch modern market research strategies using social listening. Teaching is Liz’s passion and she brings that to colleges and universities as the founding Director of Campus Sonar, a specialized social listening agency that matches high-value social media intelligence and engagement opportunities to organizational strategic initiatives.
Liz is also an award-winning speaker, author and strategist who was recently named a 2018 Mover and Shaker by Social Shake-Up Show. She has delivered top-rated talks at SXSW, SXSW EDU, the American Marketing Association Symposium, the Carnegie Conference and others.
Liz has more than 15 years’ experience spanning the private and public sector including Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and University of Wisconsin-Waukesha. She received a Ph.D. in Leadership for the Advancement of Learning and Service in Higher Education at Cardinal Stritch University, a master’s degree in educational policy and leadership from Marquette University, and a bachelor’s degree in interpersonal communication from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.
Friday November 9th | 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM
(International Ballroom III-V)
Jim Fong, Chief Research Officer & Founding DirectorJim Fong is the founding director of UPCEA’s Center for Research and Strategy. In his role, Jim has analyzed demographic, occupational, technological and societal trends and data to help the higher education community better serve the adult and corporate learner. As the Center’s director, he works closely with dozens of colleges and universities annually in new program development initiatives, enrollment management and marketing process analyses and the review of online and continuing education portfolios.
Prior to joining UPCEA, Jim worked as a higher education strategic marketing and CRM consultant and researcher for two firms and prior to that was the Director of Marketing, Research and Planning for Penn State Outreach. At Penn State Outreach, he was responsible for strategic marketing, marketing management, research, creative and database teams. Jim played a major role in the early launch of Penn State’s World Campus by assessing new program needs and the development of marketing strategies and systems.
Jim holds an M.B.A., an M.S. in Applied Statistics and a B.S. in Mathematics, all from The University of Vermont. In 2004, UPCEA awarded him the Adelle Robertson Award as its Continuing Professional Educator for the year. That year, he also received the Mid-Atlantic Region’s Distinguished Service Award.