Rise Mentoring North America
Apply by 14 April 2023 for the Rise Mentoring program to benefit from incredible career development support
The Rise Mentoring Program for North America is open to women working, or aspiring to work in the media technology industry in the USA and Canada. This could include women working in technical/engineering roles, through to those working in support roles, such as marketing and PR. It will run from May-November 2023.
Find out more and apply
The 2023 program is now closed for applications. Be the first to hear about future opportunities by signing up as a Rise member for free.
How the Rise Mentoring Programme works
Our mentees benefit from a range of support, including:
- At least 12 hours one-to-one contact with your industry mentor;
- Monthly mentee meetings and access to industry events to help broaden your networks;
- Regular training sessions – from careers mapping through to creating your personal brand and boosting resilience and assertiveness.
- Peer-to-peer support from your fellow mentees, as well as guidance and support from the Rise team.
Any questions?
If you’d like to ask us any questions before applying, please contact ErinRose Widner who will be able to help.
Interested in becoming a mentor for our 2023 programme?
Please contact ErinRose to discuss further.
Success Stories
I never imagined how dramatically 6 months could change my career, my outlook, and my goals – now I feel like the sky is the limit!!!
Rise has kept me so motivated and I really look forward to every session. Just wanted you to know how much of a difference all of your hard work has made during such a crazy time for everyone.
I’ve recently been appointed in a new role and I really feel my Mentor has supported me to get me into this mind-set. This, along with the seminars/catch-ups etc, has really helped me feel grounded in an uncertain year. Thank you so much.
Being a part of this mentorship scheme (especially during this strange year of 2020) has been so empowering. We may not have been able to meet in real life (yet!) but we’ve really got to know each other and been a support for each other. A big thank you to everyone involved!
When others comment on how far you have grown and developed in 6 months you know every minute has been worth the time and effort put in.
The last 9 months have been transformative for me. I'm like a butterfly whose wings will never be clipped again! The Rise scheme has been instrumental in boosting my confidence as a woman working in the broadcast sector. I've always known that I'm very employable. What has changed now is the confidence and belief in what I'm worth to an employer. This scheme, meeting all the people involved and what is has done for me has been life changing. I repeat...LIFE CHANGING. I know I'd have been alright without the scheme but I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, it will change the trajectory of my career. Thank you for investing in the programme. It has made a difference and it has mattered.
Mentees
Meredith Duhaime
Meredith is the Senior PR Manager at Brightcove, overseeing its global PR strategy, and assisting with internal communications, investor relations, and social media. Prior to Brightcove, I was the Communications Manager at Alitsource, specializing in the servicing and origination business. I began my career at PAN Communications, after graduating with my Master's in Global Marketing Communications and Advertising from Emerson College. I hold a Bachelor's Degree from Villanova University.
Madison Rubino
Madison Rubino is a Production Manager at Gravity Media in Los Angeles, California. She began her career in Sports Broadcasting by freelancing with Fox Sports for the 2019 Women’s World Cup and working on Big West Productions for ESPN3. After graduating from the University of La Verne with a Bachelor's Degree in Broadcast Journalism she began working as a Production Coordinator for the NFL Network and was a part of both studio and remote style productions including GameDay Morning, Thursday Night Football, MNF UK, CUSA, Pro Days, and the 2020 & 2021 Super Bowl. Originally from Clearwater Florida, Madison moved to California to play collegiate basketball and volleyball. Now residing in Santa Monica, Madison has also immersed herself in the real estate industry of Los Angeles and specializes in the West LA area. Madison enjoys problem solving, multi-tasking, and client management and is able to apply these expertise to both her career and passions: Sports Broadcasting and Real Estate.
Monazzahalsadat Yasoubi
Monaz graduated from Concordia in January 2020 with two degrees in Control systems and Electrical communication. She is currently working for Grassvalley as a data analyst leveraging Epicor and SAP. She has some experience in Python, SQL and Power BI. She is looking to improve her career as a data analyst or data Scientist, studying programming language such as Python, SQl, R, SAS, C++, Java in her spare time.
Lucie Olen
Lucie is a Content Operations Manager. She manages day to day digital media operations and her key responsibilities are to publish on time, across partners, platforms and territories and establish a globally consistent presentation. Lucie is an expert in end-to-end content publishing workflows and opens the line of communication between vendors, media logistics, digital schedulers, producers and partners to get projects done and content published on-time and in-spec. Lucie has over 20 years of experience in the media industry. She holds a Master Degree in Economics from University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic.
Aaranee Maitra
Aaranee started her career in broadcast media, delivering television and film content then moved into digital media distribution, where she collaborated with partners to deliver video-on-demand content to digital platforms. She used her knowledge of content management and delivery to transition into the operational delivery of film, television, and sports content to global streaming services. She was born and raised in the UK but recently moved to the United States. She has been leading content lifecycle managing all non-live content is planned, acquired, re-versioned, and delivered globally to digital platforms in accordance with business strategy. She enjoys reading, traveling, watching horror movies, and cooking, but I also have a weakness for chocolate and a good series binge. The Walking Dead, Billions, and Ted Lasso are a few of my favorites.
Megan Ebling
Megan is the Studio Production Technician at Gravity Media US in their ESPN/Linq studio. She spends most of her time collaborating with the EIC to visualize future client needs for the facility, specializing in broadcast facility layout and organization. If she isn't working on a new project for the facility, she is mentoring other staff members and sharing skills with them to broaden their technical knowledge. Before her time with Gravity Media US, she accrued most of her technical knowledge from the world of live event production. Megan has been assisting with various productions at the ESPN/Linq studio since December of 2020. Primarily, she works with the teams from Daily Wager and Bet, although depending on programming needs, she will work with other ESPN productions that come through the Linq studio.
Amanda Wall
Amanda is the director of operations for Take 1’s Maryland team, which specializes in high-quality transcripts and captions for news, science, cybersecurity and law organizations. Amanda’s interested in the way human knowledge can combine with automated processes such as speech recognition to make transcription easier, better, faster and more accessible for clients and audiences alike. Her experience – beginning years ago as a part-time transcriber, becoming the bridge between clients and production staff, working closely with tech to create cloud-based transcription software, and finally leading the entire team – has given her invaluable understanding of problem-solving on all sides of production. Her home is Baltimore City, where she volunteers for a video rental store (yes, you read that right) and a large-scale community food rescue operation. She enjoys baking, making cocktails, photography, film, reading… Workwise, she loves learning more about ASRs and their remarkable possibilities, increasing transcript visibility and caption quality, making better use of metadata, and synthesis of workflows from many applications to few.
Amy Thomason
Amy is a Senior Category Manager at Warner Bros. Discovery, Ms. Thomason oversees vendor relationships and commercial negotiations for technology platforms utilized in operation, support and marketing of Direct To Consumer services. Ms. Thomason's previous roles were with Scripps Networks Interactive (SNI) as an IT Relationship Manager and as an technical lead within SNI’s Digital Engineering organization. As IT Relationship Manager, she provided escalation management for production and development issues related to SNI’s Digital products. As a technical lead, she directed Engineering teams responsible for development and support of the Scripps Networks web sites (foodnetwork.com, hgtv.com, travelchannel.com). Ms. Thomason’s career has spanned a variety of industries including digital media, commercial software development, manufacturing and government sectors. This has brought her a deep understanding of technology deployment across business. Prior to SNI, she held technical positions at Texas Instruments, Lockheed Martin, ORNL, Lucent Technologies and OFS Fitel. Her expertise lies in vendor relationships, commercial negotiations, software development, project management and problem solving. She holds a Bachelors in Computer Science with a minor in Business from Auburn University. She also holds a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Tennessee. She was an officer of the Lucent Diversity Council in Atlanta, Georgia. She is currently a member of the Alzheimer’s Tennessee’s Public Policy Committee.
Sam Iorio
Sam currently works at Deluxe Entertainment, one of the largest non-union post houses in the world. She is a senior technical lead on the OneDub team, liaising between engineers and audio leads to develop the remote recording tool. She started at Deluxe five years ago in the data management team. Prior to Deluxe, she worked as a foley artist and supervisor where she was featured in Post Magazine. A true Chicago girl, she graduated early from Columbia College in 2013. In her free time, she collects records, goes to art shows, and enjoys gardening in her backyard.
Jasmine Ma
Jasmine is a Senior Software Quality Assurance Engineer for Deluxe Entertainment Services Group. Before that, she worked for AT&T DIRECTV in the Production Integration Team as a Project coordinator at first, and switched to Software Quality Engineer after. She graduated from Banking University HCM in 2016 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance and Banking. She achieved PMP (2015) and ISTQA (2020) certificates to improve my skills and utilize them to contribute to the exciting technological advances that happen every day wherever I work. I enjoy bringing my positive can-do attitude and tireless energy to help myself and the team to work hard and succeed. In my free time, I like to draw oil paint, digital paint, and read fantasy books
Cissy Detcheva
Cissy is passionate about people and finding solutions for the business and clients. She is energized by helping others, volunteering, and continuous learning. Currently, she is a Business Operations Manager at Vubiquity. Her professional career spans 20 years at Amdocs, Ericsson, and Allegiance Telecom. At Amdocs, prior to joining Vubiquity in May, 2021, she was the Resource Manager for Amdocs Global Business- AT&T. Additionally, She spent 10 yrs in Amdocs Consulting Division, broadening her experience in business operations, business development, presales, sales operations, PMO, software project management, program management.
Natalia Palacios
Natalia is a Strategic Account Manager with a decade of successful experience in sales and management. Natalia specializes in communications technologies and regularly attends Global sessions to showcase new tech trends, such as SaaS, Marketplaces, OTT, and Delivery methods. A strong believer in the power of critical thinking and diversity in the workplace, Natalia regularly develops internal meetings to improve process and encourage people to voice their opinions. Natalia enjoys a good Netflix binge but can also be found on long hikes, or paddle board during the summer time.
Jennifer Thompson
Jennifer is the Director of Content Systems for DLA for Warner Brothers Discovery. Her primary role is to ensure that our Traffic/Scheduling application, IBMS, and all its integrating points are working as expected and supporting the business needs as they evolve. She’s been working with Discovery for 17 years, basically grew up in this amazing company and is proud to have been part of many transitions along the way. Throughout her career at Warner Brothers Discovery, she has supported different areas within Operations: Finance, Sales and now Content. On a personal level,she is originally from Lima, Peru, but raised in Miami, Fl. She is married to her wife, Nanette, and have three children, Mia 7, Noah 5 and Emma 3. They also have two Havanese dogs, Kobe and Milo, who are 10 years old. For fun they mostly BBQ and enjoy the pool at home or go out to dinner with friends who have children the same age.
Mia Amado
Mia is proud to be on the Asset Management Operations (AMO) team at Warner Bros. Discovery. Her main focus is on processing and QC’ing secondary promotional graphics for air. In the two years since she’s started, Mia has become one of the main technicians entrusted to build and implement Automated Continuity (AC) templates using javascript code and convert designers’ After Effects projects into templates for various network rebrands for the US, Latin America and Asia Regions. Before working at Discovery, she was an Assistant Editor at Interface Media Group in DC and a Media/Communications Intern at the Headquarters of Navy Federal Credit Union. Though her career has been in media, she also has a passion for theater and the arts, and loves to work on creative projects in her spare time. She’s excited to participate in the Rise Mentoring Programme and learn from other professionals in the media technology industry.
Alex Wilson
Alex is a software manager for the Inception team at Ross Video, where she focuses on growing her team's technical expertise and removing roadblocks to shipping new software. She began her career as a software developer with the Inception team and has also worked as the developer team lead. Alex graduated with a Bachelor of Computer Science from Carleton University in 2020. She hopes to continue growing her career and improving both her technical and leadership skills over the course of the program. Alex has a background in theatre and performance as well. She spends her time reading, drinking coffee, and performing dramatic monologues for her cat, Tapioca.
Elizabeth Jones
Elizabeth (Liz) is a Master Control Operator (quality control) for Warner Brothers Discovery. She moved to the DC Metro Area nine years ago, transitioning from intern to full-time employee with the PBS NewsHour and completing my graduate degree in Broadcast and Digital Journalism at Syracuse University, Newhouse. Following the PBS NewsHour, she switched things up with live operations, streaming sports on the Watch ESPN app. It has been her pleasure and privilege these past three years to ensure, and train others to assure, the highest possible quality television for Discovery Inc. legacy and acquired global networks. It's no surprise she found myself working in the world of television as she’s always had a passion for the art of storytelling. She and her partner love our two cats and look forward to a dog and maybe even some children one day. We love to stay active, spending time traveling and outdoors.
Emma Schmitt
Emma Schmitt is a Content and Scheduling Coordinator at BBC Studios Americas. Emma supports the creation and management of metadata, artwork, and avails deliveries for North America. At BBC Studios she's had the opportunity to work on special projects, including serving on a committee to implement a new company-wide Avails software, working to onboard GB and AU colleagues, as well as supporting BBC Studio's burgeoning FAST Chanel business. Prior to her role at BBC, Emma was an Operations Manager at an independent distribution label where she gained an understanding and love for the streaming industry. Outside of work, you can find Emma hitting the gym, bicycling around Brooklyn and Manhattan, or enjoying live music.
Mei Chan
Mei Chan started out her career with a hardware degree and shifted over to working in the software industry. She’s dabbled in the software quality and development space and she loves them both. Mei loves photography and traveling and has three boys that keep her busy.
Elsa Hernandez
Elsa is a first generation Dominican-American, born and raised in Bronx, New York. She is a Content Coordinator at BBC Studios and has a background in video editing. She currently lives in Queens and enjoys going to the park after work. She likes spending her free time reading. Two of her favorite books are The Secret History by Donna Tartt, and A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness.
Liz Rizzo
Liz grew up in South Florida and moved to Los Angeles in 2002 after graduating from Florida State Film School with a Master’s in Film Production. During her first 13 years in Los Angeles, she worked in various administrative support positions, primarily in post production, while directing short content projects. She has a strong foundation in audio post production, having studied sound editorial and mixing under Academy Award Winner Richard Portman. This was followed by her first job in LA as a Sales Coordinator at Soundelux in Hollywood. True story, Liz didn’t pursue a career in sound editorial because she didn’t want to work on horror movies in dark rooms. The Great Recession was a challenging time careerwise. Liz was bounced out of post production in 2009 when she was laid off from The Post Group. Only to return in 2011, to The Post Group. Her first project-based role brought her back to audio post, at what was then called Chace Audio by Deluxe. In this role she became an Account Manager and briefly led a team of coordinators before moving to a similar role at Point.360, excited to take an opportunity to learn picture post. There she managed mastering, localization, and servicing for a major Latin American distributor. This role greatly broadened her post production experience, but was entirely project-based, with no opportunities to advance. Liz returned to Deluxe in April 2021 where she works as an Account Manager as part of a growing international TV Mastering team. This was a lateral move in title, but a step up to work with a major studio client. At Deluxe, she leads a weekly cross-functional meeting, and works with her team and departments throughout the company to facilitate file creation; movement of assets to Localization, Scripting, and Fulfillment for E2E workflows; and final deliveries. Her current career goal is to advance into a role that involves leading a team. She is always excited by opportunities learn new things and is eager to learn more about team leadership and effective people management. Liz lives in Valley Village, Los Angeles, CA with her musician husband and an orange tabby named George. She is a writer, a yogi, a gamer, a poet, an avid reader, and a lover of vegetables and two shots. Her favorite movie has been LA Story since 1991, long before she ever imagined working in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles.
Ashley Laliberty
Ashley graduated from University of West Florida with a Telecommunications and Film degree in 2017. She moved to Virginia shortly after and has worked as a Master Control Operator for Discovery for 4 years. She became a trainer last year and has trained new operators and even a manager. She wants to learn the tools necessary to succeed in her career and grow into a management position. Ashley is very hardworking and has learned all the roles of the job very quickly, she has received awards like "Top Op of the Month" for work she has done.
Xinyan Dong
Xinyan Dong, supply chain business intelligence analyst at Grass Valley. Experienced supply chain business intelligence analyst with a demonstrated history of working in the logistics and supply chain industry. Skilled in creating interactive dashboards, supply chain analysis, and Microsoft Suite. Strong program and project management professional with a Master's degree focused in Logistics, Materials, and Supply Chain Management from HEC Montréal. Her goal is to become an expert in both supply chain and data analytics fields.
Stella Talianakis
Stella is a product management and procurement professional with over 20 years of experience in manufacturing, direct imports, and product marketing. In her years as a product manager, she has been responsible for products throughout their entire life-cycle, including planning, implementation, delivery, and post-sales support. In addition, she owns product road-maps and leads cross-functional teams with engineering, sales, marketing, and supply chain departments. She has developed strong problem-solving skills and valuable knowledge of North American and European retail markets. She also has extensive experience planning and overseeing R&D projects and managing production activities with overseas suppliers to meet strict client requirements and tight deadlines.
Mentors
Allison Martin
Allison is a Global Operations executive at BBC Studios Americas. With over a decade of BBC experience, Allison leads a team that oversees the creation and management of all descriptive metadata, artwork, and avails deliveries for North America. She also acts as an operational advisor on various special projects and was instrumental in the launch of both BritBox and BBC Select streaming services. She is a RISE alumni from the inaugural North American scheme and believes strongly in team development and delivering great results. Allison knows all too well that the details matter and bad metadata should never happen to good people.
Darcy Tomlin
Darcy is a media industry executive with hands-on experience in international & US strategy & content operations (linear and direct-to-consumer), including launches, rebrandings, coordinating numerous distributed teams and global events. Go-to person and decision-maker for countless functions and effective gatekeeper for senior executives. Consummate team player, team leader, and influencer comfortable managing complex operations. Exceptional communication, organizational and interpersonal skills. Experience in varied work cultures and restructures.
Kathy-Anne McManus
Kathy-Anne or KAM as she is known, is an executive with global experience leading, creating, growing, and managing profitable software, Sales and Services business units around the globe. She currently holds the position of Chief Customer Experience Officer (CCXO) and SVP of Avid's Customer Experience & Customer Success business. This follows on from roles with Amdocs leading Strategy and Business Development for Media & Entertainment, and Ericsson leading both the Strategy & Consulting & Learning Services portfolios for IT and Cloud as well as Broadcast and Media Services business for the Americas. Previously, KAM was the head of Adobe's Global Services organization for APAC, including Solution Consulting, Learning & Enablement & Professional Services to customers across the Adobe Marketing Cloud and Creative Cloud solutions. Her global experience in broadcast and media led to her appointment as Head of Global Media Industry Solutions for Telstra, where she built and ran a specialized team of media industry executives to incubate sales of new digital media solutions and services. In the first year, the team won the coveted ‘Annual CEO Award’ for their innovative solution - Connected Stadiums. KAM has completed studies in Professional Services at Harvard Business School and held the positions of Vice President, Professional Services at LivePerson in New York; Vice President of Worldwide Professional Services for Avid Technology, Inc. based in Boston, USA and Director of Services for Avid Asia Pacific based in Singapore. Having lived and worked on three continents, KAM has extensive global experience implementing business process change, organizational effectiveness, and technical solutions in the ever-evolving world of software sales and delivery.
Daniella Grayson
Daniella Grayson is a Global Technology and Operational Executive with a long history of building high-performing teams to create transformative, valuable, and lasting customer solutions. She believes the secret to this success lay in her collaborative leadership style, empowering talented individuals who are passionate about their contributions, and maintaining simplicity while delivering in a competitive, complex, and changing landscape. She has established a reputation as a problem-solver and reflective, flexible leader who continually puts best practices in motion. In addition to extensive leadership training, Daniella has a certification in ITIL Foundations and a B.S. in business management from Monmouth University.
Jill Porubovic
Jill (affectionately called Jill P.), is an architect of business transformation strategies that put cross-functional teams at the epicenter of positive change. In her approach to coaching teams through change, Jill P. incorporates her 30+ years of experience in stabilizing leadership with a multinational strategy, technology, operations, service, M&A integration, organizational design, and innovation to move from aspiration to value creation. Jill P. specializes in unifying disparate interests across complex networks of businesses and regions to create forward-looking roadmaps. She leads without ego to understand the conversations that are happening companywide and convert them into opportunities for observation, insight, and action.
Deanna Lee
Deanna Lee is passionate about people, creative problem solving, and improving efficiencies. She started in broadcast with Sony Electronics and transferred to Sony Pictures. She obtained multiple high-level awards for her performance. She obtained her BSBM in 2002 and joined Deluxe in 2015. She studied the dubbing and subtitling workflows and is currently a Senior Account Manager in subtitling.
Crystal Panetta
Crystal has worked in the IT Industry for 20 years beginning their career in the United States Army as an Information Systems Operator/Analyst. Specialist Panetta served in Operation Iraqi Freedom as well as Operation Enduring Freedom and was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for meritorious service and the National Defense Service Medal. They have worked at Warner Bros. Discovery for 9 years currently as a Platform Solution Engineer administering and maintaining the Citrix and currently building a VMware Horizon On-Premise and Cloud Environment. In their free time they enjoy traveling, photography and soccer.
Meg Travis
Communications for Iron Mountain Entertainment Services (IMES), Margaret ‘Meg’ Travis leads industry and client engagement across North America, the United Kingdom and Europe. Travis is a Boston native who has spent the past two decades working with clients in B2B marketing, helping organizations to develop effective strategies from early conception to execution. As a former singer she is a fierce advocate for preserving our collective musical heritage and increasing access to music education, a role she plays in both her professional and personal life. She joined IMES in 2018 to focus on global brand development, and has played an integral role in spearheading the company’s initiatives to bring media preservation and archiving to the forefront of the conversation for their entertainment/film, music and sports clients. Recent highlights include working with the Recording Academy Producers & Engineers Wing to develop educational programming for creators on best practices for the preservation of their legacies, both now and in the future. Travis has a long history and connection to music, spanning back to when she spent time as a classical and jazz artist performer. With an A.B. in Vocal Performance from Stanford University, she began her career in 1993, working for the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. There she advised emerging classical and jazz artists on career opportunities, which sparked her interest in the business side of music. Her expertise in marketing and communications began In 1999, when she joined Accenture, one of the world’ss largest consulting firms, handling corporate marketing for over 12 years. There she led the development of holistic customer development programs for the banking and financial services industry group. She holds an M.B.A from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Today, Travis advocates for creators to prioritize preserving, protecting and archiving their assets
Danielle Shen
Danielle is an executive consultant focused on leading technology teams through M&A activities having led more than 20+ M&As for Discovery, including their most recent acquisition of WarnerMedia. Her focus on program management, project delivery, and most importantly change management and communications have made her a sought-after leader in the Media Industry. The founder of Danielle Shen Consulting, LLC., Danielle's true enjoyment comes from mentoring and developing future leaders in Media and Technology.
Peggy Dau
Peggy leverages 25+ years of corporate business experience to connect the dots between market opportunity, technology and defined business need. As an independent consultant, Peggy collaborates with clients in the media & entertainment sector, focusing on market assessment, content marketing and go-to-market strategies. During her career at Hewlett-Packard Company, she led teams creating and delivering content management and content delivery solutions to customers in the telecom, media & entertainment markets.
Mary Pratt-Henaghan
Pratt-Henaghan joined WETA after more than thirty years of leadership in technology and network operations. She held vice president and senior vice president roles with BBC Studios, and then with AMC Networks, serving as brand guardian for BBC America in the U.S., where she ensured all operations of the channel were executed to BBC editorial and technical standards. In addition, she spent 7 years at Discovery Inc., as part of the new technology group, directing network operations for the launch and operations of new channels. Pratt-Henaghan earned a Bachelor of Arts from DeSales University, a Master of Science from University of Maryland Global Campus, and completed the Cable Executive Management Program at Harvard Business School. She currently serves on the board of directors for the Washington/Baltimore chapter of Women in Cable/Telecommunications, and is a member of the President’s Advisory Council for DeSales University. Pratt-Henaghan further extends her commitment to student mentoring by serving as a guest teacher throughout the Washington DC/Baltimore collegiate community. Over recent semesters, she has lectured at the University of Maryland, the Johns Hopkins Carey School of Business, American University, and DeSales University. Additionally, Pratt-Henaghan was introduced to Yoga and Yoga Nidra meditation early in her career at the office--meditations and movement at lunchtime for stress reduction, focus, & resilience. Today as a certified instructor and facilitator, she enjoys sharing these techniques with colleagues and students, guiding them toward stillness, quiet, and peace amidst the chaos.
Bianca Lankford
In her current role at Warner Brothers Discovery, Bianca Lankford is responsible for global cloud engineering and governance. Her team oversees cloud growth, expansion, architecture and governance frameworks. In her previous roles at Discovery and Scripps Networks, Bianca led teams responsible for growth and major launches of Food Network Kitchen, foodnetwork.com and cookingchannel.com Bianca is passionate about growing others, working in global teams and creating thriving environments for others. In her free time Bianca is passionate about health and fitness, organic gardening and cooking. Bianca and her husband live in Knoxville with their two lively children who are also passionate about gardening.
Magda Jagucka
Magda is a highly experienced professional with a long standing history of working in the entertainment localization industry. I'm passionate about languages, intercultural communication, management, leadership, organizational psychology. I use creative problem solving and design thinking principles in my every day operations. I make decisions based on data combined with intuition and personal observations. I help businesses grow through scaled global operations.
Cindy Zuelsdorf
Cindy is a former overworked marketing czar, turned marketing and marketing automation expert, and founder of my agency Kokoro Marketing, and of 7 Marketing Basics, my book and course. I help marketers, CEO’s, and owners of small businesses and high tech companies who feel overwhelmed at the thought of digital marketing – they know they need to do marketing, but don’t know what to do or where to start. I help them do what they need to do, (and nothing extra), and do it with confidence, regardless of budget. My system is is based on my unique experience as a former overworked marketer… By combining my lived experience running music stores and helping customers find their fave hip-hop, opera or punk… to running the sales marketing and service for a high tech company a small high tech company and selling equipment to broadcast TV stations and content companies like Amazon and Netflix… to now having my digital marketing agency where we are in the trenches every day and can see exactly what works… I have a wealth of marketing, marketing automation, and sales experience to share with you... And I’ll share my mistakes with you, too. My 7 Marketing Basics system is practical, non-judgmental, easy to understand, and you can implement it on day one.
Liz Guenther
Liz has worked in post-production with Deluxe Media’s Audio and Dubbing Localization OTT teams for the last 7 years. Prior to that, she worked for radio stations including 100.3FM The Sound and Radio Disney. She is an LA native and enjoys chasing after her two kids with her husband in her free time.
Meghan Ross
Meghan is a Chicago-based marketer that has been working in the Media, Entertainment and Technology sector for the majority of her career. Meghan has held management positions with both Avid and EditShare, managing Channel Marketing for North American and Global partners. Meghan is currently the Director of Partnerships and Events at Hireology. A natural communicator, Meghan enjoys building and maintaining long-term relationships with her customers, vendors and partners. To this end, she is highly effective in working with diverse groups to successfully implement and execute programs that deliver results. Meghan’s extensive experience in marketing, sales and business development has given her a unique vantage point that allows her to more deeply understand the needs of her sales teams and create programs to best support their goals. Stakeholders appreciate her combination of “big picture” thinking and attention to detail. Meghan brings empathy, communication and organization to each position she holds. Meghan is very active in her community and in non-COVID times, you can usually find her at a networking event. She has served on the board of Women in Film Chicago twice and is on the board of Rise North America. If you follow her on any social platform you will see she is a proud dog mom and features her three fur kiddos frequently.
Simon Eldridge
Simon is a co-founder and Chief Product Officer at SDVI Corporation, responsible for the definition, strategic direction and growth of all product offerings. SDVI Rally is the first and leading cloud-native media supply chain management solution, driving agility, efficiency, and business growth in major media organizations worldwide. Across 20 years in both Europe and North America, Simon has established an extensive track record building and managing successful software and SaaS product lines at leading vendors in the media and entertainment space. He is a firm believer in cloud-native architectures transforming technical operations and improving operational efficiency. Simon also understands the value of solid relationships in making transformation successful. Previously, Simon has held roles at Harmonic, Omneon, Harris Broadcast, Encoda Systems, and Arkemedia Technologies.
Zoë Borys
Zoë's 25 years of experience in the motion picture industry includes business development for Production Resources Group (PRG), and general manager for Fletcher Camera and Lenses (now VER). She is in her second turn at Panavision, having served in a marketing role at the company from 1998-2006. Throughout her career, she has been responsible for bringing innovative technology to the creative community, empowering them to bring their vision to the screen. She is also an associate member of the American Society of Cinematographers.
Nina Adkin
Nina Adkin is a strategic and creative leader with 16+ years of experience successfully executing data and decision science initiatives across financial services, healthcare, government, and most recently media/DTC industries. Building and leading centralized global Data Science organization from ground-up to support core business cases. Gaining enterprise- & executive- level buy-in for embedding data & decision science within complex, global organization. Developing well-rounded, business minded data science leaders and technical experts.
Anna Lockwood
Anna is an experienced media industry executive specialising in broadcasting and sports. She started her career as a journalist and documentary film producer with a focus on natural history and wildlife programming. After ten years working in the wild she moved from India to London to join the media technology business as a consultant. Anna has since had global leadership roles across EMEA, APAC, and the Americas. She currently works at Telstra at the convergence of the traditional broadcast industry and leading edge telecommunications and digital platforms. In addition to her role at Telstra, Anna represents Telstra as a Director on the IABM (International Association of Broadcast Manufacturers) Board, and is an Advisory Board Member and Mentor at RISE, a group for women in broadcast. She brings her interests in innovation, sports, and women in technology to her board and industry engagement.
Kathy Richardson
Kathy Richardson is a solutions oriented professional who enjoys technology at all levels. Comfortable working at a high view, keeping company goals and budgetary concerns in mind, all the way down to the gritty technical details. I have been working in software and infrastructure for 17 years and still enjoy the toys we get to play with every day. Every problem is a puzzle to solve and the solution that gets you to the desired goal in the simplest, fastest, most cost effective way wins. I am a fierce client advocate, care deeply about developers/engineers’ career development and well being, and have hard-won opinions about designing scalable, stable and observable architecture. In technology today, there is no reason you can't make something happen. It may not be cost effective, fit in the time frame or make sense for the company, but there is no such thing as "can't be done." It can always be done... you just have to evaluate the consequences before you decide to do it.
Hilary Roschke
Hilary, the new Rise North American chair of the board, has almost 20 years’ experience within the media industry in operational and strategic leadership roles. She has been a driving force behind organizational and technological change, operational efficiency and increased business value/ROI in the media industry. She is the vice president of strategic operations at SDVI. The group says “Roschke’s commitment to mentorship will help Rise build relationships and drive North American membership and program expansion.”
Holly Bone
Holly Bone is strategic in her approach and enthusiastic by nature with expertise in growing brands, running marketing, creative and operational support teams. Respected as a solutions-oriented, creative problem-solver who thrives in cross-functional business environments, making the connections, managing relationships and leading teams to drive revenue.
