John Nickel – President, Switch: Liberate Your Brand

John oversees experiential operations including project management and all in-house production services. His formative years track back to being a lighting designer, meeting and events producer for dozens of major corporations.  John boasts 35+ years of experience in almost every phase of creative development, production, production management and operations.  John is an active St. Louis philanthropist and believes in giving back to his local community including committee positions for Arts & Education, Christmas in St. Louis, Variety the Children’s Charity, Junior Achievement, Webster University, amongst others.

Annie Castellano – Chief Creative Officer, Switch: Liberate Your Brand
For 12 years, Annie has been contributing to the strategic and creative product Switch delivers to clients like vitaminwater, Budweiser, Natural Light, 5-hour Energy, Elsevier, UPS and Savvis.  She began her career as a copywriter working on promotional and print campaigns for Anheuser-Busch and Nike, but her passion for the psychology of human behavior and communication has since driven Annie to more experiential forms of marketing where audience engagement rules. Working with her team, she facilitates the mining of insights, communication strategy development, and ultimately the delivery of conceptual and tactical thinking across a range of disciplines and media.  Annie now oversees all of the strategy and creative output for Switch’s clients.


Kerry Smith - President, Red 7 Media Div. of Access Intelligence

Kerry Smith is President of Red 7 Media, a diversified media division of Access Intelligence headquartered in Norwalk, CT, that produces magazines, newsletters, conferences and trade shows in the event and publishing industries. 

Red 7 Media publishes Event Marketer, EXPO, Event Design, and Best Events in the event industry; and FOLIO, Audience Development, and MIN (Media Industry News) in the publishing industry. The company also produces annual trade shows and conferences, including The Event Marketing Summit, The Event Design Forum, EXPONext, EventTech, The FOLIO Show, and several MIN events.  Red 7 Media also manages the Exhibit Designers & Producers Association and the Event Marketing Institute, as well as social networking websites eventpeeps.com; and foliomediapro.com, through its Membership Development Group.

David Michael Rich - Senior Vice President, Strategy and Planning Worldwide for George P. Johnson Experience Marketing

Often called a visionary, he is one of the event marketing industry’s foremost change agents, molding the intersection of business objectives, marketing, and face-to-face and virtual brand events and experiences.  He founded and directs GPJ’s strategy practice, the first such advisory practice on the industry, through which leading global companies use the experience marketing discipline to build effective relationships and brand communities and drive profitable growth around the world.   David’s work in leading the development of IBM’s global event marketing strategy led to the agency’s win of the first ever EX (pronounced “ee,” “x) Award for “Best Global Business-to-Business Event Marketing Program” given by Event Marketer magazine.

David has been quoted, published or written about in dozens of publications and websites including Forbes.com, Media Post, “Fortune,” “Advertising Age,” “China Daily,” “The Advertiser,” “Marketing News,” “Event Marketer,” “B2B,” “Trade Show Week,” and MPI’s  “One Plus.”   A frequent speaker at industry conferences and academic institutions from Boston to Bangkok, David has presented for Forbes magazine, Red Herring’s CMO Conference, and the Columbia School of Business program on Global Brand Management.  David has supported several industry organizations through volunteer leadership positions including having served on the boards of MPI, the Event Marketing Institute, and ICEEM, as well as in numerous industry committees and strategic initiatives. He is a former two-term president of the MPI New England Chapter.