Gaming Brunch Presented by Activision Blizzard Media

Speakers

Ben Cheung

Director of Strategy at gnet

Ben Cheung, Director of Strategy at gnetComing from years of agency experience working across leading CPG brands, Ben joined gnet in 2017 to merge his...

Chris Erb

Founder/Managing Partner of tripleclix

Christopher Erb founded Tripleclix in 2014 as a consumer-facing promotional marketing agency focused on the video gaming industry. Tripleclix oversees...

Neil Graham

Chief Revenue Officer at DISQO

As Chief Revenue Officer, Neil leads DISQO’s Revenue function, driving the company’s growth as we scale our experience platform. He is focused on spea...

Stephanie Hawkins

Director, Gaming of Wavemaker

Stephanie is the Director of Gaming at Wavemaker, where she guides a diverse portfolio of clients, including DoorDash, the US Navy, and Nickelodeon, t...

Samantha Lim

SVP, Head of Gaming at Publicis Media Content & Innovation

Samantha Lim joined the Publicis Media Content and Innovation team as SVP of Gaming Strategy and Innovation in October 2022. Samantha’s 20 years of ag...

Wes Morton

CEO and Co-Founder of Creativ Company

Wes Morton is CEO and Co-Founder of Creativ Company, the machine intelligence marketing firm for the world's most creative companies. His 13 year care...

Misha Mukherjee

SVP, Group Management, Portfolio Management at Universal McCann

Misha is a seasoned media executive with nearly 20 years experience working across major brands like NBCU, Sony, and Levi’s. He currently oversees mul...

Claire Nance

Head of Gaming Business Success Strategy at Activision Blizzard Media

An award-winning business and marketing leader, Claire Nance has over 15 years’ experience driving global strategic initiatives within the advertising...

Dario Raciti

Managing Director of Zero Code

Dario has 20+ years of experience in marketing within the videogame world and across categories as diverse as Energy Beverages, Alcohol, CPG, Automoti...

Brad Souva

West Coast Director, Brand Partnerships of Zynga

Brad is a seasoned Brand Director with a strong track record of building strategic partnerships with Fortune 500 companies across entertainment, autom...

Eugene Wu

Director of Talent Brand Partnerships at UTA Creators

Eugene Wu is Co-Head of Brand Partnerships and Advisory at UTA, where he specializes in elevating brands through strategic marketing and media collabo...

Christine Yoo

Director of Brand Partnerships at WEBTOON

As the Director of Brand Partnerships for WEBTOON, Christine brings over a decade of experience as a marketing professional, providing clients with ta...

Bill Young

Head of Games, Twitch & BPS at Amazon

Bill Young is a games industry veteran located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Bill started with Twitch in 2016 as the Global Head of Sponsorships and ...

Chris Younger

President at Ayzenberg Group

As President of Ayzenberg Group, Chris Younger leads agency strategy, operations, and business development, overseeing marketing science, account mana...

Christopher Erb founded Tripleclix in 2014 as a consumer-facing promotional marketing agency focused on the video gaming industry. Tripleclix oversees promotions and lifestyle programs with gaming clients such as Xbox, Blizzard, and Skybound as well as brands like Kellogg’s, Ferrara, Nestle, Lovesac, Duracell, and IHOP.

Prior to launching Tripleclix, Christopher was the EVP of Brand Marketing for LEGENDARY ENTERTAINMENT and was responsible for rebuilding the overall brand architecture and developing strategic programs that elevated LEGENDARY’s brand awareness. He oversaw a cross-functional team that built and executed branding strategies effective across all lines of the business, provided a backdrop for future strategic initiatives, and delivered a seamless message directly to consumers.

Christopher worked closely with the CEO and President to understand and communicate critical elements of the film slate to enhance the brand. He also provided strategic insight and guidance to the Executive Team regarding new business opportunities, partnerships, and alliances for the long-term success of the LEGENDARY brand.

As VP of Brand Marketing for EA SPORTS, Christopher was responsible for driving strategy and marketing for the EA SPORTS brand. Christopher oversaw a cross-functional team that focused on consumer marketing, licensing, brand identity, consumer engagement, and brand partnerships. In addition, his team is responsible for partnership activation across franchises within the EA SPORTS label including Madden NFL, FIFA, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, NHL, NBA, NCAA, and Fight Night.

His leadership within the entertainment industry revolutionized the way EA SPORTS marketed to their consumers. His team pioneered applying the theatrical model of partnership and collaboration to video games and has been one of the driving forces behind bringing the EA SPORTS brand out of the living room and into the mainstream. He has helped develop EA SPORTS into a lifestyle brand that delivered new and engaging social and digital content to its consumers year round.

Christopher joined EA SPORTS in 2005 bringing with him more than 10 years of marketing and general management experience within the entertainment industry, including a successful career at Wizards of the Coast running the Pokémon and Dungeons and Dragons portfolios.

Stephanie is the Director of Gaming at Wavemaker, where she guides a diverse portfolio of clients, including DoorDash, the US Navy, and Nickelodeon, through the dynamic gaming landscape. A 2024 Cynopsis Top Women in Esports & Gaming Honoree, recognized as a "Client & Customer Support Maven," Stephanie leverages over 10 years of experience to create impactful brand activations across esports, influencers, in-game integrations in Roblox / Fortnite / Minecraft, live gaming events, mobile gaming media and more.

From her start in gaming running partnerships for Immortals, MIBR, and LA Valiant esports teams, Stephanie worked with major brands like Bud Light and American Express to connect with gaming's young and digitally savvy audience. Today, she continues to be passionate about helping brands authentically connect with this vibrant audience of sponsorship savvy gamers.

Samantha Lim joined the Publicis Media Content and Innovation team as SVP of Gaming Strategy and Innovation in October 2022. Samantha’s 20 years of agency experience includes a heavy emphasis in digital media, bringing a balance of branding and data driven strategy to her clients. Prior to joining the PMCI team, she held multiple client and investment lead roles with Starcom. Over the course of her career, she has worked on a variety of movie studios and held global leadership roles on Xbox and Amazon, with an emphasis in gaming programs.

Samantha has been a featured speaker at industry events, including those from partners such as AdExchanger, Digiday, NBCUniversal and the IAB highlights her thought leadership in the gaming sector. Her roles with the IAB Experience Center and eSports and Gaming Business Summit Advisory Boards underscores her commitment to advancing the gaming industry. Through her participation in task forces like the IAB Casual Games Buyers Guide and the IAB Gaming Measurement Framework, she plays a key role in establishing standards and best practices for integrating gaming into brand strategies and making gaming more approachable for brands. Her passion and involvement reflect her dedication to driving innovation and excellence in the video game marketplace.

Wes Morton is CEO and Co-Founder of Creativ Company, the machine intelligence marketing firm for the world's most creative companies. His 13 year career spans WME, Dentsu, BENLabs, and IPG agencies where he worked on dozens of multi-million dollar campaigns for major publishers and independent studios such as Electronic Arts, Scopely, Ubisoft, and Sega. His agency work includes the fastest 3rd party Roblox gamer ever with Sonic, fastest growing battle royale launch ever with APEX Legends, and the highest traffic web game launch in Scopely's history.

In 2025, Creativ Company produced the world's first machine-generated competitive research study of the gaming industry, ingesting and summarizing over 1.5 million gaming consumer conversations across Reddit, YouTube, and news publications using machine intelligence model ellain 1.0. The study ranks the top 20 publishers by market cap and their corresponding games by consumer engagement, percentage of chatter and sentiment. It also distills the five largest consumer conversation clusters of the first half of 2025.

An avid gamer himself, he enjoys RPGs, MOBAs, RTS, and the occasional FPS. He surfs and writes from his home in Venice Beach every day.

Misha is a seasoned media executive with nearly 20 years experience working across major brands like NBCU, Sony, and Levi’s. He currently oversees multiple accounts at UM including Activision, Crunchyroll, Behr Paints, and Nutribullet. Misha prides himself on finding the right balance between modern performance marketing and major brand campaigns that insert clients into the cultural zeitgeist, while simultaneously driving the bottom line. Misha has been a part of innumerable #1 box office openings, has helped to drive major programs like Levi’s Station to Station, and launched the #1 video games of 2022 and 2023, both driving over $1B in sales within the first ten days of release. He’s a regular instructor at the 4As Institute of Advanced Advertising Studies and has previously sat on the membership board of thinkLA. Misha resides in Eagle Rock, L.A., CA with his wife Nora and two children, Milo and Mallory. In his spare time, Misha loves to travel having been to 25+ countries and plays the drums in his band Chicken and the Waffles.

An award-winning business and marketing leader, Claire Nance has over 15 years’ experience driving global strategic initiatives within the advertising, technology, entertainment and media industries. As Head of Gaming Business Success Strategy at Activision Blizzard Media, Claire serves as the connection point between the gaming and advertising industries, providing strategic guidance to Activision Blizzard’s advertising revenue-facing support functions and owning its market-facing approach and industry presence.

Claire has held senior marketing and communications roles at IPG Mediabrands, News Corp and North 6th Agency. An active member of the advertising and marketing community, Claire was on the board of directors of the Public Relations Society of America’s New York chapter from 2020 to 2022 and has acted as a mentor with several industry organizations including New York Women in Communications and She Runs It. Claire has been recognized within the industry including: Ragan Top Women in Communications in 2024, The PR Net’s MarComms Most Influential in 2023, Crain's Notable Leaders in Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations in 2022, Business Insider’s PR Rising Stars in 2021, and PRSA-NY’s Exceptionals Under 35 award in 2019.

Dario has 20+ years of experience in marketing within the videogame world and across categories as diverse as Energy Beverages, Alcohol, CPG, Automotive, Financial, and Tech.

Dario’s focus on gaming as a way to tell brand stories started in early 1999 as the digital lead for Ogilvy’s teen brands where he was leveraging product placement in videogames to increase brand interaction. Dario was then recruited by OMD to launch a new discipline that was focused on developing and executing brand strategies and content that leverage games. He launched a dedicated team called Zero Code in 2006 with just a couple of clients and with the goal of creating innovative and award winning campaigns. With a small passionate team I was able to soon add a dozen more clients including among others Pepsi, Gatorade, Mountain Dew, Intel and Activision.

As esports entered a new era and game influencers started to create exciting content, Dario worked with his team to deliver a number of award winning campaigns, including among others an Adweek Plan Of The Year, for Mtn Dew. Dario’s work with gaming influencers and esports has helped to successfully launch brands such as Mt Dew's Gamefuel. At the same Dario expanded Zero Code’s capabilities to VR and as an early enthusiast he recognized the opportunity to leverage this medium to create more immersive brand stories.

Dario has been recognized by the videogame, esports and advertising communities earning him AdWeek’s Media All Stars and Internationalists Innovators. . Most importantly, Dario helped his clients to win over 80 awards to date, including among others a number of Cannes Lions.

Bill Young is a games industry veteran located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Bill started with Twitch in 2016 as the Global Head of Sponsorships and Strategic Partnerships, with a focus on esports. As Head of Games, Twitch & BPS @ Amazon, Bill works across both Twitch and Amazon to help align strategy and approach between departments where game developers, publishers, and non-endemic brands intersect. Bill also presents a primer on the expanded gaming ecosystem called GamerU for holding companies, advertising agencies, and direct brands to help demystify gaming generally, as well as gamers themselves. Bill's current project, The Glitch, is a network of sponsored games built and distributed within Fortnite, and promoted by top streamer talent on Twitch. Prior to Twitch and Amazon, Bill ran the in-and-around advertising team at Electronic Arts, and was on the launch teams for Shockwave.com, 1UP.com, Massive Inc., and MaxPlay. Bill is a “Top Voice” in gaming and technology for LinkedIn, and is frequently featured by their editorial team for topics such as Entertainment, AR & VR, Ai, Media, and of course, Video Games. Bill is also Co-Chair of the IAB Gaming & Esports board, and a member of their Metaverse board as well.

Date and Time

Event Details

Speakers

Ben Cheung

Chris Erb

Neil Graham

Stephanie Hawkins

Samantha Lim

Wes Morton

Misha Mukherjee

Claire Nance

Dario Raciti

Brad Souva

Eugene Wu

Christine Yoo

Bill Young

Chris Younger

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Late Non Member Individual Ticket

Late Member Only Table of 10

Late Non Member Table of 10

Non-Member - LATE Group of 6

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Date and Time

Event Details

Speakers

Tickets

Late Member Only Ticket

Late Non Member Individual Ticket

Late Member Only Table of 10

Late Non Member Table of 10

Non-Member - LATE Group of 6

Volunteer

Sponsors and Partners

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Spotlight Sponsor

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