Contributors
Kyle Payton
Kyle Payton is the General Manager of Thriftcart, an all-in-one POS product assisting nonprofits and small businesses in navigating the complexities of retailZack Peng
Zack Peng is the founder and CEO of Seel. As a technical founder with an engineering background, Zack identified the opportunity to create an AI-powered solution that helps retailers offer risk-free shopping experience to their customers at affordable cost. He founded Seel with $25 million in venture funding, and is now powering the risk-free shopping experience at 2,000+ brands & marketplaces.
Joseph Perello
Joseph Perello is CEO of Props, a performance-driven creator content platform. He previously served as New York City’s first-ever chief marketing officer, and he served as VP of business development for the New York Yankees. He also co-founded the agency Catch New York.
Mario Peshev
Mario Peshev is the CEO of Rush.app and DevriX, a global WordPress agency serving industries from publishing to fintech, healthcare, ecommerce and more. Peshev focuses the majority of his time on running his business and leading distributed tech teams at DevriX of 50+ people crafting high-scale WordPress solutions optimized for revenue. He is a Core contributor to the WordPress project, an Inbound Certified marketer, and a multi-disciplined business owner with a wide scope of skills. Follow him on Twitter @no_fear_inc and connect on LinkedIn.
Kaitlin Pettersen
Global Customer Support Director
Elery Pfeffer
Elery Pfeffer is the CEO & Founder of Nift Networks, a marketplace transforming how consumers discover and engage with brands. HelloFresh, Liquid I.V., Thrive Causemetics, Tripadvisor, and Afterpay have partnered with Nift to get exclusive access to millions of unique, super-engaged customers and reliably hit acquisition goals. Under Elery’s leadership, Nift has more than doubled annually. Previously, he co-founded Pursway, serving Fortune 500 clients. Elery holds a degree from Tel Aviv University and was a research fellow at Harvard.
Christian Piller
Christian Piller is co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Pollen Returns, a technology-led business that empowers D2C retailers to leverage their current inventory for better planning and capital utilization through quicker recovery of returns. Pollen’s technology plugs into existing logistic ecosystems, requires no box or label, and orchestrates the first “door to warehouse” return pickup at no additional cost to the retailer. Pollen Returns is a venture-backed company that is currently available in any US market and will be expanding overseas to Europe in the near future.Dan Pinto
Dan Pinto is CEO and co-founder of Fingerprint and brings over a decade of experience in tech. In 2014, Dan co-founded Machinio, a search engine for used machinery, which was later acquired by NASDAQ:LQDT in 2018. After this success, he co-founded Fingerprint, the world’s most accurate device identifier, which has raised over $77 million since its first funding round in 2020. Fingerprint currently employs over 100 people and is dedicated to solving the complex issue of online fraud.
Richard Piper
Business Development Director at Webloyalty
Rich Pirrotta
Rich Pirrotta is a senior transformational leader with extensive board-level experience in technology, manufacturing, and professional services, having worked globally across 35+ countries. He currently serves as the Executive Vice President, Americas for ReBound, the leading global returns management specialist. By combining integrated returns software with an extensive logistics network, ReBound optimizes and manages the entire returns lifecycle. ReBound is part of Reconomy, the circular experts.
Todd Pollak
Todd Pollak is Marqeta’s Chief Revenue Officer, responsible for leading the company’s go to market teams, overseeing the company’s revenue strategy, how it positions itself in the industry, serves prospects and supports customers. Before Marqeta, Pollak spent four years at Ancestry as Chief Commercial Officer, overseeing the company’s marketing, product strategy and commercialization teams. Before Ancestry, he spent 13 years at Google serving as managing director in the financial and retail sectors.
Alexandra Popken
Alexandra Popken is the Vice President of Trust & Safety, the leading content moderation service combining the power of AI and humans to keep online communities and brands safe from the risks of user-generated content. Popken joined the WebPurify team in the beginning of 2023 after working at Twitter for nearly a decade as Senior Director of Trust & Safety Operations, leading a global team that spanned the consumer and monetization sectors, and is committed to equipping companies across all industries with the necessary trust and safety knowledge to further protect its users.
Kosta Popov
Kosta Popov, CEO and founder of Cappasity — the company providing an easy and scalable platform for creation, embedding and analysis of 3D and AR content — has 20+ years of experience and a successful track record as a software company CEO. Kosta is an expert in 3D technologies, SaaS solutions and mobile applications and was named one of the top innovators by Intel Software.Vipin Porwal
Vipin Porwal is the CEO and founder of Smarty, a premier shopping app. He is an entrepreneur with 20+ years of experience in finance and consumer technology and a background in software development. Previously, he founded the influencer marketing platform SocialMob.com, which catered to big brands like AOL and Huffington Post. Smarty and Smarty+ collaborate with over 6,000 U.S. retailers, such as Target, Walmart, and Best Buy. Porwal also founded SmartRx, a prescription discount card that offers premium health savings related to office visits, telehealth, pet meds, and more.
Sharat Potharaju
Sharat Potharaju is the Co-founder and CEO of Beaconstac, responsible for crafting the overall strategy and execution. Sharat is dedicated to achieving Beaconstac’s vision to enable digital connection with every physical object and place on the planet. Prior to his entrepreneurial career, Sharat spent a few years working in investment banking at Merrill Lynch in New York. Sharat holds a master’s degree in engineering management from Duke University and a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras.
Ryan Powell
Prior to his role at Insite AI, Ryan served as Vice President of Merchandising and Category Management at Symphony RetailAI Solutions.
