Speakers

  • Akshat Choudhary

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    Akshat Choudhary has always prided himself on his ability to teach himself things. Since starting BlogVault, Akshat has transformed his side-project into a profitable venture that is scaling new heights in the Indian startup space. Seeing customers struggle with hacked website, he then spent 3 years developing MalCare – one of the top security plugins in the market. Being a member of the WordPress community for almost a decade, Akshat is keen on understanding the areas where users struggle. Akshat’s core belief behind building any product is making sure the end-user doesn’t need assistance and to assist them in the best possible manner if they do.

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  • Alli Berry

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    Alli Berry is the SEO Director for The Motley Fool. With 9+ years of digital marketing experience, she has helped businesses build a successful SEO-focused content strategy in industries including finance, education, automotive, and retail. She was named to the 2019 Top 10 Women in Content Marketing list by Inc Magazine and spoke at the Denver and DC Digital Summits, as well as Denver Startup Week in 2019. She’s been featured on SEO podcasts including the MozPod, In Search SEO, and A11y Rules. In her free time, you can typically find Alli on a hiking trail or at a craft brewery in Denver.

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  • Chris Lema

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    Chris Lema has been working with WordPress since 2005. Since then he’s been a blogger, a speaker at WordCamps, a coach for WordPress product companies, and the founder of the conference for WordPress business owners, called CaboPress. Today he’s the VP of Products at Nexcess, a Liquid Web brand, where he manages the world’s first managed platform for WooCommerce stores. He regularly works with WooCommerce stores to help them drive revenue growth.

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  • Colleen Harris

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    Colleen Harris is the Product Manager for Business Intelligence at CDK Global and has more than 13 years of digital marketing experience in the automotive, healthcare and entertainment industries. She brings a passion for Google Analytics, data storytelling and content creation, and has been referred to here at CDK as the “Google Whisperer” and “Google Analytics Jedi Master.”

    Outside of CDK, Colleen has volunteered as a digital consultant for non-profits in the Seattle area.

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  • Craig West

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    Craig is freelance trainer and architect that focuses on bringing together the WP and non-WP worlds by advocating WP-HTML, ‘where there is HTML, there is WP’.

    He is based in Brighton and attends the local WordUp meetings. With a previous career in business and accounting, as well as having run his own non-IT business, Craig can speak both technical and business. He believes that technology serves the user, not the other way around, so the user experience is paramount.

    He has started to speak at WP events and is interested in Web Components, Progressive Web Apps, High Performance Web Sites, WP REST API and has a developing interest in pages that are ‘instant’ and/or offline capable.

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  • David Wolfpaw

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    David is a professional web developer focused on WordPress theme and plugin development. He emphasizes helping small businesses, providing ongoing maintenance and support, and educating users through his service FixUpFox. David has been a proud and happy SiteGround client since 2013, and a partner in the SiteGround WordPress Ambassador program since 2018.

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  • Erin Flynn

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    Erin has been making websites since 1999, started her own web design and development company in 2012, and has taught over 10,000 students. She’s spent the past eight years figuring out the business part of running a creative business so that you don’t have to.

    Here’s the deal: running a truly sustainable and profitable creative business takes more than your industry skills. You’ve got to have the business skills nailed down too so that you have smooth processes, happy clients, and actually have a business that makes money without working all the time. That’s where Erin comes in.

    When she’s not teaching freelancers or working with her own design clients, Erin can be found exploring the mountains near her home in Aspen, Colorado. Find out more at erinflynn.com.

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  • Francesca Marano

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    Francesca is the WordPress Community & Partnerships Manager at SiteGround, one of the largest independent web hosting companies where the quality of service stands above it all.

    Francesca is also part of the global WordPress Community Team and co-led the release of WordPress.org 5.3 and 5.4. One of the things she is most proud of is her blog C+B, which helped many creative female entrepreneurs find their path throughout the years.

    As an accomplished educator, community leader, and public speaker, you can find her around the world talking about hosting, WordPress, community, open-source, women in tech, and small businesses.

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  • George Mount

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    George offers training, curriculum and consulting programs for data analytics through Stringfest Analytics. He blogs frequently on how to learn and teach data and maintains a resource library on the topic at his website, which is proudly powered by WordPress. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

    TL;DR: George is the guy to talk about spreadsheets during a party.

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  • Jeremy Green

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    Jeremy started building websites back in 1999. Today he enjoys staying on top of the latest techniques in web design, WordPress, and business development. Jeremy helps organize the Fort Collins WordPress meetup and loves living in Colorado. When not building websites, he enjoys spending time with his wife and two boys, mountain biking, and playing tasty licks on his Fender Strat.

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  • Jocelyn Mozak

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    Jocelyn has over a decade of experience building, running and wrangling a WordPress Website Design Agency all while having two boys at home.

    While her education in engineering certainly refined her technical and analytical skills, it is her passion for what she does that makes her an outstanding WordPress web designer. She is an expert in thinking outside the box and filtering out the key points amidst all the noise.

    In addition to running her Agency, Jocelyn is a mentor & business coach to other Creative Professionals helping them to build businesses that support the life they desire.

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  • Joe A Simpson Jr.

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    Joe A. Simpson, Jr. is a Front-End Web Developer and User-Experience Designer specializing in WordPress solutions. He is also a SiteGround Ambassador. During endless, sun-soaked days he works at Metro LA, one of the largest transit agencies in the country, fighting the good fight to ease gridlock around Los Angeles County. When their Lead Developer and CSS goddess both left to pursue other opportunities, Joe inherited a Headway-themed design and the rest is history. Over thirteen years later, he manages a growing WordPress blog network consisting of dozen project-specific or transit news sites. Joe brings expertise in SEO and Accessibility to Metro’s Digital Strategy team.

    Faced with a life-altering heart event in 2017, he pivoted, focusing FIRST on doing the things he truly loved — WordPress, creative passions, teaching tech, and TRULY giving back. He actively contributes to the WordPress Community, founding two WordPress Meetups, is the Lead Organizer for WordCamp Santa Clarita, and a member of the Programming Team for WordCamp US 2020. In April 2019, fifteen months after getting back into the WordPress Community, he watched his brainchild, WordCamp Santa Clarita become the first WordCamp north of Los Angeles and south of San Francisco in since 2014.

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  • John Connelly

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    John Connelly has worked in the digital industry since 2006 as a consultant, digital marketer, SEO specialist, designer and developer. He is a WordPress expert with masterful command of HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, jQuery, plugins and other programming languages. He has worked in-house and contractually for agencies and companies from California to Massachusetts.

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  • Kori Ashton

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    From freelancer to entrepreneur to c-suite, Kori Ashton has spent over twenty years in the digital marketing space. She built up a WordPress agency that sold in 2017 and spends most of her time now consulting with industry brands and agencies on improving your customer retention with persona-driven development.

    She hosts a weekly giveback to the WordPress community on her YouTube Channel. And you can network with her via PressTribe – an online slack channel that she started in 2019 for WordPress freelancers and agency owners.

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  • Laine Nickl

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    Laine is the founder of Audere (ow-DARE-ay) Design Co., an eco-minded web design studio for socially and environmentally conscious brands. At Audere, we collaborate with purpose-led business owners to strategically build beautiful websites that are better for people, planet, and profit. We believe in sharing your story in a way that fully reflects your brand’s essence (values, passion, and impact) AND helps you earn the profit you deserve—while keeping the environment in mind.

    Follow along on Instagram (@auderedesign) or learn more at auderedesign.co.

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  • Lindsay Halsey

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    Lindsay Halsey is a co-founder of Pathfinder SEO. She has over 10 years of experience working in SEO with small to large businesses. Lindsay focuses on teaching business owners and freelancers how to get found in Google, Yahoo, and Bing via a guided approach to SEO.

    Stay in touch on Twitter → @linds_halsey

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  • Maddy Osman

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    Maddy Osman is an SEO Content Strategist who works with clients like AAA, Automattic, Kinsta, and Sprout Social. Her background in WordPress web design contributes to a well-rounded understanding of SEO and how to connect brands to relevant search prospects.

    Learn more about her process and experience on her website, www.The-Blogsmith.com and read her latest articles on Twitter: @MaddyOsman.

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  • Matt Dorman

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    I am a co-founder of Ndevr, a distributed WordPress development company. I started building websites as soon as I got an internet connection back in 1995, and hasn’t stopped since. I built successful sites for clients as big as Time Inc., Johnson & Johnson and Fox News; and as small as, well you wouldn’t even know who they are anyways. I moved West to Colorado in 2015, where I thoroughly enjoy camping and snowboarding with my wife and two boys.

    Matt Dorman on Twitter →

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  • Mauricio Dinarte

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    Mauricio is a web developer at Agaric. He is passionate about Drupal, ReactJS, teaching and traveling. He blogs at understanddrupal.com in English, Spanish, and French. Although relatively new to WordPress, Mauricio believes in the value of free source communities working together. Hence, he looks for collaboration opportunities and ways to learn from each other.

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  • Meeky Hwang

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    Meeky Hwang has been involved in development of WordPress implementation for clients such as Bloomberg, Forbes, Penske Media, Sony Music, New York Times, Time Inc., Hearst, DigitalCommerce 360 and Shaw Media, including Woocommerce site, multi-site, multilingual sites, WordPress.com VIP and platform creation. She has been a core contributor, plugin developer and has spoken at various WordCamps.

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  • Micah Wood

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    A professional WordPress developer for over a decade, Micah has worked on sites for Fortune 100 companies, has released over a dozen WordPress plugins, is a frequent speaker at WordCamps, is a WordCamp Atlanta organizer, is a co-host on the WP Square One podcast, and shares his knowledge by blogging on WordPress development topics. Currently, Micah works at Bluehost and spends most of his time contributing back to WordPress.

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  • Michelle Frechette

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    Michelle has an MBA in Marketing, E-Commerce and Information Systems. She is the Head of Customer Success for Impress.org (developers of GiveWP.com and WPBusinessReviews.com).

    Michelle is the author of “A Good Firm Handshake (and other essential business tips)” available on Amazon.com. She’s also the Podcast Barista at WPCoffeeTalk.com.

    Say hi to Michelle on Twitter and check out her website at WorksByMichelle.com.

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  • Michelle Schulp

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    Michelle Schulp studied Visual Communications, Psychology and Sociology. As her work progressed, she also branched into front-end development and user experience design. This combination of disciplines led her to adopt a strategy-based approach to design, focused on solving tangible problems and achieving real goals based on how people think.

    Now, she collaborates on projects with clients ranging from solopreneurs to enterprise. She loves the open source community, and when she is not working on projects she speaks/volunteers/organizes at events and workshops around the country. Her passions are communication and empowerment, and she believes in the power of “Why?”

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  • Nathan Ingram

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    Nathan is the Host at iThemes Training where he teaches WordPress and freelance business development topics via live webinar.

    Nathan is also the creator of MonsterContracts, a service that provides contracts for WordPress client work that are battle tested, attorney analyzed, annually audited, and member strengthened.

    As the founder of >ADVANCE Coaching, Nathan works with WordPress solopreneurs and business owners individually and in groups to help them become more successful in their businesses.

    Nathan has been working with clients to build websites since 1995. He is based in Birmingham, Alabama where he has been an organizer for WordCamp Birmingham (WP Y’all) for several years.

    You can learn more about Nathan at nathaningram.com.

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  • Niki Mosier

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    Niki is the Head of SEO at Two Octobers, a digital marketing agency in Denver. She has over a decade of helping clients with SEO strategy. Niki has a passion for both technical and local SEO. When she’s not helping clients get better organic search results, Niki is out exploring the Rocky Mountains and learning to fly fish.

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  • Robert Jacobi

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    Robert Jacobi ran 3.5% of the internet. With 20 years experience as an open source executive (President Joomla), entrepreneur, and evangelist, Robert works with small to Fortune 500 companies as a Global Strategist and Solution Ambassador to increase revenue and market awareness.

    Robert is an international, well known, and respected speaker/contributor to open source, hosting, and infrastructure communities. He has served in multiple roles with Joomla, member of Make WordPress Hosting, contributor to ICANN At-Large, and former Chair for the Technical Outreach Working Group of the Internet Infrastructure Coalition.

    Robert loves his two and four legged family, as well as preparing all sort of meals, ask him about his annual marinara weekend.

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  • Zak Weinberg

    Avatar of Zak Weinberg

    I’m passionate about engaging consumers through a unique brand voice grounded in meaningful and strategic research that drives ROI. Just kidding. Anyone can recite a bunch of industry buzz words.

    I like advertising for clients who don’t take themselves too seriously. I like working with well rounded people who have hobbies. If we drive sales, great, that’s typically how it goes if you care about solving problems instead of writing big sentences.

    I like data, but not too much. Even dressing is good with a few bites of salad. Bad joke. My point is advertisers are held too tightly to the whim of rising trends like big data – so much that we’re crippled with indecision. But everyone knows it doesn’t take Gordon Ramsey to make a salad. You need a thoughtful concept before you dress it up with distractions.

    I work in one of the most rewarding careers out there. My passion breaths that sentiment.

    Ultimately, I’m happy I get to think critically everyday. I’m happy to work with great clients and companies. I’m happy to be a hardworking team member and I’m happy to take direction and give it. I’m eager to continue to learn and grow, and lead others in their path towards professional fulfillment.

    We’re not changing the world. We’re just a bunch of big kids trying let people know about the great stuff we make. By the way, have you seen it?

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