How Commerce, Creator, & Consumer Brands Are Built

Chris Kippenberger is a media industry veteran who played a significant role in turning Vice Germany's magazine into a moving image and news organization - working closely with Spike Jones and team. He has collaborated with brands from RollsRoyce to OVO to Luis Vuitton. He's built Vehicule with his wife, Jo, who studied graphic design and visual communication in Switzerland and is the one responsible for making everything the duo creates look great.

Tui Allen is a world renowned product builder. She's the head of product & design at Ampla, and before led Shopify's Capital & Financial Services initiatives. She's an expert in solving customer problems, removing friction, and leading teams, and aligning on product strategy.

Derek Osgood is a seasoned marketing and product professional. He began his career at PlayStation as a brand manager and has since worked in various tech and startup companies leading marketing and product teams. Before starting his own venture, Ignition, he was a crucial part of the Rippling team, where he established the product marketing function. Currently, Derek is focused on building a platform that helps DTC brands, SaaS companies, and anyone launching products, effectively bring their ideas to market. The platform provides market research tools, planning capabilities, and measurement metrics to ensure the success of product launches. Derek is enthusiastic about bringing his comprehensive product launch knowledge to the masses through a user-friendly platform.

Philip Ruffini is the founder and CEO of Content Assistant, a content production agency. He studied business and computer science at the University of Michigan, where he also ran his own e-commerce brand. After selling his business, he worked as a product manager at Microsoft before leaving to start his own unsuccessful startup. He then became a growth consultant for startups in various industries and completed his master's degree at Tsinghua University in China through the Shoresman Scholars program. Philip started Content Assistant after seeing a need for content creation services in the startups he advised.

Scout Brisson is the CEO of De Soi, a non-alcoholic sparkling aperitif brand co-founded by Katy Perry and Morgan McLachlan. With a technical education from MIT, Scout also brings prior experience from working in consumer packaged goods, starting her own functional food and beverage brand, and working in venture and consulting at McKinsey.

Sydney Sykes is an investor, entrepreneur and nonprofit leader who is passionate about the direct consumer space, ecommerce, and venture capital. After graduating university with a psych major, Sydney was drawn to the world of startups and venture capital and joined NEA as an early consumer investor. During her time at Dollskill, Sydney grew and strategized the company's native brands while also angel investing and doing scout investing for Lightspeed. Sydney later joined Lightspeed as a Partner to focus on commerce, future shopping and ecommerce enablement for early stage companies. She is now committed to making an impact in the venture capital space by increasing diversity and furthering innovation in the industry.

Lio Pinchevski is the founder and CEO of Finaloop, the company providing real-time bookkeeping services specifically tailored to DTC and ecommerce brands. Formerly he was a CPA & parter at PwC, as well as a founder of a 7-figure e-commerce brand. Frustrated with traditional bookkeeping systems that couldn't keep pace with e-commerce, Lio built the platform for e-commerce which provides necessary integrations, and eliminates the need for a bookkeeper.

Izzy Gewirtzman is the founder of Shiplion - a consultancy that helps brands optimize and save on shipping costs. After realizing that contracts between businesses and carriers could be optimized to reduce costs and improve service, he started helping companies doing larger volume re-coup costs and optimize COGs by renegotiating their contracts with carriers like FedEx and UPS.

Athan Didaskalou is founder of July, the fast growing travel & luggage brand. He's a product guy by default, and decided to launch July 2019 with business partner, Richard We. They have been pushing to create innovative travel accessories and products that stand out from the competition.

Justin Seidenfeld is an experienced consumer goods expert with over ten years of experience in product design, development, and supply chain management. He is the founder of Doris Dev, a product design, development and supply chain management company, and the creator of Canopy, a humidifier with technology that offers health benefits for skin. Most recently, he incubated a managed service software company, Factored Quality, which provides quality control and supply chain management services through a single point platform with managed services.