| 8:00 am | Breakfast & Networking | Someone said breakfast is the most important meal of the day. They’re probably sleeping in. Not you though! Get here and get ready for a big day! |
| 9:00 am | Welcome Remarks | Kicking off Navigator, but yes, it’s also the big jacket reveal. |
| 9:10 am | Keynote Session:
Building Publisher Brands | Imagine being a publisher without a website and you’ll start to understand how Sharon Mussalli (CEO, NowThis) and her team at NowThis are rethinking the traditional publisher business model. Building a recognizable brand with unique content, engaging with their audience and focusing only on what they do best may be the recipe everyone else should follow. |
10:05 am
Breakout
Sessions | | |
| The Power of Product | It’s time to tear down the walls between departments. Let’s discuss how product and operations can align to create a more profitable organization. With Ariscielle Novicio, CTO & SVP of Product & Digital Strategy, New York Post. |
| Ad Tech Spring Cleaning: Actions to Refresh & Maximize Yield in a Tough Market | Hidden inefficiencies can quietly drain revenue. Discuss actionable strategies to optimize ad stack by revisiting overlooked initiatives and prioritizing quality. With Jeremy Gan, EVP Advertising, MailOnline. |
| Redefining Media Buying: Agentic Advertising | Join us for an in-depth discussion with Scope3 about their recent product launches, including their AI-powered Brand Standards tool and the expansion into sustainable AI practices. Did they just change the game? With Michael Freyberger, Co-Founder & CTO, Scope3, and David Fischer, GM, Global Ad Tech Platforms & Publishers, Scope3. |
| Compliance Is a Balancing Act | Not being compliant is a risk you don’t want to take. Overcompliance is nearly as bad, robbing you of revenue you’ll never see by limiting your business opportunities. Strike the right balance and you’ll be prepared for whatever comes next. With Daniel Rosenzweig, Founder & Principal Attorney, DBR Tech Law and Feras Ahmed, Assistant General Counsel, Privacy, Dotdash Meredith. |
| CTV Table Talks | Let’s gather, determine the most pressing CTV topics and then break into tables to dig deep into individual topics. Moderated by Kartal Göksel, Chief Technology Officer, Seedtag. |
| Operational Velocity: How Publishers Can Scale + Transform Without Breaking the Business | Launching something new or overhauling legacy infrastructure shouldn’t require heroic effort from an already-stretched internal team. But when the timeline is short and the stakes are high, publishers have to make sharp operational decisions about where to invest their focus… and where trusted outside support can make the difference.
In this session, you’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at how Audacy stood up a creator-focused podcast marketplace in just three weeks and migrated over 10,000 ad campaigns to a new server in six, all without disruption or lost revenue. We’ll also unpack how the right combination of internal focus and external execution allowed their team to meet aggressive timelines, navigate complexity, and stay aligned on what mattered most. You’ll leave with grounded insights into how publishers like you can tackle high-stakes projects under pressure with partners, while staying in control of outcomes, resources, and internal priorities. With Travis Ayer, Director of Business Development, OAO and Luke Cori, VP, Ad Tech Partnerships, Audacy Inc. |
11:15 am
Breakout Sessions | | |
| Putting Your Data To Work | If your data only powers your ad targeting, you are not realizing your potential return. You are sitting on more revenue opportunities than you think. Let’s reframe the data strategy conversation to build in more profitable revenue streams and prepare for an AI-powered future. With Janice Liu, CEO, The Mantis Group. |
| The Big Identity Reset: Why Publishers Must Collaborate to Win | Disclaimer: This is not another boring session on ID. Come and join us if you believe publishers deserve to be leaders — not followers — in the next era of digital advertising.
The publishing industry stands at a pivotal moment. As platforms tighten their grip and third-party solutions rush to fill the void, we risk losing not just value — but our influence and our relevance. Yet together, we have the power to change the course. Join Ozone and News Corp for a rallying call to rebuild identity the right way: publisher-centric, strategic, and built to last. It’s time to reclaim control and shape a future where publishers lead with strength and purpose. With Danny Spears, COO, Ozone and David Rowley, VP, Revenue Technology, News Corp. |
| Dealing with the Deluge of Deal IDs | Nothing is growing faster than the proliferation of deal IDs. That should be a good thing. Unfortunately, it’s not. Let’s discuss how to dig out of this mess. With Will Doherty, SVP Inventory Development, The Trade Desk. |
| In Search Of: Direct Sold Innovation | For many publishers, the direct sold revenue channel is everything. Let’s discuss from self serve to product development to workflow automation where to put our energy to grow our profitability. With Ray Adamson, VP of Publisher Development, FatTail and Rob Beeler, Founder & CEO, Beeler.Tech. |
| Data Collaboration in Action: Using Clean Rooms and First-Party Data To Deliver Outcomes | In a digital ecosystem that is moving beyond third-party cookies, The Globe and Mail has developed creative ad products to harness the power of their first party identity data and use data collaboration to deliver outcomes for their advertisers. By partnering with Optable, Globe & Mail built an end-to-end marketing solution for their advertiser VIA Rail and their agency partner Touché (OMG). Through these solutions they have been able to grow revenues and strengthen relationships with their advertising partners. This session will walk through two impactful case studies that demonstrate how clean rooms can be used not only for secure audience planning & targeting but also for privacy-safe measurement and attribution. With Bennett Crumbling, Head of Marketing, Optable, Kabil Rahaman, Head of Data Optimization, The Globe and Mail, and Soleil Adler, Commercial Data Manager, Revenue, The Globe and Mail. |
| Solving for Pharma (and for Advertisers in General) | Pharma advertisers operate in a uniquely constrained environment—but those challenges inspire creative buying strategies. Hear from Hibo and Allie as they discuss what pharma needs beyond programmatic and how publishers can play a stronger role in unlocking high-value outcomes. With Hibo Ali Griffin, Group Director, CAM, IPG Mediabrands and Allie Lichtenberg, Founder & CEO, AD LUCEM. |
| NOON | Lunch time! | Sit with People You Don’t Know, Expand Your Network. |
| 1:10 pm | Keynote Session:
The Art of Choosing | In The Art of Choosing, Columbia Business School professor Dr. Sheena Iyengar, Founder, Think Bigger, draws from her award-winning, discipline-spanning research to explore the “3 Cs” of choosing: Choice Overload, Culture, and Creativity. Iyengar delves into the intricacies of how we make choices and how those choices shape our lives. This talk covers a range of decisions, from the trivial to the profound, offering surprising insights into our decision-making processes and how we can improve them.
Key Takeaways from Dr. Iyengar’s speech:
Find out what effective leaders need to know about choice and how to choose your way to success.
Understand the differences in how people perceive choice, and its effect on what people want and how they act.
Learn the effect that the ability to choose has on job performance. For example, Iyengar cited Google’s policy of allowing employees to work on their own projects for 20 percent of the time. Fifty percent of Google’s new products, including Gmail and Google Voice, have come out of employee projects.
Discover how to give people the kinds of choices that will motivate them.
Recognize how choice is viewed in different cultural contexts. |
2:20 pm
Breakout Sessions | | |
| Taking The High Road in CTV | At the recent CIMM event in New York City this past April it became clear that one of the biggest issues facing the industry today is fraud, the same fraud that has given digital media a less-than-stellar reputation. So what can legitimate CTV and OLV publishers do to identify themselves as the good guys, and what is the buy side doing about ensuring their own systems are diligent about finding and buying only real CTV viewers?
In this session, Andrew Rosenman, Founder & President, Arise Communications Inc. and Rebecca Kabir, VP of Product, Blockboard will guide a discussion to help publishers to understand the technical and operational mechanisms that will help the demand side to identify real people watching premium CTV. |
| The Curation Layer, a Publisher Perspective | Future will explain how they approach and manage Curation from a practical perspective to maximize opportunities, increase transparency and mitigate risks. With Nicolas Schueller, CEO & Co-Founder, Adomik and Jeff Goldstein, VP, Programmatic & Yield, Future. |
| Is Trusted Server a New Paradigm for Publishers? | IAB Tech Lab has put forth a proof of concept called Trusted Server. The goal is to move publishers toward a server-to-server world where the browsers no longer dictate their business model. There’s much work to be done – let’s dive into the details. With Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. |
| Proving You’re Human May Mean Everything | The tsunami of AI sludge is coming to the open marketplace. How do we keep our heads above it and prove that humans need human-created content? With Todd Miller, VP, Policy & Compliance, Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG). |
| Importance of Identity Solutions for the Sell Side | Fandom shares their perspective on the importance of identity and how they approach bid enhancement. With Tamir Shub. VP, Business Development, Intent IQ and Jason Tollestrup, VP, Global Revenue Strategy & Operations, Fandom. |
| Agencies That Zig Where Holding Companies Zag | Independent agencies are looking to unlock the value of publisher relationships. Let’s forge some new friendships. With Kasha Cacy, Chief Media Officer, Known. |
3:30 pm
Breakout Sessions | | |
| Unlocking Higher Quality Actions from Users | Step one: get someone to your website. Step two: make them interact in ways that help you strengthen your relationship with them and your advertisers. With Lindsay Van Kirk, SVP & Group GM, D/Cipher, Dotdash Meredith. |
| Collaboration Over Closed Ecosystems | The next chapter in the evolution of the web depends on a foundation of transparency, flexibility, and healthy competition. For publishers and the broader ecosystem to thrive, the web must remain open. Now is the time to rethink the role of the ad server, redefine identity solutions, and build true interoperability across all channels. Prebid is calling on the industry to engage, contribute, and shape this future together. With Michael Racic, President, Prebid. |
| The Curation Spark in the Programmatic Forest | You know you want your inventory curated. So why the long face? Gareth will challenge your thinking about how you’re thinking through the latest publisher obsession. With Gareth Glaser, Co-Founder/CEO, Gamera Inc. and Scott Messer, AdTech Therapist, Messer Media. |
| No, Not MFA: Publisher Quality | The Made For Advertising conversation has had the wrong framing since its inception. Our businesses are made for advertising, so how is that a bad thing? It’s time to talk about publisher quality so that companies that do it well are rewarded. With Neal Thurman, Co-Founder, Brand Safety Institute and Gabriel Dorosz, Founder, Mighty Blackbird. |
| Smarter Stacks, Stronger Returns: AdTech Meets MarTech | Revenue doesn’t stop at advertising. When newsletter growth, magazine subscriptions, and ad monetization come together under one cohesive strategy, the results speak for themselves. In this breakout, we will explore how Trusted Media Brands aligned their AdTech and MarTech efforts to unlock new revenue streams, boost engagement, and deliver a stronger ROI across their digital ecosystem. With Saajan Patel, Executive Director, Publisher Sales & Operations, Wunderkind and Stephen Irenski, VP, Operations & Programmatic Revenue, Digital, Trusted Media Brands. |
| Commerce & Retail Media Networks: A Reality Check | RMNs have quickly inserted themselves into the ecosystem, changing the dynamics between brands, agencies, publishers, and consumers. They’re not done yet. With Elizabeth Donovan, SVP, Global Head of Commerce & Retail Media Networks, Acxiom Kinesso and Amie Owen Global Chief Commerce Officer, IPG Mediabrands. |
| 4:30 pm | Keynote Session:
Driving a Data-Driven Strategy | Jessica Hogue will explain how her role as Chief Data Officer, Consumer Media at Hearst came to be and her goal of aligning three big companies into one holistic data strategy. We’re not talking about data aggregation. We’re talking about the next transformation of publishers to be truly data-driven organizations. |
| 5:00 pm | Let’s Wrap this Sucker Up | The day is done. The impact, however, will continue. |
| End of Day | Drinks & Nibbles | Your last chance to meet that one person who will help catapult your career! |
