Base.Camp San Antonio Agenda
To learn more about the event, how to request your invitation, sponsorships, and more, please visit the full Base.Camp San Antonio event page. As a note, this agenda (although never final) covers our session topics in great detail. Will you find a break down of every break or meal below? No. But there will be plenty of pauses for refreshment, times to commune, and scheduled meals to make new friends.
CHECK OUT THE FAMOUS TUESDAY AFTERNOON ACTIVITIESSunday, March 1, 2026
| Session Time | Session Title | Session Description |
|---|---|---|
| 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. | Arrival & Registration | Swing by, and grab your swag and badge on your way up to your room. |
| 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. | Spilling the Tea: First-Timers & Mentors Welcome Meetup | Not everyone thrives in a big, loud crowd right away. “Spilling the Tea” is a smaller, more intentional gathering for first-time Base.Campers and any Base.Campers interested in our mentorship program. There are no pre-assigned mentors or awkward pairings. This is simply a friendly space for you to meet people in a way that makes conversation easier and introductions feel natural. And one more thing, this particular meetup is alcohol-free by design. We’ll have non-alcoholic beer, juice, sodas, tea (of course), and plenty of conversation. Drinking has never been a prerequisite for belonging at Base.Camp. Come start slow. Leave feeling connected. |
| 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. | Welcome Reception | We’ll all come together for the first night, before a powerful week of collaboration and problem-solving kicks off. |
Monday, March 2, 2026
| Session Time | Session Title | Session Description |
|---|---|---|
| 7:00 a.m. | Morning Run with Melissa | Join Melissa for a 3-5 mile run to get the day started off right. Walkers, of course, are always welcome. |
| 8:00 a.m. | Breakfast | Grab your coffee, your consciousness, and maybe a croissant (or three). It’s time to start the day. |
| 9:00 a.m. | Opening Remarks | Let’s come together as a community, set the tone for the day, talk about what matters right now … and, of course, reveal the blazer. Rob Beeler, Founder & CEO, Beeler.Tech |
| 9:15 a.m. | Run It Like a Business | Aubrey Bergauer is a visionary leader known for revolutionizing the classical music landscape through innovative, results-driven strategies. She’ll discuss how that framework can apply to digital publishing, so we can move beyond traffic toward loyalty, trust, and sustainable revenue. The result is a practical roadmap for building stronger audience businesses that can fund great content-focused companies for the long term. Aubrey Bergauer, Founder & CEO, Changing the Narrative |
| 10:00 a.m. | Table Talks | We’re starting Base.Camp off differently for San Antonio. Based on what you told us about what you want out of the event, we’ve assigned you a table. Let’s put the “work” in networking. |
| 10:40 a.m. | Networking Coffee Break | A brief intermission, so you can resume your journey with a cup of Joe. (And maybe sneak in a quick bio break.) |
| 11:00 a.m. Breakouts | Macro vs. Micro AI Transformation | The topic of every conversation is AI, but as we leave the hype cycle and enter the practical application phase of AI, there are implications for what comes next and how you fit in. The primary question is: should you guide your organization through a macro transformation, or is it better to focus on micro and “heal with a thousand band aids” until the organization organically transforms itself? AI is already being used throughout the organization, and how it is used changes by the day. On one side of the conversation, people and companies need time to best understand how it fits in. On the other side, you believe you know what the long-term outlook is, and it takes time for an investment in that future to come to life and apply. This session will focus on a conversation about different ways to think about these arguments and how you can set yourself up for success in this organization of the future. Cory Treffiletti, Chief Marketing & Digital Officer, Rembrand Richard Jalichandra, CEO Coach, 6-Time VC & PE CEO Rob Beeler, Founder & CEO, Beeler.Tech |
| RFPs Right Now: AI Direct-Sold Workflow | Receiving and responding to RFPs is a real opportunity for publishers. Not only to bring AI into their existing processes, but also to prepare for what comes next. Jason Tollestrup, Head of Monetization and Revenue Operations, The Washington Post | |
| Programmatic Progress: Controlling What We Can Control | Where are the opportunities to claw back control of our programmatic destinies? KiYonna Carr, Director, Yield Strategy & Business Intelligence, Yahoo | |
Who are These Humans in The Loop? | AI “experts” talk about the “humans in the loop.” Specifically, the part humans will play in our future. For publishers, what roles will remain, what skills will they need, and how do we prepare our teams? Melissa Chapman, Head of Community & Operations, Beeler.Tech Raef Godwin, Program Director, Beeler.Tech | |
| Morning Keynote Continued | We’ll spend more quality time with Aubrey Bergauer, so she can bring her unique perspective to the discussions we are looking to have. Aubrey Bergauer, Founder & CEO, Changing the Narrative | |
| 12:00 p.m. | Move! Move! Move! | Giddy up! It’s time to skedaddle to your next session! |
| 12:15 p.m. Breakouts | Main Room Meetings with our VIPs | We’re trying something new. For our VIPs who aren’t presenting or attending a case study, there will be a spot in the main room for our publisher attendees to spend time with them. It’s a chance to learn about a potential solution to your revenue problems. |
Case Study: Prebid Server Success for In-App in 48 Hours | WeatherBug, a leading weather media platform, faced an urgent monetization challenge during their ad server migration. Without a managed Prebid Server solution, their test performance fell short, putting revenue at risk. With a complex tech stack that includes a new Prebid Mobile SDK, GAM, Amazon TAM, and Nimbus, along with limited engineering resources, they needed a fast, seamless replacement. Learn how WeatherBug deployed Aditude’s Prebid Server in just 48 hours after launch approval, onboarded 17 demand partners, achieved a 70% bid rate, and closed the performance gap to greenlight their full migration—offering a clear blueprint for stabilizing and scaling your monetization stack under pressure. Catherine Beattie, Director, Programmatic, WeatherBug Josh Robins, Director of Engineering (Growth), Aditude | |
| Case Study: Applying AI Where It Actually Helps, Lessons from Publisher Revenue Operations | Condé Nast’s commercial team supports dozens of brands and markets where constant upstream changes and predictable tentpole spikes can trigger a flood of alerts. Historically, this meant reacting to issues after they surfaced and spending significant time manually triaging fluctuations to determine what truly required action. Partnering with Switchboard, they implemented AI-assisted monitoring built around how operators actually evaluate performance. The result: faster detection of real delivery issues, reduced time spent triaging expected fluctuations, earlier visibility into upstream changes, and clearer focus for senior operators—along with a more grounded understanding of what AI should and shouldn’t do in publisher revenue operations. Max Kalfus, Executive Director, Global Performance & Measurement, Condé Nast Ju-kay Kwek, CEO & Co-Founder, Switchboard Software | |
| Case Study: Rethinking Brand Safety and Reclaiming Lost Revenue | Brand-safety assumptions about news are shifting, and new Hearst data shows that premium news continues to hold attention and deliver real outcomes for advertisers. Hearst will unpack what buyers think they’re avoiding versus the incremental reach, high-value audiences, and ROAS they’re quietly leaving on the table – including how a leading global brand and its agency partner went from “no news” to some of the most active buyers of premium news inventory. Together with Wunderkind, Hearst will show how modern brand-safety and suitability approaches are winning back buyers, and how publishers can reframe perceived risk to reclaim budget. Michael Irenski, SVP, Programmatic Strategy, Hearst Newspapers & Television Saajan Patel, Executive Director, Publisher Partnerships, Wunderkind | |
| Case Study: Recovering Lost Monetization Efficiency Without Adding Ads | Graham Media Group reclaimed significant revenue by fixing hidden inefficiencies in its monetization stack—not by chasing more demand. By using Mile AI’s execution-level analytics to diagnose issues masked by stable topline metrics, the team identified auction failures, weak cookie-less competition, mispriced floors, and underperforming client-side demand. Discover how Graham Media Group restored competition with unified identity, improved pricing accuracy through AI-driven dynamic floors, and expanded Prebid Server to unlock higher-value bidders… all without increasing ad density or altering page layouts. Kevin Antoine, Head of Digital Rev Ops, BD, Yield, Graham Media Group Sarah Ruxin, SVP, Revenue & Operations, Mile AI | |
| 1:00 p.m. | Chow Time | After a big morning of wrangling with key topics, we’re sure you’ve worked up quite the appetite. It’s also a great chance to start connecting with new connections! |
| 2:00 p.m. | How Minds Change | Change comes in two flavors in our industry: changes that are forced upon us (regulations, innovation, world events, politics), and change we want to drive in our teams, organizations, and across publishing as a whole. But we can only be agents of change if we first understand how minds change at all, including our own. In this paradigm-shifting, interactive keynote, David McRaney (author of How Minds Change; reasoning, self-delusion, and psychology expert) will help us answer the question: How do minds change? David has uncovered and woven together the latest research across fields of psychology—research that reveals that even though it seems like real change takes generations to become visible, it can happen within a lifetime,within minutes. David McRaney, Science Journalist & Author, ‘How Minds Change’ |
| 2:45 p.m. | Skedaddle! | Move! Move! Move! There’s more to do! |
| 2:55 p.m. Breakouts | From Crawling to Compensation: Inside the CoMP Initiative | The Content Monetization Protocols (CoMP) initiative from the IAB Tech Lab aims to create technical standards that let publishers signal access, usage rights, and monetization expectations to AI systems in a machine-readable way. This session explains what CoMP is designed to solve, how it works at a practical level, and what publisher teams should be thinking about as content value shifts from clicks to compensable usage. Shailley Singh, COO & EVP Product, IAB Tech Lab |
| A Brand Safety Framework that Works | Publishers with UGC content haven’t had the luxury of waiting for brand safety to “sort itself out.” Instead, they’ve taken matters into their own hands: working with buy-side partners to make sure opportunities aren’t lost for the wrong reasons. Peter Chang, Senior Director, Programmatic Monetization, Fandom | |
| Forecasting Beyond GAM: New Approaches to Revenue Prediction | Predictability in this day and age feels impossible… and you know someone in your company doesn’t give a shit. Let’s talk about what solutions exist to understand what we have to work with to generate revenue. Chelly Jones, Director, Advertising Operations, The Washington Post | |
| Afternoon Keynote Continued | We’ll spend more quality time with David McRaney, so he can share more insights about how change actually works. David McRaney, Science Journalist & Author, ‘How Minds Change’ | |
| Managing Across Direct, Programmatic and Agentic Revenue Channels | The title says it all. How do we make sure we have the tools, teams, and processes to understand our businesses? Evan Thor, VP, Revenue Operations, TextNow | |
| 3:55 p.m | Afternoon Coffee Break | Long Day? We warned you. But stretch it out, grab a coffee, and summon that second wind. We’re not done yet. |
| 4:15 p.m. | Table Talks: Let’s Get Specific | Table Talks topics will be driven by our pre-game discussions and survey with attendees. This is your opportunity to have small-group and one-to-one conversations with the right people about the issues that are keeping you up at night. |
| 5:00 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. | Wrapping Up the Day | As the sun sets on day one, we’ll come together to recap the big topics of today and prepare for Tuesday. |
| 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. | Texas Independence Day at the Buckhorn Saloon! | Time to giddy-up and party, cowpokes! Bring your boots, hats, jeans, pearl-snap shirts, the whole western kit. If you own it, wear it. If you have ever wanted an excuse to wear it, congratulations, you just got one! We’re taking over the Buckhorn Saloon & Museum for Texas Independence Day, and this place is pure San Antonio. It’s a historic venue that proves everything really is bigger in Texas. That means there’s no playing small tonight. Dress like Texas deserves it! |
Tuesday, March 3, 2026
| Session Time | Session Title | Session Description |
|---|---|---|
| 8:00 a.m. | Rise & Shine, Cowpoke! | Fortunately for you, we’re serving more than pork and beans. |
| 9:00 a.m. | Reflect on Monday, Plan for Today | We’re back for another day. We’ll recap the hivemind goodness that came out of day one and talk about how to make the most of day two. |
| 9:10 a.m. | You Know Your Way Now, Find Your Next Session | It’s time to get moving, folks. Today’s magic isn’t going to make itself. |
| 9:15 a.m. Breakouts | Main Room Meetings with our VIPs | We’re trying something new. For our VIPs who aren’t presenting or attending a case study, there will be a spot in the main room for publishers to spend time with them. It’s a chance to learn about a potential solution to your revenue problems. |
Case Study: Rebuilding the Backbone of Ad Sales | Yahoo reorganized how sales and operations work together—and then had to make that new structure run cleanly in the real world. In this session, Dana Gerber walks through the practical work of rebuilding the backbone of ad sales in partnership with DanAds: creating a true “system of truth” for order management, reducing cross-team friction, and designing workflows that prioritize speed without trading away revenue. You’ll also get into one of the most stubborn bottlenecks in campaign delivery—creative assembly, from collecting assets to meeting specs—and how tightening that process reduces the time teams spend collecting assets and getting specs right, so campaign delivery stops stalling out. Dana Gerber, Director, Client Experience/Account Management, Yahoo Matt Rohrs, VP, Self-Service Sales, DanAds | |
| Case Study: How The Daily Beast Cut AdTech Friction and Lifted RPM by 30% | The Daily Beast simplified a complex ad stack, sped up testing, and improved transparency—all while preserving its subscription-first user experience. Working with Assertive Yield, the team accelerated experimentation, reduced engineering bottlenecks, and deployed an agnostic Prebid path that boosted viewability by ~20% and RPM by ~30%. This session will show how a lean publisher can unlock meaningful revenue gains without adding ad clutter or compromising UX. Katie Pillich, EVP, Strategy & Business Operations, The Daily Beast Sherzod Rizaev, COO, Assertive Yield | |
| Case Study: Reclaiming Video Revenue in a Social-First World | In this session, you’ll hear how CNN Brasil redesigned monetization around ownership, context, and user respect — not friction. As social platforms captured distribution, they brought high-value video back to their own pages by embedding contextual YouTube content into relevant articles and launching a lightweight, opt-in AdWall for engaged users. No autoplay. No intrusive formats. Just results: 50%+ revenue growth, stronger engagement, $12+ CPMs — and a resilient model where attention is earned and owned. Alexandra Mendonca, Chief Digital & Innovation Officer, CNN Brasil Livia Matos, Managing Director LATAM, Membrana Media | |
| Case Study: Signals That Pay Off | In partnership with The Trade Desk, the team at People Inc. explored how greater transparency translates into actionable insights that power real-time inventory optimization through tools like PubDesk. The session highlights how increased visibility in the supply chain drives stronger outcomes for both buyers and sellers—and how publisher feedback directly shapes The Trade Desk’s evolving product roadmap. By the end of the conversation, you’ll have a clear understanding of how to strengthen your SPO strategy, leverage real-time signal adoption data at both the site and bundle levels to improve workflows, and resolve issues more efficiently. Ultimately, you’ll gain a sharper perspective on how to ensure value in the supply chain flows to the partners who truly earn it. Patrick McCarthy, SVP Programmatic Monetization, People Inc. Rob Hazan, GM, Product Management, The Trade Desk | |
| 10:00 a.m. | Networking Coffee Break | Get vertical, caffeinate, politely debate session highlights, and then carry on. |
| 10:20 a.m. Breakouts | Beyond Browser Restrictions: Inside IAB Tech Lab’s Trusted Server | Browsers have steadily tightened restrictions on key advertising signals and third-party code, forcing publishers onto the defensive and eroding monetization control. The Trusted Server initiative from the IAB Tech Lab is an open-source, server-side ad management framework that shifts critical ad functions out of the browser and into publisher-operated infrastructure, preserving first-party data, improving privacy compliance, and reducing reliance on third-party JavaScript. In this session, you’ll learn how Trusted Server works, why it matters for sustainable ad revenue and audience control, and what publishers can do to participate in shaping and testing the framework. Jason Evans, Trusted Server Architect, IAB Tech Lab |
| Revenue Beyond Our Sites | Publishers are looking beyond the pages of their websites for revenue. Let’s discuss what opportunities are out there. | |
| Internalizing Agentic Sales: the Build vs. Buy Decision | A November poll of Beeler.Tech publisher community members indicated that most were looking to build their own sales agents. Let’s discuss the pros and cons of that strategy. | |
| Present-Day Possibilities | The other sessions at this time are focused on what could be. What do we do with what we have now? What levers are left to pull? What stones are left unturned? | |
| 11:20 a.m. | Enjoy a Well-Deserved Break | Chat up neighbors, pretend to check emails. Then, off you go! |
| 11:30 a.m. | Day Two: Tying It All Together | We have covered so much ground in such a short period of time. Let’s take a moment collectively to see what’s left to cover while we are in San Antonio and what we might continue to discuss after the event. Rob Beeler, Founder & CEO, Beeler.Tech |
| 12:00 p.m. | Lunch! | Yes, we’re starving as well. So, get along ya little doggies. Grab some grub, strike up a convo with your neighbor, and fuel up for an afternoon of memory-making. |
| 12:00 p.m. to 5 p.m. | Base.Camp’s Famous Tuesday Afternoon Activities (Organized by Kitty Gunther) | |
| 6:15 p.m. Dinner | Dinner on the San Antonio River Barges! | Meet at the El Capistrano room at the hotel where we will send you off on an unforgettable dinner on a barge cruise along the San Antonio Riverwalk! Enjoy stunning views, delicious cuisine, and vibrant atmosphere as Boudros famous restaurant serves you a meal you won’t soon forget! Please bring a jacket as it gets cool along the river. |
| 8:30 p.m. | After Party: Immersive Art at Hopscotch | Then we head to Hopscotch to participate in the most creative and interactive event venue in town. This is when the night turns beautifully strange. You’ll start upstairs at the bar, which is all atmosphere. Grab a drink, get your bearings, and then head downstairs into a dark basement, where it’s time to come alive through a dozen interactive art exhibits. Think LED rooms that practically dare you to dance, installations that react as you move, and even a giant adult ball pit. You’ll say you’re not going in, but you will. The energy of the night will make it impossible to resist. To dress for the occasion, turn yourself into your own radiant work of art. Think black with neon accents. Anything that makes you glow in the dark. (And don’t worry, we’ll also have glowing neon accessories to help you put the final touches on your look once you get there!) Don’t forget: Bring a jacket, for the cool river breeze on the barge. For Hopscotch, bring socks. Some areas are socks only. Do not be the person who didn’t bring socks. |
Wednesday, March 4, 2026
| Session Time | Session Title | Session Description |
|---|---|---|
| 8:00 a.m. | Rise & Shine, Cowpoke! | Wakey-wakey, eggs and bakey! Get your spirits and energy up, before we start our… final day together. (We know, we hate that, too!) |
| 9:00 a.m. | Make Every Second Count on Wednesday | Gather ’round before we dive into the final needle-moving conversations of our time together. |
| 9:10 a.m. | Don’t Dawdle, Wednesday Sessions Are Waiting! | And away we go, onward to your next session! |
| 9:20 a.m. Breakouts | The Main Attraction: Part I | Part I of a half-day meeting to discuss programmatic transparency. We have invited folks from both the SSP and DSP worlds to participate in many small group, structured working sessions to uncover new findings. Gareth Glaser, CEO, Gamera, Inc. Ashley Wheeler, SVP, DV+ Platform, Magnite Anthony Yam, EVP Product Strategy, Mediaocean James Wilhite, VP of Product, Index Exchange Mike Canterbury, Product Manager, Yahoo |
| Traffic Tactics: Getting People (not bots) to our Sites | You may not be in the audience growth department at your company (if you have one), but regardless of your role, you should be looking at how changing traffic patterns impact revenue. Let’s talk tactics. Michael Newman, Director of Transformation, Graham Media Group | |
| Running Campaigns & Raising Humans: Surviving Ops as a Parent | A candid, no-judgment conversation for professionals across Ad Ops, Rev Ops, Sales Ops, and Programmatic navigating always-on roles while raising families. This session explores practical ways to manage launches and fire drills without burnout, set sustainable boundaries, and build processes that reduce hero culture. Learn how flexibility, documentation, and smarter coverage models help ops teams perform at a high level — without being available 24/7. Jessica Boiardi, VP of Revenue Operations, Mirror Digital | |
| 10:15 a.m. | Networking Coffee Break & Check out of Hotel | Spend time with your friends, new and old. Frantically track down rogue chargers that have escaped your grasp. Test the limits of the expansion capabilities of your suitcase. But be quick, we’ve got a few more goodies in store this afternoon. |
| 10:45 a.m. Breakouts | The Main Attraction: Part II | Part II of a half-day meeting to discuss programmatic transparency. We have invited folks from both the SSP and DSP worlds to participate in many small group, structured working sessions to uncover new findings. Gareth Glaser, CEO, Gamera, Inc. Ashley Wheeler, SVP, DV+ Platform, Magnite Anthony Yam, EVP Product Strategy, Mediaocean James Wilhite, VP of Product, Index Exchange Mike Canterbury, Product Manager, Yahoo |
| The New CV | You shouldn’t hire based on experience alone: you need to be looking at people’s potential. Let’s discuss who we want to bring onto our teams. Oh, don’t think that we’re not going to discuss our own potential and how to develop it. Melissa Chapman, Head of Community & Operations, Beeler.Tech Raef Godwin, Program Director, Beeler.Tech | |
| Ops Out Loud | Welcome to scream therapy for publishers. Sound off. Seriously. Say the things that aren’t being said that need to be said. Tell us the stories that need to be told. Share the problems that need to be solved. It’s a safe space, but what you collectively say here will be heard beyond our time in San Antonio. You’ve told us before you want your voice to be heard. This is your place to do it. Liz Moorehead, Content + Below the Fold Editor, Beeler.Tech | |
| 11:30 p.m. | Come on Back to the Main Room, Ya Hear? | Do what you’ve got to do while we prepare to bring it home. |
| 11:45 a.m. | Closing Session & Wrap Up | You’ll soon be on your way home. One last hurrah before you go? Rob Beeler, Founder & CEO, Beeler.Tech |
| 12:15 p.m. | Last Lunch with All Your New Friends | You can’t travel on an empty stomach. Plus, you’ve made some great connections over the past few days. Catch up, share ideas, and take time to talk about what we can all accomplish together. (Just don’t talk with your mouth full.) |