Dave Kupiec – Founder/CEO

With a three decade career in Media Strategy, Magazine Publishing and Sales Management, Dave has worked directly with every top 100 brand in America. In his first stop, as a VP at major advertising agencies, Dave learned the building blocks of how to construct a strategic plan as well as how to build creative and unique programs for his clients. His subsequent roles as a Marketing Director at Conde Nast’s Gourmet and Publisher at Wenner Media (Men’s Journal, Rolling Stone, US Weekly) fueled his passion for leveraging first class content to help drive brand’s KPIs.

In 2002, Dave became EVP Sales/Marketing and part of the founding executive team which built NCM, the largest Cinema advertising company in the world.  He and his team took NCM public in 2007 (NCMI on NASDAQ). Dave left the company in 2020 to launch KPI Media Partners

Ian Owen Ward – Co-founder of Thece and Creator of the Esports/Gaming Livestream Ad Network

Ian began his Media career in the UK in 1993 at PC Magazine.  He then ran MAGtrack, a research company for 2 years before creating Nettest a pre cursor to Survey Monkey. He sold both companies in 1998/1999.

Ian then moved to the US as Ad Director of Internet Week before returning to his first company as the Associate Publisher of PC Magazine.

In a quest to evolve print journalism, Ian went to the National Newspaper Network as VP of Digital Development to build their first Online Ad Network. After four years of financial success, he moved to National CineMedia (NCMI on NASDAQ) as SVP of Digital Sales, where he built a unique product called Cinema Accelerator to reach Moviegoers after they left the theaters. This model has already exceeded $100 million in revenue.

In 2017 Ian departed NCM for his next entrepreneurial challenge and joined Zack Rozga who was developing a mobile platform for the post cookie world.  Ian could see experiential benefit to Zack’s omnichannel idea and took a stake in the company, becoming CRO/ CoFounder of Thece (The Consumer Engagement Co.). They have built the first Esports/Gaming Livestream Ad Network by aggregating influencers from pro Esports teams, such as Misfits, Version1 Rocker and Team Liquid.

Cherian Thomas – CEO of Octopus

Cherian is the Co-Founder & CEO of Octopus Interactive (“Octopus”)—the nation’s largest network of video-entertainment screens inside Uber and Lyft vehicles.

Octopus partners with the some of the world’s largest brands including Disney, Sprint, Red Bull, Walmart, Marriott, Tiffany & Co., National Geographic, Waze and more to deliver rich media content to a captive (and highly sought-after) rideshare audience. Octopus reaches millions of unique rideshare passengers across the top DMAs throughout the nation.

Prior to founding Octopus, Cherian co-founded Spotluck—a restaurant discovery app that combines gamification with dynamic pricing to maximize yield for restaurants. Spotluck’s proprietary pricing software automatically fluctuates restaurant prices (though smart discounts) based on day, time and weather.

Cherian holds two Masters degrees and an Honorary Doctorate. He serves as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and is an active member of the Board of Associates at Hood College.