iLunch 10.3 : Ten Tips for Mobile Success
Tuesday, January 31st, 11:30am - 2:00pm
The Gladstone Hotel Ballroom - 1214 Queen St. West, Toronto
If you make it, will they come? Your mobile IP needs to to have the right business strategy in order to get the best ROI. This session will focus on helping game developers and IDM producers to find the right growth and exit strategies. Just a few of the topics and tips covered in this session will include: Examining free to play vs paid models, innovative and successful promotional methods, increasing exposure and purchases, virtual goods/add-ons and microtransaction options.11:30am Doors Open & Pre-event Networking
12:00pm Lunch is Served
12:30pm Session Begins
1:30pm Q&A Period
2:00pm Event Wrap & Post-Event Networking
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| MODERATOR | SPEAKER | SPEAKER | SPEAKER | SPEAKER |
| Gary Schwartz CEO Impact Mobile | Andrew Giosa Senior Account Manager, Media & Entertainment Team Royal Bank of Canada | Marc Askenasi Founder, President & CEO Nowphit | Santino Mariani Partner, Taxation KPMG | Neil Sweeney President & CEO, JUICE Mobile |
Over the past nine years, Gary Schwartz has played a leadership role in the mobile industry, founded Impact Mobile in 2002 running the first cross-carrier short code campaign in North America.
In 2006, Gary founded the mobile committee for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) (www.iab.net) (for which he received an IAB award for industry excellence in 2009).
In 2010, Gary was elected as the Chair of MEF North America (www.m-e-f.org) with a remit to develop mobile commerce best practices and advance commerce security and privacy (for which he received a MEF award for industry excellence). In 2011, in partnership with MEF and a number of industry groups including the X9.org security standards body, Gary is working to develop m-commerce security and privacy guidelines.
Gary it the recipient of the Asia and Japan Foundation Fellowship as well as the Macromedia People Choice Award and Dodge Foundation award for innovation. Gary is the author of the mobile industry book, The Impulse Economy, published by Simon & Schuster, Aria Imprint.
With over 4 years of RBC experience, Andrew Giosa has an in-depth knowledge of commercial banking. Andrew provides meaningful business advice and services to RBC’s clients, and continues to connect and engage clients to external and internal partners to add strategic value and help grow their business.
Andrew provides financing to digital media and gaming companies, TV broadcasters and specialty broadcasters, post-production houses, and other companies important to the success of the industry.
Marc Askenasi was the Founder, President, and CEO of Function Mobile, an innovative mobile gaming solutions provider with operations in both North and Latin America. Founded in 2007, Mr. Askenasi led the development, launch, and strategic direction of Function Mobile’s robust gaming platform. In 2009, Mr. Askenasi orchestrated a successful exit for Function Mobile’s investors via acquisition. In 2009, Mr. Askenasi founded Baron Group Ventures, a corporation setup to innovate and provide support to a variety of projects/companies he was involved in with a strong focus on the technology sector.
In 2010, Mr. Askenasi led innovation, branding and product development initiatives for Vital Hub, a technology healthcare company created in partnership with Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto providing healthcare professionals more efficient access to patient information via mobile applications. In 2011, Mr. Askenasi joined the Board of Directors and acts as the Executive Vice President to Gamecorp Ltd., a re-structured public company focused on mining exploration in both Latin and South America.
Also in 2011, Mr. Askenasi founded Nowphit, a new social gaming platform that empowers and inspires individuals to improve their health and fitness. Mr. Askenasi has orchestrated deals with and acted as a consultant/advisor to both private and public companies, advertising agencies, marketing agencies, media groups, publications, governments, national lotteries, telecoms, hospitals, online gaming companies, and mining exploration companies.
Mr. Askenasi also acts as Senior Strategic Advisor to B’nai Brith Canada and is an active member of the Special Advisory Council to the League of Human Rights. Mr. Askenasi graduated with honours from McGill University, where he focused on industrial relations with a triple major in management, economics and sociology.
With over nineteen years’ experience, Santino Mariani provides strategic tax advisory services to clients of all sizes, from small owner-managed entities to large public companies, national and international. He has a broad depth of knowledge and brings astute insights and pragmatic solutions to situations involving cross-border structures, mergers and acquisitions, internal reorganizations, capital tax planning and corporate compliance. He also spearheads KPMG's GTA Digital Media efforts and works extensively with gaming companies providing advice on financing, business structures, growth strategies, and tax incentives.
Santino became recognized for Ontario corporate tax harmonization, apprenticeship credits, digital media credits and the tax diagnostic tool. He prepared a firm-wide toolkit for Ontario refundable credits in 2005 (apprenticeship, co-op and new graduate). He worked with public and private companies to maximize the above claim and deal with related structuring matters (Million dollar claim already filed). Santino has served on the Rogers Tax Team for over 10 years and has audited complex tax provisions, assisted in numerous restructuring projects and identified numerous multi-million tax reductions/credits and worked with Rogers internal tax team to implement.
Santino is a recognized writer and speaker and recently presented on Federal/ Ontario tax harmonization at the Ontario Tax Conference. Other presentation topics include intellectual property, stock-based compensation and capital dividend account planning.
Neil Sweeney has over 15 years experience in the technology, media & entertainment industries working with both venture-backed start-ups and the top publicly traded media companies in Canada. Seeing that the advertising industry lacked a firm focused solely on the mobile space, Mr. Sweeney launched Canada’s first premium mobile marketing firm, JUICE Mobile, in 2010. Since its inception, JUICE has been responsible for ushering more brands into the mobile space than any other firm in Canada.
Throughout his career, Mr. Sweeney has held senior leadership positions in sales, business development, and strategy at firms such as; Stream the World, CanWest Media, Astral, Standard Broadcasting, and CTV. Mr. Sweeney has received numerous academic and business awards, including a Gold medal at the 2007 Media Innovation awards for his integration of mobile technology into the Grammys’ award show. Most recently, he was awarded Canada’s Top Digital Executive at the 2011 Digiawards. Mr. Sweeney’s expertise in strategy & capital markets makes him a frequent speaker at industry events on topics such as emerging technologies and their impact on the media industry. He holds an MBA from the University of Edinburgh.
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