About The Organizers
Gerard Cox
Gerard Cox is President and CEO of Creole. He is the co-producer for TEDxNOLA. Creole is a boutique consulting helping organizations master vision, strategy, execution, performance, and culture by taking a design angle and focusing on the human elements of business. Creole was the primary sponsor of TEDxOilSpill in Washington, DC. Gerard and Creole also spearheaded the Declaration of Innovation and promotional activities associated with the Gulf Aid Relief Concert. Prior to Creole, Gerard was President of Human Networks, VP Product Development of NetByTel, CTO of Streamline Medical, VP Technology of iBooks.com and Consulting Manager for Trilogy Software. Gerard is active in entrepreneurship having consulted for two Venture Capital firms and being instrumental in raising over $100 million dollars of funding for 3 high profile startups. Gerard is a member New Orleans Regional Leadership Institute, Aspen Institute Society of Fellows, and several professional organizations.
Scott Aiges
Scott Aiges is the Director of Programs, Marketing and Communications for the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, the nonprofit that owns the world-famous Jazz Fest. Previously, he served as Director of Music Business Development for the City of New Orleans, as a consultant to the State of Louisiana on music industry development issues, as a band manager and booking agent, as a conference director and as pop music and jazz editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
Dana Eness
Dana Eness has been Executive Director of The Urban Conservancy since 2007. Dana was a founding board member of The Urban Conservancy’s Stay Local! initiative to create a robust economy based on strong locally-owned businesses. After receiving her MA in Latin American Studies from Tulane University, Dana worked in non-profit administration, cultural programming, and community development. Post-Katrina, Dana took the position at The Urban Conservancy to work on issues related to New Orleans’ sustainable recovery. She lives in the Riverbend neighborhood with her husband and two children.
www.urbanconservancy.org
www.staylocal.org
Lauren S. Goldfinch
Lauren was born and raised in Mid-City, New Orleans. She graduated summa cum laude from LSU with a B.S. in Environmental Management Systems and performed thesis work that was an integral part of the large-scale, long-term research projects being conducted on salt marsh restoration of the Gulf Coast. Since Hurricane Katrina, Lauren worked in California as an environmental scientist investigating and remediating brownfield sites contaminated with oil and gasoline. She moved back home to New Orleans early this year to join FutureProof, a sustainable design consultancy. She has recently become an accidental activist, primarily in regards to protecting human health and the environment, in response to the BP Oil Drilling Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. She has spoken at various public events and forums, has organized demonstrations, and has been dubbed the Pearly Oyster Queen of the Krewe of Dead Pelicans, a group of over 5,000 strong, formed in New Orleans in response to the disaster. She will be speaking in Washington, D.C. on behalf of the citizens of New Orleans and Krewe of Dead Pelicans in early September.
Mary W. Rowe
Mary W. Rowe coordinates the New Orleans Institute for Resilience and Innovation, a loose alliance of initiatives that emerged in response to the systemic collapses of 2005. Her initial engagement was as part of a fellowship awarded to her by the blue moon fund of Charlottesville, Virginia, to focus on self-organization in cities as the underpinning of urban and regional social, economic and environmental resilience. New Orleans and its region are addressing challenges and opportunities common to cities around the continent and beyond, and the Institute is now focused on harvesting the lessons and creating opportunities for urban practitioners to build communities of practice in resilience across the country. Her work in New Orleans includes supporting a broad array of local, connected initiatives that include building the local economy, creating more open governance and data collection and sharing, fostering entrepreneurship, creating a culture of planning that supports transparent decision making and land-use, the emerging role of social media, and creating peer-to-peer learning in the emerging civil society-led innovation in the Region. The Instituteís most recent engagements have been working with the Urban Conservancy to convene across sectors local, strategic responses to the BP Oil Drilling disaster; and with City-Works, convening and communications to support the finalization of a Master Plan for the City of New Orleans.
Malcolm Schwarzenbach
Malcolm is a 22-year veteran of marketing and marketing communications on both the agency and client side of the business. He provides strategic analysis and consultation on behalf of his clients, and executes these concepts into reality. Past accounts include Eli Lilly and Company, Hitachi Telecommunications, Amoco Foam Products, Abita Springs Water Company, the Audubon Institute, and Pellerin Milnor Corporation. As a Marketing Director in Charlotte, Malcolm managed a $1.3 million international advertising and public relations budget.
Upon returning to his native New Orleans, Malcolm managed the team responsible for the highly successful launch of Harrah’s New Orleans Casino in October 1999. Malcolm joined Trumpet in December 1999 to provide strategic guidance for such notable campaigns as The Oath, Tenet Health-System, Darden Restaurants’ Bahama Breeze brand, among many others. He currently oversees the strategic structure and direction for all Trumpet clients.
Bryan Bailey
Bryan Bailey is a filmmaker and entrepreneur. He is founder and partner of TungstenMonkey, an independent film production company based in New Orleans, LA. He is producer of “A Crooked Line,” a feature-length documentary to be released in 2011.
David Thaddeus Baker
David Thaddeus Baker is a 29-year-old media coordinator in New Orleans, LA. He is a native of the city and works as a part-time associate and web editor for The Louisiana Weekly newspaper – the oldest African-American newspaper in the Southeast Louisiana region – where he has been employed since 2004. He has also worked as a project coordinator for economic development advocacy and education within the Greater New Orleans region.
Baker earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Dillard University in 2004 and is currently enrolled in Tulane University’s post-baccalaureate program for Public Relations. His goal is to reestablish New Orleans as an international city, and – as part of his ongoing dedication to Southeast Louisiana and the rest of the Gulf Coast – Baker is working to launch a campaign to help rebrand the region and promote and preserve its diversity of culture, its vibrant economy and natural resource and environment via his project The GulfStream.
linkedin.com/in/tadfly
louisianaweekly.com
thegulfstream.org
Blake Haney
Blake has 10 years experience as a creative director, designer and business owner. He directs Canary’s creative and manages all projects from web development to branding to marketing campaigns. Blake’s expertise is in user interface design, project management and building communities around brands and ideas. He plans all future initiates with Canary’s curated brands and serves as the chief client liaison. His experiences have garnered him exposure in local and national news including CNN and the New York Times.
thecanarycollective.com
humidbeings.com
dirtycoast.com
Peter Bodenheimer
Peter Bodenheimer is a partner in Flatsourcing, a global software development firm based in New Orleans. A native of New Orleans, Peter has over 15 years working in interactive development in markets across the country. Peter has been intimately involved in other local conferences including Tribecon and LaunchFest this past year. Before becoming a partner in Flatsourcing, Peter worked with local agency Trumpet and was a key member of the City of New Orleans technology team before, during, and after The Big K. When he’s not mucking about on the Interwebs, Peter spends his time honing his poker game, reliving his days as a professional chef, and trying to tire his dog out riding around Bayou St. John and City Park.