2023 Carnegie Conference

Dennis Yu is co-author of the #1 best-selling book on Amazon in social media, The Definitive Guide to TikTok Ads. He has spent a billion dollars on Facebook ads across his agencies and agencies he advises. Mr. Yu is the “million jobs” guy– on a mission to create one million jobs via hands-on social media training, partnering with universities and professional organizations.

You can find him quoted in major publications and on television such as CNN, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NPR, and LA Times. Clients have included Nike, Red Bull, the Golden State Warriors, Ashley Furniture, Quiznos– down to local service businesses like real estate agents and dentists. He’s spoken at over 750 conferences in 20 countries, having flown over 6 million miles in the last 30 years to train up young adults and business owners. He speaks for free as long as the organization believes in the job-creation mission and covers business class travel.

You can find him hiking tall mountains, eating chicken wings, and taking Kaqun oxygen baths– likely in a city near you.

Session Title: Everything You Need to Know to Master Digital Marketing + Drive Enrollments

University faculty-turned-entrepreneur, Jill is an award-winning business owner, author, and recovering academic. She taught business communication at Arizona State University for 11 years, analyzed terrorist documents to provide counter-terrorism messaging strategies to the military, and was a pioneer in the online education space, creating an office serving 60,000 students and—with no staff or operational budget—added $1M in revenue in its first year.

Now, Jill focuses on providing custom communication training and strategies for her clients—through workshops, keynote speaking, consulting, and virtual training. She’s helped clients all over the spectrum learn dynamic communication skills: from Boomers, to Millennials, to Generation Z—from Fortune 50 companies, non-profit organizations, and even some reluctant professional athletes.

She’s a VIP contributor to Entrepreneur, and a livestream video personality. She has a syndicated YouTube channel that teaches communication skills and reaches thousands each week. Her latest book, Dynamic Communication: 27 Strategies to Grow, Lead, and Manage Your Business, is in bookstores around the country.

Session Title: Better Conversations, Faster Decisions, and Stronger Strategy: Understanding How to Set the “Brain Stage” for Your Communication and Marketing Messages

Ross is the Senior Director of Higher Education at Sprout Social for the past 2 years and in the data and analytics space for over 10 years. Ross works with Higher Education customers daily to increase their engagement & awareness on Social Media, in addition to helping Academic customers tie social data to their larger initiatives and larger marketing systems & campaigns.

Session Title: Meeting Students Where They Are At: How Social Media Contributes to Admissions + Enrollment Successes.

With focus on a variety of topics around leadership, employee engagement, client connection and culture strategy with a direct link back to retention, productivity and profitability, Tami’s presentations are content-rich, interactive and filled with her relatable and relevant humor. She believes if they are laughing they are listening, and if they are listening they are learning.
Engaging, entertaining and energizing, Tami Evans creates an unforgettable experience for audiences. Her “use it now” content has helped ignite positive workplaces for exceptional organizations including Microsoft, Raytheon, Dun & Bradstreet, Dove Chocolate, The New York Times, Nissan, The Gap, Kellogg’s, Coldwell Banker and The American Heart Association.
Formerly the president of the National Speakers Association of NYC, Evans has also worked as a corporate manager, university professor, communications specialist, as well as such diverse career experience as a fashion designer and professional actress. She also holds a Masters of Fine Arts, and BAA degrees in Broadcasting Communications and Theatre.
Evans celebrates and motivates participants, engages and empowers employees, creates communication cohesion, boosts confidence, and busts stress. Her popular presentations enhance leadership skills, communication, empowerment, and how to have a lot more fun doing it all.

Session Title: Lighten Up and Lead: Leverage Levity for Client Connection + Employee Engagement

Valerie Garcia is an international speaker and consultant who works with businesses to help them challenge the traditional methods of marketing and find new ways to connect with their customers. Using both creative storytelling and actual nuts-and-bolts content, Valerie makes sure her audiences truly enjoy the learning process. Focusing on the importance of leading with joy, marketing like a human, and growth in the midst of change, Valeria is known for delivering encouragement and truth with her signature straightforward style and sense of humor. She has worked with brands across the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia, and spent over 20 years inspiring, motivating, and educating sales and marketing professionals.

Session Title: Story Selling

Teresa Valerio Parrot, principal of TVP Communications, often says that while her husband is her true love, her alma mater was her first love. Higher education is her home. She is known for honesty juxtaposed with optimism; the two combine to provide communications counsel focused on transparent leadership and relationship building. Teresa’s work focuses on truthfully sharing excellence and genuinely owning mistakes, because she knows honesty is present in all sound proactive and crisis outreach. Previously, Teresa served as senior vice president for Widmeyer Communications and vice president for SimpsonScarborough. She counts almost 10 years of experience with the University of Colorado, including an officer-level appointment as Assistant Secretary of the University.

Session Title: Leadership and Values in Times of Crisis

Mike Kim is a brand strategist for business thought leaders, coaches, and authors who want to create impact with their ideas and get their message heard. Mike’s refreshing approach has made him a sought-after speaker, online educator, and consultant for top thought leaders. Mike’s clients include New York Times bestselling authors and other experts featured on PBS, TED, CNN, and Fox. Mike has been featured in and written for Inc., Entrepreneur, and The Huffington Post. Mike is the author of the Wall Street Journal best-selling book, You Are the Brand: The 8-Step Blueprint to Showcase Your Unique Expertise and Build a Highly Profitable, Personally Fulfilling Business. He has spoken at industry leading events including Social Media Marketing World, Tribe Conference, and Podcast Movement. He has been a guest on leading podcasts like Smart Passive Income, Entrepreneurs on Fire, and Read to Lead.

Session Title: Magic Words: The Art of Using Persuasion, Psychology, and Nuance in Your Copy

A data nerd with deep hands-on digital marketing experience, Karen is the Associate Director of Performance Strategy at Razorfish. She brings a data-driven perspective to everything she does, from testing to creative, email to social media, advertising to websites to text messages. A Jill of all Trades, she spends her days helping clients understand their data, A/B testing just about everything, and using insights to inform creative that gets people to take action.

Session Title: Numbers, Measurement, and... Inspiration?

Stacey MacNaught is an SEO and content marketing specialist based in the UK. She's been creating content for websites for 19 years and doing SEO for 13 years. In that time, she's been fortunate enough to be invited to speak at events including BrightonSEO, MozCon, ChiangMai SEO, SearchLove and Friends of Search. Stacey left her role on the board at an agency to set up her own consultancy in a bid to be able to stay hands on and closer to the work itself, while balancing work with her children. She lives just outside Manchester, UK. When not picking apart websites, launching content and building SEO strategies, you'll find Stacey walking up hills or playing the role of unwilling face paint model for her children.

Dale Bertrand has been an SEO specialist to Fortune 500 companies and venture-backed startups around the world for two decades. His clients include global brands such as Citizen Watch, Nestle, Raymond Weil and Bulova. He applies his graduate school work in artificial intelligence to search engine marketing. Dale speaks at industry conferences, leads corporate training events and serves at Entrepreneur in Residence at the Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs Organization. He has trained marketing professionals from TripAdvisor, Microsoft, HubSpot, Digitas and Proctor & Gamble. Dale has BS and MS degrees in Computer Engineering from Brown University.

Session Title: How AI Will Transform the Way Higher Ed Marketers Work

Following his passion for creating engaging content, Lee is the founder of Content Monsta, a content marketing agency. The company focuses on creating multimedia content such as Videos, Podcasts, and Virtual Events – then helping marketers to squeeze the highest possible ROI out of those assets.

Lee is an executive-level marketer with hands-on technical acumen in helping to optimize marketing’s role across various business functions. His years of experience working between Sales, Marketing, and Customer Experience have allowed him to understand how to be “tri-lingual” and speak to the unique needs and demands of each of those business disciplines. Effectively communicating between the C-Suite, Marketing, and Sales Operations is the key to Lee’s unique position in helping business strengthen their overall selling strategy.

Katie is the Head of Education at TikTok. She works with educational advertisers from Higher Edu, EduTech, and lifelong learning brands to empower their knowledge of TikTok's platform. At Tiktok, she manages a team of Brand Solution Managers and Customer Solution Managers in the Education vertical. In her 15+ years of experience in digital marketing, Katie has worked at RetailMeNot and Zappos.com prior to joining TikTok in 2020. She's passionate about merging the TikTok audience with the future state of Education.

Ken Higgins is the General Manager of Student Success at Technolutions. With over ten years of experience in higher education enrollment management as a former Director of Admissions and Director of Financial Aid, Ken is well aware of the challenges and opportunities that colleges and universities face in recruiting and retaining students. Ken works to empower schools to embrace a comprehensive solution that will impact retention, advising, communication, risk analysis, and ultimately the student experience.

Amanda has been a part of higher education for over five years and on the Carnegie Slate Optimization team for the last two years. She's passionate about finding new possibilities in Slate which translate to real and successful initiatives for partner institutions. Having received her Master of Science in Analytics from Charleston Southern University, she finds reports and their capabilities most interesting in Slate along with analyzing them to find a way to strategically add to communication plans. Amanda lives in Pawleys Island, SC with her husband and 17-month old son. Outside of her home office, she loves to lift weights, walk the beach, or get outside for an adventure with her family.

As a Slate Portals Strategist for Carnegie, Monica (Mo) Brazil designs and develops custom Slate portals for our clients’ prospective students, applicants, and campus partners. Her focus on end to end optimization ensures that the final product meets clients’ needs, implements Slate best practices, and provides the audience with a smooth and integrated user experience.
Mo quickly fell in love with Slate when she started working in higher education in 2019. Soon after, she began her journey to become a full-stack developer and started creating custom portals. Combined with her background in art and design, she has found great fulfillment in building beautiful, functional experiences for students and campus partners.

Megan found her love of Slate while working to reimplement the CRM at her alma mater, Hanover College. She soon learned that this new passion could lead to helping higher education professionals better their usage of Slate when she became an early member of the Carnegie Slate Optimization team, first as a Communications Strategist and then as the founder of the Implementation subdivision. In her current role, she oversees all areas of Slate Strategy offered at Carnegie and loves helping the team develop new offerings that best-serve our partner institutions. In her free time, she loves brewery-hopping and playing outdoor sports with her partner, Dean.

Tim oversees the predictive modeling group and helps clients develop data-informed strategies to meet their enrollment goals. Tim works with institutional partners to develop effective financial aid strategies, balance competing institutional priorities, and identify opportunities to enhance recruitment and marketing efforts. Tim ensures that analyses are customized to meet client needs and priorities, and that strategies are developed with long-term success in mind. Tim holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Vermont, as well as an M.B.A in Quantitative Analysis.

Mike leads modeling projects for clients, provides financial aid policy and operations expertise, and advises on a range of topics within enrollment management. Previously, Mike served as the Assistant Vice Provost for Financial Aid at Loyola Marymount University, where he led a financial aid team of more than 20 staff members and oversaw an aid portfolio exceeding $240 million. Mike has 12+ years of experience in enrollment data collection, analysis, and reporting. Mike has a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame and a B.A. in History and Latin from Loyola Marymount University.

Chris unintentionally fell into the world of enrollment, like most higher education professionals do, but quickly realized he wanted to make a career out of it. With experience from recruiting to operations, Chris has viewed enrollment from multiple lenses and perspectives. Before joining the Carnegie Team, Chris worked for his alma mater as an Associate Director of Admissions where he quickly became the bridge between the operations team and the admissions office when it came to all things Slate. In his current role, Chris enjoys working with partner institutions to implement or enhance their Slate instance in a way that positively impacts both the recruitment staff and student user experience.