Boardroom Media (CEO News)
At CEO (Boardroom Media) we track over 1,000,000 startups and over 5,000,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top San Francisco based CEO’ operating in the Events space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on [email protected].
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Paolo Privitera
Co-Founder and CEO of Evensi
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About Doochoo, Evensi, Lombardstreet Ventures: Evensi is a platform to discover, experience, ideate, and promote events.
Timothy Campos
Chief Executive Officer of Woven
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About JDSU (now Viavi Solutions), Rackspace, Woven: Woven is an intelligent calendar to manage your schedule and get the most out of your meetings.
Tim O’Reilly
Founder, Chairman & CEO of O’Reilly
Tim O’Reilly is the founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media Inc. Considered by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world, O’Reilly Media also hosts conferences on technology topics, including the O’Reilly Open Source Convention, Strata: The Business of Data, the Velocity Conference on Web Performance and Operations, and many others. Tim’s blog, the O’Reilly Radar “watches the alpha geeks” to determine emerging technology trends, and serves as a platform for advocacy about issues of importance to the technical community. Tim is also a partner at O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, O’Reilly’s early stage venture firm, and is on the board of Safari Books Online, PeerJ, Code for America, and Maker Media, which was recently spun out from O’Reilly Media. Maker Media’s Maker Faire has been compared to the West Coast Computer Faire, which launched the personal computer revolution.
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About O’Reilly, Oreilly AlphaTech Ventures, Oreilly AlphaTech Ventures, POPVOX: O’Reilly provides technology and business training, knowledge, and insight to help companies succeed.
Antony Taylor
Founder and CEO of Lyte
Ant Taylor is the founder and CEO of Lyte. Lyte powers mobile ticketing solutions for event owners and fans, providing both a mobile-first alternative to resale websites. Since 2014, Lyte has partnered with over 300 top sports and entertainment brands, including BottleRock Music Festival, Newport Folk Festival, Arkansas Razorbacks Athletics, Mumford & Sons, Stagecoach Music Festival and more. Major ticketing platforms such as Eventbrite, Ticketfly, and Gingerbread Shed, owned by Goldenvoice, have integrated Lyte into their offering. Ant founded Lyte after observing the impact of the secondary ticket market on fans at the London Olympics. Hundreds of thousands of fans have since benefited from the Lyte solution. Before Lyte, Ant was an executive at ad technology pioneer Right Media, acquired by Yahoo in 2007 and ad cofounder of Moat, acquired by Oracle in 2017; two of the top five venture-backed exits in NYC history.
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About Lyte: Lyte is a technology platform that makes it easy for fans to buy, sell, and exchange tickets to live events.
António Trincão
Co-Founder, CEO, Investor of Youcanevent
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About Youcanevent: Is the first marketplace where you can visualize your next event in VR and book the vendors needed for your real-world event experience.
Loic Le Meur
Founder & CEO of Leade.rs
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About Leade.rs: Leade.rs is a speaker and event marketplace that identifies new trends and the intriguing people behind them.
Tommaso Trionfi
Co-Founder and CEO of Tocca
Tommaso co-founded Tocca in January 2018 and he is serving as its CEO. Before then Tommaso was the CEO of Monsoon Commerce, a holding company owned by PE firm Oak Hill Capital, between January 2014 and August 2017, when the last of the holding companies was successfully sold. Prior to joining Monsoon Commerce in January 2014, he had joined Merchantry along side investors Greycroftpartners and eVentures. Before then he was the Chief Executive Officer of Wimba from 2000 to 2009. He led the growth of the company from a Research Institute technology to the leading provider of Web-based SaaS collaboration software for the education market. At Wimba, Tommaso built a team of more than 140 people spanning three countries, and organized marketing, sales, business development, product management and finance into a structured organization before the company was sold to Blackboard (BBBB). Prior to Wimba, Tommaso led business development at Omniticket Network, worked as Chief Operating Officer of Southern Europe for Colorlux, a global engineering company, and served as Chief Operating Officer of Fontenay Industries, where he led operations and key acquisitions. Tommaso received his MBA from INSEAD, and master’s degree in Science and Technology with honors from the University of Grenoble. Tommaso is currently a member of the US council of INSEAD and a trustee of the INSEAD foundation.
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About Tocca: A virtual event solution focussed on demand generation for B2B companies that want to engage with prospects and customers.
Smita Saxena
Founder and CEO of Stanza
Smita Saxena is Co-founder and CEO of Stanza (stanza.co), which was founded in July of 2012. Saxena previously founded Accevia, Inc which was part of StartX’s inaugural class. Accevia was a secure platform for independent financial advisors to communicate with clients. The platform allowed clients to automatically upload their portfolios and receive automated performance reports. Saxena received her Masters in Financial Mathematics from Stanford University and her Bachelors in Mathematics & Economics from the University of Toronto.
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About Stanza: Stanza is an internet company that creates own events calendars, and share with family, friends, and beyond.
Xiaoyin Qu
Co-Founder & CEO of Run The World
Xiaoyin Qu is the Founder and CEO at Run The World.
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About Run The World: Run The World is a digital event platform that is designed to host all types of events from cocktail parties to global conferences.
Nate Tepper
CEO & Co-Founder of Set The Set
Mission driven, entrepreneurial minded, sales leader, passionate about music & technology, and inspiring and empowering others to take action and achieve their dreams! Nate first learned about entrepreneurship/sales before he even understood what the words meant! When he was 14, he sold $5000+ of my band’s CDs in the hallways of high school. Since then, he has done sales at LinkedIn, founded TEDxUMassAmherst, started the mobile application company, Unight, did global sales in Israel, India, Singapore, Thailand, and Australia for Taboola, and worked with 125 startup companies from around the world at MassChallenge. He is passionate about music and has played guitar in over 300 gigs across the country. Currently, Nate has combined his passions for music and tech full-time as the CEO & Co-Founder of Set The Set. Their mission is to connect the world’s artists and fans to create better live music experiences!
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About Set The Set, TED: Request songs for your upcoming concerts!
Stefania Olafsdottir
CEO and Co-Founder of Avo
Stefania Olafsdottir is the co-founder and CEO of Avo.
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About Avo: Avo is a next-gen analytics governance platform for PMs, devs, and data scientists to plan and govern their product analytics.
Justin Shaffer
CEO of HOTPOTATO MEDIA
Justin Shaffer works on the product team at Facebook. He’s led teams that have worked on Groups, Places, Privacy, Timeline, Photos, and Events. Justin came to Facebook via the acquisition of Hot Potato in mid-2010 where he was the Founder and CEO. Hot Potato built software that made it easy to share what you were doing, where you were, and with whom – and connect to others doing the same. Prior to founding Hot Potato, Justin served as Senior Vice President, New Media at MLB Advanced Media L.P., the online arm of Major League Baseball. Since 2001, he served in a variety of leadership roles focused on the development of the technology and product vision for the suite of offerings available to fans on MLB.com today. Prior to MLBAM, Justin served at ScreamingMedia Inc., an internet based content aggregator and syndicator in New York. He’s an avid skier and racing sailor, and also enjoys engineering pursuits of all kinds.
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About HOTPOTATO MEDIA: Hot Potato is a social media agency that provides event-based service.
Roberto Angulo
CEO of Recruitology
Roberto Angulo is the CEO of Recruitology U.S.
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About AfterCollege, For Dummies, Recruitology: Recruitology is a recruitment marketing platform that combines white label job board software & programmatic job advertising.
Marian Goodell
CEO of Burning Man Project
As the organization’s recently named first CEO, Marian oversees Burning Man’s year-round staff of 70+ employees and its annual operating budget of approximately $30 million. Marian first attended Burning Man in 1995, and in 1997 was a co-founder of the management organization that eventually became Black Rock City, LLC, which produces the Burning Man event. Throughout her leadership in the Burning Man organization, she has been the Director of Business and Communications, and also oversaw the Black Rock City Department of Public Works. She has steered the development of the Burning Man Regional Network, which is now on six continents, with more than 250 representatives in 30 countries. Marian is a founding board member of the Burning Man Project, the Black Rock Arts Foundation, and Black Rock Solar. She is currently leading the organization’s efforts to facilitate and extend the Burning Man ethos globally. Marian holds a BA in Creative Writing from Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland and an MFA in photography from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Marian has worked in sales and public relations, and was a project manager for a software development firm when she first arrived as a participant at Burning Man in 1995.
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About Burning Man Project: Facilitating and extending the culture that has issued from the Burning Man event into the larger world.
Oana Manolache
Founder & CEO of Introvoke
Oana Manolache is the Founder and CEO at Introvoke.
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About Introvoke: Introvoke is an embeddable solution allowing organizations to turn their virtual programs into digital stages with plug-and-play components.
Andre Woodley Jr
CEO of Qwest (YC W19)
Andre is the Founder of In The Room and the Chief Executive Officer of Qwest (YC W19).
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About In The Room, Qwest (YC W19): Qwest is a dynamically priced “fast-pass” service to skip lines at popular spots like clubs, bars, festivals and other places with lines.
Robert Petrossian
CEO of InfoNeedle
Robert is the CEO InfoNeedle, Inc.
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About InfoNeedle: A provider of easy to setup and use venues to host engaging webinars, virtual events, marketing, sales and training destinations.
Alexander Labrie
Founder & CEO of Sphere
Founder of Sphere
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About Sphere: Sphere is an executive platform that schedules events between users and their friends.
Jonathan Leone
Co-Founder, CEO & President of Thrillcall
CEO & President Thrillcall – 316 Ventures. Mayor of Sausalito, CA : 2009 & 2010 City Council Member Sausalito, CA : 2006 -2014 Marin Clean Energy – Founding Board Member Chair, Sausalito Planning Commission Sausalito Planning Commission : 2000-2006 Sausalito Waste & Recycling Commission
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About Thrillcall: Thrillcall is a live music discovery service providing concert and ticket listings, special ticket offers and show reminders.
Nick Palmer
Co-Founder and CEO of Tarzango
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About Tarzango: A modern way for Group Travelers to book 10+ hotel rooms 🙂 Tarzango, we’re your Negotiator!
James Levy
Chief Executive Officer of WeLens
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About WeLens: WeLens provides a seamless VR solution that is ideal for live events.
Edward Lerner
CEO of Hearo.Live – Multiplayer TV
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About Hearo.Live – Multiplayer TV: Hearo is Multiplayer TV. Turn your passive stream into a buzzing, live, social event.
Jordan Succar
Co founder & CEO of Sponseasy
CEO at Sponseasy.
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About Sponseasy, Welder: Sponseasy is a SaaS for sponsorship management.
Eric Faurot
CEO of GreenBiz Group
Eric Faurot leads GreenBiz Group, the leading B2B media company amplifying sustainable innovation. In this role he is responsible for the overall strategy and growth of the company. Previously he managed and produced some of the most influential technology events, including COMDEX, INTEROP, Black Hat and Web 2.0. Most recently he grew the technology division of UBM from $38 million to $63 million in three years.
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About GreenBiz Group: The group for sustainability professionals interested in aligning environmental responsibility with business success.
Dale Dougherty
Founder & CEO of Maker Media
Dale Dougherty is the founder and CEO of Maker Media, Inc. in Sebastopol, CA. Maker Media produces Make Magazine, which launched in 2005, and Maker Faire, which was held first in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2006. MAKE has been the catalyst for a worldwide Maker Movement that is transforming innovation in industry, hands-on learning in education and the personal lives of makers of all ages. MAKE invites everyone to become a maker, and integrate creative goals with technical skills. Dougherty was a co-founder of O’Reilly Media, where he was the first editor of their computing trade books, and developed GNN in 1993, the first commercial website. He coined Web 2.0 in 1993. MAKE started at O’Reilly Media and spun out as its own company in January 2013. He grew up in Louisville, KY.
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About Make Community, Maker Media: Maker Media is a global platform that connects inventors of products and services with one another.
Chris Meyer
CEO of George P Johnson
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About George P Johnson: GPJ is the world’s premier event marketing and experience marketing agency.
Yvonne Lin
Founder & CEO of MerryMint
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About MerryMint: MerryMint helps remote teams find and book online workshops and experiences for team building.
Miro Sarbaev
CEO of ArrowPass
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About ArrowPass: ArrowPass is an NFC-based secure gate control and cashless closed-loop payment solution for events.
Fraser Campbell
CEO of Wcities
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About Wcities: Wcities is a travel and entertainment content publisher specialized in providing city guides, event calendars, tours and activities.
Shahab Ghafari
Founder & CEO of EarCrush
Founder & CEO at EarCrush
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About EarCrush: Leverage data to book music artists.
Alice Hsueh
CEO and co-founder of Uniqcue
Alice Hsueh is the CEO and founder at UNIQCUE.
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About Uniqcue: Uniqcue is an event app that changes the way people view all live events and media.
Igor Alekhin
CEO & Founder of iWeekender
Hi-tech entrepreneur 15 years in travel and hospitality businesses. Ex Co-founder & COO at Charterscanner.com (UAE) – Online Private Jet booking engine. Dad x 3, parachute jumps x 3, marathons x 2
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About iWeekender, Unicorex: iWeekender is an automated event analytics platform for hospitality industry companies
Alexander McCobin
CEO of Conscious Capitalism
Alexander McCobin is Co-CEO of Conscious Capitalism, as well as co-founder and former president of Students For Liberty. Under his leadership, Students For Liberty has grown into the largest libertarian student organization in the world, which includes over 400 leaders that support over 1300 student groups representing over 50,000 students. Previously, Alexander worked at the Cato Institute and ran another nonprofit organization that introduced high school debate programs to underserved youth in the greater Philadelphia area. Alexander also serves on the Board of Advisors of The Atlas Society and is an honorary board member of the Their America Initiative. Alexander received his B.A. in philosophy and economics at the University of Pennsylvania in 2008 and received his M.A. in philosophy at Georgetown University in 2014.
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About Conscious Capitalism: Elevating Humanity Through Business.
Brian Burt
Founder & CEO of MaestroConference
Brian Burt is the Founder at MaestroConference.
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About MaestroConference, VoiceVoice: MaestroConference is the leader in Social Conferencing™, a technology that allows people to participate in large-scale events.
Carla Riggi
CEO & Founder of DjinnFizz Inc (BandDjinni)
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About DjinnFizz Inc (BandDjinni), Google: Unlocking the economic potential of the local live indie music industry
Gabe Benveniste
Founder/ CEO of SonicLiving
Gabe Benveniste founded SonicLiving in 2006 out of a desire to provide music fans with a better way of finding out in advance when their favorite bands were touring, a convenient way to purchase concert tickets, and a place to meet up with friends attending shows. Since the mid 1990s, he has built several websites that blend culture and technology, of which SonicLiving is the culmination. As the Internet’s leading concert discovery service, SonicLiving connects music fans online and in-person through communities created around the live shows their favorite bands play. Prior to SonicLiving, Gabe was at Pixar Animation Studios where he built a particular expertise creating collaborative websites that streamlined the workflow for many of the acclaimed studio’s critical functions. During his six-year tenure there he also was at the forefront in development of Macintosh OS X maintenance and deployment, a process that was subsequently adopted by firms such Genentech and others. Gabe has spoken on behalf of Pixar at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference and O’Reilly’s OS X Conference. Gabe competed in the 2003 World Beard and Mustache Championship, where his prodigious chops propelled him to sixth place (out of six) in the first-ever sideburn contest. His work has been featured in Playboy, MTV and Wired.
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About SonicLiving: SonicLiving is the Internet’s leading concert discovery service, connecting music fans online and in-person through communities.
Dave Room
CEO of BALANCE Edutainment
Dave Room, Co-Founder/CEO. Dave’s most important identifier is Melia’s Papa. His teenage daughter Melia is his joy and inspiration. Since receiving a B.S. and M.S. in Engineering from Stanford University, Room has worked on the innovative edge of a number of emergent fields including yield management, environmental performance measurement, intranet development, ecommerce software and renewable energy. In the process, he had leadership roles in several tech startups and a non profit he co-founded called Bay Localize. With the intention to uplift tens of millions of children worldwide, Room co-founded BALANCE Edutainment, co-authored Pacha’s Pajamas: A Story Written By Nature and executive produced the nine-award winning companion album. Dave has coined the term “The Awakening Journey” as a modern alternative to the Hero’s Journey, and is actively participating in the AR/VR for Good conversations.
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About BALANCE Edutainment: An Emerging thought-leadership platform for edutainment and transformational entertainment for youth.
Selasi Tsikata
CEO and Co-Founder of Orgaroo
CEO / Head of Tech at Orgaroo
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About Orgaroo, PayBrisk: Orgaroo provides an event coordination platform that allows those managing corporate events to automate the process.
Liz Curtis
Founder & CEO of Table + Teaspoon
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About Table + Teaspoon: Rent. Host. Return. Complete table setting rental kits ordered online, delivered nationwide.
Akif Malik
CEO & Founder of Sports Colab
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About Sports Colab: Sports Colab is an accelerator, fund and community at the intersection of sports, media, entertainment + technloogy
Katie Kalmikoff
Founder & CEO of Katie K Marketing + Events
Katie’s a marketing and events professional with a specialty in community based marketing. Before starting Katie K Marketing + Events, she worked in the venture capital world where she built and lead the Community team for FundersClub. There she hosted events, built products, and created content for our 40K+ investors and 400+ founders. Prior to FC Katie managed communities and accounts at digital and social media agency, VaynerMedia. She directly communicated with clients’ consumers through social, generated social content and copy, and worked hand in hand with clients to target their goals. Her clients included 30+ major brands including: MilkBone, MeowMix, Sonic Drive-In, Clarisonic, and FOX Network (primetime evening programs only). In her pre-California days, Katie worked in events and marketing at the Boston Globe, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and The Royal Automobile Club in London. She graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration, concentration in Marketing, from Northeastern University.
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About Katie K Marketing + Events: Community focused marketing and events consulting for early stage companies and VCs
Michael Nelson
Chief Executive Officer of 6Connex
Mike leads the 6Connex vision to realize the potential of Virtual Environments globally. With 11 years as a recognized thought leader in the space, he’s got a rare perspective that comes from hands-on experience in sales, marketing, business development and strategic direction for virtual environment platforms. Mike is the former VP of Worldwide Sales at ON24 and holds a degree from the University of California at Davis. Mike doesn’t plan to spend much time in the office. He’ll execute the 6Connex mission by spending most of his time with clients gathering feedback that drives the development of a platform that leaves clients breathless. Mike is also an outspoken advocate for the benefits of hiring military veterans for today’s technology companies.
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About : 6Connex is a global virtual environment and virtual event software and services provider for enterprise online events.
Linda Holroyd
CEO and Founder of FountainBlue
Facilitator Linda Holroyd, Founder and CEO FountainBlue Serial entrepreneur Linda Holroyd began her career providing sales and marketing leadership for start-ups in the document imaging, document security and web development spaces, before launching her own web consultancy. She grew her company from zero to 4 million, with clients in the financial services, tech start-up, education, non-profit, medical device and government services space. After selling her company, she joined a nonprofit before starting FountainBlue in 2006. Linda continues to run events When She Speaks, Women in Leadership events and a monthly VIP roundtable series as a platform for connecting for high-tech professionals, executives and entrepreneurs. She also runs Customer Advisory Boards to connect Enterprise decision-makers with tech entrepreneurs as they define their product feature set and a Tech Advisory Council to support the technology and start-up ecosystem, and provides leadership and innovation consulting to tech companies.
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About FountainBlue: FountainBlue brings together leadership and innovation through the consulting and coaching services.
Mike Bestvina
CEO and Founder of Compete Hub
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About Compete Hub: Compete Hub is a fitness application that helps users schedule out a training schedule for a triathlon.
Henry Embleton
CEO of CatchTalk.TV
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About CatchTalk.TV: CatchTalk.TV host and aggregate video content from b2b conferences and events.
