Thursday, October 18, 2018

4 PM - 4:45 PM

Track II: Transforming the Personal Food & Wellness Lifestyle, Herscher, Guerin C

The Foodie Lifestyle: From Professional Influencer to Everyday Foodie Maven

Jayme Davidson, Chief Marking Officer/CoFounder LAeats

Ben Waters, Eater-In-Chief, L.A. Foodie

Stephanie Kordan, The Sensual Foodie®

Amanda Russell, Chief Marketing Officer, Valeo Fit

Adam Rubenstein, founder and content creator, Viva LA Foodies

Moderator - Jackie Iadonisi, TV Host & Content Creator

Jackie Iadonisi is a tv host, world traveler and food enthusiast. Currently Jackie serves as a producer and host for Regal Cinemas interviewing some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Prior to working with Regal Cinemas she offered her quirky authentic opinion on pop culture news at Clevver, the top ranking and award-winning digital entertainment news brand. Jackie has also worked for other notable companies like CBS, BiteSizeTV, Yahoo, any many more. In addition to her regular hosting duties, Jackie is a digital media expert who works closely with brand and agency partners on creative development and execution of food, travel and lifestyle branded content. When Jackie isn’t busy hunting down a story or conducting an interview you can find her instead hunting down food and conducting a taste test.

Stephanie Kordan, The Sensual Foodie®: A vegan chef and plant-based wellness expert, Stephanie began her food blog The Sensual Foodie in 2011 with a desire to inspire others to fall in love with healthy food. You'll find her actively engaging on Instagram as @stephaniedujour, cultivating a hungry tribe of foodies that eat up her plant-based recipes and delicious food photography. Stephanie has appeared as a food critic on MasterChef and Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell and Back as Chef Ramsay’s go-to girl. Gordon Ramsay chose Stephanie as one of the “top food critics of the nation” for the special MasterChef episode ‘Critics Choice” as Ramsay values Stephanie’s taste expertise on food, describing her as “an esteemed food critic.” Stephanie was recently a casting judge for MasterChef Junior and is a mom of three children. She is most passionate about encouraging people to live an “eat more plants” lifestyle, currently creating an online cooking course and cookbook for health-conscious people transitioning to vegan. As an influencer, Stephanie creates sponsored posts in collaboration with brands such as Veggie Grill, Purple Carrot, Field Roast, Waiakea, Impossible Foods, Maille, CrockPot, Milk & Eggs, Birch Benders, and more.

Jayme Davidson, Chief Marking Officer/CoFounder LAeats: A social media marketing expert and entrepreneur. Jayme's background in psychology and youth development spans 10+ years, ultimately leading her to pursue a masters in Forensic Psychology. Jayme has worked in marketing for a media company with youth focused content, and dealt with partner relations. Jayme values the details, and what it takes to understand a target market and core audience with her forensic audience profiles. Cofounding LAeats as away to share her love of great food that's accessible.  The key force behind LAeats's growth, Jayme has single handed developed a marketing strategy and brand message that has become a true word of mouth campaign. LAeats has never done any paid marketing, instead focusing on great content and clear messaging. With over 26,000 food lover and growing everyday Jayme has taken LAeats from a zero audience, to a global audience of the best local and national food professionals, chefs, and critics. Jayme believes in personally engaging with every comment, and personally liking everything for LAeats, she is looking to understand the audience, and help find the best way to refine LAeats' brand as a publisher of food/beverage reviews and content. Jayme co-developed the Emoji-Based Review format to allow an instant takeaway from every review without even reading the an Instagram caption. Jayme has managed partnerships retaliations for LAeats, believing every partnership must be built around generating quality engagement, while providing value to the audience that in turn continues to generate great word of mouth.

Amanda Russell, MBA, Entrepreneur | Marketing & Branding Strategist, Youtube Influencer | UCLA Instructor: The Toronto Star calls her the “Real-life Iron Woman” and “ultimate go-getter”—but to thousands of devoted followers, Fortune 500 clients, and inspired audiences, Amanda Russell is a global expert in Influencer Marketing. As an international fitness icon, sought-after speaker, brand strategist, and educator, Amanda Russell has been at the forefront of the digital marketing and social media revolution from its infancy. Her core philosophy: “You can have the best product or service in the world, but if you don’t have an audience, it doesn’t matter.”

Amanda competed as a world-class distance runner with an automatic spot in the 2008 Beijing Olympic trials—before an injury brought her career to a halt. The hard work of her against-all-odds recovery led to Amanda launching a transformative online fitness and lifestyle community: Fit, Strong & Sexy. As a pioneer in Influencer Marketing, Amanda recognized the power of YouTube to grow an audience she could convert to her own platform. With 1 million views after just two months and accolades as one of YouTube’s “Next Top Fitness Channels”, it was clear she had her finger on the pulse. Today, more than 80,000 subscribers wait breathlessly for her next upload. With her innate digital acumen, Amanda went on to co-found the Interesting Agency, offering full-service brand strategy, marketing, and content production services. She eventually sold her own consulting firm to take the CMO helm at Valeo Securities, where she’s heading up a re-brand and international re-launch as Valeo Fit. After Influencer Marketing became the buzzword du jour, Amanda saw first-hand how many companies were wasting resources on fluffy, one-off campaigns that failed to achieve real results. She channeled her deep experience, stellar industry reputation, and frustration with the status quo into developing the world’s first fully accredited program in Influencer Marketing at UCLA. Now she’s literally writing the book on one of the hottest, yet most misunderstood marketing strategies in the world: The Influencer Code. It’s an intensive look at how brands can leverage each other to grow and scale their business—from the insider perspective of a DIY marketer, global influencer, MBA-level strategist, growth hacker, and academic… all rolled into one. Whether Amanda is motivating a roomful of C-suite decision makers to take on a high-impact collaboration, inspiring a group of renaissance women to achieve their potential, or teaching future marketing pros how to be unforgettable, Amanda is a tornado in a tutu and combat boots—and the key to your success. Amanda graduated from the University of Richmond on an athletic full-ride scholarship, and holds an MBA with a concentration in marketing.

Ben Waters is the co-owner and Eater-in-Chief of L.A. Foodie, a blog (lafoodie.com) & social media hub (@lafoodie) documenting his ongoing quest (along with his wife & co-owner Lisa) to find the best food in Los Angeles. He also hosts podcasts for L.A. Foodie, with past guests including Emeril Lagasse, Danny Trejo, and T.J. Miller. His writing has been featured on LAist, Food & Wine’s FWx site and he’s made appearances on CBS, NBC, KTLA, KPCC, and several other combinations of capital letters. When he's not focusing on the tastier side of life, Ben is editing documentaries like the award-winning comic strip doc Stripped.