Speakers

Sebastian Bauer is Executive Director, Head of Human Interface Design & Customer Experience at General Motors.

Nicole Johnson is User Experience Manager at Scout Motors

Joo-Hyung Maing is Lead Product Manager, Innovations & Partnerships at the BMW of North America’s Technology Office.

Anne Goering is Senior Director of Product Management, Digital Cabin at Ford Motor Company.

John Vermeer leads Product Partnerships for YouTube Music, focusing on the integration of YouTube Music experiences across automotive, consumer electronics and software ecosystems, as well as accompanying YouTube Music & Premium subscription offerings.

Prior to Google, he held positions at iHeart, Samsung Electronics (Korea HQ), News Corporation and with the Broadway production team of Wicked. John received an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a BA from the University of Southern California.

Vince Chan is the Principal Product Manager of Product Experience at 42dot, a Hyundai Motor Group company. He has over 20 years of successful product design-to-deployment, leadership, product/program management and team building, with a strong emphasis in Connected Vehicles, Services and Infotainment.

Laurence leads Radioplayer’s global partnerships with the automotive industry and technology companies, with a focus on how radio is implemented in connected vehicles at scale.

He works closely with leading car manufacturers and system suppliers on integration, user interface design and metadata, helping ensure radio is delivered as a core, fully integrated part of the in-car experience. Radioplayer today powers radio across millions of vehicles and multiple major car brands.

Alongside his role at Radioplayer, Laurence has played a central role in shaping industry standards for in-car radio. As a Board member of RadioDNS and WorldDAB, and as Chairman of the WorldDAB Automotive Group, he has led the development of widely adopted guidelines for radio user experience in connected cars.

Earlier in his career, he led automotive partnerships at Digital Radio UK, contributing to the successful rollout of DAB digital radio as standard in new vehicles. He has also held roles at techUK and Digital UK, working across technology, policy and large-scale digital transition programmes.

Jeremy Agulnek, HAAS Alert’s Chief Product Officer and SVP Connected Vehicle, is responsible for helping automotive OEMs deliver a safer, more connected driving experience to their drivers and driving systems. In 2025, Jeremy was named the Safety Innovation All-Star by Automotive News. Prior to joining HAAS Alert, Jeremy held a variety of product management and strategy positions at HERE Technologies (then NAVTEQ), where he launched and expanded a number of location-based products and services globally. Jeremy holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

Mélanie leads Product Partnerships at Waymo, focusing on the next frontier of mobility: the autonomous in-car experience. By bridging the gap between cutting-edge technology and passenger-centric design, Mélanie orchestrates strategic collaborations that transform Waymo vehicles into seamless third spaces. With a background spanning Google’s custom silicon (Pixel) and Ads business development, she brings a unique perspective on integrating complex hardware and software ecosystems. Mélanie holds an MA from the London School of Economics and a BA from McGill University.

Gabriel Bridger is an award-winning design, product, and strategy executive with over 20 years shaping experiences that bridge physical and digital systems. As SVP and Global Head of Product, Design, and Strategy at Rightpoint (a Genpact company), he leads a large multidisciplinary, global organization spanning product management, UX, design, research, strategy, and analytics.

Gabriel has led the design and launch of experiences ranging from in-vehicle and connected systems to commerce and financial services, and most recently agentic design architectures, with a focus on turning highly complex environments into intuitive experiences that feel inevitable to end users.

Guided by a simple mantra to be curious, critical, and creative, Gabriel balances innovation with real-world impact. Beyond his day-to-day work, he writes and speaks on the future of experience, mentors emerging design leaders, and advocates for diversity of thought as a catalyst for better ideas and better outcomes.

Keefe Leung is the Director of Software Defined Systems Architecture at Karma Automotive.

Matthew Valbuena is a Project Manager at Mazda North American Operations’ R&D division and is responsible for the development of Mazda’s in-vehicle technologies and the human-machine interfaces that interact with those technologies. His scope of work includes software and hardware research and development, product planning, consumer and industry research, forecasting, and finalizing Mazda’s in-vehicle technology user experience for North America.

Nicholas Grabowski is the Chief Product Officer at Digital.ai. He brings 30 years of experience in building Technology. In his role as CPO at Digital.ai, Nick drives product strategy and delivery, and supports branding and marketing efforts.

Nick has extensive experience designing and building technology, as well as operating startups and public companies. Before joining Digital.ai Nick was CEO of Flow, Inc., CTO at ForgeGlobal and CTO/CPO at Sharespost.

Nick also ran the R&D and Centralized Architecture functions for Charles Schwab. Nick helped ForgeGlobal to a $2B IPO in 2022 and built the technology stack that helped Ebates.com sell for $1B in 2010.

Federico Lovato is Senior Robotics Customer Solution Manager, AI and Autonomous Vehicles at TomTom.

Adam Shrout is Senior Account Executive, Lyft Ads at Lyft.

Shormin Chowdhury is a Ford Automotive Technical & Leadership expert in the auto electronics industry, with a special focus on Connected Car Modules and Future IVI / ADAS / Autonomous Vehicle Domain Controllers.

Boasting over 20 years’ experience in Infotainment, Cockpit, ADAS and Electric Vehicle modules, Shormin has led global teams to deliver in-house built-to-print HW design and platforms resulting in cost saving of over $300 million, as well as best-in-class quality.

Alex Boundy is Product Manager of Infotainment Software + Connected Services at Scout Motors.

Stephen Goldstein is LG’s Head of Content Business Development & Partnerships for Automotive, Hospitality, Shopping, Art, v/MVPDs & NEXTGEN TV. He’s based in the LG’s North American headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Before joining LG, Stephen led BD at Cirrent, a connected product, and data analytics provider, now an Infineon company, advised geolocation, last-mile logistics, retail tech, IoT, and property tech founders and startups. He also spent fourteen years at Samsung Electronics, running Smart Home Business Development & Partnerships and the Pay TV / broadband devices business. At Samsung, he collaborated with retailers, Pay TV operators, and ISPs to synthesize evolving product and technology standards, use cases, and policies to help deploy millions of Set-tops and gateways. 

Stephen holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania. He and his wife live in New Jersey with their two sons.

The Pop in Your Job: (why do you love what you do?): Bringing content and services to millions of screens globally.

Cristina Nutter is Senior Business Development Manager for Automotive & Connected Devices at AccuWeather, where she leads partnerships with enterprise clients like Databricks, Snowflake and major automotive OEMs.

Peter Mortensen is the Associate Vice President of Infotainment at indiGO Technologies.

Scott Nash is the Senior Director of Connected Vehicle Solutions at Verizon Business, where he is responsible for advancing safety and connectivity in the automotive space.

Scott’s team collaborates with partners to develop groundbreaking CV2X applications, encompassing telematics, entertainment and safety solutions for drivers, passengers and pedestrians.

Ashton Pierre is Director of Business Development, Connected Car at AT&T.

Sanjiv Ghate is a senior executive with a unique career arc spanning automotive, navigation, and digital advertising — three industries where data, scale, and platform economics intersect.

Most recently, Sanjiv served as SVP of Data at Stellantis and CEO of Mobilisights, its DaaS subsidiary, which he built from the ground up. In just over three years, the company built product lines supporting three distinct market segments, enabling several data-driven use cases in over a million vehicles across customers in the EU and North America.

Before that, he was VP and Head of Data at HERE Technologies, the global leader in location and navigation tech, where he built an open location data ecosystem and scaled a global data supply chain across 40+ countries. Earlier in his career, Sanjiv held leadership roles at Yahoo! and other adtech and martech companies building and scaling global platforms and marketplaces.

Sanjiv holds degrees in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and an MBA, and has completed executive programs at Stanford GSB and London Business School.

Suzanne Murtha is AECOM’s Global Lead for Advanced Air Mobility, Payment Services and Automation.  She is based in Punta Gorda, Florida and is on the Board of Directors of AUVSI, a leading organization in the development of automated systems.

A 29-year veteran of the transportation industry, Suzanne has background in advanced automotive technologies including connected and automated vehicles, payment systems and advanced air mobility. 

She works with the international transportation community with deployment, standards development and certification processes. She leads global technology deployment, as well as large-scale program management contracts and evaluation efforts for global, federal, state, local and private clients.

David Bloom is a Santa Monica, Calif.-based writer, podcaster, speaker and consultant focused on the transformative collision of technology, media and entertainment. 

Bloom is co-founder of newsletter Next TMT, co-host of podcast Next TMT Talks, CEO of Words & Deeds Media, and a Forbes senior contributor. He consults on content and communications strategy, has taught digital media at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, is a former Associate Dean at the USC Marshall School of Business, and guest lectures regularly at schools including UCLA, USC, Boston University, Syracuse, Nebraska, California State University-Northridge, Pepperdine, and Chapman. 

Bloom previously was an award-winning staff writer and editor for Variety, Deadline, Red Herring, and the Los Angeles Daily News, and was VP of corporate communications at MGM and head of communications with the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency. Bloom graduated with honors from the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

A Principal Consultant at AutoMobility Advisors, Kap Shah’s passion for the automotive industry is evident through his diverse experience with companies like Audi of America, Edmunds, TrueCar, J.D. Power and various startups in FinTech and data analytics.

Pam Allison is a partnerships, product and business strategy executive who leverages a deep understanding of consumer behavior, technology trends, and artificial intelligence to drive innovative products, partnerships, and services for leading Fortune 500s and startups. She is skilled at cultivating the needed key cross-industry relationships that inspire disruptive tech-rooted projects and set the stage for lucrative new business opportunities. 

Pam is currently a Venue Technology Subject Matter Expert at Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG).  Her role is business development, partnerships, and technology evaluation for fan experience technology in the US and Europe. 

Prior to her role at AEG, Pam managed an innovation and strategy team at Verizon that developed solutions and products with commercial opportunities within sports and venues that leverage 5G and Edge Compute.  Her responsibilities included defining opportunities, building strategy, developing product requirements, creating business models, developing proofs of concept to validate hypothesis.

Prior to her role at Verizon, Pam was the Executive Director of Innovation Strategy and Development at Warner Bros.  She developed partnerships with leading technology companies to build proofs of concepts that explored how Warner Bros. can commercialize technologies in the future for content consumption and production.  This included building out long-term strategies on how to future-proof the company.  Her focus was on content and mobility including autonomous and connected cars, and 5G.  

Prior to her role at Warner Bros., Pam served as the Director of Digital Products at the National Hot Rod Association, where she led the strategy and development of the new NHRA.com and managed the NHRA All Access SVOD streaming service and mobile strategy for all mobile games, virtual reality experiences and events. Prior to the NHRA, she managed digital media and mobile business strategy and development at the Disney New Technology Strategy Group, DIRECTV, and Movielink. Her consulting clients have included Disney, University of Southern California, Esri, a GIS software platform and others. 

Pam holds bachelor’s degrees in Management Engineering from Claremont McKenna College and Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University, as well as a masters degree in Computer Science and an MBA from UCLA.

Frank Weith is Retired Director of Volkswagen Connected and Mobility Services and Principal at Hawthorne Automotive Advisors.