Agenda & Speakers

Nataki Edwards, Senior Vice President of Digital Strategy and Operations, AARP

Nataki Edwards is Senior Vice President of Digital Strategy and Operations at AARP, the nation’s largest membership organization for people 50+. She is a leading expert in marketing to Boomers and other target segments, both demographic and psychographic, and has developed award-winning campaigns for top-tier brands including Yahoo!, AOL, Estée Lauder and American Express.

Nataki has been with AARP since 2007. She oversees the overarching marketing vision for AARP Digital properties and platforms, including loyalty marketing and engagement. Under her leadership, AARP Digital has grown in size and impact and is rated as the #1 website for the 50+ audience, both on mobile and desktop.
Nataki is regularly featured in media outlets like the Today Show, Washington Post, and USA Today as a digital and social media expert. She strives to expand AARP’s digital growth – meeting their members wherever they choose to engage and truly leading a revolution in the way people view and live life after 50.

Rebecca Gentry, Director of CRM Technology, Global Hotel Alliance

A Director at the intersection of hospitality marketing and technology. Currently oversee the marketing technology operations for the Global Hotel Alliance, the world’s largest alliance of independent hotel brands. We develop custom solutions for GHA and its member brands’ 550 hotels, utilizing the Oracle Marketing Cloud and Oracle Hospitality verticals, and navigate data complexities that result from having a 10 million member-strong, multi-language customer database.

Samuel Johnson, VP Global Marketing, Customer Loyalty & Insights, Ryder

Samuel Johnson is the Vice President of marketing for Ryder System, Inc., a $6.4B FORTUNE 500® transportation and supply chain solutions company with more than 26,000 employees.  Mr. Johnson is responsible for all aspects of Customer Loyalty and Market Intelligence for Ryder.
 
Mr. Johnson joined Ryder 2005 as a Senior Manager, Strategy & Development, and then became part of the FMS Sales & Marketing team as Director of Customer Retention prior to his current role.
 
Throughout his career, Mr. Johnson has held leadership roles in several fortune 500 companies. Starting at a Coca-Cola bottler and beverage distributor, and then as a management consultant with A.T. Kearney Inc.  
 
Mr. Johnson holds an MBA in Marketing & Supply Chain Management from Michigan State University and a B.Sc. (Hons) in Engineering from the University of the West Indies.  He serves on the board of directors of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Miami and also on the board of governors for the National Private Truck Council.  

Eliot Hamlisch, Vice President, Worldwide Loyalty & Partnerships, Wyndham Rewards

Eliot Hamlisch serves as vice president, worldwide loyalty and partnerships at Wyndham Hotel Group, one of the world’s leading hotel brand franchisors and hotel management services providers with more than 8,100 hotels across 79 countries under 19 brands. In his role, Hamlisch oversees Wyndham Rewards, the company’s award-winning guest loyalty program, as well its co-brand credit card, marketing partnerships, multi-brand advertising, and customer acquisition and retention efforts.
 
Named a best hotel rewards program for the past three consecutive years by U.S. News and World Report, Wyndham Rewards is the only loyalty program of its kind to offer members a guaranteed 1,000 points with every qualified stay and flat redemption rate of 15,000 points per room per night at more than 30,000 hotels, condos and homes around the world.
 
Previously, Hamlisch served as Wyndham’s head of global sales, overseeing a team of over 100 sales professionals tasked with generating more than $1B in annual revenue across the company’s worldwide hotel portfolio. He joined the organization in 2016 as vice president of sales innovation.

Prior to Wyndham, Hamlisch spent three years leading sales strategy and operations Starwood Hotels and Resorts, where he was responsible for developing, executing and supporting strategic initiatives to drive profitable growth across the company’s North American portfolio.

Earlier in his career, Hamlisch held a number of strategic planning, business development and customer engagement positions with Deloitte Consulting and American Express Company. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and received his Master's in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.