About
our Speakers:
Workshop Speaker:
Robin Opie, NextAction Vice President, Analytics
As the leader of NextAction’s Analytics team, Robin is responsible for driving continuous improvement in NextAction’s quantitative methods across all aspects of the business. Prior to joining NextAction, Robin managed the 30 employees and consultants in the Product and Technology Analytics group at Comcast, was responsible for evaluating billions of $$’s in technology spending, and was credited with saving hundreds of millions of $$’s during his 4 years in the role. Robin’s prior roles have included analytics leadership positions at Microsoft, Cisco, Moxi Digital, Mercer Management Consulting and Chase Manhattan Bank. In his “spare time," Robin serves on the BOD of Preceptor Associates, a hedge fund which leverages proprietary stochastic dominance techniques to drive portfolio optimization. Robin holds a degree in Economics and a certificate in Dance from Princeton University.
Luncheon Speakers:
Chris Howley, Group Publishing Director, Database Marketing &
Research Services
Chris Howley is Director of Database Marketing and Research Services for Group Publishing, Inc. Group is a non-denominational Christian publisher of resources that equip the church. Prior to joining Group, Chris founded CircNetwork, an independent magazine circulation and audience development firm. Chris has been an active direct marketer for over 19 years, working on both the client and agency side of the business with many global and niche brands.
Jeff Barela, Dovetail Chief Operating Officer 
Jeff has been in the database marketing industry for over 11 years and the database industry for 17 years. Jeff is a co-founder and co-owner of Dovetail, The Marketing Database Company, a company singularly focused on developing, maintaining, hosting, and providing web-based access to marketing databases. Jeff has been instrumental in evolving Dovetail’s business model, from originally deploying marketing database services in a service bureau environment to now deploying these services via a web-based application. The application allows Dovetail clients to directly access their marketing database to run counts, pull lists and perform a variety of analyses.
Prior to Dovetail, Jeff was the Director of Operations for a data management startup company, USTMAN Technologies, which he helped grow from a small niche player to the dominant company in its sector.
