Board of Mentors

David Bell
Chairman, Board of Mentors /Investor
Chairman Emeritus Interpublic Group 

David Bell has deep experience in the Marketing Services sector having been CEO of three major industry companies – Bozell Worldwide, True North Communications and The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc.

The various positions David held at Bozell Worldwide led to his becoming its CEO where he became a major factor in building the company from a $12 million company to one worth over $600 million, making it one of the ten largest global agencies.  Following the acquisition of Bozell by True North, he was named CEO of that fourth largest Agency Holding Group.

Following the acquisition of True North by the Interpublic Group, he was named CEO of this second largest Agency Holding Group with 44,000 employees and nearly $7 billion in revenue. The shareholder value of each company had increased by over 50% in each case.

David is the only industry executive ever to lead all industry associations – The American Association of Advertising, Agencies American Advertising Federation, The Ad Council, and The Advertising Educational Foundation.  All of these achievements were recognized by his peers, who elected him to the Advertising Hall of Fame in 2007.

David was a senior advisor to Google from 2006 to 2009 and is currently a senior advisor to AOL for its comeback.  He is also the non-executive chair of two unique global agencies, Creative Realities and Gyro.  He is an independent director of Warnaco and Lighting Science Group.

David continues his passion for start-up and early stage internet/technology companies, holding several board positions including: Double Verify, Stylesight, Your Tango, Resonate Networks, Vizu and Media6degrees.

David Armano
Executive Vice President, Global Innovation & Integration
Edelman Digital

As Executive Vice President, Global Innovation & Integration for Edelman Digital, David’s mandate is to uncover and activate strategic and innovative social business solutions for Edelman’s clients as well as the firm. David also acts as Editor In Chief for Edelmandigital.com and has been working in the digital space since 1997. In his career, David has worked with global brands such as RIM, eBay, and adidas to name a few.

David is considered to be a highly influential voice on the subject of social media for business and has nearly 70,000 combined subscribers to his blog (Logic+Emotion) and Twitter stream. Logic+Emotion has consistently ranked in the top 25 marketing blogs according to the Ad Age Power 150. Prior to Edelman, David was a part of the founding team of social business consultancy Dachis Group and helped launch the business from stealth mode into the marketplace.

Prior to Dachis Group, David worked in the digital agency space for over 10 years with organizations such as P&G, HP, WW Grainger, Allstate, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Fifth Third Bank. His work on Grainger helped the company earn the reputation of best commerce site according to BtoB magazine and his leadership on HP resulted in a Webaward. David was also a key member of the joint Omnicom “swat team” consisting of TBWA, Critical Mass, and 180 working collaboratively to pitch and win global digital responsibilities for adidas.

He also writes regular industry perspectives for the Harvard Business Review, and is best known for his distinct brand of visual thinking, found both on the Web and presentations all over the world. David serves on several boards advising start-ups, is an active judge in industry awards such as the Jay Chiat 4A’s and co-founded the “Allhat” event series billed by SXSW as being populated by “the most respected voices in digital.” David graduated cum laude from the prestigious Pratt Institute with a dual major of visual communications and computer graphics.

David BenDaniel
Don & Margi Berens Professor of Entrepreneurship and Professor of Management
Cornell University

Professor BenDaniel holds degrees in physics and engineering. He has been a visiting fellow at Harvard’s Graduate School of Business Administration. At Cornell, he serves as a senior fellow of the Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise Program.

In addition to his teaching and research, Professor BenDaniel has been active in investing venture capital. He was senior vice president in Textron Corporation’s American research and development division, group vice president of Exxon Enterprises where he surpervised the energy-development and technology-components groups, and started General Electric’s technical-ventures operation.

Professor BenDaniel has been featured in Fortune, Business Week, Success Magazine, and Physics Today, among other publications. Recently, he co-edited a new book, International M&A, Joint Ventures and Beyond – Doing the Deal.

Torrence Boone
Managing Director of Agency Business Development
Google

As Managing Director of Agency Business Development, Torrence is responsible for driving Google’s relationships with marketing and advertising agencies across the Americas.

Prior to Google, Torrence was global CEO of Enfatico, a full-service, integrated agency start-up built by WPP to serve the global marketing needs of Dell, its founding client. Prior to Enfatico, he was president of Digitas Boston, where he led the agency’s flagship region and was a leader in the retail, healthcare and CPG practice areas. Previously, he was VP/GM of Avenue A (now Razorfish), where he was in charge of strategy, account management, media, and creative services for the New York operation.

Before his tenure in advertising, he was a senior manager at Bain & Company, where he advised a broad range of clients on corporate and business unit strategy, mergers and acquisitions, new product development, and interactive strategy.

Torrence holds a B.A. in Economics, with honors, from Stanford University, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He serves on the board of the Joyce Theater in New York.

Matthew E. Brashears
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Cornell University

Professor Matthew Brashears teaches courses in statistics, social network theory & methods, covert social networks, and American community and society at Cornell University.

Professor Brashears is primarily interested in social networks and social psychology. He uses a variety of experimental, quasi-experimental, and non-experimental methods to investigate these issues both with student populations and representative samples of larger groups. His research also addresses social isolation, the differences in network structures between males and females, and the amounts and types of resources that individuals can gain access to via their networks.

Professor Brashears is the Principal Investigator for a $796,728, three-year research project funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). The goal of this project is to develop new ways to identify covert social networks (CSNs), particularly those that are preparing a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear attack. He hopes to both develop methods for identifying individuals who are engaged in such efforts and refine methods for identifying members of a CSN from an initial point of entry.

He is also the Principal Investigator for a two-year research project funded by the National Science Foundation. The goal of this project is to explore how individual cognitive processes, including memory, help determine social network structure.

Professor Brashears is currently the Director of the Social Science Research Laboratory, a shared laboratory space available to members of the Sociology department and, when possible, other members of the Cornell community.

Cory Edwards
Director of Social Media and Corporate Reputation
Dell

Cory Edwards is director of social media and corporate reputation at Dell leading a team that is responsible for helping Dell, its business units, regions and product & events teams productively use social media. Under his direction, Dell has launched several reputation initiatives that focus on incorporating feedback from the 26,000+ conversations about Dell online each day and building relationships with vocal online customers and influencers.

Through Dell’s Community Advisory Panel (CAP Days) program, Cory brings together vocal online customers for an in-person event to give feedback and suggestions to Dell management. Through Dell’s Social Think Tank program, Cory brings together leaders from various industries to collaborate around how that industry can work together to create better outcomes for interested stakeholders.

Prior to working for Dell, Cory was corporate social media strategist at Symantec where he led the company’s global social media programs and initiatives. He also worked as group manager of corporate communications providing public relations support for Symantec’s products, alliance & partner activities, and mergers & acquisitions including the company’s $13.5 billion acquisition of Veritas Software.

Cory works as an adjunct professor at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah teaching Communications Research Methods and lecturing on social media. He has a BA in Public Relations from BYU and an MBA from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.