Mark Graham, co-founder and Chief Brand Officer at commonsku, discusses his entrepreneurial journey from investment banking to starting Right Sleeve, a t-shirt business that targeted customers valuing premium branded merchandise. He highlights the role of technology in their business, including developing their own ERP system.

Mark also talks about Genumark's acquisition of Right Sleeve and the evolution of their software platform, commonsku. He emphasizes the importance of focus, specialization, customer experience, and learning through experience, advising entrepreneurs to prioritize financing through customer revenue over external investment.

Sara Chi, Global Lead, Social Insights COE at the Royal Bank of Canada discusses her background in analytics and how she transitioned into social media measurement and analytics. She emphasizes the importance of engagement as a key metric and the need to understand the context of sentiment analysis.

Sara also highlights the value of social listening in reputation management and crisis response. She advises organizations to start listening and reacting quickly to both negative and positive conversations. Sara shares examples of brands that have successfully leveraged social media for earned media opportunities and emphasizes the importance of empathy in social media listening.

Disha Nayak, CEO of Gigl, discusses the company's mission to help brands and creators connect and launch successful social media campaigns. She shares her journey from being a content creator to founding Gigl and highlights the challenges faced by creators in building brand partnerships. Disha emphasizes the importance of authenticity and relevance in influencer marketing and advises brands to give creators creative freedom while still aligning with brand goals. She also discusses the role of AI in Gigl's matching process and streamlining marketing processes. Disha touches on the emergence of B2B influencing and the power of storytelling in building communities.