Founder and CEO
Hawke Media
Entrepreneur since age 6. Started with door-to-door sales and flipping Beanie Babies as a kid.
Graduated University of Arizona in 2008. Became a commercial real estate agent one week before Lehman Brothers collapsed.
Pivoted to digital and raised $1M in 2009 to launch the online music platform Fame Wizard.
Founded Swag of the Month, one of the first e-commerce subscription businesses. Sold 18 months later.
Joined startup incubator Science, helping scale portfolio companies including Ellie.com, later sold to Bally Total Fitness.
After advising brands large and small, saw a gap in the market: great marketing teams were hard to work with.
Hired seven specialists to form a marketing “SWAT team.” That team became Hawke Media.
Friday Jul 24
9:30am - 10:00am
Consumers aren’t just searching anymore; they’re asking. As product discovery shifts from traditional search engines to AI-powered chat environments, brands face a critical question: will you show up when customers ask for recommendations? This forward-looking session explores how conversational discovery is reshaping visibility, influence, and conversion. Retail and digital leaders will unpack how AI-generated answers differ from traditional search results, what it means to “write for AI,” and why structured, enriched product data is now a growth lever. We’ll also examine the emerging landscape of paid placements within AI chat and what it takes to compete. If discovery has moved, your strategy must move with it.
