Ambassadors support the concept, direction, and work of the Open Voice Network. Each with notable platforms and influence, they are important to the outreach of OVN through their public support and promotion.
Technology innovator, proud Dane and digital Viking, conversational AI and digital health ambassador, patient-, privacy- and security advocate; Peter Bentsen is driven to enable AI for Healthcare & Life sciences, in particular, to enable scale efficiencies, free up frontline resources to focus on patient-centric, outcomes-based healthcare.
Dr. Ahmed Bouzid is Founder and CEO of Witlingo, a company that builds tools for publishing Voice First experiences, such as Alexa skills, Google actions, Bixby Capsules, Microcasts, and Audio streams. Prior to Witlingo, Dr. Bouzid was Head of Product at Amazon Alexa and VP of Product at Genesys. Dr. Bouzid is also an Editor at The Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective and a contributing author at Opus Research. He holds 12 patents in Human Language Technology and was recognized as a “Speech Luminary” by Speech Technology Magazine and among the Top 11 Speech Technologists by Voicebot.ai.
Donald Buckley is an award-winning creative executive who has spent his career in marketing and executive roles in the Entertainment and Digital industries with some of the most iconic brands in entertainment. Batman. Harry Potter. Homeland. Ray Donovan. Shameless. City on a Hill. Twin Peaks. Billions. Donald is passionate about emerging voice tech in entertainment and is an advisor and consultant to startups and media companies.
A global executive and strategist in the retail industry, engaging stakeholders to collaborate in all aspects of successful new ventures from launch to results, and promoting thought leadership. Deep expertise in building/executing strategies to meet evolving needs, enhance customer acquisition, service & loyalty, and determine optimal organizational structure in ever-changing environments.
Andre Costa educates executives, marketers, and emerging technology professionals on the power of Voice as a channel and as a user interface. He is driven to always communicate what's possible today, what's the long-term vision, and leading with creative leadership.
Intrapreneurial and strategic CIO / CTO with 20 years of leadership experience across agency, startup, corporate and nonprofit environments, including numerous high-profile global projects for Fortune 500 clients. He leverages a unique blend of skills at the intersection of technical leadership, creative direction, product management, and operations management. Ben has a history of ideating, designing, building and deploying highly engaging, user friendly digital products and experiences across web, mobile, voice, and event platforms. Ben is a weekly co-host for the Voice Spark Live Podcast covering thought leadership in AI and Voice First topics.
Wijnand Jongen is bestselling author of the book ‘The End of Online Shopping: the future of retail in an always connected world’ and highly sought-after keynote speaker alongside his work at the Dutch e-commerce association Thuiswinkel.org and Ecommerce Europe.
Roger Kibbe is a leader in voice and conversational AI technology and a business strategy leader. He has a successful history of working with companies from early-stage startups to Fortune 500. Currently, Roger is Senior Developer Evangelist at Viv Labs and Principal at Voice Craft.
Leading new media veteran who helps companies onboard the new conversational channel. Founder of Project ZIlver: empower older adults with speech technology. Also founder of the Voice Commons: national, private by design, and open smart assistants for all. More at lens-fitzgerald.com.
In many writer-communicator roles, Janice is deeply committed to inclusivity and appropriate use of data in voice. She provided years of writing for global consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers, led a health care start-up, and managed content for VOICE Summit 2018 and 2019. She continues to advise start-ups and early-stage firms and take on freelance projects.
A partner with Candezent Advisory, Gwen is the past Co-CEO of The Store, WPP’s global retail practice and serves as a board member of several retail tech start-ups.
Nick Myers is a TEDx and International Keynote Speaker and has been featured in publications such as PR Daily, In Business Magazine, and the Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing for his work with Artificial Intelligence and voice assistant technologies.
Previous Global Solution Architect of Big Data & IoT CoE and Project Manager of SmartCities at SAP, Michael works with individuals, startups and enterprises in leveraging tech to drive business decisions.
Within his many roles, David leads WPP BrandZ, the world’s largest brand equity study. He is a leading authority on digital, Artificial Intelligence and voice recognition in retail. David has authored a number of books and studies, including “A History of Retail in 100 Objects”; “The Third Era of Digital Retailing”; “Smart Shopping – How Artificial Intelligence is transforming the retail conversation” and has been featured on BBC, CCTV China, Phoenix TV China, CNBC, Yale, CKGSB and Cambridge Universities and The World Economic Forum, Davos.
Nicholas is a retired veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard. Over the past 12 years he worked on communication analysis within the Search & Rescue field. He found his passion for Voice in 2015 when Alexa was released. In 2017 he began to develop for voice and currently hosts the Podcast Voice Spark Live which focuses on voice.
Joe Skorupa is a top influencer in retail technology as cited by independent media, a frequent speaker at conferences and webinars, and his blog, Retail Insight, was named the top retail blog in the country in 2019 by Folio Magazine.
Massimo Volpe has more than a decade of experience in International Retail organizations, learning and innovation. As a citizen of the world, for work and passion, Massiamo dreams to apply his experience to unleash a real wave of inspiration on innovation in the Global Retail sector.
Scot Westwater came to conversational AI and Voice after helping clients succeed in the digital and user experience space for over 20 years. His commitment to helping enterprises use conversational AI to solve business problems and improve customer experience manifests itself in his support of OVN, his book (Voice Strategy), talks, articles, and online courses.
After 20+ years leading marketing and digital strategy on the agency and corporate side, Susan shifted her focus to helping organizations understand and capitalize on the opportunity that is conversational AI. She is committed to education through her numerous talks, articles, book (Voice Strategy), online education courses, and work as part of OVN.
Conversational AI pioneer, Audrey was CoFounder/CEO of Convrg, a voice and messaging platform working with brands such as Estee Lauder, Gallo Wines and Sephora. She exited to Reliance Jio Haptik July 2019.