My Climb and End of Year Celebration of Empowerment

Mark your calendar for our signature event! Wednesday, November 8, 2023.

Moderator: Melissa Merriman, Senior Account Leader for Global Media & Entertainment at Amazon Web Services

Panelists:

• Traci Gusher, Americas Data and Analytics Leader at EY

• Loren Hudson, Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer for Comcast Cable

• Jennifer Metz, Vice President, Product Management at Paramount+

Included with your registration:

• Networking before dinner (5:30-6:00)

• Panel discussion (6:00-7:00pm)

• Buffet style dinner, dessert, coffee and open bar

• Dance party to end the night and celebrate the year

Panelist and Moderator Bios

Traci Gusher, Americas Data and Analytics Leader at EY

Traci is the EY Americas Data and Analytics Leader across both Consulting and Strategy & Transactions, responsible for the growth and management of a diverse team of professionals spanning data management, data platforms, engineering, data monetization, artificial intelligence, automation and domain specific analytics application.  Traci is an experienced executive based out of the EY Philadelphia office with deep experience in leading programs and teams focused on Data & Analytics strategy, artificial intelligence and advanced analytics. Deep experience helping clients define their data and analytics/AI strategies supporting the development of operating models, workforce planning, process definition, technology planning, methods and value measurement.  Traci has assisted multiple Fortune 20 organizations in this area including, not only establishing their strategies, but also supporting the realization of the strategy through implementation. Traci teams with leaders and executives to build sustainable data, analytics, and artificial intelligence capabilities, focusing on moving beyond experimentation and prototyping to full production scale analytics and AI.  She has experience in product centered data strategies focused on generating tangible business benefits. Her clients and teams strive to identify the most pressing use cases and align data and analytics to drive measurable value. Traci has led multiple programs leveraging unstructured data (text, voice and IoT) including large scale conversational AI and text based analysis implementations.  She led a program to assist a Fortune 20 company implement conversational AI in their call centers, generating an estimated $100m+ annual reduction in costs.  She has also assisted multiple organizations leverage AI/ML and NLP/NLU to analyze large corpuses of documents for both value generation and regulatory needs.

Loren Hudson, Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer for Comcast Cable

Loren Hudson is Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer for Comcast Cable. In this role, Loren leads a shared effort to execute a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) human capital strategy that is reflective of and builds upon Comcast Cable’s business goals. As the first CDO for Comcast Cable, Loren also serves as a key partner to the company’s leaders and the broader Human Resources organization, with an eye toward establishing frameworks for DE&I accountability and serving as a driver of employee training, career development, and education. Loren brings 20 years of Human Resources experience to this role. She joined Comcast and the cable industry in 2000 as Human Resources Generalist for the Charles County, Maryland location. Since then, she has held a variety of positions of increasing responsibility, most recently serving as Vice President of Human Resources for the Comcast Beltway Region’s more than 3,000 employees across Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia. Loren received her bachelor’s degree in Labor Relations as well as a Master of Labor Relations from Rutgers University. In addition to her work at Comcast, she is an active member of Women in Cable Telecommunications (WICT) and a graduate of WICT’s Betsy Magness Leadership Institute, as well as a graduate of the Women’s Executive Leadership Program at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She is also a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and a certified Professional in Human Resources (PHR). Loren has served on the boards for Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. She was recently named one of “the most influential multi-ethnic executives in the industry” by Cablefax’s Diversity List in 2021 and 2022, as was included in Cablefax’s 2022 Most Powerful Women in Media and Broadband list.

Jennifer Metz, Vice President, Product Management at Paramount+

Jennifer Metz is Vice President, Product Management at Paramount+, focused on Core Platforms and Expansion. Her team is responsible for core app platforms (Apple, Android, Roku, Web, Smart TVs, and set-top boxes) as well as the global expansion of Paramount+. Previously she worked at Comcast, where she led product teams focused on building, launching, scaling and syndicating the Emmy-award winning X1 and Flex platforms, to voice remote and video features for Smart TVs including xClass and Sky Glass. Prior to Comcast, she worked in the news business in both technology and editorial roles at KnightRidder.com and The Philadelphia Inquirer, winning several industry awards.

Melissa Merriman (Moderator of this event)

Melissa Merriman is a Senior Account Leader for Global Media & Entertainment at Amazon Web Services. She leads a team of engineers and sales executives that innovate to create programs that drive strategic initiatives and growth for their customer’s businesses. Prior to AWS Melissa held various sales roles at Cisco where she designed, implemented, and managed joint development plans for product launches, and drove the adoption of new consumption models for global service providers. Melissa has been a WICT Philadelphia member since 2010. She served as the Sponsorship Co-Chair from 2013-2015, and the Communications Chair from 2015-2018. Melissa graduated from Penn State University with a degree in Electrical Engineering. She is an ID&E champion, and a passionate supporter of the Amazon Future Engineer program. She lives in Newtown, PA with her husband, and their two children.