Kelly brings almost two decades of bridging the gap between insight-driven thinking and bold creative execution. Specializing in user-first, omnichannel storytelling and creative strategy. Kelly has built, scaled, and led teams and strategic creative direction across multiple sectors – publishing, lifestyle brand, nonprofit, business and financial services, health and wellness and Edtech. Her education and expertise range from user-first digital communications and storytelling, conversion-focused website and UX design, omnichannel brand marketing campaigns and communication protocols, to new product launches and rebrands, and short and long-form videos and content strategies. Her multi-disciplinary capability has allowed her to deepen and optimize brand experiences across the customer funnel and via multi-channel touchpoints. Whether building brands from the ground up or launching new products into competitive markets, she has worked closely with founders, marketers, and product teams to develop creative that’s both visionary and grounded in real audience behavior.

With an intent to focus on discovering and building the authenticity of a brand, Kelly seeks to use the power of storytelling and collaboration to build insightful, effective, and market-differentiated brand experiences that return on business objectives. Based in Chicago, Kelly currently serves as a volunteer and Business Mentor for Female Strong, a non-profit focused on young girls and entrepreneurship.

Heather Barefoot is a marketing strategist with a knack for making the complex sound compelling and the technical feel approachable. Currently Head of Marketing & Accounts at Ladder 17, LLC, she's spent over a decade turning cutting-edge technology into stories and experiences people actually want to hear.

Her career highlights read like a tour of tomorrow's tech: she helped launch the first gene-edited produce in North America (and placed coverage of it in The New York Times, BBC World News, and Wired), managed half-million-dollar event and branding budgets, built influencer campaigns for major national brands, and illustrated the value of beyond-visual-line-of-sight drones to the U.S. government for industries including agriculture, energy, and construction.

Whether she's translating scientific breakthroughs, managing multi-city product launches, or creating award-winning experiential campaigns, Heather has a talent for finding the human story in high-tech innovations. She's worked across industries from gene editing and gaming to smart cities and government software, but always with the same mission: to make complex ideas accessible and exciting.