Speakers

Alex Melen is an Award-Winning Entrepreneur & Keynote Speaker. He is the founder of web hosting company T35 Hosting (founded 1997) and co-founder of advertising agency SmartSites (founded 2011). SmartSites now manages over $100MM/year in advertising spend and has 6 offices & over 300 employees worldwide. SmartSites has been featured in the INC5000 for 6 consecutive years as one of the fastest growing digital agencies and Alex has been featured in Business Week’s Top 25 Entrepreneurs, Bloomberg, Forbes, NPR & more.

Alex Teller is the CEO of Home Perfect, an ecommerce retailer that has been selling luxury kitchen & bath fixtures online since 2008. Alex started using Magento over 10 years ago, after transitioning from a SaaS platform, and was even at the very first Magento Imagine Conference in Los Angeles way back in 2011!

A Native New Yorker with a passion for technology and entrepreneurship, when not in front of a computer, he collects vintage comic books and likes to go to the beach.

BJ McCahill is the Vice President at KASHIYAMA, where he helped launch the brand in the US by opening its retail locations, developing an innovative e-commerce platform, and strategizing marketing rollout. He also leveraged learnings and efficiencies to scale KASHIYAMA’s e-commerce business into the Chinese market while improving Japanese e-commerce site functionality. Additionally, BJ recently oversaw KASHIYAMA’s new custom jewelry line from product inception to market.
BJ has worked in the made-to-measure niche of fashion for over nine years, and emphasizes the importance of fit and fabrication in clothing production.

Caspar is the CEO and founder of Alumio, which is a cloud-based integration platform. With over two decades of experience in web and in the e-commerce industry, Caspar creates an ambitious, respectful and trustworthy environment for clients, partners, and employees to evolve in the world of information technology. Together with agencies and system integrators, Alumio serves renowned e-commerce merchants across the globe and helps them create future-proof integrations and IT ecosystems. Alumio is dedicated to solve the various challenges that businesses face when it comes to integrations.

With more than 20 years of industry experience, James has equal tenure as a consultant in both finance and retail. Currently leading a team of tax technology professionals responsible for indirect tax automation for retail companies, his primary focus is designing end-to-end multi-channel transaction tax solutions. Leveraging advanced technology and scalable software, his keen understanding of compliance aids in enhancing productivity, reducing risk, and improving customer satisfaction.

Marion Freijsen is a long-term technology professional. Her role prior to joining Adobe as a Strategic Business Advisor running the Commerce Strategy team, was as COO of the largest Dutch ecommerce player in wine & coffee where she was responsible for transforming the company (organization and technology) and implementing an ecommerce platform across 16 labels in six different countries. She has over 15 years of C-level experience at public and non-public companies and has worked in technology for 25+ years. Marion is a published author with the release of The N-Factor: How Networking Can Change the Dynamics of Your Business in 2007 and her second book, The EFactor: Entrepreneurship in the Social Media Age, was released in November 2012. She is a frequent speaker and presenter and in her spare time, an active sports enthusiast!

Megan Baumer is a business development director at GS1 US with a focus on the e-commerce community. She works directly with agencies, platforms, marketplaces, and solution providers who share the common goal of helping brands grow and maximize their investments in e-commerce. Her mission is to raise awareness for the critical role that global data standards play in the retail supply chain and to partner with key organizations to make GS1 Standards accessible and understandable to business of all sizes. Her previous experience includes private-label product manufacturing and sales, along with extensive experience in the non-profit world.

Mudita Tiwari serves as Senior Director of Developer Experiences within the Product organization at PayPal. Tiwari joined PayPal in 2018, and currently focuses on creating seamless developer experiences, APIs and SDKs that power the world of integrations and product implementation at PayPal. She has extensive experience in Agile Product Management and Program Management. Prior to joining PayPal, Tiwari worked as a strategic technical partner to eBay’s Chief Architect, and VP of Developer Ecosystem. She created a strategic vision while executing complex technical programs to revolutionize cross-collaboration at eBay. She has a master’s in public policy and a business degree in informational technology. Tiwari is passionate about empowering customers by deploying initiatives for financial literacy and enablement.

Ray is an IT professional and evangelist from the Netherlands. He started working with computers in 1993 as a hobby at first. In the past, he has worked for KPN, a large Dutch Telecom company, as a senior security officer.

Over the last years he co-founded many businesses as a CTO (Jira ICT, Yireo, Wild Hibiscus, Rapido and SupportDesk.) As a trainer/consultant he has trained over 1,000 Magento experts worldwide since 2008.

Currently he is working as a Senior Global Software Support Manager supporting the Customer Engineering team on support and automation.

Ritesh Somani helps to drive value added services and features for Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source within the product team. He has over 15 years of experience delivering software solutions for SMB and enterprise customers in the commerce and payments spaces for platforms. Having started his own business, and having worked at startups and companies such as Intuit, Visa, and PayPal, Ritesh understands the needs of merchants and has successfully implemented easy to use and delightful solutions for millions of businesses worldwide.

Stefanie is responsible for growing platform partnerships on the Strategic Partnerships team at Checkout.com. Before joining Checkout.com, she advised rapidly growing fintech & SaaS companies as a Global Corporate Banker at J.P. Morgan for over a decade. She earned a degree in Finance from NYU Stern and is a CFA charterholder. Stefanie resides in Hoboken, NJ with her husband, daughter and a pup named Pesto.

Thien-Lan Weber is the CMO at OneStepCheckout, the Norwegian-based vendor of the established and globally acclaimed checkout extension for Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce.

Prior to that role, she had a 15+ year international career focused on retail and technology with roles at Accenture France, Clarins, Johnson & Johnson, eBay, and PayPal Australia.

Since 2016 she has been very active in the Magento Community and currently serves as Vice President of the Mage-OS association and as a Director on the board of the Extension Developers Network.

She now lives in France, where she is originally from, with her husband and two children.

She is a keen foodie and in her spare time, she is a drummer in a rock band.

Uri Strauss is the CEO of Webeyez, a Tel Aviv-based digital analytics platform that online businesses use to immediately grow revenue by surfacing the most important points of hidden friction in the consumer journey. Prior to founding Webeyez, Uri was the CEO and co-founder of Yaabam Technologies, which specialized in development for many e-commerce brands across platforms. Uri also served as CEO for easyMarkets, a trading platform with the mission to democratize trading of everything from cryptocurrency to global indices and metals.

Yael is Vice President of Product Management at Checkout.com. She covers Payment Facilitators, Marketplaces, Payout Solutions, and Developer Experience, and is passionate about developing customer-centric solutions anchored in data.

Yael has been building and deploying global payments solutions for the last 15 years. She has worked with businesses around the world helping optimize the payment experience in verticals such as Ecommerce, Omnichannel Retail, Digital Goods, and Subscription platforms. She joined Checkout.com in 2020 after six years at Paysafe Group, where she led the strategy, planning and execution of the global payment network for both b2c and b2b verticals.

Yael has a masters’ degree from The New School in New York City.