Nancy Lane

Nancy is the dynamic leader of Local Media Association. In her role, she focuses on the organization’s mission: to help local media companies discover new and sustainable business models.

She is the author of more than a dozen industry reports on a wide variety of topics. Her disruption in local media blog has had more than 50,000 views since launching nearly 3 years ago. She is a sought-after speaker at a wide mix of media events. Over the past year she conducted sessions at the National Association of Broadcaster’s Digital Future Exchange, Borrell’s Local Online Advertising Conference, BIA/Kelsey’s ENGAGE program, WAN-IFRA’s World NewsMedia Congress/Cartagena, The Roundtable/Leap Media and Association National de la Presse/Chile. In 2017 she hosted a track dedicated to Facebook at Borrell’s LOAC17.

Nancy created the Innovation Mission in 2008 and has led eight tours since then. To date, the IM has visited with more than 110 of the most disruptive and innovative companies in the world.

Nancy spent 13 years in the newspaper industry as publisher and advertising director in Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Missouri before taking over LMA in 2000. She holds a bachelor of arts degree from Villanova University and is the president-elect of the Villanova Alumni Association.

Jed Williams

Jed is the Chief Innovation Officer at the Local Media Association, where he leads industrywide digital revenue and business transformation initiatives for newspapers, radio and TV broadcasters, digital publishers, and R&D partners. These programs include Innovation Missions, Chief Digital Club executive networking groups, digital boot camps, and LMA’s consulting practice focused on disruptive innovation.

Previously, Jed was Vice President of Business Development and Strategy at Vendasta, where he managed partnerships with leading media companies and drove the company’s go-to-market strategy. He also spearheaded the development and launch of the Vendasta Marketplace, which connects channel partners to best-of-breed solutions.

Jed has also held positions as Vice President of Strategic Consulting at BIA/Kelsey and Director of Business Development at Main Street Hub. He has led strategic consulting projects for AT&T, Google, NBC, Time-Warner Cable and Yahoo!.

A veteran of the local media space, Jed is adept at analyzing and forecasting digital trends, and empowering partners to generate new revenue. His insights have been cited by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Bloomberg, FOX Business, and the BBC, among others. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and corporate meetings. He has written extensively on creative destruction and disruptive media. His work has been published and taught by the Columbia Journalism School and the Yale School of Management

Jed received his master’s in media business from the School of Media and Journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill, where he was named the Outstanding M.A. Graduate by the school.

David Arkin

David Arkin is the Chief Content Officer for the Local Media Association. His experience spans nearly 20 years as an editor and content executive developing high-quality journalism and building transformative digital strategies.

For LMA, Arkin is launching and will run the organization’s Chief Content Club, a group of  audience development and news managers who learn about key content and audience development trends. He also runs LMA’s content training program, content consulting service and works on news partnerships with Facebook and Google. He oversees the organization’s website and social media accounts.

For the past year he served as Chief Content Officer for Community Impact Newspaper, where he oversaw content operations and strategy, for both print and digital, for the company’s 22-hyper-local newspapers, with distribution of 1.7 million in Austin, Dallas and Houston. His efforts led to several national journalism awards for the company.

Prior to that, he was Senior Vice President for Product & Development for GateHouse Media, a position he held for almost five years. His total tenure with GateHouse was nearly 10 years. During that time, he built and successfully scaled the Center for News & Design, and hired 275 people to provide original content, page design, digital development services and training. He also led the company’s content strategies and developed successful social media, video and digital storytelling strategies. In his last year, he overhauled the user experience and design of GateHouse’s 500 websites.

He was the LMA Digital News Innovator of the Year in 2015 and has served on the Local Media Foundation board of directors for the past five years, most recently as First Vice President. He also previously was a member of the Associated Press Media Editors board of directors.

Peter Conti

Peter Conti brings a wealth of digital expertise to the team. He’s launched websites such as Richmond.com for Landmark Communications, taught Global Internet Marketing at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Business, and was the director of interactive media, publishing division, Media General, overseeing more than 130 websites. Prior to LMA, he spent 11 years as a partner and executive VP at Borrell Associates where LMA was his client for 9 years.

While at Borrell Associates, Peter consulted with dozens of media companies, product and service suppliers, and brands, on their digital and ecommerce strategies. He analyzed and wrote annual reports on all the major verticals. He also wrote business plans for many of Borrell’s clients. Peter has been a guest speaker for the National Association of Realtors, NAB, Public Media Development and Marketing Conference, Swedish Magazine and Newspaper Publishers, NAA, WAN/IFRA, Media Financial Management Association, Inland, AAN and many more. Some of his brand clients included Snagajob and Circuit City. Peter has been quoted in many leading publications and made appearances on FOX Business News.

Peter received the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) 2010 Service Excellence Award. for his dedication and leadership in helping educate local marketers and ad agencies.

He attended the International Studies program at the University of Lund, Sweden, and holds a B.A. degree in Radio, TV and Film from the University of Maryland.

Peter has produced the LMA Basic Sales Certification course. He is certified in the Advanced Digital Sales Certification course.

Lindsey Leisher Estes

Lindsey Estes has a strong background in marketing and social media and spent five years working for the Newspaper Association of America. While at NAA, she specialized in helping smaller-market publishers and organizing the annual mediaXchange conference. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia Tech.

Jack Zavoral

Jack Zavoral is a digital sales and marketing professional who has worked in dozens of markets with hundreds of merchants on their digital marketing strategy. He led the digital sales teams at the local broadcast and newspaper properties owned by Quincy Broadcasting, and also led the digital sales team at MyWeather, LLC. He is a regular speaker at digital marketing seminars focused on integrating digital with traditional media.

His earlier experience in brand management with packaged goods companies Birds Eye foods and Rayovac batteries put him on both sides of the advertising transaction table. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Bachelors and Masters degrees in Marketing. He has been certified by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) in  Advanced Digital Media Sales and the LMA’s Advanced Digital Sales course. Jack and his wife Tina are longtime residents of the Madison, WI area. Together they have four adult children. Jack enjoys fishing, hunting and all things in the outdoors.

Janice Norman

Janice has been LMA’s Accounting & Finance Director since September 2001. Her previous accounting positions included, Accounting Supervisor, Senior Accountant, and Budget Analyst. She has experience in banking, legal, travel, property management, and transportation industries.

Janice received a Bachelors of Science degree in Business Administration with an Accounting and Finance Specialty from Lawrence Technological University.

She enjoys spending time with her family, especially her new grandson, the outdoors, gardening and the lakes of Northern Michigan.  Janice has also volunteered her accounting services to various organizations through the years.

Deanna Lewis

Deanna Lewis has a strong classified advertising and newspaper background. For the last 11 years, she has sold classified advertising in more than 1,000 newspapers through LMA’s Classified Avenue program.

Deb Shaw

Deb Shaw is a veteran of the media industry with long roots in the Philadelphia market region. She rose through the ranks of the newspaper industry from fledgling classified ad-taker for The Philadelphia Bulletin to various sales and management positions and ultimately to publisher for several local papers in the market. She retired from active duty upon the successful sale of the Goodson Newspaper Group to a publicly traded company.

Since 2000, Deb has supported the mission of LMA as editor of Local Media Today and has assisted the organization with other duties including special advocate for advancing local media’s digital transformation through the work of the Local Media Foundation Knight grant project and actively covering various LMA events and conferences.

Deb resides in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania with her husband Rick, one of the really good guys in the world. Together they travel extensively particularly with their Harley Davidson motorcycles. Deb took up independent riding in 2007 and has never been on the back of a bike since!

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