Mark runs Courtland Brooks, an agency-consultancy  focusing on strategy, marketing and bus dev for Internet dating communities. He's served POF, Meet Group and 120+ companies since 2005. Prior to this, he worked with Friendster and ran an adventure club in Silicon Valley. Mark has been quoted in press 288 times (18 times in WSJ). 

He heads IDEA.gp (since 2007) and the executive news summary service Online Personals Watch (since 2004). He also owns Matchmaker.com.
 

Mark is a grad of Harvard Business School (PLD, 2014) and London School of Economics (Exec. MSc Behavioral Science, 2017).

Mark helps dating and social leaders connect, learn and share for an even more effective and prosperous future.

Shweta is a managing director and research analyst at Evercore ISI, covering internet companies.

Shweta has covered internet stocks for nine years, most recently at RBC Capital Markets and previously with JMP Group and CRT Capital Group.

Earlier in her career, she worked in investment management and research at AllianceBernstein.

Shweta earned her B.A. in economics from Grinnell College, and her master’s in applied statistics from Cornell University. She is a chartered financial analyst.

Gary currently serves as President and CFO of Match Group, where he oversees finance, accounting, tax, treasury, strategy, corporate development, and investor relations as well as corporate communications, ad sales, user privacy, safety, and data security. Gary joined Match Group in 2015 as CFO, just prior to the completion of the Company’s IPO that November.

Previously, Gary worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch for 18 years where he held various roles, including Managing Director and leading the Financial Institutions Investment Banking Group. Prior to joining Merrill Lynch in 1997, Gary was an associate at the New York City-based law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.

Gary holds a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.

Marc is the CEO of ParshipMeet Group, the world’s biggest non-listed international Online Dating company. He has been with the Group since 2011, previously serving in COO and CTO capacities.

Today, he is responsible for the management and strategic direction of ParshipMeet Group’s products, services, and brands which include iconic matchmakers eharmony, Parship, and ElitePartner as well as video-powered Social Dating apps LOVOO, MeetMe, Skout, Tagged, and GROWLr.
 
With a strong background in technology and strategic advisory, Marc has played a pivotal role in driving the growth and success of ParshipMeet Group and various internet companies which he advised and helped build throughout his career.
 
Marc holds a degree in Computer Science from TU Berlin. Before joining ParshipMeet Group, he also gained strategic experience at BCG's Platinion.

Vanna is the CFO at Grindr, the online dating app for the LGBTQ community, where she took the company public and is driving its monetization.

She is also the Audit Chair and Board member for Skillz and Bungalow. 

Previously, she was the CFO for Disney Streaming Services, launching Disney+ and ESPN+. Vanna was the CFO for Masterclass. She played a pivotal role in a funding round that tripled its valuation.

Vanna also served as a divisional CFO at Thomson Reuters for a decade, overseeing multiple high-revenue divisions.

Karima embarked on her career as a legal professional after obtaining her Master's Degree in Information Technology Science Law from Magistère en Droit des TIC in 2005.

Karima joined happn in 2017  as General Counsel and Data Protection Officer (DPO). happn, launched in 2014, is known for connecting singles based on their real-life encounters, boasting over 100M users worldwide. By May 2018, Karima was promoted to Managing Director (MD), General Counsel & Secretary at happn.

Karima took on the role of CEO and President of happn in July 2021. Under her leadership, she oversees the company's day-to-day administrative, legal, and operational functions, striving to provide a safe and authentic dating experience for users.

Prior to happn Karima was an in-house lawyer for Solocal Group and DailyMotion, and Microsoft, and a Board Member at Beewake.

Violet started Lunch Actually with her husband Jamie 19 years ago after a stint at Citigroup. 

Today, Lunch Actually is Asia’s biggest premier lunch dating company with offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and Bangkok with the largest lunch dating membership base.

Together with Jamie, Violet also founded esync and LunchClick to fill the gap in the market for trusted online and offline dating service platforms. Lunch Actually Academy is established to provide singles with Dating and Image Consultancy, and Peerage provides high-end matchmaking services.

Violet has 2500+ media coverages such as The Straits Times, ABC News 20|20, CNBC Asia, BBC, Bloomberg and Radio Australia.

Violet's life goal is to create 1 million happy marriages through the works of Lunch Actually Group. 

She studied Law in Manchester and has an MSc in Int'l Relations from London School of Economics.

Mariko is a seasoned serial entrepreneur with a track record of building technology businesses from concept to maturity. Mariko received the Forbes Japan Women Award (most influential women in business, 2019) and is listed in 55 Women in Global Leadership (2016) by Forbes Japan. Quipper, an e-learning mobile app company which Mariko co-founded, was sold for $40m in 2015.

She is now CEO and founder of EastMeetEast, North America’s largest dating / live-streaming app for Asians.

Mariko enjoys being involved with the startup community outside of her role as a founder. She has served on the organizing committee of the Oxford Technology Network and a judge at VCIC, the international Venture Capital Investment Competition.

Peter created and operates Christian Filipina, a premium international dating site that allows serious men and women with a history or interest in the Philippines to meet safely, directly, with no intermediary.

Peter has been highlighted by the BBC for fighting fraud in the online dating industry.

He is also a co-founder of Honestdatingsites, an international alliance for honest dating sites.

Zaheed is a senior managing director in the firm’s technology corporate advisory business.  He leads the global internet and digital media practice.

He advised on M&A deals like Grubhub's sale to Just Eat Takeaway and Verizon's Yahoo sale to Apollo. He guided direct listings for Warby Parker and ZipRecruiter, and IPOs for firms like Alibaba, Bumble, and Facebook.

Before Evercore, he led internet and digital media at Citi and has advised on 100+ transactions.

He earned a B.A. in political science from UC Berkeley, a J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law and an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management.

John is a senior managing director in Evercore’s Equity Capital Markets practice. He focuses on advising clients in the technology, media & telecom sector.

John has been a trusted advisor to technology companies for over 20 years, most recently as managing director with Citi, where he ran the technology equity capital markets business. He has been at the forefront of the evolution of capital formation for most of his career and is recognized as one of the most experienced and innovative capital markets professionals in the technology sector.

John has a B.S. from Georgetown University.

KJ is a highly accomplished technologist, entrepreneur, investor, and business executive with over a decade of experience. KJ became Chief Strategy Officer of Social Discovery Group after the social discovery company acquired his dating app Dil Mil in 2019.

Dil Mil has helped millions of users connect in profound and meaningful ways, as a top-grossing dating app. Before becoming Social Discovery Group’s CSO, he managed Dil Mil’s engineering, product, and marketing initiatives.

He previously co-founded Finantric Capital, a top-performing investment fund. KJ graduated cum laude from Drexel University with a bachelor of science in engineering and a minor in finance and entrepreneurship.

Carsten is a seasoned professional with a remarkable track record in the internet dating industry, spanning over two decades.

With a wealth of experience, he has made significant contributions to renowned platforms such as Friendscout24, Be2, and Insparx, where he assumed the position of CEO in 2011.

Currently, Carsten holds leadership roles at be2, Academic Singles, Singles50, and C-date, overseeing their operations and strategic direction.

His exceptional leadership skills are evident in his management of a diverse team of 160 dedicated professionals, serving internet dating services in 37 countries worldwide.

Liesel is a social scientist and associate professor in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University, where she directs the Relationships and Technology Lab.

Her work employs advanced quantitative methods to study how technology is altering the ways people meet, date, and fall in love. A significant portion of her research delves into online dating. She has written about matchmaking in online dating. Liesel's studies also venture into the future of dating, touching on algorithms, AI, and relationships in VR.

Her work has appeared in numerous journals and media outlets like The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Time Magazine, NPR, and the BBC. Additionally, she writes about "Dating in the Digital Age" for Psychology Today.

Adam Cohen-Aslatei is a highly accomplished entrepreneur and industry leader in the dating and technology sectors. With a career spanning over 12 years, he has made significant contributions to companies such as The Meet Group, Bumble, Perry Street, Zoosk, and more.

Adam currently serves as the Managing Director at Tawkify, following the successful acquisition of S'More, a unique dating app he founded.

With a strong educational background, including a Masters of Management from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Commerce in Marketing and Strategy from McGill University, Adam possesses a solid foundation to complement his professional achievements.

Jay started his career at First Beat Media in 2001, right after graduating from the University of Florida.

He began as a digital marketing analyst, working on promoting various dating sites. After about a decade in this role, First Beat Media decided to venture into running their own dating websites. This decision led to significant company growth. Today, First Beat Media boasts a global team of over 350 employees and contractors.

For over 14 years, Jay served as the Chief Operating Officer. Then, in 2021, he was promoted to the CEO role. With his leadership, First Beat Media continues to thrive in the dating business industry.

Michael is an experienced entrepreneur in Social Interaction Technology.

He's the founder of Hubpeople Limited, a platform specializing in Software as a Service (SaaS) that allows individuals to create their own branded dating sites and social networks.

He also owns HubStars.Dating and recently launched hubpeople.ai, a new platform aimed at simplifying the app development process. The service allows users to build a fully functional community, discovery, or dating app from just a single text prompt.

Snehil is a serial tech entrepreneur who has founded startups from his school days and is currently the Founder & CEO of TrulyMadly.com,  India's leading matchmaking app with 10 million downloads.

In 2006, Snehil launched a social networking site and streaming platforms. In 2011, during his Computer Science studies, he joined e-commerce startup Letsbuy, pioneering mobile-commerce in India before its acquisition by Flipkart in 2012. He co-founded Findyahan, a location-based discovery platform that connects skilled individuals and home businesses with their target customers.

Snehil is a firm believer of creating sustainable business practices or as he likes to call it ‘Frugile Methodology’ (Frugal+Agile) for startups.