“Brand Purpose in Financial Marketing”

At the age of 24, Tara Giuliano was appointed into a Director level role at Nationwide Insurance. By 26, she was recruited to head Marketing & Communications for Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty in the Americas.  At 32, Tara Giuliano was elected to serve as President of the American Marketing Association in Chicago while working as Director, Marketing at Morningstar.  In 2015 she was selected to lead one of Chicago's fastest growing companies, Sikich, as Chief Marketing Officer. Today at 35, she is the Global Head of Institutional Marketing as well as Head of Americas Marketing for UBS Asset Management, where she is helping to spearhead growth into a once stagnant business area of the largest Swiss bank in the world. Tara has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from The Ohio State University where she graduated cum laude, with honors and with distinction in International Business. She has a Master’s degree in Communications from DePaul University and was awarded Outstanding Graduate Student of the year upon completion of her degree.  

Chris is a founding principal of McGuffin Creative Group, a 15-year-old Chicago based agency. Focusing on corporate brand development, information design and technology solutions for professional services companies. He has helped clients such as Allstate, Bankers Life, Becker Professional Education, BMO Harris Bank N.A., CNO, CUNA Mutual Group, The Federal Savings Bank, GE Healthcare, and many more.

Chris believes great creative direction combines the right balance of firm guidance and free rein. In his view, the best creatives are problem solvers who respond to challenges with completely new perspectives, skewed from the normal point of view. They ask the right questions and find answers that are new to the world.

Lisa Leiter is a senior vice president in the financial communications group, advising clients on media strategy, thought leadership and executive transitions. She is an award-winning content creator with more than two decades of experience as a broadcaster, print reporter and media strategist. She was most recently the Chief Content Officer for the Executives’ Club of Chicago, in charge of programming. Lisa is a former anchor/reporter for Crain's Chicago Business, where she launched Chicago Business Today and produced the Entrepreneurs in Action video series. Prior to that, Lisa was a correspondent for Bloomberg Television, reporting from the Chicago Board of Trade. Lisa also was a correspondent for CNN Financial News, a senior producer for Moneyline and a staff writer for The Miami Herald. Lisa graduated magna cum laude from George Washington University. 

After more than 25 years as an executive in insurance and financial services, Maria’s charge is to focus on businesses’ most important opportunities for innovation, recognizing the significant public and government demand for change. Her mission is to enable like-minded professionals to proactively shape their own change before being disrupted. Maria identifies, examines and provides an innovation roadmap to take advantage of opportunities in key areas — topics that are appropriate for executives and business professionals in any industry. Maria co-authored the book, “Flirting with the Uninterested: Innovating in a ‘Sold, Not Bought’ Category.” She is a frequent industry speaker and columnist for ThinkAdvisor and was named one of the 20 most creative people in insurance by National Underwriter.