Summer Spotlight: Lou Aversano, Fidelity Investments

Lou Aversano is the Head of Brand, Marketing and Social Platforms at Fidelity. In this role, Lou leads the strategy, development, and execution of our marketing programs that strengthen brand awareness, drive customer engagement, and support business objectives.

Before joining Fidelity, Lou was Chief Brand and Marketing Officer at The Cigna Group, joining with more than three decades of experience developing successful brand strategies that deliver growth, competitive differentiation and connection to a company’s purpose.

Prior to joining The Cigna Group, Lou spent 26 years at Ogilvy Worldwide, where he held various leadership roles and developed marketing programs for well-known global brands such as American Express, Unilever, and IKEA. During this time, Lou helped deliver significant growth and marketing impact by embracing diversity and applying creativity for business advantage. 

One of Lou’s proudest accomplishments was working arm-in-arm with the team that introduced one of the most heralded enterprise brand platforms, IBM’s Smarter Planet. This work fused an ambitious business strategy with a bold brand purpose and demonstrated how technology can improve the planet’s most critical systems.

Lou serves as a board member of the ANA and Out Leadership. He holds a bachelor’s degree in finance and marketing from Boston University.

Jacob Ward is a CNN contributor, investigative journalist, and host of The Rip Current with Jacob Ward, a podcast covering technology, science, business, and the forces reshaping modern life.

Jacob has spent more than 20 years reporting on the billionaires, breakthroughs, and power structures that influence the course of history — for better and worse. From 2018 to 2024, he served as a correspondent for NBC News, covering science and technology for TODAY, NBC Nightly News, MSNBC, and NBC News Now. Previously, he spent five years as technology correspondent for Al Jazeera, reporting on the intersection of innovation, national security, and geopolitics.

From 2016 to 2020, Jacob co-wrote and hosted Hacking Your Mind, a landmark four-hour PBS documentary series exploring behavioral science and the consequences of cognitive bias. He is also the author of The Loop: How AI Is Creating a World Without Choices and How to Fight Back, published in January 2022, months before the launch of ChatGPT. Written with support from Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the book examined the cognitive and social risks posed by commercial artificial intelligence.

Today, through The Rip Current, Jacob continues to investigate technology accountability, surveillance, corporate power, and the growing influence of innovation on society.