We will be adding speakers as we get confirmations. Please check back regularly for updates.
Kathy Drewien
Kathy Drewien lives in Marietta, Georgia just outside of Atlanta. There she rescues abandoned, ugly, orphaned, broken, and non-productive websites for people and businesses who are ready for a change. She’s an organizer of WordCamp Atlanta, runs a local WordPress Meetup in Marietta, and mentors other Meetups and WordCamps, too. And if that’s not enough, she’s also an organizer of WordCamp US.
She is all about forging meaningful connections and holds to the belief that nothing beats the power of in-person interactions for cementing relationships. The true mentor that she is, Kathy doesn’t hand out solutions on a silver platter; one needs to be committed to the process to derive full benefit. A bit of advice? Pay close attention to what Kathy says, because she’s not the type to ‘blow smoke’ or pound you over the head with direction. If you’re not paying attention or ready to receive, you can miss her subtle suggestions. Suggestions that if you grab hold of, and run with, can have life-changing effects on your perspective and by extension your business.
Georgina Lewis
Georgina is the Chief Executive Officer at Shazzam Media, a Branding and Marketing company offering innovative leading-edge solutions. She is a leader in SEO services, industry analytics, social media ecosystem strategies, building trendy websites and storefront eCommerce solutions for over a decade. She is a speaker at WBO groups, Meetups and Wordcamps in Florida, an active organizer, and sponsor at WordCamp Jax. As a previous IBM VAR business owner, Georgina is a consummate professional! When she’s not working, she is spending time with her husband and 4 kids, or traveling the world with their oldest daughter, a professional golfer on the world’s leading tour, the LPGA.
Ian Svoboda
Ian has been developing custom WordPress themes for over 5 years for individuals and businesses of all sizes. Ian is a Front-End Developer at Oyova Software and the founder/CEO of TitanHost, a Managed WordPress Hosting company.
When Ian isn’t writing code he loves to play tabletop wargames, video games, and play his guitar.
Scott Anderson
Scott Anderson founded a software development company Get Code Smart, a developer by trade he has had a passion for software and web development for over 5 years most of which were spent working with WordPress. His primary focus is developing church-related software and website ranging from e-commerce to online learning platforms.
Irina Blumenfeld
Irina Blumenfeld is a web consultant, empowering business owners through WordPress. She is a founder of Netmagik, a WordPress development company, based in Orlando, FL.
Irina is passionate about Web Performance and helping people learn more about the web.
Stephanie Colca
As the owner of Co3 Marketing, Stephanie is a Marketing Strategy Consultant who balances an analytical and creative mindset with a passion for content marketing and user experience. She uses her experience and expertise to understand her clients’ brands, target audiences and goals and then develops marketing plans focused on driving engagement and delivering results.
Mike Demo
Mike “Demo” Demopoulos is a longtime lover of Open Source Software. He currently works at BoldGrid (a WordPress Site Builder) as an Evangelist. He has spoken at numerous open source events around the world. Mike is also a contributor to Huffington Post as well as other publications. In addition, he volunteers as Treasurer for Open Source Matters.
Sandy Edwards
Sandy Edwards has been working in the online marketing space for over 5 years. She started at a niche firm that utilized WordPress to create sites quickly utilizing several options frameworks. Today, she owns Data Driven Labs a WordPress focused Agency that engages in SEO, Analytics, and Development. She loves to give back by teaching kids about coding, WordPress, and other technical skills. Sandy is very active in the Orlando WordPress community and is excited to see what changes are coming to the tech space in Florida!
Scott Mann
Scott Mann is an Emmy-winning creative director, a traveled business speaker, a board member for a number of regional organizations, an SEO specialist, a certified Google Partner and a social impact advocate.
He founded Highforge in 2001 as a boutique digital agency with the purpose of helping good people grow good businesses online and beyond. Since then the agency has designed work for thousands of companies and helped clients reach millions of new viewers and customers.
Sheila Oliver
Sheila has been designing websites for entrepreneurs and small businesses for over 15 years. Her passion is teaching beginners how to use WordPress. She is a co-organizer of the Gainesville WordPress Meetup, and has spoken at several WordCamps and Geek Girl Tech Conferences.
Elizabeth Pampalone
Elizabeth Pampalone began her journey into the web design world over 17 years ago. In 2007 She started her first company. She soon learned about Business Networking and began going to 3 meetings a day. She also led 13 meet-ups a month. In 2014, she was named “Queen of Jacksonville Networking” by the Jacksonville Business Journal. During all this, she was an active volunteer member of SCORE, OLLI UNF, and the SBDC. Her Pug Obi-Wan keeps her company as she works on The Web Design Chic and The Simplified Academy. She enjoys her work so much, that if her Husband Joseph didn’t insist on traveling, Elizabeth would work ALL THE TIME!
Mike Herchel
Mike Herchel is a front-end web developer at Lullabot and has worked on prominent projects such as the Syfy network, SpaceX, Principal Financial, and more. He’s been passionate about web development since creating his first website in 2001.
Outside of the digital world, Mike loves everything outdoors including hiking, fishing, kayaking, college football, and hammocking. He owns an awesome telescope that’s over 30 years old and uses it as much as Florida’s swampy weather will let him.
Mike lives with his perfectly wonderful little daughter and one very bad dog that has a habit of sneaking stuff off the kitchen counters.
April Mechler
April’s an online marketing strategist, web designer, and coach. (AKA, a total Internet nerd.) She helps entrepreneurs turn their passions into profitable brands, then teaches them how to grow online. In 2016, April and her equally nerdy partner co-founded FUSED, a local web development and SEO firm. In 2018, they founded the FUSED cast, a sister company all about online marketing. In her imaginary spare time, she can be found hiking through the rocky mountains and abusing her Kindle Unlimited subscription.
Richard Ruth
Richard is a lifelong small business entrepreneur. His childhood days were spent collecting cans and newspapers around the neighborhood for recycling and selling green beans from his grandfather’s garden at the end of the driveway. Then he moved up to database design gigs using DBase while in high school and college. Finally, he grew up to owning his law firm as an attorney, and now managing his own e-commerce businesses and digital marketing consulting business. Richard’s passion is to use his experiences (both the good, the bad and the ugly) to encourage other business owners and non-profit managers to pursue and achieve their business dreams.
Drew Barton
A graduate of Emory University, Drew Barton spent three years working at CNN.com before founding Southern Web in 2004. Drew is an Eagle Scout, an active member of Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) and a recipient of the International Association of Business Communicators’ Silver Flame Award for an article he wrote about boosting website traffic.
He is also the author of “The Buyer’s Guide to Websites,” which was written to empower business owners who are in the process of working with a digital agency to build a website. In his spare time, he enjoys learning Spanish and investing in real estate.
Ian Smith
Ian Smith is the co-founder and CEO of FedSmith.com, a digital news service for the federal workforce with over 400,000 regular monthly visitors. He has been a business owner since 2002 and has been using WordPress since 2012.
Chris Edwards
Chris is co-owner of Data Driven Labs, a WordPress Maintenance and Marketing agency. He is a 17-year Internet marketing veteran with experience in web design & development, search engine optimization, online marketing, social media marketing and mobile development. He specializes in WordPress custom development utilizing either Genesis Framework or underscores and is very active in the WordPress Orlando community. Chris has held development and Internet marketing positions in some of Orlando’s top technology companies.
John Rehg
John Rehg has been a database developer for over 20 years, and has been building websites for himself and others over the last 10 years. He has authored over 10 books, from childrens, to spiritual, to zombie novels. He is also an indie publisher, helping others publish their own works in print and ebook formats.
John has used WordPress for 10 years, is still working on his first real novel, and loves to explore the outdoors.
Rian Kinney
Rian Kinney, founder of The Kinney Firm, is a licensed Florida attorney, legal consultant, and author; with experience in market and business strategy. In the spirit of the open source community, she wants to take the mystery and FUD out of CYA’ing your site and contracts. Today her firm represents and advises founders and businesses of every size, across industries in the areas of corporate formation, copyright, trademark, e-commerce, as well as strategy and long-term planning.
Jonathan Brown
Jonathan is a full-stack web developer and co-founder of FUSED with experience in custom theme and plugin development. His primary focus as of late has been creating SPA’s using Angular. When he’s not coding, he is racing his dogs (he hasn’t lost yet!) and playing video games.
April Wier
April helps individuals and businesses become the best versions of themselves. This may come in the form of a new, or better, web site or coaching to break through self-imposed limitations. She specializes in helping high-performers reach their goals online. She is heavily involved in Atlanta WordPress community, as a co-organizer of the Woodstock WordPress meetup and as a former organizer for WordCamp Atlanta.
Michael Brown Jr
Michael is a Digital Marketing Consultant who specializes in SEO, SEM, CRO, and Analytics! ( — insert salesy message here — ). At the end of the day, he considers himself to be a business survivalist and an adventure tester. One who enjoys every day challenges just as much as he enjoys the rewards.
Catherine Mayokun Egwali
Catherine Mayokun Egwali helps business owners establish authority and grow their businesses and income using proven technology and business strategies.
As an international bestselling author, she also provides coaching services for those who desire to write, publish and market their bestsellers on Amazon.
Her online business experiences include but are not limited to: hosting, WordPress website design, internet marketing, self-publishing and Amazon publishing.
Her passion for empowering people and businesses through the use of technology drives her engagement in several ICT related projects which have resulted in several awards including a state and national award.
She is a co-founder and COO of Switem Technology Solutions (www.switemtech.com) which helps business owners grow their businesses, income, and achieve results through the use of technology.
She is married and has a daughter. She enjoys eating ice cream, watching movies, shopping and traveling. You can get in touch with her via www.catherineegwali.com or www.switemtech.com.
Nathan Ingram
Nathan is the Host at iThemes Training where he teaches WordPress and freelance business development topics via live webinar.
He is also the creator of >ADVANCE Coaching, working with WordPress business owners individually and in groups to help them become more successful in their businesses.
Nathan has been a freelance web developer since 1995, and is based in Birmingham, Alabama where he is the lead organizer of WordCamp Birmingham.
You can learn more about Nathan at https://nathaningram.com.
Josh Pollock
Josh Pollock is the founder and lead developer of Caldera Labs, creators of Caldera Forms, a drag and drop responsive form builder for WordPress. He is also a WordPress core contributor, author of two books about WordPress development and a member of The WPCrowd.
Chris Flannagan
Chris is a full time Back End Developer for Modern Tribe. Living in Sarasota, Florida with his wife and two kids he spends his days developing enterprise-level WordPress systems or hanging at the beach. He blogs at whoischris.com regularly sharing tutorials and helpful snippets for extending WordPress and WooCommerce.
Jean Felisme
Jean Felisme is a senior web developer at Florida International University and has been a Builder of Things on the web for 10 plus years. He fell into WordPress back in 2008 and has never looked back. Also, he is a co-founder of RateMyBarber.com and teaches web development skills to students of all ages.
Jean is also a husband, father, dog owner, noob GameDev, and a big Football fan.
Alex Sanfilippo
Alex Sanfilippo uses his long term business and coaching background to help others achieve more in business and in life. Over the past 5 years, Alex has been working with WordPress. Since that time he has been helping others achieve their WordPress goals.
Wesley Lewis
Wesley is a Northeast Florida native, who after unexpectedly losing his job attended WordCamp JAX in 2017. This led to the bold decision of trying to pursue WordPress as a full-time career. He founded OneEighty.Digital, a small but growing digital agency focused primarily on local non-profits. Despite the trials of trying to grow a business while also growing his family, Wesley has experienced one of the greatest years of his life and wants to tell others about the beautiful freedom that can come with running your own business.