Speakers

Amish Desai

Amish Desai is a seasoned executive known for leadership in consumer retail across financial, retail, and strategic development areas. As CEO and Board Member of Embark Veterinary, Inc., a global leader in dog health and genetics, he drives customer-centric innovation and multi-channel growth strategies.

Appointed CEO in December 2023 after serving as CFO since July 2022, Amish brings over 20 years of consumer-focused leadership across multi-scale global brands. His extensive retail experience includes transformational roles at Victoria's Secret, Henri Bendel, and J. Jill, where he played a key role in the company's transition from private equity to a successful public offering. Previously, as Senior Vice President at Rue Gilt Groupe, he led comprehensive finance functions including M&A and strategic planning.

Amish's expertise spans strategic planning, financial planning and analysis, retail operations, customer insights, and business acquisition integration across multinational public and private companies. His focus at Embark centers on accelerating innovation, expanding category awareness, and growing multi-channel distribution while supporting pet parents through core DNA offerings and new product development.

He began his career at Deloitte and holds an MBA from Lehigh University. Amish is a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Management Accountant, serves as an advisory board member to Stylecard, Vice Chairman and board member of the South Shore YMCA, and is a founding member of The F Suite, connecting executives across leading venture capital and high-growth technology companies.

Deborah Meyers

Deborah Meyers is a recognized leader in the pet health insurance industry with more than two decades of executive experience driving operational excellence, organizational transformation, and customer-centric innovation. As a longtime executive at the largest U.S. pet health insurer, she led major initiatives that elevated service delivery, strengthened profitability, and improved standards across operations, sales, claims, and the contact centers.

Deborah led her company’s first enterprise-wide Customer Experience transformation - an initiative that significantly advanced how the organization approached customer engagement, retention, and service excellence. Today, she consults with pet health companies on designing customer-driven operations, building high-performing teams, and aligning culture, strategy, and execution for measurable growth.

Deborah served as an active NAPHIA Board Member from 2018-2024, including a term on the Executive Board, contributing to industry collaboration and the advancement of the veterinary and pet insurance ecosystems.

She holds a master’s degree in leadership, Lean Leader certification from The Ohio State University, Forrester Customer Experience certification, and Evidence-Based Coaching certification from Fielding Graduate University.

Deborah is the founder of Deborah Meyers Coaching & Consulting and DM Publishing Ventures LLC, where she works with executives and emerging leaders across the pet industry and beyond. She is the author of How to Talk to Anyone: Communication Strategies to Unlock Networking Skills, Gain Confidence, and Master Conversations for Social and Professional Success.

Known for her strategic clarity, operational depth, and ability to translate complex challenges into actionable solutions, Deborah brings a results-driven perspective to every boardroom and advisory engagement. Her experience and insight make her a trusted voice in today’s rapidly evolving pet health landscape.

SHORTER PROGRAM VERSION:

Deborah Meyers is a seasoned pet health insurance executive with over 20 years of leadership experience in operations, sales, claims, customer experience, and organizational transformation. As former Secretary on the NAPHIA Executive Board, she helped advance industry collaboration and standards. Deborah now consults with pet health companies on strategy, customer experience, and building high-performing teams. She is the author of How to Talk to Anyone and founder of Deborah Meyers Coaching & Consulting.

Miles Thorson

Mindy Cannon

Pria Pant

Candise Goodwin

Jamie Smith

Mildred Munjanganja

Natalie Marks

Dr. Natalie Marks is a small animal veterinarian with over twenty years of clinical experience. She owned the largest animal hospital in Chicago. More recently, she has been the founder and president of MarksDVMConsulting, an educational and strategy consulting firm working with companies of all stages nationally and internationally. She is also on the Executive Committee of VANE, the premier veterinary angel network investor group. VANE currently has 28 portfolio companies and provides direction, connection, and funding to start-ups in the animal health space.

Shawn Pate

Terry James

Christie Horvath

Christie Horvath is CEO and Founder of Wagmo, a modern pet healthcare company redefining pet benefits in the workplace. Christie holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Economics from Northwestern University. She began her career in the Financial Institutions Group at BlackRock before launching Wagmo in 2017.

Recently, Christie was named to the Inc. Female Founders 500 list, and in 2024, Wagmo was recognized with the Benefits Trailblazer Award for Best Lifestyle Solution.

Jason Meltzer

Jason Meltzer is a pet care entrepreneur with a track record of building category-defining brands. He is the founder of Live Work Pet, a new real estate platform that combines premium rental housing with integrated pet care and curated lifestyle amenities designed for modern pet parents. The company is launching its first community in Denver with plans to scale nationally.

Previously, Jason co-founded Wag, where he served as CEO & Chief Dog Officer and helped grow the company into one of the most recognized pet tech startups in the country. He led market expansion, product launches, sales operations, investor relations, and brand storytelling during the company’s early growth.

Jason brings over ten years of experience at the intersection of pet wellness, technology, and consumer real estate. His work is focused on building scalable solutions that improve quality of life for pets and their people while unlocking long-term enterprise value.

Brandy Kuentzel

Brandy Kuentzel is the CEO and co-founder of Ease Pet Vet, the company making expert veterinary behavior care accessible to all pets. Prior to starting Ease, Brandy led legal strategy and advocacy efforts for one of the nation’s most influential animal welfare organizations, the San Francisco SPCA, for more than a decade. As General Counsel, she oversaw numerous groundbreaking legislative victories including shutting down California’s last gas chamber for shelter pets, challenging restrictive laws on veterinary telemedicine, and establishing the nation’s first legal aid organization dedicated to shelter animals. Brandy saw firsthand that behavior was the silent crisis behind so many heartbreaking outcomes for pets, and founded Ease as the first online solution to bring specialty behavior care into the mainstream. An accomplished entrepreneur and corporate attorney, Brandy was the season winner of NBC’s The Apprentice, and previously founded and sold her own venture in the food industry. She earned her JD from the University of Chicago Law School and holds a BA from UCLA, and enjoys time with her family of two cats, two children and husband in the Bay Area when not building Ease.

Carol Frank

Lashonda Geffrard

Lashonda Geffrard's name is synonymous with passion, dedication, and innovation. As the driving force behind Black Pet Business Network, The Paw Shop, and Paws of Hope Florida. Lashonda is a force to be reckoned with, a true trailblazer in the world of entrepreneurship, and animal welfare. Her boundless love for animals and her drive to create a more inclusive and thriving pet industry has catapulted her into the realm of expert pet industry speaking and influence.

With an unwavering commitment to positively impacting the pet industry as a whole, Beyond her speaking engagements, Lashonda's impact on the pet industry extends to her role as a popular columnist for various industry publications. Her thought-provoking articles delve into the depths of the industry and shed light on emerging trends.

Max Pluss

Tori Williams

Vijay Menon

Vijay Menon is the Founder of Butter, a payments intelligence platform that helps subscription companies recapture revenue lost to accidental payment declines. He started his career at Microsoft, where he came up with the idea for Butter while recovering 12  million subscriptions across Xbox Live, followed by roles at Dropbox and Scribd. In 2020, Vijay launched Butter and has since gone on to raise $30 million and recover millions in revenue for hundreds of brands.

Bruce Truman

Dan Schaefer

Dan Schaefer is the co-founder and CEO of Native Pet, a pet nutrition company raising the standard for dog supplements. After earning his MBA from the University of Michigan, he began his career in strategy and finance at the Boston Consulting Group before moving into entrepreneurship. Driven by the belief that dogs deserve better than the industry status quo, Dan co-founded Native Pet to deliver highly effective, science-backed formulas developed in partnership with a board-certified veterinary nutritionist. Dan lives in St. Louis with his wife, two children, and their dog, Louie.

Luis Lopez

Jay DeLong

Dace Graham

Dr. Henry Yoo

Ujjwal Dhoot

Andrea Binder

Andrea has been with NielsenIQ for over 12 years supporting retailers across a wide variety of channels and store formats, most recently focused on the Pet channel. Andrea has a strong background measuring and explaining the FMCG marketplace as consumers shift their spending in an Omnichannel environment, store formats continuously evolve, and product innovation moves rapidly.

Andrea is a sought-after presenter for industry events such as Global Pet Expo, SUPERZOO, Pet Industry Leadership Summit and more. As a presenter, she brings the numbers to life for pet retailers, manufacturers, and industry partners looking to understand topics such as:

Andrea is a Minnesota native. She graduated from the University of Minnesota – Duluth with a focus in Retail Marketing and Consumer Analytics. She currently lives in the Twin Cities with her family and their adorable black lab, Breezy.

Megan Stephens

In her role as a brand strategist and agency co-owner following the purchase of Willoughby in 2016, Megan has led a large range of brand identity, consumer packaged goods and retail experience projects. Whether infusing new energy to help brands compete in the ever-changing marketplace or creating new brands from the ground up, she specializes in framing the business challenge, synthesizing the strategy, ideating solutions and then working with the design team to bring those ideas to life.

William Propst

Richard is a co-founder and Partner of Triangle Capital and has been an investment banker for over 35 years. Richard has a great deal of experience advising clients in merchandising businesses, particularly in the Retail & Consumer sector.  Richard is an often-quoted expert on the retail and merchandising industries. He is a Contributor to Forbes.com where he writes a regular blog about trends in retail and consumer product businesses. He also appears regularly in print and other media as well as industry panels and speaking programs.  

Before co-founding Triangle, Richard was a Managing Director at a predecessor firm to Raymond James and before that he was a Partner and First Vice President at Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc.  At Drexel, Richard was responsible for a group of 14 professionals doing middle-market mergers and acquisitions around the world.

Richard is the co-author of three books on finance and computer programming.  He is formerly an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International Business at the graduate program of the Stern School of Business at New York University.  Richard received a BS in Accounting from New York University and an MBA with a concentration in Finance from Harvard University.  Richard is married and lives in New York.  

Julie Nelson

Anje English

Rachel Sheppard

As the Director of Ventures for Mars Petcare, I also co-Lead the Leap Venture Studio program. If you're working on a new pet care startup idea, it would be great to connect!

Talk to me about: pet care startups, innovation, new ideas, and fundraising!

Aaron Avery

Michael Hurnaus

Gabriel Baldinucci

Scott Maloney

Chloe DiVita

Steve Lin

• General Manger (Pet segment representing Hills and Nutramax as China exclusive distributor) 
• Solid Gold pet food - General Manger (China) - Grow Solid Gold China business into #1 US pet food brand in China during service.
• Petco - Country Manager (China)

David Haworth, DVM, PhD

David Haworth is a highly sought-after advisor and consultant to some of the largest and smallest organizations in the animal health and wellness space.  He serves on numerous boards including the North American Veterinary Community (NAVC) and DOG TV and Chairs the Scientific Working Group of the Human-Animal Bond Research Institute (HABRI).  He is a venture partner for Vetted Capital Partners and Ani.vc, and serves on the Executive Committee of VANE (Veterinary Angel Network).  Most recently, he was an Executive Vice-President at Embark Veterinary, responsible for Science and Business Development.  Prior to Embark, he was the co-founder and president of Vidium Animal Health, a genomic diagnostics company, and helped lead it to a successful acquisition.  He is also a former President of PetSmart Charities in the US and Canada as well as the former President & CEO of Morris Animal Foundation, providing millions of dollars in grants for veterinary medical research.  Prior to his work in non-profits, he served in multiple positions at Pfizer Animal Health (now Zoetis, Inc.) for over 11 years.  He and his wife, Claudia, reside with their dog Breckenridge in Montana.

Vlad Mysla

Mindy Zemrak

Mindy Zemrak is the 2-time Emmy nominated and 4-time CSA Artios nominated Supervising Casting Producer for the 5-time Emmy Award winning ABC series Shark Tank.  Mindy has been part of Shark Tank for 18 years, since season one, and oversees the entire casting process searching for the best entrepreneurs from around the country. With over 20 years of experience in Casting in addition to working on a variety of tv shows and feature films, her resume includes casting for Pop Culture Jeopardy!, Jeopardy! National College Championship, The Bachelorette, World's Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji, Beyond the Tank, America’s Greatest Makers, American Idol, Top Chef, I Survived a Japanese Gameshow, Expedition Impossible, Oprah’s Your OWN Show and many more.