Community & Guest List

Melanie is the owner of her own digital marketing agency, Melanie Hardcastle Marketing + Events. She left her full-time job a year and a half ago to pursue entrepreneurship and has never looked back. Melanie works with clients to help them find their brand's voice, execute their marketing strategy and produce killer virtual events. If you want to grow your audience, reach the right people and scale your business, she's your woman.

Dan Golden is a veteran digital marketing executive, entrepreneur and business innovator. Dan is a search geek at heart and still spends time auditing accounts, testing new tactics, diving into analytics, and making strategic recommendations for his clients. Dan has spent time on the client-side, with large agencies and had a brief stint at Google before launching BFO. As President and co-founder of the Chicago based digital agency, BFO has been awarded as Ad Age’s #1 Best Place to Work and a 6-time Inc. 5,000 honoree as well as recognition for client work from the US Search Awards, Landy Awards and the US Drum Search Awards.

Forbes, Huffington Post, Inc. Magazine and Mashable have featured Dan’s thought leadership. He speaks regularly at conferences like ANA Marketing Futures, Conscious Capitalism, Pubcon, HeroConf and Inbound and is an Adjunct Lecturer on Digital Marketing at DePaul University and a guest lecturer at Northwestern University.

Jaclyn DiGregorio is a business coach, speaker and best-selling author. As the founder of Clarity and Action Consulting, Jaclyn helps women build successful businesses so they can positively impact their family, their community and the world. At age 21, Jaclyn started her first business from her dorm room at Georgetown University. Jaclyn has been featured by Forbes, Elite Daily, Bustle and Washington Business Journal, and her book has been featured on Good Morning Washington.

Sarah J. Halstead is a comedian, actor and podcaster. Born in Flint, Michigan, Sarah moved to New York shortly after high school, landing plum roles in theatre productions and network daytime dramas. She took a hiatus, however, when her mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and it wasn't till fairly recently that she relocated to Los Angeles to resume her acting career. Since then she's appeared in over 80 commercials, along with a slew of guest-star roles in both film and television. She's also launched an acclaimed standup career, performing regularly at The Comedy Store, Flappers Comedy Club and Laugh Factory. She's the creator and host of the podcast Drinking During Business Hours, and her new podcast, Jimmy & Sarah on the Sunset Strip (co-hosted with Jimmy Shin), is an official podcast of The World Famous Comedy Store. Sarah remains engaged in a variety of charitable pursuits, with a special focus on awareness of ovarian cancer as well as the Flint, Michigan water crisis.

Christel Wekon-Kemeni, also known as "Dr. Dub", is currently a Pediatric Resident Physician at the University of North Carolina Children's Hospital who is also the creator of the Black Man, M.D. blog, a blog designed to not only inspire those who are thinking about entering the field of healthcare but also to crush the negative stereotypes that members of minority communities face on a regular basis. Christel was born in Boston, MA, raised in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Miami, and earned his medical degree from the Wake Forest School of Medicine. He started the Black Man, M.D. blog shortly before starting medical school and has since then not only continued to share his ongoing story with his readers on a consistent basis, but has also highlighted other minority students and professionals in the healthcare field, has shared useful and practical advice as well as positive energy with the readers, and has even used his platform to start a scholarship program for high school students!