Brian Richards
Brian Richards is the creator of WPSessions.com and has been using WordPress since 2007 and training and leading development teams since 2011. In addition to investing his time into training, Brian has had the opportunity to work with many amazing WordPress agencies and experts over these last several years. This has allowed Brian to help develop sites for Microsoft, Disney, TIME, YMCA, and numerous others. Brian has an affinity for self-directed learning and helping others to develop skills and workflows to better solve important and complicated problems. He can’t resist helping good people do great things.
Website: WP Sessions | @rzen
Diana Espino
Diana Espino is a Zend Certified PHP Engineer with 19 years experience in Full Stack development. She specializes in large-scale web apps, modern PHP & JavaScript frameworks, growing engineering teams, and creating great engineering culture. Recently, Diana was recognized by Google as a Passionate Woman in Technology and has co-organized 2 of the Top PHP Conferences in the States – SunshinePHP & WordCamp Miami.
Karla Campos
Karla Campos is a famous Latina entrepreneur mom, influencer, and author. She is a technical founder with a passion for education, community, and making the world a better place. Karla has been featured on Entrepreneur.com, Inc.com, NBC6, Telemundo, and several media outlets for her knowledge and work with moms, entrepreneurship, and education.
Karla founded the consulting and education company Social Media Sass, and the Entrepreneur Moms Club with the mission of helping moms through the journey of entrepreneurship.
Karla enjoys teaching, writing, and discussing business, marketing, social media, issues affecting women, startups, all things digital, entrepreneurship, economic development, life, people relations, news, tech and apps, trending topics, and life as a mom to boys.
Jean Felisme
Jean Felisme has been a builder of things on the web for 10 plus years, as a freelancer and entrepreneur. He fell into WordPress back in 2008 and has never looked back. Now, he is a co-founder of RateMyBarber.com and a teacher of web development skills to students of all ages.
Father of two sugar filled girls and husband of a very forgiving wife. Best friend to the Stewmister, Miniature Schnauzer, that always has his back. He is also a big Football fan and music lover.
Nicole Paschen Caylor
Nicole has designed websites professionally since 2006, with the last 3 years focused on WordPress development. Currently she is a Designer/Front End Developer for BoldGrid and living in her hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan. In her spare time she enjoys listening to music, playing board games, and watching Star Wars with her two young children.
Andrew Norcross
Andrew (or Norcross, as most know him) is a Senior Engineer and Developer Advocate at Liquid Web, focusing on internal product development and being a voice inside the WP community itself.
Karim Marucchi
Karim Marucchi is the CEO of Crowd Favorite and Chairman of The VeloMedia Group. In the past 20 years, his career path has encompassed a variety of opportunities including founding startups, working for large web agencies and taking companies public. This wealth of experience in taking digital teams across the globe has provided Karim with the necessary foundation and institutional knowledge in leading Crowd Favorite into the growing multinational organization it has become today.
David Bisset
David is a full-time freelancer developer living in South Florida. He’s a WordPress developer and specializes in BuddyPress sites/applications along with stand-alone PHP work. Also a speaker, meetup organizer, conference organizer, and father of three.
Mark Ratcliff
Mark is originally from Pinehurst, NC and has spent the last 3 years fine tuning his eCommerce knowledge as a Sales Manager at Avalara. Avalara helps online sellers complete their sales tax filings “automagically” and plugs into WooCommerce, providing real-time sales tax calculations during every checkout. Believe it or not, Mark is one of the few individuals who enjoys a lengthy conversation about sales tax compliance! If he’s not in the office or at a WordCamp event, then he’s probably out chasing a golf ball.
Christie Chirinos
Christie Chirinos is one of the co-owners and the business development lead at Caldera Labs, a WordPress plugin company best known for its popular contact form plugin, Caldera Forms. Christie started making websites at the age of 14, and before joining Caldera Labs did everything from selling items on eBay to leading website re-launch projects for major nonprofit organizations – on WordPress, of course. Christie recently received her Master of Business Administration degree from Florida State University (2015), and is currently based out of New York City.
Carlos Vazquez
US Marine combat veteran turned digital marketer by prank calling Fidel Castro. Now he builds automated systems attracting customers predictably and profitably. (…and some say he’s dang good at it)
Alyssa Harris
(Age 16) Junior Lauderhill 6-12
“Hello, my name is Alyssa Harris I am 16 years old and I am a Junior at Lauderhill 6-12. I started coding in seventh grade I have learned a variety of codling languages including HTML CSS PYTHON and just recently SQL (Structured Query Language) which is used for database programming. I was introduced to WordPress about a year and a half ago and have used it since then to enter various competitions.“
Rodrigo Donini
Rodrigo Donini is a nerd, developer, teacher, husband, dad, curious about all the things around him and not necessarily in this order. He is speaker, WordPress evangelist very involved with the community and currently is Toptal Software Engineer living in the south of Brazil.
He works as developer remotely for 8 years exclusively with WordPress, working on different projects from the simplest to the most complex.
Also, he is an organizer of WordPress Meetups and WordCamp Porto Alegre, in Brazil.
Joshua Strebel
Lenora Porter
Lenora is a creative unicorn who decided to merge her love for art, psychology, and technology into a lucrative career called User Experience Design. She attended the University of Florida and graduated (2014) with a Bachelor’s Degree in Family, Youth, and Community Sciences. She knew her degree did not reflect the traditional route toward a career in technology so she became a lifelong learner. With the use of Youtube, Udemy, and attending a coding boot camp (Wyncode Academy), Lenora was able to transition from a High School Math Teacher to a Product Designer. Currently, she’s one of the awesome designers disrupting the business VoIP world at IDT Corporation.
When she’s not at work, Lenora enjoys spending time in her community speaking about design, mentoring students, and inspiring future creatives. Lenora believes tech is much more colorful and artsy than it seems. Through her story, she hopes to shed light on the arts and its place in technology.
Miriam Goldman
Miriam leads the development team at Pondstone, a boutique digital marketing agency in Canada’s national capital, Ottawa. She started playing around with WordPress for personal projects in 2009, and for professional projects two years later. Miriam is also one of the co-organizers for WordCamp Ottawa, and helps run the social media for the Ottawa WordPress community.
Outside of her web development life, she is an instructor at her local karate dojo, and also competes in the pro-am categories in international latin ballroom dance.
Sherry Walling
Dr. Sherry Walling is a licensed clinical psychologist, the co-host of the ZenFounder podcast, and is the life force behind ZenFounder.com, a consultancy that helps entrepreneurs tend to their mental health.
Sherry has a PhD in clinical psychology, a couple of master’s degrees and has been a researcher and a tenure-track professor. And to round out her geek credentials, she’s been married to a serial entrepreneur for 18 years. Though not technically a WordPress geek, she loves hanging out with the WordPress community and sharing her unique combination of psychological expertise and years of experience in the startup trenches.
Her book, The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping Your Sh*t Together came out in February 2018.
When she’s not in the consulting room or hopping conferences; Sherry can be found on her paddleboard, in the yoga studio, or doing her best not to break her own WordPress sites.
Pam Aungst
Pam is the owner of Pam Ann Marketing and Stealth™ Search and Analytics. Both specialize in SEO, PPC, and Analytics. Through Stealth™, we work on a private-label basis through other agencies. Through Pam Ann Marketing, we work directly with well-established businesses and funded startups to take their search and analytics strategies to the next level.
Website: Stealth™ Search and Analytics | @stealthsearcha
Keri Engel
Aidan Lacayo
5th Grade Manatee Bay Elementary School
Aidan enjoys playing soccer and the guitar and his favorite subject in school is math. Aidan enjoys traveling and visiting National Parks where he has earned Junior Ranger badges from the parks he has visited. He also enjoys cooking, robotics, reading and video games.
Annejeanette Washington
Annejeanette M. Washington is a dedicated educator and professor in Broward County, Florida for the past 25 years. A graduate of The University of Miami and Nova Southeastern University, she shares her passion for educational technology teaching her students WordPress, Microsoft Office 365, Canvas, Edmodo and other LMS platforms. Most notably, Annejeanette uses WordPress to spotlight STEM trends and empowering mothers. Annejeanette has presented at local, state, and international platforms notably Edu-Match Podcasts.
In addition to teaching, Annejeanette is a conference speaker, photographer, website designer, social media blogger, and community servant. She volunteers with Dare to Care Outreach, Black Girls Code Miami Chapter, The National Alliance of Black School Educators- Broward County Chapter, DadsBeonDuty.com, and The Faith Center Ministries Women and Youth Department just to name a few.
Annejeanette, although proud to be a New Yorker by birth, loves to celebrate her Caribbean roots anytime she can. She enjoys listening to gospel music, reggae, Bahamian Junkanoo, NY/Chicago House, and Neo-Soul. When she is not jamming great music or eating Caribbean cuisine, especially cracked conch, she can be found cheering for the Miami Hurricanes, Miami Heat, or Jacksonville Jaguars. Her greatest joy is spending time with family, especially a miracle daughter Jayda ( past and current WordCamp Panelist) and her beautiful niece, Victoria.
Roxana Colorado
Business Strategist & CEO of @LatinaNomad | Founder & CEO of @Dare2BNYC | Score Mentor
Roxana Colorado is a business strategist dedicated to helping you launch, grow or rescue your business.
Roxana has lived in seven countries throughout Europe, Latin America and Africa for work, volunteer, and study abroad opportunities. In addition, she brings over ten years of project management experience working with Fortune 500 corporations. Since leaving the financial sector in 2010, Roxana has leveraged her entrepreneurial experience coupled with her philanthropic accomplishments to provide clients with the clarity, knowledge, and skills required to establish the businesses and lifestyles they desire.
Clients include entrepreneurs, inventors, restaurant owners, and small business service providers.
Website: Latina Nomad | @LatinaNomad
Matt Cromwell
Matt is Head of Support and Community Outreach at GiveWP.com and WordImpress.com. He is the author of several popular free plugins and the Lead Admin of the Advanced WordPress Facebook group (which boasts over 30K+ members). He’s a popular blogger at his personal site (mattcromwell.com), wordimpress.com, givewp.com, and mediatemple.net.
Carole Olinger
Carole is a former Luxembourgish government agent on a four-year sabbatical to take care of her health and to find new professionally enjoyable challenges. She lives in the German Eifel since 2014 together with her husband and three French bulldogs.
She is also a certified dog’s behaviour and health trainer and all-over passionate about dogs. Furthermore, she’s a committed “lipedema fighter” in Luxembourg with regular appearances in print, online and TV media.
The magic of WordCamp Europe 2016 in Vienna made her become a true WordPress Community-Junkie. Through several WordCamps as a passionate volunteer, she got involved in the organization of WordCamps without even having used WordPress before. Later, she built her first WordPress websites and is currently levelling skills.
Meanwhile, besides organizing three different WordCamps (Cologne, Retreat Soltau and Europe 2018) and one WordPress Meetup, she works as a WordPress Community Manager for Plesk.
Beka Rice
Beka Rice is the Head of Product at Jilt, where they focus on helping merchants increase revenue through automated lifecycle emails. Jilt’s goal is to level the playing field for eCommerce growth by taking enterprise-level tools and strategies, and making them available to any merchant.
Jilt is built by SkyVerge, the top WooCommerce.com extension provider, and maker behind some of the most popular extensions, such as WooCommerce Memberships.
When she’s not keyboard-punching, Beka enjoys hiking, reading, and playing music.
Miles Lifton
Miles, who is currently 11, lives to learn about tech. With several years of programming study already under his belt, Miles specializes in Python but has also studied C/C++, HTML, PHP, CSS, JavaScript and more. Born in to a wired world, Miles sees technology as a positive asset. He believes there is room for technology in everyone’s life and room for anyone, of any age, within the tech community.
Miles has contributed as a passionate committee member for Be The Difference Foundation, Sofia’s Hope, and Polyblox Totems educational toys. When hanging out at home, Miles can be found solving Rubiks cubes of all shapes and sizes, practicing American Sign Language and working on his newest web project using WordPress www.LanguageIsNotaBarrier.com a site devoted to fostering world peace.
You can find Miles on Twitter at @KidCoderDev and speaking to large groups about his passion for tech throughout the year.
Chris Flannagan
I’m a full time Back End Developer for Modern Tribe. I dreamed of working with Tribe for a couple years so I pushed myself to reach the level needed to work there. Now I can confidently and proudly say I love my job, my co-workers and the work I do. WooCommerce has been my specialty for a three years and I work with it daily at Tribe.
I have two amazing kids and a beautiful wife with more tattoos than me. I’m in a semi-retired original rock band called Hail Dale and in my spare time I’m trying to write an augmented reality iOS game in Swift.
Website: Who is Chris | @ChrisFlanny
Scott Mann
Scott is the Founder and Creative Director of Highforge, an Orlando-based service agency focused on helping medium and enterprise businesses lead and succeed online. He’s an Emmy- winning commercial writer that’s sold millions in projects and generated hundreds of millions in new revenues for clients since 2001. He’s been managing commercial WordPress projects since 2009. He loves to solve problems, make clients happy and help creatives achieve their destinies. He digs racquetball, travel backpacking, scuba, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, festivals, Bob’s Burgers, fine tequila and a non-profit called Be the Match that helps save lives. Ask him why.
Anthony Miyazaki
Anthony is a brand-builder and spends his time building brands for people, programs, and organizations. He founded and currently directs the FIU Master of Science in Marketing program, the only one in the world with a three-part focus on Digital Marketing, Brand Development, and Marketing Analytics. He leads FIU’s Marketing and Logistics department, and was recently appointed as the college’s Executive Director of Marketing and Analytics. Online, you can connect with him on LinkedIn, follow him on Twitter (@SensibleFolk), and catch his weekly YouTube #MarketingMinute videos (be sure to subscribe). Anthony’s a firm believer in people, truly constructive feedback, and the value of tangible results. If you cross paths with him at the conference, ask him when he’ll help you build your brand (for free of course).
Naomi C. Bush
Naomi’s been working with WordPress as a professional developer since 2005, and you can find her at gravityplus.pro, where she specializes in quickly delivering custom business applications at a fraction of the cost, and curating The Gravity Guide. She contributes back to the WordPress project through the core code, the codex documentation, free plugins, organizing the WordPress Gwinnett meetup, organizing WordCamp Atlanta, and speaking at WordCamps.
Victoria Dameus
(Age 16) Junior at Lauderhill 6-12 STEM-MED magnet school
Victoria Dameus has become a role model, a coach, an entrepreneur, and a leader. Arriving from Haiti in 2013, Victoria was faced with the challenges of many new immigrants, who would have thought that her inability to speak a word of English was going to be her key motivator for her early academic and leadership success?
Victoria managed to develop her leadership role as an active member of the National Honor Society’s Lauderhill 6-12 chapter (current Secretary), a student member of the North Broward County Chapter of The Links. A lead anchor and writer of the school’s television production studio, Yearbook Copy Editor, and a founding member of the Oracle Coding group. It was her active involvement in the coding group that propelled Victoria forward. As if learning English as a second language was not enough to keep her occupied, Victoria found the time to learn HTML, HTML5, CSS, CSS+, Bootstrap, Python, SQL, and JavaScript. This opened a new world for her. Identifying problems and developing computer science solutions came naturally for Victoria, her work has gained the attention of the South Florida community and she has already made a footprint of her unique user experience web style. As a web coder and designer, she applied her programming knowledge to recreate a website for Doris Canady, this was her first exposure to web development for the community. CSS and JavaScript were new languages for Victoria and she was quite fluent- creating buttons and layouts improved page management resulting in an upgraded and gorgeous page. This was the first out of a class project and many others have followed, such as five web pages created using WordPress.
Victoria’s determination to lead by example has provided Victoria with 1st place recognition for Human Capital Management Jr. End of the Year competition and the Yaeger Redesign Project. Her community involvement led her to present at the 9th annual WordCamp Miami where as part of a panel discussion she shared her insights on web tools and publishing in the 21st century. She parlayed these experiences into a summer job atConceptual Communications, a marketing, branding, public relations and social media company in Ft. Lauderdale. She was also nominated for a Leaders recognizing Leaders award. She is currently working with industry professional in making the web a friendlier place. Her efforts to improve herself has impacted all those that work with her-both personally and professionally.
Birgit Pauli-Haack
Since 1998 Birgit Pauli-Haack has worked with nonprofits as a web developer, a technology strategist, a trainer and community organizer. She founded Pauli Systems, LC in 2002, now a team of six. It is a 100% distributed company. Since 2010, her team has used WordPress to build new nonprofit sites and applications.
In her spare time, Birgit serves as a deputy with the WordPress Global Community team, as a WordPress Meetup organizer and a Tech4Good organizer. She has been a Regional Netsquared Ambassador since 2015. In the same year, Birgit co-founded with like-minded technology strategist the nonprofit organization NPTechProjects, Inc., helping nonprofits use technology to increase their impact. Alongside Jim O’Reilley, she co-hosts the podcast “What’s New in NPTech.”
Birgit is a native German. When not in front of a computer, she runs, plays tennis, or hangs out with friends. She and her husband of 25 years love to travel and visit city art museums.
Website: Pauli Systems | @bph
Windy Pierre
I’m a studious and dedicated eCommerce and Digital Marketing Professional that develops and implements digital marketing strategies for organizations, ensuring their messages, products and services reach all the right targets.
Francesca Marano
Francesca is the WordPress Community Manager at SiteGround. She is part of the WordPress community team, organising Meetups and WordCamps in Torino and taking part in many other WordPress events worldwide.
She founded C+B, a blog with an editorial staff of more than sixty authors offering daily advice for Italian female creative entrepreneurs.
Francesca is a passionate speaker and you can find her in Italy and around the world talking about WordPress, community, open source, women in tech, and small businesses.
Kevin Langley Jr.
Kevin joined Human Made in 2017, as a Senior WordPress Engineer. Before working with Human Made, he has worked for various agencies and had a large stint freelancing as well. Over the years, Kevin has expanded his knowledge of WordPress by working on projects ranging from small microsites to enterprise level customizations for companies such as ESPN, Disney, and BigTen Networks.
Kevin resides in sunny Beverly Hills, FL and when not working can be found spending time with his two children, tinkering on a side project, or cycling.
Mauricio Dinarte
Mauricio Dinarte is passionate about Drupal, teaching, and traveling. Over the last few years, he has presented 25+ sessions and full day trainings in 12+ Drupal events across America and Europe, including DrupalCon Vienna.
In Nicaragua, his tropical home, Mauricio serves as a lead organizer of the Drupal community where he had helped to organize meetups, trainings, and a DrupalCamp. He also volunteers with the WordPress community and is part of the program team for WordCamp Managua 2018.
Although relatively new to WordPress, Mauricio believes in the value of free source communities working together. Hence, he looks for collaboration opportunities and ways to learn from each other. Results have been very positive.
Website: Mauricio Dinarte on Drupal | @dinarcon
Tessa Kriesel
Developer Advocate at Pantheon, Tessa has been a web developer for over 10 years. She enjoys front-end development but also loves to build sites from start to finish. She started in Joomla, moved into WordPress shortly after and most recently has been digging into Drupal.
She enjoys teaching others to code, mentoring junior developers and speaking at conferences and youth events. She is an instructor and retired Chapter Leader for Girl Develop It Minneapolis, WordCamp Minneapolis Organizer and founder of Outspoken Women. Tessa is a northern Minnesota native, but now lives in the Twin Cities. She loves dogs and enjoys helping local organizations rescue dogs in her free time.
Sze Liu
WordCamp Miami speaker for a third time, Sze has been speaking at WordCamp Miami, WebCongress and other conferences focused around E-commerce and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). She has been a WordPress designer and developer since she started her first web and marketing company in 2010. Since then, Sze has become a WooCommerce expert and launched many WordPress websites specifically with E-commerce solutions for myriad of clients. In 2017, she co-founded WM.Digital, a creative agency based here in Miami focusing on bringing the best in online experiences and interfaces for clients focused on all things digital. Prior to starting her own companies, Sze had worked for Fortune 500 companies in strategy and marketing.
Sze holds a B.S. in Marketing and International Business from Florida Atlantic University, as well as an MBA from University of Miami.
Bradley Cummins
Co-founder of WM.Digital. Lives and breathes all things digital. Enjoys breaking legacies, digital interactive animated online experiences, snowboarding, hiking and beach life!
Zac Gordon
Zac Gordon is a professional educator, with a current focus on JavaScript development with and alongside WordPress. Zac has years of experience teaching at and developing curriculum for high schools, colleges, bootcamps and online learning sites like Treehouse, Udemy and Frontend Masters. In addition to teaching, Zac also runs Web Hosting for Students, one of the world’s largest hosting companies dedicated to students and teachers.
Dr. Nancy Richmond
Dr. Nancy Richmond is a professor and leading speaker in social media, personal branding and marketing. Her passion is to empower and train leaders in effectively leveraging social media for their careers and business. She teaches social media classes for the College of Business and is the co-founder of the Social Media Association at Florida International University
Dr. Richmond has worked with leading universities including MIT, Harvard University, Florida International University and Northeastern University.
Nancy has a passion for social media with over 80,000+ followers on Twitter, 5,000+ connections on LinkedIn and 7,000+ followers on Instagram. Nancy’s most recent project and research #LeadersGetSocial explores how leaders can use social media to succeed in their careers and organizations.
Adam Warner
Adam W. Warner discovered WordPress in 2005 and has been working within the community ever since. To feed his entrepreneurial spirit, he founded several WordPress-focused businesses that provide education, plugins and consulting services for online business owners.
He is a true WordPress Evangelist in spirit and personality, and that happens to have been his job title when joining SiteLock.com. Today, he’s the Open Source Community Manager there, continuing to bring his experience and knowledge of the web, business, and security to many other communities.
Adam is also passionate about his family, robots, and of course Life, the Universe and Everything.
Website: Sitelock – The District | @wpmodder
Natalia Real
Natalia Real started building websites on WordPress in 2012 and has been learning nonstop ever since. She’s a Web Designer/Developer-turned-Digital Strategist at Website Superhero and loves using technology to help make the world a better place.
Nat’s career path has taken her from copywriting and WordPress maintenance and optimization, to content marketing, team management, and SEO. She’s passionate about meditation, psychology, mountains, and bad puns.
Rick Tuttle
Rick Tuttle is a Senior Web Developer at National Auto Lenders in Miami Lakes where he leads a team building web and mobile apps. Rick is a supporter of the local tech community as an organizer and speaker at WordCamp Miami and other local meetups. He is a musician and an aspiring fiction author.
Rick is “The Guy in the Chair” for WordCamp Miami. When asked if his consciousness was downloaded in order to create our Wapuu SlackBot Rick said, “Yeah no! Pero like, we’re primos…supposably.”
You can follow Rick at @ricktuttle and papasoft.com
Andrew Taylor
Andrew currently works for Pantheon providing consulting for their agency partners and giving back to the WordPress community.
As a former web developer, Andrew spent his time on large scale projects for clients such as AMC Networks, Frito Lay, National Van Lines and more. With over 10 years of web development experience, specializing in WordPress, he is a seasoned veteran.
Wesbite: A Taylor | @ataylorme
Syed Balkhi
Syed Balkhi is an award winning young entrepreneur with several 7 figure online businesses. He was recognized as the top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by United Nations. His work has been featured in Forbes, Inc, Washington Post, FoxBusiness, Entrepreneur, Wired, and many top publications.
In 2009, he created WPBeginner which is now one of the largest free WordPress resource site on the web. In 2011, he created a site called List25, an extremely popular site that within 3 months of launch was receiving 5 million page views per month. List25 has over 2.1 million subscribers and 470 Million video views on Youtube.
Aside from these, Syed is also the founder of WPForms, MonsterInsights, Soliloquy, and Envira Gallery.
Aleyna Harris
(Age 16) Junior- Lauderhill 6-12 High School
Aleyna was introduced to coding in 7th grade and continued on through Highschool. She had the opportunity to volunteer with oracle where she was able to learn web development.
She has taken part in competitions in which she was able to be on teams with her friend. With the help of the oracle coaches and Codecademy Aleyna now knows HTML, HTML5, CSS and SQL.
Aleyna is originally from Jamaica and her future aspirations are to go to Universty where she will be able to study computer Programming.
Matt Mullenweg
Matt Mullenweg, co-founder, WordPress; founder & CEO, Automattic
Matt Mullenweg is the co-founder of the open-source blogging platform, WordPress, the most popular publishing platform on the web, and the founder & CEO of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, and Jetpack. Additionally, Matt runs Audrey Capital, an investment and research company.
He has been recognized for his leadership and success by Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek, Inc Magazine, TechCrunch, Fortune, Fast Company, Wired, University Philosophical Society, and Vanity Fair.
Matt is originally from Houston, Texas, where he attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and studied jazz saxophone. In his spare time, Matt is an avid photographer. Matt splits time between Houston, New York, and San Francisco.
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 Lema
Chris Lema is Vice President of Products & Innovation at Liquid Web, a blogger (at chrislema.com and leaders.blog), the author of several ebooks and a public speaker. He loves to tell stories – helping people learn how to leverage technology for their business and personal use.
John Blackbourn
John is one of the WordPress core developers, a member of the WordPress security team, and was the release lead for WordPress 4.1. He works as a senior developer at Human Made in the UK, and has over ten years’ experience developing with WordPress.
Patrick Alexander
Patrick Alexander is the founder of WPBICO, an all in one WordPress platform which provides every tool (domain,email,theme,hosting, plugins & training) required for a WP website at one affordable price. An avid WordPress enthusiast and lover of all things tech, Patrick has devoted himself to the tech industry for over 15 years gaining extensive experience in Programming, Web Development, System Administration and Technician; and a resume with related positions in the U.S military, Universities and several Internet Start Ups. He is also Professor at MiamiDade College and the founder of www.balambico.co, www.wpbico.com and www.collegepaperreview.com.
Nakeesha Charles
My name is Nakeesha Charles. I was born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts. I lived in Atlanta, Georgia for ten years. I completed my undergraduate degree in journalism at Georgia State University in 2004. I have lived in the greater Baltimore, Maryland area. I have been dumb struck in love with Miami since my first visit in 2000. I relocated to Florida in 2005.
I am a writer. I teach English.
My web handle “cnakeesha” is a bit of a play on words using my first name and my last initial. It is a reminder to myself to see (c) the world with true vision and a reminder to the world to c me for all that I am. I started blogging in 2009. Can’t stop, won’t stop.
Jean Regisser
Lead Mobile Engineer at Crossfield, I build awesome mobile products with a special care on crafting slick and engaging user experiences.
Early adopter of React Native. I’m a regular contributor.
I pioneered live video streaming back in 2008 on the very first iPhone SDK (that’s what it was called back then) building the now deceased Orb Live app at Orb Networks, Inc (acquired by Qualcomm in 2013).
Got hooked on building mobile apps and have worked with all iterations of the SDK.
Lead the mobile team at PrePlay to create the first live sports prediction games.
Started programming at 11 (remember Delphi?), got a 33k internet connection soon after.
Never stopped learning and in 2008 I graduated from the University of the Mediterranean, France with a Masters degree in IT Engineering.
At Orb Networks I worked under the direct supervision of Luc Julia, aka one of the fathers of Siri – the voice assistant.
Tara Claeys
Based in Arlington, Virginia, Tara Claeys is the owner of Design TLC, and a co-founder of Nice Work, LLC, producing custom websites for small and medium businesses. Tara’s focus is on private school and non profit websites, although she has also worked on business-to-business, restaurant, e-commerce and real estate projects. She works closely with her clients to create effective, clean and personal communication platforms.
Tara is obsessed with digital efficiency and productivity tools and techniques.
In addition to running her own companies, she is a regular attendee at the WordPress DC Meetup and runs the Arlington/NoVa WordPress branch of this Meetup. Tara is also a co-host of the podcast Hallway Chats.
Outside of work, Tara is a runner, a cyclist, and a musical theater enthusiast who most recently is trying to learn to play the piano.
Andreas Lopez
Andreas first encountered Web Design back in Germany while taking Media Design classes where he learned HTML & CSS raw – no CMS, no aiding tools, just notepad and a cheat sheet of tags.
He moved to South Florida, US in 2012 where he became an IT Admin in 2013 and Webmaster by default at a small startup. This is when he used WordPress for the first time in a professional way. And from there on it was a deep dive journey straight into E-Commerce which is why he considers himself now an E-Commerce specialist and knowing his way around Google Analytics to make sales happen.
He works full-time at a local business in West Palm Beach while freelancing on the side, allowing him to maximize his knowledge and make the dreams of others come true by creating their web presences and e-commerce channels.
Victor Santoyo
Victor is an Account Executive for Sucuri. A technology enthusiast focused on expanding his knowledge of online security. When away from the keyboard, going out for long runs or watching sports with his family.
Website: Sucuri | @v_santoyo
Raquel Landefeld
Raquel Landefeld* is a serial volunteer with a young soul. In 2010 she co-founded Mode Effect, a Phoenix-based WordPress agency that specializes in WooCommerce integration. Intentional about community building, she believes that wherever her feet are is where the building happens. Currently she is active in several communities from tech to government to neighborhoods and more. You can usually find her organizing a WordCamp or volunteering pretty much anywhere.
On the personal side of her life she is a wife & mum, an active dancer, a music lover, an amateur photographer, and has a 20-year-curated Wonder Woman collection.
*Loves doing cartwheels
Louise Treadwell
Louise is an eternal web development geek and social media junkie. She’s a native of Metro Detroit and an alumna of the University of Michigan. She learned about the human side of computer science while earning a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science and has fined tuned her web developer skills over the course of a 20+ year career building, breaking, and fixing sites for a multitude of startups. She’s never had a “real” job or worked in a real office and thus is quite well-versed on the realities of being a successful freelancer, remote contractor, and small business owner. Louise loves coffee, is full of useless facts, and is eagerly waiting for her shot on Jeopardy. She lives in South Florida with her three bouncing boys and her husband.
Website: Louise Treadwell | @infoscigeek
Grzegorz Ziółkowski
Grzegorz is a passionate code wrangler and open-source contributor based in Oleśnica, Poland. He writes JavaScript at Automattic and helps develop Gutenberg – the new WordPress editing experience. When not coding, Grzegorz enjoys spending time with his adorable wife and daughter. He likes traveling to new places and playing basketball with his friends.
John Maeda
John Maeda is an American executive spearheading a new convergence across the design + technology industries. He joined Automattic in 2016 as Global Head of Computational Design + Inclusion and previously served as Design Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a world-leading venture capital firm and was the 16th President of the Rhode Island School of Design.
His books include The Laws of Simplicity, Creative Code and Redesigning Leadership. He holds degrees in Electrical Engineering + Computer Science from MIT, an MBA from Arizona State U, and a PhD from University of Tsukuba in Japan. Maeda draws on his diverse background as an MIT-trained engineer, award-winning designer, and executive leader to help businesses and creatives push the boundaries of innovation in their markets and fields. He has appeared as a speaker all over the world, from Davos to Beijing to São Paulo to New York, and his talks for TED.com have received cumulative views of over 2 million to date.
Maeda was the recipient of the White House’s National Design Award, the Tribeca Film Festival’s Disruptive Innovation Award for STEM to STEAM, the Blouin Foundation’s Creative Leadership Award, the AIGA Medal, the Raymond Loewy Foundation Prize, the Mainichi Design Prize, the Tokyo Type Director’s Club Prize, and induction into the Art Director’s Club Hall of Fame.
Maeda can be found on Twitter discussing technology, business and design at @johnmaeda, one of TIME Magazine’s 140 Best Twitter Feeds.
Pascal Depuhl
Pascal Depuhl has run his own small business for the over 20 years. His favorite past time (next to creating mind changing visual content for his customers), is to come up with new ways to burn his brand into their brains.
Sebastian Rusk
Sebastian has developed a very unique approach to creating buzz and making noise for brands via social media and the digital space.
His role as an Author, Corporate Event Emcee, Keynote Speaker, Digital Influencer, personality for brands and Social Media Strategist, has enabled him to influence those around him.
His forte of being able to make his crazy ideas a reality, are what make SocialBuzzTV.com a reality today. It is no mystery why
Sebastian is referred to as “a walking billboard” and the “Creator of Buzz“.
SocialBuzzTV.com was conceptualized and founded by Sebastian Rusk in March of 2010. With 12+ years of experience in Marketing and Online Ad space, Sebastian has a real knack for not only ‘thinking outside the box’, but showing there can be reasonable thinking INSIDE that box! He has a passion for Social Media, creating “buzz” for brands and spreading the word on the power behind though the digital space, which has been the driving force to launch SocialBuzzTV.com (bow tie and all)
Sebastian resides in Miami, FL, and is a full-time dad to 16 year old daughter Kayla.
Follow Sebastian on https://Twitter.com/sebrusk
Lindsay Halsey
Based in Basalt, Colorado, Lindsay Halsey is a co-founder of WP SEO Hub, a do-it-yourself WordPress SEO platform, and partner of webShine, a search engine marketing agency. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in Economics and spent several years in the outdoor industry as a mountain guide and ski patroller. In 2008 Lindsay made the leap into search engine marketing. Her primary interest is search engine optimization for WordPress websites. Outside of the office, Lindsay is a mom, wife and enthusiastic skier and biker. She also is the founder of a nonprofit in Tanzania, To Return.
Website: WP SEO Hub | @wpseohub
Mary Baum
Just back from four years in the high desert of California, St. Louisan Mary Baum is the founder and principal of RacquetPress, which builds Genesis child themes and more for the tennis industry.
A veteran creative and degreed designer*, she speaks on WP design and development and helps organize WordCamp St. Louis.
Passions: rare steaks, hard serves and high-contrast serifs;
homemade hot fudge, high backhand volleys, Genesis hooks and Joshua trees.
*Translation: #crustyoldbroad is hella old. But not slow.
Website: RacquetPress | @marybaum
Pat Ramsey
Pat Ramsey oversees all aspects of the technology group at Crowd Favorite as Director of Technology. He has worked with WordPress since 2004, using it as a publishing platform, marketing tool, and content management system in higher education, small-businesses, publishing, and enterprise businesses. Active in the Web and WordPress communities since 2005, Pat is one of the original organizers of the WordPress meetup in Austin, a tech community that has grown from a little over 200 members meeting once a month, to over 1700 members and three or four events a month. He’s also a core member of the web tech networking community, Refresh Austin and has been a trainer and advisor for Knowbility’s Accessible Internet Rallies and AccessU.
Jesse Velez
Jesse Velez is founder and Lead Creative at WeDoInternet.net. He enjoys working with web technologies and has for over 15 years. He continues to enjoys creating websites and building them with WordPress for the past 5+ years. In addition, Jesse spends some of his time working with Non-Profits and Churches, helping them to either build or fine tune their websites (among other things).
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 .
Dwayne McDaniel
Dwayne has been working in tech and open source sales since 2005.
He knew as soon as he started working with Java middleware developers he never wanted to work outside of open source ever again. Dwayne first started building in Drupal and WordPress for the San Francisco Improv teams and projects. He fell in the love the community and then found a position at Pantheon at the end of 2013.
As a Community and Agency Success Manager he has had the privilege of presenting at dozens of community events from Paris to Iceland to MIT and Stanford.
Outside of tech he loves producing and performing improv theater, reading webcomics and singing karaoke!
Website: Dwayne McDaniel’s Blog | @mcdwayne
Melanie Adcock
Melanie G Adcock has been designing websites since the late 90’s. In May of 2010 Melanie became a full-time freelance Web Designer / Developer. She has been using WordPress exclusively since 2011. Her current clients include several small businesses, continuing care retirement communities, churches, and other non-profit organizations.
Melanie Adcock is a past presenter at WordCamp Atlanta, WordCamp Birmingham, and WordCamp Miami and various local WordPress MeetUp Groups. She lives in Stuart, Florida.
Website: MGA Creative Designs | @mgacreative
Michelle Schulp
Michelle is an independent graphic designer and frontend developer in Minneapolis. Prior to beginning her career, she studied Visual Communications, with minors in Psychology and Sociology. As her work progressed, she also branched into front-end development and user experience design to round our her skillset. This combination of disciplines led her to adopt a strategy-based approach to design, focused on solving tangible problems and achieving real goals based on how people think.
She loves the open source community, and when she is not working on projects she speaks/volunteers/organizes at events and workshops around the country. Her passions are communication and empowerment, and she believes in the power of “Why?”
Website: Marktime Media | @marktimemedia
Zach Stepek
Zach is the Chief Executive Officer at Mindsize, where he leads a team that designs, builds and optimizes eCommerce storefronts. He’s been active in the eCommerce space for 5 years and has been building websites for over two decades. He’s spoken everywhere from IBM to Ogilvy on topics ranging from Designer/Developer Workflow to What Agencies Need to Know About eCommerce. When he’s not working, he enjoys spending time behind the lens as a professional concert photographer and photojournalist.
Jayda Washington-Boothe
Jayda Washington-Boothe is a 4th grade Honor-Roll Student at Manatee Bay Elementary. This is her 2nd year at WordCamp Miami 2018. The experiences she gained at last year’s event has thrusted her into the local, state, and national spotlight as a girl who loves STEM. Currently, she is learning more features in WordPress, and continues using Microsoft Office 365 ‘s SWAY, Minecraft, Code.org. and was introduced to the MIT AI2 App Companion.
Jayda is a member of Black Girls Code- Miami Chapter, Manatee Bay Elementary Student Council Secretary and the US Track and Field Association. She volunteers at Dare to Care Outreach, The Faith Center Ministries Youth Department, The Mayors Chess Challenge of Broward County, and loves dancing Hip-Hop!
Her future career path is to become an engineer.
Irina Blumenfeld
Irina Blumenfeld is a Web Consultant and Founder of Netmagik, a WordPress development company, based in Orlando. She has been building things on the web over 15 years. Prior to beginning her career, Irina studied Management Information Systems and Computer Science. Over the years, she branched out her skills to responsive design with a focus on website performance.
Originally from Ukraine, Irina has lived in the Orlando area for more than 20 years. While she is not working, she enjoys running and spending time with her husband and 2 girls.
Website: Netmagik | @irinablumenfeld
John James Jacoby
WordPress. BuddyPress. bbPress. Sandhills. Co-host WordPress Weekly. East Troy, WI Village Trustee. Conquistador de la Web.
Bobby Bryant
Bobby has been involved in the WordPress space as a Developer for over 4 years. Prior to getting involved with WordPress he spent 13+ years in the United States Marines as Ground Electronics Technician.
Bobby currently works at Crossfield Digital as a Senior Web Engineer. At Crossfield Bobby has been tasked with building and grow a team focused on solving client problems with WordPress. Over the past 2+ years Bobby has spent a lot of his time building Javascript applications with WordPress. Bobby also runs a Youtube channel called Developwithwp, which has over 12k subscribers and almost 1 million views.
Prior too working at Crossfield Bobby worked at 10up, where he learned the art of pushing WordPress to new heights.
Edward Pratt
(Age 16) Junior Lauderhill 6-12
Edward began learning how to use WordPress his tenth grade year. He attended many WordPress workshops which was sponsored by his Oracle club at school. He was then able to use his knowledge with WordPress during a summer internship he had with the Yeager Companies. He also participated in a competition within his Oracle club where he was placed in a team and had to develop a website, a WordPress powered blog and an application using the Agile Process(Scrum). Edward describes his WordPress experience as interesting and fun.
During his learning, Edward has successfully learned how to use HTML, CSS, SQL, Java Script and Python. Prior to him joining the Oracle club, he was learning make animations and has also participated in a Drone Competition FAU High School. Edward is also a very active person and takes part in his school’s activities. He is a member of his school’s Yearbook club, T.V Production club, NHS, L.I.N.K.S club, and T.U.G.A.
On his days off, Edward can be seen reading, drawing, playing music, hanging out with friends, going to the gym or writing a poem. He also enjoys going for walks and admiring nature’s beauty. He aspires to travel the world and enjoy life.
William Jackson
William Jackson graduated from South Carolina State University earning a Bachelor’s in Education degree, he furthered his education earning a Masters of Arts in Teaching from Webster University with a focus on Educational Technology, Social Media and STEM. William’s career involves past teaching with NASA as an Internet and Technology instructor, technology consultant with the Florida Department of Education and current Professor with Edward Waters College teaching Educational Technology, Social Media and STEM. He has been involved in the field of education over 25 years in elementary and higher education. William has been involved in blogging as a national and international writer. Writing in media in the United States, Europe and on the African continent. Using the #myquesttoteach as a foundation to share content that is diverse in the way information can be applied and integrated in many areas.
Sandy Edwards
Sandy Edwards has been working in the online marketing space for over 7 years. She started at a niche firm that utilized WordPress to create sites quickly utilizing several options frameworks. Today, she owns Data Driven Labs to bring analytics to all size companies. 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 2018 will bring to the tech space in Florida!
Website: Data Driven Labs | @sunsanddesign
Marc Benzakein
Hailing from the Great State of Wisconsin, Marc is the Operations Manager of ServerPress, LLC, a software company focused on workflow products and services pertaining to the WordPress Community. He has spoken, organized, and worked as a sponsor for several WordCamps over the past several years, and he believes strongly that the Community is what makes WordPress so powerful. He has spoken on topics ranging from Business, Marketing, Customer Service, Development, and Fitness as well as talking about WordCamps AT WordCamps.
Marc lives in Milwaukee with his wife, nine children, three cats, two dogs, his son’s snake, and a bunch of fish. In between times with the family and work, he enjoys his photography and working out. OK, that working out part isn’t true. Marc actually hates working out. He does it anyway.
Cody Landefeld
Cody is an eCommerce consultant focused on helping stores with sales and technical challenges. Co-founder at Mode Effect.
Alejandro Sanchez
Alejandro Sanchez, its a Computer Science Engineer that has been coding websites since he was 13 years old, currently a founder and Managing Director at 4Geeks Academy a Miami based coding school with advanced courses in WordPress, React and other technologies.
Before the coding academy, Alejandro founded and managed 4Geeks, a software development company with operations in 4 countries in Latin America.
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.