Full Keynote Bios:

 

Alan Hall

 

Grow America founder Alan E. Hall has a personal mission to create jobs and lift local economies. Grow America, a national company emerging from Utah, aligns the partners, mentors and capital that entrepreneurs need to create and grow tomorrow’s successful companies.

Alan Hall is also a founder and managing director of Mercato Partners, a top performing growth equity venture capital fund. Its focus is to invest in high growth technology companies that need additional funding and expertise in marketing and sales. Current portfolio companies include: Skullcandy, Fusion-io, Control4, Cymphonix, Mediconnect, CradlePoint and Stance.

Mr. Hall is also the founder, chairman and former CEO of MarketStar Corporation, a global outsourced marketing and sales company with a focus on assisting high technology companies increase sales through the small to medium business sectors. The company employs several thousand employees and generates billions of dollars in sales for its marquee clientele, including Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Sony, Intel, Verizon and Research In Motion (RIM). MarketStar is owned by Omnicom Group (OMC).

Alan Hall is the chairman of the Utah Technology Council, the chairman of Weber State University’s board of trustees and the chairman of the University’s capital campaign committee, a member of the advisory board of Wells Fargo Bank, and a trustee of the Intermountain Healthcare Foundation.

He is an Ernst and Young and Mountain West Capital Network Entrepreneur of the Year recipient.

Mr. Hall is an author and newspaper columnist and frequent public speaker.

He and his wife Jeanne are the chairman and president of the Hall Foundation. The mission of the foundation is that “there be no poor among us.” Alan and Jeanne Hall are the parents of six married children and fifteen grandchildren.

 

Pete Codella
 

Pete is Accredited in public relations. He operates Codella Marketing, created the NewsCactus online newsroom software, and co-hosts the Online PR Podcast.

 

Pete is co-author of Integrated Marketing in the Digital World. He has developed and taught public relations and social media courses for UNLV, UCI and the University of Utah. He’s a veteran award-winning, strategic business communicator.

 

Pete is a sought-after consultant and presenter who leads workshops and webinars on all things related to social media and public relations.

 

He has served as president of local chapters of the Public Relations Society of America, International Association of Business Communicators, and the Social Media Club. With PRSA he has been a member of the executive committee for the Independent Practitioners Alliance, served as a western district board member and assembly delegate. This year he is an International Assembly Delegate-At-Large for PRSA.