At the American Advertising Federation, we are deeply committed to ethics advocacy, diversity and inclusion initiatives, leadership development, and education. With over 350 professional and student chapters located throughout the country, we provide a place for our 35,000+ active and engaged members to flourish both professionally and personally. The AAF’s Mission is to protect and promote the profession of advertising. As such, we have an awesome responsibility to develop the next generation of Advertising leaders and to be the talent pipeline for this entire industry. We take this responsibility seriously, and we fully leverage our World Class platforms and programs around our 4 key pillars… • Diversity & Inclusion • Education & Lifelong Learning • Government Affairs & Policy • Events & Experiences As part of the day—Google asked us to identity “the most pressing issues” we face today. Here was my response…We have to educate and equip the Next Generation of Advertising and Marketing leaders to continue to pursue the true craftwork of making great advertising while intelligently deciphering and leveraging all of the available data. To make available marketing budgets work harder, be more efficient and effective and become a true catalyst for growth. Those are the expectations in the current marketplace. I call this the need to… To balance persuasion with precision. And that requires a concerted commitment from everyone in the Advertising industry. Including you. We all have a stake in this important work. And I think that’s worth getting together for a day. Don’t you? As “The Unifying Voice for Advertising” we are, by nature and design, unifiers not dividers—we are particularly well positioned to be effective change agents to lead this worthwhile effort. That’s why this is particularly important to us and our members across North America. At the end of the day, we are all in this together. YOUR AAF represents you at important Advertising industry events like this that help shape the future of this great industry. Thanks for your support of the AAF. You matter.