Speakers

Crystal Owusu leads Partnerships for Disney+ Perks, fostering key third-party global brand relationships and internal Disney connections that advance the program’s offerings portfolio and drive retention and engagement for the streaming service. With a keen focus on strategy, data and innovative storytelling, her core principles of subscriber value and B2B growth remain at the center of the partnership development ecosystem. 

Crystal has a background in Loyalty & Membership and Revenue Generation Strategy where she spent her prior years in Sports & Entertainment at the National Basketball Association (NBA) and The New York Mets.

Stephanie Nelson is a Principal Client Partner at Tripadvisor, leading strategic partnerships across the Financial Services and Automotive categories. She specializes in building high-impact, multi-channel programs that connect her clients’ objectives with Tripadvisor’s first-party data, content, and performance solutions.

At Tripadvisor, she has been instrumental in growing complex, enterprise-level partnerships by connecting brand objectives with the power of Tripadvisor’s first-party travel intent data, content, and performance solutions. Her work consistently unlocks new revenue streams and deepens client investment through innovative, insight-driven strategies.

She is recognized internally and externally for her focus, persistence, and ability to translate client challenges into scalable opportunities. Stephanie brings a collaborative mindset and a passion for delivering results that not only meet, but exceed expectations.

Haley Hussey is Senior Manager of Loyalty Partnerships at Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, where she leads partner marketing initiatives, including the Wyndham Rewards Experiences program, creating high-impact collaborations that connect travel with immersive experiences and exclusive events. In this role, she builds a strong partner ecosystem and delivers value to more than 120 million Wyndham Rewards members worldwide. She brings over nine years of experience driving strategic partnerships, brand growth, and customer engagement at companies including Tapestry and Shake Shack.

 John H. O’Dell is Senior Director of Marketing & Sales at The Cleveland Orchestra. He is a strategist and marketing innovator with more than twenty years of experience helping arts and cultural organizations connect with audiences. He blends creative storytelling with data-driven decision making to optimize revenue, build audience loyalty, and expand reach. Recognized for combining rigor, creativity, and vision, he brings a cross-disciplinary perspective that helps institutions translate strategy into meaningful and sustained cultural impact.

Audra Askins is Associate Vice President of Marketing at Victoria’s Secret & Co., where she played a key role in launching the enterprise-wide omni-channel loyalty program that drove significant incremental revenue, increased customer spend, and improved retention, earning recognition from L360 for its CX design in 2023. She built and operationalized the program’s growth framework, including a strategic technology roadmap and governance of key vendor partnerships, while accelerating initiatives such as subscription services, alternative payment options, and the transition to a co-branded credit offering. A champion of data transformation, she has unified data sources, standardized taxonomy, and implemented business intelligence tools to drive insights and performance.

Audra’s career blends strategic vision with operational excellence to drive transformational initiatives across retail and supply chain organizations. Known for solving complex business challenges, fostering innovation, and inspiring high-performing teams, she consistently delivers measurable results through collaborative leadership and a focus on continuous improvement.

Previously, as Director of Business Planning & Operations, she developed strategic roadmaps to support long-term growth, led technology capital planning across multiple business units, and drove cross-functional alignment across customer experience, retail store channels, and real estate. Earlier in her career, she led operations and analytics initiatives supporting global expansion and agile supply chains.

Audra holds a bachelor’s degree in supply chain & marketing from The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business. Outside of work, she enjoys being a baseball mom, family travel, and volunteering in her local Ohio community.

Kit Leitner is a high-impact collaborator who builds bridges across teams, connects people and ideas, and facilitates alignment to move work forward while staying grounded in the needs of the consumer.

With four years’ experience at Nestle Purina Petcare, she spent her first two years redesigning and facilitating cross-functional ideation sessions in Purina’s Innovation Center, LAB9. Her passion for putting the consumer first eventually led her to the New Business Models team, where Purina challenges themselves to meet consumer needs ‘beyond the bag.’ Her past couple of years have been dedicated to standing up the myPurina app and loyalty program, with an emphasis on business opportunity discovery.

Kit lives in St. Louis with her fiancé, dog, and cat.

Faythe Johnson is an accomplished Senior Manager of Hilton Honors Member Experience, bringing over 16 years of expertise in the hospitality industry. With nearly 14 years at Hilton, Faythe has built her career as a strategic leader in marketing, e-commerce, and loyalty, consistently driving innovation and value for guests.

In her current role, Faythe leads a dedicated team focused on optimizing benefits for Hilton Honors members, enhancing the digital experience across multiple channels, and spearheading research that puts members at the center of every decision. Her passion for hospitality and commitment to excellence make her a key driver of Hilton’s loyalty and member experience strategies.

Anne Schultheis is a customer engagement and loyalty leader known for building high-impact programs that deepen customer relationships and drive measurable business growth. With experience leading digital engagement, CRM, loyalty, and lifecycle marketing initiatives for high-growth consumer brands, she specializes in turning customer data and behavior into personalized experiences across email, push, SMS, in-app messaging, eCommerce, and loyalty.
 
Over the course of her career, Anne has led the development of loyalty and martech ecosystems from the ground up, including launching integrated programs, defining segmentation strategies, and designing lifecycle journeys that strengthen retention and increase customer value. She is especially passionate about building new programs, modernizing customer engagement, and creating experiences that feel both strategic and human.

Anne brings a unique blend of strategic vision, operational leadership, and hands-on execution. Her work has included leading loyalty P&L strategy, standing up CRM and CDP capabilities, building gamified engagement programs, and partnering cross-functionally with product, engineering, analytics, finance, and operations teams to bring customer-first ideas to life. She is recognized for combining creativity with data-driven decision-making and for building programs that are both scalable and meaningful to customers.
 
Anne is a Certified Loyalty Marketing Professional through The Loyalty Academy and holds 16 Braze certifications, reflecting her deep expertise in modern customer engagement and lifecycle marketing.

Victoria Dravneek is senior vice president and director of Loyalty Strategy Platforms at PNC Bank. In this role, she is responsible for envisioning loyalty experiences that drive client retention and asset growth, including the new PNC TotalRewards experience. In addition, she is responsible for driving greater satisfaction and retention as well as deepening clients across PNC's retail, small business and private bank businesses. 

Prior to joining PNC in 2023 Dravneek spent the past decade leading Bank of America's loyalty efforts, including the development, strategy and engagement for their award-winning Preferred Rewards client-centric loyalty program; the first of its kind in the industry. Dravneek also led the BankAmeriDeals card-linked offer program, development of their Partner Rewards program, created Bank of America's My Rewards portal, introduced personalized video to the company and introduced personalized rewards insights via Bank of America's Erika virtual assistant platform. 

Dravneek also has a history leading payments innovation and execution, fraud strategy and developing personalization strategies. Prior to banking, she spent a decade in digital start-ups, developing business and digital strategies and content for a range of businesses, including Viacom, iVillage, Women.com and Honeywell. She also filed over 50 patents on the subjects of rewards, data usage, personalization, blockchain, virtual and augmented reality and more. 

She received Bachelor of Arts in English literature and a Bachelor of Science in economics from The King's College.

Blake Thomas is the Lead Director of the Loyalty & Recognition team at USAA.  After joining USAA 3 years ago, Blake's role has been focused on developing and leading loyalty-related initiatives including the membership benefits experience, credit score monitoring, member recognition, and the development of an association-wide loyalty program.

Prior to USAA, Blake worked in consumer banking Strategy for 9 years at Truist and Bank of America. While at Truist he led a Strategy and Competitive Intelligence team supporting segmentation strategies, Client Lifetime Value, strategic planning, and the BB&T/Suntrust Merger.

Blake has an MBA from Wake Forest University and a BS in Management and Accounting from Purdue University. Outside of work, he loves spending time on Lake Norman with his wife Ginna and son Harvey. Growing up outside Detroit, Michigan he is also an avid Red Wings & Lions fan.