2022 Agenda
Wednesday, August 17, 2022
10:30AM - 7:30PM
Registration & Information Desk Hours
Pick up your badge and swag bag at the registration desk at the Grand Hyatt Buckhead hotel
1:00PM-1:30PM
Influencer Breakout #1:
Mastering TikTok and Reels Trends
TikTok and Instagram Reels have moved the needle skyward on video creation and marketing. These platforms have evolved in terms of functionality and audience engagement during this pandemic era...where video connections dominated in-person conversations. Learn basic techniques and tips that will launch your video campaigns to new heights.

Kyla Herbes
Principal, Influencer, and Interior Designer
House of Hipsters
Brand Breakout #1:
Pro Tips on Working with Influencers
Creating mutually beneficial Influencer partnerships has become an essential step in every brand's marketing strategy. The most important part of any collaboration Is making sure the partnership is a correct fit for both parties. This session will cover best practices, finding the correct Influencers for your brand, negotiating adequate and fair compensation, recording campaign analytics, and how to create a lasting relationship in the influencer community.
Key takeaways include:
- End-goals for an influencer campaign
- Connecting with potential influencers
- Identifying intrinsic content values for you
- Interact with your influencers' posts

Mollie Surratt
Co-Founder and CEO
White Label Studio
2:00PM-2:30PM
Influencer Breakout #2:
Podcasting -Audio Part 1
As new social media platforms proliferated, multiple solutions emerged for moments when text is not enough and video is overkill; social/broadcast audio enter stage right! In this session hear from some Home Design podcasters and their studio producer about their 3 year old effort to expand their already powerful community via audio!

Joann Kandrac and Kelly Kole
Principals and Interior Designers, Kandrac & Kole
Podcasters, Inside Design with Kandrac & Kole
Brand Breakout #2:
Measuring and Improving Performance on your Influencer Marketing Efforts
Influencer Marketing, like all other marketing activity, can be optimized for performance. Establishing objectives and employing measurement techniques will lead to performance optimization.

Jennifer Smiga
Founder and Creative Director
ultraviolet agency
2:45PM-3:15PM
Influencer Track Breakout #3:
Content Building For Designers and Influencers
Being strategic and proficient at content creation and storytelling is critical in today's passion economy. Cutting through the noise to build community requires a big-picture strategy. In this session, Nancy will share her expertise of building community through a brand's mission, creating a content strategy, the segmentation of content and how personal narratives can build community and trust.
Actionable takeaways
- Standing out in the passion economy through content
- Branding verses storytelling
- Creating a content strategy
- Content segmentation across platforms
- Why content can build community

Nancy Soriano
Media Executive
Brand Track Breakout #3:
Working with Influencers for Long-Term Relationships
As brands continue their rapid embrace of influencers and brand ambassadors spreading their product affinities to loyal followings, it has become clear that the most powerful results are realized through long term relationships built on solid agreements. Learn more about how to organize influencers for long term engagements and why.
Long or short term, selecting the right influencers for your brand is paramount. Brand affinity and follower engagement often play into the selection process, but what else? Develop your checklist for influencer search engagement now.

Sarah Conley
Director of Social Media
ultraviolet agency
General Sessions:
General Sessions will be held in Grand Ballrooms 1 & 2
All attendees from the Influencer and Brand Tracks are invited to participate.
3:30PM-4:15PM
General Session #1: Pandemic and Post Pandemic Influencer Marketing Era
Like everything else, Influencer Marketing & brand development were impacted by the pandemic. Sensitized marketing proliferated as pandemic-driven changes in human nature and abnormal lifestyle conditions prevailed. Since the first quarter of 2020, the process of building influence online for business outcomes evolved under an organic cloak with shifts that should last long into post pandemic years. Adam will provide a 30-minute overview of the pandemic’s impact on Influencer Marketing for the design industry including:
- Human Condition
- Online Audiences
- Long Term Effects On Influencer Marketing Tactics

Adam Japko
Founder and CEO
Esteem Media, Inc
Design Influencers Conference
4:15PM-4:45PM
Networking Break for All Participants
4:45PM-5:30PM
General Session and Opening Keynote: Corey Damen Jenkins

Corey Damen Jenkins
Principal and Interior Designer
Corey Damen Jenkins & Associates
5:30PM - 5:40PM
Special Announcement from Dallas Market Center
5:40PM-7:30PM
Welcome Reception at the Grand Hyatt hotel - all participants invited to attend
7:30PM - 9:30PM
Official After Party- to be announced
Thursday, August 18, 2022
General Sessions
General Sessions will be held in Grand Ballroom.s 1 & 2
All sessions on Monday are General Sessions- all attendees from the Influencer and Brand Tracks are invited to attend.
7:30AM-8:30AM
Coffee with Exhibitors and Sponsors
7:30AM-8:25AM
Pre-Conference Session 1: Mentor Roundtable Q&A with Influencers
LOOKING FOR REAL INPUT FOR YOUR ONLINE STRATEGY? Ask questions of our experienced Design Influencers regarding your website, blog, social channels, strategies, and techniques.
Space is limited and RSVP required- more info to come.
Pre-Conference Session 2: Maximizing Your High Point Market Potential
This early bird, pre-opening session combines breakfast and learning about one of the most important in-person home furnishings platform available to home furnishings influencers, designers, and brands. Ashley Grigg, VP Marketing for High Point Market Authority will help you fast track your comfort and upside opportunities at these twice yearly giant gatherings. HPMA has played a central role, investing countless dollars, time, and initiative to make it a commercial haven for brands and designers. Get the most out of your market experiences. Join Ashley Grigg, Director of Marketing & Communications with the High Point Market Authority, as she drills down into the various ways an exhibitor can promote their High Point presence, and how the High Point Market Authority can assist. Space is limited and RSVP Required
8:30AM - 9:00AM
Welcome address


Adam Japko
Co-Emcee
Founder & CEO
Esteem Media, Inc
Design Influencers Conference
Rachel Moriarty
Co-Emcee
Principal and Interior Designer
House of Moriarty, Inc.
9:00AM-10:00AM
Keynote: Andrew Davis
Limit Less - How Successful Influencers Increase Revenue, Generate More Leads, and Spread Their Message in a Crowded Marketplace
If we want to grow our business, there's no shortage of advice: you've got to hustle, work hard, create content, buy Facebook ads, post on Instagram, blog, start a podcast, and create a YouTube channel. (Don't forget to do some keyword research first.) They tell us to share our knowledge and to become an expert in our field.
Here's the thing: the world doesn't need another expert.
It turns out that some of the most successful brands in the world don't try to become experts. Instead, they earn more revenue, generate higher quality leads, and build scalable businesses because they've lept from expert to visionary.
In this hilarious, fun, and inspiring hour-long keynote, best-selling author and former television producer Andrew Davis will show you the four simple secrets to getting out of Expertville. You'll learn the three-step process one woman used to leap from struggling expert to $100MM brand in less than a year.
It's time to stop building lists and start building a legacy.
Are you ready to make the leap? It's easier than you think.

Andrew Davis
Renowned Marketing Influencer and Speaker
10:00AM-10:45AM
Networking Break with Exhibitors and Sponsors
10:45AM-11:30AM
The Truth of Licensed Collections: The Commitment, Timeline, and Potential
Join Libby Langdon as she presents proven tips and tactics toward designing, developing, and promoting product collections based on her own successful licensed home furnishings lines. Having the right foundation, making you an appealing partner to potential manufacturers, target brands and fit, and positioning your pitch. Libby also breaks down her design process; how it starts, how the sample making process goes, different royalty rates depending on the product, legal responsibilities and what it takes to bring a complete collection to market. She also shares her strategies designing for the mass market vs. custom project pieces and offers insight on the sales and promotion the products broadening outreach with your partner in this informative, fast-paced and motivational presentation!
Actionable takeaways include:
• How to know your audience/ consumer/ demographic and their price point
• Peeling back the curtain on what manufacturers are looking for in a licensed collection
• The insider lowdown on where a collection/ designer makes money
• How to be a responsible design partner
• Ideas on where to start the design process
• How involved do you have to be in the sales and promotion of your product

Libby Langdon
Interior Designer, Author, Product Designer
Libby Interiors, Inc.
11:30AM-12:00PM
Email Marketing 101: Why Your Newsletter Matters More Than Ever
Email marketing is a fully optimized tactic that belongs in every campaign focused on community and brand building. Followers on social media are overwhelmed with a constant stream of content curated by algorithms that prioritize engagement and interaction. Building influence with new audiences is becoming increasingly more challenging. In this general session you will:
1) gain a better understanding why email marketing is one of the most effective ways to market your personal and business brands
2) why email marketing generates over 3800% ROI for each $1 spent
3) how to implement an email strategy within your current content marketing efforts

Ericka Saurit
Founder
Saurit Creative
12:00PM-12:15PM
Special Presentation from Our Charitable Organization
The Oasis Alliance is a DC Metropolitan-based 501(c)(3) organization that brightens the lives of trauma survivors by curating beautiful personalized interior spaces that encourage and accelerate recovery, growth, and mental wellbeing. Utilizing donated furniture, décor, and essential household goods, their mission is to create empowering, inspired spaces that feel safe and reflective of their inhabitants. Volunteer artists, therapists, designers, movers, installers, and other talented contributors form teams to accomplish the mission. While the final curated spaces are beautiful, The Oasis Alliance centers its work around dignity, equity, inclusion, and uplift.
12:15PM-1:30PM
Lunch for all participants
1:30PM-2:00PM
How to Integrate Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Efforts
One of the biggest challenges in marketing is creating a robust marketing strategy that leverages the strengths of multiple marketing efforts. This presentation will show you several SEO elements that can be used in your social media efforts. We also discuss how your social media efforts can help your SEO efforts.
Session Takeaways:
- A framework for SEO and Social Media integration
- Data points to track your combined efforts
- SEO best practices that launch your Social Media content creation

Joshua Monge
Strategic & Solutions-Oriented Consultant
Founder and CEO
Waymaker SEO
2:00PM-2:45PM




Moderator:
Rachel Moriarty
Co-Emcee
Principal and Interior Designer
House of Moriarty, Inc.
Kellie Brown
LA-based Content Creator, Lifestyle Influencer;
Founder of Style Community, And I Get Dressed
Mally Skok
Palm Beach-based Interior Design and Textile Artist
Cara Woodhouse
Interior Designer and Influencer
2:45PM-3:30PM
Networking with Exhibitors and Sponsors
3:30PM-4:00PM
4 Powerful Legal Tips for Influencers and Brands
As Influencer Marketing takes social media recommendations and opinion leadership to new heights of commerce and messaging, it is important to understand requirements and boundaries that govern these activities. Full disclosure, deceptivity, agreements, and intellectual property are a few of the topics that brands and influencers need to be fluent in. Nic from Legally Hollywood has been paying attention to the burgeoning Influencer Marketing community and has some observations and tips to share
Key Takeaways:
• Legally Protecting Your Content
• Protect Your Image
• Types of Common Influencer Contracts
• Creating a Business Structure to Protect Influencers and Their Businesses

Nic
Entertainment, Intellectual Property, and Business Attorney
Founder, Legally Hollywood
4:00PM-4:45PM
Influencer Insight Sessions - to be announced

4:45PM-5:30PM
Keynote: Jonathan Rachman

Jonathan Rachman
Internationally Renowned Interior Designer
Principal, Jonathan Rachman Design
5:30PM-5:40PM
High Point Design Influencers Tour - Spring 2022 Announcement:
Ashley Grigg of High Point Market Authority and Adam Japko

Ashley Grigg
Director of Marketing and Communications
High Point Market Authority
5:40PM-7:30PM
7:30PM-9:30PM
Networking Reception at the Grand Hyatt hotel - all participants are invited
Official After Party - to be announced
7:30AM-8:30AM
Coffee with Exhibitors and Sponsors
7:30AM - 8:25AM
Pre-Conference Session 1: Mentor Roundtable Q&A with Influencers- Overflow sesion
LOOKING FOR REAL INPUT FOR YOUR ONLINE STRATEGY? Ask questions of our experienced Design Influencers regarding your website, blog, social channels, strategies, and techniques.
Space is limited and RSVP required - more info to be announced.
8:30AM-9:00AM
Influencer Breakout #4: Building and Managing Online Communities For Highly Qualified Leads and Faster Sales
Whether you're a large home-related brand or an independent interior designer, learn top tips for building private and/or public online communities on Linked In, Facebook, Instagram and Clubhouse that can help you generate highly qualified leads and faster sales.

Leslie Carothers
CEO, Savour Partnership
Founder, #DesignCoffeeChat, a Clubhouse Club
Owner, Design Happy Living, a lifestyle blog
Brand Breakout #4:
to be announced
9:15AM-9:45AM
Influencer Breakout #5:
How to Land Interviews That Will Skyrocket Your Career
Why can’t top designers and PR firms send pitches that actually land press opportunities? It’s because pitch development takes thought, planning, and time. In this presentation you’ll learn why some pitches work and others never see light.
Actionable takeaways:
- Pitching strategy and timeline
- How to choose the right press opportunities and know when to pitch the big ones
- Useable blank template for writing a winning pitch
- Website review checklist for attracting press opportunities

Zandra Zuraw
Principal and Interior Designer, Little Yellow Couch
Podcaster, Style Matters
Brand Breakout #5:
Honoring Brand Voice for Influencer and Collaborative Marketing
Jaipur Living's brand formed organically out of the company's operating model. While those operations support the company, they also serve a "cause" for creating commerce and opportunity in under-supported communities. As an Influence Marketer, Jaipur's goal is to work with like-minded Influencers that project their own voices to their own communities on behalf of Jaipur. Aligning with the right Influencers, who "get" the Jaipur voice, is key over the long term for great powerful Influencer Marketing.
Takeaways:
- Determine your brand voice?
- How to set Influencer Marketing campaign objectives that align with your voice
- How to find the right Influencers for your voice and retain them over the long term

Sasha Wallace
Director of Brand and Strategic Partnerships
Jaipur Living
10:00AM-10:30AM
Influencer Breakout #6:
Know You + Your Strengths
A session on self-discovery, understanding your strengths, brand messaging, and how to deliver all that to that to the world. This session offers paths to fully comprehending how to embrace the essential elements of your toolbox and create leverage for you, your business, and other brands and businesses that can benefit from association with you.
Takeaways are consolidated in the following areas:
- Building a Heart Centered Community:
Communicating authentically through website copy, blogging and social media posts - Seeking Opportunities: Get involved in brand partnerships like the ORC, Instagram takeovers, panels, design publications
- Using What You Have At a High Level:
Use home content to build a community of loyal followers and to get noticed by publications looking for content. Create a strong brand story or design POV over time.

Veronica Solomon
Influencer, CEO, and Interior Designer
Casa Vilora Interiors
Brand Breakout #6:
Creating Content for E-commerce: Best Practices
In today's B2B and DTC landscape, companies are producing content to pull ahead, differentiate and engage. Creating successful e-commerce content is multi-layered and having a big-picture strategy is critical. Cross-functional planning, data and creativity are essential. In this session, Nancy will share her experience of building a content strategy for e-commerce that includes understanding the expectation and ROI, the alignment of content with your marketing funnel and how content can support e-commerce engagement, trust, and conversion.
Actionable takeaways
- Building a content strategy for e-commerce
- Content that speaks to customer needs, product uniqueness and marketing objectives
- Working cross-functionally
- How tiered content speaks to the marketing funnel

Nancy Soriano
Media Executive
10:30AM-11:15AM
Networking Break with Exhibitors and Sponsors
General Sessions:
General Sessions will be held in Grand Ballrooms 1 & 2
All attendees from the Influencer and Brand Tracks are invited to participate.
11:15AM-11:45PM
General Session: COCO COZY- Influencer Evolution or Revolution
Whether you know her as Coco or Colette Shelton, she probably entered your world of Design Influence in 2008 with her blog Coco Cozy and never stopped. Along her forward thinking trail from television producer to design influencer she has organized showhouses, produced an Amazon Prime and Roku show, was named to the top 30 influencer list by Forbes, introduced a textile collection, and built tons of influence in the process. Now, with her latest project, CHIRPYEST, Coco has turned her attention to activating other influencers and brands who may or may not appreciate nor benefit from the power of their words and style sensibilities. Coco's mission today is building her already successful shopping platform and peer network to give earning power to anyone who has style! Coco's insightful and sheer energy is always a treat to experience, and even more so now that she has found a way to assist more style icons along their own successful paths.

Colette Shelton, aka Coco
Entrepreneur, Influencer, and Home Furnishings Designer
11:45PM-12:30PM
General Session: The Rise of Social Commerce and What It Means for Design Influencers


Chad Smith
Director of Sales & Marketing
Side Door
Cara Woodhouse
Interior Designer and Influencer
12:30PM-1:15PM
General Session and Closing Keynote: to be announced
1:30PM
Conference adjourns and closing remarks