Virtual Tastemaker Conference 2026 Speakers

Christie Vanover is a champion pitmaster and founder of Girls Can Grill – one of the most influential BBQ brands in the country. She has competed and judged at the highest levels of the sport, including multiple appearances at the Jack Daniel’s World Championships, and was named the Nevada BBQ Team of the Year in 2020 and 2023. As seen on Food Network’s BBQ Brawl and Pitmasters. Vanover shares her expertise through girlscangrill.com, her award-winning rub line, and her cookbooks, Holiday Grilling and Ignited Q.

Cyd Converse is Director of Publisher Advocacy & Partnerships at Mediavine, where she brings nearly two decades of firsthand experience as a creator and publisher to the forefront of the digital media industry. Before joining Mediavine, Cyd built and ran The Sweetest Occasion, a successful entertaining and lifestyle site featured in People, Martha Stewart, and The Today Show. Today, she combines her deep understanding of the publisher experience with her industry expertise to help shape Mediavine’s product, partnerships and business strategy.

Jack Thomas is a knowledge product design expert serving food & agriculture creators worldwide. As the very first Course Design Manager for Teachable, Jack served top-tier creators with best-in-class course and community design, earning 10x the average revenue per user for her creators. With a client portfolio representing over $186M in distributed operating budgets, Jack now works 1-on-1 with creators and businesses around the globe to design and deliver unique online learning experiences for creators and their audiences.

Kelli Quinn has spent her career chasing one question: Why do some incredibly talented people build lives and businesses that set them free, while others accidentally build cages they can’t escape?

Long before AI, boardrooms, and business strategy, Kelli built her career behind a camera. As a professional photographer and photography educator, she helped entrepreneurs tell stories, grow audiences, and turn creativity into a living. That path eventually led her from the creator economy into executive leadership, giving her a perspective few people have: she’s lived both worlds from the inside.

Today, Kelli is the founder of Founder Freedom and an executive leader in AI, where she works at the intersection of business strategy, human behavior, systems thinking, and emerging technology. She helps founders build businesses that create more freedom—not more complexity—so they can stop becoming the bottleneck in their own success.

Known for asking the kinds of questions that stay with people long after the conference ends, Kelli has a way of making audiences laugh, think, and rethink the stories they’ve been telling themselves about success. She believes creativity and systems belong together, and that the future will belong to the people who know how to stay deeply human while embracing what’s next.

Shannon Avery, AAMS®, is a fiduciary financial advisor specializing in helping content creators, entrepreneurs, and digital business owners turn financial success into lasting wealth. As Partner and Wealth Manager at Kingsview Partners and co-founder of Creator Wealth, Shannon works with bloggers, influencers, and online entrepreneurs nationwide to navigate the unique financial complexities of creator-led businesses from fluctuating income and tax strategy to investing, retirement planning, and long-term wealth building.

Known for her practical, approachable style, Shannon helps clients think like CEOs of both their businesses and personal finances, building strategies designed to create stability beyond platform algorithms and changing income streams. A featured speaker and sponsor at Tastemaker Conference, she is passionate about helping creators protect, grow, and steward the businesses they’ve worked so hard to build.