Wanda Mann, East Coast Editor, The SOMM Journal

Native New Yorker Wanda Mann has been writing about wine for over a decade. Her work has appeared in Food & Wine, Decanter, VinePair, NAPA Magazine, The SOMM Journal, and Tasting Panel. Wanda has interviewed renowned and up-and-coming winemakers and explored major wine regions. Beyond the written word, Wanda has been a guest speaker at important industry events, including the Food + Wine Classic in Aspen and the Women in Wine Leadership Symposium.

Brittany Gibson, Executive Director, Seneca Lake Winery Association

Brittany Gibson is the Executive Director of the Seneca Lake Wine Trail, a position she has held since 2018.  Brittany’s knowledge spans the gamut from organizational management to digital marketing to public relations. Her career has been in tourism and wine marketing.  

The world has changed rapidly over the past many years and Brittany has dedicated herself to adapting the efforts of the organization to meet the needs of its members. In 2022, she was awarded the New York Wine & Grape Foundation Phyllis Feder Unity Award, which honors individuals demonstrating exceptional leadership in building industry cooperation and unity.  

Brittany believes in service and lends her time to a number of organizations. She is the Vice Chair of WineAmerica’s State and Regional Association Advisory Council (SRAAC) and also serves on WineAmerica's Marketing and Membership Committee. She is the Vice Chair of the board of directors of the Finger Lakes Tourism Alliance. Volunteerism also extends to her personal life, where she is an active member of her local Rotary Club, Vice President of her local board of education, and serves as the coordinator for her family’s charity, Team Charlie. In 2019 she was honored as a Rotary International Paul Harris Fellow as a non-Rotarian. 

Diana Isac, CEO & Founder, Winerist LTD

Diana Isac is the founder and CEO of Winerist, the largest platform for wine lovers who love to travel. Winerist currently connects wineries, tour operators and wine hotels to wine lovers all around the world.

In addition to its online platform, Winerist also offers technology solutions to its suppliers and runs a Marketing Agency dedicated to helping its partners become digitally and technologically savvy in this constantly changing hospitality and wine world.

Maryam Ahmed, Owner, Maryam + Company

Featured on the cover and named to the 2022 “Wine Enthusiast Future 40 Tastemaker” list of innovators who are changing the way we experience wine, Maryam Ahmed is a social impact entrepreneur, speaker, writer, and community builder who is making waves in the world of food and wine.

Working at the intersection of community building, strategic programming, and experience design, Maryam often collaborates with wine professionals, chefs, activists, sustainability experts, and media to work towards building a more equitable and inclusive industry. She skillfully turns insights into action for purpose-driven clients who want to deepen their impact goals. Maryam employs her nuanced understanding of the food and wine industry, expansive community network, and ability to translate complex ideas into strategic programs to deliver measurable results.

Maryam is an experienced speaker, facilitator, and moderator who is frequently called upon to create engaging spaces for both virtual and in-person events. She is often invited to be a guest speaker or moderator at food and wine-related conferences, symposiums, forums, panel discussions, on podcasts, and more. Maryam is also a published writer who contributes think pieces and guides for food and wine publications on a variety of subjects, most notably on the topics of diversity and sustainability.

In 2022, Maryam launched Field Blends, an immersive food and wine travel experience rooted in conversations that explore emergent and evolving movements in wine and agriculture. These trips are expertly curated and feature unique tastings, thoughtful discussions, and educational discoveries for a blended community of consumers, industry professionals, and scholarship recipients.

Maryam is the creator and co-founder of the biannual Diversity in Wine Leadership Forum, which helps connect diversity initiatives in the wine industry to foster collaboration and problem solving among advocates and leaders. She also serves as an advisor to Black Wine Professionals and Bâtonnage Forum; a program advisor to the Wine Writers' Symposium; and is an active member of the San Francisco Chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier.

Before establishing Maryam + Company, Maryam was the Director of Public Programs at the Culinary Institute of America in California. There, she and her team created unique educational and experiential programs for the public and the wine trade. Maryam is a graduate of Cornell’s Hotel School and the Walla Walla Enology & Viticulture program.

In addition to being named one of Wine Enthusiast's Future 40 Tastemakers in 2022, Maryam was also nominated for the Wine Enthusiast's Social Visionary Wine Star Award. In 2021, she was named a Wine Industry Leader by Wine Business Monthly. Maryam was a cast member on James Beard Award Nominated SOMM TV Sparklers and is a partner at PLAYTE Kitchen.

Daniel Yaffe, Co-Founder and COO, AnyRoad

Ten years ago, Daniel Yaffe and his brother Jonathan co-founded AnyRoad, the leading platform for data-driven experiential marketing. AnyRoad enables global brands to operate and optimize their events, tours, classes, and activations to grow brand loyalty and increase experience ROI. As the COO of AnyRoad, Daniel works closely with companies like Budweiser, Diageo, Michaels, Ben & Jerry's, and The North Face to prove the impact of their experiential marketing efforts - streamlining and scaling their programs with a flexible, configurable platform and powerful insights needed to accelerate business growth.

Daniel comes to experiential marketing with a diverse background in entrepreneurial endeavors including brand building and innovative marketing. Prior to AnyRoad Daniel was the cofounder and Producer at Open Content Media which designed, produced, and distributed creative video content for some of the world’s most iconic brands. He is the founder of Drink Me Magazine and grew the publication to a readership of 400,000 before its acquisition in 2012. The magazine’s success spiraled into a book deal - and Daniel wrote Drink More Whiskey which has been published by Chronicle Books across the globe.

Daniel's entrepreneurial passion extends to multiple groups, including the Future of Storytelling organization which looks at the evolution of storytelling in the digital age and to mentoring young refugee entrepreneurs worldwide to jump start their careers through The Refugee Jumpstart organization.

Daniel is a regular contributor to Adweek, and has been named one of Inc. Magazine’s top 15 People Changing the Face of Experiential Marketing.