OkCupid CEO and leadership

Ariel Charytan joins OkCupid from Audible, an Amazon company where he served as SVP. A veteran company founder, Mr. Charytan has spent his career building and fostering media, online travel and telecom businesses. Previously he was the co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Oyster.com. Oyster was financed by Bain Capital Ventures and Scripps, and acquired by TripAdvisor (TRIP).

Alex has spent his professional life wrangling herds of servers and fighting off hordes of angry users with nothing but a Linux install CD and a cup of coffee.

Marcus is an information scientist specializing in information use - specifically how people conceptualize and navigate information space.

By day, Marcus oversees the Product, Design, User Research, and Customer Experience functions at OkCupid.

By night, he blends cognitive linguistics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to solve classical music search experience issues using Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Natural Language Understanding (NLU).

A successful leader with experience managing teams of developers, interface programmers and visual/interaction designers on concurrent projects. Proven ability to dissect and deliver extensive visual and functional changes with an agile approach, constantly delivering improvements on the way to achieving larger business goals.

Specialties: User Experience Management, Product Design, User Interface Design, Interaction Design, Product Experience, Voice UI, User and Task Analysis, Usability Studies, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Python (NLTK), Cognitive Linguistics, Cognition, Perception, and Embodiment Theory.

A leading expert on brand-building, Melissa Hobley has a reputation for marrying powerful brand marketing with data-driven digital advertising, in bold and breakthrough ways that jumpstart brands and create measurable value. From OkCupid’s turnaround with the Wieden + Kennedy created “DTF” campaign shot by Maurizio Cattelan (named “Best Campaign of the Year” by Adweek, Ad Age, Business Insider, Forbes) to the launch of iconic British beauty brand No7 in the US with a public commitment to zero photoshopping and zero celebrity partnerships (unheard of in the beauty marketing landscape), Melissa’s formula to match cultural relevance and brand value has led to big results. Currently, Melissa is the Global Chief Marketing Officer of OkCupid, one of the largest dating apps in the world. Under her direction, OkCupid has become famous for its message of inclusion and affirmation, winning numerous awards for its breakthrough social campaign in 2018 & 2019. In this role, she is responsible for global brand advertising, marketing, social media, and partnerships. Melissa was the first CMO at OkCupid and brought the brand from decline to being one of the foremost leaders in a competitive space. Prior to joining OkCupid, Melissa was the VP Marketing for iconic health and wellness retailer Walgreens, where she helped transform the retail experience and beauty selection across 9,000 locations in the US. Under her tenure, No7 skyrocketed to be one of the biggest brands at mass, across a number of retailers, including Target, Ulta and of course, Walgreens. Melissa was the CMO of Buyology, which married the latest discoveries in behavioral economics with product innovation and marketing, with clients ranging from Visa to Nintendo. She started her career as a publicist, working for some of the biggest names in entertainment, TV and film. She regularly appears as an expert on tech and relationships in media like The New York Times and NPR. Currently, she is a regular guest on NBC’s “Today Show” discussing relationships in a digital era. In 2020, she was #29 on Forbes Most Influential CMOs in the World list. In 2019, she was named to AdAge’s “Women to Watch” list, and was recently featured on AMA’s “40 Under 40.” Specialties:-Insights-driven strategic marketing, employing discoveries in behavioral economics into planning for competitive advantage-Strategic digital marketing, acquisition -Brand vision, story, and planning -Customer Acquisition Strategy-Customer segmentation -Advertising, media planning -PR-Influencer + Celebrity partnerships