June 11, 2019, Washington DC

SPEAKER BIOS

Gary Adler is Executive Director and Counsel for the National Association of Ticket Brokers (“NATB”), a 

not-for-profit organization representing professional ticket resellers. He has represented the NATB for 

25 years, overseeing its operations and helping to establish the NATB’s Code of Ethics and Consumer 

Complaint Procedures, which include numerous consumer protection measures. In addition to 

representing the NATB, Mr. Adler advises numerous business entities and trade associations on a wide 

range of issues. His legal practice also focuses on civil litigation in trial and appellate courts. Mr. Adler 

also has represented professional athletes and sports management in negotiations, corporate matters, 

and litigation.

Laura Brett is Director of the National Advertising Division of Better Business Bureau National 

Programs (“NAD”), the advertising industry’s system of self-regulation. She became Director in 2017, 

after having served as an NAD staff attorney and Assistant Director. Ms. Brett has helped develop 

NAD’s body of guidance as to truthfulness and transparency for advertising in digital media. She 

speaks regularly on digital advertising issues, has published articles on the ethical standards of 

advertisers in social media, and participated on a panel at the FTC’s Native Advertising Workshop. 

Prior to joining NAD, Ms. Brett was a litigator in her own private practice, after having worked in 

commercial litigation at Willkie Farr & Gallagher.

John Breyault is Vice President for Public Policy, Telecommunications, and Fraud at the National 

Consumers League’s (“NCL”). In 2008, he joined NCL where he advocates before Congress and federal 

agencies for stronger consumer protections on issues related to telecommunications, fraud, data 

security, privacy, aviation, and other consumer concerns. In addition, Mr. Breyault manages NCL’s 

Fraud.org and #DataInsecurity Project campaigns. Prior to joining NCL, he spent 5 years as director of 

research at Amplify Public Affairs, where he helped launch an Internet public affairs practice to support 

clients in the telecommunications, energy, labor, and environmental sectors. 

Eric Budish is a Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, CoDirector of the Initiative on Global Markets at Chicago Booth, and a Research Associate at the National 

Bureau of Economic Research. His research is on market design, ranging from the design of financial 

exchanges, to matching markets, patents and R&D incentives, event ticket markets, and 

cryptocurrencies. Prior to attending graduate school, Dr. Budish was an analyst at Goldman Sachs. His 

honors include the Marshall Scholarship, the Sloan Research Fellowship, the AQR Insight Award, the 

Arrow Award, the Leo Melamed Award, and giving the 2017 AEA-AFA joint luncheon address.
Russ D’Souza is a Co-Founder of SeatGeek, a leading mobile app and platform for live event tickets. He 

leads SeatGeek’s business functions, including business development and the growth of SeatGeek’s 

primary ticketing platform, SeatGeek Enterprise. Mr. D’Souza is a two-time winner of Sports Business 

Journal’s Forty Under 40 award. Prior to founding SeatGeek, he worked as a management consultant 

with the Monitor Group in Boston, and founded and sold two startup companies.

Sara Fisher Ellison is a Senior Lecturer in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Economics 

Department. She has held a number of visiting and honorary positions, most recently at the Paris 

School of Economics. Dr. Ellison’s research has investigated a number of questions in industrial 

organization, with a focus on the pharmaceutical industry and ecommerce. Her best-known research 

in the area of ecommerce examines search and obfuscation. Dr. Ellison is an award-winning instructor, 

teaching econometric methods and microeconomics at the undergraduate, MBA, and PhD levels. She 

currently is on the editorial boards of three industrial organization journals, IJIO, JIE, and RIO, and 

consults on management and litigation issues. 

Rami Essaid is a Co-Founder and the Chief Product and Strategy Officer of Distil Networks, a global 

leader in bot detection and mitigation. His technical expertise includes over 15 years of experience in 

cybersecurity and cloud infrastructure management. An alumnus of TechStars, Mr. Essaid now serves

as a mentor for current participants, advising the next generation of entrepreneurs and coaching them 

on how to scale their businesses while continuing to provide innovative products and services.

Gilbert Hoover is Vice President and General Counsel of The Shubert Organization, Broadway’s largest 

theatre owner and a leading force in American theatre for over 100 years. Shubert’s current shows 

include To Kill A Mockingbird, Dear Evan Hansen, Come From Away, Network, and others. The Shubert 

Ticketing division, operator of Telecharge, is a primary-source provider of event tickets to entertainment 

venues and online distribution channels nationwide. Prior to joining Shubert, Mr. Hoover was a 

commercial litigator at Troutman Sanders. He has worked extensively on ticketing matters, both with 

Shubert and The Broadway League, the national trade association for the Broadway industry.

John Lawrence is Regulatory and Compliance Counsel for StubHub, a global platform that enables fans 

to buy and sell tickets for live events. Prior to working at StubHub, he was Senior Manager and 

Counsel for eBay’s Federal Government Relations team, where he focused on tax, intellectual property, 

and privacy issues. Mr. Lawrence also spent nearly 7 years as a policy aide on Capitol Hill.

Anna Laitin is Director of Financial Policy at Consumer Reports (“CR”), leading its efforts to ensure that 

consumers have access to a safe, transparent, and accountable financial marketplace. She leads CR’s

“What the Fee?!” campaign aimed at enabling consumers to shop without fear of hidden fees.

Ms. Laitin came to CR from Capitol Hill, where she served in major House and Senate committee and 

legislative staff positions. At the House Energy and Commerce Committee and then the Senate 

Commerce Committee, she focused on a wide array of consumer protection issues. Ms. Laitin also 

served as Legislative Director for Senator Claire McCaskill during the period when she served as 

Chairman of the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection.
David Marcus is Executive Vice President and Head of Ticketmaster Music and is responsible for the 

company’s concert ticketing division, which focuses on designing and delivering technology solutions to 

more than 800 touring artists, their promoters, and venues each year. Before joining Ticketmaster,

Mr. Marcus held executive roles at ScoreBig, the country’s first name-your-own-price ticketing platform, 

and Warner Music Group. He began his career as an entertainment and intellectual property attorney.

Michael Marion has been General Manager of the 18,000-seat Verizon Arena in North Little Rock, 

Arkansas for 22 years, booking such artists as Paul McCartney, Jimmy Buffett, Eric Church and Justin 

Timberlake. For the past year, he has served as Chairman of the 6,000 member International 

Association of Venue Managers, whose membership includes arenas, convention centers, performing 

arts centers, stadiums, and amphitheaters in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand. 

His prior positions included serving as Director of the Tupelo Coliseum in Tupelo, Mississippi and as an 

agent at Triad Artists in Los Angeles representing major music artists. Mr. Marion was named Venue 

Executive of the Year by Pollstar Magazine in 2004. 

Katy McCabe is a Senior Policy Advisor on Google’s Global Product Policy team. She works on Google 

products researching and developing policies to improve user trust and safety. Ms. McCabe is 

experienced in several complex and nuanced policy areas, including Event Ticket Sale. 

Tamara Mendelsohn is Vice President and General Manager of Consumer at Eventbrite, a global online 

ticketing platform that allows anyone to create, share, find, and attend events. She runs the Consumer 

division at Eventbrite, responsible for innovation across product, design, and marketing that benefits 

event attendees. Ms. Mendelsohn was one of Eventbrite’s earliest hires in 2009, and before taking on 

her current role, she built the company’s global marketing team from the ground up. Prior to joining 

Eventbrite, she was a Senior Analyst with Forrester Research, specializing in eCommerce technology.

Mike Newquist is Vice President of Event Marketing & Ticketing with the Ultimate Fighting 

Championship (“UFC”). In this role, he oversees ticketing for UFC’s events globally. A 20-year Sports

& Entertainment veteran, Mr. Newquist began his ticketing career in the National Football League with 

the Tampa Bay Buccaneers where he spent 8 years and ultimately had oversight of all business 

operations for the NFL club. Prior to joining the UFC, he most recently worked with Ticketmaster in

Los Angeles and has expertise in all event-related ticket operations and sales.

Jeff Poirier is General Manager of Music, Theater & Performing Arts for StubHub, leading a team focused 

on the overall strategy, partnerships, marketing, supply, and event operations in North America. Prior to 

that, he led StubHub’s Canadian business from 2015 to 2017. Mr. Poirier joined StubHub in 2012, at 

which time his initial role was in Global Strategy & Corporate Development and where he acted as Head 

of Corporate Development on an interim basis in 2014. Prior to joining StubHub, he was an investment 

banker for Goldman Sachs in its San Francisco-based Technology group.

Joe Ridout is Manager of Consumer Services for Consumer Action, a nationwide, San Francisco-based, 

non-profit organization that annually distributes over a million free consumer publications in up to

8 languages. He has been with Consumer Action since 2004, and is quoted regularly on consumer and 

personal finance issues by media outlets including CNN, the New York Times, NPR, Univisión, and the 

Wall Street Journal. Mr. Ridout has testified before the California Assembly and Senate regarding state 

bills impacting consumer ticketing rights. He serves on the boards of the Consumer Federation of 

California and the California Reinvestment Coalition. Mr. Ridout previously worked at Public Citizen 

researching climate change.
Bob Roux is President of U.S. Concerts at Live Nation Entertainment where he oversees all operations, 

bookings, and venues in the United States. Prior to his appointment as President of U.S. Concerts in 

2018, he held the position of Co-President of North America Concerts and President for the company’s 

Dallas/Houston/New Orleans Region, and served on Live Nation Entertainment’s Board of Governors 

for North America. Mr. Roux has worked for the company and its predecessors since 1990.

Parul Shah is Assistant Director at the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority. She is 

responsible for, among other things, leading investigations into breaches of consumer protection law. 

Prior to this, as legal counsel with the Department of Justice Canada, Ms. Shah represented the 

Canadian Commissioner of Competition in a variety of cases involving deceptive marketing.

Noah Stein is an Assistant Attorney General in the Bureau of Internet & Technology at the N.Y. State 

Attorney General’s Office, which regulates the technology sector through litigation, policy, and public 

outreach. He has worked extensively on matters involving mass deception through automation, such 

as social media bots, fake public comments, and ticket bots. Mr. Stein also focuses on litigation and 

policy involving data security and privacy, online intimate-partner abuse, and online consumer 

protection. Previously, he worked at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, litigating patent law claims and 

fraud claims by state attorneys general. Before practicing law, Mr. Stein worked as a consultant at 

McKinsey & Company.

Carl Szabo is Vice President and General Counsel for NetChoice where he analyzes tech-related 

legislative and regulatory initiatives relevant to online companies. This analysis includes federal and 

state legislation on free speech, free-markets, antitrust, online taxation, and privacy issues. Mr. Szabo 

is also an adjunct professor of privacy law at the George Mason Antonin Scalia Law School. Before 

joining NetChoice, he was an intellectual property attorney at the law firm of Wildman, Harrold, Allen 

& Dixon where he advised clients on privacy, Internet, e-commerce, and contractual matters.

Patti-Anne Tarlton is Chairman of Ticketmaster Canada and Ticketmaster’s Executive Vice President of 

Venues & Promoters for North America. She has a deep understanding of the North American live 

entertainment industry, having spent her career as a concert promoter, venue operator, and sports 

and entertainment executive in Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto. Ms. Tarlton previously headed up 

the Live Entertainment Division for Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. She is a member of the 

Canadian Music and Broadcast Industry Hall of Fame, was named one of Billboard Magazine’s Women 

in Music 2017: The Most Powerful Executives in the Industry, and received the Woman of Influence 

award from VenuesToday. 

Don Vaccaro is the founder and CEO of TicketNetwork, a top secondary ticket selling exchange,

and has founded several industry-related companies and business associations. He has more than

40 years of experience in the secondary ticket market, pioneering the development and creation of 

industry-related software. He is also the founder of Ticket Summit, a leading conference and trade 

show for ticketing and live entertainment executives. He has been interviewed by Forbes, Billboard,

Fox Business TV, Venues Today, the NY Times, Bloomberg, Pollstar, and other industry-related

media outlets.