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April 18-19, 2017
Dana Point, California

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Erika Nardini

CEO, Barstool Sports

A dynamic media and technology executive, Erika Nardini is known for her tenacity and passion for building, marketing and monetizing digital media brands. 

In July 2016, Erika joined Barstool Sports as the company's CEO. Known for its original takes and unfiltered view of most everything, Barstool Sports is a driving force in comedy, sports, entertainment and men’s culture. Erika is the company’s first CEO and, at the time she joined, only female employee.

In her short amount of time as CEO, Erika has relocated the company to New York City, grown Barstool’s operation and launched partnerships with Facebook, SiriusXM for a daily show called “Barstool Radio” and Comedy Central, as she aims to expand the brand’s footprint and engage with an even wider audience base. The brand completed a five stop college football tour with Natural Light in Fall 2016 and launched over six additional podcasts. Barstool Sports’ popular podcast “Pardon My Take” has become the number one sports podcast, surpassing other institutional, traditional sports podcasts. 
As an instrumental force in continuing to grow the company, Erika has assisted in strategically expanding the brand’s merchandise channel. Since her inception in July 2016, the brand acquired Old Row, a fast-growing Southern based college digital and apparel brand, and has tripled the merchandise business by launching product featuring viral trends such as Saturdays Are For the Boys (SAFTB) and RIP Harambe.

Prior to Barstool Sports, Erika served as President and Chief Revenue Officer at Bkstg, a platform that empowers Artists to go Straight-to-Fan. Erika was responsible for the company's brand positioning, programming, revenue and Artist partnerships. During her time at Bkstg, Erika raised $20 million in funding and launched the brands first direct to consumer mobile platform that created both CMS and CRM capabilities for music artists like Justin Bieber, Maroon 5, Ariana Grande and more. 

Erika has held several notable positions in the advertising and media industries, including: CMO, AOL Inc. Prior to AOL, she built Demand Media's marketing and sales operation leading to their January, 2012 IPO.  

Erika was an early pioneer in branded entertainment and built global operations inclusive of marketing, product development and programming at both Yahoo! and Microsoft following leadership roles in creative services and media at Digitas, Havas and Arnold Worldwide.  In 2015 she was named to the AAF Hall of Achievement and serves on several private and non-profit boards. 

Erika currently lives in New York with her husband, their children, and two Bernese mountain dogs.