Josh Linkner

Founder, Chairman and former CEO of ePrize

Keynote 12:00pm Thursday April 7th – Improve Your Business With Creative Practice

Josh Linkner is a change agent for business innovation. He’s on a mission to make the world a more creative planet.

Josh is the Founder, Chairman and former CEO of the largest interactive promotion agency in the world, ePrize.  Over the last 12 years, ePrize hired over 1,800 professionals and provides digital marketing services for 74 of the top 100 brands.  Josh led the firm from inception to being ranked the #1 fastest growing and #3 overall promotion agency by PROMO Magazine.

Josh led ePrize’s expansion into new industries including travel, automotive, financial services, consumer packaged goods, retail, and entertainment. Josh contributed to ePrize’s geographic expansion, opening offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, San Francisco, Detroit, Atlanta and London. Additionally, Josh led the firm through two rounds of financing and two recapitalizations, securing over $43 Million of investment.

As an early Internet marketing visionary, Josh founded and built one of the first web marketing agencies, GlobalLink New Media, in 1995. The firm grew to be recognized as a “Top 100 Interactive Agency” by Advertising Age Magazine in both 1997 and 1998. In early 1999 Josh successfully negotiated and managed all aspects of the sale of GlobalLink New Media to a publicly-traded firm.

Josh served as Senior Vice President for Rare Medium Group, a 1,100 person web-consulting and venture capital firm. Previously, he was the founder and CEO of two other successful technology companies.

Josh is a New York Times bestselling author of two books.  His most recent book, Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity (Jossey-Bass/Wiley), helps organizations and individuals jumpstart their imagination and build creative organizations.

Recently, Josh launched his fifth company, the venture capital firm Detroit Venture Partners.  Along with business partners Dan Gilbert and Brian Hermelin, Josh is actively investing in early-stage technology companies looking to help rebuild the Detroit region through entrepreneurship.

Josh is a frequent source-for-comment among business, technology and marketing media. He has been featured in hundreds of publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, AdAge, Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur, Fast Company and AdWeek, and is a frequent keynote speaker at industry events and conferences. Josh has won multiple business, technology, and design awards including the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, The Inc. 500 (six years in a row), Crain’s Detroit Business 40 under 40, Fast Company’s Fast 50, the Detroit Executive of the Year, and the Automation Alley CEO of the Year.

Josh earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Advertising from the University of Florida. Josh is an accomplished and well-respected jazz musician, regularly performing in jazz clubs throughout the United States and Canada.