2023 Speakers & Instructors
Mariam Naficy
Minted’s Founder & Executive Chairman
Mariam Naficy is a serial entrepreneur who founded Minted in 2007 with the goal of creating a brand that would stay fresh forever. As a pioneer of the creator economy, Mariam created a community of independent artists and designers and a ‘crowdsourcing’ process that includes design competitions to consistently discover the best designers and the hottest trends. Mariam has immersed herself in Minted’s talented community of independent artists, who inspire her every day. She has pioneered consumer Internet models since 1998, when she co-founded the first online cosmetics retailer, Eve.com, which was sold for over $100 million. Mariam is also the Founder and Managing Partner of Heretic Ventures. She sits on the Board of Every Mother Counts, Medium, Victoria’s Secret, and Minted, and is a member of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory Council.
Carrie Moradi
Designer and Artist
Carrie Moradi is a designer and artist living in Fort Collins, Colorado. She's been meandering her way through a twenty-three-year design career in a variety of industries including publishing, a contemporary arts center, architecture, environmental design, branding, and stationery design. Her collage work has grown as an extension of a multidisciplinary career as well as the accumulated time living in the American southwest, the midwest, and near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Organic patterns in nature, a love for midcentury design, imperfectly homey living spaces, architecture graduate school, and graphic design projects are some of the things that consistently inspire Carrie to create bold, abstract tissue paper collage artwork balancing youthfulness and sophistication. When she's not working in her home studio, she can likely be found hiking with her husband and two elementary-aged boys — an attempt to burn off some of their endless energy, starting and sometimes even finishing home renovation projects, thrifting and estate sale scouring, seeking out delicious tacos and breweries, or scheming their next family adventure both near and far.
Agnes Pierscieniak
Designer, Artist & Educator
Agnes is an artist and independent designer living and working in Napa. Inspired by natural wonders, California landscapes and vibrant travels, Her goal is to capture how a place makes her feel through color, texture and pattern. Agnes loves bright colors and exuberant patterns, creating art in a variety of media from hand dyed textiles to screenprints and collage.
She received her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and has taught at Otis, Otis Extension, USC and RISD. Having the opportunity to travel and attend art workshops in far flung places like India and Japan, Agnes was inspired to connect global crafts with local students. She believes in curiosity, creativity and empowering everyone through art.
Agnes is the founder of Crave Workshops. Crave Workshops began hosting creative workshops in January 2017. The mission is to build a welcoming community where each person is inspired to explore and learn. Agnes has grown Crave Workshops from a series of backyard art parties to workshops, immersions, and retreats for global companies and organizations around the country. Recent clients include Google, Ebay, Lululemon, Twitter, Athleta and Pinterest. She has taught over 4500 participants in 46 states and 30 plus countries.
Michelle Ransom
Senior Manager, Merchandising, Baby, Kids, Gifts, Minted
Michelle Ransom grew up in Minnesota and happily relocated to the warmth of the Bay Area ten years ago. She's spent her entire career working in merchandising and with stationery products, so was excited to join the team at Minted in early 2022. In her free time, Michelle enjoys hiking, yoga, reality tv, and foreign films. She adores cats and is the happy owner of a spoiled fluff ball named Pepper.
Beth Schneider
Surface Designer
Beth Schneider is an artist known for a clean and fresh aesthetic with a fun, playful twist. She creates artwork from her beautiful watercolor florals and hand painted coordinates that have been licensed on products including fabric, pillows, gift & paper goods, planners, partyware and much more. Her work has been featured on products sold at Anthropologie, Target, Hobby Lobby, Party City, Home Goods and more, as well as many online retailers and small shops across the world. She has also been published in HGTV Magazine, Pattern Euphoria, The Today Show, Real Simple and many blogs.
Bharti Trivedi
Fiber Artist
Bharti Trivedi is a fiber artist living and working in Milpitas, California. She creates large scale fiber art sculptures with her innovative techniques of manipulating the rope. Growing up in India, her deep connection to the outdoors was a precursor to her eventual, tactile love with natural fibers. Within her work, one may find a glimpse of nature being translated into her own language of rope, starting from tiny adorable pieces to huge artworks!
Bharti studied electronics engineering and worked professionally as a cyber security engineer for many years before pursuing her own creative studio in California and venture named Yashi Designs in 2018. While exploring fiber techniques during motherhood, she taught herself the art of knotting, crocheting, embroidery, weaving and wood-working. Using the humble natural materials on a super sized scale, images of her work went viral, propelling her into a career as a full time artist. Today, she creates artworks for public spaces and custom commissions for private residences.
Melissa Kim
Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Minted
As a co-founder, Melissa has played a range of roles (including box packer during the holiday rush). Before assuming the CEO role, Melissa was responsible for go-to-market functions, including marketing, merchandising, product management, engineering, and category management. She has also led our supporting infrastructure, including finance, strategy, operations, people, and legal. Melissa previously worked in eBay's Corporate Strategy group and at The Boston Consulting Group. She received her BBA from the University of Michigan and her MBA from Stanford, where she graduated as an Arjay Miller Scholar.
Brady Wood
Chief Partner & People Officer, Minted
Brady leads artist relations, wholesale, licensing, and our people team, working to develop talent inside and outside of the company and build distribution for our artists’ work. Brady built his first online community in 1996 and taught a course about online communities at Duke University. Prior to Minted, he co-founded Shmoop, an educational website used by tens of millions of teachers and students. Previously, he worked in marketing at Yahoo and founded its LGBTQ employees group. Brady earned a BA, cum laude, from Duke and an MBA from Stanford.
Michael Fugoso
Sr. Design Evangelist at Adobe
With an impressive background as an illustrator and designer, Michael's experience spans renowned aerospace companies such as NASA, Boeing, Blue Origin, Ariane Group, as well as prominent organizations like Oracle, IBM, Salesforce, Volvo, and Adobe. His diverse talents have been showcased through presentations at design conferences like Adobe MAX, teaching Skillshare classes, and live-streaming his creative process online.
Marissa Cedarleaf
GM of Weddings, Minted
Marissa is a business leader with more than 15 years of experience in marketing, sales, and general management across a range of industries. After beginning her career in advertising, Marissa pivoted to brand management and eventually, general management. She has worked for Clorox, Method, and e.l.f. Beauty - all brands of which she is an avid consumer. Marissa graduated with a BA from the University of Michigan and earned her MBA at the University of Chicago. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two children, and has been a loyal Minted consumer for years.
Carolyn Kach 0f Anchored Paper Co.
Calligrapher, Illustrator, and Designer
Carolyn Kach of Anchored Paper Co. is a calligrapher, illustrator, and designer from Seattle, WA. After receiving her BFA in Design from the University of Washington, Carolyn worked in advertising as a designer and in collegiate athletics as an Art Director. She now works as a freelance designer for several clients including Minted!
Carolyn loves the community aspect of Minted and is excited to be an M-level artist. Her favorite Minted categories are greeting cards and children's art where she often combines typography, hand lettering, and illustrations in clean layouts.
Carolyn has been married to her college sweetheart, Nathan, for ten years and they have three children: Lillian (7), Bennett (4), and Oliver (1). In her spare time, she loves to do cross stitch and hand embroidery, spend time in the Word, go for walks and coffee dates, play with her mini golden retriever Odie, and cheer on the UW Huskies!
Ilze Lucero
Photographer, Artist & Designer
Ilze Lucero is a photographer and stationery artist based in Michigan. Her multi-faceted creative journey finds balance between storytelling, portrait and fine art photography and watercolor painting for surface patterns and stationery design.
Chrissy Morford
GM of Art, Minted
Chrissy is passionate about art and design and has spent over a decade working at the intersection of these interests. She started her career in Commodities Trading at Morgan Stanley before pursuing opportunities in the art world. Following her graduate studies, Chrissy spent 8 years at Sotheby’s working across Fine Art, Design, and Luxury categories. Prior to joining Minted, Chrissy was leading Sotheby’s global eCommerce team, developing an omnichannel retail experience, and exploring NFT and Metaverse opportunities in the Luxury space. Chrissy graduated with a BA from Villanova University and an MA in Art Business from Sotheby’s Institute of Art. She lives in Hoboken, New Jersey with her husband and daughter.
Katherine Philpot
VP Category Management, Minted
Katherine leads Minted’s Category Management organization, bringing the best in independent design to life across a wide range of product categories. In this role, she leads category strategy and customer insights, revenue generation, and category general management. In her time at Minted, Katherine has played a number of leadership roles, including overseeing product marketing, merchandising, and product development. Previously, she was Minted's GM of the Holiday, Baby & Kids and Gifts categories and Senior Director of Customer Retention Marketing. She began her career at McKinsey & Company, where she specialized in customer lifecycle and retention, and has held a variety of strategic and operational roles in technology companies and nonprofit organizations. Katherine received her AB cum laude in History & Literature from Harvard College and her MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she was an Arjay Miller Scholar.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Andy J. Pizza
Illustrator and Speaker
Andy J. Pizza is an illustrator.
Sometimes he uses pictures. Like in his kid’s books, comics and client work for the likes of The New York Times, Apple or Nickelodeon.
Sometimes he uses words. Like when he’s making his podcast Creative Pep Talk. CPT consists of monologues on building a thriving creative practice and conversations with creative powerhouses like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Abbi Jacobson and Morgan Harper Nichols.
His favorite way to illustrate ideas is with analogies and stories on stage. Andy shoots for talks that tonally fall somewhere between TED talks and s one man show—with a dash of stand-up comedy, but his friend once said that it was really more like the opposite of stand-up comedy… AKA “lay-down tragedy”.
Emily Barry
VP, Wholesale and Marketplace, Minted
Emily leads Minted’s wholesale and third-party marketplace businesses, overseeing channel strategy, revenue generation and go-to-market execution to expand distribution for our artists’ products. Prior to joining Minted, Emily worked at McKinsey & Company, advising global consumer companies in growth strategy, pricing excellence, and sales & marketing optimization. Emily has a BS in Finance from the College of William and Mary, a Master’s in Education from Harvard University, and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Lauren Hill
Director of Merchandising, Stationery at Target
Lauren Hill is the Director of Merchandising, Stationery at Target, where she has been part of the leadership team for more than two years. Lauren has a long career in retail and consumer goods merchandising, with experience at The Container Store and Nieman Marcus before working at Target.
Erin McManness Rodda
Illustrator & Founder of Paper Raven Co.
Erin McManness Rodda has been professionally illustrating since 2015 under her brand Paper Raven Co., which started as a greeting card line, and now includes licensing for cards, gifts and home decor. A whimsical aesthetic and developed botanicals are hallmarks of her brand. She joined the Minted Community in 2014, and her favorite category is Holiday! Outside of Minted, Erin has had the pleasure of collaborating with Macy's, Target, Publix, Trader Joe's, The Happy Planner, and Casetify to bring her signature style to many licensed products.
Emily Mikaere of Inkblot Design
Designer and Illustrator
Emily Mikaere is the designer and illustrator behind Inkblot Design. After receiving her Masters in Computer Graphic Design in 2011, Emily has since worked as a freelancer where she works with a range of small business owners, supporting them in everything from visual identity creation to editorial layout and packaging design. Emily joined the Minted Community in 2017 and has found the confidence to finally call herself an artist. Her creative process involves a lot of exploration and experimentation, resulting in artwork that is unique, bold and always playful. Emily is originally from Wisconsin but has lived in New Zealand with her husband and 3 kids for the past 15 years.
Becca O'Leary
Senior Director, Merchandising, Minted
Becca O'Leary is the Director of Merchandising at Minted, and oversees merchandising for the Holiday, Baby and Kids, and Greeting Card teams. Becca joined Minted in 2020 after earning her MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and is gearing up for her 3rd Holiday season at Minted! A few fun facts: Becca was in high school in Orange County, California when the show The OC aired, and it really wasn't the same but it was fun; she loves Philadelphia with her whole heart even though she's not from there; she's a cat person (and mother of two 11 year old kitties!) and a dog person (aspiring owner of a dog she plans to name Craig); she's constantly keeping up with her cool team of Gen Zers and also constantly teaching them about early 2000s pop culture, like Michelle Branch and N*Sync; she's trying to quit afternoon coffee.
Alicia Schultz
Artist, of Vine & Thistle
Alicia Schultz (she/her) is an artist and the creator of Vine & Thistle. She’s a hand letterer, illustrator, stationery designer and muralist based in Portland, Oregon.
She creates hand lettering, botanical art, patterns and illustrations to be used for murals, stationery, home decor and art prints. She has partnered with many companies to get her art out in the world including Minted, Mpix, Google, Hallmark, Postable, Allport Editions, Felt, Roost Books, Portland Street Art Alliance and more.
In her work, she strives to capture and inspire joy found from everyday moments. She uses unique color combinations and loves hand drawn imperfections. She is always inspired by botanicals and is especially inspired by the life-cycle of flowers and plants.
As a self-taught artist, Alicia has spent many years building a career with her art. Oftentimes, the work she does does not feel like “work.” Alicia finds great value in connection – which she shares through stationery, murals, taking classes from other local artists and being a part of the art community - both locally and globally.
When not making art, she loves having spontaneous adventures with her husband, two daughters and pup, Lazo.