AAF District 3 Leadership Conference
April 10-11, 2025 | Richmond, VA
Tickets include every session, lunch on Thursday and Friday and breakfast on Friday. JUST $75!
- Bring your stickers! We are encouraging all participants to bring stickers to collect and share.
The AAF District 3 Leadership Conference will bring together ad and marketing pros from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.
- The Thursday-Friday schedule is designed for current and future AAF leaders and club members who want to learn how to propel their organizations forward while learning from industry experts!
- The event coincides with the National Student Advertising Competition district finals, with students from schools in three states presenting their pitches.
Speakers
- Cabell Harris, WORK
- Dean Browell, Feedback
- Erin Sarro, Two Tango Collaborative
- Jamal Millner, M3:GRAFIX
- Carrie Cousins, LeadPoint Digital
- Whitney McCormac, RhythmLink
Hotel
- Four Points by Sheraton Richmond for $159 per night
- Last Day to Book: Monday, March 10, 2025
- Book your group rate for AAF D3 Conference & NSAC here
Sessions
AI. Evolve or Die with Cabell Harris. Throughout my career, I have considered myself a conceptual artist. I initially felt that the introduction of Al would make me less creative. However, I have been surprised to find that it is making me more creative than ever. Anything that I can imagine can now be created. In addition, my familiarity with art movements, styles, techniques, mediums, craftsmanship, and conceptualization are great assets.
BIO
Ad Man. Designer. Professor. Entrepreneur. Futurist.
Cabell Harris is always thinking, it’s what he does.
He will tell you there are a lot of things he’s admittedly not very good at but he’s pretty good at branding. But don’t take his word for it. Andy Spade, cofounder of Kate Spade once said, “Cabell has one of those minds that combines a military strategist with a sense of humor, A.D.D. child with business acumen, and a mad professor with taste and a sense of composition. He’s a wonderful, bright creative solver with more going on in his own head than most of the entire advertising industry today.”
Cabell’s career began in Richmond Virginia. Fortunately, he was at the right place at the right time. Richmond was getting national attention as being one of the few creative hot spots outside New York.
Along with managing WORK, creating ad campaigns, corporate identities, packaging products, publishing books, building apps, and taking his own brands and products to market, Cabell was a professor for over 10 years at the VCU BrandCenter.
Cabell has been recognized, multiple times, in every major industry award show including Cannes, the Clios, the One Show, New York Addys, Art Directors Club, Graphis, Athena, Andy’s, British Design & Art Direction, Effie’s, Communication Arts, and over 10 Best of Shows for the local Richmond Addy’s. Various publications have also declared him one of the top creatives in the country.In March of 2020 Cabell was inducted into The Virginia Communications Hall of Fame.
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Tough Talk About Generations: Generational Differences, Misconceptions, and Waning Usefulness in Targeting and the Workplace with Dean Browell. Boomers, Millennials, Generation X, Generation Z… Generations have gone from handy birth-year segmentation to massive descriptors of entire populations – that are often completely wrong. In this session we will use Dean and Feedback’s behavioral research, graduate studies, personal anecdotes and pop culture to explore each generation’s unique roles. However we will also challenge the notion that generations are effective or even helpful ways to segment audiences.
BIO
Dean Browell leads Feedback’s research as resident PhD with a passion for how generations interact online and is the co-author of the book Don’t You Forget About Gen X: One Generation’s Crucial Role in Healthcare. A frequent speaker across many industries, Dean has also briefed data on military family quality of life to The White House. He is a co-founder of Hidden In Plain Site and on the boards of The Poe Museum and Firehouse Theatre. Dean teaches courses at VCU School of Business and University of Richmond’s Institute on Philanthropy.
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Before the Brand, There’s the Belief with Erin Sarro. Real connection happens when a brand is built from the inside out—when the energy, values, and everyday actions of its people shape what the world sees. Two Tango’s Executive Creative Director, Erin Sarro, shares the inside story of her company’s rebrand and why all brands should be built on culture —even if you don’t have one yet.
BIO
Erin Sarro, Executive Creative Director at Two Tango Collaborative, has been leading creative teams and shaping brand visions, including the Two Tango rebrand, for over 15 years. A writer by trade, she has crafted powerful brand voices for clients such as Papa John’s Pizza, Toyota, Puerto Rico, The International Spy Museum, Mally Beauty, the Virginia Lottery, and Virginia DMV. Her award-winning campaigns have included mailing a tarantula, making Robert De Niro laugh, and eating far too many pepperoni-stuffed crust pizzas. Erin has a degree in Marketing Management from Virginia Tech where she helped start the university’s first AAF chapter.
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Animation Workshop with Jamal Millner. This talk is for absolute beginners who have never opened a 3D program before to seasoned professionals who want to know the state of 3D in the industry. Attendees will learn how animation is being utilized in advertising and navigate the animation software Blender by working on a few hands on exercises. All you need is your laptop, the optional 3 button mouse, and an open mind.
BIO
Jamal Millner is the President of M3:GRAFIX—a boutique programming firm providing comprehensive back-end web development expertise to businesses and marketing agencies. As the sole proprietor, Millner creates custom applications and integration that provide access to services and content from internal or third party services.
Millner has served his community by volunteering to serve on several boards in his region. One of which is the American Advertising Federation where he serves on the Third District (AAF District 3) and Roanoke chapter (AAF Roanoke.) It is with AAF Roanoke where Millner orchestrated his most powerful endeavor – AdScape. This unforgettable educational and motivational day-long program offered advanced training in advertising to high school students interested in graphic design, media, and marketing. The AdScape program won the prestigious National Mosaic Award from the American Advertising Federation. Millner’s exceptional leadership was also recognized by his local chapter, AAF Roanoke, when he was named Advertising Person of the Year in 2017 and in 2024 was awarded Governor of the Year by AAF National.
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Win People & Influence Friends Workshop with Whitney McCormac. Hold up a finger if you’re an introvert. Hold up another finger if you hate networking. Add one more finger if the thought of asking for a favor makes you cringe. Now raise your hand if you want to change it. Rock on, club leaders. Join us for a good old-fashioned role-play session designed to get you ready to win people and influence friends!
BIO
Whitney McCormac currently serves as the Marketing Manager and Strategist for Rhythmlink International, a Columbia, SC based manufacturer specializing in medical devices that connect patients to machines for recording or eliciting biopotentials. Whitney has been involved with her local chapter of the AAF for several years, and previously served as the American Advertising Awards Gala Co-Chair, Judging Chair, and Club President. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina School of Journalism in Public Relations and lives in Columbia, SC with her husband, Nick. Whitney’s weekends typically include bad horror movies, good beer, and a lot of sewing. She believes in giving back to the community whenever possible and that hot dogs are in fact sandwiches.
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Thank You
Conference partners make this event possible.
Interested in being a sponsor? Email AAF District 3.