Short Bio
Valeria Maltoni is a popular writer, speaker and business advisor, whose work has appeared in Fast Company, Forbes, Business Week, Inc., Advertising Age and other A-list publications. AdAge has ranked her blog in the top thirty on their Power 150 Top Marketing blogs in the world for three consecutive years.
She has spent the past fifteen years studying digital culture and human behavior and is the author of ConversationAgent.com and ItalianStyle.me.
Valeria’s talks on Uploading Humanism, Everyone is Wrong About Influence. Except your Customers, and Becoming a Conversation Agent have received wide acclaim.
In addition to her work and writing, Valeria is the Founder of Conversation Agent LLC a consultancy that helps business leaders and entrepreneurs tell a new story through stronger brands that deliver better experiences.
Conversational Bio
My first public speaking was at the age of six, when I made a persuasive argument that saved my textbook from extinction. I was hooked on the observation that bringing evidence to the conversation had the power to get people on the same wavelength, helping them appreciate the context and experience of “users.” I was the child who studied how an animated television interstitial program – The Line – could communicate so much in short segments, ranging from 2:28 to 6:37 in runtime, using no words. These two insights informed my insight that evidence and expression go hand in hand and action is more powerful than words.
Every brand has a story to tell to engage, educate, enlighten, and make people’s lives better. Every experience is networked, it sits in a world of implicit and explicit relationships that create high impact on how people feel – and what they do. Shared purpose and deliberate actions create mutual success. I bring a participant-observer point of view to create high-resolution conversations.
Over the last 20 years, I have held senior business roles helping global brands in highly technical and scientific fields as well as crowded industries find new opportunities by bringing their experiences to life – to feel authentic, connected, and human. My career has spanned both the client and agency sides in the marketing and communication strategy for a digital world, working to grow many known brands, such as Target, Anheuser-Bush InBev, NBCU, GE, SunGard, KPMG, Allstate, and GlaxoSmithKline. I have innovated and built service portfolios for digital agencies, including Empathy Lab and PMX.
My success is rooted in the philosophy and principles of kaizen – a process that, when done correctly, humanizes the workplace, eliminating “muri,” unreasonable work that is beyond personal power, and teaching people how to perform experiments on their work using the scientific method, learning to spot and eliminate waste.
As an early adopter of digital technologies and communications, building social networking affinity groups, I brought skills and lessons in human behavior and online experiences to organizations. I pioneered innovative methods of discovery, relationship building, and connection that produced insights relevant to brand practices and results. Updating knowledge based on real time information in social networks led me to building professional services as successful differentiating products.
In 2015 I founded Conversation Agent LLC, a conversation-age consultancy to help brands grow in the digital age. Online and in the real world, brand story, believability, and behavior are linked and in constant conversation. Agent is “an active and efficient cause.” Intentional conversation is thus an agent of change in individuals, organizations, and the community. I work with brands to develop deep connections and networks of value using context-based emotional data and evidence.
I’m deeply passionate about helping organizations and brands that want to build better experiences tell a new story.
Select accomplishments
- Guest Professor – Advanced Digital Marketing Strategy program, Bologna Business School. Coursework: how identity in tech is driving transformation in organizational work, impacting brand value and customer acquisition and retention.
- Personal Branding – separating the myth from reality. How to identify personal strengths, commercial value, and tell your story. Digital course for Work Wide Women (Italian) https://workwidewomen.com/course/personal-branding/.
- Strategic alignment in organizations with business operations in the United States, strong footprints in Europe (France, Italy, U.K., Ireland, Switzerland), and product sourcing in Europe and Asia to deliver cohesive experiences.
- Conversation themes and formats for 3 annual Rendezvous hosting 200 clients & lead prospects in top S&P 500 companies, Dublin, Bermuda, Edinburgh.
- 100 Leadership Conversations and round tables with authors, CEOs, and innovators, that built a Social Network for Fast Company with more than 500 active members in the Greater Philadelphia area between 1999-2007.
- Business Advisor, Venture for America startup accelerator with First Round Capital, 2015-2017.
- Strategy Advisor, Consulting Practicum, International MBA, the Fox School of Business at Temple University, 2007-2013.
- Negotiation of international joint venture to bring and market new products to the U.S.
- Brand equity growth for two prominent global businesses resulting in profitable acquisitions.
- Keynote Speaker for a number of prominent North American and international events and conferences, 2007-current.
- Author, ConversationAgent.com, a dialogue on business, technology, digital culture, and human behavior, 2006-current. Recognized among the world’s Top 30 Marketing blogs (AdAge Power150), and one of the Top Content Marketing blogs (Content Marketing Institute.) With an archive 3,223 articles-strong, and high search ranking, it continues to help people create value.
- Contributor to Communication World magazine, Industria Clandestina, Fast Company magazine as founding expert blogger on Customer Conversation.
- Author of “Working and Writing in Groups” – introduction to Ohio State University Prof. Locker’s Business and Administrative Communications, 6/e (2003, McGraw-Hill.)
More information here.
