SOCIAL MEDIA CLUB’S
GLOBAL LEADERSHIP

Board of Directors

Ali Sabkar

Co-Chair

Ali Sabkar is the Founder & President of Social Media Club MENA—the first chapter to lead social media activities and events in Bahrain. He is an eMarketing Expert & Speaker of ‘Making The Most Out of eMarketing for Organizations.’ He has spoken at many conferences in the Middle East, and more than 10,000 participants have attended his training workshops in MENA.

Caroline Jones

Co-Chair

@caroliiinejones | linkedin | email

Caroline Jones is a founding board member of Social Media Club Des Moines, currently serving as Advisor to SMCDSM, and Executive Director of The Hashie Awards™️, also known as The Hashies®️, for Social Media Club, Inc. Caroline currently owns and operates her own digital marketing consulting business.

William Belz

LinkedIn | email

William Belz is president and board member of the Social Media Club Buffalo. He is a web and graphic designer, working on a communications and marketing team within higher education.

Kevin Loder

LinkedIn | email

Kevin Loder was a founding member of the SMC at the University of Oregon and served as President. He now works for the National Society for Collegiate Scholars in Washington, D.C. He is networking to rebuild SMC clubs in cities and on college campuses.

Marc Vasquez

LinkedIn | email

Marc Vasquez is the Communications Co-Chair for the Social Media Club of Kansas City. He possesses more than 16 years of both agency and corporate public relations and social media experience. Marc is also a past president of the Greater Kansas City Public Relations Society of America chapter.

Claudia Sandino

LinkedIn | email

Claudia is a senior digital marketing strategist with 7+ years of experience in managing large teams, implementing successful digital strategies at large-scale global companies, and analyzing customer data to identify target markets, trends, and customer sentiment.

Lewa Abukhait

LinkedIn | email

A social media strategist and international speaker on strategies and myths of SM. Lewa is Co-Founder and BOD – Strategic Partnerships for Social Media Club UAE & MENA chapters; biggest social media society with over 400,000 members from all around the globe.

Advisory Board

Golden Ashby

Immediate Past President

@GoldenAshby | linkedin | email

Golden is the CEO/Social Media Director of Golden Opps (GO). He leads GO teams in managing new media, online marketing, public relations, web technology, customer service, drive engagement, develop communities, establish measurements, educate employees and direct cutting edge social media campaigns and strategies from start to finish for some of the best brands in the world.

Kristie Wells

Co-Founder

@KristieWells | linkedin

Kristie is Co-Founder of Social Media Club, and is the Director of Global Social Media and Customer Engagement for Ancestry.com. Over the last 25 years, Kristie has helped organizations understand, engage and support their customers to strengthen their brand, improve their products and create better experiences for all stakeholders, internally and externally.

Chris Heuer

Co-Founder

@ChrisHeuer | linkedin

Chris Heuer has been engaged in interactive communications since 1993, and launched his first agency, Guru Communications, out of South Beach, Florida in 1994. Over the years he has helped numerous startups with go-to market strategies, product design, web site development, online marketing campaigns, ecommerce and what is now widely referred to as Social Media.

Ben Smith

@BenASmith | linkedin

Ben Smith founded the Lawrence, Kansas, chapter of the Social Media Club and is also an active member of the Kansas City chapter. Ben serves as Principal at social business agency Social: IRL, and as Social Media Director at Callahan Creek, a full service marketing agency working with national and regional specialty brands.