Steven Galanis, CEO and founder of quickly rising Chicago startup Cameo, will be a keynote speaker for Synapse Florida's upcoming Synapse Summit.
Galanis founded Cameo, a marketplace for celebrity shout-out videos, in 2017. The company has now raised more than $65 million and hosts more than 15,000 celebrities on its platform.
While Galanis fits the bill as a successful tech CEO, Synapse Florida President Brian Kornfeld specifically tapped Galanis due to the founder's recent move to Miami. Kornfeld met Galanis when he spoke at an Embarc Collective company event earlier in the year.
"His ties to Chicago are great, but it really dawned on me to ask him when he said, 'I moved to Miami,'" Kornfeld said of Galanis, who originally visited the city during last year's Super Bowl. "He was saying just how many opportunities there are, the growth potential and when the pandemic hit, there was a chance to work anywhere. But Steven chose Florida and that says something about the state and rate at which we’re growing."
Galanis will be a fireside chat keynote for the summit's innovation awards session, an event which "will recognize those driving innovation, promoting our community's values of equity and inclusivity, and making a positive impact for their community."
"It's a capstone of the event; we wanted to go out with someone really strong and to have a CEO of that caliber, with a company growing at that rate, is a very big addition," Kornfeld said.
Galanis joins three other confirmed keynotes for the summit, which runs March 8 to 11 with both virtual and in-person offerings. Daymond John, a longtime investor on ABC's "Shark Tank" and founder of clothing brand FUBU, will be speaking at the summit. Also on deck: Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and Tammy Hodo, CEO of All Things Diverse LLC, will serve as keynotes.
"I'm very impressed with the lineup, from keynotes to other speakers throughout the entire event," Kornfeld said. "It is our most diverse set of speakers yet, in both ethnicity, gender, and in also in topics."
