ABOUT
Samantha G. Wolfe is a strategic business consultant driven to accelerate the consumer and enterprise adoption of emerging technologies. Sam has the unique ability to explain the most complicated, cutting-edge new technologies in a way that inspires and resonates with everyone from undergraduate students to seasoned executives. That superpower has translated into her work with PitchFWD (her emerging tech consultancy), her unique classes at NYU, her inspiring books, her keynote talks, and podcast and TV appearances. Sam brings her infectious enthusiasm around emerging tech and innovative executives wherever she goes. Her active outreach has led to multiple advisory, mentorship, and judging roles, and her crowning title as the metaverse’s Networker-In-Chief.
PITCHFWD
Identifying a need in the emerging technology industries, Sam launched PitchFWD, an award-winning strategic consultancy focused on business, brand, marketing strategies as well as product and developer marketing for innovative products and services across the entire sales cycle. It focuses on targeting innovators, early adopters, developers, and crossing-the-chasm into mainstream. For more information about PitchFWD, please go to wearepitchfwd.com.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Sam has presented worldwide to teams across various industries, including PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Guggenheim Partners. She is represented non-exclusively by the Global Speakers Bureau. Her talks include ‘Innovation vs Invention,’ ‘Marketing Innovation,’ ‘The Metaverse and Your Industry,’ and ‘Understanding the Metaverse.’ Each topic is customized to the client and the audience, for non-technical and highly technical groups, with any industry that spatial computing, VR, AR, and the metaverse applies (hint: all of them). Her talks often are called “insightful” and “inspiring.”
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR
Sam creates and teaches classes she created and developed focused on business and marketing of innovative tech at NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Each address the newest innovations and the emerging tech marketplace as it evolves. The classes have focused on ”The Marketing of Emerging Technologies,” “The Business of the Metaverse,” “Avatars and Virtual Beings,” and “The Business of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality.” She has brought over 200 emerging tech industry leaders to speak in her classes, from the top companies in the tech industry to the CEOs of innovative start-ups to watch. Students have called Sam’s classes one of the best they have had at NYU, and they find their professor to be “inspirational,” “enthusiastic,” “very passionate,” and “extremely knowledgable.”
MEDIUM
EMERGING TECH MARKETING TRENDS & PREDICTIONS
Sam publishes her thoughts and predictions as well as emerging tech and marketing trends she’s identified - from augmented reality to wearables and whatever else is on the cutting-edge.
EXPERTISE
BrandING & MARKETING STRATEGY
DEVELOPER MARKETING
Sales & Partnership Marketing
SPATIAL COMPUTING & METAVERSE
AUGMENTED REALITY & VIRTUAL REALITY
Thought Leadership
BOOKS
CO-AUTHOR OF ‘METAVERSED: SEE BEYOND THE HYPE’
CO-AUTHOR OF ‘MARKETING NEW REALITIES’
contributing author to “Convergence: How The World Will Be Painted With Data”
JUDGE
Rally (2023)
CES Innovation Awards (2021)
Games for Change (2018, 2019, 2022)
MIT Reality Hackathon (2020)
SXSW Pitch Awards (2019, 2020)
MEDIA
INTERVIEWS & APPEARANCES
RALLY: In August 2023, Sam spoke at the Largest Global Cross-Sector Innovation Conference. She shared her perspectives during a workshop on Brand Strategy for Innovation and Emerging Tech.
XR for Change Summit: Sam hosted a panel on the Future of Creativity, Advertising, & Social Change for the impact focused event in July 2023.
Inventures: Sam headed to Calgary in late May and early June 2023 for the Breakthrough Innovation focused event to give a talk entitled “A Practical Guide to Business in the Metaverse” followed by a book signing.
Voices of VR: On Episode #1172, Kent Bye interviewed Sam and her co-author, Luis Bravo Martins, about their new book and the future opportunities and challenges of the coming metaverse.
Leadership Line of Site: Sam joined host Taylor Hack to chat not only "Metaversed," but also the kind of work that PitchFWD does with innovators and companies who make innovative technology.
NYAR: Sam closed the popular industry MeetUp to discuss the launch of her new book on January 30, 2023
LinkedIn Live with Karen Walker: The strategic advisor and board director talk about the future of technology and the launch of ‘Metaversed’ in January 2023.
Female Disruptors Virtual Summit: Sam was featured in the VIP Event focused on “spotlighting women disrupting in the metaverse and inspire more to tap into the opportunity” on January 18, 2023.
Gatherverse: Sam delivered a talk on January 10, 2022 about the new book and the future of emerging technology.
South Korea’s The Point: Sam appeared on Arirang TV for a second time to discuss ‘Metafashion: Future of fashion with metaverse’ with Nick Lau of Wear NFT and Cindy Lee of Sandbox Korea in December 2022.
Micromega Talks: Luis and Sam talk about ‘Metaverse: Digital Beings and Humans in a Virtual World’ in November 2022.
Unlocking The Potential of the Industrial Metaverse: Sam joins as an outside subject matter expert for the discussion, brought by Molex and Arrow Electronics, in October 2022.
WebXR Brand Summit: The full live-streaming remote event hosted a panel “Capturing the Spatial Imagination” where Sam joined Virtual Reality Marketing CEO and co-founder Terry Proto, Double Eye Studios’ XR director and producer Kiira Benzing, and Immersive Wire editor Tom Ffiske.
Sam joined the ‘Building the Open Metaverse’ BOF panel at SIGGRAPH in August 2021 and spoke about her perspective on ‘What is the Metaverse?’ and its value to consumers and enterprise customers. This lead to her October 2021 appearance on the first episode of ‘Building the Open Metaverse’.
The Fifth Wall Forum Presents: The June 11, 2021 podcast episode featured a discussion with Sam about her initial tweet to rally the XR storytelling community and how to effectively brand and market cutting edge projects and technologies.
At SXSW 2021, Sam spoke on a PR and Marketing panel for some of the “Leading voices in XR” at SXSW to discuss how volumetric video isn’t just for artists or filmmakers.
This Week in XR: Sam guest hosted Charlie Fink’s podcast on October 23, 2020 to chat about Quibi’s death, Sony 3D monitors, and WaveXR investment.
“Navigating XR”: Sam shares her insights on how best to help brands, businesses, and campaigns venture into the XR minefield, and come out the other end unscathed.
IBM Thinkleaders podcast: Sam addressed how we ensure consumer trust with marketing; do consumers or even advertisers fully understand how data is being used; and what are the ethical implications and responsibilities of handling valuable data?
“Altered Reality: AR, VR, & XR!” (Funny As Tech Podcast): Sam joined the panel discussion focused on augmented reality altering the future workplace and living space and the future of virtual reality and relationships.
“Getting #BlackMirror About The Future of #VR” (Digital Jam Podcast): A discussion of the future of VR, including the impact of bio-marketing, kids in VR, and biohacking the human mind.
“VR & AR Marketing” (VRARA): At 1:43, Sam presents about considerations before creating a VR experience.
Episode 17 (Humans 2.0): Sam spoke with Mark Metry about the future of Marketing & Branding
Sam presented at a series of Garage Stories events (including the Cannes XR Challenge, Hack The Hospital (2x), and New African Voices) to help the participants effectively pitch their new technology experiences to the judges.
Sam’s SXSW talk “How to Stand Out in a Virtual World” focused on how Emerging Tech companies, VR/AR specifically, can get noticed and remembered by their target audience.
"VR's Consumer Conundrum" (Augmented World Expo): How do you get more heads in virtual reality headsets, as VR has to be experienced to be believed.
“Introduction to Immersive Marketing” Part 1 & Part 2 (Miami Ad School): Sam taught a class and spoke at the Miami Ad School’s Wynwood location.
At the 2019 Augmented World Expo, Sam helped curate and hosted the inaugural Marketing and Sales track. She also led the ‘Best in Class Branded Content’ panel and had the honor of judging the 2019 Auggie Awards.
XR Marketing & Advertising (NYVR MeetUp, the 2nd largest worldwide): Sam developed the initial concept, curated, and hosted in 2018 and in 2019.
“Women in VR/AR - Content is Queen” panel (VR FEST): Moderated by Sandra Cannon. Sam was joined by Nikki Roth from Google, Dulce Baerga of Dulce.com, Leila Amirsadeghi from One Dome, and Jenna Seiden of Beat Games.
“Virtual Advertising” panel (NYVR Expo): Curated and moderated panel with Michael Rucker the co-founder of OmniVirt, Samuel Huber the Founder of Admix, Tracy Quitasol the Managing Director of OMD, Create part of Omnicom Media Group, and Jerrod Goodman, Google’s AR/VR Commercialization lead.
PROFILES
Marxent profiled Sam in their Women In Tech series
NYU announces the launch of the Business of VR and AR class (2020)
Female Disruptors (2019)
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Sam launched and built the XR Marketing community on Facebook to over 3.1k members. Sam handed over the reigns in mid-2021 to a new team to manage and run the group.
Education
NYU STERN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
M.B.A., MARKETING, FINANCE, and MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT
YALE UNIVERSITY
B.A. PSYCHOLOGY