GDI New York Dating Conference 2020

March 9, 2020 until March 10, 2020, Dream Downtown 5* Hotel


Global Dating Insights is delighted to announce the inaugural GDI New York Conference, in association with Google, Spectrum Labs, SendBird, RealMe and Scamalytics!

The event takes place on Tuesday 10th March 2020 at the 5* Dream Downtown Hotel in Midtown, a short walk from Chelsea Market and the High Line Park.

Speaker sessions run from 10am – 4:30pm (lunch is included), and the conference is followed by an evening of drinks and socialising.

The post-conference drinks are very kindly sponsored by Vonage, one of the world’s leading suppliers of flexible cloud communication platforms.



On the night before the event, Monday 9th March 2020, GDI will also be hosting executive Networking Drinks at local favourite Brass Monkey NYC from 7pm.

GDI Founder Simon Corbett said: “We’re incredibly excited to welcome dating executives to our first ever New York Conference in March 2020.

“The East Coast is home to a range of key industry players, from the biggest apps to the most creative new brands. We’re certain this event will be the first of many.”

Find our first speaker announcement to the right of this article, and tickets, currently available at $299, in the header.

For questions, please contact simon@globaldatinginsights.com


Event Agenda

Time Speaker
10:00 - 10:15 Simon Corbett, Founder, Global Dating Insights
10.15 - 10.30 Leigh Isaacson, CEO, Dig
10:30 - 10:45 Todd Sowers, COO, SCRUFF
10:45 - 11:00 Courtney Kovacevich, VP of Partnerships RealMe & Dan Healy, FTI Managing Director Strategic Communications
11:00 - 11:15 Octavia Ghelfi, Mathematical Economics PhD, New York University
11:15 - 11:30 Coffee/Break
11:30 - 11:45 Mark Brooks, Founder, Courtland Brooks
11:45 - 12:00 Blake Kuhre, Head of Corporate Development, The Meet Group
12:00 - 12:15 Justin Davis, CEO, Spectrum Labs
12:15 - 12:30 Dmitry Volkov, Co-founder, Dating.com Group
12:30 - 12:45 Michael O'Sullivan, Owner, Hubstars
12:45 - 13:45 Lunch
13:45 - 14:00 Todd Sowers, COO, SCRUFF; Adam Cohen-Aslatei, Founder, S'More; Justin Davis, CEO, Spectrum Labs
14:00 - 14:15 Mo Botero, CEO, Prelinker
14:15 - 14:30 Daniel Turano, Director of Sales, Americas, SendBird & Amin Osman, Head of Engineering, Minder
14:30 - 14:45 George Kidd, CEO, Online Dating Association
14:45 - 15:00 Kenji Yamazaki, Co-founder, EastMeetEast
15:00 - 15:15 Coffee/Break
15:15 - 15:30 Adam Cohen-Aslatei, Founder, S'More
15:30 - 15:45 Anthony Oyogoa, CEO & Co-founder, UrSafe
15:45 - 16:00 Stephanie Yu, Strategic Insights and Research Lead & Brett Daly, Video Account Lead, Google
16:00 - 16:15 Violet Lim, CEO & Co-founder, Lunch Actually Group
16:15 - 16:30 David Vermeulen, CEO & Founder, The Inner Circle
16:30 - Late Evening Networking Drinks
  • 2020 Sponsor: Google
    As one of the word's largest technology companies, Google is able to bring a unique helicopter perspective to the conversation around where dating is headed. Think with Google, one of the search giant's insight-focused arms, offers both editorial content and tools for marketers who want to keep up with the latest consumer and demographic trends.
  • 2020 Sponsor: Spectrum Labs
    Spectrum helps some of the worlds largest dating companies recognise and respond to toxic behaviour on their platforms in real time in order to keep their users safe and their online communities healthy. They provide enterprise-level tools to manage existing and emerging threats to trust and safety, including underage users, harassment, and sexual assaults.
  • 2020 Sponsor: SendBird
    SendBird is a fully customisable chat and messaging platform with a managed infrastructure for mobile and web applications. Their product includes everything you need to create a premium and secure messaging experience, and can scale over 1 million concurrent chat connections and 500 million messages per day. With SendBird, dating brands can build engaged communities and give users a seamlessly branded experience.
  • 2020 Sponsor: RealMe
    RealMe is a turnkey, no-cost solution that protects people on dating apps and online marketplaces. It is dedicated to cultivating safety and trust on the U.S. Internet.
  • 2020 Sponsor: Scamalytics
    Scamalytics maintain the largest shared anti-fraud database dedicated to the online dating industry. They use cutting edge machine learning techniques to allow moderation of scammers in real time, helping sites to remove bad actors and improve their reputation
  • The Meet Group
    The Meet Group is a leading provider of interactive livestreaming solutions designed to meet the universal need for human connection. Headquartered in New Hope, PA, the publicly traded umbrella houses top brands including MeetMe, LOVOO, Skout, Tagged and Growlr, delivering live interactions and meaningful connections to millions of users daily.
  • SCRUFF
    Founded in 2010, SCRUFF is an independently owned and operated GBTQ business, headquartered in New York City. Its team connects more than 15 million guys worldwide for friends, dates, hookups, events, travel advice, and more. In mid-2019, the company acquired Jack’d through parent Perry Street Software.
  • The Inner Circle
    The Inner Circle is a selective dating app for like-minded professionals. By complementing a slick in-app experience with singles events in the most sought after locations, Founder David Vermeulen’s brand has risen at an exceptional pace since launching in 2012.
  • Dating.com Group
    Dating.com Group is one of the largest global social discovery companies with a portfolio of brands, including Dating.com, Dil Mil, DateMyAge, AnastasiaDate, ChinaLove and more than 73 million registrations. The group is rapidly growing its inorganic investment strategy and is looking to partner with early- and late-stage companies in online dating, social interaction and live streaming markets.
  • Dig
    New Orleans-based Dig has been a viral hit over the past 18 months, landing features in Forbes, Cosmopolitan, Cheddar and more. Fresh off the back of launches across the US, CEO Leigh Isaacson is building a highly engaged community of pet lovers and creating one of the sector’s strongest niche offerings.
  • Online Dating Association
    Launched in 2013 by a group of key industry players, the Online Dating Association (ODA) helps to ensure that the sector has a strong voice when dealing with government representatives, regulators and the media. It recently introduced a 'Safety First' campaign in the UK and US to help dating companies protect their users.
  • Lunch Actually Group
    Lunch Actually blends offline and online dating by offering both traditional matchmaking services and mobile apps like LunchClick. With services live across Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Thailand, the Singapore-based enterprise is fast progressing towards its goal of 1 million happy marriages.
  • Mark Brooks
    Mark Brooks is the founder of the Internet Dating Excellence Association (IDEA) and consultancy Courtland Brooks. Courtland Brooks is the only agency-consultancy in the world to focus totally on internet dating and online matchmaking, while IDEA looks to help the internet dating industry achieve its long term potential.
  • EastMeetEast
    EastMeetEast is a platform that is dedicated to connecting singles of an Asian heritage in North America. It completed a $4 million Series A funding round in 2018 which was put towards fine-tuning its AI matching algorithm. Users can also take advantage of the livestreaming capability giving them a different way meet and interact with the community.
  • S'More
    S'More is a next-gen relationship and lifestyle app that's all about getting to know a person before you see them. It was founded by former Chappy MD Adam Cohen-Aslatei, and launched in 2019 with $1.1 million in funding from investors including the industry's own Dmitry Volkov.
  • HubStars Hubstars
    HubStars has been providing both ready to promote dating brands and bespoke white label online dating solutions since 2005. Their platform caters for over 8 million dating customers and bills in 9 different currencies worldwide, offering round the clock support in any timezone.
  • Prelinker
    Founded in 2001, Prelinker offers its partners an advanced white label solution, data intelligence, a statistics dashboard, smartlink technology and a custom email builder. The firm has paid out more than €250,000,000 since its inception, attracting 70,000,000 members to sites including easyflirt, Affairland and Nextdoor.
  • Post-Conference Drinks Sponsor: Vonage
    Vonage is a multinational company that makes communications more flexible, intelligent, and personal, to ensure its customers always stay ahead.