Matthew J. (Matt) Scheckner is Chairman of Advertising Week, the world’s largest advertising / brand / content / marketing / media / tech industry summit.  Markets include New York City, London, Tokyo, Sydney, Mexico City and Johannesburg. Under Scheckner’s leadership, which dates back to 2004, the B2B event has evolved into a vibrant, global tent-pole event and is the industry’s pre-eminent annual platform. The Advertising Week platform has also purposefully evolved as a vibrant, galvanizing force on a litany of broader societal issues and challenges. Scheckner’s signature recipe of blending thought leadership with one-of-a-kind evening experiences for the entire industry ecosystem propels Advertising Week. The annual festival-style event now also includes a robust streaming platform and a myriad of related year-round audio and video content, including the flagship Great Minds podcast hosted by Scheckner.

In the Summer of 2022, Scheckner concluded an effort to secure a long-term home for Advertising Week as the property was sold to Emerald, a market-leading trade show and exhibition company with a long-term commitment to grow the business. Above and beyond Advertising Week, Scheckner launched Windsor Park Entertainment in 2024 as a boutique consultancy and devekoper or original intellectual property.

Scheckner is active with many causes, including the Nelson Mandela Foundation and Education Africa USA where he serves as volunteer President. He is also the Co-Chair of the annual Hispanic Star Gala, widely hailed as the “Met Ball” for the Latin community. Scheckner has also been active with the launch of War Child in the United States, Comic Relief UK, London’s Roundhouse and Tuesday’s Children, which honored Scheckner as their 2013 Gala Honoree. He has also served as Chairman of the World Trade Center Memorial Communications Advisory Council and led a public campaign that generated $300 million towards construction and completion of the 9/11 Memorial. In 2022, he co-chaired #nowyork, a campaign to help boost NYC’s Covid recovery and in 2023-24 he co-founded the 10/7 Network as an anti-hate platform. And in 2024, Scheckner re-joined the leadership team at the VCU Brandcenter serving on the Director’s Council.

From 2006-2008, Scheckner served as Consigliere at Yahoo!, where he produced the industry’s first digital Upfront, “Broadband on Broadway” in 2007 and managed the corporation’s relationships with Madison Avenue. He also conceived and produced major corporate experiential programs around the world – – from Cannes to Pebble Beach – – and led the company’s support of the Tribeca Film Festival, an early harbinger of the modern-day explosion of creative content streaming on the web.

For more than a decade (1995-2006), Scheckner owned and ran Empire Sports & Entertainment, a New York City-based marketing and strategic consulting firm. One of Empire’s largest clients was Radio City Productions. Under Scheckner’s direction, Empire produced major events outside the Music Hall including the 1997 opening of Arthur Ashe Stadium, Pepsi’s 1999 Centennial Celebration, which featured Ray Charles, Riverdance and the Rolling Stones and several Super Bowl Halftimes.  Scheckner also played a central role in shaping the Music Hall’s overall strategic plan including its acquisition by Madison Square Garden and landmark renovation in the year 2000.

Empire also served as SFX’s marketing agency developing strategies to secure more than $200 million in sponsorship across SFX’s live sports and entertainment properties.  The company also partnered with Ken Sunshine and the Nashville-based Opryland to produce “Always . . . Patsy Cline” Off-Broadway. The show ran for a year at the Variety Arts Theater. Scheckner also served as Counsel on Sports Marketing for the flagship office of Hill & Knowlton where he founded the firm’s sports and entertainment practice.

From 1987 through 1994, Scheckner served as Executive Director of the New York City Sports Commission, a not-for-profit organization founded during the Koch administration. During his tenure with the Commission, Scheckner was directly responsible for successful bids for the 1993 Olympic Congress of the USA and the 1998 Goodwill Games. He saved the Jerome Boxing Club in the South Bronx from eviction and secured City funds to renovate the Club; fulfilled New York City Marathon founder Fred Lebow’s request to secure the entire Verrazano Bridge as the Marathon’s starting point; closed Central Park for the Tour de Trump cycling race (no kidding); stopped City government in it’s tracks by bringing Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton and Larry Holmes to City Hall; led New York City’s bid to host 1994 World Cup matches; and successfully secured City and Community Board approval to stage an Indy Car Race in lower Manhattan leading to a front page NY Times headline “Look Both Ways, It’s Coming.”

Prior to assuming his post with the Sports Commission, Scheckner served as a Policy Analyst with the Mayor’s Commission on the Year 2000, a blue-ribbon planning group, where he was responsible for the Commission’s work on demographics, economic development, education, transportation and waterfront development.

Among Scheckner’s other professional honors, he was selected as a member of Crain’s New York Business “Forty Under Forty” at the age of 28. He has also served as an Adjunct Professor of Marketing at the New York University Management Institute, and was appointed coordinator of NYU’s annual Summer Institute on Sports and Event Marketing in 1995. In 1998, Scheckner was appointed to a similar post as an Adjunct Professor of the Columbia Graduate School of Business.

Globally, Scheckner has lectured in Sao Paolo with Pele on sports marketing, among other venues. And in 2022 he was named to the World Federation of Advertisers Jury to select the WFA’s prestigious Marketer of the Year.

Scheckner resides in Roslyn, NY with his wife Ila and has two grown children, Benny and Eliza. Sadly, his dog Lambeau passed in 2010 but lives on in memory and a new dog, Finchley, joined the family in 2020. He is a graduate of Emory University with a Bachelor of Arts. Regarding personal pursuits, Scheckner has the distinction of having been one of two severely injured softball-playing Friars during a 2009 outfield crash in Central Park; he is an avid mediocre golfer; competed with pride for many years in the Friars Pool tournaments (having finished as high as 6^th place), and now routinely gets walloped in basketball at the NY Athletic Club.

Gary Vaynerchuk is a serial entrepreneur and serves as the Chairman of VaynerX, the CEO of VaynerMedia, and the Creator and CEO of VeeFriends. Gary is considered one of the leading global minds on what’s next in culture, relevance, and the internet. Known as “GaryVee,” he is described as one of the most forward thinkers in business. He is a New York Times bestselling author, a sought-after public speaker, and a prolific investor in companies like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Venmo, Snapchat, Coinbase, and Uber. Gary serves on the board of Bojangles Restaurants, Global Citizen Forum, MikMak, and Pencils of Promise. He is also a longtime Well Member of charity: water.