Welcome to the first ever LTR SUMMIT. LTR stands for Love, Technology, Relationships. We stand for helping the world connect, for more meaningful relationships. The theme of this LTR SUMMIT is "Connecting Minds, Creating The Future," which is the same as Expo 2020.
This gathering will happen Friday 25th March, 2022 and continue into the weekend, Saturday and Sunday with a number of social experiences for World Officers Weekend (WOW). Â
Â
The Internet Dating Excellence Association and the Online Social Community Association will host this international gathering of by-invitation-only CEOs and leaders of online social communities
and meaningful relationship focused companies. Â
The summit is led by Murugavel Janakiraman, the CEO / Founder of Matrimony, and Mark Brooks, President of IDEA & OSCA, and CEO of Courtland Brooks. Â
The LTR SUMMIT + WOW is designed to help you get to know other CEOs in the dating industry. Courtland Brooks, RealMe, vPaaS by The Meet Group, FaceTec and OneRep will sponsor this event at a 5 star venue in Dubai Marina, so there is no event fee for Friday.
IDEA SUMMIT will be small and focused and like no other dating industry gathering you've ever attended. You'll meet fellow CEOs and top flight executives from a diversity of leading online social community and online matchmaking companies from around the world, and a couple of special guests to help us round out our thinking. Â
The most unusual thing about LTR SUMMIT is there are no attendees. Just presenters. Everyone is presenting. So please bring one idea on how we can improve our individual dating apps or grow the effectiveness of the social and dating industries, or collectively overcome a key current challenge.
Presentations will be ~20 minutes each, on your idea. Ideas on matters currently affecting the growth of the industry, safety, challenging issues worthy of collaboration, opportunities for collective growth, along with your inspirational and informative growth stories.
This event is for C level executives who are exceptionally personally and professionally invested in the online social and online matchmaking industries. This will be a unique, uplifting and essential event that will inform your strategy, and help align you and your company with the best of what these industries are, and will become, and help you evolve with the benefit of perspective from your peers.
At each LTR SUMMIT we also try to round out our perspective by having a couple of promising start-ups (that we can inspire), an expert on safety, and a supporting vendor-of-interest.
Â
This LTR SUMMIT is kindly sponsored by:
  FaceTec - 3D face authentication software used by Tinder and MeetMe
  RealMe - Verifying users, making dating apps and social communities more trusted
  vPaaS by Meet Group - Video at scale
  OneRep - Help daters take charge of their online privacy
  Courtland Brooks - Internet dating and communities consultancy-agency
Useful Info
 Hotel - Use Kayak to compare, and we suggest Ritz at JBR, Le Royal Meridien, Moevenpik or Rixos. Â
 Easy PCR tests - Download Justlife and you can get a PCR tests in your hotel room.
 Taxi - Use Uber and download Careem as a backup service.
Muru founded Matrimony in 2000.
For the last 21 years he's pioneered matchmaking and online matrimony in India and now employees over 4000 people with 140 locations.
Recently the catalog of Matrimony brands was extended with the introduction of the Matrimony Photography service. This service helps couples find and hire wedding photography services.
Muru is also an angel investor and a member of the Chennai Angels. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program. Muru is the host of this LTR SUMMIT.
(Muru appears in my Indian matrimony vlogumentary here - Mark Brooks)
Mark runs the niche agency-consultancy Courtland Brooks focusing on strategy, marketing and business development for Internet dating companies and online social communities. He's served POF, The Meet Group, and 115+ companies since 2005. Prior to this, he worked with Friendster, and ran an adventure club in Silicon Valley. Mark has been quoted in press 288 times (18 times in WSJ).Â
Â
He heads IDEA.gp (since 2007) & OSCA.gp, hosts LTR, and publishes the executive news summary services Online Personals Watch (since 2004) and Very Social Network (since 2006).  He runs BehavioralEconomist.com (130k+ community), and owns Matchmaker.com, since 2020.
Mark is a graduate of Harvard Business School (PLD) and London School of Economics (Exec. MSc, Behavioral Science). Â
Mark is committed to helping dating and social industry executives connect, learn and share, and get inspired for an even more effective and prosperous future.
Sumesh co-founded U2opia in 2010. U2opia Global is a Singapore-India based mobile tech. company with a portfolio of consumer and enterprise products in 70+ countries. U2opia Global has properties in Telcom, Digital Marketing, Gaming, Fantasy Sports, Dating and Media.
Within U2opia Sumesh started Woo, in 2015.  Woo is a dating app in India that puts women first. Woo is also in SE Asia & Middle East & Canada. Woo is 'the dating app women love.'
(Sumesh appears in my Indian dating & matrimony vlogumentary here - Mark Brooks)
Karima joined happn in 2017 as General Counsel, and is CEO & President since July. Â
happn helps singles find the people they’ve crossed paths with in real life and gives them a second chance at a first impression! It is the first geo-localized real time dating app and has 100+ million users worldwide. happn launched in 2014.
Karima heads a team of 120 people in Paris.
Prior to happn Karima was an in-house lawyer for Solocal Group and DailyMotion, and Microsoft, and a Board Member at Beewake. Â
Speaking on:Â The Labor of Love: Partnering with Matchmakers for Consumers That Want & Need More Than Just a Swipe
Brian has worked with his brother Bill for the last 13 years, and are renowned in the matchmaking industry for their lead generation and arbitrage to matchmakers, along with dating companies such as Match, in the USA. Â
Primarily they work with Brotherton Holdings, which is the largest national footprint matchmaker in the USA. Â
They focus on PPC marketing, but also have a range of domain specific properties that also help them drive lead gen traffic to their matchmaker partners. Â
Brian has unique insight on the trajectory and trends in the matchmaking industry.
Prior to joining Instinct, Brian was a portfolio manager at Highland Capital and has an MBA in Finance from University of Texas at Austin.
Mikael is the former long term CEO of Motesplatsen, Scandinavia's favorite Internet dating service. He was CEO for 11 years from 2005 thru 2016. Â
Before that he led business development at  Lunarstorm which was the #1 social media platform in Sweden between 2000 and 2006, and actually the first of its kind in the world! During the peak years ~70 % of all Swedish teenagers were members and daily users on Lunarstorm.
Since 2018 Mikael has co-founded and built Remainly, which is an advanced & innovative E-learning solution for couple therapy and relationship improvement. Remainly is present in the Norwegian market, and launching internationally and with an english version.
Mikeal will discuss jow the dating industry can increase LTV by offering customers additional services when they leave the dating platform.
Matthew is a founder, marketer and startup midwife!
He has over a decade experience in growing early stage startups and specialises in growth on a budget.
His passion is for the dating sector. He has been CEO of the new Global Dating Accelerator for since Aug 2021. Â
He has been COO of the quick-and-fun dating app Clikd for over 4 years, based in the UK.Â
Prior to that he was Director at Uniform Dating for 4 years, and was also a Royal Marines reserve.
Alberto Lima is the SVP of EMEA Operations at FaceTec, global leader in 3D biometrics for Liveness Detection and Face Verification.
Alberto has 20+ years of experience in tech., management, consulting and entrepreneurship. He's a Biometrics enthusiast, an industry he has dedicated the past 8 years to. He's always been involved in digital innovation and was part of the team that created the first and largest customer loyalty programme/card in Portugal when he was at Deloitte. He co-launched a professional recruitment and job matching platform back in 2011, with PH Informática.Â
Â
Before joining FaceTec, he led Polygon for 6 years and created one of the first multimodal biometrics digital authentication platforms in Europe for secure remote user onboarding and authentication.
Alberto will share a range of options on how to authenticate users using the latest tech, and how to choose between them.
Viktor has headed the design of First Beat Media's many dating properties for over 10 years now.Â
He is deep into the UX world, and focused on Internet dating. Using data-driven models he has evolved First Beat Media's large portfolio of niche dating products to be more nuanced and resonant for their particular audiences.
First Beat Media comprise myriad niche dating sites. Some are focused on race like Black Scene and Interracial Romance. Others focus on religion like Lutheran Dates and Jsingles. Not to mention fun dating sites like Biker Planet and Tattoo Lovers. The team is very multicultural and are from over 30 different countries. Viktor is from Hungary.
Speaking on: Creating a Win-Win Collaboration and Synergistic Relationship between the Online & Offline Dating Industry
Violet started Lunch Actually with her husband Jamie 16 years ago after a stint at Citigroup.Â
Today, Lunch Actually is Asia’s biggest premier lunch dating company with offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and Bangkok with the largest lunch dating membership base.
Together with Jamie, Violet also founded esync and LunchClick to fill the gap in the market for trusted online and offline dating service platforms. Lunch Actually Academy is established to provide singles with Dating and Image Consultancy, and Peerage provides high-end matchmaking services.
Violet has 2500+ media coverages such as The Straits Times, ABC News 20|20, CNBC Asia, BBC, Bloomberg and Radio Australia.
Violet's life goal is to create 1 million happy marriages through the works of Lunch Actually Group.Â
She studied Law in Manchester and has an MSc in Int'l Relations from London School of Economics.
Â
Dr Akin is an operations research analyst and web expert. He's developed complex operations research projects for the US Navy and a Fortune Global 50 company. He's also worked for top Turkish social networks, and e-commerce companies on web analytics, and large scale SEO.
Pembe Panjur is a Turkey's meaningful relationships dating service. Launched in 2010 it now has 6M+ users. It uses scientific matching with 60+ socio-economic questions and 60+ personality questions.Â
Pembe Panjur is one of the most recognized online dating sites in Turkey.
Thursday 24th March : 5:30pm - 9pm
Try and make it in early so we can take in a very fine dinner. You'll meet in a relaxed setting, and get to know fellow LTR SUMMIT presenters. (everyone is a presenter)
Friday 25th March : 9am - 5pm
Expect a full day of short and impactful presentations from your peers. We'll have coffee & tea and lite food available in the morning, a delicious lunch for you, and a break in the afternoon.
Friday 25th March : 7:30pm - 10pm
After an interlude, we'll meet for dinner.Â
Saturday 26th March : 9am - 6:30pm
World Officers Weekend (WOW) begins. This is where you'll have fun, and really get to know the people around you. Find connections, inside the meaningful connections industry, and learn and share with your industry-similar, but non-competitive peers. We'll see the best of Dubai Marina, and then go on a megayacht.
Sunday 27th March : 9am - 9pm
 Another WOW day. We'll do something fun. A couple of experiences to remember Dubai and the LTR SUMMIT by. We'll enjoy Cafe Rider, and go to Alkersal Art Avenue, then visit Green Planet and perhaps go skiing.
Â
This time we focused on interesting and inspiring startups. The CEO / Co-Founders of Fika, The Sauce and Himoon presented their founding and growth stories. Six co-founders in all. Denis Sandquist and Oscar Luo from Asian dating app Fika presented "How 'Real' is Better Than 'Perfect'". Emma Clark and Sachin Karia gave an overview of how they had integrated video profiles into The Sauce. Louis Dresse and Michael Couvreur from Himoon shared their founding story, challenges and vision.Â
See invitation site here with speakers and attendees
At LTR 11 Geoff Cook, CEO/Co-Founder of The Meet Group gave us an overview of the creator economy and how The Meet Group is enabling companies to open up in one-to-many social/dating video. Then Neil Davis, CBO of The Real Me presented the year so far for advances in safety. We were then able to capture veteran Eddy Ankrett's personal story, and his thoughts on why the dating industry should work more closely with the matchmaking industry.Â
See invitation site here with speakers and attendees
Â
All LTR events are diverse. LTR 10 was no exception. At LTR edition 10 we heard from the amazing Professor Pepper Schwartz on the science of matching.  Then Sean Lawrence from The Meet Group gave us an overview of how The Meet Group made video fun with gamification. Finally we got clued in some current issues and growth opportunities on Facebook and Instagram marketing with expert Dennis Yu, who formerly worked in the dating industry many years ago at Yahoo Personals. Â
We enjoyed a phenomenal presentation by Yu-kai Chou, a gamification and behavioral design master, and author of Actionable Gamification. Then Dr Timothy Sexton gave us an overview of how he is on a mission to use DNA to forecast 'romantic chemistry.' Finally, Simon Corbett and Mark Brooks introduced the calendar of IRL GDI conferences and LTR Summits in 2021-2022, an entire year of events pre-planned, and then interviewed each other about their involvement with the dating and social industries.
See invitation site here with speakers and attendees
LTR Edition 8 welcomed author Jon Birger to speak about his latest book "Make Your Move" and the key relevant points for dating communities. Then Barbara Soltysinkska, the CEO of International influencer network Indahash, gave us the inside track on how to work with influencer networks.. Shauny Ullman then gave us an overview of her new service, Clean Bill of Health, (CBOH). There's a need for communicating covid status and other health information, and her platform is an example of one that fulfills that need.
See invitation site here with speakers and attendees
Another sold-out LTR, we were super thrilled to hear Dr Helen Fisher, a powerhouse top-flight anthropologist with a long history in Internet dating. She is Chief Scientific Officer at Match since 2005, and is Senior Research Fellow at Kinsey Institute. Then Carsten Boltz presented on growth strategy. He's CEO of Online Personals Group with properties in 37 countries and a team of 160. Carsten is a member of IDEA Ten Year Club, Anthony Volpe, CMO at Tawkify, overviewed how Tawkify has done well despite the pandemic.
Gitte Bendzilla, the MD of public company, Spark Networks was interviewed by Mark Brooks about her 2 years at Spark. Alex Durrant, the CEO/Founder of Jigsaw talked about the rise and recent raise of Jigsaw. They just raised $3.7m. Henning Wiechers is a long term mega-affiliate in Germany who is an expert on the DACH market and he gave us the benefit of his insights on the DACH markets. All in all, another diverse and fascinating line up, enjoyed by a packed room of online community leaders and luminaries.Â
See invitation site here with speakers and attendees
Edition 5 in Feb 2021 featured celebrity matchmaker Patti Stanger, a.k.a. the millionaire matchmaker. Patti produced and starred in "The Millionaire Matchmaker" for 7 years and is probably the world's most famous matchmaker. Geoff Cook gave us an overview of the vPaaS product which enables PlentyoffFish and is opening up to work with more dating and online social communities. Zach Zhleien is a startup CEO with a penchant for data and video, and gave us his thoughts on video dating.
See invitation site here with speakers and attendees
Our 4th LTR featured noted conversions and digital design specialist Tim Ash talking through some fascinating pricing model designs. Ross Williams from White Label Dating appealed to the industry to work together more and gave some examples of lucrative ways to do that. David Minns of Platform Dating talked us through some of his extreme niche products and gave us insight on why the products work, and how well they're doing.
See invitation site here with speakers and attendees
LTR #3 was another landmark event. Harvard Business School's Professor Ashley Whillans gave us an overview of her findings from behavioral science on how our time can be used in a more personally fulfilling way. Dr Mari-Sanna Paukkerri, CEO of Utopia Analytics, shared how advanced language independent AI is being used for UGC review. Then Catherine Connelly, a notable long termer in the dating industry started her company at age 15, and has guided The Meet Group to it's current $360m a year.
See invitation site here: shows speakers and attendees
Once again, LTR filled to capacity within 72 hours of invitations being sent out. The CEO/Founder of Hornet explained how he transitioned Hornet from being a dating app to being an online social community. The CEO of RealMe defined how reputation data is making users safer. Professor Robert Metcalfe walked us through how we can measure consumer value. We also got a half hour networking session before and after the speakers session, so attendees could meet fellow industry leaders on small tables of six. Â
See invitation site here: shows speakers and attendees
The very first LTR online conference happened September 10th, 2020 and was attended by 99 leaders and luminaries (including 72 CEO/Founders of dating and online social communities). Professor Iyengar of Columbia University spoke about the Art of Decision Making. Geoff Cook, CEO of The Meet Group gave us the inside-track on the rise of video. The Godfather of reality TV, Jon Murray, was interviewed. Â
See invitation site here:Â shows speakers and attendeesÂ
The third formal event took place at Harvard Club New York in early March 2020 and was hosted by Geoff Cook, the CEO/co-founder of The Meet Group (NASDAQ: MEET). We enjoyed a wonderful prior evening of dining and full day of idea sharing and discussion, followed by an IDEA WOW (World Officers Weekend) in New York.
See invitation site here
The second formal event took place in December 2019 in Berlin at the Spark Networks (NYSE: LOV) board room, hosted by Jeronimo Folgueira, the outgoing CEO and Eric Eichmann, the new CEO. An all-star group of executives from some of the top dating and matchmaking companies on the planet were present, and presented their growth ideas to the group. See photo below. Â
See invitation site here
The first formal event took place in April 2019 this year in Chennai, India which is the home of Matrimony.com. The weekend prior to the event we held a WOW, World Officers Weekend, where we toured the sights and sounds and culinary delights of Chennai. Then the first IDEA SUMMIT was held in Matrimony's boardroom and was hosted by Muru, the CEO of Matrimony.com.Â
See invitation site here
IDEA mixers have been happening for the last 10 years but the first semi-formal event was in Malta in November 2018. The World Officers Weekend brought together a group of dating executives to learn and share and have a long weekend in Malta.
See invitation site here