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Cats now outnumber dogs in many urban households—but products, care models, and marketing still lag. This panel dives into the overlooked feline opportunity, exploring how DTC brands, veterinary services, and retailers are innovating for the modern cat parent.

Discover what it takes to win feline loyalty, from behaviour-based design to telehealth, nutrition, and the rise of cat-first ecosystems.

Trends & Industry Overviews
Investment Opportunities

Author:

Scott Maloney

COO/ Senior Partner
CatsOnly Veterinary Services / Crain Consulting

Scott Maloney

COO/ Senior Partner
CatsOnly Veterinary Services / Crain Consulting

Author:

Erin Simpson

Founder & CEO
Wildcat

Erin Simpson is a cat product designer and founder of Wildcat, the modern cat lifestyle brand turning feline essentials into covetable, design-forward objects. Wildcat’s Canyon Bed is a cult favorite among behaviorists, rescuers, and creators on IG and TikTok, while its Whisker Vases and irreverent hats have built a loyal, cross-generational following. A veteran of the tech and consumer brand worlds, Erin previously founded Brick Lane, a leading PR agency trusted by Silicon Valley’s top VC firms, and served as Lyft’s first head of communications. She now leads Meow Lane, a feline-focused strategy and marketing studio helping legacy brands and startups reach the modern cat consumer. A longtime rescue volunteer and advocate, Erin has been called a “cat PR expert” for her work challenging outdated narratives about cats and their behavior. She lives on the Northern California coast with her four rescue cats (and counting), featured on her popular platform @wildcatliving

Erin Simpson

Founder & CEO
Wildcat

Erin Simpson is a cat product designer and founder of Wildcat, the modern cat lifestyle brand turning feline essentials into covetable, design-forward objects. Wildcat’s Canyon Bed is a cult favorite among behaviorists, rescuers, and creators on IG and TikTok, while its Whisker Vases and irreverent hats have built a loyal, cross-generational following. A veteran of the tech and consumer brand worlds, Erin previously founded Brick Lane, a leading PR agency trusted by Silicon Valley’s top VC firms, and served as Lyft’s first head of communications. She now leads Meow Lane, a feline-focused strategy and marketing studio helping legacy brands and startups reach the modern cat consumer. A longtime rescue volunteer and advocate, Erin has been called a “cat PR expert” for her work challenging outdated narratives about cats and their behavior. She lives on the Northern California coast with her four rescue cats (and counting), featured on her popular platform @wildcatliving

Author:

Susan Groeneveld

Founder & CEO
sylvester.ai

Susan Groeneveld

Founder & CEO
sylvester.ai

Author:

Matt Michaelson

Co-Founder and CEO
Smalls

Matt Michaelson

Co-Founder and CEO
Smalls

Author:

Vlad Mysla

Head of Enterprise AI
Pearl.com

Vlad Mysla

Head of Enterprise AI
Pearl.com

Author:

Cecelia Carrera

Founder and CEO
BistroCat

Cecelia Carrera

Founder and CEO
BistroCat
 

Everette Taylor

CEO
Kickstarter

Everette Taylor

CEO
Kickstarter

Everette Taylor

CEO
Kickstarter
 

Dagi Berhane

Senior Director, Global Data Center Architecture & Engineering
Salesforce

Dagi provides architecture/design, engineering and construction leadership / expertise to internal and external resources for the delivery of IT capacity for greenfield, brownfield, retrofit and lease delivery projects globally.

Dagi Berhane

Senior Director, Global Data Center Architecture & Engineering
Salesforce

Dagi Berhane

Senior Director, Global Data Center Architecture & Engineering
Salesforce

Dagi provides architecture/design, engineering and construction leadership / expertise to internal and external resources for the delivery of IT capacity for greenfield, brownfield, retrofit and lease delivery projects globally.

His deliverables include data center site selection, managing efforts of land technical due diligence, engineering/designing/constructing the building shell/core, power, cooling, telecom, and controls infrastructure, environmental and building permitting all to align with Salesforce’s IT capacity roadmap for critical infrastructure builds, M&A, migration, optimization, decommissioning and leases.

 

 

Patrick Meeus

Managing Director – Innovation
Nutreco

Patrick Meeus

Managing Director – Innovation
Nutreco

Patrick Meeus

Managing Director – Innovation
Nutreco
 

Jonmichael Hands

CEO
FarmGPU

Jonmichael (JM) is a storage and AI expert, and sustainability leader. JM is currently the CEO of FarmGPU, an AI infrastructure company which hosts a decentralized cloud for AI on-demand compute and storage - and also partnering with Solidigm for the innovative AI central storage lab. 

Jonmichael Hands

CEO
FarmGPU

Jonmichael Hands

CEO
FarmGPU

Jonmichael (JM) is a storage and AI expert, and sustainability leader. JM is currently the CEO of FarmGPU, an AI infrastructure company which hosts a decentralized cloud for AI on-demand compute and storage - and also partnering with Solidigm for the innovative AI central storage lab. 

Jonmichael spent ten years at Intel in the Non-Volatile Memory Solutions group working on product line management, strategic planning, and technical marketing for the Intel data center SSDs. Jonmichael is the president of the Circular Drive Initiative, 501(c)(6) non-profit, promoting the secure reuse of drives and circular business models for the storage industry. Jonmichael started his storage career at Sun Microsystems designing storage arrays (JBODs) and holds an electrical engineering degree from the Colorado School of Mines.

 

Jonmichael Hands

CEO
FarmGPU

Jonmichael (JM) is a storage and AI expert, and sustainability leader. JM is currently the CEO of FarmGPU, an AI infrastructure company which hosts a decentralized cloud for AI on-demand compute and storage - and also partnering with Solidigm for the innovative AI central storage lab. 

Jonmichael Hands

CEO
FarmGPU

Jonmichael Hands

CEO
FarmGPU

Jonmichael (JM) is a storage and AI expert, and sustainability leader. JM is currently the CEO of FarmGPU, an AI infrastructure company which hosts a decentralized cloud for AI on-demand compute and storage - and also partnering with Solidigm for the innovative AI central storage lab. 

Jonmichael spent ten years at Intel in the Non-Volatile Memory Solutions group working on product line management, strategic planning, and technical marketing for the Intel data center SSDs. Jonmichael is the president of the Circular Drive Initiative, 501(c)(6) non-profit, promoting the secure reuse of drives and circular business models for the storage industry. Jonmichael started his storage career at Sun Microsystems designing storage arrays (JBODs) and holds an electrical engineering degree from the Colorado School of Mines.

 

Jonmichael Hands

CEO
FarmGPU

Jonmichael (JM) is a storage and AI expert, and sustainability leader. JM is currently the CEO of FarmGPU, an AI infrastructure company which hosts a decentralized cloud for AI on-demand compute and storage - and also partnering with Solidigm for the innovative AI central storage lab. 

Jonmichael Hands

CEO
FarmGPU

Jonmichael Hands

CEO
FarmGPU

Jonmichael (JM) is a storage and AI expert, and sustainability leader. JM is currently the CEO of FarmGPU, an AI infrastructure company which hosts a decentralized cloud for AI on-demand compute and storage - and also partnering with Solidigm for the innovative AI central storage lab. 

Jonmichael spent ten years at Intel in the Non-Volatile Memory Solutions group working on product line management, strategic planning, and technical marketing for the Intel data center SSDs. Jonmichael is the president of the Circular Drive Initiative, 501(c)(6) non-profit, promoting the secure reuse of drives and circular business models for the storage industry. Jonmichael started his storage career at Sun Microsystems designing storage arrays (JBODs) and holds an electrical engineering degree from the Colorado School of Mines.

 

Jonmichael Hands

CEO
FarmGPU

Jonmichael (JM) is a storage and AI expert, and sustainability leader. JM is currently the CEO of FarmGPU, an AI infrastructure company which hosts a decentralized cloud for AI on-demand compute and storage - and also partnering with Solidigm for the innovative AI central storage lab. 

Jonmichael Hands

CEO
FarmGPU

Jonmichael Hands

CEO
FarmGPU

Jonmichael (JM) is a storage and AI expert, and sustainability leader. JM is currently the CEO of FarmGPU, an AI infrastructure company which hosts a decentralized cloud for AI on-demand compute and storage - and also partnering with Solidigm for the innovative AI central storage lab. 

Jonmichael spent ten years at Intel in the Non-Volatile Memory Solutions group working on product line management, strategic planning, and technical marketing for the Intel data center SSDs. Jonmichael is the president of the Circular Drive Initiative, 501(c)(6) non-profit, promoting the secure reuse of drives and circular business models for the storage industry. Jonmichael started his storage career at Sun Microsystems designing storage arrays (JBODs) and holds an electrical engineering degree from the Colorado School of Mines.

 

Vaishali Ghiya

VP, Global Datacenter Services.
Wesco

Vaishali Ghiya has 27+ years of experience in Networking, Cloud and Security Sales, Solution Architecture, Systems Engineering, Product Management, Strategic Alliances and Engineering capacities, transforming 200+ people team. She is recognized as Top 50 Women Leaders of San Francisco. 

Vaishali Ghiya

VP, Global Datacenter Services.
Wesco

Vaishali Ghiya

VP, Global Datacenter Services.
Wesco

Vaishali Ghiya has 27+ years of experience in Networking, Cloud and Security Sales, Solution Architecture, Systems Engineering, Product Management, Strategic Alliances and Engineering capacities, transforming 200+ people team. She is recognized as Top 50 Women Leaders of San Francisco.