App Growth Summit LA Logo 2026

App Growth Summit LA 2026

Tuesday, February 24th 9:00 AM • Playa Studios
Overview Speakers Agenda Sponsors

SOLD OUT EVENT – THANK YOU!

The sun was blazing and ideas were shining bright at App Growth Summit LA 2026! This high-energy, full-day conference brought together app marketers, growth leaders, and product innovators who came ready to turn bold strategies into real results. Attendees experienced 35+ powerhouse speakers across 12 action-packed sessions and 2 dynamic stages, diving deep into full-funnel strategy for 2026 including user acquisition, retention, engagement, monetization, and beyond, all with that iconic LA vibe.

The momentum carried straight into our West Coast 808s After Party, where connections were built, conversations flowed, and the beats of hip hop kept the energy alive all night.

More than 175 industry pros showed up and showed out, making it an unforgettable gathering of the brightest minds in app growth.

Su Nijhawan
Su Nijhawan Adobe Senior ASO Manager Lightroom Adobe
Adobe
Susan Ho
Susan Ho Hopper VP, Product Operations Hopper
Killian Aubert
Killian Aubert Crunchyroll Sr Director Growth Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll
Kaylee Wilmovsky
Kaylee Wilmovsky Underdog Fantasy Director of Digital Performance Marketing Underdog Fantasy
Underdog Fantasy
Elizabeth Burr
Elizabeth Burr Activision Sr Director of Mobile Marketing Activision
Activision
Tanuj Chatterjee
Tanuj Chatterjee Superunlimited CEO Superunlimited
Superunlimited
Vicki Goldman
Vicki Goldman Formerly Paramount Director of Marketing, Audience Acquisition Formerly Paramount
App Growth Expert
Sarah Mclaughlin
Sarah McLaughlin Formerly EA Sports Director of Brand Marketing Formerly EA Sports
EA Sports
David Reichelt
David Reichelt Color Switch CEO Color Switch
color switch
Antella Yu
Antella Yu Stillfront User Acquisition Team lead Stillfront
Stillfront
Kyle Roderick
Kyle Roderick Next Glass CPO Next Glass
Next Glass
Tyler Scheviak
Tyler Scheviak Fig CMO Fig
Ali Jabini
Ali JabiniMoneyLion GM & Head of Consumer Marketplace MoneyLion
Moneylion
Carissa Gonzalez
Carissa Gonzalez Dr.Squatch CEO & Advisor App Growth Expert, Formerly Pixelberry Studios
Pixelberry Studios
Rachel Kamel
Rachel Kamel Zwift Director, CRM Zwift
Zwift
Danny Ligh
Danny Ligh Adobe Mobile Planning & Strategy Lead Adobe
Adobe
Melissa Lertsmitivanta
Melissa Lertsmitivanta Dave Director, User Acquisition Dave®️
Dave Mobile Banking
Jeff Wang
Jeff Wang Hiatus VP of Growth Hiatus
Hiatus blue logo
Ross Barasch
Ross Barasch Bidease VP, Partnerships & Innovations Bidease
Bidease 2025
Boaz Cohen
Boaz Cohen Edge 226 CRO Edge226
Edge226
Moritz Daan
Moritz Daan Phiture Partner & Co-Founder Phiture
Phiture 2026
Dan O'Connell
Dan O’Connell InMobi Director of North American Sales InMobi
InMobi
Nicole Patterson
Nicole Patterson CleverTap Director, Business Strategy CleverTap
CleverTap
Matt Pahnke
Matthew Pahnke CustomerIO VP of Product Marketing CustomerIO
Customer.io
Jesse Paliotto
Jesse Paliotto FastSpring Director of Demand Generation FastSpring
FastSpring
Brad Shapiro
Brad Shapiro Besitos EVP, Revenue Besitos
Besitos

Full Agenda

Main Stage Forum Room
8:00
DOORS OPEN!
Breakfast & Networking! ☕️

The doors are open! Let the networking at App Growth Summit begin! All-day coffee & beverage services courtesy of Adikteev and a hot catered breakfast courtesy of Tarrific will be waiting for you as we get ready to kick-off a full day of custom-curated content!

Coffee & Beverages courtesy of:
App Growth Summit LA 2026 - Coffee Sponsor
Breakfast courtesy of:
App Growth Summit LA 2026 - Breakfast Sponsor

9:00
CONTENT START
Event Kick-Off!

Let's start off in style! App Growth Summits are the way events should be done: Custom-curated sessions, original content, limited vendors, and engaged networking, all combined with some fun and good times!

Louis Tanguay
Louis Tanguay Founder & Managing Director, App Growth Summit
9:30
PRESENTATION
From Maxed-Out Cards to Multi-Million-Dollar Acquisition

Susan Ho once flew to an investor event with just $50 in her bank account and no idea how she’d pay for a hotel that night. Less than a week later, she walked away with a $250K check that saved her travel app, Journy. Soon after, she closed a $3M+ seed round in just two days. A few years later, Journy was acquired by Hopper. In this talk, Susan shares the unfiltered journey of building an app from spreadsheets and Google Docs to 7-figure revenue and acquisition. You’ll walk away with lessons on resilience, fundraising storytelling, and how to find leverage in the moments you feel stuck.

Susan Ho
Susan Ho Hopper VP, Product Operations, Hopper
9:55
PRESENTATION
Supply Is the New Growth Lever:
How UA Teams Find Performance After the Obvious Inventory Stops Working

As CPIs rise and familiar channels deliver diminishing returns, many UA teams conclude that growth has capped. In reality, opportunity has shifted. This session explores how supply—where and how ads appear—has become a critical lever for performance, and how practitioners can rethink inventory, context, and measurement to unlock new growth.

Ross Barasch
Ross Barasch Bidease VP, Partnerships & Innovations, Bidease
10:20
CO-PRESENTATION
LTV Is a Product Problem, Not a Marketing Metric

As products become more agentic, they’re evolving from static interfaces into systems that learn, decide, and act on behalf of users. This shift has major implications for how engagement is designed and where LTV is truly created. Learn how agentic systems are influencing onboarding, personalization, and retention and what this means for product leadership as products become more autonomous.

Nicole Patterson
Nicole Patterson CleverTap Director, Business Strategy, CleverTap
Kyle Roderick
Kyle Roderick Next Glass CPO, Next Glass
10:40
NETWORKING BREAK
Morning Networking Break! 🗣️

Taking a break for some networking, personal break needs, or just to stretch out a little, we'll offer some light power snacks courtesy of Dataseat to keep your energy high, refill the coffee, and then get right back into the sessions!

Break courtesy of:
App Growth Summit LA 2026 - Break Sponsor

11:00
PANEL DISCUSSION
Monetizing Beyond the App Store:
Strategy, Risk, and Reward

Avoiding app store commissions sounds simple, but the reality is more complex. This panel dives into the practical challenges of off-app monetization, from getting users to leave the app to converting them on the web and returning them seamlessly. Hear how teams are balancing higher margins with conversion risk, and how to build flows that protect both revenue and user experience.

Jesse Paliotto
Jesse Paliotto FastSpring Director of Demand Generation, FastSpring
Jeff Wang
Jeff Wang Hiatus VP of Growth, Hiatus
Elizabeth Burr
Elizabeth Burr Activision Sr Director of Mobile Marketing, Activision
11:35
PANEL DISCUSSION
Beyond the Ping:
Designing Engagement That Users Actually Want

In a world of infinite notifications and shrinking attention spans, retention isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing better. This panel explores how mobile marketers, product teams, and UX leaders can work together to create engagement strategies that feel timely, relevant, and genuinely useful. From adaptive messaging and behavior-driven journeys to leveraging user psychology, UX experimentation, and UA insights, our experts will unpack how smarter engagement design leads to stronger retention and more efficient growth.

Matt Pahnke
Matthew Pahnke CustomerIO VP of Product Marketing, CustomerIO
Tanuj Chatterjee
Tanuj Chatterjee Superunlimited CEO, Superunlimited
Rachel Kamel
Rachel Kamel Zwift Director, CRM, Zwift
12:10
PANEL DISCUSSION
Scaling Smarter:
Modern User Acquisition Strategies in a Fragmented Mobile Ecosystem

User acquisition today is less about finding a single winning channel and more about orchestrating strategy across platforms, products, and signals. As privacy constraints tighten and competition intensifies, UA teams must balance scale, efficiency, and stability, often across multiple apps, audiences, and business goals at once. The conversation will focus on practical approaches to acquiring users efficiently while maintaining performance discipline in an increasingly complex mobile landscape.

Dan O'Connell
Dan O’Connell InMobi Director of North American Sales, InMobi
Kaylee Wilmovsky
Kaylee Wilmovsky Underdog Fantasy Director of Digital Performance Marketing, Underdog Fantasy
Danny Ligh
Danny Ligh Adobe Mobile Planning & Strategy Lead, Adobe
12:40
LUNCH BREAK
Networking Lunch 🍽️
Fully-Catered Lunch!

Let's take a big break for food at the half-way point of the day's content. We'll provide you with a tasty catered lunch, courtesy of RevX (dietary restrictions will be respected, please contact us with your specific requirements). Our friendly staff will also refill the coffee so you can fuel up, network more, and get ready for the second half of the day!

Lunch courtesy of:
App Growth Summit LA 2026 - Lunch Sponsor

2:00
PRESENTATION
From 0 to 8M Weekly Views:
Lessons from Scaling Fig’s Creator Program

Going viral once feels like winning the lottery! Consistent virality requires far more than luck. This session breaks down how Tyler Scheviak scaled Fig’s creator program from ZERO to a consistent 8 million+ weekly views, and the stages required to get there. From early hands-on experimentation, to the systems and automations that now support adding ~50 creators per week, attendees will learn the key decisions and levers that matter most when scaling creator-led growth.

Tyler Scheviak
Tyler Scheviak Fig CMO, Fig
2:25
PANEL DISCUSSION
Rewarded Growth:
Rethinking UA, Monetization, and Retention

Rewarded platforms have evolved from an alternative UA channel into a core growth driver, especially in mobile gaming and increasingly across app categories. This session explores how rewarded strategies can power efficient user acquisition, unlock incremental monetization, and improve retention when integrated directly into existing apps. Panelists will share hands-on experience optimizing rewarded UA at scale, designing effective incentive mechanics, and avoiding common performance pitfalls.

Carissa Gonzalez
Carissa Gonzalez Dr.Squatch CEO & Advisor, App Growth Expert, Formerly Pixelberry Studios
Brad Shapiro
Brad Shapiro Besitos EVP, Revenue, Besitos
Antella Yu
Antella Yu Stillfront User Acquisition Team lead, Stillfront
Ali Jabini
Ali JabiniMoneyLion GM & Head of Consumer Marketplace, MoneyLion
3:00
PRESENTATION
AI’s Impact on ASO:
From Automation to Personalization

AI is rapidly reshaping App Store Optimization, changing how apps are discovered, evaluated, and converted. This session explores how AI transforms keyword research and creative testing, and how predictive analytics can improve rankings and conversion rates. We’ll break down how ChatGPT and Google AI scrape and interpret App Store and Google Play listings, including the impact of Apple’s new web-based App Store and Google AI Overviews. The session also introduces clear frameworks for integrating AI into your ASO workflows, from research to experimentation. Ideal for mobile marketers looking to future-proof their ASO strategy in an AI-driven discovery landscape.

Su Nijhawan
Su Nijhawan Adobe Senior ASO Manager Lightroom, Adobe
3:20
NETWORKING BREAK
Afternoon Networking Break 🤝🏻

Taking another break will allow you to power up on some snacks courtesy of Appier and get more networking in ahead of our final sessions of the day!

Break courtesy of:
App Growth Summit LA 2026 - Break Sponsor

3:40
PRESENTATION
David vs Goliath:
How Color Switch Defended its IP Against a $100,000,000 Lawsuit from his Former Publisher in the Middle East

David will take the audience behind the scenes of his international lawsuit he faced from 2018-2024, what OGH's (his legal team) strategy was, and how this precedent setting case made it's way up the entire Dubai court system to the Court of Cassation.

David Reichelt
David Reichelt Color Switch CEO, Color Switch
4:05
PANEL DISCUSSION
The UA Playbook:
Choosing the Right Channels, Partners, and Tech to Drive Performance

UA success today is defined by sharper decisions, not bigger budgets. This panel cuts through the noise to focus on how UA teams evaluate ad partners, leverage software and AI, and optimize results across display and performance-driven channels. Attendees will gain practical insights on prioritizing channels, measuring success, and scaling UA efficiently.

Boaz Cohen
Boaz Cohen Edge 226 CRO, Edge226
Melissa Lertsmitivanta
Melissa Lertsmitivanta Dave Director, User Acquisition, Dave®️
Vicki Goldman
Vicki Goldman Formerly Paramount Director of Marketing, Audience Acquisition, Formerly Paramount
Killian Aubert
Killian Aubert Crunchyroll Sr Director Growth, Crunchyroll
4:40
AGS GAME SHOW
App Growth Challenge

Get ready to test your knowledge for the glory of public recognition and prizes! Jump up on the stage for your chance to play and win great prizes...and have fun doing it! 🤩

Julia C Niedzwiecka
Julia Niedźwiecka App Growth Summit Marketing Director, App Growth Summit
Louis Tanguay
Louis Tanguay Founder & Managing Director, App Growth Summit
5:00
NETWORKING PARTY
West Coast 808s After Party 🌇🎶

As we drive 2026 app growth to new heights, we’ll amplify the energy with sunset vibes, an open bar, flying appetizers, and a live hip hop DJ. The West Coast 808s After Party will deliver beats, good times, and best-in-class networking!

Powered by adjoe, APPHARBR by GeoEdg, Jampp, and Mintegral

App Growth Summit LA 2026 - After Party

7:30
POST EVENT DINNER
App Growth Dinner
Powered by RevX

Apply for your chance to attend the App Growth Dinner powered by RevX!

Apply Here!

11:15
WORKSHOP PRESENTATION
UA in Transition:
How AI (and other factors) Is Reshaping Growth Teams

From bidding and targeting to creative testing and optimization, AI is touching every part of user acquisition. In this interactive session, we will openly discuss whether AI will replace traditional UA roles or simply redefine them. The goal is not predictions, but practical thinking about how teams can adapt and stay effective.

Ross Barasch
Ross Barasch Bidease VP, Partnerships & Innovations, Bidease
11:45
WORKSHOP PRESENTATION
Learnings from Building AI Agents for ASO + Apple Ads

In this session, Moritz Daan will share what he learned building fully autonomous AI agents to drive real mobile growth impact across ASO and Apple Ads. We’ll explore how agentic systems can move beyond static rules and dashboards to continuously test, optimize, and adapt in dynamic auction and keyword environments — plus the practical lessons, pitfalls, and frameworks that actually matter when deploying AI to production for major mobile apps.

Moritz Daan
Moritz Daan Phiture Partner & Co-Founder, Phiture
12:20
WORKSHOP PRESENTATION
21 Days to Air:
Delivering the DoorDash Red Carpet

When the 2020 Emmy Awards moved to a virtual stage, DoorDash saw an opportunity to connect with millions of viewers stuck at home. The challenge? They had only three weeks to build a celebrity-led campaign from scratch. Join Sarah McLaughlin as she takes you behind the scenes of a high-stakes marketing sprint. In this session, you will learn how to navigate a total strategic pivot when a category is blocked by competitors, the art of securing A-list talent like Tiffany Haddish when the clock is ticking, and the power of collaborating with Disney Creative Works to turn a social media brief into a national TV success. It is a masterclass in agility, contract negotiation, and executing under the most immovable of deadlines.

Sarah Mclaughlin
Sarah McLaughlin Formerly EA Sports Director of Brand Marketing, Formerly EA Sports

Experienced the Globally Leading App Growth Event in LA 

Often imitated, never replicated, App Growth Summit stood apart from other industry conferences. Invite-only, limited-vendor, and highly curated, it delivered an experience that was informative, actionable, and fun—finally, an event for experts, by experts!


▶ Check Out the Photos from AGS LA 2026 ◀


Drove 2026 App Growth With Never-Before-Seen Content 

From retention, product, user acquisition, and more, the content at App Growth Summit covered everything app experts, business owners, brands, and companies needed to know to get ahead.

Topics That Were Covered:

TEST


175+ Experts Connected at App Growth Summit LA 

From Apptrepreneurs, app pioneers, and product and marketing experts, App Growth Summit LA brought together hundreds of brands. Our events are very community-driven, so whether it was someone’s first time or a returning attendee, everyone made incredible connections!

Leading Brands That Attended AGS LA 2026 Included:

AGS LA 2026 Companies Attending!


Turned Up the Volume at the Official AGS LA 2026 After Party

As we drove app growth in 2026, the energy stayed alive with a sunset-soaked celebration. With an open bar, flying appetizers, and a live hip hop DJ, the West Coast 808s After Party delivered the beats, the vibes, and best-in-class networking, powered by adjoe, APPHARBR by GeoEdge, Jampp, and Mintegral.

AGS LA 2026 After Party

App Growth Summit Testimonials

Cuneyt Unar

"As a marketer, I was not pitched at all, which made my whole experience more productive! Your whole team was amazing!"

Cuneyt Unar, Incline Gaming
Jessica Hasenplaugh

"App Growth Summit curates a forward thinking, and highly engaging experience. It's a good sized event where you'll meet great people, see highly relevant content, and enjoy yourself. Not too much pressure like some of the larger events."

Jessica Hasenplaugh, Maple Media