Meredith Adams

Meredith Adams is a brand messaging strategist, writer, and MLM survivor. She spent seven years inside that high-control world before walking away completely broke, burned out, and convinced she had no real skills—just a closet full of unsold product and a lot of shame. Starting from scratch, she slowly rebuilt her confidence, her career, and her ability to sell—ethically. Today, she works behind the scenes like a personal press secretary for solo entrepreneurs—helping them articulate what they do, why it matters, and how to say it. She’s currently working on a book about MLM recovery, ethical business, and what it really takes to start over after being sold a dream that turned out to be a lie. Meredith lives in New York City with her 41-pound Anti-MLM Spokescat, (@bigbarsik), who helped her go viral and gave her the platform she needed to begin again.

Louisa Andrews

Louisa Andrews is a researcher and editorial consultant with extensive experience working within the United Nations University (UNU) system. Her research critically examines the socio-economic impacts of multi-level marketing (MLM) companies, particularly their effects on personal wellbeing and financial stability. Through her master's thesis at the UN-mandated University for Peace, Louisa gathered firsthand testimonies from former MLM participants, providing an evidence-based perspective on the consumer protection challenges posed by these companies. Louisa is passionate about advocating for greater awareness of MLMs within global policy discussions, investigating the alignment - or misalignment - of MLM practices with international frameworks, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). She continues to engage stakeholders across academia, policy, and civil society, advocating for stronger consumer protection measures at national and international levels.

Roberta Blevins

Roberta Blevins, a former “Hun” and whistleblower from the LuLaRich Amazon docuseries, is the host and producer of Life After MLM, a podcast that dives into the many intersections of high demand coercive control by talking to the survivors and experts of these schemes. Her advocacy work has been featured on numerous news and entertainment outlets and podcasts, and referenced in literature about the victims of multilevel marketing. This is her 3rd appearance at the MLM Conference, this year working behind the scenes as the social media segment producer. For more info and links to Roberta’s ongoing work in Anti-MLM, check out her website.

John Breyault

John Breyault, a nationally-recognized public interest advocate and consumer fraud expert, leads the National Consumers League’s (NLC) public interest advocacy. He has testified before Congress and federal agencies dozens of times on a range of consumer issues. His work has been cited in a large number of national publications (e.g., Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The New York Times, POLITICO, NPR, etc.). Prior to joining NCL John served as director of research at Amplify Public Affairs, helping launch the Internet public affairs practice. John also worked as a financial analyst at Sprint and at the American Center for Polish Culture. A graduate of George Mason University, he currently lives in Arlington, Virginia with his wife, two daughters and two mischievous cats.

Ben Brysacz

Ben Brysacz is an Assistant Attorney General with the Washington State Office of the Attorney General. His work focuses on consumer protection. Before joining the Attorney General's Office, he handled complex commercial litigation and government investigations at the Los Angeles office of an international law firm

Stacie Bosley

Stacie Bosley is an economist with a Ph.D. in Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota. She is the Kahlert Professor of Economics at Hamline University, Minnesota. She has served as an expert witness for the FTC in pyramid scheme cases. Her work on MLMs has been published in the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, the Journal of Financial Crime, the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics and Economic Inquiry.

Douglas M Brooks

Douglas M. Brooks is an attorney who has litigated class actions against MLM schemes, including Webster v. Omnitrition International, Inc., 779 F.3d 776 (9th Cir. 1996), cert. den., 519 U.S. 865 (1996), as well as cases against Herbalife, Nu Skin, Melaleuca and Consumers Buyline and others. He has also represented, pro bono, consumer advocates who have been sued by MLM companies and cults, including NXIVM v. Ross Institute, 364 F.3d 471 (2nd Cir. 2004), cert. den., 543 U.S. 1000 (2004). He was featured in the award winning documentary “Betting on Zero” in which he represented victims of the MLM Herbalife. He operates www.pyramidscheme.law as a resource for people studying the MLM industry.

Alanda Carter

Alanda Carter is not just another voice in the anti-MLM community; she’s a trailblazer, who fearlessly exposes the truth behind multilevel marketing (MLM) schemes. In 2019, she initiated candid discussions and shed light on the deceptive practices within MLMs on her YouTube channel, The Recovering Hunbot. Armed with advanced degrees in anthropology and instructional design, she brings a unique perspective to her investigations. Her focus sharpened in 2021 as she turned her focus towards a specific company that now faces regulatory charges despite facing relentless attempts to silence her. Alanda’s site, https://www.hunbot.net provides tools and resources to calculate the real potential earnings and the viability and market size potential for a number of MLM companies. 

Kathleen ‘Kati’ Daffan

Kati Daffan is an Assistant Director in the Federal Trade Commission’s Division of Marketing Practices.  Prior to stepping into this role, she litigated fraud cases in the division and advised former Chairwoman Edith Ramirez on consumer protection matters.  Kati has also worked at a civil rights law firm, at the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, and as a law clerk to the Honorable Shira A. Scheindlin of the Southern District of New York. 

Maddy Gitomer

Maddy Gitomer is a Senior Counsel at Democracy Forward, where her work includes challenges to efforts to weaken the Affordable Care Act, fights against an unconstitutional takeover of state education policy, and defense of administrative and regulatory efforts related to consumer protection, worker rights, and access to health care. Before joining Democracy Forward, Maddy was a regulatory attorney focused on health privacy law. Maddy also has experience in work protecting reproductive rights, defending against LGBTQ+ discrimination, and expanding access to health care. Earlier in her career, Maddy served on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s Subcommittee on Children and Families.  Maddy holds a J.D. from The University of Pennsylvania Law School, a master’s degree in education policy from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, and a B.A. from American University. She lives in DC with her wife and daughter.

Claudia Groß

Claudia is an assistant professor at the Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, at the department for Organizational Design and Development. Her main interest is on how to design organizations that support ethical behaviour and how to ‘translate’ academic knowledge into better organizational practices. Since her PhD on the MLM industry in Germany, she is interested in and concerned about the manifold and widespread unethical practices in the industry. For further information see https://www.ru.nl/english/people/gross-c/.

Brandie Hadfield

Brandie Hadfield spent the better part of a decade in a commercial cult, and today she is the President and co-facilitator of the non-profit Flipping The Pyramid Foundation. A student therapist in supervision, Brandie offers peer support to former MLM representatives. Brandie believes everyone deserves freedom of mind, so she speaks out about abuses of power and coercion perpetrated by MLM scams on Substack and Instagram. 

SaraEllen Hutchison

SaraEllen Hutchison is a consumer rights lawyer helping individuals who are victims of false credit reporting or have suffered other emotional and economic harm. Cases include Sedric Ward v. Shelby County, W.D. Tenn. Case No. 2:20-cv-2407-JPM-cgc ($561,000 jury verdict for plaintiff’s economic damages under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA); jury finding of willful) and Brandt v. Columbia Credit Servs., W.D. Wash. Case No. 2:17-cv-703-RSM ($150,000 jury verdict for emotional distress under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act). 

SaraEllen’s lifelong interest in self-improvement led her to two life coaching certifications. SaraEllen has seen both the good and the harm that the coaching industry can do, and educates consumers (who are often coaches themselves) on their consumer rights and what may be unfair or deceptive. SaraEllen is licensed in Washington State and Alaska. She is a December 2004 graduate of Georgia State University College of Law and lives in Tacoma.

Jason Jones

Jason Jones is an attorney and advocate for the victims of manipulation fraud. Jason wrote a popular website that exposed and discussed manipulative online scams, and was counsel on a multi year nationwide putative class action against Herbalife and forty of its top distributors for the deceptive manner in which they operated their live event system. Jason is currently an Assistant Attorney General at the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia where he works on antifraud and workers’ rights cases.

Joe Kanada

Joe Kanada is an Assistant Attorney General with the Washington State Office of the Attorney General. His work focuses on consumer protection, pyramid schemes, data protection and privacy. Prior to joining the Washington AGO, he investigated and litigated corporate fraud at the California Department of Justice.

William Keep

William W. Keep, PhD is a professor of marketing emeritus and former dean of business and interim provost at The College of New Jersey. He has assisted state and federal prosecutors in the prosecution of pyramid schemes and has been quoted in the press (The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg/ BusinessWeek, Financial Times, New York Times, Forbes, etc.) as an expert on multilevel marketing. With Dr. Peter Vander Nat (senior economist, FTC, retired), Dr. Keep published academic articles on multilevel marketing, pyramid schemes, and the evolution of direct selling in the United States.

Samuel A.A. Levine

Samuel Levine is a Senior Fellow at the Berkeley Center for Consumer Law and Economic Justice. From 2021 until earlier this year, he served as Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, overseeing litigation, rulemaking, and market monitoring initiatives across a broad range of industries. Under his leadership, the Bureau filed over 150 lawsuits, cracked down on junk fees and subscription traps, brought groundbreaking enforcement actions against tech abuses, and advanced new protections for workers and small businesses. Sam previously served as an attorney advisor to FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra, an attorney in the FTC’s Midwest Regional Office, and as an Assistant Attorney General in Illinois, where he prosecuted predatory for-profit colleges. Sam is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis and Harvard Law School, where he was a member of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau.

Joe Mullin

Joe Mullin is a policy analyst on Electronic Frontier Foundation’s intellectual property team, where he works on patent reform, copyright issues, and free speech online. Before joining EFF, Joe worked as a reporter covering legal affairs for the technology website Ars Technica, and American Lawyer’s magazine group. His journalism work has included reporting on pyramid schemes, illegal investment operations, and the origins of Trump University. He has a bachelors degree in history and a masters in journalism, both from the University of California at Berkeley. More information can be found at https://www.eff.org/about/staff/joe-mullin

Tait Nelson

Tait is a Legal Associate at TINA.org who became interested in deceptive advertising in college through his research on pyramid schemes. He believes that easy access to accurate information about companies and their products is the best way to create a fair economy. Tait holds a bachelor’s degree in behavioral economics from Hamline University, in St Paul Minnesota.

Máire O Sullivan

Lecturing at Munster Technological University in Ireland, Dr. Máire O Sullivan's research is focused on female consumer behaviour. She has written for The Conversation on the anti-MLM movement and researched MLM advertising targeting women in particular. Her PhD is from University College Cork. More information can be found at maireosullivan.com.

Bonnie Patten

Bonnie Patten is Executive Director of Truth in Advertising (TINA.org), a non-profit consumer advocacy organization focused on protecting consumers from false and deceptive marketing. Since its inception, TINA.org has filed more than 250 legal actions, and state and federal agencies have used its work in at least three pyramid scheme cases. Ms. Patten has testified before Congress on issues related to consumer protection, deceptive marketing and economic justice, and she is a regular commentator in the media including appearances on NBC, CBS, ABC, and BBC, in publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Economist, and on podcasts such as The Dream. She is the 2019 recipient of the Florence Kelley Consumer Leadership Award by the National Consumers League. She earned her J.D. from Boston University and her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Bridget Read 

Bridget Read is a features writer at New York magazine, reporting on housing inequality and the real estate industry for Curbed. Previously, she wrote for The Cut and was a culture writer at Vogue. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Alexandra Roberts

Alexandra J. Roberts is Professor of Law & Media at Northeastern University, where she teaches courses in intellectual property, trademarks, and entertainment law. Her research focuses on trademark and false advertising law, particularly on social media, and her work on MLMs is forthcoming in the UC Davis Law Review. She is a regular commentator in the media, including appearances on CNN, CBS, and Fox and in publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Sports Illustrated. She earned her JD from the Yale Law School, AM from Stanford University, and AB from Dartmouth College.

Peter Vander Nat

Peter J. Vander Nat, Ph.D. (University of Notre Dame) served for 15+ years as senior economic expert at the FTC regarding pyramid schemes and has submitted numerous declarations to federal courts. Along with co-author Dr. Bill Keep, he has published articles on pyramid schemes vs. legitimate multilevel marketing. Upon retiring from the FTC in 2014, he remains an active expert witness for government prosecution of pyramid schemes.

Elizabeth Villagomez

Elizabeth Villagomez, Ph.D., is an economist that has researched MLMs from a gender perspective. She has worked for UN entities as global and regional adviser on women's economic empowerment as well as an international consultant. She has also worked extensively for the EU Commission and Parliament, and the European Institute for Gender Equality on employment, social inclusion, gender equality, and discrimination.

Benjamin Waterhouse

Benjamin Waterhouse is a historian of modern America. His scholarly research focuses on the culture and politics of business in the United States, especially since the mid-twentieth century. He is the author of three books: Lobbying America: The Politics of Business from Nixon to NAFTA; The Land of Enterprise: A Business History of the United States; and One Day I’ll Work for Myself: The Dream and Delusion that Conquered America. This most recent book explores how so many Americans came to believe that self-employment was the key not only to personal fulfillment but also to national economic growth.

Megan Williams

Megan Williams is a licensed therapist specializing in trauma and complicated grief. She is the author of Cutting Ties: Healing After MLM, a workbook designed to help individuals with the transition out of the MLM industry. A former MLM rep, Megan uses her personal experience in tandem with her professional training to educate on the psychological tactics used by MLM companies.

Erin Witte

Erin Witte is the Director of Consumer Protection for the Consumer Federation of America. Erin leads CFA’s advocacy efforts in consumer protection, including advocating for consumer protections in Congress and at regulatory agencies, communicating policy positions to the press and the public, organizing meetings with stakeholders on consumer protection issues, and providing educational tools for consumers to help them navigate marketplace challenges. Prior to joining the CFA, Erin was an Assistant Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia, where she litigated consumer protection cases in Virginia state and federal courts. Erin also worked in private practice in Fairfax, VA, where she represented individual consumer clients. Erin also has a public service history of volunteer work with various legal aid organizations, public defenders, and the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project.