It is often said, people do not buy product or services, but they do buy relations, stories and magic. That’s where the storytellers and influencers come in. Whenever something new, disruptive gets launched, there is always a bit of skepticism which hovers around it. Influencers are the frontrunners who lead the people’s imagination and curate their curiosity and do what they do the best – influence them.

“To be an influencer, you have to love people before you can try to lead them.” – John C. Maxwell

Stacey Higginbotham: A former writer for GigaOm and Fortune, Stacey is the founder of The Internet of Things Podcast, manages a weekly IoT newsletter and writes for The Wirecutter and PC Mag.She is one of the most prominent writers to look for irrespective of beginner or expert in the domain.

Jenny Fielding: Jenny leads both the FinTech and Internet of Things accelerators. She is a keen investor and has been one of the most sought-after speaker in IoT domain.

Daniel Herscovici: Daniel is a general manager and senior vice president of Xfinity Home, Comcast's highly successful Smart Home platform which provides subscribers with a simplified yet elegant user experience.

Kristine Faulkner:  She is at the helm at leading Cox's Smart Home efforts and contributes to the growth of the growth of that business unit. She is a leader to follow as curated solutions begin to drive mass-consumer adoption. She is also one of the leading speakers in the tech conferences.

Elizabeth Mathes: She leads the IoT division of Home Depot. She's helped creating one of the most fascinating consumer offerings for smart home products and is helping raise awareness in the consumer markets.

Scott Harkins: Scott Harkins is Vice President of Partner Development within Honeywell's Connected Home & Building organizations. He is behind the success for Honeywell's home security channel and to make Honeywell as the security leader in IoT.

Sarah Cooper: She is one of the frontrunner to Amazon's remarkable growth and success in IoT as GM of IoT solutions at Amazon Web Services. She is also at the helm of Vice-chair of the IoT Community.

Beth Comstock: Beth Comstock has garnered her reputation in the Tech industry. She is responsible for GE's efforts to accelerate new growth, and she will lead the IoT initiative of GE from the front.

Jim Hunter: Jim is the Chief Scientist and Technology Evangelist of Greenwave Systems, where he has oversight of technology, architecture, and innovation of the Axon platform. Jim has been a successful entrepreneur.

Matt Eyring: Matt is a one of the phenomenal speaker to follow in IoT. He has impressively helped Vivint shift as a leader in smart home security in the dealer channel. He has got his reputation for challenging the established status quo and trying to innovate.

Charlie Kindel: Kindel is the man behind the The Amazon Echo and Alexa voice assistant which were the first massive consumer hits in the Smart Home. By focusing on voice as the user interface, Kindel and Amazon have redefined how consumers engage their everyday lives.

Andrew Thomas: Andrew pegged the deal and led from the forefront the SkyBell's $600,000 Indiegogo campaign in 2013, and has helped scale SkyBell by landing significant deals with big companies in the space. Andrew is an active IoT speaker, social influencer, and advisor.

Greg Kahn: Greg Kahn is known for his smart and analytical mindset, his continuing and everlasting enthusiasm and activity in the IoT community. In his role as president and CEO of the Internet of Things Consortium he has been leading the growth of IoT community from the front.

Nate Williams: He was CMO of 4Home, and was CRO at August Home. Nate is an active speaker, investor and advisor in IoT, where he advises and takes active part in investments in Roost, Matterport and Datascience.

Sridhar Solur: He is driving innovation and product strategy for the Xfinity Home business for Comcast. He is known for his fascinating and mesmerizing speech and tremendous knowledge in IoT.

Michael Wolf: He is the founder and chief analyst of NextMarket Insights, and host of the Smart Home Show - a top podcast in IoT.

Rob Martens: He is currently serving as Schlage's Futurist and Vice President of Strategy & Partnerships. Rob is known for curating interesting and relevant content on IoT and shares his vision on stages.

Marwan Fawaz: Marwan is CEO of Nest Labs and has taken the responsibility to take the company back to its previous reputation as a top inventor and innovator of smart products and services.

Mark Spates: Mark is the apple’s eye for IoT innovation. He is currently leading the product development part of Google. He is the founder of Iotlist.co and formerly the Head of Connected Home Platform at Logitech.

Brenna Berman: Chicago has made its mark in the history again for this lady. As acting Chief Information Officer of Chicago, Brenna is leading the city from the front to make it the example of IoT smart city in the world.