Meet IgniteOKC

Alyssa oversees the IgniteOKC Organization, leads monthly board meetings, and provides support and guidance to all IgniteOKC Committee Chairs. Alyssa joined the IgniteOKC Leadership Crew in 2015, served as Secretary in 2016, and served as the Board Chair-Elect in 2017. Alyssa is an intellectual property attorney at Dunlap Codding, a founding partner of IgniteOKC. She focuses her practice on patent drafting and prosecution, licensing, prior art searches, and patentability analysis; as well licensing and other IP-related transactions.

Alyssa was born and raised in the southwest Chicago suburbs. Alyssa attended college at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois, where she studied Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. Upon graduating and finding herself wanting to be closer to her parents (who had since moved out of Illinois) and farther from harsh winters, Alyssa made her way to Oklahoma City as a law student at Oklahoma City University School of Law. Alyssa graduated in the top 10% of her class and was involved in various school organizations, including serving as a Student Instructor and a member of Law Review.

Apart from IgniteOKC, Alyssa enjoys staying active in the Oklahoma City community through volunteering and participating in athletic leagues. Growing up in a family of college athletes, athletics have always been a huge part of Alyssa’s life. In her spare time, you can find Alyssa working on her golf game with her husband, Keegan, or hiking with their two dogs, Claude and Carl.

Sunil has been involved with IgniteOKC for a few years and in 2015, began serving as the organization’s Sponsorship Chair. Sunil has a strong passion for community work. He also believes in intelligent communication and the sharing of ideas. Getting involved with IgniteOKC was an opportunity for him to merge those passions.

Growing up in the Midwest, Sunil has always been involved in his community and local church. Before moving to Oklahoma City, Sunil spent his free time volunteering for the Homeland Security Department in his hometown. As a volunteer, he assisted the Fire Department as a reserve EMT. He also trained fire and police officers in various IT areas.  As a local church board member of St. Mary’s Church and a founding member of FOCUS Chicago, he worked closely with young adults looking to effectuate changes in their spiritual lives. Currently, Sunil serves his Oklahoma City community church as a Sunday School teacher for the 8th grade.

Professionally, Sunil is on the IT Business Partner team at Devon Energy. He holds a law degree from Oklahoma City University School of Law and undergraduate degrees from the University of Illinois in Finance and Management. In addition to Oil & Gas, Sunil has spent his career in various areas including IT Consulting and Banking. In his free time, Sunil enjoys traveling to new cities when he’s not sitting around binge watching sci-fi shows on Netflix.

Matt Farley has lived coast to coast, from LA to sweet home Alabama. Despite this, he has always consider himself to be an Okie. Matt graduated the University of Oklahoma with a Bachelors of Arts in 2012 and later went back to earn his MBA with an emphasis in entrepreneurship in 2016.

Matt currently works in advertising at Insight Creative Group. He considers himself to be a problem solver, and enjoys helping clients discover creative and innovative solutions to help optimize their business operations.

Matt is married to Samantha Farley and has three pets, Penny, Roo (dogs) and President Bill Kitten. When he’s not working he enjoys running, board games and telling jokes.

Tom Marks has spent his entire career in the creation of hi-tech products. He led the development of over 100 devices in a variety of industries including wireless electronics, human-machine interfaces, and intrinsically-safe control systems – most containing either embedded or computer software components. The last 17 years of his career have been spent in technical leadership: 12 of those in senior or executive level positions. He has worked in a variety of corporate sizes and structures, from small startups to multi-million and billion dollar companies. In that time, he has come to understand the fundamental truth that people and effective teamwork drive the success of any company. Tom holds a B.S. in electrical engineering and an MBA in finance. He currently leads application development for Devon Energy.

Genni is the Chair of the Communications Board and oversees the IgniteOKC Communications Committee. Genni joined IgniteOKC as an intern in 2016.

She is an intellectual property attorney at Dunlap Codding, and focuses her practice on patent drafting and prosecution, licensing, prior art searches, and patentability analysis; as well as, litigation, trademark, copyright and e-commerce representation.

Genni was born in Oklahoma but was raised between Oklahoma and Alaska. She attended both the University of Oklahoma and the University of Alaska Anchorage, culminating her education at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. While attending OU Law she won many awards and was a member of the National Trial Competition Team, a member of the Board of Advocates, and an American Bar Association Intellectual Property Law Design Committee Invited Speaker.

Outside of IgniteOKC and full-time lawyering, Genni enjoys traveling and spending time with her husband, Ross, and son, Cooper.

For the last 20 years, Derrick has been trying to figure out how to hug and high five the world around him. Whether it’s being an active community member, board member, motivator, mentor, business owner, author, father, husband and dreamer…hugs and high fives remain at the heart of everything he does. Those closest to Derrick enjoy his humor, energy, zeal and spontaneity for life. His life goal is to ensure that people leave his presence more encouraged and happier each and every time. Oh yeah, he talks a lot.

Eden Badgett found her way to Oklahoma City by way of East Tennessee, North Carolina, and Colorado. While she misses the mountains, she has found her life in Oklahoma to be better than she ever expected. Eden works as an academic advisor in the Bass School of Music at Oklahoma City University, and she directs a church choir in El Reno in addition to singing in two semi-professional choirs in OKC. When not working, she can be found reading anything she can get her hands on (books, magazines, cereal boxes…), testing biscuit and jam recipes (any excuse to eat butter, right?), and playing music in her home studio so she can pretend she’s an Indie rock star. Her latest instrument to tackle is the baritone ukulele. Her two dogs keep her somewhat sane, and her unparalleled podcast obsession has veered recently into the true crime arena. She is, in fact, a Murderino.

Eden serves as the Co-Event Chair for 2018, and cannot wait to hear all the mind-blowing talks that Ignite OKC XI will bring.

Adam Brooks is a senior advisor at Candor, an integrated communications firm in Film Row. He’s surprised to find he has developed a long career in communications, having jumped the fence between news, PR and corporate communications several times. He has moved from the Ignite OKC audience to the stage to the board. He takes great pride in supporting an organization devoted to the power of ideas and bringing the diverse elements of our community together. For better or worse, he lacks the gene that makes people fear public speaking.

Patrick Fuller is the Vice President of Legal Intelligence at ALM Intelligence. He is an accomplished Executive with nearly 20 years of experience within the legal profession. Most recently, he’s served as the VP of Business Development for AI start-up Neota Logic, and previous to that was the Director Legal Analytics for Wolters Kluwer’s ELM Solutions, working with legal departments to define, measure, and take action on key performance indicators for law departments and operations. Over his career, he’s had roles in business development, executive management, and consulting. He is a frequent author and lecturer who has logged more than 200 speaking and authorship credits within the legal profession over his career. In addition, Patrick serves on the board for IgniteOKC and is the co-chair of the Legal Marketing Association’s Service Provider section. Patrick is a Fellow in The College of Law Practice Management.