Stephen Woodford – Chief Executive – Advertising Association
Stephen was appointed CEO of the Advertising Association in October 2016. The AA promotes the role and rights of responsible advertising and its value to people, society, business and the economy. All the key advertising trade bodies, commercial media owners and tech platforms are members of the AA. Prior to joining, Stephen held management roles in four agency groups (Leo Burnett, WCRS/Engine and DDB/adam&eveDDB and Next 15). He is a Governor of Ravensbourne University in London, the UK’s newest creative and technology university. Stephen is a past President of NABS and serves on the board of the History of Advertising Trust. He was IPA President (2003-05) where he led both their first ethnic diversity initiative and launched its professional qualifications for new industry entrants, which over 20,000 people have now passed in the UK and around the world.
Davnet Doran – Head of Brand – Britvic PLC
With over 25 years’ PR industry experience, Davnet knows a thing or two about independent agency environments and the brilliant work they generate.
Her current roles have her providing NED strategic support for the independent agencies Fanclub and Humankind and in the last few years, she has crossed over into the corporate world, heading up global brand PR at the soft drinks giant Britvic. It’s her absolute pleasure to work on iconic consumer brands like Tango and Robinsons and support the growth and vision of challenger brands coming up, including Aqua Libra, Purdeys and Plenish.
Davnet’s agency experience features multi-award winning (as was) independent businesses such as Unity and Cake, delivering brand PR for household names including M&S (Plan A), Direct Line, Baileys, Sainsbury’s, Coca Cola, EE & BT, Motorola, Nintendo and more.
She is a trained Mental Health First Aider and champion of DE&I within the Britvic business.
Jeremy Stern – CEO – PromoVeritas
After an influential career as a senior marketer with Kraft, Coca-Cola, BT and Tesco, Jeremy Stern became a successful entrepreneur when he set up PromoVeritas as the independent promotional verification service with the aim of protecting brand owners from disasters and reputational damage.
Prior to setting up PromoVeritas, Jeremy was European Promotions Director at Coca-Cola where he was responsible for the company’s overall promotional strategy in Northern Europe and the coordination of Coca-Cola’s plans for the Euro’s, the Olympics and internet projects such as Coke Auction.
Jeremy’s other senior positions have included European Marketing Director for Sega Europe, Head of Affinity Marketing at BT, Marketing Manager at Tesco, and Group Brand Manager at Kraft (where he was responsible for the launch of Kenco).
Jeremy is a former Vice President of the Promotional Marketing Council of Europe and served as a board member on the CAP Committee of the Advertising Standards Authority (the governing body of the UK advertising industry) and a board member of AIME, the trade association for the Interactive Media industry.
Viktoria Williams – Global Marketing Strategy and Capability Manager – British Airways
Senior Marketing Manager with over 15 years of marketing experience across a vast variety of International territories, developing and implementing successful and innovative high-profile marketing strategies on a global scale to achieve business goals, and adapting them to the fast-paced environment.
Matt Cooper – Director – LBB Online
Matt Cooper began his career in the advertising business in 1988. Working his way up from the post room at Saatchi & Saatchi, he went on to join post production powerhouse the Mill, in the early stages of its business Cooper developed the revolutionary archiving and asset management tool, Beam TV. However, a pivotal career stage as MD of The Gunn Report saw the beginnings of his latest innovative venture, Little Black Book. Over the past ten years Little Black Book (AKA lbbonline.com) has grown from the humble guide about worldwide advertising hubs, to an editorially-led global news platform and creative industry fame factory. Hailed ‘THE communications business for the communications world’, LBB aims to celebrate creativity and grow fame for its members through bespoke tools and offerings. Now backed by some of the industry’s biggest names.
Dino Myers-Lamptey – Founder – The Barber Shop
Dino Myers-Lamptey is the Founder of The Barber Shop, a strategy-led creative company that aims to solve the biggest business problems through data, distribution and disruptive ideas. They work with businesses that are driven by a purpose and which strive to enrich culture through the pleasure that they bring. Their clients include Karma Cola, The Athletic, Tobefrank and Parkinson’s UK. Dino is also a board member of the UK Effies and a NED for the Brixton Finishing School. In 2019 Dino was recognised as a Top 10 Media Planner by Campaign. Dino is also a founding member of MEFA (Media For All), and has recently founded Diverse Speakers.
Oliver Illing – Head of Independant Agency Team – Google
Oli leads the Independent Agency & New Partner team within Google’s Large Customer Sales, partnering with some of the leading and largest independent agencies, and other new emerging partners for Google – helping their businesses and advertisers grow. In his 11th year at Google, Oli has fulfilled various roles across the agency business and is passionate about championing independent agencies within Google and the wider industry.
Kat Jones – Marketing Director – Cawston Press
An FMCG industry veteran, Jones has 20 years of experience working in marketing and sales roles at the likes of Britvic, Miller Brands (Asahi UK) and Diageo.
Ben Owen – Head of CRM Campaign Management – William Hill
Ben has over a decades experience delivering CRM and Loyalty programs that help drive active users and incremental revenue to support digital products and services.
Prior to joining William Hill. Ben lead the CRM team at Iris Worldwide, helping clients like Pampers, Estee Lauder, KFC, Cinch and Helly Hansen enhance their digital products with engaging customers experiences!
Tina Fegent – Global Marketing Procurement ConsultantÂ
Tina was one of the first to work in Marketing Procurement about 30 years ago.  She established many of the 1st Marketing Procurement teams in the UK for Cellnet (Telefonica), SB (GSK) and Orange & France Telecom. From Lucozade Sports bottles to Orange Arrows Formula One Racing, there isn’t a category of marketing that she hasn’t procured. She then moved and become the 1st Procurement person to work agency side at Grey Advertising  and then Lowe Advertising as their Commercial Director and dealing with Client Procurement teams. In 2006 she set up Tina Fegent Consulting to offer a Marketing Procurement Consultancy service to clients. Current clients include innocent, Ferrero, SSE, Georgia Pacific, Scholl and Fujifilm. She chairs the CIPS Marketing Procurement Group and is the Co-Chair of the Conscious Advertising Network Get Sh*t Done Advisory Group.
Rankin – Founder – RANKIN CREATIVE
Rankin is a British photographer, publisher, and film director. Alongside being head of the eponymous agency RANKIN, which hosts an 80+ strong team that puts strategy, creative and production all under one roof.
Through RANKIN, he is best known for work that is on the cultural cusp and leading future trends: producing rule-breaking campaigns for brands such as Rolls Royce, Unilever, L’Oreal and Samsonite; creating wide reaching projects for charities including Women’s Aid and Macmillan; and shooting music videos for the likes of Miley Cyrus, Rita Ora and Kelis.
As a photographer Rankin’s portfolio ranges from portraiture to documentary. He has shot The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Kate Moss, Kendall Jenner and The Queen to name only a few. As a publisher, Rankin co-founded the seminal magazine Dazed & Confused with Jefferson Hack in 1991, and has since published the likes of AnOther and AnOther Man, alongside over 40 books and the biannual fashion and culture print and digital platform, Hunger.
His photography has been published everywhere from his own publications to Elle, Vogue, Esquire, GQ, Rolling Stone, and Wonderland, and exhibited in galleries globally, including MoMA, New York, and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
David Meikle – How to Buy a Gorilla
David Meikle is a business and marketing consultant, an innovator and a problem solver. In his advertising career he held senior positions at Grey and O&M in London, and was Head of Country for Ogilvy Russia. In 2009, David founded the consultancy, Salt, delivering marketing transformation, pitch management, process design and training. He rebranded his business The How to Buy a Gorilla Company after his book in 2017. HTBAG’s consultancy clients include The Post Office, Abellio, TSB and Vision Express, Direct Line Group. Its training clients include: AMV/BBDO, Adam&EveDDB, the7stars, MediaCom, the IPA, ISBA, IAPI, the EACA & the MRS.
During the Covid lockdown of 2020 David wrote his second book – Unstressessary – How to reduce stress and improve performance in advertising and marketing – yet to be published.
In autumn 2020 David co-founded Wippet – an online marketplace for the healthcare sector, which was sold in a pre-revenue deal in April 2021. David continues in Wippet as Operations and Marketing Director. The site is due to launch in September 2021.
Shannie Mears – Co-founder – The Elephant Room
Shannie left Global advertising agency Iris worldwide with the former CEO Dan Saxby whilst she was an intern in 2017. She is now the Co-founder & Head of Talent at The Elephant Room, which is a creative advertising agency addressing the industry’s Elephant in the room when it comes to access and representation. She has worked with Global brands such as; PUMA, Chivas Regal, Barclays, Pinterest and more. She has been named Management Today’s 35 under 35 young woman in Business in 2019 being the youngest on the list and most recently Forbes 30 under 30 2023. Shannie has been a lecturer at Kingston University within the creative and cultural industries department, and previously sat on the Race disparity advisory board at no.10 Downing street advising on race and policy. Shannie’s work has led her to being described as a trailblazer, leader and cultural maker as she continues to build communities around her company’s ethos.
Linda Miller – Head of Global Sponsorship & Events – Lloyd’s
Since starting out as a WPP Group account exec, Linda’s two decades as a marketer have spanned agency, start up and financial services roles. As Head of Global Sponsorship and Events at Lloyd’s, she leads collaborations with brand partners across the arts, science and community worlds and leads an annual programme of over 200 events worldwide.
Ben Aves – Lego
Ben leads the global communication strategy team at LEGO’s internal creative agency; meaning he and his team develop global strategies that ensure LEGO communicates across owned, earned, shared and paid channels more creatively and effectively.
Previous to this Ben spent 15 years working in media agencies leading and shaping communications strategies that answered problems such as how to cut sugar from the nation’s diet, right through to how to release a major Hollywood blockbuster.
Paul Hammersley – Managing Partner – Harbour
Paul has served as CEO of two of London’s( Lowe and DDB)and one of New York’s (Lowe) most successful ad agencies, leading them to numerous Ad Age & Campaign Agency of the Year titles and working with half of the world’s top 20 consumer goods clients in the process. His entrepreneurial spirit has lead him to found both an independent ad agency (Redbrick Road) and a brand communication consultancy (Harbour). Paul is also a NED to two start-up adtech businesses.
Alex Lund – Director of Trade Marketing – Asahi UK
Alex has a 20+ year career within FMCG and believes that great strategy and shopper insights can lead to connecting customers, shoppers and consumers. Having worked at Coca-Cola EP and Asahi UK Alex has extensive experience within retail channels both online and in store bringing surprise and delight through disruptive activations using assets such as Rugby World Cup with Asahi Super Dry this year. Alex’s focus is also spent in the On Trade where her team use customer experience to unlock trial of the portfolio of brands within Asahi UK.
Becky McKinlay – Managing Director – Alpha Grid, a Financial Times Company
Becky is the newly appointed MD at Alpha Grid, a Financial Times Company, focussed on content production.
Becky has spent her career in creative, comms and media environments.
Immediately preceding Alpha Grid, Becky was Head of client strategy, creative and media at Economist Impact. She had led global client teams for WPP, founded and run her own agency (Ambition Communications) as well as held senior marketing roles within travel, tech and media businesses.
Justin Reid – TripAdvisor
Justin Reid has been at the forefront of Tripadvisor’s destination marketing and travel media solutions for over 8 years now. It’s been an ups and downs kind of ride, especially over the past 2 years but we’re all still here so I guess that’s something. Prior to that he was the digital director at VisitBritain during the early adoption of digital marketing and in the run up to the 2012 Olympic Games. Travel is his passion and in his mind there is no more worthwhile job than trying to ensure people have the best holiday possible each and every year. Tripadvisor is the world’s largest travel platform and just recently celebrated over 1 billion reviews on the platform.
Jon Eserin – Assistant Director, Public Fundraising & Mass Engagement – RSPCA
Jon has been leading award winning fundraising and marketing teams in the not-for-profit sector for over 20 years both within charities and agencies, raising significant funds in the process. Currently at the RSPCA, Jon is responsible for their mass public fundraising campaigns, overseeing a diverse range of marketing activities and teams with responsibility for income generation in excess of £120m per annum for the Society. Jon is passionate about the creativity and strategic thinking that agencies bring to bear promoting the fantastic work of charity organisations.
Rachel Vardon – EMEA Lead Tripadvisor Marketing Solutions – TripadvisorÂ
Rachel is responsible for leading a team of legends, who form Tripadvisor’s creative agency across all clients and agencies. From huge Never-Been-Done-Before innovations (which win awards), to cross-brand, always on strategies (powered by our unrivalled data), we absolutely love delighting clients and consumers alike
Gellan Watt
Gellan Watt is an award-winning Creative Director and Agency Founder, who, with his partners, grew an independent agency group to c. £60m revenue before successful exit in 2016. Following this exit he now works as a Global Brand Advisor, Agency Non Exec, and Creative Strategist and Investor. He also hold the position of Creative Chair of the Alliance of Independent Agencies – championing independent UK to clients worldwide
Laura Oliphant – Founder & MD – Stand
Laura is an industry expert with a passion for big thinking and not following the crowd. With a belief that communications done well can change the way people think, feel and act, Laura has spent her career creating campaigns to do just that.
Before launching Stand in 2012, Laura spent ten years building integrated agency Kindred. With a passion for big ideas, built on strong insight and strategy, there isn’t an issue Laura hasn’t tackled. From education to sport, banking to social care, Laura now focuses on building brands that Believe in Better.
