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
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.
To be announced
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.
To be announced
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 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.
To be announced
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.
To be announced
Paul Hammersley – Managing Partner – Harbour
To be announced
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.
To be announced
Jon Eserin – Assistant Director, Public Fundraising & Mass Engagement – RSPCA
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.
