Author of "Madison Avenue Manslaughter," a critical assessment of the current state of the advertising industry. Winner of the Axiom Gold Business Book Award for the best Marketing / Advertising book of 2016. Winner of the Independent Publisher's Silver Business Book Award 2017.

Marla has worked in advertising, focused on media and communications planning for over 25 years, leading diverse multi-layered accounts for clients like Procter & Gamble and Avon, among others. This experience has afforded her a genuine understanding of the client and agency relationship, and the role of people in delighting clients and driving growth for them. In 2012, she was recognized by AdvertisingAge as a ‘Woman to Watch’ and was the recipient of the John A. Reisenbach Foundation Distinguished Citizen Award in 2016.

Kanika has 15+ years of experience as a skilled ‘entrepreneur’ for large organizations, with proven track record of launching businesses across global markets in business services, consumer, fashion, retail eCommerce and education sectors. Proven strengths in developing and executing market entry strategies, a segment focused product/ service development, developing a global work culture, productivity improvement and delivery, people leadership, and stakeholder management. Known as a multipotentialite- for multi-potential skills, across sectors and industries. 

Current areas of interest: Work at the cusp of design+management+talent, in young and mature organization and build sustainable organizations

Professor Charles Spence is the head of the Crossmodal Research Laboratory at the Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University (http://psy.medsci.ox.ac.uk/research/crossmodal-research-laboratory). He is interested in how people perceive the world around them. In particular, how our brains manage to process the information from each of our different senses (such as smell, taste, sight, hearing, and touch) to form the extraordinarily rich multisensory experiences that fill our daily lives. 

His research focuses on how a better understanding of the human mind will lead to the better design of multisensory foods, products, interfaces, and environments in the future. His research calls for a radical new way of examining and understanding the senses that has major implications for the way in which we design everything from household products to mobile phones, and from the food we eat to the places in which we work and live.

President of Arthur W. Page Society -- global membership organization for corporate chief communication officers and PR agency CEOs -- whose members help their enterprises build brand and reputation and earn trust by developing a strong corporate character and authentically engaging with key stakeholders. Prior experience in corporate communications at Aetna and IBM, and in government public affairs at the White House, U.S. Treasury, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and U.S. Congress.

To her clients and colleagues, Melissa Waggener Zorkin is renowned for her belief in purpose, possibility and the power of communications to transform businesses and move people to action. Under Melissa’s direction as CEO, along with co-founder Pam Edstrom, WE Communications has grown to become one of the world’s largest global independent communications firms with a talented work force of more than 800 strong. Developing future agency leaders and motivating/mentoring young people to build a career in communications are among Melissa’s top priorities.

Melissa recently joined the Board of Advisors to the University of Southern California Annenberg Center for Public Relations, along with other corporate and agency leaders from some of the world’s top companies to connect students and academics with the PR industry. For Melissa, it’s always been important that successful businesses use their influence to help make a difference beyond profits, and she is recognized frequently for her efforts. A Mercy Corps board member since 2006, Melissa is particularly interested in helping women entrepreneurs start their own businesses around the world, and she has been recognized for her contributions, particularly in Africa.  Melissa also ensures that WE walks its talk in many creative ways, most recently, by creating the Global Pro Bono program, which allows employees to do impactful communications work in different parts of the world, including Ghana and Rwanda. In addition to giving all employees 16 hours off annually in service to their favorite non-profit organizations, WE recently established the Pam Edstrom Scholarship fund, which brings in new talent into the communications industry.

Viveca founded WE Marketing Group in 2005 together with 6 working partners. WE is the leading independent agency group in China with over 200 staff and offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing and Hong Kong. Its mission: help global brands localize and local brands globalize. WE has the most senior management team that uniquely combines in depth China knowledge with multinational brand marketing experience. WE clients include Estee Lauder, Mercedes Benz, Sharp, Kjeldsens Butter Cookies, Visit California, Lufthansa Corelle, ICBC and many more.

Viveca started WE Digital in 2011, a digital agency with special expertise in China social media. Clients include Kjeldsens, Campbells/Swansons, Staples, Marriott Rewards, Nijiom, Cisco, Society of Actuaries and Visit California.

Viveca's latest venture is founding WE Commerce, providing one stop e-commerce solution including planning, product mix, channel development, sales management, warehousing and logistics, operation management, customer service, digital marketing and CRM. It has already has signed up two clients: Kjeldsens and Campbell's Swanson and is their on-line distributor, not just service provider.

Before starting WE, Viveca was Chairman & CEO of Grey Global Group, working for Grey for over 25 years. Viveca was instrumental in building Grey's China network since 1989 and developed its multi-disciplines including Mediacom, PR, CRM and interactive in the 90's and 2000's.

Andrew is an international marketer with over 18 years of experience developing and transforming high profile brands.

Richard is an English inventor, entrepreneur and speaker. He founded Gravity Industries Ltd in March 2017, the company behind the "Daedalus Mark 1", a flight suit that uses six miniature jet engines to achieve vertical flight. The kerosene engines are rated at 22kg of thrust each.  Browning uses his arms to control the direction and speed of the flight, while a display inside the helmet gives updates on fuel consumption and other usage data. He achieved a speed of 32.02 miles per hour (51.53 km/h) with the suit during a Guiness World Records attempt for ‘Fastest speed in a body controlled jet engine powered suit’.

Browning has been dubbed the 'real-life Iron Man' by media outlets around the world.

Brett Lofgren is currently the President of NewsWhip, North America. NewsWhip is a social discovery and content analytics platform that tracks and predicts engagement from the world's news and social, powering a suite of products used by journalists, editors, marketers, communications and PR professionals.

The Foresight Factory (formerly the Future Foundation) collects and analyses exclusive data from 50,000 consumers in 20 countries. Meabh will set the scene for the Summit, identifying the key new consumer trends likely to affect our business in the next 12 months. Some you may know, others may surprise you!

Manuel studied piano when he was 6 years old.

Later, electronics at the Lisbon Engineering Institute.

He founded the band “Trovante” in 1976 where he was pianist and producer for 17 years.

Tim Williams is founder of Ignition Consulting Group, a U.S.-based consultancy with a global footprint devoted to helping agencies and other professionals service firms create and capture more value. Tim is a noted author, international speaker, and presenter for major associations and business conferences worldwide. His seminars have been featured by the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4As), Association of National Advertisers (ANA, U.S.), Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA, U.K.), Institute of Communication Agencies (ICA, Canada), International Advertising Association (IAA), and numerous agency networks including WPP, Omnicom, Publicis, Havas, Dentsu Aegis and many independent firms around the globe.

Tim is the author of two books, “Positioning for Professionals: How Professional Firms Can Differentiate Their Way to Success” and “Take a Stand for Your Brand: Building a Great Agency Brand from the Inside Out.” 

During his 28 years of management experience, has worked in retail management, customer research, sales, marketing and retail consultancy. He has experienced the needs of all businesses, regardless of size, having worked for both local and multi-national organizations.

Simon is a Thought Leading Futurist in the field of Marketing & AdTech, inc. AI, IoT, Connected Home, Voice, Language Recognition, Computer Vision, Social Bots, AR, VR, MR.
He has crafted the story of Unruly Future Home, to give brands and agencies a glimpse of the Connected Home of 2020, the next wave of marketing.

Alex has worked on all sides of the communications business for 20 years. He was a partner of FischerHealth—winner of the Holmes Report’s Health Care Firm of the Year and PRWeek’s Creative Agency of the Year. He sold the firm to Omnicom and completed a highly successful earn out. Alex is adept at designing and deploying systems that enhance business performance and value. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a BS in Business Management.

TV presenter, conference facilitator and communications coach, with a career spanning fifteen years in front of the camera. When she’s not in the studio, Sian is a confident conference facilitator and moderator who, has worked with many of the world’s leading international brands.

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Yvette was a media advisor and a spokesperson of the Prime Minister Marin Raykov and the caretaker government in 2013. She was advisor to the President Rossen Plevneliev (2012 - 2017) during his election campaign and thereafter. 

Yvette had a remarkable twelve years career at the Bulgarian National Television (BNT) as a TV presenter, political editor, special correspondent in different news/political programmes. For more than 15 years she was the producer of every edition of the special election coverage programmes of the BNT.

Toba works across Clear Channel’s digital and paper portfolio, servicing specialists, agencies and clients requirements.

Toba manages the dynamic delivery of campaigns drawing up campaign and supplier plans as well as editing legal documents for content moderation.

Sandrine launched her first agency in 1998.  Nutrilys, specialized in educational communication and nutrition. Whilst at Nutrilys we created "Les Enfants du Gout", a fun and educational course designed to introduce children to the pleasures of a healthy lifestyle.  In 2002, Nutrilys was merged with the Protein Group, which specializes in consulting on health strategies and public health communication.

Consultant and writer at Contagious Communications, working on diverse projects for BBC Worldwide, Universal Music, Louis Vuitton and Diageo while also contributing to the quarterly magazine, and delivering briefings and presentations.

Inspired by her purpose of leading smart people and bringing out the best execution in teams in order to win, Katherine Madley has spanned an ambitious and rewarding career of 19 years in blue chip business, 13 of these years have been spent in Executive Roles. Currently the Group Executive of Product Marketing at Alexander Forbes, Katherine leads and collaborates with a group of talented experts in the fields of retirement, life insurance, short term insurance as well as wealth and investments to take products to market that demonstrably improve people's financial wellbeing.

Peter is an accomplished management executive with experience in the advertising, media and technologysectors. Skilled in business development, product management, public policy and industry advocacy.

Melina’s career has spanned 25 years of experience in London’s exciting digital industry and is one of the most recognisable figures in the digital industry. 

As a pioneer of talent for the digital economy, Melina founded Propel London in 2001 and the agency is now one of the UK’s largest independent digital talent businesses. Through her invaluable expertise in digital talent, she has helped hundreds of businesses grow through the acquisition of skilled digital professionals. She has also invested and advised many high growth tech companies and has mentored founders in the digital ecosystem. She takes a real interest in female founders.

Over the last 16 years, Ali has worked for some of London's top agencies (R/GA, AKQA, Karmarama, DigitasLBi et al) on the world's most-loved brands (Dulux, Guinness, Nike, British Airways, IKEA, etc). Most recently, she has been working at Blippar, exploring the creative intersection where visual search meets augmented reality. 

Rob is a digital marketing, channel and communications director with a strong background in leading digital brand transformation and social media strategy across a range of industries.

After a long and successful term at IRIS Worldwide, Selwyn founded Ngine Room in 2017 along with five other specialist consultants looking to improve how businesses run their operations. 

Tamara is a multi-disciplined Marketing Director with strategic, commercial and operational marketing experience in the travel and hospitality sector, focused on delivering demonstrable results in complex multi-site environments.

Tim is the Customer Director - responsible for E-Commerce P&L (UK & International), Brand positioning and Marketing presentation including all Digital and Off line Marketing, ECRM, Customer Data and Insights, Visual Merchandising, Customer Services, Studio Services.

Caroline is the Founder and Chairman of Cirkle, one of the UK’s leading PR & Digital communications consultancies, driving 'Influence in the Round' for some of the country's best loved consumer brands.

Robinson has the Master Degree of Chinese University of Hong Kong, and used to work at Alibaba Group and Baidu before, focusing on marketing field and branding consultancy. His team in Sina Weibo is offering professional analysis on social listening and Chinese young users social behaviors.

He keeps serving clients from FMCG, IT, cosmetics and luxury industries, especially global companies like P&G, Estee Lauder and LVMH Group brands.

Alain de Maurier is the Sales & Marketing Director EMEA at Westwin (which, prior to 2016, was Microsoft China). 

Peter is an experienced advertising and media practitioner with over 20 years in the field, of which the last 15 years was in China.

Kemdi is a proven pioneer and stern advocate for innovation that yields sustainable growth for the African continent.

Anabelle Hourriez is the Managing Director at Labbrand, the leading China-originated global brand consultancy that creates meaningful brand experiences by bringing together excellence in research, strategy, design and verbal identity.

Anabelle believes in the power of the cultural lens over branding and is passionate about accompanying brands in their quest to emotionally connect with consumers across the globe.

With a decade’s work experience in China, Anabelle has previously worked for Chanel Asia and PSA Peugeot Citroen. At Labbrand, Anabelle fosters project excellence across various consulting teams and manages key accounts at a strategic level to continuously deliver actionable branding solutions to clients from a variety of industries. Notable clients include Volkswagen Group, Mondelez, Haribo, Weber and Bottega Veneta.

Jack is an Inc-500 award entrepreneur, and former Rand Corporation senior analyst. His current work focuses on bringing 50+ years of largely neglected (or ignored) business, behavioral and cognitive research insights to life, to make workplaces more humanistic, empowering and inclusive. As CEO of AgencyAgile, he defined a new, empowering form of Agile, which he and his team have deployed with over 100 agencies and other organizations, helping thousands of people, increasing team and client happiness dramatically, improving quality of work, and making many business owners happier through improved culture, revenue and margin.

Jack started his career in factory automation with a dual degree in Industrial Engineering and Computer Science from Northern Illinois University, and later earned an MBA from University of Southern California in entrepreneurship and finance. He has held post-graduate teaching roles at USC's Marshall School of Business and RAND’s Pardee Graduate School for Public Policy.

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Viveca founded WE Marketing Group in 2005 together with 6 working partners. WE is the leading independent agency group in China with over 200 staff and offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing and Hong Kong. Its mission: help global brands localize and local brands globalize. WE has the most senior management team that uniquely combines in depth China knowledge with multinational brand marketing experience. WE clients include Estee Lauder, Mercedes Benz, Sharp, Kjeldsens Butter Cookies, Visit California, Lufthansa Corelle, ICBC and many more.

Viveca started WE Digital in 2011, a digital agency with special expertise in China social media. Clients include Kjeldsens, Campbells/Swansons, Staples, Marriott Rewards, Nijiom, Cisco, Society of Actuaries and Visit California.

Viveca's latest venture is founding WE Commerce, providing a one stop e-commerce solution including planning, product mix, channel development, sales management, warehousing and logistics, operation management, customer service, digital marketing and CRM. It has already has signed up two clients: Kjeldsens and Campbell's Swanson and is their on-line distributor, not just service provider.

WE uniquely links their client's brand from image/awareness to engagement to sales, optimizing brand investment ROI.

Before starting WE, Viveca was Chairman & CEO of Grey Global Group, working for Grey for over 25 years. Viveca was instrumental in building Grey's China network since 1989 and developed its multi-disciplines including Mediacom, PR, CRM and interactive in the 90's and 2000’s.

Aimee is revolutionising both the brand marketing and independent film industries, AAA helps brands and producers overcome their individual challenges by facilitating strategic partnerships between them, playing to both their strengths, focusing predominantly on content for social media.

In 2010, Lionel co-founded MNSTR (pronounced ‘monster’).

MNSTR's raison d'être is storytelling through brand content, social media engagement and integrated campaigns.

BRAND STRATEGY & DIGITAL STORIES

MNSTR helps brands to CONNECT to content, culture & communities, and above all, PEOPLE!

MNSTR uses CREATIVITY to drives actionable recommendations and activations, to help our clients DRIVE CHANGE and IMPACT throughout their different BUSINESSES.

In 6 years MNSTR has grown to become 45 MNSTR's. 

Marsha Lindsay is the CEO of Lindsay Foresight & Stratagem, the international think tank and marketing consultancy she founded in 2017. The firm specializes in methods that reliably identify emerging issues and opportunities on the horizon for marketers. And then, to address them, does further research and analysis to prescribe day after tomorrow strategies that future-proof and grow companies, brands and careers.

LF&S’s 2019 research findings focus on the criticality of enlightening everyone in an organization on the convergence of business and marketing strategy.  In her Indie Summit presentation, she’ll explain what this (essentially the marketing of marketing enterprise-wide) means given what constitutes marketing effectiveness in the future; why this enterprise-wide role is the emerging and now critical responsibility of CMO’s.  She’ll share examples of companies whose growth potential (or lack thereof) is due to their lack of this enlightenment. And, along with some ‘how-to’ on the marketing of marketing, she’ll share

the unique role independent agencies (be they advertising, PR or other) can play in the CMO’s success in this new role. 

Marsha’s previous thought leadership has been featured at Deloitte’s think tank at UC Berkeley, Zurich’s Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute of Economic and Social Studies, The World Business Forum in New York City, the IPA’s 2017 Marketing Effectiveness Week in London, Columbia University’s MBA program, thenetworkone’s Indie Summit in London, the 4A’s Accelerate Conference and the 4A’s StratFest. Her insights have been reported by Investor’s Business Daily, The New York Times, Fast Company, Adobe’s CMO.com, Forbes, and Ad Age, among others. Marsha also serves as Chair of Lindsay, Stone & Briggs, the agency she founded and for 37 years led as CEO. (Ad Age recognized the firm as a Small Agency of the Year.) Clients Marsha has served range from the Fortune 100 and multi-nationals to venture capital-infused startups, as well as the 4A’s (The American Association of Advertising Agencies).

Michael has been based in Japan since 2002, and with more than 20 years experience in games and marketing. Focussed on the power of technologies and culture for driving engagement.

He founded esports and games specialist agency, PlayBrain Inc, in 2016 to focus on the marketing needs of games companies and to create platforms to inspire gamers and fans. Previously founded and ran creative agency, UltraSuperNew, in Tokyo for 9 years.

Michael has worked with many global brands including Red Bull, Riot Games, Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Supercell, MINI, Audi, Nike, Beats by Dre, ASICS, Bandai Namco, Google, Taito and more.

Ramaa Mosley is a Director/Writer who made her first film at the age of 16 years old winning the prestigious United Nation's Global 500 Award. Over the past twenty years, Mosley has directed feature films and hundreds of award-winning commercials building a career directing action and genuine human stories. In 2015, she was named one of Shoot Magazine's top 10 Female Directors to Watch. She is the founder of Adolescent Content, a global Creative GenZ Studio and recently gave a Ted Talk about being a teen director called "The Power of Adolescent Directors"

Mosley directed her debut feature film, based on the original comic book she co-wrote, titled "The Brass Teapot" starring Juno Temple which premiered at TIFF, was distributed by Magnolia pictures and in 2013 was nominated for the International Critics' Award (FIPRESCI) and Saturn Award. 

In Fall of 2014, Mosley directed the Afghan Segment of "Girl Rising" which was nominated for Outstanding Documentary at the Image Awards. Since then, she has been a vocal advocate for girl and women's rights around the world, launching the US social media campaign behind Bring Back Our Girls.

Mosley's second feature film, "Lost Child” aka Tatterdemalion, which she directed and co-wrote, was purchased by Breaking Glass and was released theatrically September 14, 2018. The dramatic thriller was shot in the Ozarks and stars Levin Rambin, Taylor John Smith and Jim Parrack won Best Narrative feature at KC film festival and Best Actress at the 64th Taormina Film Festival in Italy. 

Mosley was selected for NBC’s Female Forward Program and will be directing episode 13 on BlindSpot. 

Julian is the Founder of thenetworkone and has final responsibility for all aspects of the Indie Summit

Hope  is Co-Founder and Executive Producer of Adolescent Content, a global media studio dedicated to content created by Gen Z filmmakers for the Gen Z audience. With a think tank, production company and digital platform which represents prodigious directors, photographers and social media influencers (as young as 13 years old). Adolescent’s function is to harness each Creator's natural visual and storytelling gift, support them with seasoned production teams, and connect them with advertising agencies and brands looking for a unique and youth oriented voice. 

For over twelve years, Hope has been an Executive Producer and Line Producer at the major commercial production companies in the industry, as well as an Agency Producer at the largest advertising agencies in the US. Farley has produced hundreds of commercials and web content.

Farley, co-founded Adolescent Content in 2014 with commercial director, Ramaa Mosley.

A serial entrepreneur, international speaker, Global Author and Founder of BoB Group. By age 24 Linzi had set up and sold two businesses. Her second company was sold to Caterpillar and her third business, Surgery, championed some of the most well- respected brands known today. Linzi co-Founded the BoB Group with Darren Shirlaw, working alongside him and acting as an ambassador in the enterprise market, teaching entrepreneurs how to design, build and activate a brand-led growth plan for bigger valuation and scale, creating the face of modern business.

A mathematician, ex-fund manager, co-Founder of the Shirlaws Group, and an economic commentator. Sharing his unique set of skills with the SME entrepreneur community, Darren co-founded The BoB Group with Linzi Boyd and acts as an ambassador to the SME sector through speaking engagements, running retreats and strategic meetings. Today Darren works alongside clients and helps SME owners grow their businesses, guiding them on their future journeys so they can ultimately achieve their goals.

Eric is an English-speaking Tai Chi & Feng Shui Master from Beijing. He started his career as an English-Chinese translator & interpreter 10 years ago.  At this time, he started studying Tai Chi and Qigong and fell in love with it. 

He quit his job as a translator and founded the Beijing San Feng Club to help people combat illness and regain good health. 

Bosun is Co-CEO & Co-founder of Asiance, a digital agency specialized for Asian markets.

Bosun began her career in 2000 at Ahn Graphics, one of the leading communication agencies in Korea as a founding member of their digital organization. In 2004 she decided to establish an agency of her own, working with global brands and equally passionate people. Since its beginning, that agency has worked with over 300 remarkable global brands, and now has 2 offices in Asia (Seoul and Tokyo) with over 60 employees.

Erica Kerner was formerly Vice President of Marketing and Communications for Tiffany & Co. Asia Pacific.  In this role, she was responsible for all aspects of Tiffany’s marketing and communications planning, strategy and implementation across all retail channels and all Asia Pacific countries.

She held a similar position at Ralph Lauren prior to joining Tiffany in 2013 and brings to her role more than 20 years of marketing experience in Asia Pacific, specifically Greater China.  Working for Adidas as director of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, she was responsible for all aspects of the company’s marketing, sponsorship, licensing and business development activities.  She and her team won China’s first-ever Cannes Gold Lion for the adidas Olympics campaign.  Erica held the same role for adidas at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Before joining Adidas, Erica was Director of Marketing and Communications for Special Olympics China, helping to develop the program from 50,000 to 500,000 participants. In addition, as an account director at J. Walter Thompson Shanghai, she was responsible for creative advertising development, product development and retail marketing for DeBeers and PepsiCo.

She also worked at Nike in various roles including director of international marketing for Nike Retail and Asia Pacific marketing manager.  Erica started her marketing and advertising career at Bates Advertising in Taiwan working on multi-national clients.

Erica graduated cum laude from Tufts University in 1989 with a degree in international relations.  She is also a founding steering board member of The Marketing Society Asia and Chairman of the Marketing Society South East Asia.

Marissa Orr from New Jersey, USA, is a former Google and Facebook executive, leadership speaker and author of the 2019 best-selling book ‘Lean Out: The Truth about Women, Power and the Workplace.’ Featured in Forbes, Fox, Yahoo! Finance, and CNBC, Lean Out is not simply a retort to Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, but a revolutionary path forward with the power to change the lives of men and women in the corporate world and beyond. Marissa also has a Master’s Degree in Decision and Information Sciences from the University of Florida.

Curtis Hougland is CEO of Mainstreet One in New York, a partner in the Dawn Marketing Group. He was a pioneer of social media marketing in the USA and spent 11 years leading the Attention Global agency, before selling it to MDC. Mainstreet One changes social and political outcomes by winning the public debate on behalf of causes, campaigns and corporate issues.

Mathias Wikstrom is Founder and Johan Pihl is Executive Creative Director of the RBK agency in Stockholm, Sweden. RBK developed ‘Doconomy,’ a unique credit card which measures and limits the carbon footprint of a customer’s monthly spending. RBK and Doconomy won the 2019 Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Creative e-Commerce.

Lindsey Slaby has worked for some of the most admired agencies in the US, including AKQA, The Barbarian Group and Droga 5. In 2013 she left the agency world to found Sunday Dinner, with a ground-breaking new approach to marketing and advertising consulting. She works with leading marketers at Blue Chip companies ranging from Microsoft and Samsung to Diageo, Mondelez and Kate Spade, helping them to connect their activities across all the touchpoints of modern marketing. And yes, they do often meet for dinner on a Sunday.

Sean Pillot de Chenecey, based in Brighton UK, is a much-travelled researcher, strategy consultant, public speaker and author. He has more than 20 years experience working with a range of leading brands around the world. His previous book, “The Post-Truth Business” examined the phenomenon of fake news in a ‘post-truth world’ and was voted Business Book of the Year in 2018. His just-published new book, ‘Influencers and Revolutionaries,’ describes how innovative trailblazers, trends and catalysts are transforming business today.

Ella Duda’s early career was mainly in the US, but following a six month assignment with Sixieme Son in Paris she decided to stay on – and six years later, she is now the agency’s international Strategy Director. Founded in 1995, Sixieme Son was a pioneer in audio branding. The agency is dedicated to the strategy and creation of sonic identities and in-store environmental sound design, specifically for brands. Headquartered in Paris, they now also have offices in Spain, Russia, USA, Canada and Australia.

Helene Blanchette began her career with Xerox in Canada, then spent seven years in Asia before returning to North America where after a role as Managing Consultant at Global Fluency and a further stint with Xerox, she is now based in Irvine, California as President of MyJane. MyJane markets cannabis-derived products and has a mission to destigmatise the canna-conversation through education - and empower women to make well-informed health, wellness and lifestyle choices.

Arvid Axland is the Co-Founder of Pool, a successful creative agency in Sweden. He is also the author of the Swedish best-seller ‘Jakten pa Kanslan’ – the art of designing meaningful experiences. He is one of the country’s foremost speakers and strategists in the area of Experiential Marketing

Spencer Gallagher built, ran and sold a $12 million global agency, so he knows how it is done. Today, he runs Cactus, a UK based business consultancy helping owners of small independent agencies to become mid-size independent agencies – typically growing from around $1 million to $10 million in revenue. He is also the author of the book ‘Agencynomics,’ which now also functions as a social enterprise.

Esther Carder is Media Specialist Partner at Moore Kingston Smith (MKS). Kingston Smith is well known in the UK for its annual survey of the Financial Performance of Marketing Services. Following its merger with Moore Stephens, MKS now offers a global resource through the well-established Moore Global network.

Julian Boulding is the Founder and President of thenetworkone, the world’s largest independent agencies organisation; and host of the Indie Summit.

Tobias Degsell was for several years the Museum Educator - and subsequently Curator - of the Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm, Sweden. He loves data, sees the world through patterns and “explains complex stuff in simple words”. In 2016 he left to found his own consulting business, Combiner. Today he helps companies and organisations all over the world on how to take ideas to reality.

Paddy Loughman is an Independent Strategy Director in London, UK, working across brands, businesses and culture change, with a focus on climate and sustainability. He also spent three and a half years as Strategy Director at world renowned branding and design agency, Wolff Olins. Since 2019 he has been a Speaker for Extinction Rebellion.

Rene Fischer began his career as a copywriter at TBWA in Switzerland – but soon outgrew the role. He left the security of his home country to found and develop agencies in Estonia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine and more recently, Uzbekistan and Iran. Today he is Founding Partner and Strategist at Synthesis, a group of hyper-specialised marketing consultancies based in Riga but working all around the world.

Tom Laranjo, an anthropologist by training, is today Managing Director of Total Media in London. Together with CEO Guy Sellers, he has transformed the agency’s media planning and buying business through the application of a full range of research and knowledge capabilities including Neuroscience, data analytics and behavioural economics, attracting a range of clients who would never have worked with a regular media agency.

Stephen Maher is the Founder and CEO of MBA, one of London’s most successful digital and direct marketing agencies. He is also a former Chairman of the Marketing Society, current Chair of the IPA (UK agencies association) Client-Agency Effectiveness Board, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Direct Marketing Association and BAFTA.

Russell Goldsmith also works with sound – but in a very different way. He is the Founder of Audere Communications, a leading Podcasting agency; and also the Producer and Presenter of the award-winning C-Suite Podcast. Audere’s focus is on producing high-quality, very precisely targeted podcasts for Business to Business communications purposes.

Deborah Corn, self-styled ‘Intergalactic Ambassador to the Printerverse’ is a charismatic, unforgettable evangelist for the strength and beauty of print as a communications medium. After a 25+ year career in the print production departments of major US agencies, she founded Print Media Centr and in 2017 her initiative #ProjectPeacock was launched to provide ‘printspiration' and resources for creative and marketing professionals with a passion for print – and to inspire that passion in a new generation of young people in the creative industries.  

Dan Egerton began his career in Corporate Finance and M&A, with stints at PWC, Baker Tilly and Results International. In 2013 he started his own firm, Actus Consulting, providing his clients – many of whom are agencies – with the strategic and practical advice necessary to accelerate their business’s performance, exceed their aspirations and build exceptional long-term value. Dan was voted one of the top three speakers at Indie Summit 2019.