David Taylor, founder and managing partner, brandgym
David Taylor is one of the world's top 50 marketing thinkers alive today according to the CIM, and a Fellow of the Marketing Society. He is the founder and managing partner of the brandgym, a network of brand coaches who help teams develop an inspiring vision and the action plans to turn this into growth. He has worked with many top companies such as T-Mobile, Unilever, Kraft, the BBC and SAB Miller.
David is the author of four highly acclaimed books on branding: Where's the Sausage?, the brandgym, Brand Stretch and Brand Vision. He also writes one of Europe's top 10 branding blogs at www.wheresthesausage.com.
He has appeared as a branding expert on ITV's Tonight with Trevor McDonald and is a regular speaker at branding conferences. He has written articles for publications including The Guardian, Marketing, Market Leader, Brand Strategy and Marketing Business.
He began his career in brand management with Procter & Gamble before completing an MBA at INSEAD, France. He then started and successfully grew the Paris office of Added Value, Europe's leading marketing consultancy that is now part of WPP.
Peter Field, author of “Marketing in the Age of Accountability”
Peter has been a consultant for the last ten years. Prior to that he ran the account planning departments at Bates and Grey. He has worked in most categories and on over 90 brands.
He set up the IPA DataBANK in 1996 and was a judge of the Effectiveness Awards in 1998. In 2007 he co-authored ‘Marketing in the Era of Accountability’ with Les Binet. The book represents the widest review of learning from the DataBANK yet undertaken, learning from which forms the basis of his analysis of advertising in a recession. Earlier this year he authored the IPA report ‘Advertising in a Downturn’ a review of current research, including his own. He is an honorary Fellow of the IPA.
Les Binet, author of “Marketing in the Age of Accountability”
Having read Physics at Oxford, Les took an M. Phil. in Artificial Intelligence at Edinburgh University. His research there focussed on the use of computer models to study the way human beings process language. In 1987, he joined the Account Planning department at BMP (now DDB London), where he turned his modelling skills to the problem of measuring the effects of advertising. He currently heads DDB Matrix, DDB’s in-house econometrics consultancy.
Over the years, Les has worked for a wide range of clients, including Unilever, Heinz, Nestlé, Volkswagen, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft, Sony, AXA, and Anheuser Busch. He has also played an important part in establishing DDB’s reputation for effectiveness, having won more IPA Advertising Effectiveness Awards than anyone else in the history of the competition.
Since 2001, he has served on the IPA’s Value of Advertising Committee, helping to promote effectiveness and evaluation in the wider marketing community. In 2004 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the IPA, in recognition of his services to the advertising industry, and in 2005 he was Convenor of Judges for the IPA Awards.
In 2007, Les Binet and Peter Field published “Marketing in the era of accountability”, a major study of the factors that influence marketing effectiveness. This research is based on the IPA dataBANK, a database of effectiveness case histories, which Les and Peter helped to design and build for the IPA.
Gayle Troberman, GM, Advertising & Customer Engagement Microsoft
Gayle has been driving marketing innovations at Microsoft for more than 12 years. She founded the industry’s first digital branded entertainment team (BEET) at MSN. She purchased some of the first offline advertising for a dot.com brand while heading up marketing for Microsoft’s Sidewalk and internet start-up businesses back in 1997. And she is currently breaking new ground everyday, as GM of Advertising for the wide range of audiences and brands Microsoft engages with around the globe.
Gayle’s team is responsible for global advertising, relationship marketing and digital strategy for Microsoft’s consumer, business to business and developer focused products and services including: Windows, Office, Windows Live, SQL Server and more.
Prior to Microsoft, Gayle spent ten years in the NYC agency world managing consumer marketing and business development programs at Manning, Selvage & Lee and NW Ayer for a range of clients making everything from softwear to footwear.
She has a Bachelor of Science from Ithaca College and was born and raised in Rhode Island.
Levi Roots
Levi Roots is the singer who "slayed" the dragons of BBC2's business show with a reggae tune.
He convinced the millionaire investors on Dragons' Den to back his plan to produce his Reggae Reggae sauce on a large scale.
Now Roots, from Brixton, runs a highly successful business, with distribution deals in several high street supermarkets.
Roots originally sold Jerk Chicken and ribs using his grandmother's secret recipe barbecue sauce for several years at Notting Hill Carnival.
Will Whitehorn, president, Virgin Galactic
Education: The University of Aberdeen, 1977 – 1981, MA Hons History & Economics.
Previous employment: British Airways, Thomas Cook, TSB Group plc.
Will Whitehorn joined the Virgin Group as group public relations manager in 1987. Over the next several years he was responsible for presenting Virgin’s joint venture strategy and spent several months working in Japan and began to move into a more general management role. Will worked on the strategy to expand the brand into new areas such as financial services and telecoms. From 1997 onwards, Will became part of a team developing the Virgin branded venture capital model for global expansion. In 2000, he was appointed brand development and corporate affairs director for Virgin. In 2004 he became president of Virgin Galactic. In 2007 he took on that role in an executive capacity and became a special advisor to Sir Richard Branson. He is also a trustee of the Virgin Unite social entrepreneurship and environmental not for profit foundation.
In addition to his Virgin involvement, Will was appointed as non-executive chairman of Next Fifteen Communications Group plc, the global technology PR consultancy, in January 2004. He is also a member of the Development Board of The University of Aberdeen. In 2007 he was also invited to join the advisory board of the BNSC (British National Space Centre).
Nick Vermont, regional CEO, McCain Foods
Nick Vermont, began his career with McCain Foods (GB) Ltd 25 years ago. In January 2005 he was appointed CEO and his responsibilities now encompass both South Africa, Eastern Europe and PAS (Grantham) as well as retaining responsibility for GB and Ireland which he previously held as managing director of GB for 7 years.
Before this he spent 7 years as managing director of PAS (Grantham) Ltd, the McCain division responsible for packing Retailer Label products. During the preceding 10 years he worked in marketing and product development with McCain in both GB and Canada. Prior to this he was with Travellers Fare, (the catering division of British Rail) for 3 years, having gained a Business Studies Degree at Kingston University.
He has been a member of the British Potato Council (renamed this year as the Potato Council Limited – PCL) since its inception in 1997, and is currently chairman of the Marketing Committee. He is a member of the executive committee of the Food and Drink Federation Council.
Antti Ohrling, co-founder, Blyk
Antti is a co-founder of Blyk. Antti has over 25 years experience as a senior manager in branded goods, retail and wholesale, publishing, film and advertising industries. In 1991 Antti was appointed managing director of Film and TV production at WSOY one of the leading publishers in Finland. He has since gone on to produce a number of award-winning documentaries, corporate and marketing films which have won plaudits in the USA and Europe.
Antti is the chairman of Contra Advertising, which operates in London, Helsinki, Beijing and Shanghai. He is also on executive boards for more than 10 companies; a well-versed speaker, Antti is a regular at lectures on global marketing and brand issues for international audiences.
Sir Keith Mills, TEAMORIGIN, Britain’s America’s Cup Team
Sir Keith Mills was born and educated in the UK. He founded Air Miles International Group BV (AMIG) in 1988 to develop the AIR MILES programme. Formerly chairman of Loyalty Management Group Ltd (LMG) which is the company which owns and manages the Nectar programme in the UK and licenses Air Miles programmes internationally.
In September 2003 Sir Keith was appointed international president and CEO of London 2012, the company that was established to bid for the 2012 Olympic Games. Sir Keith led the team and along with Lord Coe was responsible for developing the bid strategy and persuading the 115 IOC members that London should be granted the rights to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012. On 6 July 2005, in Singapore, London beat off competition from New York, Paris, Madrid and Moscow to win the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Having established the London 2012 organisation which will plan and organise the Games (LOCOG), Sir Keith remains as deputy chairman alongside Lord Coe to oversee operations. Sir Keith is also a non executive director of Tottenham Hotspur Plc.
In 2005 Sir Keith received a number of awards including: Master Entrepreneur of the Year, Chief Executive of the Year and the Sports Industry Businessman of the Year.
On 4 January 2007 Sir Keith announced his intention to lead a new British America’s Cup team called TEAMORIGIN, which will compete for the next America’s Cup Challenge.
Matthew Pinsent, Olympian
Four times Olympic gold medallist Sir Matthew Pinsent is one of Great Britain’s most successful and highest profile athletes of all time.
In August 2004 at the Athens Olympic Games, Matthew entered Olympic history by becoming one of only 5 athletes to win 4 consecutive Gold medals, beating the Canadian World Champions by only eight one hundredths of a second.
On 30th November 2004 Matthew announced his retirement from international rowing. Matthew is an outstanding motivational and after dinner speaker and in the 2005 New Year’s Honours list he was awarded a knighthood.
Simon Clift, chief marketing officer, Unilever
Born in Chalfont St Giles, England, Simon Clift studied Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge.
After university he joined Unilever in 1982 as a management trainee in marketing at the UK personal care company, Elida Gibbs. Over the next nine years, he held various marketing positions in the UK, Portugal and Austria before becoming marketing director at Unilever Mexico in 1991.
In 1994 he returned to London to his ‘home’ company as marketing director.
In 1997 he was appointed managing director of Elida Gibbs Brazil, Unilever’s second largest personal care business globally (after the US) and three years later became chairman of Unilever’s Latin American Personal Care category, also based in São Paulo.
In January 2001, with the establishment of Unilever’s global Home & Personal Care Division, he was appointed president of marketing and dragged reluctantly back from Brazil. In April 2005 with the further reorganisation of Unilever, he was appointed group vice-president for Personal Care. As such, he was directly responsible for the worldwide strategy, marketing, innovation and advertising of Unilever’s €12 bio personal care business.
In June 2008 he relinquished his category responsibilities to focus full time on the role of global chief marketing officer - Unilever’s first. As such, he is responsible for how Unilever develops and executes its core function of marketing across all categories – incorporating worldwide advertising agency policy, market research, media planning and buying, marketing capability, talent development, recruitment and training. He is also responsible for the development of the Unilever company brand.
He is interested in music - particularly of the Baroque period - and the arts in general and is a season ticket holder at Chelsea. He lives in London with a counterfeit Brazilian Dalmatian, and, for part of the year at least, with his Brazilian foster son, but escapes more frequently than is decent to his home in Paraty, a fine colonial town on the coast in the state of Rio de Janeiro.
Jill McDonald, senior vice president and chief marketing officer UK and
Northern Europe, McDonalds Restaurants
Jill holds a 1st class Business Studies degree and began her marketing career at Colgate Palmolive as a graduate trainee before joining British Airways as a brand manager in 1990. During her time at British Airways Jill held a number of senior positions within Brand Management, Advertising & Sponsorship.
Jill was posted to Hong Kong in 1995 to look after regional sales & marketing for the East Asia region. On her return to the UK she was promoted to general manager for Global Marketing and In-Flight Business with responsibilities spanning global advertising, sponsorship, design, research, in-flight retail, entertainment and employee engagement. Jill joined McDonald’s in June 2006 as senior vice president, chief marketing officer, her remit includes Marketing, Product Development, Business Strategy & Insight.
Jo Kenrick, marketing and customer proposition director, B&Q
Jo is currently marketing and customer proposition director on the board of B&Q, who she joined in February 2006, having previously been marketing director of the National Lottery for three and a half years. Prior to that she held various sales and marketing positions with Masterfoods, Walkers, Snackfoods, Asda, Woolworths and the house builders Wilson Connolly.
In her current role she has responsibility for Customer Insight, Proposition Development, Format Development, Communications, PR, CSR, Multi-Channel development and DIY.com, and the management and development of B&Q’s own and exclusive brands.
Kelvin Mackenzie
Kelvin has been a journalist for more than four decades. He started on a local paper in South East London, moved on to a news agency and then the Daily Express. Apart from a period of two years when he went to Manhattan as managing editor of The New York Post, he has spent his journalistic career with Britain’s No.1 selling newspaper. He was the Editor for 13 years from 1981.
Then followed a brief period as managing director of BskyB followed by three years as MD of Live TV.
Finally he started his own business and founded Talksport, Britain’s most successful commercial radio station. It was losing £10million a year and he turned it around so that today it makes £6million a year. He sold the company to UTV for £100million. He still has strong links with the Sun writing a weekly column as well as chairman and substantial shareholder in a video technology business.
Tony Juniper
Tony Juniper is a well known environmental campaigner and commentator. He began his career as an ornithologist. From 1990 he worked at Friends of the Earth and has was the organisation’s executive director from 2003-2008 and was the vice chair of Friends of the Earth International from 2000-2008.
Tony Juniper now works in a variety of roles.
In addition to being a special adviser to the Prince of Wales’ Rainforest Project, he is also a senior associate with the Cambridge University Program for Industry. He speaks and writes and sits on several advisory panels. Tony Juniper is the author of several books, including How Many Light Bulbs Does It Take To Change A Planet?