Media Business Course 2023

Biography

Vicky is responsible for leading a team of 100 people who have elevated OMD UK’s planning output to new levels, creating competitive advantage for their clients. Most recently she has overseen the creation of a new department – Connected Performance – which joins media planning with biddable expertise, delivering audience-first thinking.

Prior to joining OMD UK in 2013, Vicky worked on some of the biggest campaigns for household names including John Lewis, Virgin Media and Apple at MGOMD. She continues this passion for the craft of media planning with her current clients, including McDonald’s, Lidl and recent win – Compare the Market.

With over 25 years’ experience and twice named winner of Campaign’s Media Planner of the Year, Vicky was also honoured by the IPA 2021 with a Fellowship. Vicky is committed to ensuring a diverse and inclusive industry – both in the planning work and championing representation across the agency.

Biography

Born in Newport, Wales, Nick graduated from the University of Bristol with a degree in French and Spanish. Joining Saatchi & Saatchi as a graduate trainee, he became managing director nine years later. Nick was one of the nine founders of M&C Saatchi as joint chief executive, became chairman of M&C Saatchi Europe, and opened offices in Paris, Berlin and Madrid. Nick left to found George & Dragon, an ad agency with clients such as HM Government; Kwik Fit; and BAFTA. In 2015, Nick led a management buyout of The Groucho Club becoming chairman there.

In 2021 he joined the AKA Group as Chief Executive. AKA is owned by the Ambassador Theatre Group and specialises in the entertainment sectors, with offices in London, New York and Los Angeles. Clients include ABBA Voyage, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Cabaret, Tina the Musical, Matilda, Pretty Woman, Jerusalem, Sony Pictures, Universal, Disney, Netflix, Apple TV+ and Amazon.

Biography

Davina Barker is Digital Cinema Media’s (DCM) Sales Director, overseeing the company’s agency sales team to generate new and incremental revenues, as well as developing DCM’s relationships with media agencies across the UK. Her primary mission is to drive sustainable long-term growth and prove cinema’s unique value as part of an advertiser’s multi-media schedule and deliver DCM’s plans to align cinema with other AV media channels. Davina was honoured as Commercial Director of the Year at the 2019 British Media Awards, as well as being named as one of Campaign’s commercial sales chiefs of the year for her work in cinema in 2017 and 2018. Prior to DCM, Davina held senior roles at ids & Virgin Media and ITV.

Biography

After leaving school Simon decided that University was not for him and joined the army.

This was followed by work in Venezuela, America and Australia before returning to the UK in 1991 to start work on the ‘new’ Daily Telegraph, which had recently been purchased by Conrad Black. Having managed the launch of the Saturday Magazine in 1995 he decided to set up his own publishing company, and in 1998 sold it to Tony O’Riley’s Independent Magazines.

Simon then joined the fledgling Classic FM and within 4 years it had grown into the biggest commercial radio station in the UK and the most profitable. In 2005 Classic FM and its parent company GWR merged with Capital Radio and Simon became the Group Commercial Director. On the sale of GCap Media to Global, Simon left and joined the early social media revolution working for MySpace as Commercial Director. Simon joined ITV plc in January 2011 as Group Commercial Sales Director and was promoted in 2014 to Deputy Managing Director, Commercial.

In his free time he has rowed across the Irish Sea and walked to the South Pole, unsupported on both trips.

He has also led an expedition to the North Pole with 4 wounded soldiers and HRH Prince Harry. Simon completed his second South Pole challenge in December 2013 for Walking With The Wounded, a charity which he founded and he has raised nearly £10 million for various charities.

Biography

Jehan is from the liberal, tree hugging, friendly part of America, called Canada. He started his career in out-of-home advertising then moved over to publisher sales, both SKY Sports and ESPN. His proudest moment from that era was working with Budweiser in producing a feature length film on giant killing in the FA Cup. He joined Google 9 years ago and leads the relationship with multiple network agencies. The core of his role is working with agency leadership to accelerate digitisation and grow revenue on Google advertising products, like Search, YouTube, Google Marketing Platform, and Cloud.
He lives in Tottenham with his wife, two daughters, legendary dog Oxo, and also a cat.

Biography

Dominic joined Spotify in 2018 and is currently leading the UK agency team as a Director of Sales. Dominic is passionate about inspiring his team to deliver meaningful strategic campaigns that shape global brand performance and success. This is fuelled by ensuring culture, inclusion and diversity is at the heart of everything.

Biography

Katie Bowden is Director of Commercial Audio at Global, one of the world’s leading Media and Entertainment groups and home to market leading brands including Capital, Heart, Classic FM, LBC, Smooth, Radio X and Capital XTRA.

She leads a 200 strong team who work with brands to deliver creative audio advertising campaigns, helping them reach and connect with audiences at scale across the UK on radio, podcasts and online.

Katie joined Global as a Content Solutions Manager in 2011, was promoted to Media and Content Manager in 2013 and then Group Business Director and Commercial Agency Director thereafter. Among other things, Katie has been instrumental in executing the company’s strategy to simplify the buying process for advertisers across Global’s extensive online, audio and outdoor portfolio.

Biography

Kevin Chesters is the Owner & Strategy Partner of Harbour (www.harbour.london) – an independent brand communications consultancy based in London. He has led strategy at British Telecom, Saatchi & Saatchi, Wieden+Kennedy, dentsumcgarrybowen and was most recently the Chief Strategy Officer at Ogilvy. He sits on the Account Planning Committee in the UK and is a frequent contributor to industry titles Adweek, The Drum & Campaign. He is a visiting lecturer in Creativity at three UK universities (UCA, AIU and Edinburgh Napier) – and runs training courses for many companies including Google, Lego, Twitter, Marks & Spencer, BT & Diageo.

“The Creative Nudge” is his first book.

Biography

Louise Stubbings is Partnerships & Creative Director at Clear Channel. She has worked in media for over 20 years, starting her career in press before moving to cinema and OOH. She has held various commercial roles at Clear Channel UK, but her real passion is in her current role as Creative & Partnerships Director, working with her incredible team to bring anything that a client can imagine to life on the streets. A passionate advocate for the industry, she has judged the Cannes Young Lions and works to encourage exciting new talent to join the industry through her mentoring activity with The Girls Network and Brixton Finishing School.

Biography

Richard is the Chief Strategy Officer for Saatchi & Saatchi. A planner by trade he has spent the last 30 years guiding the brands of three of the most iconic UK agencies, AMV.BBDO, HHCL and Saatchi & Saatchi.

Responsible for the agency’s overall strategic output and the effectiveness of its work, Richard specialises in brand strategy for complex organisations with multiple stakeholders and large employee bases including BT, EE, Direct Line and HSBC.

He also looks after Saatchi & Saatchi’s IP output and sponsors Saatchi Open, the agency’s entry level programme aimed at opening-up the ad industry to more diverse talent.

Richard is a regular commentator on brands, strategy and advertising through adliterate, live performances and columns and articles for trade and national press. He is also a trustee of LIFT, London’s international performing arts festival.

Biography

Natalie is a Client Partner for Retail & Telecoms at Clear Channel UK.

She is celebrating more than 17 years working in OOH; a specialism she has been passionate about since starting her career at the tender age of 18, as a Sales Coordinator at Viacom Outdoor (now part of Global).

Moving roles to join Kinetic as a Planning & Buying Executive, she climbed the ranks to Account Director, seeing a 2012 nomination for their ‘Person the Year’ award and working closely with agencies such as Starcom & the7stars to promote & grow Out of Home.

A move back into sales saw Natalie take on an Agency Group Head role at Clear Channel, before promotions to Specialist Partner & now Client Partner positions. Her time at CCUK has seen her champion allyship through internal training, represent their business in 2022’s final pitch for Campaign’s Commercial Team of the Year and even transform into the Easter bunny!

Natalie is CCUK’s ambassador for Brixton Finishing School, a volunteer for ADventure for Schools, and has recently joined the Events Committee for Great Ormond Street Hospital.

She loves musical theatre, the writing of Haruki Murakami & jigsaw puzzles and lives in Romford with her husband and Max the cat.

Biography

Ryan Uhl is the Chief Brand Strategy Officer of Mail Metro Media, working across commercial strategy, brand storytelling and key projects like EDI and sustainability. He began his career at Mindshare over 13 years ago in digital planning and buying, and since then has worked in various roles within the commercial advertising department giving him a holistic view of media and future trends.

Biography

Sophie Strong is Managing Partner of Media Experience at PHD UK and a monthly columnist for New Digital Age. She has worked in digital media for over a decade, spanning areas such as social, programmatic, and broader digital planning.

Sophie has driven step-change which has been recognised at an industry level with award wins for integrated performance, social, programmatic, and technology. She was named as one of Media Week’s 30 under 30 in 2018.

Alongside this Sophie pioneered an industry-leading study on paid social trends which won best research initiative at the Performance Marketing Awards in 2022.

Biography

Having spent the best part of 30 years working for some of the leading creative and media agencies in the industry, Enyi joined UM London in an expanded Chief Strategy Officer role in April 2020.

Uniquely for a media agency, UM has creative and production talent embedded within the strategy and planning teams, which Enyi leads to deliver effective and award-winning work for brands including Johnson & Johnson, Amex, Spotify, Just Eat and Mattel.

Enyi passionately believes Media is a force for good and is committed to using our industry influence, skills and expertise to positively impact society. He has led the development of the Mediabrands ‘5 point plan’ and launch of the Diversity Council to accelerate the change required to create a more equitable and equal environment across Mediabrands agencies.

Enyi is also a member of the MEFA (Media 4 All) Advisory Board, which exists to help Black, Asian and ethnic minority talent thrive in media and advertising companies, ultimately increasing the ethnic diversity of the industry in the UK.

Biography

Kat is proud to have clocked up 17 years in this wonderful industry across various planning and buying roles, as well as spending time in a full service creative agency. Most of these years have been spent at MG OMD, working in sectors that span Public Sector, Automotive, Beauty, Tech, Travel and FMCG. Last year, she joined the leadership team as Managing Director. A proud member of MEFA, Kat is involved in D&I initiatives both in and outside of the agency and is excited to help create a new dawn of responsible practice in the industry.

Biography

Emma Dibben is part of the senior media leadership team at Wavemaker UK. Emma has more than 20 years of experience across all media, principally in publishing. In her role as Head of Partner Engagement at Wavemaker, Emma works with partners in all media to support the creation of unrivalled work that moves people and has a positive impact in the world.

Biography

Demi Abiola is an Investment Business Director at Msix and partners, previous to that he headed up the Publishing team at PHD media. Demi is passionate about driving the discussion about cultural inclusivity and openness, which will hopefully lead to a change in the advertising industry towards diversity and anti-racism. He is a proud member of Media for All and a mentor at the Brixton finishing school.
Demi is a perennial commentator about the advertising industry where he is panellist at many industry events, in addition to writing thought leader pieces for the IPA, Mediatel, Newsworks, and WARC. He has also judged a number of leading awards: Campaign, Mediaweek , British Media, Drum OOH, AOP and Young Cannes but to name a few.
In his spare time you will find him singing to himself on the Peloton, boxing, practicing yoga, or playing poker.

Biography

Zoe Cadman is Commercial Agency Director at Global where she leads an integrated sales and trading team that work across Audio, DAX and Outdoor, championing innovation and creativity to craft and deliver market leading solutions to/for clients.

Zoe has over 20 years experience in the media industry, starting her career at Dennis Publishing and moving to Pearl & Dean where she spent 15 years working in cinema advertising, leading the team as Sales Director.

Biography

Katrina is Editor at Large at Contagious, a creative and strategic consultancy that helps ad agencies and brands deliver more creative and effective marketing. Their intelligence platform, Contagious IQ, is a global benchmark for advertising excellence, well-known for separating the signal from the noise in a communications landscape that gets louder and more cluttered every year. A founding member of the Contagious Advisory team, she has a long a history of writing about what happens when creativity and commerce collide, and a difficult relationship with the word ‘content’.

Biography

My media career began almost 20 years ago at ZenithOptimedia, working as a graduate TV Buyer. I continued in the role as TV evolved into AV and I was responsible for Radio, Cinema, VOD and OLV as well as TV.

Working across several agencies (Zenith, Spark, MEC) and many large advertisers (L’Oreal, Mars, Warner, Coty, Natwest, Aviva) I gained valuable experience in developing holistic AV strategies.

In 2022 I left the Agency world to take up a new role at Google, where I work as an AV Specialist in the YouTube team. My aim here is to help show advertisers how YouTube can best help them with their awareness and branding ambitions – allowing their ads to reach more consumers.

Biography

I’m was a lockdown runner and am really proud to have just achieved my first 10k run. I’ve been listening to lots of podcasts whilst running and like to learn about new things or hear lots of different opinions. My current favourite is ‘The Rest is Politics’ as it quickly gets me up to speed on current affairs.

At home I’ve been slowly turning my house greener, I’m on a mission to get a sustainable version of all the usual household and beauty products.

I’m married to a fellow media professional and we have an nine year old son. This means I’m pretty up to speed on Harry Potter, FIFA and Crystal Palace football team. I can also build a mean lego set!