Kevin Eyres is focused on developing, leading and delivering the company’s strategy and growth initiatives in Europe. Prior to LinkedIn Kevin was European Managing Director at SideStep.
Kevin was previously the General Manager of AltaVista International, prior to the acquisition by Overture, and a Director at Shopping.com.
Eyres started his career as an engineer at Compaq Computers where he spent ten years leading development teams during Compaq’s hyper growth phase.
He holds a BS in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Texas in San Antonio and has six patents.
Robert Andrews, Editor, Paid Content UK
Robert Andrews reports on the UK and European online content business for paidContent:UK, paidContent.org and other websites operated by ContentNext, a wholly owned subsidiary of Guardian News & Media. He has reported on technology and media for 13 years.
A former BBC News online journalist, he has been a regular contributor to Wired News, Journalism.co.uk and Blogging4Business and E-consultancy. He has also written for titles including New Media Investor and PC Plus and has appeared in Time, Los Angeles Business Journal, Media Life and on BBC Radio.
Robert has taught online journalism at university, developed social media marketing and communication strategies for organisations and consultancy, influencing UK government policy. He has moderated at several events including conferences hosted by ContentNext.
Lee Bryant, co-founder of Headshift
Lee Bryant is an online community and social networking specialist, and co-founder of the leading social computing consultancy Headshift, which helps companies use lightweight social tools to create meaningful applications and purposeful social networks.
Headshift has a 30-strong social computing team that operates internationally, with clients across Europe, the UK, Australia and North America, which gives us an insight into the diversity that makes for healthy networks. We help put IT at the service of business, not the other way around, and apply the lessons of what works on the public internet to the real needs of businesses, both internally and externally.
Our clients include several top 10 global law firms, consultancies and various FTSE-100 companies. We also work with media companies, such as the BBC and Channel 4, as well as government and third sector agencies involved in public participation.
Olivier Creiche, Vice President and General Manager of Europe, Middle East and Africa,
Six Apart
As the General Manager of EMEA, Olivier Creiche is responsible for business operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Olivier gained rich experience in sales and marketing at Danone, Pepsico, BBDO and DDB. He co-founded two companies, one of which was Ublog, a French blogging service acquired by Six Apart in 2004. Olivier joined Six Apart as the Business Development Manager for EMEA in 2004 and stepped up as General Manager in March 2007. He received his Bachelor of Business Administration at the University of South Dakota and is a graduate of the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris.
Struan Robertson, Legal Director at Pinsent Masons and
Editor OUT-LAW.com
Struan is a Legal Director with international law firm Pinsent Masons LLP and has been Editor of OUT-LAW.COM, the firm's online legal service, since it launched in 2000.
Struan is an expert in the legal issues affecting the internet, including social media. He was named 'Legal Services Champion' by In Brief Magazine in 2004 and OUT-LAW.COM was named Best Law Website at the 2008 Webby Awards in New York.
Kris Hoet
, EMEA Digital Media Communications Manager,
Microsoft Consumer & Online
Kris Hoet oversees a range of digital media campaigns and social media related activities for Windows (PC, Mobile and Online), MSN and Live Search. In this role Kris is in charge of the regional web influencers outreach strategy along with engagement in social media. A committed blogger himself, Kris blogs at http://crossthebreeze.com and is often to be found online (blogs, Twitter, ...) or at tech events all over Europe.
Prior to his current role managed the regional Marcom team, rolling out marketing best practices across the EMEA region and support for local marketing teams on their plans, pilot projects, advertising & promotions. In that role Kris already spearheaded some of the groups’ work in the blogosphere, something that became his main focus in his current role.
Before that, Kris worked as Consumer Marketing Manager for MSN Belgium developing local market strategy and implementing a number of programmes with partners including Warner, EMI, Fox and MTV. Before joining Microsoft Kris worked at Kinepolis Europe, movie theatre group, where his role included the management of all online marketing activity and development of media channel strategy
Kris is fluent in a number of European languages, and in his spare time enjoys movies, music, gaming and sports from squash to mountain biking. He’s also a classic Ford Mustang enthusiast, which translates into http://iblogmustang.com
Benjamin Faes
Head of YouTube & Display,
EMEA
Benjamin Faes joined Google in May 2008 as Head of Youtube & Display EMEA. His role is to manage and lead European teams in their execution of YouTube and Google display advertising strategy. Previous to joining Google, Benjamin was Managing Director of AOL France. Benjamin is 36, received a degree from the ESSEC Business School in Paris and is a black belt in Judo and holds a private pilot license.
Lisa Rodwell,
Vice President of Marketing & Product,
MOO.COM
Lisa Rodwell is a 16 year marketing industry veteran who has worked at some of the Web's leading brands and their communities, including Yahoo! and eBay. She was the European Marketing Director behind the successful launch and growth of Yahoo! Answers, an online knowledge community.
Currently, Lisa is the Vice President of Marketing & Product at MOO.COM. MOO is an online stationer that gives individuals and small businesses the ability to create high-quality customized stationery and business cards. MOO's growth and success (now selling in more than 180 countries worldwide) has been in part due to their strategy of partnering with leading social media companies including Facebook, Flickr, Linkedin and Bebo.
Her early career was at Procter & Gamble where she was a financial analyst and then moved to Ogilvy & Mather/OgivlyOne, where over 7 years she had the opportunity to build off-line businesses using traditional offline and online marketing plans including IBM, American Express, Unilever and Nestlé.
Neville Hobson, Consultant, Adhocnium
Neville Hobson, ABC, is a communicator, blogger, podcaster and Second Life explorer, one of the leading European early adopters and influencers in social media communication for business.
He is an accredited communication practitioner with over 25 years’ experience in public and media relations, marketing communication, employee, compensation and benefits communication as well as investor and financial relations. He helps companies use effective communication to achieve their business goals.
Neville blogs at NevilleHobson.com, at the intersection of business, communication and technology. He is co-presenter with Shel Holtz of the twice-weekly “For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report,” the communication profession’s first business podcast started in January 2005.
Antony Mayfield, Head of Social media, iCrossing UK
Antony Mayfield is Vice President, Head of Social Media at iCrossing, a search and social media-led digital agency.
He heads a team which has developed pioneering approaches to marketing and communications online.
Among the innovations that have come out of the team is the Network Sense Mapping tool, which allows analysts on the team to build visual representations of how brands are connected to social networks and other websites online. The team has also developed the Social Spaces Framework, an industry leading approach for large organisations engaging with online networks.
Prior to joining iCrossing UK (then Spannerworks) to establish its Content & Media division in 2006, Antony worked in corporate and brand communications for over a decade, most recently as a director in the Bell Pottinger Group, in its technology specialist brand, Harvard. There he worked with leading technology firms such as Vodafone, Sony Playstation and Fujitsu Services, while also working across Bell Pottinger raising awareness of social media’s impact on marketing communications.
He is a regular public speaker on issues around social media and marketing, and writes on his personal blog Open (Minds, Finds, Conversations) and iCrossing UK’s Search Sense blog.
Antony is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).
Guillaume du Gardier, Media Director, Ferrero
Guillaume du Gardier is the New Media Manager at Ferrero France. His role is to help the company integrating the change brought by the digital and social media world in all sectors of it's business, from marketing to corporate or internal communication and sales.
Before du Gardier was employed as the Director of Online Communications Europe at Edelman. There, he was responsible for online marketing and PR and has worked on developing online campaigns for multinational corporations. As the first French PR blogger, he is a regular speaker at various online communication and social media events.
Guillaume du Gardier blogs on PR Thoughts.
Matthew Yeomans,
Managing Director,
Radar DDB UK
Matthew Yeomans is managing director of Radar DDB UK. In 2005, Matthew co-founded along with Bernhard Warner Custom Communication, one of the UK's first social media agencies. Yeomans was a senior editor at the Industry Standard and has written for Wired, Fortune, the New York Times and Time.com. He and Bernhard write the YouTube Brandwatch for The Big Money. He is the author of the soon-to-be published Gastrokid Cookbook.
Bernhard Warner,
Head of Editorial,
Radar DDB UK
Bernhard Warner is editorial director of Radar DDB UK. In 2005, Bernhard co-founded along with Matthew Yeomans Custom Communication, one of the UK's first social media agencies. Prior to that, Bernhard worked in newsrooms in the U.S. and across Europe. Bernhard started his journalism career as a crime reporter in the early 1990s (sadly, the David Simon similarities end there), moving on to cover Madison Avenue and the Internet boom for Adweek and, later, The Industry Standard, Reuters and The Times Online.
Clara Shih, Director, Social Networking Alliances and Product Strategy, SALESFORCE.COM and Author, THE FACEBOOK ERA
Clara Shih joined salesforce.com in 2006 and is responsible for Enterprise Social Networking Alliances and Product Strategy. Previously, she was the product line director of AppExchange, salesforce.com's online business applications marketplace, for which she led the development of the Checkout payment services for partner applications. Prior to joining salesforce.com, Clara worked in strategy and business operations at Google and as a software developer at Microsoft. Clara holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in computer science from Stanford University, as well as a Master's Degree in internet studies from the University of Oxford, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar.
Clara is the author of a new book on social networking for business entitled, The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff (Prentice Hall 2009).
Clara developed Faceconnector (formerly Faceforce), the first business application on Facebook. Clara is a frequent industry speaker, with recent appearances at Web 2.0 Expo, SIIA Information Industry Summit, Software Business Online Sales and Marketing Conference, Enterprise 2.0, Social Ad Summit, Social Networking and Mobility Conference, SIIA Netgain, and Toronto TechWeek. She blogs at www.thefacebookera.com.
Hubert Grealish, Senior Manager Global Public Relations, Philips Consumer Lifestyle
Hubert Grealish is an international PR and media professional specialising in developing and executing strategic PR and communication programs across all media, from traditional PR and advertising channels to modern digital, branding and online communication. He currently works on creating and implementing fully integrated global marketing communications campaigns at Philips Philips Consumer Lifestyle headquarters in Amsterdam, working across its Relationship Care (intimate massagers), Oral Healthcare and Philips AVENT mother and baby businesses.
Chris Reed, Joint Managing Partner , Fishburn Hedges Group Digital
Chris joined Fishburn Hedges in 2001 with almost 10 years' PR experience under his belt already, primarily in the media sector. He has since managed media relations and integrated communications campaigns across the agency, as well as helping clients (including Shell, BT, and HMRC) and colleagues embrace new and effective communications and reputation-monitoring techniques from micro-site development and widget-building to Tweetdeck ever since.
He showed his first geek tendencies on the ZX81, wire-framed his first corporate website in 1997, and first started blogging in 2000.
Chris is a frequent guest on national media to discuss digital communications, regularly appearing on BBC News, and on Sky News' Sky.com programme. He is @chris_reed on twitter.
Ruth Speakman, Head of Corporate Communications, Sony Electronics Europe
Responsible for the development, management and implementation of PR strategies across 32 European countries, Ruth Speakman ensures Sony Europe is at the vanguard of best communications practices.
Celebrated for her work on the Sony BRAVIA campaigns, Ruth champions an integrated on and offline approach that ensures Sony sets the standard in social media communications, whilst creating inspired traditional PR campaigns. Her ability to challenge and redefine public relations has resulted in a raft of industry firsts: Sony was the first European brand to successfully implement a Twitter campaign; first to integrate SEO PR across all its European product launches; and first to develop marketing amplification models that ignited conversations across the blogosphere.
Responsible for liaising between head office in Tokyo and Europe while integrating marketing programmes and with local country PR strategies, Ruth manages the product communications across all Sony brands such as BRAVIA, Walkman, Cyber-shot, Alpha, Handycam, Reader and Rolly as well as CSR, UEFA and FIFA sponsorships.
Ruth is also a promotional board member of the BDA (Blu-ray Disc Association) a body formed to raise awareness of the new format and educate and consumers.
Prior to joining Sony Europe, Ruth was at Bite communications where she managed accounts for Apple, Carphone Warehouse, Logitech and Samsung.
Ruth is a proficient and popular speaker having given presentations at PR Week, IAB and Marketing Week conferences.
Ian's specialism is eCommerce in multichannel retail and publishing: strategy, delivery and business transformation.
Formerly Group eCommerce Director at Littlewoods Shop Direct, Ian's specialism is eCommerce in multichannel retail and publishing: strategy, delivery and business transformation.
Formerly Group eCommerce Director at Littlewoods Shop Direct, Head of Online Operations at the BBC and Business Development Director at Thomson Science and Professional, Ian's career has also included stints as an Accountant, running an Arts charity and of course a dot com.
Currently, clients include leading retailers like House of Fraser, Austin Reed, Reiss, Couturelab and Westfield Shopping Centres.
In 2006 Ian launched Internet Retailing as an information service for the UK's multichannel and online retailers. The franchise currently comprises an annual conference, print magazine and portal. Ian created the Postgraduate Diploma in Internet Retailing with Econsultancy and founded the European eCommerce Forum.
Ian is a regular speaker and conference chair on digital marketing, future trends, social media and how profitably to extract money from today's demanding digital customer.
Michelle Goodall,
Online PR and Social Media Consultant/trainer
Econsultancy.com
Michelle Goodall specialises in Online Public Relations. Formerly Digital Director at Lexis Public Relations she has over 12 years' online PR and social media marketing consultancy and implementation experience working on award winning PR campaigns and providing crisis and issues management and social media consultancy for many blue-chip organisations including Norwich Union, Coca Cola, Domino's, eBay, Camelot and Diageo.
Michelle is a firm advocate of PR and social media marketing as accountable and measurable communication disciplines. She is an active member of Measurement Camp, an Open Source movement attempting to create a best practice approach to social media measurement.
Michelle is a consultant and trainer at Econsultancy.com, the UKs largest independent community-based publisher, focused on best practice digital marketing and e-commerce. She develops online pr and social media training courses, articles and reports for Econsultancy.com and works with the wider team on Econsultancy’s PR and social media marketing.
Michelle Goodall is @greenwellys on Twitter.
Mike Parsons, MD, Tribal DDB UK
Mike oversees all the digital activities of DDB Group UK and the four digital agencies of the group. He leads the Tribal DDB team as Managing Director, overseeing client partners and the agency’s work and long-term business strategy. A seasoned leader of digital agencies, he has managed global projects for Microsoft, Philips Electronics and many other leading brands.
He is considered a real pioneer in the digital space. When he was 20 he worked at a media content creation agency, selling feature stories and photos to papers and TV. In 1996 he sold internet photos of the Olympic Games in Atlanta to networks that didn’t have access to the TV rights. He caught the digital bug and hasn’t looked back since.
In 1997 he launched Australia’s first internet radio station, broadcasting in triplecast TV, radio and internet media. He went on to become a senior e-Business Consultant of Partners In Perspective, Netherlands, General Manager of internet start-up ActionTV, and Strategic Business Manager of OVEN DIGITAL. He was General Manager at MRM Partners Amsterdam before leading our award-winning Tribal team there.
Mike is unashamedly addicted to cheesy spy thrillers, a big Seinfeld fan and loves cooking Italian food with the family.
Lucy Jameson Executive Strategy Director, DDB London
Lucy read History at Oxford and joined BMP DDB Needham, as it was then called, as a graduate trainee planner in 1993.
Since then, she has remained ensconced in glamourous Paddington, working on most of the agency’s business, including award winning campaigns for Barclaycard, Vodafone, the Meat and Livestock Commission, London Transport and the Guardian.
She is probably best known for working on the ‘love it or hate it’ campaign for Marmite, which DDB has looked after for over ten years now. During that time, the brand has prospered and won lots of creative and effectiveness awards, including a five star award winning IPA effectiveness paper, written by Lucy in 1998.
In 2001, she topped Campaign’s list of the best planners in the UK. In 2002, she was made head of planning at DDB. Since she has run the department, DDB has won the title of ‘IPA Effectiveness Agency of the Year’ no less than three times in a row in 2002, 2004 and 2006 (it’s a biennial competition for those of you who were wondering…..)
Currently, she looks after Unilever’s global ice cream portfolio which she helped win for DDB in 2008. She also works on the Financial Times and is particularly proud of the recent re-launch campaign ‘We live in Financial Times’ which won Campaign’s best poster campaign of the year.
Lucy believes in ‘open planning’ and, putting that into practice, she has overseen the merger of the planning departments of DDB London, Tribal DDB and Touch DDB, alongside DDB Matrix. In her role as Executive Strategy Director, she is responsible for turning the 30 or so planners working at ‘the home of planning’ into one collective planning brain.
On top of her London role, she co-chairs DDB’s global Planning Futures Group and, in 2009, she was appointed to sit on DDB’s global executive committee.
Andy Reinhardt, Europe Editor, BusinessWeek.com
Andy Reinhardt is the Europe editor for BusinessWeek.com, based in London. Previously, he was the European technology correspondent in the Paris office of BusinessWeek magazine, where he covered companies such as Nokia, Ericsson, SAP, Philips, Alcatel, ST Microelectronics, and France Telecom. Reinhardt joined the magazine in 1996, working in San Francisco, where he covered companies such as Intel, Cisco, Boeing, AMB, 3Com, National Semiconductor, and Novell. Reinhardt also has written about mobile phones in Africa, nearshoring in Eastern Europe, software patents, the EU’s antitrust case against Microsoft, and the arrival of 3G mobile services. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and a master’s from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Niall Cook, Worldwide Director of Marketing Technology, Hill & Knowlton
Niall Cook is the author of Enterprise 2.0: How social software will change the future of work, and Worldwide Director of Marketing Technology at communications consultancy Hill & Knowlton where I have responsibility for the agency’s online marketing strategy and internal systems to maximise marketing and new business efficiency. I created the industry leading blogging policy for the firm and set up Collective Conversation, the first blogging community from a professional services company.
