Category Judges

Harvey Goldsmith is a legendary and visionary producer and promoter of rock concerts, Charity events and television broadcasts. HE has produced, managed and promoted shows with most of the world’s major artists, including Bob Dylan, Jeff Beck , The Rolling Stones, The Who, Bruce Springsteen, Santana , Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, Luciano Pavarotti, The Bee Gees, Jools Holland, Bocelli, Yusuf Islam, Oasis, Rod Stewart, Diana Ross, Jools Holland, Shirley Bassey, U2, Coldplay, Eric Clapton, Madness, Queen, Elton John, Van Morrison, Madonna, Pink Floyd, Iron Maiden, Sting, Genesis and Cirque du Soleil; and the Princes’s Trust, Luciano Pavarotti’s Farewell Tour, Live 8, Nokia New Year’s Eve and The Merchants of Bollywood.

In 1978 Harvey Goldsmith promoted the first major global TV event The Concert for Kampuchea at Hammersmith Odeon featuring Paul McCartney, Queen and The Who, which raised over $2 million from worldwide sales to benefit the victims of Pol Pot’s reign of terror in Cambodia and in 1985, Harvey Goldsmith organized the now historic Live Aid concert with Bob Geldof which raised £140 million for famine relief in Ethiopia and became an inspiration for hundreds of similar concert events. In 1996 Goldsmith was honored with a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Harvey Goldsmith has received numerous awards in recognition for his contribution to the music industry including the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres from the French Minister of Culture as well as the 15th Music Industry Trust’s Awards (MITS), and has been bestowed The British Order of Chivalry.

Harvey was the instigator and producer of the Led Zeppelin show in London in December 2007 and in October 2008 Harvey produced ‘Salute Petra’, the official tribute concert to Luciano Pavarotti that was held in Petra, Jordan under the patronage of HRH Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein.

Harvey took over the management of Jeff Beck in 2008

Harvey is Chairman of the Foundation and Chairman of the Board of The British Music Experience which opened at the O2 Arena in March 2009 and. In September ’09 Harvey produced the Tower Festival in the Tower of London which ran for 10 days.

In April 2010 Harvey was honoured with the International Music Person of The Year for his outstanding contributions to the Music Industry at the MUSEXPO by the City of West Hollywood.

Louise Allen-Jones founded her literary scouting agency 21 years ago and hunts down UK adults’ and children’s books for ten international publishing groups from leading German publishers Arena and Ullstein Buchverlage in Germany to Editora Record in Brazil and Japanese literary agency, The English Agency, whose common purpose is to buy titles for translation. Her clients have many authors in common, their combined range extending across all genres, including writers as diverse as Diana Athill, John Le Carré, J K Rowling, Hilary Mantel, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Helen Fielding, S J Watson, John Grisham, Neil Gaiman, Howard Jacobson, Caitlin Moran, Richard Dawkins, Philip Pullman and Irvine Welsh. She has also scouted for British film and TV companies, including the UK Film Council, BBC TV Drama and Tiger Aspect. Allen-Jones has significant experience in marketing and publicity, as Marketing Director of Arrow, Publicity Director of the Bodley Head, and Press and PR Manager of Bantam Press, where she won an industry award for best all-round hardback fiction promotion. She contributes to the book trade press, and has a wide knowledge of publishing and of all aspects of the book industry, both at home and abroad. She is also an active campaigner for Libel Reform

Mohit commissions the current affairs, politics, science and  religion documentaries on Radio 4.
He also has oversight of a number of regular strands on the network including series like Four Thought, The Philosophers Arms, File on Four,  Infinite Monkey Cage, the Moral Maze, More or Less and The Life Scientific.

Before commissioning, he launched Radio 4’s arts programme Front Row and was editor of Radio 3’s Night Waves, and the ideas festival Free Thinking . 

On the rare occasions he escapes the clutches of the BBC he works with Slow Down London to encourage people to view art...slowly.  He is also on a mission to cook the perfect risotto....so far without success.

Born in Hampshire, Sam Baker studied politics at Birmingham University. Sam has edited some of the UK's biggest magazines. After successfully re-launching teenage magazine Just Seventeen as J-17, she edited Minx then spent five years as editor of Company. She was editor of Cosmopolitan UK and is now editor-in-chief of Red magazine. In 2011 Red was named PPA Consumer Magazine of the Year. Sam is also a best-selling novelist. Her fourth novel, To My Best Friends was published in May 2011.  She lives between Winchester, Hampshire and central London with her husband, the award-winning novelist Jon Courtenay Grimwood.

Critic, broadcaster and international human rights reporter BIDISHA writes and reports for most of the major UK newspapers and BBC radio and TV networks, focusing on culture and the arts, social justice issues and international affairs. She has worked professionally as a journalist since she was14 and signed her first book deal at 16. The author of two novels and a bestselling Venetian memoir, her most recent book is the reportage Beyond the Wall: Writing A Path Through Palestine, based on her recent tour of the West Bank. Search Bidisha Online for more details.

Polly Billington spent fifteen years as a radio and television reporter at the BBC, where she was the first ever dedicated political reporter for Radio 1 Newsbeat, covering the 2001 election and 9/11, as well as reporting for the Today programme for 3 years, covering politics “beyond Westminster”, developing citizen journalism, and establishing the Today programme’s own Citizens Jury. In 2007 she left journalism to become Ed Miliband’s Special Adviser in government. In 2010 she established his leadership campaign, leading on communications before and after his victory. Since being selected to fight the highly marginal constituency of Thurrock in Essex (Tory majority 92) she has been working on internal communications at the Labour Party. She tweets as @pollyb1967

Giselle Bodie is Global CEO of Salience, the media insight division of News Group International, a global provider of business intelligence and media resource services headquartered in Dubai with offices in London and Washington.

As a graduate in Modern Languages, Giselle’s career began in multinationals (IBM and Reuters), moving on into start-ups and fast-growing services companies. In the early 90s she joined a newly-established communication research company, Echo Research where she spent the next twelve years, the last seven as its Managing Director, building it into the market leader in its field.  Giselle then joined Cision, the world’s leading PR workflow solution company where she was UK Managing Director.  Most recently she was COO Europe for Kantar Media Intelligence, a WPP company.

Giselle is a former Chairman and current board director of AMEC (The Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication), an alumnus of HRH Prince of Wales Business and Environment Programme and has been a steering committee member of the UK Forum of the UN Global Compact. 

In 2000 Giselle became the first woman director to be accredited by the Institute of Directors (IOD) as a Chartered Director. She is now a Fellow of the IOD and a member of the its Professional Review Group for directors applying to become Chartered Directors.

Jane Bruton has been at the helm of Britain’s hugely successful and multi-award winning weekly glossy magazine, Grazia, since its launch six years ago.

As Editor-in-Chief, Jane has reinvented the weekly women’s market to produce a stand-out fashion and news magazine that’s been hailed as 'defining a cultural moment'.

At Grazia alone, Jane’s talent has been recognised with two BSME Editor of the Year awards as well as being voted BSME’s Editor’s Editor in 2009. Grazia won the PPA’s Magazine of the Year in 2010 and is also the recipient of more than 20 industry prizes since launch.

Grazia is Jane’s third editorship after Livingetc and Eve, where she also won a BSME Editor of the Year.

Paul recently joined Editorial Intelligence as a Consultant working on a range of ei initiatives, including Names Not Numbers. He started his working life as a local journalist in Retford, Nottinghamshire in the days of hot metal and manual typewriters. For the past 25 years he has been an NHS Communications Manager, mainly at regional level acting as the interface between Ministers and the NHS at ground level. A large part of the job consisted of troubleshooting and crisis management.  For the past 4 years he has worked at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, which was one of the hospital trusts which lost public confidence after major c.difficile outbreaks. He has a 2:1 in Media and Communications Studies from the old Poloytechnic of Central London which he is prepared to defend against people from more illustrious academies. He lives in Hastings and enjoys walking his very handsome Border Collie, Jake, on the beach.

Belinda places creativity and original thinking at the very heart of everything she does. 
The role of Group Publisher of HarperCollins, requires Belinda to take the lead strategically, creatively and financially.  This relies on her ability to attract and manage the very best creative talent.  All else flows from there.

Belinda’s highly talented team, hugely diverse and working across a wide range of genres, work with her to maximise the impact of storytelling for different readers/consumers, stories which are capable of working across multiple platforms, physical and digital.

To stay constantly fresh, Belinda makes sure that she keeps up to date with the very latest ideas and thinking in the world beyond HC and publishing.

Leo von Bülow-Quirk is a Partner and Global Head of Research at Chartwell, a specialist speaker bureau with operations in London, Hong Kong, Mumbai, New York, Shanghai and Singapore. Here he co-ordinates an international network to source speakers for conferences and events in the financial and professional services industry.

Prior to joining the firm in 2010, Leo completed an undergraduate degree in Classics at the University of Cambridge and an MSc in International Relations Theory at the London School of Economics, where he won the Halliday Prize for Best Dissertation. He also worked for three years as a drummer and songwriter with Columbia Records.

Charlie is media advisor to a clutch of companies including Climate Change Capital (the environmental investment manager and advisory group), Zopa (the world’s first person-to-person online-lending exchange) and RiverSimple (developers of a hydrogen fuel cell car).

He is a Non-Executive Director of CN Group and is Editorial Intelligence’s Editorial Director. Charlie’s journalism career included stints at The Independent, where he was Managing Editor, Home Editor and founding Sports Editor. At The Guardian he was a sports reporter, Saturday Editor, Travel Editor and Media Editor. He was also a Features Executive at the Mail.

Simon Burton joined Camelot in August 2010 and is currently Acting Head of Corporate Affairs. Covering The National Lottery in the UK and Camelot's international business, Simon leads all external and internal communications as well as the corporate responsibility function.

Prior to Camelot, Simon was a Director at the corporate communications consultancy Fishburn Hedges (FH). During his 13 years at FH, Simon advised clients across infrastructure, financial services retail and FMCG sectors.  At the start of his career, Simon cut his teeth in a variety of parliamentary and journalism roles.

Outside of work, Simon’s following of Leyton Orient FC verges on becoming an unhealthy obsession – so say his young family and his colleagues.

Carla Buzasi is Editor-in-Chief of The Huffington Post UK, the UK edition of the biggest news website in the US. Launched in July 2011, Carla is responsible for all editorial output and standards on the website, overseeing a team of 20 editors and staff writers, along with a pool of 3000 contributing bloggers, collectively producing hundreds of news articles, blogs and features each week. The Huffington Post UK currently features news, entertainment, celebrity, culture, politics, sport, education and tech sections.  Carla is responsible for the management of The Huffington Post UK business including strategy, brand-building, new section launches and the international relationship with US parent, The Huffington Post. In addition to her work on The Huffington Post UK, Carla is responsible for the overarching editorial integrity, standards and content created across AOL’s network of premium sites in the UK. The sites include lifestyle content across key brands such as MyDaily and  Parentdish.

René Carayol is one of the world's leading business gurus specialising in leadership and culture, drawing from his experiences on the boards of some of the biggest British and American organisations; from Pepsi and Marks & Spencer to IPC Media and the Inland Revenue.  He is the best-selling author of the influential “Corporate Voodoo”, a regular television and radio broadcaster for the BBC and was awarded an MBE for outstanding service to the business community in 2004.

René has provided leadership support to the likes of the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit, Barclays Bank, BAE Systems and McKinsey and Co. and has worked closely with some of the world’s greatest leaders; from Bill Clinton and Sir Richard Branson through to Kofi Annan and Colin Powell.

Henry Chevallier Guild is a director and partner of Suffolk-based Aspall Cyder, a family business since 1728 and the oldest family cider business in Britain. Now the eighth generation of the Chevallier Guild family to run the company, his main role is to oversee Aspall’s national and international strategy and positioning as well as all export business, and has been building the company's profile in and exports to the US, Australia and Russia and imminently, China and India. More locally, he is passionate about sustainability and the role of Aspall within the community. Henry is Chairman of the National Association of Cider Makers. @henrychevallier

Harry Cole is a political journalist who, with his Guido Fawkes hat on, was rated the 28th most influential man in Britain by GQ in November 2011. He is a Contributing Editor of the Spectator magazine and blogs at the UK's most successful political website - Order-Order.Com. He also has a column in the Daily Star Sunday.

Richard Coles is a priest of the Church of England and Vicar of Finedon in Northamptonshire, where two of his ancestors were Vicars in the seventeenth century (the latter sequestered for malignancy). He has a parallel career in broadcasting and currently co-presents Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4. A quarter of a century ago he was in the pop band The Communards, which makes him the only Vicar to have had a number one record. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the Camping and Caravanning Club, and is an Honorary Member of the Pairs Commune.

Stella was elected as the Labour and Co-operative MP for Walthamstow in May 2010. Prior to that she was the Head  of  Campaigns at the Scout Association.  Stella served on Waltham Forest Council between 2002 and 2006, performing a range of roles as the Mayor, Chief Whip and the Councillor for Lea Bridge Ward in Walthamstow.  Formerly, she has been a member of the Public Accounts Committee, the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP as the Shadow Secretary of State for Education and the Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Youth Affairs. In September 2011 Stella joined Labour’s Front bench and now serves as a Shadow Minister for Crime Prevention as part of Yvette Cooper’s Home Affairs team.

Giles joined Barclays in 2010, following ten years at Brunswick, the leading independent Public Relations consultancy where his clients included Barclays, BA, FirstGroup, Britvic, Amec, Cazenove and Aintree.  He worked on many high profile transactions, defences and restructurings including Eurotunnel and Four Seasons restructurings, the sales of BAA to Ferrovial, and High Speed 1 (The Channel Tunnel Rail Link) to Borealis and Barclays bid for ABN Amro.

Prior to this he worked as a broadcast journalist for almost a decade, initially as part of the launch team for GMTV before moving to ITN.  He worked across much of both broadcasters output, including two spells in the parliamentary units during the 1990s.

David was elected as an MP in 1987. He was Europe Minister and Security Command Minister, where he oversaw the majority of the government’s international negotiations including European negotiations, NATO enlargement and the updated Geneva Convention. In 1997 he became the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Parliament’s most powerful and wide-ranging Select Committee. Here he proposed a large number of policy and operational changes in government, including new IT strategies, enhanced methods of public service delivery, and new accounting methods for government. David was Shadow Home Secretary from 2003 until 2008 when he resigned forcing a by-election fought on raising awareness of the erosion of our civil liberties. David is now a leading figure on the Conservative backbenches, raising issues such as Prisoner Voting, Libel Reform and opposing the rise in tuition fees.

Karen Dillon is a contributing editor to Harvard Business Review and the co-author of the book, How Will You Measure Your Life, which she wrote with Harvard Business School Professor and best-selling author, Clayton Christensen. Karen Dillon was the Editor of Harvard Business Review, arguably the most influential management magazine in the world, until 2011. She helped lead a major redesign of the publication during her tenure, and the magazine was twice honoured as a finalist for the National Magazine Awards.

Prior to joining HBR, she was deputy editor of Inc., a monthly magazine for entrepreneurs, managing its 37-person editorial staff.  Previously she was editor and publisher of the critically acclaimed American Lawyer, which was also honored repeatedly by the National Magazine Awards during her tenure. While at The American Lawyer, she helped launch new publications in Paris and London, where she spent four years as the editor Legal Business, a monthly magazine that was named Editorial Team of the Year by the U.K. Press Gazette. Dillon was also personally named Feature Writer of the Year runner-up by the U.K. Press Gazette.

Karen is a graduate of Cornell University and Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. She was a long-time member of the media advisory committee the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC), a national not-for-profit organization founded by Harvard Business School professor Michael E. Porter. ICIC’s mission is to build healthy economies in America’s inner cities.

She has worked closely with some of the world’s thoughts leaders, including Clayton Christensen, Michael Porter, Vijay Govindarajan, Dan Isenberg, and A.G. Lafley. She blogs for HBR.org on topics of leadership, managing people, managing yourself, and entrepreneurship. In 2011 she was honored as part of Ashoka ChangemakeHER’s inaugural celebration of the world’s most influential and inspiring women.

Born in Henley, Oxfordshire, Sarah went to boarding school in Oxford and then finishing school at Evendine. After college, Sarah worked in the world of advertising, spent six years in South Africa working for her family pharmaceutical company and then became involved in event planning / hospitality at Cliveden and the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn.  Then, six years ago Sarah started her own Event Management Company.

Current affairs and politics have always been a passion for Sarah and over the past two years, she has enjoyed being a member of Editorial Intelligence and writing a blog from a non journalist/professional, and she feels honoured that she has been asked to be involved with judging.

Huw Edwards is known to millions of viewers as presenter of BBC News at Ten, Britain's most popular television news programme. He has anchored the Ten since January 2003.

Huw is the BBC’s voice at Trooping the Colour, the Festival of Remembrance, the State Opening of Parliament and the Budget. He hosted the BBC's global coverage of the Royal Wedding in April 2011 which attracted an audience of 21 million viewers. He hosted the BBC's global coverage of the funeral of Pope John Paul II, the inauguration of President Barack Obama, and the major ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics and Delhi Commonwealth Games.

Huw is from Llangennech, Carmarthenshire, and he attended Llanelli Grammar School. He graduated in French from the University of Wales, Cardiff. 

He is Honorary Professor of Journalism at Cardiff University.

He lives in London with his wife and five children.

Amber is Politics Producer for Sky News. Previously, she worked as Political Editor for Total Politics, where she has sampled pie, mash and liquor with Ken Livingstone, persuaded Ann Widdecombe to sing along to Bucks Fizz and revealed that Ed Balls blubs at Antiques Roadshow.

Angela Ferreira, a freelance television producer, started her broadcasting career at the BBC as a researcher in the entertainment department, after stints of writing music interviews and reviews and a short time at BRMB Radio.  She moved into directing with ‘Bodger and Badger’ and ‘Blue Peter’ and has progressed to working with TV legends such as Sir Terry Wogan and Paul O’Grady. She has also worked on large scale entertainment event shows such as Concert for Diana, Smash Hits, The MOBO Awards, Big Brother, various festivals including Isle of Wight, Glastonbury and V along with worldwide favourite ‘Come Dine with Me.’  Angela is also a youth mentor, speaks on leadership and television at youth conferences and teaches at the National Film and Television School.

Dermot Finch is a board director of Fishburn Hedges, and head of public affairs.  He joined FH in 2010. Current and recent clients include John Lewis Partnership, Jaguar Land Rover, MTR Corporation, Barclaycard and Nestlé UK.

Dermot has worked directly with Chancellors, Ambassadors and city leaders.  He has a strong track record of cross-party political engagement, in the UK and US.

Dermot was an HM Treasury policy adviser for over a decade (1994-2005).  His Treasury responsibilities included banking and building society regulation, EMU policy and urban policy, and he was a private secretary to Conservative and Labour ministers (1996-97). He was posted to the British Embassy in Washington DC (2001-04), where he was First Secretary (Economic Affairs).

Dermot set up and ran the Centre for Cities think tank from 2005 to 2010. As chief executive, he was the principal policy lead with Whitehall, Westminster and local authorities. Media credits included the Today Programme, Channel 4 News, BBC London, Guardian, Daily Telegraph and Financial Times.

Prior to joining in 2011, Jeffrey Gedmin served from 2007 to 2011 as President and CEO of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, where he oversaw the company's strategy and broadcast operations in 22 countries. Before that he served for five years as Director of the Aspen Institute Berlin. Before Aspen, he was Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington, D.C and Executive Director of the New Atlantic Initiative.

Jeffrey Gedmin's articles on foreign policy, media and public diplomacy have appeared in a range of newspapers and magazines. He has produced two major television documentaries for PBS.

Jeffrey Gedmin has taught at Gonzaga College High School and Georgetown University, where he holds a Ph.D. in German. In 2010 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate by the Tbilisi State University, Georgia.

After 15 years in banking and 4 years as the proud owner of a gourmet Italian delicatessen, Patricia returned to the world of strategic communications, advising on positioning, issues management, corporate governance, corporate responsibility and institutional relations. She is a Director of the Learning Schools Trust and Friends of International House UK; a member of Chatham House, the Economic Research Council and the Japan Society as well as an advisor to ClearlySo and MyBnk.  She studied for an MA at Columbia University’s School of International Affairs and obtained her BA in Political Science from the University of California.  Born in Japan and resident in the UK for over 20 years, she has also lived in Brazil, Italy, Turkey and the USA. @phamzahee

Stuart Handley is the former Director of Communications for Dell EMEA, Latam and Canada. He was responsible for all corporate reputation, international communications strategy and media relations, stakeholder engagement and social media activity. Before this he was Global Director of Communication for Dell’s multi-billion dollar public sector business leading teams across China, India and the rest of APJ, the Americas and EMEA. He has over 20 year’s communications experience leading agencies and corporate communication departments. He has worked with many of the world’s leading brands and public sector organisations. He speaks and writes regularly about social media. He is currently an independent communications and social media consultant with Purple Rabbit Ltd. @stuhandley

Stephen Hargrave is a partner in the investor group Cigala LLP and is chairman of trustees at Reform, a leading non-party think tank researching ways to get better value for money from public services – www.reform.co.uk. He spent the early part of his career as an investment manager in the City and subsequently tried his hand as journalist, novelist and publishing executive. Since 1990 has been chairman of a range of entrepreneurial companies both public and private. His happiest investment is London Farmers’ Markets, which brings food direct from the farm to the capital – see www.lfm.org.uk. He also runs a small grant-giving charitable foundation. He is sceptical about the war on drugs, would abolish the libel laws and believes that if you don’t want to see it in the papers you shouldn’t do it. 

Anoushka Healy is Group Managing Editor of The Times and Sunday Times and was previously Assistant Editor for Strategy & Development working on new product launches for the newspaper. Anoushka joined The Times in November 2002 as the Editorial Communications Director. The appointment created a new position, reporting directly to The Editor, which focused on the communications management of the editorial team in order to generate awareness and understanding of The Times in the UK and internationally.

Prior to joining The Times, Anoushka was Head of Corporate Communications at the Financial Times for seven years where, among other projects, she worked on investor relations for the FT’s parent company, Pearson PLC, the launch of the FT US edition and the launch of FT.com.
She has a degree in Modern languages.

Maurice is the Founder Director of Amery Capital Limited, a principal investment and advisory firm founded in November 2004.  Current investments include Oliver Sweeney and Long Tall Sally.  Maurice is  also Senior Independent Director of Moss Bros Group plc, and Director of AIM-listed SpaceandPeople.

Prior to founding Amery Capital, Maurice was an Executive Director on the main board of Marks and Spencer plc, holding a variety of roles over a 16-year career.  He holds an MBA with High Distinction from Harvard Business School, and is involved with a number of charitable and not-for-profit organisations. 

Maurice has a keen and active interest in opinion and current affairs, and works off life's stresses with running, Yoga and drumming.

Details coming soon.

Julia Hobsbawm founded and runs Editorial Intelligence (www.editorialintelligence.com). In 2011 she was made Honorary Visiting Professor in Networking at Cass Business School, in recognition for her work pioneering and championing new workplace skills in networking and placing networking further up the agenda as a core skill for business and employees.  She has worked in and around the business of media for all of her career, hence creating The Comment Awards in 2009 as a core part of the Editorial Intelligence events calendar. A widely published writer and frequent speaker, Julia juggles her business commitments with her large family of school and university aged children, charity interests and a passion for marching around Central London talking on the telephone between meetings.

Emma Jacobs was appointed Global Communications Director for the Financial Times Group in November 2006.

Emma is the FT Board member responsible for managing all external and internal communications for the FT globally, reporting to John Ridding, CEO. Emma also manages FT Group corporate communications, reporting to Rona Fairhead. The communications team is responsible for ensuring that the FT's brand and reputation is carefully promoted to its various stakeholders globally.

Prior to joining the FT, Emma served as International Director of Public Affairs for Time Inc, running international external communications for Time and Fortune magazines. She previously worked at Freuds, CNBC and was Editor of The Investor. 

Currently based in the UK, she has also worked in Asia and the U.S.

Paul is Managing Director and Global Head of Marketing and Head of CEO Communications for UBS Investment Bank.

Born in London and raised all over the world, Paul went to Abingdon School and then read law at University College, London. 

He was called to the Bar in 1978 and practised for two years.

He worked in Project Finance for six years before moving into Corporate Communications and Marketing.

During his career he has worked for Dewe Rogerson, Nomura International, Fidelity International, the London Stock Exchange and Goldman Sachs.

Paul is married with 3 sons and lives in Twickenham.

He holds an MBA from Cranfield, is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and a Director/Trustee of The Bush Theatre. 

Jessica Lambert is the founder and editor of The Harker, an online arts magazine that promotes and ­­encourages young arts writers. Having previously written her own culture and fashion blogs, she realised it would be more fun to run a website with lots of contributors, where young people could support each other’s work.

Jessica has written for The Sunday Times, The Evening Standard, MOJO and The Guardian.

She reviews films for Little White Lies and theatre for Broadway Baby.

She read English at Cambridge and did a Journalism MA at City University.

Tashi Lassalle is a Director and the Head of Communications at Actis, a  private equity firm managing $4.5 bn dollar that invests in high growth markets. As well as being responsible for reputation of the firm, she often advises the fund's 65 portfolio companies across 25 countries in Africa, Latin America, China and India. Prior to her role at Actis, she was Chief Marketing Officer for global headhunting firm Heidrick & Struggles.  Tashi spent the last five years living and working in New York and then Copenhagen.

Alison has recently opened a London office for Fenton, whose unique mission is to serve the public interest by creating powerful issue campaigns that make change.

Alison has 20 years of professional international communications experience with strong emphasis in branding and messaging, special events, campaigns and media strategy, in both the commercial and charitable sectors.

In 2004, Alison co-founded The Climate Group and previously ran an environmental communications consultancy.

Jane is the women's editor of the Guardian and former media editor.

She read English at Cambridge and attended City University's journalism school before starting her career at the South Wales Echo in Cardiff. She worked at the Financial Times before joining the Guardian in May 1999 as Wall Street correspondent.

Rosie Millard was the BBC's Arts Correspondent for 10 years after which she was Arts Editor and Theatre Critic for the New Statesman, profile writer for The Sunday Times and design columnist at The Telegraph. She appears from time to time on BBC Radio and TV, and has written books on contemporary art and the French overseas dominions. She lives in North London with her husband and 4 children,  is a devoted marathonista and helps run a Brownie pack.

Rebecca is a Senior Media Relations Executive for the Mayor of London. Having worked for both Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson, she has worked on many key projects that have transformed the capital. These include the preparations for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the pedestrianisation of Trafalgar Square and the first new public transport scheme for 20 years, the Mayor's Cycle Hire Scheme. Before joining City Hall, she was a press officer for the English National Opera.

Rebecca was born in Devon and graduated with honours from Birmingham Conservatoire in Music. A classically trained musician, she regularly sings with chamber choirs across London.

John is an author and publisher. He was Waterstones first marketing director before becoming a publisher at the Harvill Press and then Cassell & Co. His authors included the Beatles, Michael Palin, Richard Ford and Haruki Murakami. In 2001 he joined TV producer John Lloyd to set up QI Ltd. They are now working on the tenth series of the BBC TV show, and their series of QI books have sold more than 2 million copies in 29 language. John is also a Vice-President of the Hay Festival and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He writes a weekly QI column in the Saturday Telegraph. His latest venture is co-founding Unbound (www.unbound.co.uk), the UK’s first crowd-funded publishing house. @johnmitchinson

Steve was born and raised in Belfast where he co-wrote an acclaimed satirical review Now Before The Weather The War which toured the country to a mixture of rave reviews and mild bemusement. He joined the Government in 1987 and led a range of high profile employment and welfare initiatives under the pioneering Lord Young. After working in Australia with documentary film maker Ken Burns, he returned to London to work on a range of large regeneration projects including London’s Bankside, the Thames Gateway, Deptford and Brixton City Challenges. Steve then advised on a series of large scale Government programmes including the New Deal and the University for Industry and has established and led three start-up businesses and been employed as an advisor to Channel 4, MIT, Microsoft, the RSA, the BBC, PWC and the Department for Education and Skills, Enterprise UK, NESTA and UnLtd. Steve has curated and facilitated over 80 major conferences and festivals including Reboot Britain, 2gether08 and 2morro. Steve is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Economic Research Council, an advisor to finance platform URICA and the Virgin Media Control Shift programme and serves on the Community, Voluntary and Local Services Honours Committee. 

Mwila graduated in 2008 with a degree in Psychology. Since then she has worked for Citigroup Incorporated as operations specialist and on a solo project delivering mentoring and workshops for young people.

In June 2010 she secured a placement with New Deal of the Mind working on the Future Jobs Fund; putting 800 young adults into a huge range of ‘backstage’ jobs across the creative and cultural sector nationwide.

Mwila’s personal experience in youth work and mentoring has proved invaluable in helping design and produce training programmes for young people in the creative sector.

Dianne Nelmes is an award winning documentary and lifestyle television executive. A graduate in Politics and Economics from Newcastle University , she began her broadcasting career as a journalist and on screen reporter with BBC Television North East.

Dianne then had a long and successful career with Granada Television in Manchester where she was an assistant news editor in regional news and a journalist with World in Action , ITV's award winning investigative , current affairs series. Dianne went on to become the series' first and only woman executive producer.

She was the Controller of Factual  Programmes at Granada where she also launched five lifestyle channels - including Men and Motors - in a joint venture with BSkyB.

A staunch supporter of womens' issues, Dianne is credited with changing the face of Daytime television - where she launched This Morning with Richard and Judy and went on to create and launch ITV 's lunchtime talk show Loose Women.

Dianne also discovered and launched Jeremy Kyle whose hugely successful ITV daytime series is now also a major ratings success in the USA.

Dianne joined Liberty Bell Productions in 2008 where she has overseen a range of feature documentaries including Frank Skinner on George Formby, Al Murray's German Adventure and a Channel 4 food series, Lakes On A Plate based in Cumbria.

Dianne is a Trustee of Refuge , the charity which provides support for women and children who are victims of Domestic Violence. She is a Fellow of the Royal Television Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

In her spare time, Dianne is a keen runner, walker, canal boater and cook!

Claire is Managing Director of Wardour, a content marketing agency that produces engaging content for brands across a range of media channels: online, in print and in apps. Clients range from the Royal Society for Arts and British Hearth Foundation, to Heineken and British Airways. She has worked for the UK’s leading newspapers and magazines covering everything from style and motoring to finance. She has filled the roles of Small Business Editor of the Sunday Times, City News Editor on the Daily Mail and Editor of CityAM.  In the year before joining Wardour Claire ran the editorial operation for Metro International, the world’s largest international newspaper group. She was also a consultant for Editorial Intelligence, for whom she wrote a book on the credit crunch.

Cliff Oswick is Professor of Organization Theory and Head of the Faculty of Management at Cass Business School, City University London.  Before joining Cass in 2011, he spent 4 years at Queen Mary, University of London as a Professor of Organization Theory where he also served as Dean of Law & Social Sciences.  He has published over 120 academic articles and contributions to edited volumes.  He is the European Editor for Journal of Organizational Change Management and Associate Editor for Journal of Change Management. He is also co-director of the International Centre for Research on Organizational Discourse, Strategy and Change and a board member of the Organization Development and Change Division of the Academy of Management.

Julia Peyton-Jones directs the Serpentine Gallery’s groundbreaking Exhibition, Education and Public programmes and the annual Pavilion commission, which showcases the Gallery’s yearly Marathon series of events. With two entries in the top 10 UK exhibitions, the Serpentine is the 9th most visited museum or gallery in London and attracts more than 1.2 million visitors per year. The Pavilion is the 4th most visited architecture or design exhibition worldwide. In 2012 the Serpentine Gallery will expand to a second site within London’s Kensington Gardens. The Serpentine Sackler Gallery, designed by Zaha Hadid, will present the best in emerging international talent across all art forms, including art, architecture, dance, design, fashion, film, literature, music, performance, science and technology.  Julia Peyton-Jones was awarded an OBE in 2003.

Judy Piatkus founded independent publishing company Piatkus Books, her second startup, from her bedroom and grew it into one of the world’s leading independent publishing companies and a global brand. Piatkus became known as a pioneer in the area of personal development publishing and also published many of the world’s most popular commercial novelists and a range of general non-fiction. Judy sold the company successfully in 2007 and is now a consultant to SMEs, an investor and an inspirational speaker.

Aaron Porter is a journalist and higher education consultant, having set up Aaron Ross Porter Consultancy Ltd. He works with a number of universities and higher education bodies and is also an associate for the Higher Education Academy and the Leadership Foundation. He has written for a range of publications including The Times, The Guardian and the New Statesman.

During 2010-11, Aaron was President of the National Union of Students during the high profile debate on tuition fees. He has appeared on Question Time, Newsnight and The Politics Show as well as a variety of news programmes. He has also served on the Boards of UCAS and the Higher Education Academy.

Aaron graduated with a BA English Literature from the University of Leicester, and edited the student newspaper as an undergraduate. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts.

Michael joined BT as Director of Corporate Affairs in March 2010. He reports to the chief executive and has responsibility for overseeing those in charge of: media relations, internal communications, national and international public affairs, industry analyst relations, strategic communications planning, Group marketing and brand, corporate responsibility and communications related to our sponsorship of Olympics 2012.

Prior to joining BT, Michael was a journalist for 17 years. He worked for every different type of media outlet – local papers, national wire services, national tabloids, the BBC and – finally – the Sunday Times, where he spent 10 years and rose to become political editor. He was headhunted from that post in 2001 to join global PR firm Weber Shandwick, taking over their UK public affairs and corporate communications divisions. He advised a mix of private, public and voluntary sector clients. These included Balfour Beatty, British Nuclear Fuels, MasterCard, Virgin Media and IKEA.

In 2009, Michael and his public affairs team won the PR industry’s coveted Agency of the Year award. BT approached him about his current post later that year.
He was drawn to the company because of its leadership, its place at the centre of infrastructure and events, and because of its international reach delivering services in more than 170 countries.

Michael graduated from Oxford University in 1984.

Hamish stepped down as IPA Director General in July 2011 after ten years in the role.  In September he was appointed Strategic Advisor to integrated creative agency 23red.  He is also an ASA Council member and partner in Pringle and Pringle LLP.

During his 26-year agency career Hamish worked at ten UK agencies for more than thirty companies on over fifty brands.  He is a Fellow of both the IPA and the Marketing Society, and a member of the Marketing Group of Great Britain.

Hamish is the co-author of Brand Spirit, Brand Manners, Brand Immortality, and Spending Advertising Money in the Digital Age, and author of Celebrity Sells.
He is also the inventor of the Diagonal Thinking concept.

Peter took up the Directorship at the Institute for Government on 1st January 2012. He was previously a Senior Fellow at the Institute and divided his time here with his work for the Detainee Inquiry, a privy counsellor panel looking at whether the British Government was implicated in the improper treatment of detainees held by other countries (a role from which he resigned at the end of last year to concentrate on the IfG). At the Institute, he co-authored reports on Transitions and Ministerial Effectiveness and has been closely involved in work on political and constitutional reform. Until mid-2010, Peter was a journalist for nearly 40 years, split between the Financial Times and The Times, where he had been their domestic political analyst and commentator. He has been a regular broadcaster, has written seven books and delivered frequent lectures. He chairs the Hansard Society, a non-partisan charity which promoters understanding of Parliament and representative democracy. He will be stepping down from this role in the next few months. Peter has received two honorary doctorates of literature, is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, an Honorary Fellow of the Political Studies Association and was one of the first recipients of the President’s medal of the British Academy. He was appointed to the Privy Council in July 2010 in order to serve on the Detainee Inquiry.

Kerstin Rodgers aka MsMarmitelover launched the underground restaurant movement in the UK with her blog at www.marmitelover.blogspot.com. Since then, hundreds of supper clubs have started, influenced by her book Supper Club. Her site Find a supper club (supperclubfangroup.ning.com) is the central place for supper clubs to advertise their dates and location. A passionate believer in the punk philosophy of DIY but applied to food, she has also innovated The Underground Farmer's Market, to encourage small producers to create food businesses and sell their wares.  Originally Kerstin Rodgers trained as a photographer, having had a number of exhibitions in Paris, Chartres and London. Starting out as a teenage photographer at New Musical Express, her work has been published in all the main newspapers and magazines. An exhibition of her rock back catalogue is planned for next year. The hit song 'My girl's mad at me' by Madness was written about her.  @MsMarmitelover

Graham became R3’s CEO in 2005. He brought with him over 30 years of senior international banking experience, and a keen understanding of bank lending criteria; vital during the insolvency process.

R3 is the trade body for the UK’s insolvency practitioners, specialised accountants and lawyers who work at the sharp end of business rescue or failure. Post-Enterprise Act, the insolvency landscape shifted towards emphasising the business rescue functions of the administration process.

Prior to R3, Graham held various management roles across risk, corporate governance, turnaround, debt recovery and loss avoidance, including a post in Brazil at Banco Barclays e Galicia SA.

Graham’s interests include military history and music; he was a marathon runner, but says he is wiser and slower now to ever contemplate another.

Richard Sambrook is Professor of Journalism and Director of the Centre for Journalism at Cardiff University. For thirty years he was a journalist at the BBC working as a producer and editor on a number of radio and TV news programmes and on location in China, the Middle East, Russia, Europe and the USA. He was on the management board of the BBC for ten years first as Director of Sport, then Director of News and finally Director of Global News and the World Service. Following the BBC he worked for two years as Global Vice Chairman and Chief Content Officer for Edelman, the world's largest PR firm.  He is a trustee of WWF-UK and of the International News Safety Institute. @sambrook

Brigitte Trafford has run corporate communications for three of Britain's biggest companies: ICAP, Lloyds Banking Group and ITV.  She was also the founder of Burghley Communications, a strategic communications consultancy.  Earlier in her career she was Global Head of Communications and Chief Spokesperson for Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, working in New York and London. After graduating from Cambridge, Brigitte got her first "proper" job from a customer in a restaurant she was running. She is on the advisory board of Blurb Inc., a profitable book publishing company based in San Francisco.

Chantal joined Taylor Bennett in 1999 and has over 20 years experience in the communications industry. She has a first class degree in English, from Victoria University, New Zealand. Her career started in financial PR at Streets Financial, covering IPOs, M&A but ultimately switched to HR & Development at Shandwick. Chantal handles senior corporate appointments for clients within the FTSE, Euro300 and public sector and is the practice head for internal communications.Chantal is also the Chairman of Unicorn Jobs, Taylor Bennett’s sister recruitment agency; a regular trainer for the Taylor Bennett Foundation and provides counsel to the directors of the charity Ministry of Stories

Kitty Ussher is an economist and former Labour party politician. She was the MP for Burnley between 2005-10 and served as a minister in the Treasury (twice) and also at the Department for Work and Pensions. Prior to entering parliament she was a special advisor at the (then) Department for Trade and Industry and had previously worked as an economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit as well as doing policy work for the Labour team in the run up to the 1997 election.

After leaving parliament she enjoyed a spell as the Director of Demos think-tank during which time she wrote four pamphlets on aspects of economic and industrial policy. She now writes on economic issues for the Smith Institute.

Marc enjoys a diverse career. He is co-founder of Pocket, a developer of affordable housing. Pocket builds housing in London that requires no grant, is secured as affordable in perpetuity and sold outright to people on low to moderate incomes – see: www.pocketliving.com.

Marc started his career in corporate finance at County NatWest. In 1991, he set up his own advisory business (Media Finance). In 1997, he became Chief Executive of Crescent Entertainment - the West End’s largest group of theatres and cinemas and in 2000 he became Chief Executive of First Call International.

Marc also has extensive venture capital experience, both as an entrepreneur and as an investor. He is Chairman of Eclipse VCT 2 Plc and ProVen Growth & Income VCT Plc. In his spare time he plays jazz and produces films.

Benjamin is the founder and Managing Director of Deliberate PR, a news-focused agency that offers idea generation to conventional PR agencies, digital PR and social media strategies, and news consultancy and crisis management to corporations and individuals. He has worked within the UK media industry for ten years, including time as a film publicist, and on the newsdesks of the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph. Deliberate PR’s clients include The Hay Festival, The Aldeburgh Documentary Festival, HarperCollins, Angels The Costumiers, Hilary Devey (BBC Dragons Den), and portrait artist, Jonathan Yeo. @benjaminwebb