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.

Anwar Akhtar is Director of The Samosa (www.thesamosa.co.uk) a digital media news, culture and publishing project, focusing on Britain and South Asia, the Middle East, the Pakistani Diaspora and the politics of identity, globalisation and human rights. Manchester born, he grew up in Rusholme, the heart of Manchester’s Pakistani Community and is fluent in Punjabi and Urdu and in his junior years worked in several Manchester’s markets, in his father’s retail business. He graduated with BA Hons Social Studies at Sheffield Hallam University and spent ten years working as a DJ and Club promoter in the North of England and was founder of The Republic Club in Sheffield. Previously Anwar was the Project Director at the The Rich Mix Cultural Foundation http://www.richmix.org.uk/, a fellow on the Clore Leadership Programme in 2004/5 and a Senior Officer within the Culture Team at Greater London Authority 2000-2001.  Anwar is an associate of Manchester www.urbed.coop a cooperative working across urban design, regeneration, sustainability and community involvement.

Stephen Barber is Group Managing Director of Pictet & Cie and Group Head of Communications. Pictet is Switzerland’s largest private bank.   Stephen maintains a coordination responsibility for Pictet’s Japanese business interests. In 2008 he established the Prix Pictet, the leading global photography prize, whose subject is sustainability, which he continues to manage.

Stephen began his investment career in 1977, later managing money in Japanese and Asian markets, he spent five years in Japan as chief executive of Invesco’s regional operations before joining Pictet in 1993. He speaks and reads Japanese. Amongst others he has been awarded and achieved - Fund Manager of the Year (What Investment magazine, 1985); Best Fund Manager (World Equity magazine, 1995); editor of the best-selling history, The House of Nomura (Bloomsbury, 1990); Global Leader of Tomorrow, World Economic Forum, Davos (1993-6); exhibitions of his own paintings and drawings, including a solo show at The Muse Gallery, Portobello Road, London (2005).

Giselle Bodie is European COO of Kantar Media Intelligence.  As part of the WPP group, Kantar Media Intelligence is a leading international provider of media insights to global PR, communication and marketing clients.

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 UK, the world’s leading PR workflow solution company where she was Managing Director until April 2010.

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 member of the IOD’s Professional Review Group for directors applying to become Chartered Directors.

Professor Brock became Professor and Head of Journalism at City University in September 2009. He began his reporting career at the Yorkshire Evening Press and The Observer, joining The Times in 1981. After starting at The Times as a feature writer, he became a features editor and, in 1984, op-ed page editor. He was foreign editor, Brussels bureau chief, European Editor, Managing Editor, Saturday Editor and most recently International Editor in a 28-year career at the newspaper. He is a board member of the World Editors Forum, and a member of the British committee of the International Press Institute. He broadcasts and lectures frequently and reviews for the Times Literary Supplement.

Charlie, a recovering journalist, is a media advisor to a clutch of innovative 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, which runs local newspapers, magazines and radio stations and is the editorial director of Editorial Intelligence.  Charlie’s Fleet St career included stints at The Independent where he was managing editor, home editor and the founding sports editor. At The Guardian he was a sports reporter, the Saturday editor, Travel editor and the Media editor. He also spent time as a features executive at the Mail. His hobbies include close-up magic (see “charliethecard” on YouTube and, yes, he is available for parties), riding a motorcycle and the media.

Rory Cellan-Jones has been a reporter for the BBC for more than two decades, covering business and technology stories for much of that time.

His on-screen career began as reporter for Wales Today in Cardiff, from where he moved to London as a reporter on Breakfast Time. He quickly transferred to business coverage, working across the BBC’s output from the Money Programme to Newsnight, from the Today programme to the Ten O Clock News. The stories he has covered range from Black Wednesday and the Maxwell trial to the dot com bubble and the rise of Google.

In 2000 he was briefly the BBC’s Internet Correspondent before returning to his post as Business and Industry Correspondent after the dot com bubble burst. At the beginning of 2007 he was appointed Technology Correspondent with a brief to expand the BBC’s coverage of the impact of the internet on business and society.

He now covers technology for television, radio and the BBC website. He also blogs regularly on “dot rory”, the BBC’s popular technology blog, named recently as one of the Sunday Times Top 100 blogs, and is a prolific Twitterer – you can follow him at twitter.com/ruskin147.  And whenever there is a new gadget or useful website to try,  Rory is likely to be experimenting with ways of using the new tools in his journalism.

He is also the author of “Dot Bomb”, a critically acclaimed account of Britain’s dot com bubble.

Rory studied Modern and Medieval Languages at Jesus College, Cambridge, and worked in Paris and Berlin before entering journalism.

Former Virgin Atlantic and Eurostar comms head, Paul Charles, is founder and CEO of leading Travel & Transport PR agency PCC. www.verypcc.com Paul’s clients include Singapore Tourism Board, Monaco, Parrot Cay, Cocoa Island, The Metropolitan and The Halkin hotels in London and ITC Hotels of India.

Paul was previously COO (Chief Operating Officer) and non-executive Director at LEWIS PR where he set up the Consumer Division, and advised clients including Pret A Manger, Autoglass and FIBA. From 2006 until 2009, Paul was Director of Communications for Virgin Atlantic and close adviser to Sir Richard Branson. Paul was responsible for the airline’s corporate, consumer, strategic and crisis communications worldwide. Paul oversaw new route launches, results announcements, aircraft orders, environmental strategic planning and the communications campaign for Virgin Atlantic’s successful 25th birthday events. Paul was also instrumental in building Virgin Atlantic’s social media strategy.

Before joining Virgin Atlantic, Paul was Director of Communications at the high-speed train company Eurostar and was responsible for launching the UK's first high-speed trainline. Prior to Eurostar, Paul spent a decade reporting, producing and presenting at the BBC, working on programmes including BBC Television's World Business Report, The Money Programme, BBC1 Breakfast and BBC Radio's Today, MoneyBox, Inside Money and The Financial World Tonight. Paul has been featured in the PR Week PowerBook every year since 2007 and won several awards, most notably the PR Week PR Professional of The Year 2004 and Best Crisis Communications at the CorpComms Awards 2009. He lives in London and commutes worldwide!

Louise Chunn is an award-winning editor and journalist. She is currently editor-in-chief of Psychologies Magazine, and has previously edited In Style, ES and Good Housekeeping, been deputy editor of Vogue and Elle, and women’s page editor of The Guardian during its “post-feminism” heyday in the 1990s. She started out as a music journalist in New Zealand in the 1970s and now considers herself a “women’s interest” specialist in its broadest sense.  Proud moments include:  winning the Cambridge Union debate “That Jordan is a feminist icon” for the opposing side; and with Psychologies creating  its ” Put Porn in its Place” campaign which aims to protect children by making porn something internet users have to opt in for rather than try to block;  and the Positive Beauty Manifesto, which urges women to use the beauty industry as a tool rather than feel bombarded by unattainably perfect ideals that damage confidence, and was  signed by 50 prominent women including Susan Sarandon, Cynthia Nixon and Miranda Hart.

Grant is director in the Corporate and Financial Practice at Edelman. Grant has been with the company for a year, following a 25 year career as a journalist, which included a decade at the BBC where, among other jobs, he was an Associate Editor of Newsnight and ran business and economic coverage on the main TV and radio programmes. Grant has also been Business Editor of the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, Associate editor on Andrew Neil’s The Business, and most recently before he joined Edelman, Editor of Financial News.

Damian was elected in May 2010 as the MP for Folkestone and Hythe. He is also a member of the House of Commons Select Committee for Culture, Media, Sport and the Olympics.

Damian is Chairman of the Conservative Arts and Creative Industries Network, which was launched in May 2009. The Network brings together individuals who work in the arts and creative industries with the Culture Ministerial team, MPs, and senior figures in the Conservative party involved in developing policy in this area.

Damian’s business career was in the advertising and communications industries, working for 10 years the M&C Saatchi advertising agency in London and then for Lexington Communications where he was Senior Counsel.

In November 2007 Damian was listed amongst the top 50 names for the future in public life in Britain in the first ‘Courvosier the Future 500’ published by The Observer.

He is married to Sarah and they have two young children, Claudia and Hugo.

Iain Dale is one of Britain’s leading political commentators and bloggers and a presenter on LBC Radio. He is contributing editor for GQ Magazine, writes for the Daily Telegraph, and pens a fortnightly diary for the Eastern Daily Press. He presents Radio 4’s What the Papers Say and was the chief anchor of Britain’s first political internet TV channel, 18 Doughty Street.com. He  is Managing Director of TOTAL POLITICS magazineand Biteback Publishing.
Iain is a former political lobbyist, financial journalist and was the founder of Politico’s Bookstore. He is the creator and host of the theatre production A Night With Ann Widdecombe, which tours provincial theatres all round the country.

He was a presenter of Radio 5 Live’s Sunday Service programme alongside Fi Glover and Charlie Whelan from 2000 to 2004. He has also appeared on Radio 4’s Any Questions.
Iain has written or edited more than twenty books including Margaret Thatcher: A Tribute in Words & Pictures, the Little Book of Boris & 500 of the Most Acerbic, Witty & Erudite Things Ever Said About Politics

Stephen is editor of Editorial Intelligence and compiles the ei daily digest of the leading opinions featured in the comment media. Stephen is a former Daily Mail and Times staffer with 25 years' experience in journalism. His PR, marketing and communications consultancy, Copythatworks Ltd, services the financial sector.

Kim Fletcher spent 25 years in the national newspaper industry, where he moved from editorial to managerial posts. He is a former deputy editor of The Sunday Telegraph, editor of The Independent on Sunday and was editorial director of Telegraph Group Ltd. He writes and broadcasts on media issues, is author of The Journalist's Handbook (Macmillan) and has been chairman of the UK training organisation the National Council for the Training of Journalists since 2004.  He is a partner with Brunswick, the international corporate communications partnership.

Giles is a founding partner and the CEO of Good Business, one of Europe’s leading responsible business consultancies. He managed a wide range of domestic and international marketing campaigns at Saatchi & Saatchi and then helped set up M&C Saatchi in 1995 before starting Good Business in 1997 with Steve Hilton.

Since then Good Business has advised L’Oreal, Mcdonald’s, The Coca-Cola Company and Orange. His first book, co-authored with Steve Hilton, was ‘Good Business - Your World Needs You’, published around the world in 2002. Giles writes a monthly column for the Times on business and consumer trends in the social and environmental arena.

Giles advises a number of charities, is a Fellow of Wellington College and currently holds the Chairmanship of  ‘We Are What We Do’,a Social Enterprise focused on creating consumer led social change best known for its book ‘Change the World for a Fiver’ Most recently Giles has set up a new not for profit, called the Sustainable Restaurant Association, supporting restaurants in the UK to become more sustainable in the world.

Matthew Gwyther has edited Management Today for the last nine years and during this time has won the coveted BSME Business Magazine Editor of the year on a record five occasions. It is his first editorship.  During a fifteen year career as a freelance he wrote for the Sunday Times magazine, The Independent, The Telegraph, The Observer, GQ and was a contributing editor to Business magazine. He was PPA Business Feature Writer of the Year in 2001. Before becoming a journalist he had a brief and inauspicious spell as a civil servant working at the Medical Research Council in its London Secretariat.

Tony Halmos is Director of Public Relations at the City of London. He has been in this post since 1994. Previously he was Associate Director of Public Affairs at Hill and Knowlton, from 1989 to 1994. In 1987-88 he was Press Secretary to Rt Hon David Steel MP and, prior to that from 1982 to 1988, he held various positions within the Social Democratic Party, ending as National Organiser. Educated at Cardiff High School, Wadham College, Oxford and the University of Illinois, USA, he lives in South London.

Isabel Hilton is a London based writer and broadcaster, and founder and editor of www.chinadialogue.net, an innovative, fully bilingual Chinese English website devoted to building a shared approach on climate change and environmental issues with China.

Based in London, with offices in Beijing and San Francisco, chinadialogue launched in 2006 and is now recognised as a unique, independent source of information on environmental and climate issues, widely read in China and in more than 200 countries around the world. Hilton has reported extensively from South and East Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Europe and Africa, writing for a wide range of national and international media. In addition to her writing career, she has made several radio and television documentaries and has been a distinguished presenter for BBC Radio Three and Four. Her books include The Search for the Panchen Lama, The Falklands War (co-author); The Rise of China (contributing author) and The Thinking Fan’s Guide to the World Cup (contributing author).

Julia Hobsbawm’s career in media and communications has spanned the most momentous changes in media technology of the last twenty five years: Her first communication took place using a telex and a fax; she is now an avid user of Twitter.  Julia is the only UK media business CEO on the World Economic Forum’s Global Council on Informed Societies 2010-2011. Julia combines being the Founder and Chief Executive of Editorial Intelligence with writing, speaking and coaching on entrepreneurship, work-life balance and communications (www.juliahobsbawm.com). Julia is a Strategic Adviser to Edelman. She is the Editor of a collection of essays ‘Where the Truth Lies: Trust and Morality in the Business of PR Journalism and Communication’, which was first published in 2006 and republished in 2010. In January 2009 her book ‘The See-Saw’ was published and went into reprint. Management Today has described it as “An Aladdin’s Cave of tips…which provide inspiration”. She is writing a new book about the age of information overload, ‘This we know’.

Jennifer Howze, formerly The Times’s online lifestyle editor and Alpha Mummy blog editor, is a journalist and co-founder of the BritMums social network, formerly British Mummy Bloggers. In 2010, she co-founded CyberMummy, the UK’s only parent blogging conference, which more than 400 delegates will attend this year in June. She speaks regularly about blogging and parenting; appearances include The Battle of Ideas, Woman’s Hour, and numerous digital conferences. A 20-year journalism veteran, Jennifer has contributed to a wide range of print and online publications, including The London Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Independent, Travel+Leisure, CNN.com, and a host of Conde Nast publications. Her work has been collected into Budget Travel’s Secret Hotels and Standing Up to Supernanny. Previously she was a judge for the Online Journalism Awards in the United States. She currently blogs at www.jenography.net.

Howell joined Barclays in September 2008 as Barclays Corporate Affairs Director where he was responsible for media and government relations, corporate communications and global community initiatives.

Prior to this he was Permanent Secretary, Government Communication, in the Cabinet Office from 2004-08 and a Founding Partner and Director of Brown Lloyd James, a corporate PR company.

He was Political Secretary to the Prime Minister from 1994-97, Director of Corporate and Government Affairs at Cable & Wireless from 1992-94, and Director of Corporate Affairs and a Board member at the BBC from 1987-92.

He started his working life in the media at Capital Radio, the London commercial radio station and TVam, Britain's first commercial breakfast television channel.

Howell was awarded the CBE in August 1997.  He is on the board of the Chichester Festival Theatre and is a Trustee of the British Council.

Luke Johnson is the Chairman of Risk Capital Partners, a private equity firm he founded in 2001. For six years until 2010 he served as Chairman of Channel 4 Television, a major British broadcaster.

He is Chairman/part owner of the restaurant business Giraffe with 40 branches, and Chairman/owner of Patisserie Valerie, Druckers and Baker & Spice, three chains of over 70 retail patisseries. He recently took control of Bread Ltd, Britain’s largest artisan baker, including the retail bakery Gail’s.

As Chairman and majority shareholder of Signature Restaurants he built up the Strada 75 branch restaurant chain and owned various classic London restaurants including The Ivy, Le Caprice and J Sheekey.

Previously he was Chairman of PizzaExpress PLC. During his involvement the share price rose from 40p to over 800p. In the 1980s he worked as a stockbroking analyst for Kleinworts. He co-founded the largest UK chain of dental surgeries, Integrated Dental Holdings, which was sold for over £100m after ten years of ownership.

He wrote a business column in The Sunday Telegraph between 1998 and 2006, and now writes a weekly essay in The Financial Times. In 2009 he became the Chairman of The Royal Society of Arts.

He graduated in medicine from Magdalen College, Oxford University.
 

Baroness Kennedy is an expert in human rights law, civil liberties and constitutional issues. She is the chair of Justice a bencher of Gray’s Inn and president of the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. She was chair of Charter 88 from 1992 to 1997, the Human Genetics Commission from 1998 to 2007 and the British Council from 1998 to 2004. She has acted in many of the most prominent British criminal cases of the last thirty years; most recently in cases connected to terrorism including the conspiracy to blow up transatlantic aircraft. She is currently part of the Wikileaks legal team. She is a frequent broadcaster, journalist and author. She has recently become the president of The Women of The Year Lunch and the Investigating Officer of the Human Trafficking Commission in Scotland. She was awarded the Chambers and Partners Bar Award for Lifetime Achievement 2010. Helena was elected Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford in July 2010 and will take up the position in Autumn 2011.

Oona King is Diversity Executive at Channel 4, and recently became Baroness King of Bow.  Oona was formerly Senior Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister (Gordon Brown), MP for Bethnal Green & Bow (1997-2005), Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Cabinet Minister for Trade and Industry, and Vice-Chair of the British Council.  Oona founded the All Party Parliamentary Group on Genocide Prevention, whose work was commended by the UN Expert Panel on Peacekeeping.  Before entering Parliament Oona was a Trades Union Officer (GMB) representing low-paid workers, and a researcher at the European Parliament for five years.  Oona received a first-class degree in politics from York University, and a scholarship from Berkeley.  Oona’s diaries about her time in Parliament were published by Bloomsbury in 2007, and she has worked as a TV Presenter for BBC, Channel 4, ITV and Sky.  Her documentary for BBC 2 on Martin Luther King was short-listed for an RTS Award.  Oona is a qualified aerobics instructor, and was briefly a House Music DJ.

Debbie became Chief Executive of Engine in 2010, having been Joint Chief Executive for the previous 2 years.  She oversees the 10 partner companies (which include disciplines such as digital communications, advertising, direct marketing, public relations and strategy consultancy). She was Chief Executive of WCRS from 2005-2008 and continues to be involved as Chairman of the advertising agency. She was a founding partner in the management buyout of WCRS in 2004.

Prior to that she was Head of Planning at WCRS for five years and started her career at AC Nielsen and Saatchi and Saatchi.

Debbie was recently named one of the Sunday Times ‘Top 40 under 40 in Media’ and Engine was named one of the Sunday Times Best Companies to Work for in 2011.

Nicola is the Executive Chairman and partner at the advertising agency Karmarama which she joined in April 2008. She is also the current president of the IPA (the advertising industry trade body.)

Prior to Karmarama Nicola was the Deputy Chairman of Grey London and a Board Director at BBH.

In 2005 she featured in Management Today's list of the 'Top 35 Women Under 35. She is a past president of WACL.

Nicola's other responsibilities include being the Chair of the Corporate Board of Women's Aid, Trustee of The White Ribbon Alliance and a Director of The Fragrance Foundation.

Her greatest joy in life comes from her husband Jon and four children Gabi, Danny, Sam and Zac.

Sarah Modlock is the Editor of Interactive Investor, a site for private investors, covering all aspects of the City and the economy for its 1.5 million registered users. She also covers personal finance in a freelance capacity and has just stepped down after four years as MSN's Consumer Champion. She has written two books about money and her articles and interviews have appeared in nearly every national newspaper as well as specialist publications, magazines and major websites. Sarah also writes about travel, covering everything from extreme ice driving in the Arctic Circle to yacht racing in the British Virgin Islands. Her travel articles have appeared in Time, The Sunday Telegraph, Tatler, House & Garden and Harpers Bazaar, among others.

Gerry Northwood has enjoyed a busy and operationally focused career in the Royal Navy. He has commanded two warships. One of these, HMS LIVERPOOL, a Type 42 Guided Missile Destroyer, conducted counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean during which time she successfully interdicted seven different consignments of drugs being smuggled to Europe and the UK.  The ship also conducted a series of humanitarian aid operations following hurricanes.

Northwood is in the final weeks of an appointment to the Directorate of Media and Communications based in MoD Main Building, Whitehall, where he has been the Royal Navy representative in the MoD Press Office. Prior to this he was actively involved in planning and directing maritime counter-terror and counter-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean. This included taking a leading role in establishing the European Union counter-piracy mission off Somalia, Operation ATALANTA, for which he was awarded the OBE.

Recently selected for promotion to the rank of Captain, he has been assigned to command a counter-piracy Task Group based in RFA FORT VICTORIA stationed in the Indian Ocean.
He enjoys studying International Relations, Political and Military/Naval History and he recently read for an MA in Defence Studies at Kings College.

A keen sportsman, he plays cricket, goes mountain biking and is an active member of the Royal Navy Windsurfing Team for whom he competes in National and International competitions. Last September he completed a circumnavigation of the Isle of Wight on a windsurfer to help raise funds for Help for Heroes.

Amol Rajan is an adviser to Evgeny Lebedev, Chairman of Evening Standard Ltd and Independent Print Ltd. He was previously Deputy Comment Editor at The Independent, and before that Sports News Correspondent and a news reporter at the paper. He is a regular essayist and television critic for the paper, and a book reviewer and bi-weekly restaurant critic for The Independent on Sunday. A contributor to The Literary Review and The Salisbury Review, he read English at Downing College, Cambridge, spent his gap year at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and for two years was mic boy on Channel 5's The Wright Stuff. He is a trustee of Prospex, a charity for young people in Islington, and his first book, Twirlymen: the Unlikely History of Cricket's Greatest Spin Bowlers, was released by Yellow Jersey Press on May 5. Chief among his obsessions are reggae and avoiding lifts.

Justine Roberts is the Founder and CEO of Mumsnet and the recently launched Gransnet, both online communities of parents and grandparents respectively sharing advice, support and product recommendations. Over the last ten years Mumsnet has grown into the UK’s leading social network for mums with 1.35 million monthly unique visitors.  In 2010 Justine was named 97th most powerful person in the Media in the MediaGuardian 100 list.

Before that she wrote about football and cricket for the Daily Telegraph and the Times and before that, a long time ago, she was an economist and strategist for SG Warburg.
Justine is a mother of four - twelve-year old identical twins – Lola and Scarlet –Jake who is seven and Jesse, four.

Cari Rosen is a freelance writer and columnist. For the last two and a half years she has had a regular column - The Midlife Mum - in the Jewish Chronicle and she also writes features and copy for a wide variety of newspapers, magazines, websites and corporate clients.

Until 2008 she was a Senior Series Editor at North One Television working across a range of programmes from comedy to documentary to football. 

She is the author of "The Secret Diary of A New Mum (Aged 43 1/4)" (published by Vermilion (2011)) and a media commentator on older motherhood

Ian is Managing Partner and co-owner at Zone, an exciting new advertising production agency. Zone works for international advertising agencies and client brands and specialises in working with creative teams to efficiently realise and deliver their campaigns around the world. He is also a strategy consultant to Sunday, a highly awarded and entrepreneurial publishing agency.

Previously, Ian spent 19 years at Redwood, a customer-publishing agency and part of AMV-BBDO. As Commercial Director he headed up new business and also sat on the board of Redwood North America.

He studied history at the University of Sussex and has an MBA from Henley Business School.

Outside of work he can be found hanging around Ronnie Scott’s, the Royal Opera House and the Philharmonia Orchestra – where he is a member of the development board.

Alison Sharman joined ITV in January 2006 as Director of Factual and Daytime from the BBC where she was the Controller of Children's Television. Alison's factual commissioning brief extends across ITV1 and the digital channels.  In addition Alison commissions all daytime content for ITV1.

Alison was also Controller of Daytime at the BBC, where she maintained audience share while bringing distinctive award-winning programmes to the portfolio with commissions such as MasterChef and The Afternoon Play. Alison started her career on consumer affairs programme Watchdog. She has also worked at BSkyB; TV-am and has made programmes for C4.

In 2006 Alison was Advisory Chair of the Edinburgh TV Festival.  In 2005 Alison was awarded the media award by the Howard League for Penal Reform.

Alexandra Shulman has been Editor of British Vogue for nineteen years.  She was educated at St Paul's Girls School and read Social Anthropology at Sussex University.

Her career in journalism started on Over-21 magazine.  In 1982 she joined Tatler as a result of writing a freelance article for the then editor Tina Brown.  As writer and commissioning editor, she stayed there for five years and became Features Editor. In 1987 she joined the Sunday Telegraph as editor of the Womans page and then moved to become deputy editor of their tabloid magazine 7 Days.  She joined Vogue as Features Editor in 1988 and then moved to GQ as Editor in February 1990.

She was appointed Editor of British Vogue in January 1992. In 1996 she won the Periodical Publishers Association, Editor of the Year Award and in 2001 Vogue won their Consumer Magazine of the Year Award. In 2004 she was awarded the British Society of Magazine Editors, Editor Award and in 2008 the Consumer Magazine Award. In the 2005 New Years Honours List she was awarded the OBE for Services to the Magazine Industry. In 2010 she was awarded an honorary MA from the University of Creative Arts.

Jon Sopel is the presenter of the Politics Show on BBC1, interviewing all the major figures on the national stage. And during the general election fronted the very popular 'Campaign Show'. In 2007 he was voted political journalist of the year.

He is also a senior presenter on the BBC News Channel where in the past few years has anchored coverage from the Washington, the Middle East, Sri Lanka after the tsunami, New Orleans after Katrina. He was in Beijing for the Olympics and in South Africa for the World Cup.
Before becoming a full time presenter, Jon was the BBC's Paris Correspondent. from where he was sent to report on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Prior to moving abroad he was the BBC's chief political correspondent at Westminster, during which time he wrote an acclaimed biography of Tony Blair. Jon is an ambassador for the Prince's Trust and on the advisory panel of the Citizenship Foundation.

Danny Sriskandarajah is Director of the Royal Commonwealth Society. During 2011, he is also Interim Director of the Commonwealth Foundation, an inter-governmental organisation that promotes civil society around the Commonwealth. Before the RCS, Danny spent five years at the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr), where he was head of migration research and, latterly, Deputy Director.

Danny is the author of numerous reports and academic articles, and regularly appears in e media, including through the occasional comment piece in UK and international newspapers. He has been a consultant to several international organisations and is a Trustee of the Baring Foundation, Ockenden International and Praxis Community Projects.

He holds a degree from the University of Sydney, and an MPhil and DPhil from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Neil is a former Director of Communications for the Royal College of Nursing, a post he held between 1984 and 1989.  From 1989-1992 he was Political Secretary to the then Labour leader, Rt Hon Neil Kinnock MP.  He established Neil Stewart Associates in 1992.  He has a postgraduate qualification in Communications, Advertising and Marketing and is a member of the Institute of Public Relations.   He is Chairman and Chief Executive of Neil Stewart Associates.  Neil was the founder and chair of Stewart Productions Limited, 1995-1998, and worked for Informa PLC from 1998—2001 to whom he had sold Stewart Productions Ltd. He facilitated a buyout and was a Director of Parliamentary Communications Ltd, publisher of the House Magazine and Holyrood Magazine 2001-2002. Neil bought out NSA from PCL in 2002.  He is Chairman of Policy Review TV Ltd, an online TV company.  He is also publisher of Policy Review Magazine, a Director and Shareholder of Editorial Intelligence Ltd and a board member of the King’s Fund subsidiary KEHF Limited.

Will Straw is ippr's Associate Director for Strategic Development. He leads ippr's international partnership work and his main research areas include growth and globalisation. Will is founder of Left Foot Forward, Britain's No 1 left-wing blog, where he worked as editor until December 2010. He is a Visiting Fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington DC, where he worked from 2008–09 as Associate Director on Economic Growth, leading the Center's work on the US stimulus package, globalisation and innovation. Previously, Will was a 2007–08 Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University and worked for four years at HM Treasury, primarily on enterprise and growth policy. He is a former President of the Oxford University Student Union and co-edited 'The Change We Need: What Britain can learn from Obama’s victory', published by the Fabian Society.

Founded in 1988, Avalon is a multi-award winning entertainment and talent management company with offices in the UK and USA. The company has discovered many acts who have become household names including Frank Skinner, David Baddiel, Harry Hill, Al Murray, Russell Howard, The Mighty Boosh, Stewart Lee, Lee Mack, Dave Gorman, Chris Addison, Greg Behrendt, Kristen Schaal, John Oliver and Mail Order Comedy and have an international reputation for cutting edge comedy, theatre and TV production. Jon also manages high profile presenters Adrian Chiles, Christine Bleakley and Fiona Bruce.

In addition to Avalon Management Group, Jon is the co-founding Managing Director of Avalon Promotions, Avalon Public Relations, Avalon Motion Pictures, and the award-winning production company, Avalon Television.
As a Producer he has been responsible for many successful shows including; the multi-BAFTA winning Harry Hill's TV Burp; the RTS and Rose d’Or winning Not Going Out; BBC Three’s highest rated entertainment show Russell Howard’s Good News; Fantasy Football; That Sunday Night Show; The Frank Skinner Show; and with Steve Coogan, the double BAFTA winning The Sketch Show. He also worked with Frank Skinner and David Baddiel to produce the double number one single and football anthem Three Lions.
He has also produced some of the largest gigs in British comedy history including Newman and Baddiel at Wembley, the first ever arena comedy show, both Al Murray and Russell Howard at the O2 Arena and the multi-award winning musical Jerry Springer – The Opera which won all five best musical awards in London’s West End. The company has also produced seven Perrier and Edinburgh Comedy Award winning shows at the Edinburgh Festival as well as US comedian Denis Leary's iconic show No Cure For Cancer.

Shriti Vadera advises international companies, funds and governments on strategy, finance and restructuring. Her clients have included the G20 under its Korean Presidency, the Government of Dubai, Temasek Holdings Singapore and Allied Irish Bank. She is a Non-Executive Director of BHP Billiton and AstraZeneca.

She was a Minister in the UK Government from June 2007 to September 2009 in the Cabinet Office and Business Departments. She worked on the Government's response to the financial crisis and was a key architect of the UK bank recapitalisation plan and G20 London Summit. She was on the Council of Economic Advisers at HM Treasury from 1999 to 2007, where she worked on business issues and prior to that was an investment banker for 14 years with SG Warburg / UBS, with a particular focus on emerging markets.
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Ed Williams joined the BBC as Director of Communications in March 2008. He advises the Director-General on all issues relating to corporate reputation and has responsibility for communications across the BBC’s services. He is a member of the BBC Direction Group.

Before joining the BBC, he was Director of Corporate Affairs at Reuters reporting to Chief Executive Thomas H. Glocer. He was responsible for group communications at Reuters and led the company’s communications around the $17 billion tie-up with The Thomson Corporation.

Prior to Reuters, he was Director of Corporate Communications for 3, Hutchinson Whampoa’s telecoms business in the UK. Before that, he spent six years at Brunswick Group LLP advising on media relations, corporate positioning, crisis management and campaigns, as well as, merger and acquisition communications.

In an individual capacity, he worked as media consultant to General Wesley Clark during his time as a witness at the Milosevic trial. He has also been a pro-bono advisor to the New York based  International Crisis Group, the non-profit conflict resolution organisation, and the International Center for Transitional Justice and has experience as a political speech writer in the UK.

He started his career in journalism, working at Reuters Television and GMTV in various positions including producer, on-screen reporter and News Editor. He trained as a journalist at London News Service and spent time as a freelance news feature writer at the Independent.

Recovering politician having been a Labour MP (1997-2010).

Founder: Women’s Sports Foundation (1984), dot.tv on BSkyB (1995), All Party Parliamentary Internet Group (1997) and Chairman 1997-2010; Oxford Internet Institute (2000), Digital Week for the Nation (2007) and now working on an Internet Policy Institute (2011)

Winner: four national awards for his work on the web (2006-2008); rated fastest emailer in the West by BBC’s Radio 5Live (2006) and first politician in the world to have his own iPhone App (2009).

Today: Chairman of Trinity Hospice in Clapham, a digital consultant to education and charitable organisations and a senior policy advisor to a shadow secretary of state.

Yesterday: Played rugby for Oxford University, the Barbarians & England.  

Author: Seven books on Film and Rugby including Rugby 2011 (to be published July, 2011)

After graduating in Modern History at Christ Church, Oxford, Christopher travelled and worked as a freelance journalist before joining the BBC as a sub editor in Radio News at Broadcasting House. He worked in BBC News for seventeen years, the last seven – until 1995 – as Foreign Editor in BBC Newsgathering. In 1996 he joined Business in the Community as Head of Communications and in 2001 was appointed Chief Executive of Children’s Express, a registered charity whose aim is to give young people the power and means to express themselves in the media on issues that affect them. In 2005 he completed the Graduate Teacher Programme (GTP) in Tower Hamlets and worked as a teacher in two primary schools in Hackney. In April 2008 he was appointed Director of the Foreign Press Association in London.

He’s married with 2 daughters aged 22 and 17 and lives in Hackney