Sharon Waxman Founder, CEO & Editor in Chief TheWrap, USA

Sharon Waxman is the founder, CEO, and Editor-in-Chief of TheWrap News, the leading media company covering the business of Hollywood through news and live events.

An award-winning journalist and best-selling author, Waxman is one of the world’s top experts on Hollywood, the business of entertainment, and popular culture. She is a former Hollywood correspondent for the New York Times and a frequent commentator on CNN, CBS, and other leading outlets.

Waxman became an entrepreneur in 2009 when she founded TheWrap, leading it to the top of the entertainment media landscape. The Wrap is known for its high-caliber news gathering and journalistic independence, winning numerous awards. Waxman was named 2021 Online Journalist of the Year by the LA Press Club's SoCal Journalism Awards, with WaxWord named as the best blog that same year.

Stephanie Kaplan Lewis Co-founder and CEO Her Campus Media, USA

Stephanie Kaplan Lewis is the Co-founder and CEO of Her Campus Media, the #1 media company for college students and Gen Z, as well as a full-service youth marketing agency. She co-founded this company during her time as an undergraduate at Harvard in 2009. Her Campus Media encompasses multiple brands, including Her Campus, College Fashionista, Spoon University, InfluenceHer Collective, and Generation Hired. HCM reaches over 10 million monthly users on more than 1,500 college campuses, leveraging the power of its 50,000+ community members to connect brands with Gen Z through its comprehensive suite of services. 

Her Campus Media has received recognition as one of Fast Company's World's Most Innovative Companies and has been honored with the Campaign of the Year Award from Adweek. Stephanie also serves as an Expert-in-Residence at the Harvard Innovation Lab, is an EY Entrepreneur of the Year, and has been named to Forbes 30 Under 30 and Inc. 30 Under 30, among other accolades.

Paul Miller CEO Questex, USA

As the CEO of Questex, Paul is responsible for shaping Questex’s growth strategy and enhancing its offerings to better serve its customers as the leading information services company focused on the experience economy. 

Paul is an award-winning visionary leader with a keen ability and a track record of growing businesses. He has a passion for creating winning cultures and high-performing teams. Paul has successfully led and grown businesses with revenues ranging from $30 million to $250 million in both privately and publicly held companies. Notably, he was a member of the Executive Leadership team that completed the sale of Penton to Informa for $1.2 billion.

Before joining Questex, Paul served as the President of Informa’s Industry & Infrastructure Intelligence division, where he brought a high level of innovation and creativity to help customers achieve superior ROI on marketing investments and drive subscription revenues. Earlier in his career, Paul was the President of Penton’s Industry Group, where he had responsibilities that encompassed energy and buildings, design engineering, sourcing and manufacturing, and supply chain markets. Paul enjoyed a long and successful career with UBM, where he held several leadership positions. His last role was as CEO of UBM Tech, where he drove the business unit into digital content and services, completed several M&A transactions, and led international expansion into Europe, Asia, and Latin America. 

Paul is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (FCIM).

Andrés Rodríguez Founder and CEO Spainmedia

Andrés Rodríguez is a Journalist from the Complutense University of Madrid. After his time as editor and director of the most historic newspapers in Spain, in 2007 he decided to found the publishing group SpainMedia. Since then, he has consolidated a prestigious and profitable position in the lifestyle publications market, both in print and digital format. 

In 15 years, Spain Media has edited Esquire, Forbes, Harper’s Bazaar, Robb Report, L’Officiel, Tapas and T Magazine. In addition, Andrés is a board member of the newspaper El Español, a member of the board of directors of the Press Association of Madrid, founder of Club Matador, member of the board of protectors of the Teatro Real, 2016 Spanish National Gastronomy Award for Tapas magazine and in 2018 received the First Amendment Award by the Eisenhower Fellowship Association. He is also president of the Spanish Media Association (ARI).

Lucy Kueng Strategic Advisor, Board Member, Author and Speaker, Switzerland

Professor Lucy Kueng is an expert on strategy, innovation and leadership and focuses on successful responses to the challenges of digitalization. She is Senior Visiting Research Associate at the Reuters Institute, Oxford University and Non-Executive Board Member of the NZZ Media Group and formerly of Swiss PSM broadcaster SRG and VIZRT, the media tech provider. Lucy advises leading companies worldwide industry on digital transformation strategy and implementation. She keynotes frequently at international conferences and is the author of numerous books including Hearts and Minds: Harnessing Leadership, Culture and Talent to Really Go Digital, Going Digital, Innovators in Digital News, Strategic Management in the Media, and Inside the BBC and CNN. She holds a PhD and Habilitation from the University of St Gallen and an MBA from City Business School/Ashridge. 

Sam Baker Founder-Publisher The Shift with Sam Baker, UK

Sam Baker has spent more than 30 years in women’s media. She is the award- winning former Editor of the British magazines J17, Company, Cosmopolitan and Red. In 2015, she co-founded the Webby- and Lovie-winning women’s digital media brand, The Pool, with broadcaster Lauren Laverne. Late 2020 she launched the acclaimed podcast, The Shift, which has since expanded into a community and newsletter. 

She is a regular contributor to The Times, The Guardian, The Mail on Sunday and The Telegraph, amongst others, on a wide range of women’s issues, but particularly those affecting midlife women and beyond. She has written five novels and one work of non-fiction.

Kritasha Gupta Head of Business Development Financial Times, UK

Kritasha Gupta is the Head of Business Development, leading the FT's vertical growth strategy, responsible for leading the launch and growth of editorial verticals across topics like ESG, Climate, Private Equity, Markets, Work & Careers, etc. She works across editorial, product and commercial (subscriptions, advertising, events) teams to discover, test and scale vertical-led initiatives that support the FT's primary revenue streams.

Andy Burt MD CFO.com and Proformative.com at Industry Dive, USA

Andy is a 20+ year veteran of business and finance media. At Industry Dive, he focuses on strategy, operations, building new products, cultivating strong team culture, and building teams who excel.

Natasha Christie-Miller Former CEO Ascential Intelligence and Senior Advisor to TED conferences LLP Walking on Earth, Bayy Agency

Natasha Christie-Miller, is the former CEO of Ascential Intelligence,  Non-Executive Director and Chairwoman, Remco, and Senior Advisor to TED Talks, among others.

As CEO of Ascential Intelligence, the information services division at Ascential Plc, she built core, high-growth products in scale industries delivering high-value intelligence and connections for our powerful, professional audiences.

She started her career in sales and led the commercial teams on consumer brands such as Elle, Red, and the Emap parenting portfolio before taking on the role of Publishing Director of Drapers, the fashion industry bible at Emap B2B in 2005. She then became Managing Director for the Retail portfolio in 2007. Natasha was appointed CEO of EMAP in 2010 and CEO of Ascential Intelligence at Ascential Plc in 2015.

A Non-Exec Director of a media turned generalist VC for 13 years Natasha has overseen the buying, scaling, and divestment of over 200 companies. 

She is a Senior Board advisor to 3 fast growth companies (Walking On Earth, BAYY Agency, and EDITED) and a Senior Advisor to the world-famous TED Talks LLP.

Jacob Donnelly Publisher, Morning Brew, and Founder, A Media Operator Morning Brew and A Media Operator

Jacob Donnelly is the Publisher at Morning Brew, overseeing the rapidly growing B2B business. In his time there, it has grown from $5 million to over $25 million. He is also the founder of A Media Operator, which is targeted toward media professionals that are building or working on sustainable, audience-first media companies.

Andrew Losowsky Head of Community Product Vox Media LLC

Founder and innovator with expertise in journalism, product leadership, community, and preventing harmful speech.

Alan Soon Co-founder and CEO Splice Media, Singapore

Alan Soon is the Co-founder and CEO of Splice Media in Singapore, the outfit that supports the growth and viability of media startups and creators across Asia. He's been working in media for almost three decades. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

Bettina Widmer Head of Vertical Hub at Blick Gruppe Ringier, Switzerland

Bettina has worked in the media sector for the past seven years in various roles including editorial, social media, and product development. Since 2021 she has been Head of Vertical Hub at Blick, a Swiss national daily newspaper with 1.2 million daily online users and 750k registered users. Her team develops verticals targeting new audiences, acquiring registered members, and increasing monetisation through sponsorships.

Àlex Poderoso Chief Digital Officer Grupo RBA

Àlex Poderoso is a Technical Engineer in Computer Science and a Graduate in Multimedia from the Open University of Catalonia. He began his professional career in the first digital department of the public broadcaster of Catalonia. Later, he was the Digital Director at the magazine publisher Sàpiens. He then leapt at the chance to be part of the founding team of the newspaper Ara, the first integrated print-digital newsroom in Spain.

That experience led him to become the Head of Technological Development at El Periódico de Catalunya, a national newspaper based in Barcelona. 

Alex is currently the Digital Director of the RBA group. In this position, he helps general management with all issues related to digital business: product, technology and organisation.

 RBA has managed to take its leadership in the print world to digital, growing more than 1,300% in users in just 5 years and ranks among Spain’s most popular digital entities. The transformation of RBA included refocusing teams, specializing in verticals, and drawing upon quality content and people to adapt to dynamic changes in the media landscape while focusing on growth.

George Montagu Head of Insights FT Strategies, UK

George is Head of Insights at FT Strategies and an expert in the media industry and its accompanying business models. George has led and contributed to a number of high-profile projects including the News Sustainability Project, the National Theatre, and various leading European news publishers. Prior to joining FT Strategies, George spent 4 years guiding FT's data strategy and their future approach to marketing & advertising.

Martin Ashplant MD of TechPro B2B Vertical Future, UK

Martin is a digital media and product leader with 20 years of experience in content, commercial, product, engineering, data & analytics, marketing and audience development. Currently the Managing Director of Future's TechPro B2B vertical, Martin has also held senior digital leadership roles at Metro, New Statesman Media Group, City A.M. and Beano Studios. He is also a certified executive coach and has worked as a consultant for numerous media businesses.

Erika Marzano Project Manager: Audience Development Deutsche Welle, Germany

Erika Marzano is a Project Manager in the Audience Development team at Deutsche Welle (DW) in Bonn. She specialises in fostering connectivity between newsrooms and journalists and their audiences through social media strategies and engagement online. She leads central platform management for TikTok and X (formerly Twitter) in Audience Development. Her academic background spans linguistics to European and international studies, and journalism.

Richard O’Connor CEO B2B Marketing/Propolis, UK

Richard’s career has spanned B2B and B2C media, events and SaaS. He has run commercial teams at several leading private and public businesses, including Centaur,  The Independent Newspaper, UBM, Informa and RELX. He also led a multi-year commercial transformation programme for UBM, which involved the design and delivery of a sales and marketing operating model in EMEA, Asia and the US. He was also on the integration team following the acquisition of UBM by Informa.

Richard currently leads B2B Marketing, a Community Intelligence business with a portfolio of specialist conferences, awards, marketing services and Propolis - the multi-award winning global community for B2B Marketing Leaders. Launched in 2021, Propolis has grown rapidly into the go-to community for many of the world’s leading B2B brands

Jean-Paul Reparon Managing Director Agri Media, The Netherlands

Jean Paul Reparon boasts over 17 years of experience in the Dutch magazine production industry, with a significant portion of his career at Senefelder Misset. His roles involved aiding small and medium-sized publishers and foundations in both print and digital publishing endeavors. As the general manager of Dock35 Media & Marketing, another component of Senefelder Misset, Jean Paul provided with his team a wide range of services to publishers, including ad sales, design, online marketing, web development, video production, and digital magazine creation. This period also saw the publication of specialized magazines targeting niche markets, including real estate agents (Vastgoed), DJs (under the licence of DJ Mag), and hobby carpenters (under the licence of Selber Machen).

Since 2019, Jean Paul has assumed the role of publisher and co-owner at a publishing house, called AgriMedia, focused on Dutch agriculture. Their portfolio includes eight brands specializing in agricultural machinery and animal health. They also organize knowledge events, including the "Nationaal Geiten Event," featuring exhibitions, symposiums, and goat examinations. In recent years, the company has transitioned from a print- centric operation to a brand-focused one, has adopted a new tech-stack, established new content services, introduced a new (digital) subscription strategy, developed new digital business models for advertisers, and explored international licensing opportunities. By concentrating on high- value content, particularly in the field of agricultural machinery and animal health, they have achieved success within several B2B and niche communities.

Rachel Arthur Founder and Editor Boom Saloon, UK and Malaysia

Passionate about championing the arts and creative industries, Rachel Arthur founded boom saloon via Kickstarter in 2016. Having previously studied fashion and design management, she initially embarked upon a stint at Conde Nast before moving to a pivotal role as Head of Content at Scotland’s fastest growing fashion tech company, where she led a small team. Here, the power and importance of data was truly brought to light whilst learnings on management and startup business were made. 

Three years at Creative Edinburgh further ignited her passion for nurturing creative growth across sectors whilst understanding the importance of a diverse creative ecosystem, which was further developed into boom saloon’s mission to democratise creativity for good across print magazine, community projects and creative studio. In her work to build a global movement around this mission, Rachel has been named as an Industry Expert for Create Hub, FIPP Rising Star in Media and Young Women’s Movement’s 30 Under 30. She has spoken for Google, Monocle, FT Strategies, Media Voices and FIPP, covering topics including environmental sustainability, how to consistently marry the vitality and possibility of data with the tangibility of print and the belonging of community, and the move from subscription to membership to movement.

Mike Chaffe CEO Wolves Summit, Poland

Michael Chaffe is the CEO of Wolves Summit. He spent a decade working up to 250m under the Ocean as a Saturation Diver in the Oil & Gas industry, before entering the European VC industry in 2017.

Initially assisting UK-based startups in closing their funding rounds, he went on to acquire Central & Eastern Europe’s flagship innovation conference, Wolves Summit in 2019. Together with a rapidly expanding team, he is leveraging the summit to build valuable bridges between the CEE innovation ecosystem and global partners & investors.

Outside of the professional realm, Mike is an avid Crossfitter, enjoys hiking in summer and skiing in winter throughout Central & Eastern Europe with his young children.

Marco Olavarria Consultant Berlin Consulting, Germany

Awaiting Biography.

Colin Morrison OBE, Director, Consultant & Investor, and Editor-Publisher of Flashes & Flames - The Global Media Weekly, UK

Colin Morrison OBE writes the award-winning Flashes & Flames: The Global Media Weekly He was formerly a CEO of media companies in Europe and the AsiaPacific, including for: Axel Springer, Future, Hearst, Reed, EMAP and Australian Consolidated Press.Flashes & Flames features deepdives on companies, markets and trends and exclusive weekly interviews with industry leaders who don't give interviews anywhere else. Have you subscribed yet? With Colin’s expert analysis and wide range of industry interviews and features, Friday will never be the same. 

www.flashesandflames.com

Preethi Nallu Global Director Report for the World

Preethi Nallu is a journalist, film-maker, press freedom advocate and global director at Report for the World, part of the Groundtruth Project. She was a founding editor at News Deeply.

Born in Iran, raised in India, Preethi’s career spans 14 countries across the global north and south. She has researched, reported and campaigned about humanitarian and media development issues. Her films and reports won two Webby awards, two Migration Media awards, and a Human Rights Press Award. Preethi has worked for mainstream media outlets such as Al Jazeera English and Foreign Policy, global think tanks such as Chatham House, and led multimedia campaigns for the UN and global NGOs such as the Norwegian Refugee Council and International Media Support (IMS). In her last role as co-editor at Mediabridge, supported by IMS, she created a digital platform with an Indian design team, &all, and facilitated partnerships between media of different sizes.

Carolyn Morgan Founder and Managing Consultant Speciall Media and Non- Executive Board Member, UK

Carolyn Morgan has launched, acquired, grown and sold media businesses across print, digital and live events.

She was formerly an Exec Director at EMAP, specialising in marketing, events, digital development and strategy. Carolyn was a co-founder of the Specialist Media Show, which she sold to SIIA in 2013.   Carolyn has wide experience of niche publishing businesses and advises many independent media owners on digital strategy through her consulting business, Speciall Media. She regularly curates and chairs conferences on digital media strategy. She moderates an online community of 190 media leaders, the Speciall Media Group on Guild.

Carolyn is a Non-Exec Director for Thomas Telford, the commercial and publishing division of the Institute of Civil Engineers, and also Executive Grapevine International, an independent niche B2B media business.

Neil Thackray former Co-founder and CEO, Agribriefing, Non-Executive Director Gambit Media, and Host, Media Makers Meet – Mx3, UK

Non Exec Director of Gambit Media (Risk Leadership Network) – a subscription enterprise tool for risk managers around the world to network share and collaborate in next risk management practice. Advisor to PE funds on media investments and strategic advisor to media companies.

Co Founder and formerly CEO of Agribriefing. The business began as a self funded start up delivering content, events and strategy analysis for the media industry and through a series of private equity investments pivoted to be a world leading agri commodity/protein price reporting agency. Serial investor in media start ups, most recently Axate – an ingenious solution to the content micro payment challenge.

Earlier career as CEO Quantum Business Media, Nexus Business Media, The Industry Standard Europe. Former Executive Director Miller Freeman Uk (later UBM) and divisional director at Reed Business Information. Neil is a good friend of Media Makers Meet – Mx3, where he often (he says reluctantly, but we believe otherwise) does us favours by speaking at or hosting our events.