The Judging Panel
The judging panel consists of market experts and practitioners who have genuine expertise in the conference and events industry.
Peter Rigby Chief Executive Officer, Informa Group |
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Peter Rigby is the CEO of Informa Plc, a position he has held since 1989 before which he was the Finance Director. Originally an accountant but now cured, he has seen Informa grow from a private business environment to one which is now on the cusp of the FTSE100 . The growth has been from both publishing and event acquisitions, the most notable being Taylor & Francis and IIR. As well as his business interests, Peter is a keen sportsman and anyone fancying a football or cricket challenge should get in touch. |
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Andrew Brown Group Chief Executive Officer, World Trade Group |
Andrew co-founded wtg in 1997 and has overseen its growth from a start-up publishing company to one of the fastest growing events businesses in the world, achieving the coveted Sunday Times Fastrack 100 award in 2010 for International sales. Since Andrew assumed the role of Group Chief Executive Officer in 2008 the business has enjoyed exceptional profit growth of 125%. Andrew was previously joint MD and prior to that was Chief Executive Officer of an acquisition business which he took from liquidation to a contributor of 40% of group profits in 3 years. As Group Chief Executive Officer Andrew is now responsible for group strategy and growth, working with the senior management team, CFO and Global Sales Director to commercialise new business opportunities and expand the business. Prior to wtg Andrew headed up a conference division at SPG Media and had production roles at IQPC and Business Intelligence. |
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Fiona Miller Head of Conferences, LexisNexis |
Fiona Miller is responsible for conferences & training at LexisNexis®, the leading global provider of world-class content, information analytics and workflow solutions for professionals in the legal, risk management, corporate, government, law enforcement, accounting and academic markets. Working closely with customers to deliver new learning solutions such as Lexis® Learning, a component of Lexis® Legal Intelligence and Tax Intelligence, Fiona doesn’t like to sit still. A pioneer of online training, Fiona last year built an in-house multi-media studio to support Lexis’s fast growing webinars portfolio, which in 2009 attracted over 25,000 fee paying viewers. Previously Fiona worked at Emap for 3 years and Informa for 6 years where she was responsible for driving significant growth in F2F conferences in a broad range of large conference divisions including the public sector, retail, fashion, media, plastics, construction and pensions. www.conferencesandtraining.co.uk |
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Kim Myhre SVP and Managing Director, George P. Johnson EMEA |
Kim has more than 20 years in marketing, brand strategy and event management. He is a specialist in the development and management of global brand marketing campaigns from strategy development to “on the ground” programme management. He has also been voted one of the most influential people in the European events industry in a recent poll of brand marketing and event professionals. Kim heads up GPJ’s experience marketing services throughout EMEA and from offices in London, Stuttgart, Cologne, Paris, Zurich, Brussels, Amsterdam and Milan .Kim and his team work with some of the leading brands and public events organisers. These include award winning programmes for IBM, Cisco, Proctor and Gamble, Gartner, Thomson Reuters, Mini, Rolls Royce and venues such as London ExCeL. Prior to joining GPJ, Kim held a number of senior positions in the industry including President of International at MediaLive, Inc., President of COMDEX, and Executive Vice President of ZD Studios. |
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Elvira Hunte Conference Director, Haymarket |
In her role as Conference Director at Haymarket Business Media, Elvira currently oversees Haymarket Events conferences, forums, B2B exhibitions and managed events departments. Her expertise covers a range of B2B event formats including corporate functions training courses, summits, large scale events and conferences, both in the commercial conferencing and publishing sector. She has previously held General Manager, Head of Production and Head of Conference department positions at Marcus Evans, IQPC, C5 and Jordan Publishing as well as freelance consulting on areas such as portfolio turnaround and auditing and event growth strategy. In addition to overseeing and managing the P&L of events run in the US, Canada, Caribbean, UK and Central Europe, she has particular expertise in the legal sector as well as experience in other industries including Oil and Gas, Pharmaceuticals, Finance, Housing, Employment and Insolvency. |
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Claire Jenkinson Managing Director – Conferences, Reed Business Information |
Claire’s background covers a wide range of commercial roles, including Sales Development Director for Emap’s B2B division, where she worked across all B2B media platforms including print, online, event and information. Claire was Group Publishing Director of Nursing Times and Health Service Journal, operating in big recruitment advertising markets and responsible for diversifying the revenue streams for large traditional weekly print brands. Claire became Managing Director of Emap’s conference business in early 2007, responsible for over 350 conferences in sectors aligned to the business’ core brands. Claire joined Reed Business Information in 2009 to head up the conference division, operating in global markets including Aerospace, Chemicals, Property and HR. |
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Tracy Collins Head of Awards, Emap |
Tracy is Head of Awards at Emap Ltd, a business-to-business multiplatform media group, producing magazines, exhibitions, conferences and intelligence in the Retail, Media, Built Environment and Public Sectors. With a career in events spanning 20 years, Tracy has worked in a variety of roles across IT exhibitions, conferences, and general event management before becoming Head of Awards at Emap in January 2004, with responsibility for the growth and strategic management of Emap's awards portfolio. With over 40 award programmes a year, Tracy led her team to win The Conference Awards’ 2011 Award Team of the Year, and Best Trade Live Event for the Oracle Retail Week Awards at the AEO Excellence Awards 2011. |
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Greg Hitchen Group Chief Executive Officer, Terrapinn |
Greg Hitchen has enjoyed the global events industry for the last twenty two years. In Australasia, USA, Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe. He has been Chief Executive Officer of Terrapinn since 1999. |
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Susie Bacon Managing Director, Capita Conferences, Capita Plc |
Susie joined Capita in 2003, becoming the MD of Capita Conferences in 2005, when it became an autonomous business division within Capita Plc. Susie has re-invented the business: Capita Conferences has grown dramatically since 2005, with revenue increasing almost five fold in five years, delegate averages quadrupling, and the number of events reaching 240 in 2010. This expansion has transformed Capita Conferences in to one of the biggest providers of conferences to the public sector in the UK. Furthermore, this growth has all been achieved organically. The success of Capita Conferences owes much to the ability to innovate, to identify strong new areas at the right time, and to originate new and unusual ideas for content. This has been done very effectively, in areas such as the Police, Housing, Social Services, Education, Health, Employment, and Local Government. Content has been also diversified through introducing new modes of delivery, including: half day briefings, workshops, interactive seminars and high level one day sponsorship events, as well as one day conferences. Susie’s previously positions include spells at PCL and at Haymarket Conferences. Susie lives in Kent with her sculptor husband and new twin boys, who are proving almost as challenging as running a Conferences business! |
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Victoria Rennie Managing Director - Events, Incisive Media |
Victoria Rennie is Group Events Director at Incisive Media, a leading B2B information provider serving the financial and professional services markets globally. Incisive has a varied and diverse events business, with over 500 events taking place annually across 28 countries, and Victoria’s team is responsible for the creation and delivery of the company’s entire events portfolio. Victoria began her career in events at Risk Waters Group where she managed the company’s conference production team. She has also held a General Manager position at Terrapinn where she headed up the rapidly expanding Finance Division, specialising in conferences for the hedge fund, asset management and private equity industries. Victoria had previously worked for Incisive Media from 2003, when it acquired Risk Waters Group, until 2004. In 2006 she re-joined the company and has since been instrumental in the growth of Incisive’s events business, both via organic growth and acquisition. |
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Claire Tulloch Managing Director, UBM Conferences Europe |
Claire Tulloch is Managing Director
of UBM Conferences Europe, a division of UBM which is a leading global
business media company running events, online, in print across 70
industry sectors. For the first seven years of her career Claire
was in a number of different general management roles in the NHS.
She then decided to change careers and moved into conferences and
started her career at Emap. At Emap she built a conference business
on the back of the Middle East Economic Digest. She was responsible
for managing the growth of the conference operation in the Middle
East from four events in 2000 to twenty-eight events by 2008. She
then moved to UBM in 2008. She is now Managing Director of UBM Conferences
Europe and responsible for the delivery of events in collaboration
with internal divisions aswell as joint ventures with external organisations.
The European conference team deliver over a 100 conferences in the
UK, Europe and further afield. |
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Jonathan Dewe Director of Conferences, Economist Group |
Jonathan Dewe is Director of Conferences and Events for The Economist Group in London. Jonathan has over 18 years experience of running high profile conferences in over 36 countries around the world. Prior to joining The Economist, Jonathan worked for an investor relations agency and headed Euromoney Conferences in both London and New York before leaving to earn an MBA from Cranfield School of Management. |
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Ros Oxley Managing Director, ICBI |
Rosalind Oxley has been in the conference business
for 25 years. She started when the IIR London office first opened
in 1985 and has held a wide range of positions within IIR. In 2005
IIR was sold to Informa and Rosalind has stayed with the group, responsible
for an ever increasing number of businesses within Informa. |
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Dominic Samuelson Managing Director, Campden Wealth |
Dominic joined Campden in 2007 and
is MD for the Wealth business, responsible for all events, publishing,
research and online activities. Campden Conferences delivers 20 annual
private forums for ultra-affluent business-owning families and family
offices throughout Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the America’s.
Previously Dominic was Director, Corporate Development at The Wall
Street Journal Europe (3 years) and Founder and Managing Director,
Dow Jones Conferences (7 years) for Dow Jones & Co. He has also
served as Communications & Events Director at Business Seminars
International (2 years) and a Conference manager at Euromoney Conferences
(2 years). |
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Ros Irving Managing Director, Capacity Media |
Ros has worked in events for the last
18 years. During that time Ros has worked for IIR, Risk Publications
and Eurofinance producing conferences and training courses for the
pharmaceutical, telecoms, derivatives, energy and treasury market
sectors. For nearly five years she worked as a consultant and worked
for a range of clients across a variety of sectors. Ros joined Capacity
Media, part of Euromoney Institutional Investor, in 2009. Capacity
Media runs 15 events a year in the US, Asia, Latin America, Africa,
and Europe. |
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Graeme S. Coombes Head of Division, Oil & Gas, ITE Group Plc |
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Mark Shashoua Head of Live Events, Emap |
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Caroline Jackson Levy Managing Director, UBM Awards, United Business Media |
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Susie Searle Head of Events and Conferences, Diabetes UK |
Rory Ross Russell Managing Director, R3 Events |
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Rory joined International Business Communications
(IBC) Ltd in 1989 and worked in various roles before becoming Marketing
Director of IBC USA in Boston in the late 1990’s. He returned to
the UK in 2001 to take up the role of Group Marketing Director of
the recently formed Informa Group. He later started and became MD
of a new division called Informa Alliances which specialised in partnerships
with third parties. |
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Claire Wormsley Managing Director, The Media House |
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Claire joined IIR in 1991 and her roles included heading up the legal and tax division before moving to Risk Magazine where she set up and ran their conferences, large-scale events, training and book publishing. She was a board director at Risk. Claire was responsible for the development of their conference and training business in Europe, Asia and the US. Claire set up The Media House in 1997. It provides training, coaching and roundtables to the conference and events industry. In the last three years over 200 conference companies, publishing houses and associations have received training from The Media House. Claire is one of the founding partners of the Conference Awards. |
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