LEAD 2025

Biography

Samira Ahmed is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and writer who
specialises in the intersection of popular culture, history, politics, and social
change. She is the presenter of Front Row on Radio 4 and Newswatch on BBC1, and was previously an anchor and correspondent on BBC News and Channel 4 News, where she won the Stonewall Broadcast of the Year award.

She was also named British Broadcasting Press Guild Audio Presenter of the Year. During her time as the BBC’s Los Angeles Correspondent, Samira covered the OJ Simpson civil trial. Her three-part BBC 4 documentary series Art of Persia was the first major Western documentary series to be filmed in Iran for forty years. Her other documentaries include I Dressed Ziggy Stardust, HG Wells and the H Bomb, and Disgusted, Mary Whitehouse, for which she spent months studying the diaries of the morality activist.

Away from more serious issues Samira has shown her quick wit on The News Quiz and Have I Got News for You, her extensive knowledge on Celebrity Mastermind (which she won) and as host of the podcast: How I Found My Voice.

Biography

Gordon Brown is the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Since September 2021, he also serves as WHO Ambassador for Global Health Financing. 

He served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2007 to 2010 and is widely credited with preventing a second Great Depression through his stewardship of the 2009 London G20 summit. He was one of the first leaders during the global crisis to initiate calls for global financial action, while introducing a range of rescue measures in the UK. In April 2009, he hosted the G20 Summit in London where world leaders committed to make an additional $1.1 trillion available to help the world economy through the crisis and restore credit, growth and jobs. They also pledged to strengthen financial supervision and regulation.

Previously, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1997 to 2007, making him the longest-serving Chancellor in modern history. During ten years at the Treasury, Gordon masterminded many of Labour’s proudest achievements including the Minimum Wage, Sure Start, the Winter Fuel Allowance, the Child Trust Fund, the Child Tax Credit and paid paternity leave. His record on global justice includes his negotiation of debt cancellation for the world’s poorest nations and the tripling of the budget for life-saving aid. His time as Chancellor was also marked by major reform of Britain’s monetary and fiscal policy as well as the sustained investment in health, education and overseas aid.

His role in government continued to shape his views on the importance of education as a fundamental right of every child in the world and the key to unlocking better health, greater social stability, more rights and opportunities for women and a higher standard of living. He is a passionate advocate for global action to ensure education for all. In his role as UN Special Envoy for Global Education, he works closely with key partners to help galvanise support for global education investment and the use of innovative financing to reach the UN’s global goals. He is Chair of the High-Level Steering Group for Education Cannot Wait, the fund for education in emergencies; and Chair of the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity.

In 2020, he played a key role leading a group of 275 former world leaders, economists and educationalists calling for international action to prevent the global health crisis creating a “COVID generation” to avoid the reality of tens of millions of children with no hope of an education.

In his role as WHO Ambassador, Gordon has been invited by WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to raise awareness internationally on the great need for sustained global health financing, particularly from G20 and G7 countries, and the immediate task is to work together to finance the vaccination of the whole world and protect the poorest countries from the terrible effects of COVID-19 and other diseases.

In addition to his global education work Gordon is an advisor to the Graça Machel Trust, a Senior Panel Member at the Kofi Annan Foundation initiative on Electoral Integrity, and he is also an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Within the United Kingdom, Gordon is also the founder of Our Scottish Future, and the Alliance for Full Employment.

Gordon is the author of several books including Beyond the Crash: Overcoming the First Crisis of Globalisation, My Scotland, Our Britain and My Life, Our Times and most recently, Seven Ways to Change the World (Simon & Schuster, June 2021).

Gordon has a PhD in History from the University of Edinburgh and spent his early career working as a lecturer and in television production. He has been awarded several honorary doctorates, most recently Doctor of the University from The Open University.

He is married to Sarah Brown, the Chair of global children’s charity, Theirworld and Executive Chair of the Global Business Coalition for Education, and the couple live in Fife, Scotland with their two teenagers.

Biography

Debbie is Vice President and Managing Director for Google in the United Kingdom and Ireland. She leads teams focused on business partnerships in both countries and ensures that Google is helping everyone in the UK achieve their ambitions, big and small, through sustainable, responsible and impactful technology.

Prior to this role, Debbie was the Vice President of Global Advertiser Solutions for Google and YouTube, ensuring marketers of all sizes around the world had the ability to build their businesses with YouTube and Video, and driving revenue growth for Google’s market-leading properties.

Before joining Google, Debbie was Vice President of Global Media at Unilever, responsible for leading global communications planning, driving digital marketing, and leading the company’s global media partnerships.  Her work at Unilever was widely recognized with numerous industry awards, including dozens of Cannes Lions as well as the Game Changer honor from Advertising Women of New York.  Earlier in her career, Debbie worked in sales, marketing, strategy and business development at media companies such as Viacom, MTV Networks, and Bolt.com; she founded a children’s food company, Swingset Kitchens; and began her career as an investment banker in Mergers & Acquisitions at Goldman, Sachs & Co. She has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Brown University.

Biography

Having spent the best part of 30 years working for some of the leading creative and media agencies in the industry, Enyi joined UM London in an expanded Chief Strategy Officer role in April 2020.

Uniquely for a media agency, UM has creative and production talent embedded within the strategy and planning teams, which Enyi leads to deliver effective and award-winning work for brands including Johnson & Johnson, Amex, Spotify, Just Eat and Mattel.

Enyi passionately believes Media is a force for good and is committed to using our industry influence, skills and expertise to positively impact society. He has led the development of the Mediabrands ‘5 point plan’ and launch of the Diversity Council to accelerate the change required to create a more equitable and equal environment across Mediabrands agencies.

Enyi is also a member of the MEFA (Media 4 All) Advisory Board, which exists to help Black, Asian and ethnic minority talent thrive in media and advertising companies, ultimately increasing the ethnic diversity of the industry in the UK.

Biography

Derya Matras is currently the Vice President for the UK, Northern Europe, Middle East & Africa at Meta. She oversees the company’s operations in more than 80 countries. Based in London, Derya is driving businesses of all sizes to accelerate their digital transformation strategies and she is responsible for leading the Meta’s UK office sites.

Derya joined Meta in 2015 and her successful track record on growing Meta’s business in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey led to her assuming additional responsibilities for overseeing the UK and Northern Europe regions. Prior to joining Meta, Derya held leadership roles in media, retail and management consulting, primarily at McKinsey & Company.

Her achievements have garnered recognition from esteemed global media titles, such as Forbes and Fortune. Forbes listed her among the Top 30 Most Influential CEOs and Top 5 Women Leaders in Tech in the Middle East, while Fortune featured her in the ’40 under 40′ list. She also serves as the California State Chairwoman for the US-Turkey Business Council’s tech sector and is a member of the YPO London Mayfair Chapter.

Derya holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BsC in Electronics Engineering from Bogazici University. She is a passionate advocate of DE&I, women’s empowerment and serves as the face and spokesperson of Meta’s initiatives. She is married and has two young children.

Biography

Rain Newton-Smith is the CBI’s Chief Executive. Before taking up the role, she was Managing Director, Strategy and Policy, Sustainability and ESG at Barclays.

From August 2014 until March 2023, Rain was Chief Economist at the CBI where she led its economic policy, analysis and survey teams and the CBI’s work with HM Treasury. She also led the international team, focused on global business leadership around the B7 and B20, and championed the CBI’s work to support the transition to a low carbon, sustainable economy. Rain was instrumental in shaping the CBI’s work to help business navigate through the Covid pandemic.

Prior to joining the economics team at the CBI, Rain was Head of Emerging Markets at Oxford Economics, where she was the lead expert on China.

Rain’s earlier career included nine years at the Bank of England, where her responsibilities included preparing global forecasts for the Monetary Policy Committee. During her time at the Bank, Rain was seconded to the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC.

Rain holds an MSc in Economics from LSE and studied Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University. She was honoured by the World Economic Forum in 2012 as a Young Global Leader.

Rain lives in Oxfordshire and is married with four daughters.

Biography

Veriça joined Channel 4 as Chief Revenue Officer in November 2020, after spending over 20 years in media planning and buying agencies. She started her career at MediaVest in 1998 before moving to MEC in 2002. She worked in both the account management and strategy teams across a wide spectrum of clients during her time at MEC, before moving to PHD UK in 2009 to run the Sainsbury’s business. She became MD in 2013, before being promoted to CEO in April 2017.

Veriça has always had a great love of television and was thrilled to have the opportunity to lead Channel 4’s commercial team. She has responsibility for all of C4’s revenue streams working in both linear and digital sales with an increasing focus on developing new innovative advertising models, especially in the digital space.

Biography

Kate joined ITV in 2019 the newly created role of Director of Client Strategy and Planning, with a remit to help ITV Commercial build broader and deeper relationships with advertisers. A creative strategist by background, most recently she was co-founder and CSO of Now Advertising. A highly respected and well known strategic leader with twenty years’ experience Kate has worked across sectors as diverse as automotive, retail, government and public sector, FMCG and financial services, and with clients including BT, Ocado, Public Health England and Moneysupermarket.com.

Biography

Michael Grade is Chair of Ofcom, the regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries.

He has had a long career in broadcasting, encompassing London Weekend Television, the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.   He has chaired the BBC, ITV and Pinewood/Shepperton Film Studios.   He is co-founder of the GradeLinnit Company, which produces for the theatre.

He is Chair of the Arora Group’s Heathrow Expansion Advisory Board, having also been Chair of Ocado, First Leisure Corporation, Camelot, the Charity Fundraising Regulator and Bradford’s Media Museum.   He was a member of the former Press Complaints Commission and was a Trustee of the Science Museum.

In 2011 he became a member of the House of Lords, where he sits as a non-affiliated Peer.   He is known as Lord Grade of Yarmouth.

Biography

Eve Williams joined eBay in December, 2020, as UK Chief Marketing Officer – overseeing high profile campaigns like eBay’s  pre-loved fashion partnership with Love Island, a revival of MTV’s iconic Pimp my Ride series, and the introduction of a new brand platform, The eBay Way.

Before eBay, Eve spent seven years as Global Brand Director at ASOS where she was responsible for the company’s marketing and customer programmes, alongside creative strategy, content planning, consumer comms and social media output. Prior to that, Eve was Managing Director at Cedar Communications Ltd, producing content for some of the world’s leading brands including British Airways, Tesco, O2, TUI and Nikon.

Biography

Dave is Marketing Lead for Mondelēz in the UK, managing a range of famous household brands including Cadbury.  He has previously held both senior marketing and sales roles at the organisation with over 15 years of experience in consumer driven strategies and brand management. Fuelled by creativity and data driven insights, most recent work includes leading the celebration of Cadbury’s 200^th year birthday in 2024 and the development of Cadbury’s Secret Santa activation, which Kantar awarded the most effective Xmas campaign of 2022 and 2023! Outside of work Dave is a former professional rugby player and now enjoys racing against the rowers in his adopted hometown of Henley.

Biography

Chiara manages the advertising effectiveness partnership with ITV, helping ITV’s clients achieve greater effectiveness through impactful creative and producing research on the topics that matter most to the industry.

Biography

Guy became Chief Executive of the Advertising Standards Authority, the UK regulator of ads in all media, in 2009.  He is responsible for executing the ASA’s strategy to have More Impact Online, including through proactive regulatory project work, the investigation of complaints, enforcement activity, the development of regulatory policy, the provision of CAP advice and training and the system’s communications, marketing, public affairs and research activities.

Guy is also President of the International Council for Advertising Self-Regulation, a Board member of the Fundraising Regulator, a member of the Fundraising Regulator’s Standards Committee, a member of the UK government’s Consumer Protection Partnership Strategic Group and a member of the National Statistics Designation Review Steering Group.

From 2013 to 2016, Guy chaired the European Advertising Standards Alliance, the single authoritative voice on advertising self-regulation comprising national advertising self-regulatory organisations and organisations representing the advertising and media industries in Europe and beyond.  He remains a Board and Executive Committee member.

Married with three children, he lives in North London.

Biography

Donna Castle joined the ASA as Director of Communications in May 2022.

Donna is a public relations expert with a specialism in public affairs/lobbying. She has been a Chartered PR Practitioner since November 2015. Donna is an elected member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relation (CIPR) Council and a committee member of the CIPR Public Affairs Group.

Biography

As Director of Advertising Policy and Practice, Shahriar oversees the organisation’s Regulatory Policy, Copy Advice and Compliance functions.

Biography

James joined IAB UK in March 2017 as the industry body’s first ever Chief Marketing Officer. He leads the IAB’s efforts in engaging with brands and agencies and re-asserting positivity in digital advertising.

James spent nine years at WPP media agency Mindshare, most recently as Global Mobile Director, responsible for the agency’s mobile output across its network of 166 offices in 86 countries. During this time, he was voted Mobile Marketer of the Year by Mobile Marketing Magazine, featured in The Drum’s Mobile Top 50 and helped Mindshare win Global Mobile Agency of the Year. He joined the IAB from Snap Inc.

James has featured on Channel 4, Sky, Bloomberg TV, BBC World News and BBC Radio 4’s Today programme – as well as speaking at various marketing events in Europe, Asia and the US.

Biography

Impeccable taste. Energetic Experience. Quiet Revolutionary. Young Talent Nurturer. Let’s the ball do the work. Elliot Harris is a Creative Partner at Havas London and Global Executive Creative Director for the entire Reckitt portfolio. He has been instrumental in building the new Havas London creative dept alongside Vicki Maguire with multi-disciplinary teams on brands like Durex, Finish, Air Wick, Vanish, Gaviscon, DFE, Molson Coors and Heinz. This has raised the standard of creativity and effectiveness of the work within the agency.

With a Cannes Grand Prix, Gold Lion’s, several D&AD pencils, Gold at One Show and the Art Director’s Club of New York, and with a pedigree that includes roles within Anomaly, Fallon, McCann London, Work Club, Brothers & Sisters. Elliot is regarded as one of the leading talents within the UK advertising industry.

His other full-time job is being married with 5 daughters and a Doberman. A lifelong love of architecture pushed him into building an Eco house in the Essex countryside which has been featured in Grand Designs magazine and appeared on Channel 4 show ‘Building the Dream’. Any precious spare time is spent at the London School of Communication Arts where he is a Trustee and Mentor and nurturing young talent at Havas London having established the agencies first internship scheme ‘Platform’.

Biography

Alessandra has an international background in advertising and Marketing and is obsessed with developing people and growing brands, seeing these as the ultimate levers to a successful business.

She joined Tesco in March 2017, as Chief Customer Officer, where she brings together all of the disciplines of marketing, advertising, innovation, loyalty and insight to create strong and distinctive brand proposition – putting customers at the heart of Tesco.

Prior to Tesco, Alessandra worked for Unilever for over 20 years, holding different board-level positions in Marketing and General Management in Italy, Central & Eastern Europe and the USA.

Alessandra started her career in Advertising at JWT Milan, as an apprentice straight out of School. She worked in Advertising for 12 years in Italy and the UK.

She has two grown up children, lives in London travelling around town on a baby-blue Vespa.

Alessandra is the Chair of Teens Unite, a charity helping young adults facing cancer, live their best life.

Biography

An award-winning global strategist Harjot is most drawn to people shaped by their interest in constant discovery, learning, and open mindedness.

He loves this business because he believes brands and creativity have the most power to change the world.

Harjot’s passion to excel at a creatively and commercially actionable understanding of people, brands and culture has led him on a global career path spanning 6 countries and 3 continents.

Colleagues and clients consistently credit him with bringing clarity and inspiration from the complex, putting human needs at the heart of any marketing response and delivering measurable impact. Harjot has judged, advised, spoken and won awards at the most notable industry award shows.

Harjot joined Mccann New York in 2011. Prior to being named Global CSO of Mccann in January 2021 he served as CSO, Mccann Worldgroup EMEA, leading it to be the most creatively effective agency network; for 5 years.

Biography

Emily Laws is Head of Brand for Lucky Saint, the Alcohol-Free Superior Unfiltered Lager dedicated to changing alcohol-free beer forever, and finally rewarding those who aren’t drinking with the beer they deserve. Emily joined Lucky Saint after having previously worked for premium mixers brand Fever-Tree as Brand, Activations and Partnerships Manager.