Media Business Course 2025

Biography

Rory is the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy, an attractively vague job title which has allowed him to co-found a behavioral science practice within the agency.

He works with a consulting practice of psychology graduates who look for ‘unseen opportunities’ in consumer behaviour – these are the often small contextual changes which can have enormous effects on the decisions people make – for instance tripling the sales rate of a call centre by adding just a few sentences to the script. Put another way, lots of agencies will talk about “bought, owned and earned” media: we also look for “invented media” and “discovered media”: seeking out those unexpected (and inexpensive) contextual tweaks that transform the way that people think and act.

It is a hugely valuable activity – but, alas, not particularly lucrative. This is because clients generally do not have budgets for solving problems they did not know they had.

Before founding Ogilvy’s Behavioural Practice, Rory was a copywriter and creative director at Ogilvy for over 20 years, having joined as a graduate trainee in 1988. He has variously been President of the IPA, Chair of the Judges for the Direct Jury at Cannes, and has spoken at TED Global. He writes regular columns for the Spectator, Market Leader and Impact, and also occasional pieces for Wired. He is the author of three books: The Wiki Man, available on Amazon (at prices between £1.96 and £2,345.54, depending on whether the algorithm is having a bad day), and the best-selling Alchemy, The surprising Power of Ideas which don’t make Sense, published in the UK and US in May 2019, and, co-written with his former colleague Pete Dyson, the newly released Transport For Humans on the behavioural science of transport.

Rory is married to a vicar and has twin daughters. He lives in the former home of Napoleon III – unfortunately in the attic. He is a trustee of the Benjamin Franklin House in London and a Patron of Rochester Cathedral.

Biography

Kevin Chesters is the Owner & Strategy Partner of Harbour (www.harbour.london) – an independent brand communications consultancy based in London. He has led strategy at British Telecom, Saatchi & Saatchi, Wieden+Kennedy, dentsumcgarrybowen and was most recently the Chief Strategy Officer at Ogilvy. He sits on the Account Planning Committee in the UK and is a frequent contributor to industry titles Adweek, The Drum & Campaign. He is a visiting lecturer in Creativity at three UK universities (UCA, AIU and Edinburgh Napier) – and runs training courses for many companies including Google, Lego, Twitter, Marks & Spencer, BT & Diageo.

“The Creative Nudge” is his first book.

Biography

Vicky is responsible for leading a team of 100 people who have elevated OMD UK’s planning output to new levels, creating competitive advantage for their clients. Most recently she has overseen the creation of a new department – Connected Performance – which joins media planning with biddable expertise, delivering audience-first thinking.

Prior to joining OMD UK in 2013, Vicky worked on some of the biggest campaigns for household names including John Lewis, Virgin Media and Apple at MGOMD. She continues this passion for the craft of media planning with her current clients, including McDonald’s, Lidl and recent win – Compare the Market.

With over 25 years’ experience and twice named winner of Campaign’s Media Planner of the Year, Vicky was also honoured by the IPA 2021 with a Fellowship. Vicky is committed to ensuring a diverse and inclusive industry – both in the planning work and championing representation across the agency.

Biography

Demi Abiola is an Investment Business Director at Msix and partners, previous to that he headed up the Publishing team at PHD media. Demi is passionate about driving the discussion about cultural inclusivity and openness, which will hopefully lead to a change in the advertising industry towards diversity and anti-racism. He is a proud member of Media for All and a mentor at the Brixton finishing school.
Demi is a perennial commentator about the advertising industry where he is panellist at many industry events, in addition to writing thought leader pieces for the IPA, Mediatel, Newsworks, and WARC. He has also judged a number of leading awards: Campaign, Mediaweek , British Media, Drum OOH, AOP and Young Cannes but to name a few.
In his spare time you will find him singing to himself on the Peloton, boxing, practicing yoga, or playing poker.

Biography

Kat is proud to have clocked up 17 years in this wonderful industry across various planning and buying roles, as well as spending time in a full service creative agency. Most of these years have been spent at MG OMD, working in sectors that span Public Sector, Automotive, Beauty, Tech, Travel and FMCG. Last year, she joined the leadership team as Managing Director. A proud member of MEFA, Kat is involved in D&I initiatives both in and outside of the agency and is excited to help create a new dawn of responsible practice in the industry.

Biography

Emma Dibben is part of the senior media leadership team at Wavemaker UK. Emma has more than 20 years of experience across all media, principally in publishing. In her role as Head of Partner Engagement at Wavemaker, Emma works with partners in all media to support the creation of unrivalled work that moves people and has a positive impact in the world.

Biography

Clare Peters, Client Strategy & Comms Partner at Channel 4 leads the client sales strategy and manages it’s dedicated client sales teams within its award-winning Ad Sales division, 4Sales.

Previously Clare was Chief Business Strategist at Manning Gottlieb OMD, working with clients to find new and innovative ways to solve business challenges, boost effectiveness and increase profitability. She has spent 15 years with the media agency where she also held the position of Head of Planning for six years.

Biography

After leaving school Simon decided that University was not for him and joined the army.

This was followed by work in Venezuela, America and Australia before returning to the UK in 1991 to start work on the ‘new’ Daily Telegraph, which had recently been purchased by Conrad Black. Having managed the launch of the Saturday Magazine in 1995 he decided to set up his own publishing company, and in 1998 sold it to Tony O’Riley’s Independent Magazines.

Simon then joined the fledgling Classic FM and within 4 years it had grown into the biggest commercial radio station in the UK and the most profitable. In 2005 Classic FM and its parent company GWR merged with Capital Radio and Simon became the Group Commercial Director. On the sale of GCap Media to Global, Simon left and joined the early social media revolution working for MySpace as Commercial Director. Simon joined ITV plc in January 2011 as Group Commercial Sales Director and was promoted in 2014 to Deputy Managing Director, Commercial.

In his free time he has rowed across the Irish Sea and walked to the South Pole, unsupported on both trips.

He has also led an expedition to the North Pole with 4 wounded soldiers and HRH Prince Harry. Simon completed his second South Pole challenge in December 2013 for Walking With The Wounded, a charity which he founded and he has raised nearly £10 million for various charities.

Biography

Kathryn is the CEO of Pearl&Dean, the cinema advertising company, famous for its “Pa, pa, pa, pa” sonic logo.

In previous roles Kathryn has worked in national newspapers, magazines, radio and in a cross media role at Scottish Media Group. As well as having the opportunity to watch films for a living, Kathryn sits on the Development Board of RADA, the Board of AOC Sport (which offers sport opportunities to college students), the Council and Board of the Advertising Association and the Executive Council of SAWA. She is a past president of WACL.

In 2016 the book she co-authored with Sue Unerman, “The Glass Wall” was published and since then they have given over 150 talks about the book. In October 2020, Sue and Kathryn joined forces with Mark Edwards to write another book “Belonging: The Key to Transforming and Maintaining Diversity, Inclusion and Equality at Work”. Esquire called it “The most important business book of the year”.

Biography

Jessica is UK CEO, Dentsu Creative, responsible for its four UK offices spanning brand and advertising, entertainment and experience, social and influencer. She also sits on the Board of Somerset House, the UK’s largest creative community and home to multi-disciplinary artists, makers and creative technologists.

Jessica takes a passionate role in promoting positive change in the industry. She sits on the IPA Council and the Industry Advisory Panel to the Advertising Standards Authority. She is a Board Advisor to the Women’s Association, as well as a WACL and NABS 100 member, mentoring diverse talent from across the industry.

Biography

Born in Newport, Wales, Nick graduated from the University of Bristol with a degree in French and Spanish. Joining Saatchi & Saatchi as a graduate trainee, he became managing director nine years later. Nick was one of the nine founders of M&C Saatchi as joint chief executive, became chairman of M&C Saatchi Europe, and opened offices in Paris, Berlin and Madrid. Nick left to found George & Dragon, an ad agency with clients such as HM Government; Kwik Fit; and BAFTA. In 2015, Nick led a management buyout of The Groucho Club becoming chairman there.

In 2021 he joined the AKA Group as Chief Executive. AKA is owned by the Ambassador Theatre Group and specialises in the entertainment sectors, with offices in London, New York and Los Angeles. Clients include ABBA Voyage, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Cabaret, Tina the Musical, Matilda, Pretty Woman, Jerusalem, Sony Pictures, Universal, Disney, Netflix, Apple TV+ and Amazon.

Biography

Natalie is a Client Partner for Retail & Telecoms at Clear Channel UK.

She is celebrating more than 17 years working in OOH; a specialism she has been passionate about since starting her career at the tender age of 18, as a Sales Coordinator at Viacom Outdoor (now part of Global).

Moving roles to join Kinetic as a Planning & Buying Executive, she climbed the ranks to Account Director, seeing a 2012 nomination for their ‘Person the Year’ award and working closely with agencies such as Starcom & the7stars to promote & grow Out of Home.

A move back into sales saw Natalie take on an Agency Group Head role at Clear Channel, before promotions to Specialist Partner & now Client Partner positions. Her time at CCUK has seen her champion allyship through internal training, represent their business in 2022’s final pitch for Campaign’s Commercial Team of the Year and even transform into the Easter bunny!

Natalie is CCUK’s ambassador for Brixton Finishing School, a volunteer for ADventure for Schools, and has recently joined the Events Committee for Great Ormond Street Hospital.

She loves musical theatre, the writing of Haruki Murakami & jigsaw puzzles and lives in Romford with her husband and Max the cat.

Biography

Despite his youthful looks, Rob has worked in media for over 30 years and in partnerships for over 15 years.

Having worked at “a lot” of newspaper and magazine publishers in agency and client-facing roles he’s proud to say he has over 3000 followers on LinkedIn. He says he genuinely loves his job at Immediate Media as he has a lot of creative freedom and is tasked with being bold and pushing boundaries at a company that has a deep-rooted culture of positivity and creativity. In his spare time he plays a lot of racquet sports, loves a quiz and once DJ’d backstage in Hyde park “for Jay Z.”

Biography

Adam has a real passion for planning and understands the power of brands to drive long-term sustainable growth. He’s developed industry-recognised expertise at creating innovative, results-driven campaigns and been instrumental in winning a huge number of awards and accolades for UM.

With over 20 years’ experience across strategy, planning and client leadership, Adam has worked on a number of the world’s biggest and most iconic brands, including Microsoft, Jack Daniel’s, J&J, Honda, Rockstar Games, Dyson and Premier Inn.

He is now Chief Product Officer, charged with enhancing and accelerating the agencies capabilities and operations across, process, technology and talent.

Biography

Sharon Lloyd Barnes is Commercial Director and Inclusion Lead at the Advertising Association, which represents the UK advertising industry and includes advertisers, agencies, media owners, tech platforms and production companies in its membership. Previously, she ran magazine ad sales teams in London and New York before co-founding The Drive Partnership, a consultancy working with businesses across a range of sectors to build profitable growth. Outside of work, Sharon co-founded a school for autistic children in 2000 – now called Beyond Autism – serving children from most London boroughs.

Biography

Scott is an experienced leader in AI-powered advertising solutions, blending a computer science background with a deep interest in the intersection of technology, business and psychology. He leads a team of product solution specialists crafting holistic customer-focused strategies across Search, Performance Max, and Apps for the UKI market. With a deep understanding of how technology impacts behaviour, his goal is to simplify complexity for clients and sellers, enabling businesses to concentrate on growth.

Biography

Sarah- Jane is an Account Director at Ocean Outdoor; working across some of Ocean’s biggest agencies and clients including Apple & Chanel.  Alongside the past six years in Out of Home, SJ is passionate about giving back by helping others in and around the industry. She is a Bloom member and a mentor at Creative Foundations; a charity that helps underrepresented talent into the creative industry.

Biography

Luke Hand is Insights Director at Mail Metro Media, where he is responsible for both commercial research and audience data. Since joining the business 12 years ago, he has cultivated a world-class team that leverages our multitude of first-party data to tell compelling brand stories and create actionable insights for our advertising partners. With his finger firmly on the industry’s pulse, Luke is the driving force behind our best-in-class research studies, often collaborating with industry partners to deliver award-winning projects.

Biography

Zoe Cadman is Commercial Agency Director at Global where she leads an integrated sales and trading team that work across Audio, DAX and Outdoor, championing innovation and creativity to craft and deliver market leading solutions to/for clients.

Zoe has over 20 years experience in the media industry, starting her career at Dennis Publishing and moving to Pearl & Dean where she spent 15 years working in cinema advertising, leading the team as Sales Director.

Biography

Director of sales , Spotify 4 years , previous head of sales at Teads, Just premium (gum gum ) an ex GB athlete and commonwealth games long jumper twenty years in media and advertising .. leads with empathy authenticity and goal focused ambition orientated measures ..