Rak spent seven years driving commercial growth for the streaming platform with his last role being to lead the EMEA Ad business.

In 2025, Rak stepped into the leadership of Channel 4 Sales, the commercial arm of Channel 4, where he is responsible for driving the organisation’s advertising revenue as Chief Commercial Officer. A key focus of his role is to accelerate the commercial elements of Channel 4’s Fast Forward strategy, maximising revenues from linear to digital while pursuing new partnerships and expanding into new areas of digital growth.

Rak is a board member at Thinkbox, focused on advancing the future of TV marketing and media in the UK, as well as a board member at the Advertising Association, which acts as the unified voice for the UK Ad industry. He also sits on the Soho House & Co Committee Board and the Campaign Board for Historic Royal Palaces. And he’s extremely proud to be one of the founding members of MEFA.

Jenny set up the7stars in 2005 after a career in media agencies including Zenith and Carat. In the last 20 years the7stars has grown to be the UK’s largest media independent agency with billings of £500 million and over 300 people. During the last nine years, the7stars has been named Agency of the Year by Campaign Magazine, Media Week, The Drum and Mediatel. They have won numerous awards including golds at Media Week and an IPA Effectiveness Award and most recently Campaign’s Independent Media Agency of The Year.

Jenny is particularly passionate about workplace culture and personally leads a number of diversity and inclusion initiatives at the agency. She is particularly proud that the agency has been listed in the Best Companies to Work For consistently for the last twelve years and for two consecutive years the7stars were crowned Campaign’s Best Place To Work (Large Companies). In 2016 Jenny launched the7stars Foundation to support under-privileged young people in the UK and the7stars donates 5% of profits to good causes via the Foundation. Jenny is a member of the IPA Media Futures Group, the ASA’s Industry Advisory Panel and the British Heart Foundation’s Marketing Committee.

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.

UK Influence Lead and Managing Partner at Ogilvy, Imogen was recently named one of the top 30 trailblazing women in Influencer Marketing. Imogen has been a social and influence specialist for over 15 years, and alongside her team of over 80, leads global influence strategies for the likes of Bacardi, Unilever, The Coca-Cola company, LEGO and Kenvue.

Outside of her day to day role, Imogen works as an influencer in her own right, amassing over 120,000 followers, allowing her to develop a clear view of both sides of the influencer industry. As well as being a member of the Influencer Marketing Trade Body on behalf of Ogilvy, and on Ogilvy UKs Diversity, equity and inclusion board helping to shape the future direction of our industry.

Former Chief Strategy Officer at Dentsu, Ogilvy & W+K London. Agency Founder. TED & TEDx speaker. Now independent strategic consultancy for senior clients, domestic and global, at brands including BT, Heineken, M&S Food, ASB Bank, M&S Fashion Home & Beauty, PureGym, VistaJet, Blacklane, Sage, Schwan’s, Rathbones and bp.

Training and talks for multi-awarded agencies of all disciplines across the world including Wonderhood, Bicycle, Colenso BBDO, Assembly, Pretty Green, Publicis, Mother, Dentsu, Nomad Studios, Drummond Central, D3, OMD, Hvita Husid & FleishmanHillard.

Visiting lecturer in creativity at seven UK/international universities including University of Creative Arts, Regents University, Brighton University, Oxford University, Falmouth University, Edinburgh Napier University, the American International University in London and John Cabot University (Rome)

CO-AUTHOR OF BEST-SELLING BOOK: THE CREATIVE NUDGE

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.

With over 20 years’ experience across the UK media landscape, Rachel is a senior commercial leader specialising in digital transformation and strategic partnerships. She is a passionate advocate for innovation and believes the best ideas are born from genuine collaboration. She loves supporting brands to show up in bold, meaningful and fun ways that deliver real impact.

Currently Sales Director – Agency & Client at JCDecaux, she leads agency and client relationships across WPP and Omnicom (UM and Initiative) for the UK’s leading outdoor advertising business, having previously served as Head of Sales and Business Director.

Prior to JCDecaux, she held senior roles at Bauer Media, Absolute Radio (formerly Virgin Radio) selling across multi-platform portfolios spanning audio, magazines, digital and mobile.

She began her career at The Guardian and holds an MA from the University of Aberdeen.

After a career spent mainly at media agencies including Wavemaker, OMD and Starcom, Elliott made the switch to Thinkbox, the UK marketing body for commercial TV, because of deep seated belief in the effectiveness of the platform and a long standing admiration for the work that they do. In the newly created CSO role, he leads the planning and research team with an ambition of helping agencies and advertisers make brilliant decisions to make the most out of TV advertising in all its forms.

Elliott has worked with some of the most celebrated TV advertisers – from retail and FMCG with Procter & Gamble, Heinz and Lidl to giants of entertainment in Disney or Paramount, and tech / start up brands like Samsung, Uber and Airbnb.

He is a regular industry speaker and judge and is (or was) a regular member of Campaign’s Planner of the Year lists and has won awards including Cannes Lions, IPA Effectiveness and the first ever UK Grand Effie.

When not working, Elliott will read anything that comes near him and enjoys a long walk anywhere with water or trees. And he firmly believes that zombies or vampires improve a TV show.

Richard has spent 35 years advising some of the most significant organisations about change and growth, latterly as the Chair and CSO of Saatchi & Saatchi. In the past five years he has advised BT Group, EE, John Lewis Partnership, HSBC, Lloyds, Direct Line Group and the British Heart Foundation.

Davina Barker is Digital Cinema Media’s (DCM) Sales Director, overseeing the company’s agency sales team to generate new and incremental revenues, as well as developing DCM’s relationships with media agencies across the UK. Her primary mission is to drive sustainable long-term growth and prove cinema’s unique value as part of an advertiser’s multi-media schedule and deliver DCM’s plans to align cinema with other AV media channels. Davina was honoured as Commercial Director of the Year at the 2019 British Media Awards, as well as being named as one of Campaign’s commercial sales chiefs of the year for her work in cinema in 2017 and 2018. Prior to DCM, Davina held senior roles at ids & Virgin Media and ITV.

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.

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.

James Fleetham is Director of Advertising at the Guardian. With 20 years in sales and a decade at the Guardian, he’s led some of the publisher’s biggest and most successful advertising partnerships, including Google and Vodafone.

Alongside this, James heads up Trade Marketing, launching the Guardian Advertising Awards, and leads the Research & Insight desk – home to standout thought-leadership projects like Shift Happens and the FAME report.

More recently, he’s expanded his remit to include analytics, commercial systems, and working closely with the Guardian’s international teams in the US and Australia. In short: James helps advertisers do smarter, better work with the Guardian in the UK and internationally.

Dave is an award winning media strategist who has held CSO and Head of Planning roles across all the major holding groups. He has built media plans for some of the UK’s biggest advertisers including Toyota, O2, IKEA and The National Lottery.

In 2017 in the wake of the Grenfell tragedy, Dave founded AdLondonCalling, an industry wide music quiz that raised over £125,000 for the families impacted by the fire. In 2025 he’s bringing it back for NABS.

Dave is also an active member of Common People, a community that supports those in the creative industries from a Working Class background.

Dave is a lifelong Wrexham FC fan in exile.

Talk to him about Ryan Reynolds / The Eras Tour / Media Planning (in that order).

He also has the best email address in media / davegrainger@gravedanger.ltd

Leading Commerce at WPP Media in the UK, Naomi Boonin is a specialist in connected commerce and retail media. She helps brands navigate complex commerce ecosystems to drive practical, scalable growth. Naomi brings a strong blend of strategic thinking and hands-on experience across marketplaces, retail media and omnichannel commerce.

Partnership Delivery Manager at Global, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment groups.

Responsible for managing large, multi-million-pound campaigns across radio, outdoor, and DAX. This includes overseeing some of the UK’s largest commercial partnership deals, developing strong relationships with clients and sponsors across Global’s portfolio.

Megan Blandy is a Business Director at Arena Media, with over nine years’ experience across Australia and the UK leading high performance teams to delivering strategic media solutions for global brands including Bumble and Harman. She specialises in blending brand and performance to drive client growth through data-led strategy and collaboration.

Carl leads Google’s UK Agency and Partner organisation, covering the full breadth of Google’s Advertising and technology solutions. Carl has a wealth of experience in the agency and partner ecosystem having led digital specialist practices at WPP, Omnicom and Channel 4 and a diverse spread of roles leading agency partnerships and strategy in his 10+ years at Google.

Outside of Google, Carl and his wife Sarah are parents to their two boys Henry (10) and Teddy (7) so weekends are spent by the side of swimming pools and sports pitches. When given the opportunity Carl can be found either swimming, running or cycling (often at the same time) and will be attempting his third Ironman next year.

Lauren is Commercial Agency Director at Global, where she leads strategic agency partnerships. With more than 13 years’ experience in the UK media industry, she has built her career around creating meaningful client relationships, driving commercial growth, and helping teams thrive.

Lauren specialises in audio across radio, digital audio, podcasts, social video, and emerging platforms, and is passionate about finding creative solutions that connect brands with audiences in impactful ways. Known for her collaborative and people-first approach, she is an OKR Coach, mentor, and trained Mental Health First Aider who cares deeply about developing talent, championing positive team cultures, and supporting the next generation of leaders.

Outside of Global, Lauren is currently immersed in a large home renovation project, much to the amusement (and occasional exhaustion) of her team, who have been hearing about it for quite some time. She’s an avid reader, a Substack enthusiast, and loves to travel, although adventures abroad have temporarily taken a back seat while she saves for the extension.

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.”