Richard Carrick – President of the Chartered Institute of Marketing
Richard was formerly CEO at Hoseasons and led its successful sale to the Wyndham group. Prior to this, roles included being CEO of Mytravel, CMO at Airtours, Marketing director at the Forte Group and Marketing Director for Saga Holidays. He currently has a range of non-executive and consultancy roles in a number of travel and leisure companies.
Mariano Dima – Executive Vice President, Marketing and Product Solutions at Visa Europe
Mariano is responsible for Visa’s Centres of Excellence in acquiring, commercial solutions, credit, debit and prepaid, and heads up the product development, innovation and strategic insight teams. His remit also covers partnership marketing around Visa’s event sponsorship and the management of the Visa brand across Europe. Prior to joining Visa Europe he held several executive consumer marketing positions with some of the world’s leading consumer brands including, Levi Strauss & Co, Vodafone Group plc and PepsiCo International.
Colin Gottlieb – CEO, EMEA at Omnicom Media Group
Colin has been CEO for Omnicom Media Group across Europe, Middle East and Africa for the past six years, with responsibility for over 5,000 people in 54 markets. Prior to this, Colin co-founded Manning Gottlieb Media (MGM), and guided it to become one of London’s leading and most innovative media agencies, handling such iconic brands as Nike, Virgin, PlayStation, Apple and Sony Music. MGM became part of Omnicom in 1997.
Simon Hathaway – President, Shopper Marketing & Retail Operations at Cheil Worldwide
Simon joined Cheil Worldwide in May 2012 with a remit to build its business in shopper marketing and retail operations. He joined following an eight-year stint at Saatchi & Saatchi X, where he was EMEA CEO & Chairman of the Worldwide Creative Board. As Managing Director UK, Simon establised the shopper marketing specialist division of S&S in 2004 and in 2008 added regional responsibilities with promotion to CEO EMEA. He went on to launch agencies in Moscow, Dubai & Mumbai working with FMCG, retail, technology & mobile clients to deliver shopper insight, strategy, ideas and execution from search to shelf.
Sandra Leonhard – Director Digital Strategy & Transformation at TUI
Sandra has been with TUI for the last 11 years. In her current role, focuses on digital revenue growth, optimising consumer touch points and international expansion. Previously, Sandra was responsible for the development of TUI’s largest website www.thomson.co.uk, led TUI’s Social Media start up Cheqqer and TUI’s car hire business MicronNexus. Prior to joining TUI Travel, Sandra led for the online activities for Renault UK and prior to that LandRover, MG & MINI.
Debu Purkayastha – Principal, New Business Development at Google
Until very recently Debu was Google's Principal, Corporate Development spearheading its M&A and Investment efforts including the acquisition of ITA Software (travel search), DailyDeal.de (offers) and Gizmo5 (VoIP) amongst several others. Debu’s current role includes a wide mandate spanning several key strategic focus areas across EMEA, Asia & other regions. Prior to Google, Debu headed Sabre's Corporate Development/M&A team in EMEA, and was a Telecoms/Media/Technology M&A Banker with Salomon Smith Barney/Citigroup in Wall Street, Silicon Valley & London.
Robert Willett – Chairman of MetaPack and Former CEO of Best Buy International
Robert is a veteran of the retail sector. As Managing Director of Littlewoods and CEO of Best Buy International, he led programs of international expansion to turn these two regional leaders into international names. Since retiring in 2010, Robert has advised the boards of a variety of companies on operating in a multi-channel connected world, and using customer insights to delivery superior customer experiences and shareholder value. He is currently the Chairman of Metapack, a board member for Lighthaus Logic and for XSELL Technologies, and an advisor to Sabanci AC, the largest privately held conglomerate in Turkey.