Dawn Airey is Senior Vice President at Yahoo Europe, Middle East and Africa. She has worked in television for 30 years and has held senior positions in the majority of the commercial broadcasters in the UK. Until April 2013, Ms Airey was President of CLT-UFA UK TV (part of RTL Group). She joined in September 2010 from Five where, as Chair and CEO, she oversaw the sale of the business to Northern and Shell. Previously she was Managing Director, Global Content at ITV where she oversaw its UK and international production and content businesses. Prior to that, Ms Airey was BSkyB’s Managing Director, Channels and Services. She has also held senior posts at Channel 4 and between 2000-02 was Five’s CEO, having been the broadcaster’s Director of Programmes at launch.

Ms Airey was awarded a Fellowship by the Royal Television Society in June 1998. She is a Vice President of the RTS and a non-executive Director of Thomas Cook PLC. In December 2011 Ms Airey was appointed Chair of the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain.

Scott Bagby joined Rdio in 2010 and is Senior Vice President of Strategic and International Partnerships. Launched in August 2010, Rdio is headquartered in San Francisco. Founded by Janus Friis, the co-creator of Skype, it is currently available in 31 countries. Mr Bagby is responsible for establishing Rdio in new global territories. For each expansion, he negotiates with labels for global streaming rights, identifies strong local partners and launches the local entity. Additionally, Mr Bagby leads the Label and Artist Relations teams at Rdio, where he is responsible for securing streaming music agreements with the labels.

Mr Bagby came to Rdio by way of Skype where he worked for four years. At Skype, he was based in London and served as the Vice President of New Markets. There he helped build out the enterprise element of the company and was responsible for telecom business revenues. Additionally, Mr Bagby led the market development strategies in Asia, South America and Europe. Before working at Skype, he spent a number of years with various telecom companies and start-ups and lived in Beijing for a number of years. Mr Bagby graduated from the University of Southern California.

Robert M. Bakish has been President and CEO, Viacom International Media Networks since January 2011. In this role, Mr Bakish is responsible for all Viacom media networks and associated businesses outside the United States, including those operating under the multimedia entertainment brands of MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, BET, Paramount Channel and VIVA. He is also responsible for Viacom’s U.S. Hispanic service Tr3s: MTV, Música y Más and has oversight of all of Viacom’s international TV-related joint ventures, including Viacom18 in India and ViacomSBS in Korea, as well as channel ventures with BSkyB in the U.K. and Foxtel in Australia.

Mr Bakish is based in New York and reports to Philippe Dauman, President and CEO of Viacom Inc. Viacom brands are seen globally in nearly 700 million households in approximately 170 territories and 37 languages via more than 200 locally programmed TV channels and more than 550 digital media and mobile TV properties. Previously, from January 2007, Mr Bakish was President of MTV Networks International, where he oversaw double-digit, year-on-year throughout his tenure. Prior to that, he held a series of corporate, sales and development roles at both Viacom Inc. and Viacom’s MTV Networks division. Before joining Viacom Inc. in 1997, Mr Bakish was a partner with Booz Allen & Hamilton in its Media and Entertainment practice and also worked AT&T in its network systems area. Mr Bakish has an M.B.A. from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business and a B.S. in Operations Research from Columbia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Adam Bird is a Director with McKinsey & Company's Munich office and a leader in the Global Media and Entertainment practice. He also leads our EMEA Media and Entertainment Practice. Mr Bird advises the top management of the leading media, entertainment, leisure, and consumer goods companies on their most critical business issues.

His 23 years of client work has spanned all major media, entertainment and information segments, including: broadcasting, consumer publishing, gaming, internet, professional publishing, filmed entertainment, cable and satellite distribution, music, video games, and sports. Mr Bird has extensive experience in online video having worked across Europe for a number of the key players. He often speaks on media topics at conferences and has been cited in leading publications, including The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune, The Financial Times, Time and BusinessWeek. He is a Young Global Leader with the World Economic Forum, a member of the Board of Governors of the Media Center and of the International Council of the Paley Center for Media in New York.

Prior to McKinsey, Mr Bird was a senior partner with Booz Allen Hamilton and the managing director of their Global Media and Entertainment practice.

Pete Blackshaw is Global Head of Digital Marketing and Social Media for Nestlé. Mr Blackshaw’s career, spanning digital marketing, public policy and brand management, has always put the consumer’s voice at the center. Before Nestlé, he was the Chief Marketing Officer of NM Incite, a joint venture between Nielsen and McKinsey that integrated social insight into core business strategies. In his book “Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3000: Running a Business in Today’s Consumer-Driven World” (Doubleday) Mr Blackshaw shares hundreds of experiences with Fortune 1000 companies working to improve the consumer conversation.

While at P&G, he helped lead the company to Ad Age’s “1999 Interactive Marketer of the Year” distinction. He recently served as Chairman of the board of the National Council of Better Business Bureaus and co-founded the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA). An Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) “Great Minds” award winner, Mr Blackshaw is a graduate of Harvard Business School and the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Fred Bolza is responsible for the development of Sony Music’s strategy in the UK and runs an in-house marketing services team that helps labels connect artists with the widest possible audiences by offering planning, insight, partnership, digital, social and creative services. In addition, he is responsible for running a small incubator that creates strategic partnerships with selected start-ups. Previously, he worked as a strategist at PRS For Music and as a management consultant advising ISPs, mobile operators and media companies. He currently DJs an infrequent jazz night, writes about obscure records and used to be in Canadian garage punk “sensations” The Cryptics.

Darren Childs joined UKTV, the multi-award winning media company which reaches 42 million viewers per month, in September 2010 with the primary objective of driving the profitability and development of the multiplatform network. UKTV is a joint venture between BBC Worldwide and Scripps Networks Interactive.

Since his appointment, he has positioned Dave as the UK’s most watched non-PSB channel, delivered the most successful and profitable year in UKTV’s history and has overseen the creation of the number one programme in Pay TV, Dynamo: Magician Impossible. Previously, Mr Childs was Managing Director of BBC Worldwide Global Channels, and held senior positions for Sony Pictures Television International (SPTI), MTV Asia and Channel V (part of the STAR TV platform).

Mike Darcey took up the position of CEO of News UK in January 2013, following 15 years with BSkyB where he was initially Strategy Director and then Chief Operating Officer since 2006. He is a Non-Executive Director and Senior Independent Director of Home Retail Group (which operates Argos and Homebase). Since his arrival at News UK, Mr Darcey has focused the company’s strategy around distinctive, paid-for bundles to secure a profitable future for News UK’s journalism. He has led the assembly of a portfolio of football video highlight clips covering the English Premier League, Scottish Premiership, FA Cup, Champions League, Europa League and England friendly matches.

Committing to a wholly paid-for strategy, Mr Darcey has overseen the introduction of the Sun+ digital package incorporating News, Perks, Goals and Lotto to build deeper relationships with customers, following in the path forged by The Times and The Sunday Times. He also initiated the decision to move the London operations to new premises at London Bridge in summer 2014, coming together in one building with Harper Collins and Dow Jones, from the News Corp group.

Mr Darcey grew up in New Zealand but has been living and working in the UK for the last 24 years. He graduated from Victoria University in Wellington with an honours degree in Mathematics and has an MSc from the London School of Economics.

Anita Elberse is the Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. An award-winning teacher and scholar, Professor Elberse develops and teaches a course on strategic marketing in creative industries, covering the businesses of entertainment, media, and sports, which ranks among the most sought-after courses in Harvard Business School’s curriculum for MBA students. She is the faculty chair of a new executive education programme on the entertainment business, and teaches in other short programs for executives.

In her research, Professor Elberse primarily aims to understand what drives the success of products in the entertainment, media, sports, and other creative industries, and how firms can develop effective marketing strategies for such products. She is acclaimed for her work on digital media strategies. Professor Elberse has conducted case studies on dozens of entertainment companies, personalities, and other entities.

Professor Elberse was promoted to full professor with tenure at age 38, making her one of the youngest female professors to achieve that honour in Harvard Business School's history.

Andrew Fisher is Executive Chairman of Shazam. He joined the company as CEO in March 2005. Today the company has more than 350 million users in 200 countries and every month more than 10 million new users join the service. Today the company is focused on becoming an increasingly important part of users everyday lives by enabling them to recognise and engage with the world around them. This includes music, television shows and brand advertising.

Previously, Mr Fisher founded and was MD of TDLI.com subsequently acquired by InfoSpace Inc. Mr Fisher became European MD of InfoSpace Inc where he led the company's European growth. Prior to InfoSpace, he was part of the team that successfully completed a management buyout and subsequent sale of Thomson Directories.

Mark Foster was asked to spearhead the UK and Ireland launches of the French-based, leading streaming subscription service Deezer in 2011. Deezer opened for business in the UK in September 2011, both as a stand-alone service and in partnership with Orange/EE. Deezer is now available in 182 territories worldwide, with 12 million users and 5 million subscribers.

Previously, Mr Foster acted as a digital strategy and marketing consultant for a number of organisations both inside and outside the music industry, including the IFPI, PPL and various small labels and retailers. He founded Warner Music International’s New Media Division, responsible for developing new digital revenue streams and establishing ground-breaking licensing relationships. As Vice President of all of Warner Music’s European Marketing operations, Mr Foster oversaw pan-regional campaigns for superstar and developing artists from Warner Bros, Elektra and Atlantic, including Madonna, R.E.M., Prince, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and many more, as well as European stars such as Phil Collins, Enya, The Corrs and cross-border breakouts such as Laura Pausini.

Mr Foster had a succession of marketing and international roles previous to this, at Polydor and Warner Music, including time in Paris as Marketing Director of both of Warner’s French affiliates. His career in the music industry began in the mid-eighties at Arista Records, as UK Product Manager for a varied portfolio of US artists, ranging from legends such as Aretha Franklin and Dionne Warwick to the soon-to-become stellar Whitney Houston.

John Gapper is Chief Business Commentator and Associate Editor of the Financial Times. He writes an award-winning column on business, with a focus on finance, media and technology, and also contributes editorials and features, including regular Lunch with the FT interviews. Mr Gapper is one of the FT’s most senior and influential writers, having covered the financial and media industries, as well as employment issues, before taking up his current role in 2003. Between 2005 and 2012, he was based in the FT’s New York office, where he helped to lead its successful expansion in the US. Mr Gapper was formerly Comment Editor of the FT, and in that role was in charge of introducing and editing the paper’s award-winning op-ed page. As a columnist, he has written on topics including Wall Street and the aftermath of the financial crisis; management and strategy; the future of digital news and entertainment; innovation and venture capital; corporate crises such as the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; and software and open source.

He is the author of a novel, A Fatal Debt, a financial thriller published by Random House in the US in 2013, and co-author with Nick Denton of All That Glitters, and is working on a second. He often appears on television and radio, including on the BBC, CNBC and CNN. The winner of the 2013 Gerald Loeb award for commentary, he has received three annual Best in Business citations for his column from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. In the UK, he was named best business columnist in the 2011 Comment Awards and gained the technology writer and best communicator awards in the Business Journalist of the Year awards. He was named one of the 100 most influential men in Britain by GQ magazine.

Mr Gapper won an open scholarship to Exeter College, Oxford University, where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He was awarded a Harkness Fellowship to study at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Before joining the FT in 1987, he trained as a journalist with Mirror Group Newspapers, working on papers including the Daily Mirror, Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph.

Kevin Gentzel is Chief Revenue Officer of The Washington Post. Named to the position in June 2013, he oversees the print and digital advertising teams, the conferences business and targeted products, which include Capital Business, Capital Insight, Express, El Tiempo Latino, WP Magazine, and all special sections. He is also responsible for leading The Washington Post’s advertising innovations and development of custom ad solutions. Previously, Mr Gentzel was Chief Revenue Officer of NDN, responsible for all advertising revenue, brand marketing and corporate communications for the company. He was also responsible for creating future revenue driving initiatives for NDN and grew NDN’s revenue by 300 percent.

For the 12 years prior, Mr Gentzel was at Forbes Media, most recently serving as Chief Revenue Officer where he was responsible for all advertising revenue and marketing for Forbes.com and Forbes magazine, among other publications. He was at the forefront of developing native advertising, and created and launched their native product AdVoice which ran on Forbes.com and in Forbes Magazine. His leadership included teams in North and South America, Europe and Africa and under his guidance Forbes magazine relaunched in Europe in 2010. During his time as Chief Revenue Officer, Mr Gentzel built out the Forbes CMO Practice and met with over 200 Chief Marketing Officers and Agency Heads. He also ran and keynoted the Annual Forbes CMO Summit, which was attended by industry leaders, CMOs, analysts, executive search firms and agency presidents.

An experienced finance professional. Andrew Griffith joined BSkyB in 1999 and held a number of senior finance roles prior to his appointment as Chief Financial Officer in April 2008. In addition to his role as Chief Financial Officer, Mr Griffith has executive responsibility for Sky’s commercial businesses, including advertising, data services and broadcasting to licensed premises. Mr Griffith joined the Company from Rothschild, the investment banking organisation, where he provided financial and strategic advice to corporate clients in the technology, media and telecommunications sector. He has a degree in law from Nottingham University and is a member of the 100 Group of Finance Directors and Advisory Board of the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.

Brent Hoberman co-founded PROfounders Capital, an early stage fund backed by entrepreneurs for digital entrepreneurs, in 2009. He is Chairman and Co-founder of made.com, a direct-from-factory consumer crowd-sourced homewares retailer in the UK. Most recently he joined the board of easyCar.com (person-to-person car sharing).

Mr Hoberman co-founded lastminute.com in April 1998. He was CEO from its inception and the team took the company to profit and gross bookings of over $2bn. lastminute.com acquired 14 businesses after the IPO to supplement the annual growth of the core brand which was over 100% from 1998 to 2004. In 2005 lastminute.com was sold to Sabre for $1.1bn.

He is on the ICA Council and a Non-Executive Board Director of Guardian Media Group, TalkTalk PLC & Shazam. Mr Hoberman also sits on the UK Government Digital Advisory Board, is a Senior Advisor to Lepe Partners, a YGL, a UK Business Trade Ambassador and a Fellow (Governor) of Eton College. Mr Hoberman also co-founded Founders Forum in 2005, a series of intimate annual global events for the leading entrepreneurs of today and the rising stars of tomorrow which currently take place in Rio, London, LA, NYC, Brazil, Hong Kong and Mumbai.

Sujay Jaswa is Vice President of Sales and Business Development at Dropbox, where he is responsible for leading the company’s business activities. Prior to Dropbox, he was a Principal at New Enterprise Associates, where he sourced and co-managed lead Series A investments in companies including Playdom (Disney), Beachmint, and Huddler. Previously, Mr Jaswa was a Management Consultant at McKinsey & Company, an Associate in Cisco Systems' Corporate Development group, and Director of Business Development at CinemaNow.

Mr Jaswa received a B.A. in economics from Princeton University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Saul Klein joined Index Ventures in 2007. An entrepreneur with two decades of experience building and exiting companies in the US and Europe, Mr Klein has a passion for working with seed and early stage businesses. Most recently he was the Co-founder of Seedcamp, as well as Co-founder and original CEO of Lovefilm International (acquired by Amazon). He was also part of the original executive team at Skype (acquired by eBay). He believes tech is still only just starting to make a dent on the economy and society and that it has the potential to create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Jay Lauf serves as Senior Vice President of Atlantic Media and Publisher of Quartz. In his role, he oversees the Quartz business operation and acts as senior advisor to The Atlantic and on corporate sales initiatives. Mr Lauf assumed the company’s top sales and marketing role after helping oversee the revitalisation of The Atlantic’s sales and marketing efforts. Under his direction, The Atlantic attained its first profit in decades while posting revenue gains for 12 consecutive quarters and setting new all-time benchmarks for ad revenue both in print and online attain. Focusing on the evolution of The Atlantic to a "digital-first" brand, Mr Lauf and his team increased digital ad revenue more than 1600% from 2008 to 2012, which helped the publication earn the label from Ad Age: "an ultra-modern, multi-platform juggernaut". The media industry has also taken note of his accomplishments. In 2012, Adweek named him “Publisher of the Year,” while Ad Age named Atlantic Media president, Justin Smith, and him "Publishing Executives of the Year" in 2010.

Before joining Atlantic Media, Mr Lauf was Publisher of Wired, where he served progressively from 2001 to 2008 as Advertising Director, Associate Publisher, and then Publisher.

Adrian Letts is Managing Director of blinkbox movies and TV, the no subscription streaming service he co-founded in 2006 before selling to Tesco in May 2011. Previously, at Vodafone he shared responsibility for over £1bn in annual revenues and led the launch of Vodafone's mobile TV, music and games services. Mr Letts spent the early part of his career at JP Morgan in the European M&A team.

Maurice Lévy joined Publicis Groupe in 1971 and was named Chairman and CEO in 1987, becoming Publicis Groupe's second CEO since 1926. Under his stewardship Publicis Groupe turned into a global powerhouse of top creative advertising and marketing agencies, notably via the acquisition of Saatchi & Saatchi in 2000 and the merger with Bcom3 in 2002. He is also responsible for the Group’s pioneering strategic focus on fast growing markets (BRIC) and digital communication with major acquisitions such as Digitas in 2007, Razorfish in 2009, Rosetta in 2011 and LBi in 2013.

He is “Commandeur” of the French Légion d’Honneur and “Grand Officier” of the Ordre National du Mérite.

Nicholas Lovell helps companies make money from games. Clients include Square Enix, IPC, Channel 4, 519 Games, Social Point and various investment funds. Nicholas’s fourth book “The Curve” was published by Penguin on 3 October 2013. His other three books include “How to Publish a Game” and he has written various blogs about the business of games at www.gamesbrief.com.

Jimmy Maymann joined AOL in January 2011, following the $96.7m acquisition of goviral, the branded content distribution company he co-founded in 2005. One week later, AOL announced it had acquired the biggest newspaper on the web, The Huffington Post, where he is now the CEO.

His focus within Huffington Post is to take his entrepreneurial skill-base and media know-how to grow/scale the Huffington Post Media Group suite of brands and expand them across international markets, much like he did with the goviral business in Europe. To date, The Huffington Post has launched in Canada, the UK, France (Le Huffington Post with Le Monde), Spain (El Huffington Post with El Pais), Italy (L'Huffington Post with La Repubblica) and in Japan (Huffington Post Japan with Asahi Shimbun). Germany and Brazil are going to be announced shortly.

Mr Maymann has a Master in International Marketing and an Executive MBA from London Business School.

Nicola Mendelsohn joined Facebook in June 2013 as the Vice President of Facebook EMEA. Previously she was Executive Chairman and a Partner at the advertising agency Karmarama, which she joined in April 2008. She has just stepped down as president of the IPA (the advertising industry trade body), the first woman president in its 96-year history. Late in 2012 she was appointed Industry Chair of the Creative Industries Council a joint forum between the creative industries (including TV, computer games, fashion, music, arts, publishing, film and advertising) and Government. Prior to Karmarama, Ms Mendelsohn was the Deputy Chairman of Grey London and a Board Director at BBH.

In 2005 she featured in Management Today's list of the 'Top 35 Women Under 35’. In May 2011, Ms Mendelsohn was named an ‘International Woman to Watch’ by Advertising Age. In the same year she was awarded as a CEW (Cosmetic Executive Women) Achiever of the Year. In addition, Ms Mendelsohn is a Director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction and a Trustee of The White Ribbon Alliance.

Appointed CEO in July 2010, Andrew Miller joined Guardian Media Group as Chief Financial Officer and was appointed to the Board in 2009. He was previously Group Chief Financial Officer of Trader Media Group. He has also worked at Pepsico, Bass plc and Procter & Gamble. He is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, having gained his accountancy qualification with Price Waterhouse.

Jonathan Perelman is GM of Video and VP Agency Strategy at BuzzFeed. He is responsible for business management and branded advertising on BuzzFeed video, as well as leading partnerships with advertising agencies and brands for BuzzFeed. In 2013, Jonathan was the youngest person to be named AdWeek’s “Top 50 Executives Who Make the Wheel Turn.” Prior to BuzzFeed, Mr Perelman spent over six years at Google, most recently as the Global Lead for Industry Relations. He was responsible for brand identity initiatives within the advertising and media industries. Google's Operating Committee awarded the prestigious OC Award to him for his work on mergers and acquisitions.

Mr Perelman is a Sr. Fellow at the Center for the Digital Future, at the USC Annenberg School. In addition, he serves on the board of Advertising Week (US and Europe), Internet Week, Ad:Tech, along with other industry groups. He served as an advisor to Cory Booker’s 2013 US Senate Campaign. Mr Perelman advises several startups, and is a member of several foreign policy international think tanks. He’s also an investor in early stage tech and media companies as part of NextGen Angels NYC. Mr Perelman is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in political science.

Nick Perrett is Group Director, Strategy and Digital at Harper Collins, where he is responsible for strategy, M&A, business development and digital product. Mr Perrett previously spent a decade in video games, most recently as EVP & CEO North American Studios at Jagex. He trained in venture capital and management consultancy and is a graduate of Bristol University and Harvard Business School.

John Ridding is the president of Pearson Professional, appointed in May 2013. In this role he oversees the Financial Times and Pearson’s executive education and financial training businesses, including Pearson English, Pearson VUE and the New York Institute of Finance.

Mr Ridding also serves as chief executive of the Financial Times, a role he has held since 2006. Under his stewardship the FT has expanded its global operation, successfully scaled and transformed its core business and acquired a number of companies that support its multichannel strategy including Money-Media, Medley Global Advisors, Exec-Appointments and Assanka, renamed FT Labs.

During his tenure the FT has gained a wide reputation for innovation, embodied by the success of its ground-breaking FT web app, the pioneering metered access model and the growth of its B2B business. The FT now attracts the largest paying readership in its 126-year history.

Before taking up his current post, Mr Ridding was the editor and publisher of the Financial Times in Asia, as well as chairman of Pearson in Asia. He led the launch of the FT’s Asia edition in 2003, steering it to a series of commercial and editorial successes. Mr Ridding also led the development of the FT’s Chinese language website, which now has more than 2m users and is the leading international source of business news in China.

He established several financial training courses and collaborative business publications during his time in the region, including the FT/Longman Chinese/English financial dictionary.

During his 25 year career at the FT, Mr Ridding has served as managing editor, deputy editor, companies reporter, Paris correspondent and Korea correspondent.

Before joining the FT, Mr Ridding worked at Oxford Analytica, heading the economics and Asia Pacific desks.

Mr Ridding was appointed to the board of Bonnier Business Press, part of the international media conglomerate Bonnier AB, in 2013. He is also a member of the Global Board and Chairman of the UK Advisory Board of Room to Read, a charity that supports education and literacy in developing countries.

He graduated from Oxford University with a first class honours degree in philosophy, politics and economics.

Ralph Rivera is Director of Future Media, a member of the BBC Management Board and is responsible for the development of the BBC's interactive services BBC Online and BBC Red Button. Catering to audiences who want to access and interact with BBC programmes and services through the internet, the Future Media division brings technology and design teams together to work in partnership with the BBC's editorial teams to create products such as BBC News Online and BBC iPlayer. An executive with extensive experience in global digital media, Mr Rivera was appointed as BBC's Director of Digital Media in November 2010 before being promoted to Director of Future Media in March 2011.

Mr Rivera joined the BBC from Major League Gaming in New York, where he was responsible for product development for the largest professional video game league in the world. Prior to that, he ran AOL's Games and Latino businesses, oversaw the expansion of AOL's international web presence and launched the social gaming platform games.com. Before his time at AOL, Mr Rivera worked for publishing company Pearson Education, Simon & Schuster, Deloitte & Touche, IBM and earned an undergraduate degree from Columbia College and an M.B.A. from New York University.

Jacinto Roca founded Wuaki.tv, an on-demand movie and TV streaming service, in Spain in 2009. In 2012 the company was acquired by Rakuten. Prior to forming Wuaki.tv, Mr Roca specialised in the Technology, Media and Telecoms (TMT) sector, working as a consultant at strategic consulting firm DiamondCluster International, and as a Venture Partner at venture capital firm Nauta Capital. Mr Roca holds an MBA from the Anderson School (UCLA).

Dan Rogers is Vice President of Marketing and Growth at Songkick, which during his tenure has grown from one million to ten million monthly visits. Prior to Songkick, he worked as a Product and Marketing Manager for Qype, Europe’s largest local reviews website, which was acquired in 2012 by Yelp.com for $50 million. Prior to Qype he worked in a number of finance and technology roles, most recently at JP Morgan in London. Mr Rogers has a degree in Software Engineering and an MBA from London Business School.

Rama Sadasivan is Director of Business Development at Scribd. Mr Sadasivan has over 15 years of business development and product experience in the digital media industry. He was previously with SigFig / Wikinvest, heading up business development and strategic partnerships. Prior to that, Mr Sadasivan was with WSJ.com for 10 years, where he was responsible for managing several new product initiatives and setting up WSJ.com in India. Mr Sadasivan has an engineering degree from University of Mumbai and an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.

Caspar Schlickum is CEO of Xaxis EMEA, and in this role is responsible for managing the operations and leading the strategic development of the Xaxis business across the region. Before taking his role at Xaxis, Mr Schlickum was EMEA Managing Director of the Media Innovation Group (MIG), one of the cornerstone companies that comprises Xaxis.

Mr Schlickum has extensive experience in digital media and audience insight driven marketing, having spent four years at Mindshare as a global client lead, and one year within Kantar, the holding company for WPP’s research and insight businesses. Prior to joining WPP, Mr Schlickum was Commercial Development Director at Fairfax Digital, one of Australia’s largest publishing houses. Before commencing his career in marketing, he spent six years in investment banking advising on technology, communications and infrastructure projects in the Asia Pacific region.

Mr Schlickum holds an economics degree (with first class honours) from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and a MBA from London Business School and the Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

Genevieve Shore will move over from her role as CIO to that of Chief Product and Marketing Officer for Pearson in January 2014. She will be responsible for the development processes helping Pearson to focus on products and strategies, driving how the company works with technology partners. She will be working to establish Pearson as a destination for innovation in education focusing on how the company can have the biggest impact on learners, deliver efficacy at scale, and transform the business from print to digital.

Ms Shore joined Pearson in 2002 and in 2010 became the global CIO. In this role she oversees the strategy, architecture and implementation of all Pearson’s worldwide technology operations. This includes networks, systems and applications for processes; from content creation through to eCommerce and every aspect of the digital value chain from rights and royalties to data and analysis. She is also responsible for consumer-facing product technologies as well as commercialising relevant new technologies and developing technology talent. In March 2012 Ms Shore was appointed a Non-Executive Director of Scottish Television.

Justin Smith is CEO of Bloomberg Media Group, the media division of Bloomberg L.P., the global leader in business and financial information. The Bloomberg Media Group comprises the company’s global television, digital, radio, events and magazine operations.

Prior to Bloomberg, Mr Smith was President of Atlantic Media where he spearheaded a dramatic revitalisation of The Atlantic brand and launched award winning digital brands such as Quartz, The Atlantic Wire and Defense One. Before that, he served as President and Publisher of The Week magazine, where he introduced the U.S. edition in 2001. He came to The Week from The Economist Group, where he headed up corporate strategy in London, Hong Kong, and New York. Mr Smith attended the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and worked for the U.S. Department of State in West Africa and Washington, D.C.

He is a founder of Breaking Media, the Bali Purnati Center for the Arts, and the Ouagadougou Education Project. He is a member of the Georgetown University Board of Directors, a 2013 Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellow and a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

David Sternberg has been the Head of Media at Manchester United since May 2013. He is responsible for the strategy and daily operations of all club media businesses including MUTV, the manutd.com website, mobile apps and services, print publications and social media platforms. Previously, he was CEO of Universal Sports, an Olympic-themed sports television network jointly owned by NBC Universal and Intermedia Partners where he was responsible for all aspects of the network’s operation, including advertising sales, distribution, programming, marketing, technical operations, finance and administration and digital media operations. Among the world-class sports events broadcast exclusively on the network’s platforms were the world championships of swimming, athletics, gymnastics, skiing and figure skating; the Rugby World Cup; the Boston, London and Berlin marathons; the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España cycling tours; and the Ironman triathlon series.

Before joining Universal Sports in April 2010, Mr Sternberg spent nearly 12 years as an executive in the Fox Cable Networks Group. From 2003 to 2009 he served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Emerging Networks and General Manager of three rapidly growing national sports channels: FUEL TV, Fox Soccer Channel and Fox Sports en Español. Mr Sternberg oversaw the launch of FUEL TV in 2003 as the first-ever television network dedicated completely to action sports, and two years later guided the re-branding of Fox Sports World into Fox Soccer Channel, followed by ground-breaking exclusive programming agreements with the English Premier League, the UEFA Champions League and Major League Soccer. Prior to moving to Fox’s domestic cable networks group in 2002, Mr Sternberg worked for four years as the Vice President and General Manager of Fox Sports Latin America, making that channel the top-rated sports programming service in the region and forming a successful joint venture with Hicks, Muse, Tate and Furst and Liberty Media Corporation.

Mr Sternberg graduated in comparative literature from Princeton University in 1990 and went on to gain an MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA in 1996.

Mark Thompson became President and CEO of The New York Times Company in November 2012. He is responsible for leading the company's strategy, operations and business units, and working closely with the chairman to direct the vision of the company.

Before joining the New York Times Company, Mr Thompson served as Director-General of the BBC since 2004, where he reshaped the company to meet the challenge of the digital age, ensuring that it remained a leading innovator with the launch of services such as the BBC iPlayer. He also oversaw a transformation of the BBC itself, driving productivity and efficiency through the introduction of new technologies and bold organisational redesign. He led the successful launch jointly with ITV of Freesat, as well as the BBC's involvement in YouView, a joint venture with ITV, Channel 4, Arqiva, TalkTalk, and Five, offering subscription-free digital TV and the UK's leading video on-demand services.

Mr Thompson joined the BBC in 1979 as a production trainee. He helped launch Watchdog and Breakfast Time, was an output editor on Newsnight, and was appointed editor of the Nine O'Clock News in 1988 and of Panorama in 1990. He became controller (programming and scheduling chief) for the TV network BBC2 and Director of Television for the BBC before leaving the BBC in 2002 to become CEO of Channel 4 Television Corporation in the United Kingdom. He was educated at Merton College at Oxford University.

Richard Waters is the West Coast Editor for the Financial Times. His beat covers the technology industry.

Before moving to the West Coast, Mr Waters was based in the FT's New York office for nine years. His roles there included Wall Street reporter, New York bureau chief, and the FT's first information industries editor, overseeing global coverage of technology, telecommunications and media.

He previously worked at the FT in London where he held a number of positions, including editor of international capital markets, securities industry correspondent and accountancy and taxation correspondent.

Before working for the FT, Mr Waters worked as a reporter and editor for several financial magazines. He also worked for two years at Lloyd's Bank International and lived in Chile, also working as a teacher.

In 2004, he was awarded Corporate Finance Reporter of the Year for his coverage of Google's IPO. He was shortlisted for the Business & Finance Reporter of the Year award at the British Press Awards in 2003 and won the award in 1992 as part of a team covering the BCCI scandal. In 1988, he was named Accountancy Journalist of the Year. He appears regularly on the BBC, CNBC, MSNBC, CNNfn and NPR.

David Zaslav sets the strategy and oversees all operations of the world’s number one nonfiction media company that empowers people to explore their world and satisfy their curiosity. Since taking the helm at Discovery in January 2007, Mr Zaslav has executed a number of initiatives that have focused the organisation on growth, performance and operational efficiency. He also has directed a strategic effort to clarify and strengthen Discovery's world-class brands, including the debut of the Investigation Discovery, Destination America and Velocity brands, as well as partnerships with Oprah Winfrey and Hasbro to launch. Internationally, Discovery has rolled out TLC as an international female-targeted flagship network and expanded its operations with the acquisition of SBS Nordics, a top-three portfolio of television brands across Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.

Prior to Discovery, Mr Zaslav had a distinguished career at NBC Universal. As president of Cable and Domestic TV and New Media Distribution, he oversaw content distribution, led negotiations for cable and satellite carriage, and forged innovative new-media partnerships, including a pioneering video-on-demand deal with Comcast. He was instrumental in developing and launching CNBC and MSNBC. His responsibilities also extended to Bravo, CNBC World, SCI FI, ShopNBC, Sleuth, Telemundo, Telemundo Puerto Rico, mun2, Trio, Universal HD, USA Network, NBC Weather Plus and the Olympics on cable, as well as NBC Universal’s interests in A&E, The History Channel, The Biography Channel, National Geographic International, the Sundance Channel and TiVo.

Before joining NBC, Zaslav was an attorney with the New York firm of LeBouef, Lamb, Leiby & MacRae. He graduated with honours from Boston University School of Law.