The Business of Digital
Panellists at The Business of Digital
The Business of Security & Protection
Audience and panel at event
The Business of Retail
Chair and panellists, including Mary Portas
Future events
'Leeds, Live it, Love it' jute bags at event
Chair and panellist biographies
Chair and panellists
See below for the panellists secured so far.
Chair
David Parkin - Editor and Director, The Business Desk
David was Business Editor of the Yorkshire Post from 2000 to 2007, responsible for its award-winning business pages.
He has built unrivalled contacts in the region's business community and expanded the newspaper's business coverage to include two weekly broadsheet supplements and high profile business events.
As a high profile figure in the business community, David is often called upon to host and chair events and is regularly invited to offer his opinions on major business stories on national TV and radio.
David has held senior roles on newspapers in London, Cardiff and the Midlands, and he has secured many exclusive interviews with major business figures including Sir Ken Morrison, Lord Hanson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Panellists
Buddy Ye
Mr. Buddy Ye is the Founder, CEO and Producer of Shune River Media, a Shanghai-based independent production house that is fast emerging to become a leading bridge and media collaboration platform between the rapidly growing Chinese media market and the world.
Mr. Ye has over 15 years of experience in founding and managing companies in China's media and technology sectors. By leveraging Buddy’s deep understandings, relationships and access to senior business leaders and domestic government organizations, Shune River succeeds in leading or participating various cross-boundaries film/TV co-production projects, and bringing main strain domestic media companies (e.g.:Shanghai Media Group) and world class international players together.
Previously, Buddy worked for Accenture as a senior management consultant assisting the clients in technology and communication industries. Prior to that, Mr. Ye worked for Global Sources group (Nasdaq:GSOL), the largest businessmedia company in Asia. Mr. Ye is also currently the Co-founder and Executive Chairman of WangYou.com, one of the first and largest SNS company in China (with over 10m members).
Buddy is a respected serial entrepreneur and recognized both domestically and internationally as a “China Media Expert” having been invited to deliver speech at global conferences such as CNN Future Summit, Shanghai Int’l FilmFestival, Oxford Media Summit, Dow Jones Asia Venture, etc.
Buddy graduated from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and also received his MBA from University of Oxford, UK.
Dr Norman Lewis
Dr Norman Lewis is the Chief Innovation Officer and a Founding Partner of the pioneering European-based Enterprise2.0 group, Open-Knowledge.
He was until recently, the Chief Strategy Officer of Wireless Grids Corporation, USA. Prior to joining WGC, he was the Director of Technology Research for Orange UK, formerly the Home Division of France Telecom where he led a highly successful innovation team.
He is recognised as an expert on future consumer behaviours and has written extensively about innovation, young people and social media, privacy and the future of communications. Until recently he was an Executive Board member of the MIT Communications Futures Programme and the Chairman of the International Telecommunications Union’s TELECOM Forum Programme Committee.
Amanda Brown
first direct, the UK's leading online bank, has been recognised as pushing the boundaries in the use of digital media in customer services. In 2009 it launched Talking Point, the first open forum for bank customers where they can both leave comments and be responded to. More recently the bank announced the launch of its Beta Lab where prospects and customers can interact with new initiatives before they are launched and so help shape future products and services.
Amanda is head of PR at first direct and has been responsible for spearheading a series of its innovative campaigns for nearly ten years. Amanda was responsible for the 24 hour society report which is still used as the first look into the changing society as it moved to become open all hours and was instrumental in developing the anorak amnesty one of the first online auctions which was created to publicise the bank’s move into internet banking.
In the last 18 months Amanda has developed and launched the bank’s groundbreaking and award winning social media newsroom giving its ay to day PR a whole new dynamic. Through the newsroom she made first direct the first UK bank to use twitter to communicate to journalists.
Kieron Matthews
Marketing Director, Internet Advertising Bureau
Kieron Matthews was appointed in April 2006 as the IAB’s first Head of Marketing. His role is to promote online to advertisers and agencies. This includes overseeing all IAB marketing communications across brand marketing, agency presentations, PR, mobile, conference marketing and promoting results from IAB initiatives. Kieron is now Marketing Director looking after a communications team of eight.
Before becoming Head of Marketing for the IAB, Kieron was Marketing Director at the lead digital marketing agency Dare. There he worked on award winning campaigns for Lynx and the COI and was also involved in attracting new clients to Dare such as Sony Ericsson, Magnum, Vodafone, The AA and the BBC. In the time he was there, Dare grew from nine staff to over 70.
Before joining Dare, Kieron worked at McCann’s, HHCL+P, TBWA Chiat Day (Toronto) and BBH where he launched Xbox across the web. Kieron has also worked on a diverse range of accounts including Coca-Cola, The FA, National Savings, Martini, Bank of Scotland, Early Learning Centre and T-mobile.
In 2010, Kieron set up The Digital-Consultancy to cope with the every increasing demand for impartial digital advice.
Daniel Pollick
Daniel Pollick is Chief Information Officer at DLA Piper, one of the world's largest law firms. He is one of the longest serving and best known CIOs in the legal industry.
Despite the apparent 'old economy' orientation of the legal industry, DLA Piper has, to an unusual extent in the sector, exploited the internet to develop and cement client relationships. It was one of the earliest users of 'Deal Room' technology , and in fact has the rights to the name 'vRoom' for such usage. The firm also delivers a range of other online services, ranging from online interactive reference materials, to client relationship management tools.
DLA Piper's 200-strong global IT operation is based in Leeds, from where support is provided to users across the globe. Daniel's team is dealing with traditional IT concerns - core line of business systems, high availability, information security, and end user support across about 30 countries, as well as facing the challenges of evolving a computing model to suit the 21st century knowledge worker. Consumerisation, the blurring of work and personal computing, the proliferation of end user devices, and the technology expectations of the Facebook/iphone/Google generation are all drivers for DLA Piper's IT strategy and vision.
A 1986 Philosophy, Politics and Economics graduate of Oxford University, the first 12 years of Daniel's career were spent in consultancy and the energy industry.
See below for the panellists secured so far.
Chair
David Parkin - Editor and Director, The Business DeskDavid was Business Editor of the Yorkshire Post from 2000 to 2007, responsible for its award-winning business pages.
He has built unrivalled contacts in the region's business community and expanded the newspaper's business coverage to include two weekly broadsheet supplements and high profile business events.
As a high profile figure in the business community, David is often called upon to host and chair events and is regularly invited to offer his opinions on major business stories on national TV and radio.
David has held senior roles on newspapers in London, Cardiff and the Midlands, and he has secured many exclusive interviews with major business figures including Sir Ken Morrison, Lord Hanson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Panellists
Buddy Ye
Mr. Buddy Ye is the Founder, CEO and Producer of Shune River Media, a Shanghai-based independent production house that is fast emerging to become a leading bridge and media collaboration platform between the rapidly growing Chinese media market and the world.
Mr. Ye has over 15 years of experience in founding and managing companies in China's media and technology sectors. By leveraging Buddy’s deep understandings, relationships and access to senior business leaders and domestic government organizations, Shune River succeeds in leading or participating various cross-boundaries film/TV co-production projects, and bringing main strain domestic media companies (e.g.:Shanghai Media Group) and world class international players together.
Previously, Buddy worked for Accenture as a senior management consultant assisting the clients in technology and communication industries. Prior to that, Mr. Ye worked for Global Sources group (Nasdaq:GSOL), the largest businessmedia company in Asia. Mr. Ye is also currently the Co-founder and Executive Chairman of WangYou.com, one of the first and largest SNS company in China (with over 10m members).
Buddy is a respected serial entrepreneur and recognized both domestically and internationally as a “China Media Expert” having been invited to deliver speech at global conferences such as CNN Future Summit, Shanghai Int’l FilmFestival, Oxford Media Summit, Dow Jones Asia Venture, etc.
Buddy graduated from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and also received his MBA from University of Oxford, UK.
Dr Norman Lewis
Dr Norman Lewis is the Chief Innovation Officer and a Founding Partner of the pioneering European-based Enterprise2.0 group, Open-Knowledge.
He was until recently, the Chief Strategy Officer of Wireless Grids Corporation, USA. Prior to joining WGC, he was the Director of Technology Research for Orange UK, formerly the Home Division of France Telecom where he led a highly successful innovation team.
He is recognised as an expert on future consumer behaviours and has written extensively about innovation, young people and social media, privacy and the future of communications. Until recently he was an Executive Board member of the MIT Communications Futures Programme and the Chairman of the International Telecommunications Union’s TELECOM Forum Programme Committee.
Amanda Brown
first direct, the UK's leading online bank, has been recognised as pushing the boundaries in the use of digital media in customer services. In 2009 it launched Talking Point, the first open forum for bank customers where they can both leave comments and be responded to. More recently the bank announced the launch of its Beta Lab where prospects and customers can interact with new initiatives before they are launched and so help shape future products and services.
Amanda is head of PR at first direct and has been responsible for spearheading a series of its innovative campaigns for nearly ten years. Amanda was responsible for the 24 hour society report which is still used as the first look into the changing society as it moved to become open all hours and was instrumental in developing the anorak amnesty one of the first online auctions which was created to publicise the bank’s move into internet banking.
In the last 18 months Amanda has developed and launched the bank’s groundbreaking and award winning social media newsroom giving its ay to day PR a whole new dynamic. Through the newsroom she made first direct the first UK bank to use twitter to communicate to journalists.
Kieron Matthews
Marketing Director, Internet Advertising Bureau
Kieron Matthews was appointed in April 2006 as the IAB’s first Head of Marketing. His role is to promote online to advertisers and agencies. This includes overseeing all IAB marketing communications across brand marketing, agency presentations, PR, mobile, conference marketing and promoting results from IAB initiatives. Kieron is now Marketing Director looking after a communications team of eight.
Before becoming Head of Marketing for the IAB, Kieron was Marketing Director at the lead digital marketing agency Dare. There he worked on award winning campaigns for Lynx and the COI and was also involved in attracting new clients to Dare such as Sony Ericsson, Magnum, Vodafone, The AA and the BBC. In the time he was there, Dare grew from nine staff to over 70.
Before joining Dare, Kieron worked at McCann’s, HHCL+P, TBWA Chiat Day (Toronto) and BBH where he launched Xbox across the web. Kieron has also worked on a diverse range of accounts including Coca-Cola, The FA, National Savings, Martini, Bank of Scotland, Early Learning Centre and T-mobile.
In 2010, Kieron set up The Digital-Consultancy to cope with the every increasing demand for impartial digital advice.
Daniel Pollick
Daniel Pollick is Chief Information Officer at DLA Piper, one of the world's largest law firms. He is one of the longest serving and best known CIOs in the legal industry.
Despite the apparent 'old economy' orientation of the legal industry, DLA Piper has, to an unusual extent in the sector, exploited the internet to develop and cement client relationships. It was one of the earliest users of 'Deal Room' technology , and in fact has the rights to the name 'vRoom' for such usage. The firm also delivers a range of other online services, ranging from online interactive reference materials, to client relationship management tools.
DLA Piper's 200-strong global IT operation is based in Leeds, from where support is provided to users across the globe. Daniel's team is dealing with traditional IT concerns - core line of business systems, high availability, information security, and end user support across about 30 countries, as well as facing the challenges of evolving a computing model to suit the 21st century knowledge worker. Consumerisation, the blurring of work and personal computing, the proliferation of end user devices, and the technology expectations of the Facebook/iphone/Google generation are all drivers for DLA Piper's IT strategy and vision.
A 1986 Philosophy, Politics and Economics graduate of Oxford University, the first 12 years of Daniel's career were spent in consultancy and the energy industry.