#SMWLDN

Richard consults to corporates on digital strategy and customer centricity; lectures at business school on strategy, marketing, and innovation; and advises high growth early stage businesses. He has a deep understanding of how changing technology has resulted in new ways for consumers to engage with both each other and the brands they purchase from, fundamentally changing the way shoppers buy. He combines this with what he has learnt about the dynamics of building disruptive businesses.

He believes many corporates need to re-learn to act like successful start ups. In addition to his consulting work, he lectures at Kingston Business School on Strategy, Marketing and Innovation, is Entrepreneur-in-Residence at TrueStart, is a Non-Executive Director of Old St Labs, Reevoo and formerly of Invisible Hand (sold to SkimLinks). Richard founded and led Reevoo to become a leading social commerce platform to over 300 brands across the retail, travel, auto and financial service industries.

Prior to founding Reevoo, Richard was a senior strategy consultant at KPMG covering the technology, media and telecoms space; interim Head of Group Planning at Orange, covering 22 countries; and part of the team managing investments of up to £5 million at 3i. He has a PhD from the University of Bristol and MBA from the Cranfield School of Management.

Richard lives in London with his young family. Windsurfing since forever, his kitesurfing is also improving.

Allan has always been a connector of people. He has committed his whole life to helping people connect, engage and increase the value they get from human relationships. His attitude, approach and enthusiasm make it clear that this is something he clearly enjoys.

The label ‘social media scientist’ was originally given to Allan by one of his long-term clients. This describes Allan perfectly. By combining his natural affinity for creating relationships and human conversations with his in depth understanding of the latest technological developments, he’s able to offer something quite unique. He’s not interested in inventing the next big social platform or app, he’d much rather experiment and test new and existing apps and channels to further harness the connective power of the social web.
So many companies are still just ‘having a go’ with social media. With Allan’s expertise, personality and innovative approach he gives these companies the opportunity to become trendsetters, innovators…industry leaders.

A few years ago the social web experienced an important change. A number of companies began developing social media dashboards which allowed businesses to streamline their social media management. As you might expect, Allan was one of the first to begin experimenting.
He quickly identified HootSuite as the most promising product. Since then he’s used this powerful platform to launch and manage some of the most successful social media campaigns in the UK. He was one of the first HootSuite Certified Professional in the UK and has recently been made an Ambassador for HootSuite.
Quite simply, no one understands HootSuite better.

Over the next ten years platforms will change and technology will move on. How and where; who knows?
One thing you can be sure of is that Allan will be right at the forefront of any new developments and that his focus will remain the same: Build, manage and improve relationships using the web.

Marina has a blend of commercial, digital and marketing experience, with particular expertise in digital product development, e-commerce, content and social marketing. Her early career focused on building big audiences to grow revenues for high profile media brands such as Which?, FHM, Q, Heat, Empire, and the Nursing Times, winning several industry awards for best launched, best marketed brands and most innovative brand extensions.

More recently Marina has been working on a new proposition for Reevoo to help brands harness the power of social and user generated content to support and strengthen a brand’s marketing communications.

Reevoo makes things that help brands engage with, listen to and learn from their customers.

I’m an SEO consultant and freelance content strategist from London. I’ve helped Trinity Mirror grow its digital audience and revenue – it’s now the UK’s third largest digital newspaper publisher, and closing in on the number two spot.

Alan has spent the last 20 years researching, writing about and commenting on consumer, market and marketing trends: as editor of Marketing magazine, as marketing correspondent for The Times, as a contributor to the Financial Times and columnist for Marketing Week and Brand Strategy.

In 1997 he wrote the Financial Times report Brand Strategies in the Information Age. In 2001 he wrote Right Side Up and 2005 The New Bottom Line, which introduced and fleshed out the concept of ‘buyer-centric commerce’. He founded the Buyer Centric Commerce Forum with Liz Brandt in 2005.

Alan serves on the steering committee of Harvard Law School Berkman Center for Internet and Society ‘Project VRM’ and on the editorial boards of The Journal of Brand Management and The Journal of Direct, Digital and Database Marketing. He is a founder of the Mydex Community Interest Company with William Heath and Iain Henderson.

Kate has worked in the advertising and media industry for over 12 years and led the strategic thinking for some of the worlds biggest brands. Taking a product to market in a way that captures the attention and imagination of a target group of consumers is what she loves to do.

She believes in making things simple. Simple is hard. To unearth the most compelling brand truth or a unique insight about your audience that will spark a connection with them requires a lot of work but when you find it, everything will fall into place.

Technology has been a positive disruptive force in the marketing and advertising industry which is incredibly exciting, opening up new possibilities every single day. To make sure I played my part in this technology revolution I joined Omnicom Media Group’s in house partnerships and ventures team, ARC. ARC is tasked with understanding the tech needs of all the agencies and clients that sit within the group before making investments in start ups who best meet those needs.

My role specifically as Partner is twofold; working closely with brands to understand how technology can help them realise their business goals and with the start ups we invest or partner with to package up their offering in a way which is compelling for brands.

Kate lives in London and loves running for pleasure as well as after her small daughter!