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2017 speakers

  • Amy Winchester

    Head of Publicity, Unbound

    Amy heads up PR for Unbound. She’s worked in publishing for over six years, most recently as a member of the PR department at HarperCollins’ fiction division. She likes spoken word poetry, feminism and prosecco – sometimes all three at once.

  • Julia Kingsford

    Literary agent and marketing consultant

    Julia Kingsford is co-founder of Kingsford Campbell, a literary agency and publishing marketing consultancy where she represents a range of authors whilst working with publishers and companies working across the industry on their brand, strategy and how to better reach consumers. Prior to this she was CEO of World Book Night and Marketing Director at Foyles.

    @juliakingsford

  • Nikesh Shukla

    Editor and author

    Nikesh Shukla is the editor of Rife Magazine, an online magazine for young people and the author of the novels Coconut Unlimited (Quartet) which was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and Meatspace (Friday Project). He is the editor of the acclaimed collection of essays about race and immigration by 21 writers of colour, The Good Immigrant (Unbound), for which he was shortlisted for the Liberty Human Rights Arts Award and won the reader’s choice category at the Books Are My Bag Awards.

  • Nisa Bayindir

    Consumer psychologist, former Pottermore head of insight

    Audience Research and Insights Strategist with appetite for all things alpha, beta, neuro and enduser. I owe my expertise to various iterations of digital media - from journalism to marketing, advertising, social media, consumer research, psychology and behavioural sciences - geared to drive insights-led change, innovation and growth. 

  • Naomi Ticehurst

    Client services director, Think Jam

    Naomi Ticehurst is the client services director for Think Jam, an entertainment marketing agency with offices in the UK and US. Naomi has over 10 years of experience in digital, growing relationships with some of the world's largest entertainment clients. Bridging the gap between innovative campaign ideas and the potential of digital, one of Naomi's approaches is to educate and instil confidence in clients through Think Jam's digital days, enabling clients to get hands on with all forms of digital tech, from VR headsets to 360 cameras. As the client lead for publishing, Naomi applies her digital knowledge across film and theatre to thinking cinematically for book launches.

  • Ruth Waldram

    Brand director, Vintage

    Ruth Waldram has worked at Penguin Random House for nine years and at Vintage for the last five. A Bookseller Rising Star in 2015, she has run publicity campaigns for authors including Howard Jacobson, Rose Tremain, Jung Chang and Alan Rusbridger and won awards for her campaigns on H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald and The Girls by Emma Cline. She is now brand director at Vintage.

  • Chloe Healy

    Marketing director, Vintage

    Chloe Healy is head of marketing at Vintage. In the last year alone she has overseen marketing campaigns for Jo Nesbo, Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan and many more. Before coming to Vintage, Chloe worked on campaigns including Go Set a Watchman at Cornerstone and at Think Jam and Pan Macmillan.

  • Varaidzo

    Arts & culture editor, gal-dem

    Varaidzo is the Arts & Culture editor at gal-dem. Her writing has been featured in New Statesman, Dazed, Complex and award-winning anthology 'The Good Immigrant' amongst others. She is a regular speaker on panels focused on making media and creative industries more accessible to BAME and young people.

    Her personal work explores stories of the African diaspora in the digital age.

    Twitter: @veedzo

  • Abigail Bergstrom

    head of publishing, Gleam Futures

    Abigail spent five years at Simon & Schuster commissioning non-fiction, her list included the Sunday Times bestselling Laura Bates BEM; the No.1 bestselling Louise Pentland; the New York Times bestselling Garance Doré; the multi-award-wining reporter Sue Lloyd-Roberts; and Hibo Wardere whose book was recently longlisted for The Orwell Prize. Now Head of Publishing at Gleam Futures, she represents the literary activities of the world’s most established digital talent. This year she launched Gleam Titles, the literary division of Gleam where she’s growing a list of digitally-integrated authors. A feminist activist she is the co-founder of ‘This Doesn’t Mean Yes’ and has written for ELLE magazine, the Telegraph and The Vagenda. 

  • Will Hayward

    ceo, JOE Media

    Will oversees all elements of JOE Media, including editorial, revenue operations, social growth and agency services. He is a frequent industry and broadcast speaker, sits on the board of Social Media Week and Lovie Awards, and advises numerous start-ups and industry bodies. Most recently Will was CCO of Dazed Media, and previously held roles at BuzzFeed as Vice President of Europe, as well The Economist and Dow Jones.

  • Sarah Raphael

    editorial director, Refinery29

    Sarah Raphael is Editorial Director of Refinery29, the leading digital media company for women. She was previously Acting Editor of British style magazine i-D and has written for numerous publications including The Guardian, Vice, and the BBC.

  • Otegha Uwagba

    writer and brand consultant

    Otegha Uwagba is the founder of Women Who, a platform that connects and supports creative working women worldwide, an endeavour inspired by her time working at some of London’s top ad agencies and cult youth brand Vice Media. Besides running Women Who, she is also a freelance writer, speaker, and brand consultant. She lives in London.

  • Annie Stone

    international account manager, BookBub

    Annie Stone is the international account manager at BookBub, where she partners with publishers in the UK, Canada, and Australia to promote books across all genres and categories. Previously, Annie worked as an editor at Alloy Entertainment, Harlequin TEEN, and HarperCollins Children’s Books, and was a Publisher's Weekly Star Watch honoree in 2015. She lives and works in Cambridge, Massachusets.

  • Jaime Frost

    senior publicity manager, HarperFiction

    Jaime has worked in the publicity team at HarperFiction for the last five years. Recently she has looked after campaigns for new books from authors such as Robin Hobb, Stuart MacBride, Curtis Sittenfeld and Gail Honeyman. She loves being part of the PR team as it gives her the perfect opportunity to press books onto others and call it work.

  • Hannah Gamon

    marketing director, HarperFiction

    Hannah is the marketing director for HarperFiction and has worked at HarperCollins for almost eight years. She is passionate about book marketing (sometimes to an unnerving degree) and has run campaigns for everything from The Ice Twins to Missing, Presumed, The Trouble with Goats and Sheep and The Cows. Did she mention she loves book marketing? 

  • Natasha O'Neill

    account manager, Jack Arts

    Natasha is an account manager at Jack Arts, the leading creative out-of-home agency for the arts and culture space. She was previously at Mode in digital marketing, orchestrating multi-channel online projects. Natasha is responsible for managing creative campaigns from idea through to execution, across publishing, theatres, galleries and museums. She has most recently worked on Grief Is A Thing With Feathers, On Tyranny, "An American in Paris" and "42nd Street". In her personal time, she enjoys dabbling in photography, theatre directing and partaking in the occasional red wine.

  • Tanya Joseph

    Tanya Joseph Consulting

    Tanya is an Architect of This Girl Can, the ward-winning behaviour change campaign which in its first year inspired 2.8 million women to act active.

  • Jane Acton

    culture director, Kallaway

    Jane Acton is Culture Director at Kallaway where she manages the campaigns for clients across the arts, including the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. She joined Kallaway in 2016 from Four Colman Getty where, as Associate Director, she led news-driven international campaigns for a wide range of high-profile publishing and arts clients including Pan Macmillan, numerous prizes and awards and the literary estates of Ian Fleming and Agatha Christie.

  • Philippe Jeanjean

    digital director, Kallaway

    As Digital Director at Kallaway, Philippe runs social media and digital marketing campaigns for leading brands across the retail, arts & culture and travel sectors. He has 10+ years agency experience, working for clients such as The Crown Estate, HomeSense and Visit Bermuda and American Express. His areas of expertise include content strategy, digital advertising and influencer marketing. 

  • Laura Jones

    publisher, 404 Ink

    Laura Jones is one half of indie publisher 404 Ink and is a freelancer in book production and promotion. She's currently working as Bloody Scotland's social media manager and coordinator of virtual book festival #ScotLitFest, with numerous clients across publishing, and previously worked as Editorial and Marketing Assistant for Saraband. 

  • Heather McDaid

    publisher, 404 Ink

    Heather McDaid is a freelance writer and publishing person, and one half of indie publisher 404 Ink. She works with music magazines, including Upset, The List, DIY and Rock Sound. She also works across the book world handling marketing and coding, and is coordinator of virtual book festival #ScotLitFest. Basically all books and bands.

  • Mark McGinlay

    Senior publicity manager (cookery & lifestyle), Orion Publishing Group

    Mark has been working at Orion for almost 3 years, and has worked for over 10 years in lifestyle publishing. He works with some of Orion’s bestselling brand authors, including Fearne Cotton, the Hairy Bikers, Davina McCall and Michel Roux Jr. He also works with some of the best up-and-coming talent in the food world, such as Tommy Banks and Jordan Bourke.

  • Anna Bowen

    Head of marketing (non-fiction), Orion Publishing Group

    Anna has been working at Orion for just over a year, following stints at Pan Macmillan, Bloomsbury and Headline. She heads up campaigns across some of Orion’s bestselling brand authors, including Fearne Cotton, the Hairy Bikers, Davina McCall and Madeleine Shaw. Her campaign for DanTDM was highly commended for Marketing Strategy of the Year at the British Book Industry Awards 2017.

  • Richard Lennon

    Editorial director, Penguin Random House UK Audio

    Richard has been Editorial Director of Penguin Random House UK Audio since late in 2016. Richard joined Penguin Books in 2010 to help launch the Portfolio imprint, having previously worked at Dow Jones and DMGT.

  • John Hale

    senior creative copywriter, Global

    As Senior Creative Copywriter, John works beyond the spot pushing the parameters of sound, by creating campaigns of faux ads, an audio advent calendar with a real choir and making haemorrhoids fun.

    Through all this John and the Global Creative team have amassed trophies from major international shows.

  • Jason Phipps

    Head of audio, The Guardian

    Jason Phipps is the head of audio at The Guardian and is editorially responsible for all the Guardian's podcasts from the UK, the US and Australia, he is a Radio Academy Gold winning podcast producer and worked as a podcast and radio producer for the BBC in London and BBC World Service. Jason's role at the Guardian also encompasses strategic development around audio and he is part of a team exploring in-car audio interfaces and the Guardian's presence within Amazon Echo and other audio interfaces.

  • Crystal Mahey-Morgan

    Founder of OWN IT! & director of Zed Books

    Crystal Mahey- Morgan left Penguin Random House in October 2014 to set up OWN IT!,a storytelling lifestyle brand telling stories across books, music, fashion and film. She is also a Director at Zed Books. Previous roles include: freelance writer for Guardian and The Face Magazine, Marketing Manager for Raindance Film Festival and Online/Digital Account Manager at Penguin Random House.

  • Julia Kenyon

    director of brand and content marketing, BBC Worldwide

    Julia Kenyon is the director of brand and  ontent Marketing at BBC Worldwide, in which she heads up the Content Marketing team, who deliver the end to end marketing strategy, plans and creative assets across all aspects: sales, trade events, customers and audiences.  She also leads the franchise teams for BBC Earth, responsible for the multi-platform growth of one of our key genres, and the global franchises Doctor Who and Sherlock.

  • Anna Rafferty

    director of digital marketing, BBC Worldwide

    Anna Rafferty is the director of digital Marketing at BBC Worldwide, in which she sets the BBC commercial and international arm’s overarching digital plans for major marketing launches, its branded services such as BBC Brit, BBC Earth and BBC First, as well as world-renowned brand franchises like Top Gear and Doctor Who. She is tasked with developing the BBC’s direct-to-consumer offerings, editorially leading the company’s short-form and social content production unit BBC Worldwide Digital Studios, and driving the corporation’s reputation in the marketplace for digital innovation. 

  • Leilah Skelton

    senior book buyer, Waterstones

    A dedicated bookseller at the Doncaster branch of Waterstones for over a decade, Leilah combines her love of books and crafting to engage readers both in-store and online. Her inventive approaches to promotion and display, coupled with her enthusiasm, have led to many hand-selling successes. Recognised by both industry and peers, she is part of The Bookseller's Rising Stars Class of 2015.

  • Ruth Fitzsimons

    s.v.p. of international operations, audioBoom

    Ruth manages the UK, Australian and Indian operations at AudioBoom, the global podcast platform that works with publishers, podcasters and broadcasters to host, distribute and monetise their content. She was previously a radio producer who has created programming for BBC and LBC in UK and RTÉ and Newstalk in Ireland.

For event queries please contact briony.morgan@thebookseller.com. For sponsorship queries please contact emma.lowe@thebookseller.com.