Judith is a highly experienced consulting and award winning entrepreneur. She is CEO and founder of Venturing Unlimited having established the business in 2006. Her consulting experience includes work across a variety of organisations including Barclaycard, Microsoft, The British Government Communications Network, IKEA, BAA, the entertainment group Ministry of Sound, YO! Sushi, US and European financial institutions and a range of entrepreneurial companies in entertainment, media, technology and clean-tech.
As an entrepreneur, Judith became an early proponent of online social networking as a founding director of Moonfruit.com in 1999. Backed by UK and US investors including Bainlab, Europe@Web and Macromedia, the Web-build service went on to win a BBC2 award for best online design as well as a nomination for an Online BAFTA; in 2006 Moonfruit.com was named one of the UK´s top online brands and also an eSuperbrand. She has also worked on the management team at Pret A Manger and with the political strategist, Baron Gould of Brookwood, who was a key advisor to world leaders including Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bill Clinton.
Judith established The Glasshouse in London in 1998, to provide support and inspiration to other entrepreneurs. It has since expanded to San Francisco, New York and beyond. In 2006 Second Chance Tuesday launched, a forum for entrepreneurs and investors in technology, media, telecoms and green sectors. Both networks and events attract top-name speakers, leading investors and established and budding entrepreneurs.
She started her career in the retail team at Arthur Andersen Business Consulting where her clients included Laura Ashley, Thorntons, Safeway and Blackwells.
Judith was listed by Wired as one of the Top 100 Digital Powerbrokers in the UK in 2010 and by the Daily Telegraph, as one of the Top 50 Most Influential Britons in Technology in 2009. She was also an Award Winner for Woman of the Year in 2005 and 2001 and has been a finalist in the Cosmopolitan Women of Achievement Awards in 1998.
Judith has a First Class degree in Management Science from Warwick University. She is a keen sailor and has sailed across part of the Pacific Ocean from Tahiti to Auckland.
Gerbrand Hop began his career at the Bank of America, and then joined JP Morgan, where he gained extensive experience in senior positions, in offices throughout the world.
After JP Morgan, he became Director of Corporate Banking, Europe at NatWest. He then moved on to NatWest Markets, as MD to Global Investment Banking, progressing to, Chairman, Investment Banking Worldwide. In this capacity, he set up specialised teams for media & telecom, public sector utilities, oil & gas transportation, real estate, building materials and insurance. Geographically, he broadened the bank´s focus on Central & Eastern Europe, Russia, Asia and North & South Africa.
Gerbrand was then appointed Chairman of the European Investment Fund; a public/private partnership based in Luxembourg. Since leaving the European Investment Fund as its Chairman, he works with a number of ventures (with a special focus on emerging markets, countries, regions and industries) either as an advisor to or a member of the board of these companies. He is a Dutch citizen, fluent in Dutch, English, French & German. He holds a degree cum laude in Economics from Antwerp University, Belgium.
Alexis is an experienced digital marketing strategist and . He was head of new media for Simon Fuller’s global entertainment firm, 19 Entertainment. During his four years working from 19′s London and LA offices, Alexis worked on digital projects for clients such as David Beckham, The Spice Girls, American Idol, Andy Murray, Annie Lenox, and Carrie Underwood. In addition to working with 19′s clients, Alexis managed the digital marketing partnerships with Apple, Yahoo, Google, and others.
Prior to that, Alexis was a talent agent at United Talent Agency (UTA) in Beverly Hills, CA. At UTA, Alexis helped form the new media department. During his time with UTA, Alexis worked with clients ranging from Johnny Depp to Pamela Anderson to Amazon.com and Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.
Alexis has spent time at International Creative Management and CNN and consulted for leading global brands such as Diet Coke, Sony Ericsson, and Mars Chocolate around digital media strategy, new venture development, and social media strategy. Alexis has an MBA from London Business School with course work at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
David is a veteran of both the consulting and entrepreneurial worlds. He is an innovative thinker, with a background in business development and strategy consulting, and proven competence in areas such as international expansion, consumer insight, competitive analysis and new business creation. In addition to working with Venturing Unlimited, he currently runs an independent consulting company whose recent clients have included an international media company and major UK and Irish retail banks.
Prior to his current consulting role, David invented and co-founded Zopa – the world’s first P2P lending and borrowing exchange. Since launch in 2005 it has become a safe and trusted place for social lending, with over £100M transacted. Following the creation and launch phase, David led the design of successive iterations of the Zopa proposition, worked to develop a US entry strategy and proposition, and nurtured a strong and passionate community of Zopa members through a variety of channels including blogs and discussion boards.
David’s earlier roles included working within the strategy and business development team at Egg – where projects included developing a major business opportunity in the contactless payments space, and an entry proposition for the US market – and work at L.E.K. Consulting in London, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
David graduated from Trinity College, Oxford University with a degree in Economics and Management.
Simon’s experience includes Unilever, eBay, Skype and multiple startup ventures. Simon spent five years at Unilever from 1993-1998. In 1995, He became Unilever’s first interactive marketing manager after asking the chairman for the job. In 2000 Simon co-founded a text messaging services business called Fonepark. Fonepark developed youth-focused SMS applications and was sold to Bolt in 2001. After the sale Simon was the European Business Development Director for Bolt, a US youth community website.
From 2002 to 2006, Simon was Marketing Director at eBay in the UK and a member of the management team. He built a marketing team working across all channels including PR, online, TV and email that grew registered users in the UK from 4 million to over 10 million. After leaving eBay, Simon set up a consultancy where his clients included Microsoft, dunnhumby, Warner Music and Skype. He joined Skype as a consultant and then transitioned to the VP Marketing role. He overhauled the marketing team across email, online, onsite, offline and PR. He brought in an ROI discipline and marketing planning focus as well as developing the marketing analytics.
In addition to his work with Venturing Unlimited, Simon is the founder of Quiet Riots. It is a service enabling people who are annoyed about something to find others annoyed about the same thing and get something done about it. It’s evolving with an agile development approach. Simon graduated with First Class Honors in Economics from Cambridge University and is a Sir Ian Morrow prizewinner with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.
Experienced digital marketing entrepreneur and strategic thinker with recent experience growing a brand and marketing agency to multi-million dollar revenue in less then 3 years. Strong focus on curating and connecting talent and generating strategic insights that help elevate the role that design and brand play in effective communications. Proven ability to direct strategic planning, account strategy and creative deliverables for clients, while managing teams in the development, planning and oversight from concept to market.
Entrepreneurial environments and a deft combination of creative, strategy and production have been the backbone of his career to date, most recently as a founding partner at thehappycorp global and prior to that being a part of small start-up teams that demanded considerable depth and diversity in ability. This includes being an early team member at the Comedy Central digital group, directing branded digital content at a ground-breaking beverage industry media startup and experiential communications consulting for entertainment properties including the 1st Tribeca Film Festival, IFP/New York and USA Networks.
Since April 2010 his independent consulting practice has worked for the following clients and agencies: Aol, Naked Communications, Redscout (Pepsi), TBWA/Chiat/Day (Absolut Vodka), Publicis Modem (Becks), Anne Ziegler, Platinum Equity, Spector Group and baby gooroo.
Robert is an experienced strategic marketing professional and corporate entrepreneur with a strong track record of delivering significant customer value and revenue growth within the retail financial services market. He has worked with some of the world’s most innovative and successful financial services companies including Egg, Moneysupermarket.com, MBNA and Virgin Money both as a senior manager and consultant.
He started his career in strategic marketing consulting with pFour Consultancy where he specialised in developing marketing strategy, planning, new product development, customer relationship management and partnership development with clients such as Barclays, Halifax, Lloyds TSB, Irish Life, MasterCard, NatWest and Prudential Corporation.
He then became a member of the start-up team that created Egg where he led proposition development and successfully launched a number of ‘market-firsts’ including Egg Card, Egg Shop and Egg Wallet. Robert joined MBNA Europe as VP Product Development where he was responsible for research, product strategy and innovation and led project teams to launch mobile banking and multi-application smart card value propositions.
He then went to work for Simon Nixon, the founder and CEO of Moneysupermarket.com holding a number of senior and executive management roles including Head of Cards and Payments where he grew revenues by 75% and was the leading media spokesperson regularly commenting on consumer and trade issues relating to credit cards. He then joined the board as Head of Strategy where he was responsible for developing group strategy, M&A and strategic partnership activity in the UK and overseas.
Robert holds a Masters degree in Marketing from Bristol Business School.
Bruce is one of the pioneers of ethnographic approaches and insights in the development of new brands. His work has led to some of the more exciting new launches in the relatively staid and stale worlds of financial services; including zopa.com which was named internet innovation of 2006 and became most trusted lender in 2010 with 1% of the UK loans market. Bruce also created the first “ethnographically inspired” whisky monkeyshoulder.com created for William Grant & Sons, which is now on its way to becoming a successful global brand.
By carrying out several major ethnographic studies in the UK over the last 11 years, he has built up a detailed and powerful picture of the trends and behaviours that are shaping the UK – told from the perspective of different individuals and communities. He has been ‘deep hanging out’ in many corners of our society including looking at issues of health and insurance for single parents, the life behind the counter of independent shopkeepers, what it’s like to be an anarchist on May Day, and the secret lives of Sun readers.
Bruce has worked with many of the leading companies in UK, Europe and USA; including Vodafone, Orange, egg plc, Microsoft, Marks and Spencer, Unilever, William Grant & Sons, lastminute.com, Virgin and HBOS.
He is a regular writer and speaker on the subject of branding, innovation and social trends.
Tim is a board level commercial marketer with a proven track record of delivery, combining strategic and creative thinking with consumer insight skills and operational problem solving to build compelling marketing programmes that deliver sustainable value.
Prior to consulting, Tim was Marketing Services Director at BT (British Telecom) and was responsible for embedding the customer insight driven strategy. Tim was responsible for all brand and marketing communications across the BT group. He also was Marketing director for the Consumer and SME divisions. He has public sector experience gained with the Department of Energy and Climate Change where he advised them on customer insight and behaviour change.
Arly has advised many small to medium sized businesses on strategy, operations, finance and legal. In the early 2000s, Arly started a business working with clients in multiple sectors such as retail, finance, and internet. Prior to his entrepreneurial venture, Arly was director of investments for Sony Music’s Digital Media Corporate Venturing group. Based in NY and London, Arly established the group’s offices in Europe. Arly’s responsibilities were to create deal flow, evaluate investment opportunities and advise portfolio companies.
Previously he was a consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers’s entertainment and media practice. He worked on a pricing strategy project for a major publisher, a investments analysis for an ad agency group, and a digital archiving strategy for a music major. While an analyst at Gemini Consulting, Arly gained a variety of core strategy consulting skills. He started his career in Japan as a marketing and advertising analyst for Panasonic TV
Arly has a Bachelor of Arts from Yale College and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School
Gill´s career combines top tier management consulting with blue chip and entrepreneurial line management experience. She has worked with a variety of clients and companies in media, entertainment, technology, leisure and retail sectors.
Gill´s consulting career started with Arthur Andersen Business Consulting. Blue chip consulting clients include Barclaycard, Betfair, Luminar Leisure, Mirada (Yoomedia), ITV Digital, Boots, Laura Ashley and Fiat. She also works with a variety of early stage businesses and private equity clients. Recent consulting projects have covered strategy, marketing, business development and operational areas.
Gill has also held senior roles in Victor Chandler (Commercial Director) and ITV (Head of Business Development). She was a founding director of bitBull (a gaming software start-up) and also worked on the Glasshouse. Through these roles, Gill has an exceptional record of developing and implementing company strategy, business development and commercial initiatives. Gill has significant experience negotiating and implementing international deals which have been instrumental in the launch and growth of a number of these businesses over the last 10 years.
Gill has a First class degree in Biochemistry from Oxford University and an MBA from INSEAD.
Neil is a strategy and change management specialist and has been consulting to blue-chip clients for a number of years. He has a strong track record in developing and implementing change programmes at board level across Europe and Asia.
Prior to consulting, Neil spent 15 years in a number of senior roles in the international retail and supply to retail sectors. Neil held various Director level roles at Kingfisher Plc (the world’s leading international DIY retailer) and its largest subsidiary B&Q plc including Commercial Strategy Director and Trading Director.
His expertise covers strategy development and implementation, category management, organisational review and design, M&A as well as general & commercial management
As a senior editorial leader, Chris van Schaick led organizational change in a number of BBC news environments. His experience covers radio, tv and online and he has worked as a journalist, editor and media leader for 30 years.
He was Managing Editor of various radio stations as their newsgathering operations were integrated with those of television. He also led radio production teams as they took on responsibility for the production of journalism text services and websites. This involved changes to recruitment, training, daily production, planning, review processes and performance management.
He was then a board member of BBC English Regions, a three thousand strong division of television, online and radio journalists and technical staff, as it drove forward advanced integration of its operations across all three media. Chris wrote Connecting England, a multi media project to communicate this strategy to these three thousand staff.
Katarina is an experienced digital entrepreneur, having co-founded and been CEO of OpenAd.net, an innovative creative conceptualization service that wedged a category in the advertising industry. OpenAd.net was a crowdsourcing engine for sourcing marketing communications that sold the work of 13000 freelance professionals worldwide. Its facilitation engine integrated processes to create and manage creative briefs, generation and submission of original intellectual property rights as well as while managing client and creative relationships.She established a community management structure and process across three companies and six locations and implemented a consolidated but flexible management and sales approach across multiple business cultures.
Katarina has also co-founded and managed an advertising agency and integrated it into an international network, and created and hosted a primetime Advertising TV program.
Katarina’s consulting experience includes working for the Slovenian Embassy in London in creating economic diplomacy strategy, as well as helping start-ups with corporate structure, strategy, international expansion and community management. Katarina also enjoys applying her extensive television training and speaking experience to help overcome challenges related to public presentation.
She was named one of 1000 most influential British business people by The Daily Telegraph in 2008. She regularly speaks at conferences including PICNIC, iBreakfast, Next09 and the eMarketing conference.
Paul is an experienced Media Sales and Senior Management professional with 22 years experience covering broadcast, print, digital and mobile media
Paul has had an exceptional corporate career working at AOL, BSKYB and Bauer and is a successful entrepreneur in his own right having founded digital ad sales agency Aura Sports which he sold to BSkyB in Aug 2006. His core focus is digital media, ecommerce partnerships and mobile advertising; he advises several companies in this space too.
Paul is experienced in all aspects of running digital teams: change management (improved sales strategies, commercial website builds), managing editorial teams and developing commercial propositions that work for advertisers and consumers, deploying new technology (sales management systems, ad servers, technology), marketing, PR and Finance
Whitney is an experienced integrated media marketing and event planning specialist. She began her career in international television production where she was part of the launch team for MTV Europe based in London, as well as The Disney Channel Australia based in Singapore. In the United States she worked for Comedy Central, Time Warner, E! Entertainment and VH1.
Whitney decided to take her entertainment background into the world of publishing as the Director of Promotion for Seventeen Magazine. At Seventeen, Whitney oversaw strategic business development, branding and integrated marketing programs including events and sponsorships for advertising clients and the Seventeen brand. Whitney strategically joined film, television and music industry partners with major brands from Cover Girl to Toyota to create innovative advertiser programs. She also developed and launched the first under-21 dance club, Seventeen’s “One Seven Club,” which made it’s premiere at Hollywood & Highland in Los Angeles.
From Seventeen, Whitney joined Avon to be part of the launch team for their new lifestyle brand and business, “mark.” Within 18 months, the “mark” brand went from startup to more than $118 million gross sales, 30% above forecast, with more than 20,000 dedicated representatives, 50% above plan. Following Avon she returned back to publishing with the Condé Nast’s golf division where she oversaw promotions and creative services for The Golf Digest Companies magazine brands including partnerships, licensing, sports marketing, digital and custom publishing divisions. Whitney joins Venturing Unlimited as an Associate to develop debate dinners and networking evenings with entreprenurial leaders in the digital arena.
With 15 years experience working with small to medium sized growing young companies, much of Alison’s experience and interest has been within the areas of Management Consultancy, PR, Event Planning, Sponsorship, Mobile Marketing, Celebrity Management, Online Retailers and Design Agencies – all with the common factor of being “people businesses”. Having gained this area of specialist knowledge in accountancy and business management, Alison has been able to devise good reporting and planning documents that have proved invaluable to growing successful companies.
Her role is tailored to the individual needs of each client in order to provide background, strategic insight, knowledge, intuition and information to support the board in the structure, sustainability, development, growth and wellbeing of the company.
This is delivered by offering the best financial management to the business through efficiency of income and outflow control; strong financial management and control of internal systems; long term business planning and forecasting; training staff in good financial practice, along with the softer issues of staff morale, company culture and the understanding of the motivations and needs of all stakeholders.
Sara is a highly skilled Board level EA with over 20 years experience supporting at CEO/Chairman level. Sara has worked predominately within the software/multimedia marketplace within small to medium sized companies and has first-hand experience of working for successful small start-ups, entrepreneurial businesses such as Maris Multimedia, QAS and Actimize.