Meet the FIPP World Congress moderators and hosts
The FIPP World Congress takes place from 13-15 October 2015 in Toronto, Canada.
Here is an introduction to the hosts.
Mike Hewitt has moderated many a FIPP event, including the previous FIPP World Congress in Rome in 2013. He will be the main host on the Congress stage on 14 and 15 October.
Jim Bilton will host the FIPP Mobile programme on 14 October, while Juan Señor and John Wilpers will host the FIPP Innovation programme on 15 October.
Tom Gierasimczuk will host the language panel – Making language work in an internationalised world – on Day 1, 14 October. He will also host a fireside chat on B2B media – Partnering to meet the future head on – on Day 2 of the Congress, 15 October, as well as a paid content panel – Different strategies towards the development of a paid content model – in the afternoon on 15 October.
Ruud van den Berg will host the UPM panel – The enduring power of print – on Day 1. Immediately following this session, Barry McIlheney will host our editors’ panel – The role of the editor: what’s changed and what’s next?
Stephan Scherzer will host our B2B panel – How B2B media stay relevant to their audiences today, what they expect of the future and what they plan to do about it – on Day 2. Doug Quenqua will host a fireside chat on advertising – Brand and agency perspectives on blurring media lines – on Day 2.
See the programme (still subject to minor changes) here.
Here is a little more about our moderators.
Mike Hewitt, MD, Aduageo Media
Mike is managing director of Adaugeo Media, a content and event marketing agency for corporate banking and financial technology.
He has 27 years’ experience in B2B media as a journalist and publisher, and until 2012 was CEO of the specialist digital publishing business C-Stream.
Before that he spent 14 years with Haymarket Media, editing Marketing magazine and then setting up the company’s first digital publishing unit and launching brandrepublic.com along with 12 other B2B sites.
Later he was publishing director of a group of leading business titles, including the flagship Management Today.
Mike is tutor for the digital module of FIPP’s MBMC course, chairs the annual Digital Innovators’ Summit in Berlin, and consults for global magazine media brands such as Marie Claire.
Jim Bilton, MD, Wessenden Marketing and Brandlab Research
Wessenden Marketing was established in 1992 and it operates in four main areas.
• Market information: newsletters & reports tracking the media business
• Consultancy & project management
• Market research
• Seminars, workshops, training, facilitating
Clients include major companies within the media, logistics, retailing, direct marketing and merchant banking sectors in the UK, France, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia and USA.
Brandlab was established in 2000 and it is a consumer research company which concentrates on the “buying decision” and the motivations that lie behind the purchase, looking at the product’s brand values and the shopping environment where the purchase is actually made.
Clients include Hello!, Conde Nast Publications, Dennis Publishing, Future Publishing, Haymarket Magazines, Incisive Media, Menzies Distribution, Professional Publishers Association and Royal Mail.
Before setting up these two businesses, Jim worked in a variety of roles in the publishing, research and logistics industries, covering sales, marketing, business planning, retail distribution & logistics, direct marketing, consumer research and general management. He worked for the Professional Publishers Association, International Thomson, Comag, United Newspapers, Magnum Distribution and AGB Research.
John Wilpers, senior director: USA, Innovation Media Consulting (IMC)
John is author/editor of FIPP’ and IMC’s annual Innovation in Magazine Media World Report. He is also co-host of FIPP’s live Innovation forum and anchor writer for FIPP’s monthly Innovation newsletter.
John consults with media companies around the world focusing on multi-platform innovation, organisational transformation and integration, and customer-driven editorial management to deliver content 24/7 across all platforms.
Recently he’s worked with a Czech magazine media/newspaper company, a US B2B magazine media group, a large Italian newspaper, and a Mexican magazine media publisher.
John’s media resume includes magazine media, international media groups, AOL, metro dailies, free dailies and major media websites.
John speaks at conferences worldwide, including in 2014 Beijing, London, Mexico City, Helsinki, Taipei, Toronto, Xian, Brussels, Sao Paulo, and Berlin.
Outside of media, John created a self-esteem-building soccer/football programme for girls aged 2-10, graduating 4,200 girls since 1996 (hotshotssoccer.org).
He is also a long-board surfer, gardener, and “Mother Ginger” in a Boston production of the “Nutcracker” for the last 20 years.
Juan Señor, partner, Innovation Media Consulting (IMC)
Juan is a partner at Innovation Media Consulting Group. He is also a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University in the UK.
As a partner at IMC he has directed projects all over the world helping media operations to re-invent their products and stay relevant with shifting audiences. His projects have won numerous accolades, in particular Best Newspaper Concept and Design in the World and/or in Europe continuously from 2004 to 2011. In 2010 he was listed as one of ‘The World’s Leading Innovators’ in Journalism and Media’ by journalism.co.uk.
Juan is a highly sought commentator on the media industry, quoted frequently in leading publications such as The Economist and The Financial Times. He serves on the Advisory Board of several media companies around the world. He publishes annually as co-editor the books Innovation in Newspapers and Innovation in Magazine Media World Report written for WAN-IFRA and FIPP respectively, as well as co-hosts FIPP Innovation, a live extension of the FIPP Innovation in Magazine Media brand.
In addition to his passion for the media business, he is a campaigner for disabilities via means of fundraising expeditions to the ends of the earth. He has skied unsupported to the North Pole, crossed the Western Sahara, trekked the Amazon and organised the first-ever expedition to the South Pole of a team with physical disabilities.
A Spanish national, he was born and raised in Barcelona and educated in Europe and New York.
He is conversant in six languages.
Tom Gierasimczuk, publisher & GM, Vancouver and Western Living
Tom is an award-winning journalist and media executive with tenures at some of Canada’s largest media companies, including Rogers, Transcontinental and currently, Yellow Pages.
He is a frequent commentator on the media and magazine business and speaks about marketing, advertising and brand storytelling at events all over North America.
Ruud van den Berg, SVP of Magazine Publishing & Advertising, UPM Paper Europe & North America, UPM-Kymmene Corporation, Finland
Ruud van den Berg, born in the Netherlands in 1960, can look back on a career of 30 years in the paper business. Holding a MBA, Ruud entered the paper industry in 1984, initially working in the sales and exports department for KNP (Royal Dutch Papermills). Within KNP, Ruud had several positions and changed responsibilities and location several times.
After the acquisition of the Austrian paper producer Leykam, Ruud became responsible for their sales offices in Germany with Locations Aachen and Hannover.
In 1997, Sappi acquired KNP Leykam. In 1999, Ruud joined the Italian producer of Graphic Paper Burgo and was appointed Managing Director of their Benelux operation having office in Brussels.
In 2001, Ruud was headhunted by UPM and appointed sales director fine papers for the German market, with location Dörpen in Germany.
In 2003 he was promoted to the position to Vice President Graphic Papers Merchants Fine Paper Division. This was followed by another promotion two years later, becoming Senior Vice President Sales & Marketing Fine Papers in UPM’s Helsinki-based headquarters.
After UPM adopted an entirely new business structure in autumn 2008, merging the three divisions of magazine, newsprint and fine & speciality papers into one – the new Paper Business Group – Ruud extended his responsibilities by taking on the position as Senior Vice President Sales, Paper Business Group.
Late 2013, UPM implemented a new business structure resulting in Ruud being appointed Senior Vice President, Magazine Publishing & Advertising, UPM Paper Europe & North America with full P/L responsibility for a turnover of approximately €4bn.
Ruud is married and has two daughters.
Barry McIlheney, CEO, PPA
Barry McIlheney began his career in magazines at IPC’s Melody Maker before being appointed Editor of Smash Hits and going on to become launch Editor of Empire, Publishing Director of EMAP’s music and film titles, and then Managing Director of EMAP metro.
In 1999, he led the launch of heat magazine and later that year moved to Paris to oversee the launch of FHM France. He returned to the UK in 2000 as Chief Executive of EMAP Elan, the company’s women’s magazine division, and in 2003 became Editor-in-Chief of EMAP consumer media. Barry was appointed CEO of the PPA on February 1, 2010.
Stephan Scherzer, CEO, VDZ, Germany
Stephan Scherzer, born 1964, was appointed as CEO of VDZ in 2012. VDZ is the umbrella trade organisation of German Magazine Media Publishers, representing the interests of more than 450 B2B and consumer publishers in Berlin.
Between 2007 and 2011 he worked for IDG in San Francisco as Executive Vice President. He started his career as a trade magazine journalist, was editor-in-chief of Macworld in Germany. Till 2006 he was Group Publisher and member of the board of IDG in Munich.
Stephan is a Vice President of EMMA (European Magazine Media Association), member of FIPP´s steering committee and Executive Board member of “Stiftung Lesen” – German Literacy Foundation under the patronage of the German President.
He is a graduate of Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich and holds M.A. degree in Political Science, History and Economics.
His passions are family, mountaineering and media.
Doug Quenqua, editor-in-chief, Campaign US
Doug Quenqua is editor in chief of Campaign US, the newly launched North American edition of the well-known British advertising magazine,
He has written about advertising and media for the New York Times, Adweek, Wired, Fast Company, CNBC and others.
The FIPP World Congress takes place from 13-15 October 2015 in Toronto, Canada. It includes the Worldwide Media Marketplace on 13 October and FIPP Mobile and FIPP Innovation on 14 and 15 October.
Close to 80 speakers from around the world will be on stage at the Congress.
Join them there.
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