Marc Wright

Marc Wright is Publisher of simply-communicate.com and Chairman of the simplygroup.

He is editor of the Gower Handbook of Internal Communication and Vice Chair of the International Association of Business Communicators, Europe & Middle East.

Steve Crescenzo

Through his work as a consultant, writer and seminar leader, Steve Crescenzo has helped thousands of communicators improve both their print and electronic communication efforts.

Recognized as one of the nation’s leading experts in employee communications, Crescenzo is the leader of four popular workshops: Strategic Employee Communication Vehicles, Integrating Print and Online Communication Vehicles, The Master Class of Employee Communication, and Creative Communications. He is also the author of his popular blog, Corporate Hallucinations, and is the host of his podcast, Creative Conversations.

Steve has been voted the number one seminar leader for IABC in the 2008 and the 2009 International Conference, and has been asked to speak in IABCs "All Star Track" for the past four years. Steve also speaks at numerous IABC chapter and district events throughout America and Europe and writes a regular column in IABC's Communication World.

David MacLeod

David has a portfolio of responsibilities which include being a Non Exec Director of the Department for International Development, Non Exec Director of the Ministry of Justice, Fellow of the Sunningdale Institute, Senior Associate of Towers Perrin and Visiting Professor of the Cass Business School. He is also a Fellow of the RSA, Institute of Marketing and Ashridge Business School.

David has led private sector organisations through major programmes of change including an ICI owned European business from a loss to 20%+ RONA. He was also head of the marketing team for Dulux where he significantly strengthened the brand through innovation which included Dulux natural whites. Latterly as a Divisional CEO in ICI he brought together five separate businesses to create a new global organisation. Profits were significantly enhanced through the merger process. He has managed businesses in each of the five largest countries in Europe and served on the boards of companies in Europe, North America, Korea and Russia.

He worked at the Cabinet office as Senior Adviser on Change and Performance in 2001-2003 working across different aspects of Civil Service wide reform. He has also worked at Towers Perrin as Senior Adviser supporting chief executives in both the public and private sectors to implement change in order to enhance performance. He Chaired the last 4 Chevening Forums which are residential seminars for Permanent Secretaries and Chief Executives. He was one of the 5 Sunningdale Institute Fellows commissioned by the Cabinet Secretary to review the effect of Capability Reviews across Whitehall.

He has co-authored a book called “The Extra Mile” published by Pearsons in January 2008 on the theme of how to fully engage employees. In July 2009 he presented the “MacLeod Report” co-authored with Nita Clarke to Peter Mandelson, Secretary of State at BIS on Employee Engagement; it’s importance to organisations and the UK economy.

Alison Quest

Alison is a creative yet pragmatic change communications professional and a champion of employee-led change. Her roots are in Human Resources, having qualified with an MSc in Personnel Management nearly 15 years ago. Since then she has worked in senior positions within blue-chip organisations like Pfizer, T-Mobile and Royal&SunAlliance, focusing on employee communication and large-scale change programmes.  

Alison has been involved in delivering change and engagement solutions across a breadth of business challenges. These range from merger and acquisitions, cost reduction and redundancy programmes, organisation restructuring and changes in senior executives, off-shoring, developing customer-oriented cultures, sales effectiveness projects, internal brand building, systems implementations and a pension deficit reduction. Whatever the business environment, Alison has placed a growing emphasis on employee-led change and have proven that this process, when managed well, can deliver dramatic results time and again.

Khaled Ismail

Khaled is Global Brand Director for Tetra Pak. He is a marketing and communications specialist with more than 18 years experience in international sales and marketing in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry, Khaled has been working for Tetra Pak for the past 8 years and is currently the Corporate Brand Director for the company.

Khaled is the custodian of the Brand “Tetra Pak” – for the company, and also responsible for the company’s advertising and sponsorship portfolio.

Khaled has extensive experience in developing strategic communications focused on corporate and brand perception management - for both products and services. He is also responsible for communications strategy development for the Greater Middle East Region. 

Prior to joining Tetra Pak he worked as Region Marketing Manager for The Coca-Cola Company in the Levant Area, and before that Brand Manager Coca-Cola and asset manager for Coca-Cola sponsored events, such the FIFA World Cup, The Olympics, FIFA Confederations Cup.

Khaled has a Bachelor of Commerce degree – from Concordia University, Canada – with a major in Marketing, and has attended executive programs in leadership and management at both IMD - Switzerland and Harvard Business School - USA.

Peter Agertoft

Peter is a founding partner and former CEO of Engage Group. Previously he held posts as a Director of People in Business and as CEO of Trident Communications. He has been providing consulting services to leading organisations for the last 23 years, focusing on performance improvement, change management, communications and employee engagement. Peter brings a unique insight into team psychology and the role of good communication in driving performance based on his experience as a member of the Danish Olympic Sailing Squad. He has worked with a wide range of private and public sector clients from O2, M&S to MOD and the Cabinet Office. Peter is a Fellow of CIB and a National Ambassador for Tomorrows People the leading employment charity for 16 to 25 year olds.

Nita Clarke

Nita Clarke is the Director of the Involvement and Participation Association (IPA). She was formerly the adviser on trade unions to Prime Minister Tony Blair, working as assistant political secretary in the Political Office at 10 Downing Street from January 2001 to June 2007. Her role included liaison with individual unions and the TUC, developing national policy in areas such as the two-tier workforce and work-life balance, supporting ministers by trouble-shooting in industrial disputes. Nita was a senior official with public services union UNISON from 1992 -2001. Nita is currently working on a review of employee engagement for government with David Macleod.

Jim Ylisela

James Ylisela Jr. is president of Duff Media Partners Inc., an independent consultancy based in Chicago. He is the former president of Ragan Consulting, a division of Ragan Communications. Jim is a longtime workshop leader, an award-winning journalist, editor and teacher. 

He was a professor of journalism at Northwestern University’s prestigious Medill Graduate School of Journalism and has taught numerous writing workshops for a variety of clients, including BP, Wells-Fargo, USAA, Nokia, American Express, Lafarge, Amgen and others. In the last six years, more than 2,500 communicators have attended his workshops on writing, strategic communications planning and social media communications.

Silvia Cambié

Silvia Cambié has 16 years of experience in cross-cultural communications, public affairs, and journalism. Her background includes reporting from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union for major British and German print media as well as managing internal and external communications for Brussels-based international trade associations. She was raised in Italy, educated in a German-speaking environment, speaks five languages and spent her entire career working in an international context.

Silvia is based in London and advises clients on strategic communication, stakeholder relations and social media. She consults with organisations like the European Parliament, EUROCONTROL, USAID, the Aga Khan University, the Chilean Economic Development Agency and the European Training Foundation.

She has held numerous leadership roles in international women’s organisations, lately as Vice President of The International Alliance for Women, former Board Member of City Women’s Network and is an active member of the Arab International Women’s Forum. She is a Director of the International Association of Business Communicators.

Silvia’s blog about cross-cultural communication is read by 11,000 each month. She is currently building a network of women bloggers from the Middle East and the former Soviet Union for the European Union.

She is a recognised public speaker who has addressed audiences worldwide including South Africa, Russia, Malaysia, Dubai, Chile, the US, France, Spain, Belgium, and the UK. She is the author of “International Communications Strategy – Developments in Cross-Cultural Communications, PR and Social Media” published by Kogan Page and nominated for the FT Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Awards.

Audrey Scarff

Audrey Scarff is a director at iCite Online Strategies and is Director of Communications for the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) for Europe & the Middle East. Her international experience with websites and intranets includes projects with Shell International, HBOS Australia, Quiksilver and the United Nations. Audrey’s work in the UK covers BT, Alliance Boots and Cancer Research UK.

She has an MA in Virtual Communications and has previously been on the management team of Intranet DASHBOARD. Her consultancy, iCite Online Strategies helps businesses enhance communications, improve business processes and make sense of the technology available to them.

Her report, Intranet Strategy & Governance, is available from Inside Knowledge.

Euan Semple

Euan Semple helps organisations, and more importantly the people in them, get their heads around the web and how to make the most effective use of it both inside and outside the firewall. He has unique experience in doing this from his time as Director of Knowledge Management at the BBC where he deployed forums, blogs and wikis on a significant scale. 

Since leaving the BBC three years ago Euan has worked with major organisations such as Nokia, the World Bank, and NATO and has unique insights into how to make the latest technologies work for organisations.

Richard Dennison

Richard Dennison is principle business partner in BT’s corporate communications department. He has unique experience of social technologies for improved communication and collaboration within the enterprise having led the deployment of social media tools on BT’s intranet, one of largest and most advanced intranets in the world. He has also been responsible for BT intranet and channel strategy and knowledge management strategy across BT. He is a persuasive and innovative communicator and strategic thinker.

He blogs at: http://richarddennison.wordpress.com

Natasa Lucic

Natasa is an employee communicator and intranet content manager at Motorola. She supports Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) employee communications and the development of Motorola's global intranet website. She is a recent Master of Arts in International Business graduate from the University of Applied Sciences, Mainz, Germany and is looking forward to pursuing her IABC accreditation.

Micheal Ambjorn

Micheal is the leader of Global Digital Communication Services at Motorola and is also the Director of Membership for the Europe & Middle East IABC. He is an experienced blue-chip communicator specialising in programme research, setup and management as well as consulting for web 2.0, cross-cultural collaboration and business and NGO start-ups. 

Neil Atkinson

Neil is currently the Director of Global Communication Channels at Unilever, where he leads the development and delivery of the global communication channels, including both internal (online news service and intranet) and external (website etc).