Speakers
Ralph Ardill
Ralph Ardill is the former Marketing and Strategic Planning Director of Imagination and for ten years provided the strategic direction of Europe’s largest and most successful
multidisciplinary design company. Ralph has worked on brands including Ford, Ericsson, Coca-Cola, Barclays, and BSkyB.
After time as a business analyst at Laura Ashley, as a product manager at CBS Records (now Sony Music Entertainment) Ralph joined Sampson Tyrell an Account Director, where he
developed and implemented corporate identity for Castrol.
He then spent over a decade as Marketing and Strategic Planning Director of Imagination- one of the world’s most successful and admired creative consultancies - where he was the inspiration and driving force behind Imagination’s Brand Experience think-tank. Amongst other projects he led the development of the Guinness Storehouse brand centre in Dublin which has become Ireland’s number one visitor attraction.
Ralph wrote one of the first books on experiential branding - simply entitled ‘Experience’
along with a master-class on Experience Design for the UK Design Council. He moved from
Imagination to become an independent consultant aimed at achieving ‘cost-effective business
growth through people-centred, brand-led, design-inspired transformation of their total brand
experience’.
Ralph is evangelical about moving the concept of branding away from a vague notion lead by
creative agencies to a business strategy lead by the businesses leaders and embraced by
everyone in the organisation, not just marketers. He believes that his work is part of advancing
a company from within; a long term project that is not just changing logos and packaging.
Dr Magnus Lindkvist
Magnus Lindkvist is Director for Trendspotting and Future Thinking at Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship, and an active member of TED - the world’s leading trends forum. He also heads an influential Swedish agency.
We used to think tomorrow would be more or less like today and we were often right. Not any more, according to Magnus. Whilst the brain is wired to think in a linear way, we are living in exponential times in which we need to harness our imagination to prepare for the opportunities and challenges that lie just around the corner.
For example, with the rise of ‘creative’ consumers like bloggers and tweeters, Magnus
believes business has to offer customers a piece of the action: ‘profit for effort.’ If they create
something, be it a viral campaign or ideas to improve your service, they will want a reward -
whether it’s recognition or money (or both).
Looking further ahead, he sees our children enjoying cheaper, more efficient energy. Magnus
thinks that the current fears of ‘peak oil’ will come to be seen as no more than a curious
example of turn-of-the-century pessimism. He shows how a genome pioneer is developing one
potential solution, by using bacteria to create high-octane diesel droplets.
A management consultant and filmmaker by background, Magnus mixes quantifiable business
facts with the visionary art of ‘futurology.’ In his own words, his presentations are designed to
generate ‘ahhs, ha-has and ahas.’
Daisy McAndrew
Daisy McAndrew is an excellent conference speaker, facilitator, awards host and presenter. She has been Economics Editor of ITV News since 2008 - having been promoted from her position as Chief Political Correspondent and ITV News' most senior female reporter.
Since joining in 2005 - as well as reporting for ITV News - Daisy
has also presented ITV's Lunchtime and Weekend News and ITV's Moral of
the Story.
Before joining ITV she presented (as Daisy Sampson) the BBC's Daily
Politics and was BBC Breakfast News' political correspondent. She also
had her own drive time show on LBC Radio and has presented Channel 4's
Powerhouse, the BBC's Heaven and Earth Show and BBC Weekend News. She
has been on Have I Got News for You? three times and has been a regular
on The Wright Show and Despatch Box and many Radio 5Live programmes.
Before moving into broadcasting in 2001 she spent a decade working in
Westminster, starting off as a 19-year-old Tory researcher before
writing for many newspapers from the Press Gallery, profiling MPs in The
House Magazine - which she ultimately edited - as well as working for
Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy as his Press Secretary. She was a
consultant on the BBC’s A-Z of Politics and edited The Politics
Companion, published by Chrysalis books.
Gerard
Burke
Gerard is the owner and
managing director of Your Business Your Future.
He is passionate about helping owner managers create the future they
want for their businesses and for themselves and set up Your Business Your
Future (www.yourbusinessyourfuture.co.uk)
with that specific purpose.
Over the
last six years, Gerard has designed and delivered the UK’s leading programmes
for ambitious owner managers, helping well over 600 owner managers to create
the future they want for their businesses and for themselves and achieve
fantastic returns on their investment. Through Your Business Your
Future, Gerard and his team will make the approaches that he developed and
refined during those six years available to even more owner managers.
Gerard is a high
profile speaker, writer and media commentator on owner managers and their
businesses. Previously, Gerard was on the faculty at Cranfield School of
Management for 12 years and prior to that spent 10 years as a management
consultant with Price Waterhouse.
Aki Kalliatakis
Aki Kalliatakis runs The Leadership LaunchPad, a business focused on customer loyalty and radical marketing that he founded in 1989. He assists companies to implement customised service and loyalty strategies, and is often invited to talk to various groups, and conduct seminars, workshops and training courses for his clients. He lectures on executive development programmes for a number of business schools of both local and international universities, although he knows that practical ideas are more important than academic theory.
With almost thirty years of experience in customer loyalty and customer management, (and sales and marketing,) his articles appear regularly in newspapers and magazines. He is a guest lecturer on senior executive programmes at various universities and business schools, both local and international, and a regular keynote speaker at major conferences.
In the 1990s, Aki co-hosted his own weekly radio talk show on Radio 702, "Aki's Consumer Line", with Mike Mills. Occasionally appears in various television and radio programmes, and has also published six books, Delight Your Customers, Reflections on Delighting Your Customers, More Reflections on Delighting Your Customers, Reinventing CRM, Relationships First!, and Rugby On Saturday is Just Not Enough. His next book, “Turning Frogs into Princes” will be pulblished shortly. He has also produced and edited The Complete Handbook for Delighting Your Customers.
Aki has an Honours degree in Psychology, and participated in the MBA from Henley Management
School in the UK. He is married with two sons.
