Sustainable Events Summit

Expert analysis and insight

Hear from industry leaders, sustainability experts and organisations pushing for change in the world of events.

Speakers for the third annual Sustainable Events Summit include:

Speaker biographies

Ed Gillespie – Co-Founder and Creative Director, Futerra

ed-gillespie-smallIn a varied, complementary career Ed has taught in Jamaica for a year, worked for the Survival Natural History Film Unit, as a marine biologist in Australia, New Caledonia and Orkney, and prior to co-founding Futerra in 2001 was environmental manager for London Transport.

Ed has Masters degrees in both Marine Conservation and Sustainable Development and has recently returned from a global circumnavigation of the world without flying during which he kept a popular blog www.lowcarbontravel.com and wrote a regular column, ‘The Slow Traveller’ for the Observer newspaper.

A provocative communicator and public speaker on all things sustainable Ed is a Member of the International Visual Communication Association, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Director of AntiApathy the campaigning and social experiment organization, and sits on the Steering Group of the RSA’s ‘Personal Carbon’ programme. He is a passionate and persuasive advocate for positive change in all aspects of our lives and sectors of society.

Jonathon Porritt – Founder Director, Forum for the Future

jonathon-porritt-small Jonathon Porritt, Co-Founder of Forum for the Future, is an eminent writer, broadcaster and commentator on sustainable development. Established in 1996, Forum for the Future is now the UK’s leading sustainable development charity, with 70 staff and over 100 partner organisations, including some of the world’s leading companies.

In addition, he is Co-Director of The Prince of Wales’s Business and Environment Programme which runs Seminars for senior executives around the world. He is a Non-Executive Director of Wessex Water, and of Willmott Dixon Holdings. He is a Trustee of the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy, and is involved in the work of many NGOs and charities as Patron, Chair or Special Adviser.

He was formerly Director of Friends of the Earth (1984-90); co-chair of the Green Party (1980-83) of which he is still a member; chairman of UNED-UK (1993-96); chairman of Sustainability South West, the South West Round Table for Sustainable Development (1999-2001); a Trustee of WWF UK (1991-2005), a member of the Board of the South West Regional Development Agency (1999-2008).

He stood down as Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission in July 2009 after nine years providing high-level advice to Government Ministers.

His latest books are Capitalism As If The World Matters (Earthscan, revised 2007), Globalism & Regionalism (Black Dog 2008) and Living Within Our Means (Forum for the Future 2009).

Jonathon received a CBE in January 2000 for services to environmental protection.

James Alexander – CEO, Green Thing

james-alexander-small James is currently a Trustee and CEO of Green Thing, the award winning not-for-profit organisation that inspires people to lead a greener life through “creativity versus climate change”.

James also works for the leading growth and innovation consultancy, The Foundation, whose clients include M&S, HSBC and O2.

James is also a Trustee of the Royal Society of the Protection to Birds (RSPB), and Advisor to MyBnk.com, Walkit.com, mo.jo, LeapAnywhere.com, Kubera Money and ClearlySo.com and a Patron to Martin Firrell.

James was co-Founder of Zopa, the multi-award winning marketplace where people meet to lend and borrow money and was UK CEO through to August 2007 and a Board Director until September 2009. Prior to Zopa, James was Strategy Director at Egg, a world leader in digital banking. He joined Egg to create new things – launching Egg’s digital TV and mobile services and the UK’s first and most successful account aggregation service. As Strategy Director he saw Egg through its highly successful period of growth and move into profitability in the UK and led the exploration of a breakthrough opportunity for Egg entering the US.

On leaving Egg, James was a founder member of the team that identified a major consumer trend of the next 20 years – Freeforming. Before Egg, James worked at LEK Consulting, where he developed the business case for Smile, Co-operative Bank’s Internet bank. During this time James also led fund raising and business planning activities at Thames 21, a charity working with communities to create clean, safe and sustainable waterside environments in London.

Paul Dickinson – CEO, Carbon Disclosure Project

paul-dickinson-smallPaul Dickinson is the Chief Executive Officer of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), an independent non-profit organization providing primary corporate climate change information. CDP serves as a system through which organizations and businesses disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and climate change strategies. CDP subsequently uses this data in order to help shape financial and policy decisions with the mission of motivating investors, corporations, and governments to prevent dangerous climate change. This goal is accelerated by CDP’s initiatives to unify corporate CEO’s, investors, and political leaders to take action against climate change. As the only global climate change reporting system, CDP is an essential resource in making effective policy decisions.

Paul Dickinson is also founder and Chair of EyeNetwork. Europe’s largest video conference booking service, and prior to founding CDP, founded and built Rufus Leonard, into a multi-million turnover corporate communications company. Paul is also an established author including Beautiful Corporations (2000 Financial Times Prentice Hall).

Charlie Dorman – Operations Director, Connection Crew

charlie-dorman-smallFirst entering the sector as a sound engineer, Charlie has been working in the events industry for over 15 years. During that time he has built up a wealth of experience in event logistics, production management and event delivery in the corporate events industry in some of London’s leading venues and spaces. Starting as a crew member, Charlie joined Connection Crew with the intent of offering some time and experience to a unique and inspiring project. He began working with Connection Crew in August 2006 and has seen it develop from its early days with a fledgling crew of six to the ground breaking social business it is today. He now works as a Director of the company with a hands on approach to managing business activity and service delivery.

Izania Downie – CEO, Eventia

izania-downie-smallFollowing one year on the board of the ITMA (Eventia’s predecessor) heading up Marketing and Membership, Izania Downie became part of the team who managed the merger between ITMA and CEA and were tasked with creating the vision of the new association. After the successful launch of Eventia (the events industry association) in January 2006 Izania was appointed full-time Executive Director of Eventia, in August of that year. After a successful result in membership growth, returning the association to achieving a good financial surplus and after managing the successful merger of the BACD into Eventia, Izania was promoted to CEO in January 2009.

Izania has 15 years’ experience in the Marketing and Events industry, with a career spanning the corporate, agency and hotel sectors, in both NZ and the UK.

Her range of experience includes sales in the health and wellness sector and marketing manager in the Finance, IT and Media industries. She also ran her own event agency whilst studying for her marketing degree at Auckland University. After graduation she moved to London and worked in Hotel Sales and Marketing, eventually becoming Global Sales Director of the C&I team at Starwood Hotels & Resorts.
This broad experience gives her a unique view of the diversity of issues that exist in the market.

Izania is a regular contributor to industry titles and the wider business media on the issues facing our industry as well as raising awareness of the value and importance of Events within the marketing mix within both the corporate and government communities.

Izania launched her strategic consultancy ‘izania, Problem:Solved’ to the events industry in July 2009 retaining Eventia as a key client and now works with other organisations assisting them in planning for strategic growth and using her Live Marketing experience to engender audience engagement.

Andy Fryers – Greenprint Director, Hay Festival

andy-fryers-small Graduated in 1992 with an Honours Degree in Environmental Science. He joined the Forestry Commission in 1993 as a Ranger in East Anglia and is currently Recreation Advisor for Wales.

Going part-time with the Forestry Commission in 2007, he joined Hay Festival as Greenprint Director, having worked in a voluntary capacity for the Festival since 1995.

He is responsible for the Greenprint programme, which focuses on three key areas: improving the Festival’s direct impacts through changing management practices, providing options and incentives for visitors to reduce their own impacts and influencing and informing by hosting leading authors and commentators in discussions, debates, events and seminars.

Stephen Greene – Co-Founder and CEO, RockCorps

Stephen Greene is a co-founder and the CEO of RockCorps, a pro-social production company and global organisation that uses the power of music to inspire volunteering, and introduce young people to a lifelong relationship with charities. RockCorps produces large-scale pop, rock and hip-hop concerts, distributing the tickets exclusively to volunteers who commit four hours of time at a RockCorps community project in their area.

Originally from Portland, Oregon, Stephen previously held the position of Executive Director at The Fowler Center, a Michigan-based non-profit facility for people with developmental and physical disabilities. He then earned his MBA at UCLA’s Anderson Business School.

In 2003, Stephen joined six friends from a wide spectrum of management, entertainment, and social service backgrounds to establish RockCorps. As CEO, he led RockCorps onto the U.S. scene in 2005.

In 2008 Stephen and the RockCorps co-founders brought their innovative idea to the UK and worked in partnership with Orange, Sony Ericsson and Channel 4 to create a series of community projects. By October 2009 RockCorps had produced three hugely successful gigs and worked with 80 UK charities including CSV, Nacro, Trees for Cities, Beat Bullying and Thames 21. By October 2009 over 56,000 people had registered with Orange RockCorps and 13,000 had worked four hours each (52,000 hours in total) to see an inspirational gig.

RockCorps (in partnership with Orange) ran its first programme in France in 2009, culminating in a gig for 5000 volunteers at Le Zenith. Stephen is working to spread the message that volunteering can become part of anyone’s lifestyle just like going out, music, sports and entertainment. RockCorps plans to go to more cities within the UK and more countries throughout the world, working with more likeminded NGO’s and charities and helping more communities.

Gerry Hopkinson – Co-Founder, Unity

gerry-hopkinson-small Gerry Hopkinson set up Unity with co-founder Nik Done in 2005 to offer a new approach to PR.

Unity believes that all stakeholders deserve to be treated with respect, whether they’re employees, shareholders, consumers or the wider community.

The agency has pioneered a whole-brained approach to PR that combines right-brained creativity with left-brain planning and strategic insight to drive campaigns – spanning media relations, experiential, digital and design – that are bold and imaginative and effective in driving bottom-line results.

Unity has built its reputation on developing and delivering creative, award-winning campaigns for ethical causes like Cancer Research UK, Friends of the Earth, 10:10, Fifteen, Energy Savings Trust and Crisis as well as high profile brands like Orange, Pizza Express, Directline, Nivea and NBC Universal.

Over the past four years the agency has won or been a finalist for more than 20 industry awards including Marketing Magazine’s PR agency of the year, The Green Event Award for the launch of Age of Stupid and Best Green Campaign in this year’s PR Week Awards.

Prior to co-founding Unity, Gerry was CEO of Band & Brown Communications.

Dale Hudson – Head of Project Development, IMEX

dale-hudson-small Dale Hudson began her career working for EIBTM as a marketing co-ordinator before going on to complete a BA Honours degree in Management, specialising in environmental practices within the meetings industry. After graduating she worked as a marketing manager and then as a head of corporate communications within education and then for two of the country’s leading incentive houses. During the two and a half years with them, she held the position of Senior Project Manager, responsible for incentive marketing – devising pharmaceutical incentive plans and as Project Manager, organising incentive trips for various commercial companies. Dale was promoted to her current position in December 2009.

Dale is currently a member of the Board of GMIC (Green Meeting Industry Council) and sits on the working group for the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) event sector supplement.

Meegan Jones – Author, Sustainable Event Management: A Practical Guide

meegan-jones-smallMeegan Jones is an events professional focusing her work on developing sustainable management solutions for live events. Apart from producing practical solutions to sustainability challenges, working with industry peers she has researched and developed benchmarking and systems for assessing the impact of events. She uses her experience in marketing and event management across the retail, music and media industries to create scenarios which engage and activate the audience, performers, crew and the supply chain.

She worked for three seasons in the UK as Sustainability Co-ordinator for Festival Republic, has developed sustainability solutions at Peats Ridge Festival in Australia, and has worked on sustainability issues for Live Earth India and the London Marathon. She is global greening consultant for Live Earth, is the events and festivals consultant for Julie’s Bicycle and is project consultant for the United Nations Music & Environment Initiative.

Graham Keene – Group Executive Chairman, World Events

Graham spent 10 years in the British Army before studying for a Recreation Management Masters Degree at Loughborough University in England and eventually making the decision to start his own events business in 1986.

Today WorldEvents™ celebrates its twenty fourth year in business and as Executive Chairman Graham continues to be passionate about the growing value that the events industry is now adding to the more traditional marketing communications mix. He remains at the forefront of WorldEvents™’ vision to become one of the leading international events agencies in the World. Most recently he has spearheaded the company’s entry into the Asian market through a launch of its Hong Kong office.

Graham is also very passionate about the effect of the events industry on the environment and has devised award winning CSR event concepts that have changed perceptions and helped to shape WorldEvents™’ CSR offer ‘TripleImpact®’.

Iqbal Latif – CEO, Hotel Rafayel

Mr. Iqbal Latif, a civil engineer, property developer, international businessman, is also an ardent environmentalist and philanthropist. A trip to the south bank of Thames in 2006 inspired his imagination to create a unique brand – Rafayel on the Left Bank – housed in a residential property that was an exceptional architectural creation of James Burland. The original configuration, destined to be a Tesco outlet or commercial office space, was complicated with ill-situated columns that aesthetically marred the creation he envisaged. Mr. Latif’s civil engineering background helped to eliminate inherent design flaws that manifested into this 65-room luxury boutique hotel with impressive eco credentials.

Patrick Loy – Head of Events, GLA

patrick-loy-smallPatrick is one of the UK’s most experienced and respected public events managers, specialising in events staged in complex city centre environments.

After studying Tourism Management at New College, Durham he started his career at the Leeds Visitor and Convention Bureau, promoting Leeds as a venue for conferences and exhibitions. His first experience of live events was working on Euro ’96 as a part of Leeds’ host city events programme.

He then spent 3-years working in York, at which time he launched and developed a number of city centre based events and festivals, notably the York Festival of Food and Drink and a season of Christmas themed events.

Returning to Leeds in 1999, he managed the city’s Millennium celebrations, which included the launch and development of the £12m Millennium Square.
After developing a year round programme of innovative events, many of which are still staged to this day, in 2004 he joined Leeds Metropolitan University as a Senior Lecturer in Events Management, teaching on a range of events based degree courses specialising in event sponsorship, public relations, event production and risk management.

He joined Events for London at the Greater London Authority in May 2005 taking on responsibility of a programme of over 50-events per year on Trafalgar Square, from televised concerts by the Scissor Sisters and the Chemical Brothers; to the Team GB Olympic and Paralympic homecoming parade following the Beijing Olympics and numerous other community led celebrations, installations and events.

He also manages and oversees many other events and festivals for the Mayor of London, including the Skyride mass participation cycling event for 60,000 cyclists and one of the UK’s largest annual public events, London’s New Year’s Eve fireworks, which now attracts 500,000 people to the banks of the Thames each year.

James Mark – Services & 2012 Games Director, ExCeL

james-mark-small James’s expertise lies in venue management with over 15 years experience within the events industry. Since graduating from De Montfort University with a degree in Performing Arts and Arts Management, James has worked with many of London’s flagship venues.

James joined ExCeL London in March 2000 as part of the Customer Services Team prior to the venue opening and was promoted in 2001 to Head of Event Management and then to Group Head in 2006.
In 2009 James was promoted onto the Executive Team as Services and 2012 Games Director and is now responsible for all customer facing and front of house services at ExCeL as well as holding executive responsibility for ExCeL London’s participation in the 2012 Olympic Games.

James has also been involved with the Senior Management Team in leading the venue to create sustainability policies at the venue and developing best practices with clients in line with BS 8901.

Prior to ExCeL London, James worked as an Event Manager at Earls Court Exhibition Centre and within the Commercial Division at the Barbican Arts and Conference Centre. He was also Assistant Director and co-founder of the Leicester Comedy Festival.

Allison Ogden-Newton – CEO, Social Enterprise London

Allison Ogden-Newton Allison Ogden-Newton is the Chief Executive of Social Enterprise London, the capital’s leading agency supporting and promoting social enterprise.

Allison has successfully promoted social enterprise to a wide spectrum of London’s agencies and decision makers, raising awareness and creating a community of support through effective networking and developing strong strategic partnerships. Whilst at SEL, Allison has worked to increase the understanding and implementation for social enterprise, particularly in the delivery of public services, social accounting, and business support.

Prior to SEL, Allison was the CEO at Women’s Education in Building (WEB), which was a voluntary organisation set up to support women by providing education and training in the construction trades. It was while at WEB that Allison became interested in social enterprise and set up Building Etc, a project that offered struggling entrepreneurs incubator office space, access to start-up finance and business mentoring.

Allison is a member of the Government’s Women’s Enterprise Taskforce and the Building Stronger Communities Taskforce. She is Deputy Chair of ACEVO, and sits on a number of social enterprise Boards including the London Migraine Centre and the Council of the Social Enterprise Coalition.

Jacquie Rogers – General Manager, ACC Liverpool

Jacquie Rogers Jacquie Rogers is the General Manager of the BT Convention Centre, part of ACC Liverpool in the UK and has over 20 years experience in business tourism and the meetings industry

The UK’s newest venue opened only 22 months ago and Jacquie’s role has been to set up and develop the Convention Centre from a building site to a leading, state of the art, international meetings facility.

The BT Convention Centre, Liverpool boasts the latest environmental measures in its design and operation to make it, internationally, a leading ‘green’ venue setting standards for best practice in the meetings industry. Part of this development, and development that Jacquie is passionate about, is to continue not just the Convention Centres environmental credentials, but broadening out to embrace all factors associated with Corporate Social Responsibility.

The BT Convention has also recently launched its Green Alliance with Cape Town and Melbourne as well as achieving ISO14001 to compliment a range of other environmental accreditations and awards.

Jacquie sits on ACC Liverpool’s Operational Board and the Board of Directors for AIPC.

Viki Stapleton – Events Manager, Schroders

viki-stapleton-small Viki has been Events Manager at Schroders Investment Management based near St Paul’s since 2000. Schroders has over 2500 employees in 32 Global offices, with £148.4 billion assets under management (as at 31 Dec 2009). Viki is responsible for the events programme of the UK Institutional and Intermediary businesses, with annual budget of £1m across conferences, exhibitions, dinners, roadshows and receptions etc. Viki has a BA (hons) from Leeds University, post-grad Diploma in Event Management, Advanced Certificate in Marketing and first aider! In 2009 Schroders ran 6 UK ‘big ticket’ events with 100 to 1000 guests that were BS8901 compliant.

Andrew Williams – Managing Director, Seventeen Events

andrew-williams-smallAndrew Williams is a co-founder and director of Seventeen Events, a sustainable event management agency based in east London. Prior to co-founding Seventeen in 2005, Andrew spent the previous five years working for the Borders Books & Music chain, and living in Mexico and Central America. Andrew is a regular speaker on the subject of sustainability in events and was recently voted one of the 50 most influential figures in the UK events industry.

Since its inception Seventeen has had a sustainable focus to its work and the company now organises a variety of high profile events every year including the Observer Ethical Awards. Seventeen are BS8901 compliant, having helped to trial the new British Standard for sustainable event management in 2007.

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