2025 SPEAKERS

As CEO of WGSN, the world’s leading trend forecasting company, Carla leads a global team of specialists, delivering future insight, analysis and consultancy services, predicting the future for the world’s most successful brands.

An award-winning editor and journalist by background, she was founding Editor-in-Chief of The Huffington Post UK, where she was named Editor of the Year at the Online Media Awards and Media Innovator of the Year at the British Media Awards.

When not advising business leaders on future trends, she is also a commentator for TV and radio shows, a regular keynote speaker at events, including SXSW, TedX, Cannes Lions, Web Summit and Inspiring Women, and a podcast host on Lives of Tomorrow.

With a career in technology spanning 30 years, across a number of industries, Mike is a highly respected and experienced technology and business transformation leader. He has worked for many of the UK’s leading retailers in both national and international transformational roles. Form launching one of the UK’s first website in the early 90’s through to leading many E-commerce retail omnichannel programmes and being a powerful advocate for customer centricity across all retail channels, Mike has experience across the retail tech and business space. He has also been a judge at the Retail Innovation Hub technology awards since it’s inception, writes for various retail focused magazines and is a regular speaker at transformation and retail events.

Elton leads ASOS’s retail media business and is responsible for global strategy and operations. ASOS Media Group helps brands win with ASOS across sportswear, fashion, and face & body categories to create striking content that enhances ASOS customers’ experience and drives results.

Before ASOS Elton has built and led successful multimedia businesses for other leading international retailers Tesco (dunnhumby) and Amazon, as well as for digital publishers Tiscali and Sky in the UK, and across radio, TV and digital channels in South Africa for leading media sales house Mediamark (which was a Kagiso Media and Lagardere joint venture).

He is passionate about working with brands to produce and deliver relevant, effective advertising anchored in technology and data.

With more than two decades in media and agency life, Rob moved to the client side with Arla Foods in the UK in 2019. As Head of Media and Digital activations, Rob’s department now take responsibility for planning and delivering all branded digital activity in the UK for brands like Lurpak, Anchor, Cravendale, the Arla master brand amongst others, while working with agency partners to deliver on wider campaigns.
Rob’s experience took shape at in traditional media before accelerating the digital focus throughout the noughties across differing roles and is old enough to remember mono print ads and young enough to appreciate the changing media landscape.

Jessica has spent 15+ years in a range of commercial sales and marketing roles across magazines, consumer goods and retail. She started her career as an analyst at the Walt Disney Company before moving into consumer goods, setting up the shopper marketing function for Perrigo consumer healthcare, followed by 18 months as a national account manager. After her time with Perrigo, Jess moved to Tesco Media (dunnhumby), which enabled her to work across the wide spectrum of categories, including Fresh, Grocery, Nestle, and business development. She spent 7 great years building and innovating retail media solutions for her clients. This experience, and her MBA from UCL School of Management, enabled her to springboard into her new role as Director of Media & Loyalty at Stonegate Group (Slug & Lettuce, Be at One, Walkabout, and 4000 community pubs). Her responsibilities include building a retail-style media and loyalty network through the newly launched MiXR app and media platform. On top of the ‘day job’ in marketing strategy, Jess is passionate about advancing gender equality and DEI initiatives to ensure she creates a more inclusive culture anywhere she goes.

Lycia Lobo is an income generation executive with 25 years’ experience across the high street and charity/arts sector working for organisations like Thorntons, Signet Jewellers and the V&A.

She is the Commercial Director at English Heritage, and from February 2025, the Chief Operating Officer at the Design Museum. Lycia has led on phygital (physical and digital) transformation of commercial propositions across events, shops, cafes, and rental businesses to ensure the offer aligns to the needs and demands of the customer; this enables organisations to maximise visitor engagement, desire to spend, return and recommend to others.

As a non-executive-director, Lycia supports other museums and trusts with operational leadership, fundraising and capital projects, so that others can benefit from sector knowledge, networks and expertise. Lycia is an ambassador for the Association for Cultural Enterprises.

Levering the strength of the URW’s assets, media inventory, data and event spaces, Grace heads up a team that connects brands and consumers through innovative and engaging consumer experiences and partnerships. Delivering major brands to Westfield centres in the form of short and long-term brand partnerships, experiential activations, event sponsorships and creative solutions. Grace has worked with global brands including Disney, Amex, Samsung, Netflix, Dior and L’Oreal. She leads the global team working with event and communication agency experts to define strategies and drive multi-territory partnerships.

Anna’s professional purpose is to create sustainable growth strategies, for amazing brands and businesses, and activate them in an inclusive way. She is a global business leader who has worked in 6 countries across emerging and developed markets, different sectors, and diverse cultures. As the driving force behind the brands she led with full business ownership, accountable for Marketing, Innovation, Consumer and P&L, this awarded executive with large global experience is looking for a holistic and long-term impact on people’s lives and the planet's future. Anna drove FMCPG brands at Reckitt Benckiser, Danone, Diageo, and amazing founder-led beauty brands like Lumity, Liz Earle, ghd. She is Keracol CEO; driving positive change for the future of beauty.

Dan is SVP Clients at DAIVID, an AI-powered creative effectiveness platform. His career spans significant roles across major media organisations including Discovery Channel, The Independent, and The Telegraph. He was also part of the leadership team at Unruly, contributing to its successful exit to News Corp. At DAIVID, he is working with Unruly alumni to help the industry measure and make better content at scale.