Transform Conference Europe

Maj is Managing Director at Bell, a London-based strategic design, branding and integrated comms agency. With over 30 years' experience of transforming brands across numerous sectors, Maj is responsible for the overall strategic direction of the agency and campaign creative direction. He is also intimately involved with the development of brands and comms for education sector clients, including with the University of Reading for the last five years. Originally a graphic designer/art director/creative director, Maj ran his own agency for 14 years prior to his time at Bell, and before that was Associate Director of Design at one of the UK's top ten design agencies.

Steven graduated from Central St Martin’s School of Art in 1987 and is currently Head of Design at Formula E where he recently led the company’s Brand Refresh.

Steven worked at the BBC for 20 years, designing many notable title sequences before rising to Creative Director, specialising in branding and identity. He was also Head of Creative at BBC Worldwide where he managed a large group of designers, copywriters and producers. Other roles have included UK Design Manager at Discovery Networks and Art Director at Lime Pictures in his home city of Liverpool.

With over twenty five years of not for profit, government, social enterprise, B2B and B2C experience, Max helps people find out what really matters and communicate what really counts. Max help build brands that challenge attitudes, change minds and inspire action. Max leads the team at Spencer du Bois Ltd, an enthusiastic, insatiably curious, furiously dedicated, action orientated, award winning brand consultancy

Adrian Caddy founded Greenspace in 2003, after nearly 30 years’ experience within the design and advertising industry, including a 10 year role as Group Creative Director at The Imagination Group, where he established the company’s ground-breaking ‘brand experience’ offer and led its global creative resource.

Caddy also served for 5 years as Executive Creative Director for Toyota Motor Europe at Saatchi & Saatchi.

Peter is a property investor and developer, currently running a €250m portfolio for leading pan-European private equity fund, Benson Elliot. He studied at the renowned Faculty of Urban & Regional Studies at the University Of Reading, holds a degree in Urban Land Management and is a professional member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. He has represented the real estate industry as an expert contributor to the Mayor of London’s Night Time Economy commission and is a Strategy Board member at Sound Diplomacy, the global leader in music ecosystem place branding.

Katy is a Brand Manager for Cancer Research UK, one of the country’s most-loved charity brands. Along with her team she is responsible for developing, refining and implementing brand strategy throughout the organisation. Across all of the charity’s activities, she drives brand coherence to increase attribution from their wide range of audiences including researchers, patients, government bodies and fundraisers. Before joining Cancer Research UK, she worked agency-side in both Dublin and London, with a range of brands from local through to beloved national brands and global conglomerates. With a passion for brand, Katy believes in using it as an accelerator to help organisations achieve their purpose.

Gregg Finlay is an Associate Partner at Prophet, a global brand experience consultancy. With over 15 years’ experience in developing and implementing creative solutions for clients worldwide, Gregg has translated brand strategies into award-winning, compelling brand experiences for the likes of Addiko Bank, Electrolux, Swarovski and Virgin Active.

John Kelly is a partner in the Litigation practice at Harbottle & Lewis, specialising in the areas of reputation protection, privacy and defamation.

Having been involved in many of the most high profile cases and developments in this area, John is recognised as a leading practitioner by Chambers UK, Chambers HNW, Legal 500 and Spear’s 500.

John works with clients to protect their rights and reputations. While much of John’s work is confidential he represents a number of high-profile individuals, well-known brands, and FTSE 100 companies.

Emma oversees communications, marketing, recruitment, web and digital, widening participation, international and fundraising and development.

She started her career in fashion and consumer PR in 1988, working in tourism and destination marketing before settling in higher education in 1997.

A Founding Chartered PR Practitioner, Chartered Marketer and Chartered Manager, she has won a string of awards over more than two decades spanning PR, marketing, innovation, fundraising, digital, and web.

Emma holds an MBA and various PR, marketing and management qualifications. She is the Chartered Institute of Public Relations President-Elect for 2018.

Caroline McCormick is Chair of the Achates Philanthropy Foundation and Director of Achates Philanthropy Ltd. The Foundation supports innovation and the development of models enabling organisational resilience. Caroline is the Director of cultural sector management and fundraising consultancy company, Achates Philanthropy. Her first consultancy client was Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Professor Wangari Maathai. She was formerly Director of PEN International, heading up 145 Centres in 105 countries and led the successful campaign to create the Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum.

Krista is originally from Bulgaria, and she studied Graphic Design at Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design in London. Her passion for typography and type design lead her to a Type Design Masters Degree at The Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. At Fontsmith she has designed FS Siena and FS Erskine and worked on custom typefaces for many large brands. She is passionate about multilingual type and lettering, and organises a biannual typography event called Typofest in her spare time.

With 20 years spent in the advertising world, Ben has built up a network of brands and businesses interested in exploring new ways to connect with their customers and places. Ben's focus is to work with global brands on how to sculpt powerful brand experiences within physical spaces.

Ben has seen placemaking inform the complex masterplanning process for large regeneration projects, but now sees placemaking as an overused term – so Developers, Councils and Cities are drilling down into what it actually means.

Ryan is the Founder and Director of Lantern – a multi award-winning branding agency with a focus on placemaking. From branding a £1million regeneration scheme in Dover, to a housing estate on the edge of Ramsgate, to creating the new identity for Leicester Square in London, Lantern's work spans culture and community but is united in an approach for embracing the truth of what a place stands for. In 2018, Lantern won Gold for 'Best Place or Nation Brand' in the Transform Awards Europe, for their branding of Newington in Kent.

Gilmar Wendt leads the multi award-winning creative consultancy GW+Co.

He acts as change companion to clients such as PayPal, Ergo Group, Zumtobel Group and MUFG (Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ) as well as a number of charities. Gilmar believes that strategy should be creative and creativity should be strategic. His focus is on creating brands and brand tools that people love using.

Alexander Wodrich founded the audio branding agency why do birds in 2010. Located in Berlin they employ 15 people working in music-production, brand consulting, graphic and motion-design. Their clients include such brands as Siemens, Hyundai, German Rail or GORE-TEX. The agency is considered to be the most creative and awarded sound studio in Germany. Alexander has a degree in business and has also been a successful musician for the most part of his life. Before founding why do birds, he was a member of the MetaDesign Berlin management board, responsible for the audio branding and motion graphics departments.