Royal Family coverage, BBC World Service expansion, & Greenpeace's investigative journalism

Born in Australia, Jen traveled to New York City to work at Razorfish, becoming VP of Client Engagement, Managing Partner and then Executive Vice President and North East Region Lead. She moved to fellow Publicis Groupe agency Digitas UK at the start of 2023. She has worked with some of the biggest brands including Unilever, Citi, United Nations and Marriott, specializing in the latest from TikTok, to MadTech, AI, gaming, and social commerce.Jen talks about her personal journey in leadership – learning that it’s okay to admit when you’re wrong and how nurturing teamwork improves progress — and shares her ambitions to create a societal impact through ‘unicorn’ agency, Digitas, by immersing itself in emerging technologies and partnering with companies like NexTech Girls, to expand access and promote practical education for women and girls in the tech industry.

Working as a programme editor at both the BBC and Channel 4 News specialising in politics and international affairs, Charlie covered major stories such as the terrorist attacks on New York and London, and is an award-winning filmmaker. In 2006, Charlie joined the London School of Economics and Political Science, and became founding director of Polis, the university’s’ international journalism institute.Charlie discusses his current role, leading JournalismAI and the issues that generative AI still presents: from the inequality of biasing English or European-languages to the gaps in its learning, inability fact-check with enough precision, and other major problems that need to be solved before it’s possible for AI to replicate human writing or publish breaking news. Charlie also explores how AI will be beneficial for journalists—saving time, effort, and boosting journalism by transferring written pieces into different creative mediums.

Steve has been involved for almost 30 years with TV, book, and video game growth, working with big names such as Viacom, Disney, and GSV Ventures—a venture capitalist firm that invests in EdTech. Now, as the CEO of Sesame Workshop, he’s leading the world-famous nonprofit educational organisation to help kids everywhere grow smarter, stronger, and kinder, aiming to provide impactful early learning.Steve shares what he’s learned from Big Bird, and how the quintessentially American show ‘Sesame Street’ implements progressive ideas to teach children and raise their social and academic literacy—like greater tolerance and appreciation of different races, gender identities, and those with disabilities—and how the brand is evolving to reach more diverse cultures and countries around the world at a local level. He sees the future of ‘Sesame Street’ streaming on YouTube in collaboration with children’s YouTube stars, focusing more on emotional well-being.

For nearly 18 years, Katie has guided Guinness World Records through innovative initiatives that maintain its relevance and international esteem. She started as a software engineer and led teams in  IT, marketing, to becoming SVP of Content and Product in 2018. In her most recent appointment in 2022, she has led the company’s expansion into digital content services that enable the iconic book of world records to reach new audiences and remain ‘fresh’.Katie talks about how the origin of Guinness World Records started as an idea by the Guinness Brewery becoming a “pioneer” of content marketing. Katie explains the process and the key parameters for adjudicating records and argues that when media brands evolve to stay relevant, they still have a duty to reflect the good and bad of society—reporting the stories of inspiring determination as well as unsafe stunts that have gone horribly wrong.

With over twenty years working across print, digital and broadcast media, Marc is one of the most prominent entertainment journalists in the industry. He’s served as a writer and editor for leading publications, including the New York Daily News, Us Weekly, and New York magazine, and was an on-air correspondent at E! News. In 2018, he became senior culture & events editor at Variety and hosts the ‘Just for Variety’ podcast, featuring conversations with the biggest names in Hollywood.From his struggles as an openly gay journalist during the AIDS epidemic in the early 90s, to the ongoing writers’ strike – and how it will evolve – Marc shares his stories and insights from the front row.

Sara is a leading writer and editor with expertise in science and disruptive technologies; her work appears in publications such as Scientific American, The New York Times, and National Geographic News. Sara is the author of the novel The Almond in the Apricot and children’s book, Leila’s Day at the Pool. Sara details the threat that chatbots pose to journalism and the media, through scraping information from other sources without distinguishing between credible and uncredible sources, possibly spreading misinformation and feeding into the public’s distrust. Sara argues that although AI is presented as an impending storm that we do not have control over, humans are in control of their deployment and can choose a future where they work with these technologies instead of being replaced by them.

Sophie started off as an actor, and founded her own casting agency in 2015, working predominantly with high-end TV, film and theatre productions. She has collaborated to source talent for The Witcher and Wednesday among others, and advocates for casting more diverse talent into leading acting roles to encourage broader representation in Hollywood.Sophie reflects on the impact of social media on acting, both the way it has transformed the industry since the #MeToo movement, making it a safer and more inclusive place to work; and how social media followings can affect casting decisions based on the impact it has on promoting the show or film. She also explores how finding actors who perfectly embody a character is not the goal—they need to be able to push the boundaries of the role.

Lawrence is a sought after public speaker, university lecturer, and bestselling author of several books, including "The Physics of Star Trek," and "A Universe from Nothing", which explain complex scientific ideas clearly to the general public. He’s also the host of “The Origins” podcast, which explores human experiences through science and culture.Lawrence posits that our fear of A.I actually stems from a larger fear—the fear of the unknown. He argues that science is actually about celebrating the secrets of the universe rather than needing to explain everything, but we need to become more skeptical as a society.

In 2012 inspired by her son’s diagnosis, Emily founded Duchenne UK, a charity dedicated to finding a cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Coming from a background in TV news, Emily shares how their successes in raising millions of pounds to support research were in part due to her understanding of the media from within and having connections to high-profile journalists. She discusses some of the progress, such as groundbreaking drug treatments and the development of exoskeletal suits to assist the afflicted, and shares about the impediments they face, from battling slow bureaucracy for drug approvals to the ticking clock Duchenne puts on to all those suffering from the condition.

Martin spent over a decade working for some of the biggest names in German media, including the Financial Times, Gruner + Jahr, and Capital Magazin. In 2021, frustrated with “wasting time sifting through the overwhelming ‘wild west’ news feed” and the escalating problem of misinformation – he founded the app Informed.

Starting as a newsletter, he saw the potential to move beyond the convenient curation of news for the reader and realized that important journalism was being lost, and the opportunity of holding power to account was being eclipsed by a news feed of vanilla content. Now a successful app, Martin deliberately employs a human curation team – giving access to paywalled content for no extra charge.