Speaker Details

A graduate of ESSEC Business School, Lucien Boyer founded Lifestyle Marketing Group (LMG), a Saatchi & Saatchi sports marketing subsidiary in France, in 1991. Prior to LMG, Lucien was Director of Sponsoring for the Larrousse – Lola – Lamborghini Formula 1 racing team, where he developed a highly innovative marketing approach inspired by his earlier sports marketing work with the America’s Cup. LMG was acquired by Havas Advertising in 1999 and eventually developed into Havas Sports & Entertainment, a global network with 20 locations worldwide, lead by Lucien as President and CEO.

Paul Meulendijk is Vice President, Head of Sponsorship for MasterCard Europe. In his function he oversees all European sponsorship investments – including the UEFA sponsorships for UEFA Champions League and UEFA EURO 2008^TM and MasterCard’s European golf sponsorships – and leads all European sponsorship marketing activities.

Prior to joining MasterCard, Mr. Meulendijk has served as Group Director, Brand Management and Event Marketing for Nortel Networks and, over a 13 year career at Nortel, has held various Marketing and Sales positions in the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, and the USA. As a Director of Global Marketing in the USA he has been instrumental in creating and leveraging a global sponsorship strategy with a variety of sponsorship properties from around the world. He continued his career as a consultant to help organizations to build Global Marketing and Business Development strategies. Most recently he has been General Manager for Vicrea Solutions in the Netherlands.

Mr. Meulendijk has a degree in Software Engineering from the Netherlands. He is a Dutch national who is fluent in English, French and German.

Patrick Wendt is Marketing & Sponsoring Manager with Toyota Motorsport GmbH, Toyota’s Formula 1 Team based in Cologne, Germany. In his position, he holds responsibility for the team’s brand management, sponsorship programme, hospitality operations and licensing business.

Having joined Toyota Motorsport at the beginning of 2004 in the role of a Business Development coordinator, Patrick initially shared responsibility for the team’s commercial acquisition activities. During this time, he helped to secure sponsorship incomes from brands including Panasonic, Exxon Mobil, Intel, EMC2 and BMC Software. In 2006, Patrick was promoted to take over responsibility for the whole sponsorship programme before being appointed to his current position as the team’s marketing manager in July 2007.

Patrick started off his career in sports marketing as project manager for hospitality sales at Sportfive AG, Team Borussia Dortmund. Before moving to Toyota, Patrick worked for the German TV sports channel DSF Deutsches Sportfernsehen GmbH in the strategic sales department.

Patrick graduated with a master’s degree in Business Administration at the Munich School of Management, with majors in Marketing and Information & Communication. During his studies he gained international experience, taking part in the MBA program at the Graziadio School of Management, Pepperdine University (Los Angeles, USA).

Originating from Liverpool, Ian Ayre has over 25 years of experience gained across the Technology, Sport and Media sectors.

Early positions in the global satellite television and communications industry included a position as the regional director and subsequently the role of Chief Executive for Pace Micro Technology PLC. Responsible for their Asian manufacturing, sales and distribution, Ayre was tasked with establishing sales offices, dealer distribution networks and sub contract manufacturing across Asia which included the management of over 100 employed and contract staff and later formed part of a US$ 500 million+ IPO. In a strategy to penetrate the emerging drive of football as a key subscription driver in digital television, Ayre was instrumental in the buyout of a UK professional football club, Huddersfield Town FC later becoming CEO and Chairman. Transforming the club with, the completion of its new stadium build, the delivery of new club sponsors and direct liaison with the local council authority as a stadium investor. This allowed the club to reach its best performance in over 20 years, increasing its season ticket sales by over 50%.

During this time Ayre also developed a business plan for the collective exploitation of football clubs new media rights. With over 80 of the 92 professional clubs in the UK agreeing to seed rights into the business, the plan was supported by investment from NTL Inc of over US$ 500 million. Ayre went on to build and launch the new media business Premium TV Ltd as Managing Director working initially with a leading team from Accenture in delivering its successful launch. The business went on to provide revenues to all clubs via premium content sales, collective sponsorship and advertising sales and at the time was the world’s largest provider of streaming football content with over 6 million users.

In 2003, recognising the importance of Asia to sports clubs Ayre returned to the region to form part of a management team for a fledgling sports marketing business Total Sports Asia. With its then single operation based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the business distributed sports media rights, sold sports sponsorships, developed merchandising and licensing programs and ran live events across the Asian market. Responsible for the successful delivery of new offices and staff in China, Thailand, Japan, UAE and India, Ayre developed local teams with local market knowledge and skills, developing a key knowledge of the local cultures and Asian business complexities. Across the period Ayre worked closely with leading International sports and entertainment brands such as FC Barcelona, World Wrestling Entertainment and Williams F1 in the successful delivery of their Asian strategy.

Responsible for the sale of FIFA World Cup Qualifying matches, Copa America media rights and World Wrestling Entertainment rights across the region and additional experience gained managing club tours, hospitality and licensing programs allowed a thorough understanding of the commercial opportunities for sports brands in the region. The company also represented Asian brands investing in international sport in the acquisition and activation of sponsorship in sports and entertainment including LG Electronics title sponsorship of the 2004 Copa America, Telekom Malaysia’s and Budweiser’s investments in Asian football sponsorship.

In August 2007 Ayre was recruited by Tom Hicks and George Gillette to spearhead the development of Liverpool Football Club’s commercial operations.

Karen is a founder member of ESA and was a member of the Board for the first 10 years of the Association’s existence. She has worked in the sponsorship industry since the 1970s, starting her own business, Karen Earl Sponsorship (KES), in 1984. KES, renamed as Synergy in 2008, is part of the Engine Group.

As ESA Chairman, Karen has continued to raise the Association’s profile across Europe and ensure it is at the forefront within the EU and European Governments where important decisions are constantly being discussed and made regarding the industry. This year has seen the launch of ESA’s Insight Forums and Skills Workshops series which aim to raise standards and qualifications within the industry. ESA also provides its members with a valuable source of information and research on the industry, as well as several policy guidelines and best practice papers.

As Chairman of Synergy, Karen continues to steer “the sponsor’s consultancy”, known as such because it works only for sponsors, guiding them from consultancy through to execution. 2009 sees Karen celebrate 25 years since her company was founded.

As Founder of full service global digital agency, Bluhalo, the UK’s largest provider of bespoke sports websites, Spencer has a broad range of experience in the digital sector, having played a key role in the strategy, management and successful launch of over 3,000 websites. Spencer has experience in all aspects of the web development process from user experience and engagement to database development, migrations and technical integrations. Specializing in usability, user engagement, social media and emerging technologies, Spencer is also a respected speaker on all things digital.

One of the biggest challenges faced by sports organisations today is that of engaging fans. In a world where we are continuously “entertained”, fan expectations are increasingly sophisticated. Cutting edge technologies and innovative ideas are needed to engage the fans and promote loyalty, word of mouth and interaction.

Having created some of the country’s most successful sporting websites, Spencer and the Bluhalo team have an impressive aptitude for understanding how to engage fans. Spencer’s insight will provide ideas, inspiration and knowledge of tried and tested methods as well as cutting edge and future technologies that will ensure fans are being turned on and not pushed away.

Spencer works with sports clients such as Liverpool F.C., Tottenham Hotspur, NFL UK, Premier League and Andy Murray.

Mr. Apel founded TRACAB together with Executives from the SAAB Group in 2004 and has since then led the company to its position today as the global leader in real-time tracking of sports events with multiple international federations and leagues on the client list.

Prior to founding TRACAB Mr. Apel was CEO of the Hego Group, the leading company in Northern Europe in the area sports technology and TV-graphics. He is a serial entrepreneur and has been involved in several start-ups within broadcast, betting and IT infrastructure.

Mr. Apel holds an MSc. in Business Administration from Malardalen University.

Stephen Curnow has held the position of Senior Vice president for Brand Consulting and sales since SFX Sports Group was purchased by WMG in Nov 2006. Stephen’s responsibilities include all brand consulting relationships outside of the USA as well as the agencies interests in venue naming rights. WMG has fast earned a reputation as an agency leader in both the USA and Europe in brand consulting, athlete representation and naming rights where WMG is currently engaged in securing a naming sponsor for the new home of the New York Jets and Giants.

Stephen has worked within the sponsorship industry for over 15 years for both brand, agency and rights holder, having held senior sponsorship positions at both Coca-Cola, Euro 96, FAPL, Benfield Sports before joining SFX in 2003.

A keen Welsh rugby fan Stephen holds his greatest sporting triumph as running the London marathon “very very slowly”.

Lecturer in Management, Birkbeck College, University of London; and a Director of Birkbeck Sport Business Centre – www.sportbusinesscentre.com - one of Britain’s leading academic centres for the study of the business of sport.

A graduate of Trinity College Dublin and the London School of Economics, following an early career in economic forecasting and marketing consultancy with the Henley for Forecasting Sean went on to author and co-author two books on corporate social responsibility before focusing on his core interest - the corporate governance and regulation of sport on which he has written and co-edited an extensive range of articles and books. Most recently he is co-editor of Managing Football: An International Perspective (October 2009) (Butterworth Heinemann); and author and co-editor of Who Owns Football?: The Governance and Management of the Club Game Worldwide (March 2010) (Routledge).

Between 2003 and 2009 he has been an elected director of Supporters Direct, the government-sponsored not-for-profit organisation established to assist football supporters to set up supporters' trusts (co-operatives) which then invest co-operatively controlled equity in their football club with the aim of securing the position of clubs in their historic role as key community assets. Sean was responsible for establishing Supporters Direct activities in Scotland, where a number of clubs now have trusts as significant minority investors. He is a keen believer in and advocate for the development of a more entrepreneurial business capability by social enterprises.

Suzi was appointed Director, Group Marketing & Brand for BT Group in July 2006, having joined BT in December 2005 as BT’s Global Brand Chief.

Her role drives the global transformation of BT’s Marketing and Brand Strategy, working across all BT Divisions, locations and operating companies. In this role, Suzi is also responsible for the Marketing of BT’s association with the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Suzi started her career in Brand Management at Proctor & Gamble Europe. An innovator by nature, she was one of the first P & G people to join the newly acquired cosmetics and fragrances division in 1993. By 1996 she was running their European fragrance business. Next, as Head of Global Marketing for BBC Worldwide, she worked on the launch of the BBC Discovery Joint Venture in the US and Latin America, and on setting a global vision for the brand across 40 countries.

Since then, it has been a whirl of media and telecoms for Suzi. As a consultant at KPMG Consulting during the dotcom boom, she led brand and strategic marketing projects for the Boards of Media and FMCG Companies. This was followed by a brief spell in freelancing which led her into the area of technology, usability and RFID, working with the RFID Centre at MIT in Boston. Most recently she was Head of Brand at Orange and Director of Market Development at the Capital Radio Group in London.

Suzi is a member of the Marketing Asociation and of the Usability Professionals Association, having been one of the first UK FMCG Marketeers to become involved in the usability space in 1999.

She holds a degree in English, French and European Literature from Bristol University.

With over 10 years market research experience, Rob heads up the Sport: SKOPOS division and has directed research programmes for the likes of 888.com, Betfair, Budweiser, Coral, Ladbrokes, Manchester City FC, Sportingbet, SportingOdds and Yahoo! Sports. Rob has recently spoken at the 2009 BetMarkets Conference and the 2008 Soccerex Convention in South Africa.

Once of Harris Interactive and Research International, in 2007 Rob joined SKOPOS market insight as a response to the growing need for (and his passion for) insight and innovation in the Sports & Gaming market.

Now with offices in London, Paris, Cologne, Johannesburg and Sydney, and global coverage through its partner network, SKOPOS delivers actionable customer insight generated from precision market research (using traditional methods as well as more modern online/mobile survey and qualitative techniques).

Applications in the Digital Arena include website usability and SEO evaluation, customer/user satisfaction, market sizing/profiling, email marketing campaign evaluation, etc., with the strongest analysis, interpretation and holistic market knowledge.

SKOPOS have undertaken qualitative and quantitative evaluations on behalf of other clients such as include News Corporation, Royal Mail, Tesco, Yahoo! and many more.

Rob is passionate about sports although his love of West Bromwich Albion FC and following the English cricket team abroad test his patience and bank balance.

Conor Gunn is an online specialist with over 15 years expertise in digital media. He specialises in developing and delivering effective digital solutions across multiple platforms, devices and geographies, with particular focus on social media / web 2.0, integrated marketing, and web channel management.

Conor was one of AKQA's first employees and worked for the company for over eight years. Key projects he delivered during that time include helping launch Hotmail and Expedia in the UK, winning the first Clio award for digital activity by a UK agency with the launch of the Freelander site Land Rover, and winning the Revolution Grand Prix for the Orange Wednesdays' digital work.

After leaving AKQA, Conor was the European Site Manager for the launch of the Xbox 360.

By developing a proactive social media and content strategy and deploying web 2.0 technologies on Xbox.com and distributing these tools and content throughout the Xbox community, EMEA websites consistently performed 200% better on all key metrics than all other markets including the US.

As Head of Digital at BT, Conor's role is to help the BT maximise the opportunities for customer engagement across BT's digital portfolio. He is responsible for leading all elements of digital strategy, including social media activities, for the activation of BT's London 2012 partnership and the BT Paralympic World Cup sponsorship.

Tove is Managing Partner at MEC Access, the partnership marketing agency specialising in sport, entertainment and cause partnerships and a division of Mediaedge:cia, working with clients such as Danone, Novartis, Wrigley, Specsavers, Nintendo, Ferreo, Morrisons and Sony Ericsson. In March 2009, MEC Access was named Sponsorship agency of the year at the Hollis Sponsorship Awards.

She joined MEC Access in January 2007 after 15 years of client side strategic marketing. During that time she spent several years heading up marketing for BBC Sport working in partnership with the FA, ECB, Six Nations, British Olympic Association and other key rights holders , as well as a number of blue chip corporate sponsors. She also worked in marketing for a number of other BBC brands including BBC Radio 2, Radio 3 and at the conception of two digital TV channels.

Prior to the BBC Tove worked for several leading Arts organisations marketing live music events.

Graham Hollins has over 20 years of commercial marketing experience in the UK, Australia, France, Italy, New Zealand, China, Japan and South East Asia. Graham has specific sponsorship experience as a sponsor, in an agency and a rights holder. Previously holding roles including Senior Manager . Marketing & Sponsorship at the Australian Rugby Union and Group Director at Octagon Australia Graham has also worked for blue chip companies, including Unilever, L'Oreal and GlaxoSmithKline.

He has lectured in the Sports Administration Masters course at Deakin University (Melbourne) and for the Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK .His business training career has taken him to numerous countries across Europe as well as to Singapore, India, the Middle East and the USA.

Graham is currently director of Spine Consulting and works for SportBusiness Group in developing and executing sponsorship training programmes around the globe.

Born in Ashford, Middlesex in 1959 but brought up and educated in South Wales Mark graduated from St Johns College, Cambridge University with a degree in History and Economics. Having completed a post graduate teaching course at the University of Bristol he spent the first fifteen years of his professional life within a variety of state comprehensive schools in and around London. His final post within education was a six year stint as First Deputy Head at Saffron Walden County High School, Essex. Alongside this he played over a hundred 1st XV games for Saracens FC and once retired from the playing became Head Coach at the same club in 1993. When rugby union went professional in England in 1996 he was appointed Director of Rugby at Saracens. In 1998 the club won the Tetley Bitter Cup and were runners up in the league. In 2000 he joined Harlequins FC as Chief Executive, although during his tenure he has also, at various times, carried out the head coach and director of rugby roles. Last season Harlequins were runners up in the Guinness Premiership and over the last decade have tripled their turnover and their average crowd numbers as well as doubling the capacity of their ground, the Twickenham Stoop.

Professor Simon Chadwick holds the position of Chair in Sport Business Strategy and Marketing at Coventry University Business School, where he is also the founder and Director of CIBS (Centre for the International Business of Sport). Simon’s research interests lie in the areas of sponsorship, marketing and commercial strategy in sport. He is a former Editor, and continuing board member of the International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship (and is also a board member for eight other sport journals), and has authored and published more than 500 articles, conference papers and books on sport. Most recently, Simon has edited a Sport Marketing talk series for Henry Stewart Publishing, and co-edited the books: “International Cases in the Business of Sport” and “Managing Football: An International Perspective” (both Butterworth Heinemann).

Amongst his research and consultancy activities, Simon has undertaken projects for organisations including Mastercard, Atletico Madrid, the International Tennis Federation and UEFA. His views on sport are regularly covered by the media, and Simon has been quoted more than 3,000 times in publications across the world including in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Time, the Financial Times and the Economist. He also lectures at universities in Paris and Madrid; advises several leading organisations in relation to their work in sport; and writes a blog on the business and management of sport (entitled ‘Daily Sport Thought’).

Tom has 18 years brand and strategic marketing experience within the sports and entertainment arena. His expertise combines a blend of consultancy to leading international brands and experience working on behalf of global sports properties. He began his career in New York where he represented a number of blue-chip clients, including Coca-Cola, Kodak, Visa and IBM on sports properties ranging from World Cup, Olympics, ATP Tour and MLB. Having worked extensively on the Atlanta Games, he joined the IOC’s Global Marketing Group where he formed part of the TOP management team. On returning to Europe, Tom headed up the consulting division of Sports and Outdoor Media International (SOMI) through flotation and sale before founding Velocity’s UK office in 2003.

I've been in sponsorship all my professional life: as a rights-holder, as a sponsor, as a marketing agent and, now, as a consultant. Over that time, I’ve been involved in some remarkable sponsorships that have fundamentally changed business dynamics for the companies involved.

So for me, sponsorship has the potential to be the most impacting and most electric of marketing disciplines. And the most demanding.

• Marketing Director: UK not for profit
• Head of UK Communications: The Body Shop International
• Director and co-founder: SSM Freesports
• Group Communications Director: Sportsworld Media Group PLC
• Independent brand consultant: one small world

I've got a 12 month old boy about to be joined by another (or sister), a wonderful partner called Eva and in between children and work, a student of psychotherapy.

Ciarán has been working online since taking a job in a Sydney internet cafe in 1999. He’s worked in online marketing since 2000; firstly at two of the UK’s biggest business publishers, covering everything from online PR to subscriptions and more recently at two of the best agencies in London.

He moved agency-side in April 2007, eventually heading up the Response team at Altogether, the digital arm of The Engine Group. Whilst there he was responsible for award-winning work for the likes of Brylcreem & Transport For London, as well as helping brands such as BBC & Betfair make the most of search & social media.

Ciarán now heads up Mindshare SocialMedia8, the new joint venture between global media agency Mindshare & social media specialists SocialMedia8. At Mindshare he works with Nike and other global brands, helping them to make the most of social media & to put it at the heart of their marketing mix.

As well as speaking at industry events such as the Online Marketing Show and Search Engine Strategies, Ciarán blogs for a number of leading industry publications. He also spends far too much time on Twitter.

Sean Jefferson leads the global sponsorship and content division at Mindshare, one of the world’s leading media agencies and part of Group M, the media parent company of WPP.

Across Mindshare’s global network of 67 offices he leads teams of specialists consulting on, developing and executing sponsorships and content properties – such as the UEFA Champions League for Ford, FIFA World Cup 2010 for Castrol, LG in Formula One, original programming content and media partnerships for HSBC, Nike and Unilever and support for the commercial and sales strategies of rights owners such as Manchester United and the European Tour.

He has worked for over 20 years in sponsorship, advertising, event marketing and PR, across major international sports, music and media partnerships.

Before joining MindShare, Sean was Global Sponsorship Director at Diageo where he managed the company’s global sponsorship and events portfolio, for brands such as Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff and Guinness, negotiating deals in Formula One (McLaren Mercedes), rugby (Guinness Premiership) and ICC Cricket World Cup.

Previously, he has advised General Motors, Hyundai, Sony PlayStation, MasterCard, Barclaycard, Sky TV, for agencies such as the Lowe Group and Octagon. Major projects include UEFA European Championships, FIFA World Cup, Rugby World Cup and while at Bass Brewers he led the way in the sponsorship market with the Carling Premiership and the T in The Park festival.

Sean is an active member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Role of Sports in Society. He is also a lifelong, long-suffering supporter of Southampton FC.

Kevin Roberts is the Editorial Director of SportBusiness International which he helped launch in 1996. Since then he has overseen the development of the monthly magazine as well as Sportbusiness.com, the world’s leading on-line source of information about thebusiness of sport, and a specialist customer publishing service.

Kevin was previously a director of Plus Public Relations Ltd in the UK and cut his teeth in the business of sport in the early 1990s. As deputy director forcommunications at CPMA group, he was involved in projects including the 1991 Rugby World Cup, and the World Student Games.

He has written for a variety of UK and international publications andis a media spokesman on a variety of sports media and marketing issues.

He has chaired and spoken at numerous international conferences including theInternational Olympic Committee’s Conference on Sport and New Media, the General Association of International Sports Federation’s SportAccord, the FT Sports Marketing Conference, Marketing Magazine Sports Marketing Conference, theAustralian Leaders in Sport Conference and various editions of Sportel in Monaco and Miami.

Kevin combines his role with SportBusiness Group with wide-ranging communications consultancy within sport.

Paul Samuels joined AEG Europe in November 2007 as Executive Director for Sponsorship. His role includes overseeing all sponsorship activity for The O2, the world’s most popular music venue and AEG Live, the companies. promoter arm. Paul has had links with The O2 since 2004 when he negotiated the naming rights for the venue, while in a previous role as Head of Sponsorship at O2, which he held for 6 years.

Under his role at O2, Paul was the major broker in Sponsorships such as: The England Rugby Team, Arsenal Football Club, Big Brother, Capital Radio and O2 Music (with partnerships including O2 Wireless Festival, NME, Capital, ENO etc).

However, it will be Paul’s creative negotiation of The O2 that will be his legacy at his time at O2. The partnership re-defined the traditional corporate sponsorship into a customer engagement opportunity, which delivers true ROI for O2.

After leaving O2 in 2006, Paul joined American owned sports marketing agency The Bonham Group as CEO for Europe before successfully overseeing the sale of the company to AEG Europe.

Paul has a BA in Management & Human Resources from Middlesex University and lives in North London, and is married with one child.

Mark Cornish has been dedicated to sponsorship evaluation for more than 20 years. He began his sponsorship career at Sports Marketing Surveys and later went on to found his own research company called SiS (Sponsorship Information Services Ltd). SiS went on to become a leading provider of sponsorship research across Europe and Asia, and in 2001 was acquired by the research giant Taylor Nelson Sofres Plc.

In 2006 Mark joined Sponsorium International Inc (www.sponsor.com) who deliver workshops, industry insight and online management tools to the corporate and public sector. More than 200 companies and brands have attended the Sponsorium Workshops and use Sponsorium’s management tools. Mark is responsible for the global development of the business which now has offices and Representation in fifteen countries.

During his time Mark has been a regular speaker and contributor to the media on the subject of sponsorship evaluation, and is a board member of the European Sponsorship Association.

Max Hamilton was named Marketing Director for the National Basketball Association (NBA) in Europe, Middle East and Africa in May 2007. He is responsible for driving NBA EMEA’s marketing strategy and managing the league’s marketing partnership relationships in the region, including EA Sports, Adidas, Coca Cola and HP. Hamilton, based out of the NBA’s London office, also supports the region’s business development team.

Prior to the NBA, Hamilton spent 10 years in the advertising industry in London, Hong Kong and Sydney, most recently for TEQUILA\ and TBWA\ as Client Services Director building agency business with clients such as Heineken, Standard Chartered Bank and Shangri-La.

The native of Dublin is currently preparing for NBA Europe Live 2009, that will see the Chicago Bulls play the Utah Jazz in front of a sold-out crowd at The O2 arena on October 6th.

Iain is a highly talented yachtsman and one of Great Britain’s most successful Olympic sailors and America’s Cup professionals. Percy began sailing at the age of four, when his family decided to take up a sport they could enjoy together. He began his career sailing at Weston Sailing Club in Southampton in an Optimist dinghy and hasn’t looked back. Iain is seen as one of the fittest sailors on the circuit and has always been highly dedicated to his training regime.

Iain turned professional in 1998 and within two years was representing Great Britain at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. It was at the Sydney games where Iain struck Gold, winning the highly technical Finn class. As a result of his Gold medal, he was honoured by the Queen and received an MBE. Iain changed classes for the 2004 Athens Olympics and chose to race alongside Steve Mitchell in the double-handed Star class. in 2005 Iain decided to take a break from full time Olympic Class sailing and join America’s Cup challenger +39 Challenge as helmsman.

In 2006, Iain was back on the water in his Star with his new crew Andrew Simpson, his best friend of 25yrs. The pair had a promising start to their Beijing Olympic campaign coming 6th in the Olympic Test Event and Bronze in the ISAF World Championships in 2007.

However a string of problems hampered their 2008 build up to the Games which included coming 52nd in the Star World Championships. Where many athletes would have thrown the towel in Iain and Andrew showed true guts and determination to turn things around and get them selves to start line at the Olympic regatta.

The Star class field was extremely competitive and included 8 Olympic medallists and 7 Star World Champions. After a disappointing start, Iain and Andy battled hard to get back into contention and were second going into the final Medal Race and showed true champion spirit to overhaul Fredrik Loof and Anders Ekstrom, regatta leaders from day one, and take home the Gold… a truly phenomenal performance which had the BBC commentary team in tears.

Iain is also ‘Tactician’ for Team Origin, the British backed America’s Cup challenger. He will team up again with Andy for the next Olympics in 2012 and will be sailing for his 3rd Gold medal.

Nick Cooper heads up Optimor’s London office. His experience spans across business strategy, market entry and proposition development. Prior to joining Optimor, he for many years ran his own consulting business, working extensively with UK and international clients on business planning, brand strategy, brand positioning and segmentation across the telecommunications, airline and drinks industries, including work for BT, KLM, Coca-Cola, Seagram, Schweppes, SAB Miller, and Guinness.

Before that, he was Managing Director of The Added Value Company, London where he consulted to major clients on brand positioning, brand architecture and new product development, including BT, PepsiCo and Unilever.

After graduating from Cambridge University, where he gained an MA in History, Nick worked in client side marketing for Unilever and British Airways before joining the COBA Group, a management consultancy specialising in mergers and acquisitions and long term planning.

Matt started his career at Heinz as a Graduate spending over 6 years working with one of the UK's most loved brands, working in a number of different roles from Infant Nutrition to Pasta to Baked Beanz®. His key successes in this role saw him launching the first new category entry for Heinz in over 15 years (Heinz Big Eat®) and launching a brand new format on Baked Beanz® (Snap Pots® - already worth over £15m. He spent 2 years working for a SME in huge format digital printing, working on the trial and launch of new mobile media formats.

Matt joined Danone in 2007, where his first role was a global NPD role managing a small NPD business Unit designed to lab new concepts in market. As Evian’s marketing manager he is responsible for a £100m+ brand, and a market leader of UK bottled water market. Evian is involved in a number of iconic associations and partnerships - Kylie, London Fashion Week, Wimbledon, US & Aus Open, Evian Masters.

Since the creation of her first sports marketing business in 2001, LZA Business Development, Nathalie Zimmermann specialised in tailor made consulting in strategic and operational marketing and commercial development for sports organisations, events, and sponsors. In March 2007, Nathalie joins Sportfive, a subsidiary of Lagardè Sports, as Vice-President, Strategy and Development of Sportfive France, and in 2008 creates in London a new company, NZ Consulting . She is a graduate of E.S.S.C.A. (1990) and teaches seminars in the Sports Management Masters of both ESC Toulouse and ESSEC business schools.

Nathalie is co-Chair of the SME Club at the French Chamber of Commerce.