Donald Steel

Former Chief Communications Advisor, BBC

Vice President, Crisis Communications, Kenyon International Emergency Services

Donald Steel has built a global reputation as a crisis communicator.  For more than 25 years he has given strategic counsel to organisations and high profile individuals in a range of serious situations, including aircraft incidents, terrorism, kidnapping, serious accidents, executive and personal misconduct, fraud, litigation and inquests and serious regulatory and diplomatic issues.

He was for 11 years, the chief media spokesman of the BBC.

In his own practice, based in London, he worlds with a range of corporate, government, NGO and individual clients across the UK, Europe, the Balkans, the Middle East, North America and Asia Pacific and Australasia.   His clients includes airlines, hospitals, universities, hotel groups, UN agencies, orchestras, the Eurovision Song Contest, arts venues and high profile artistes.

He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations in London and of the Royal Society of Arts.  He is a regular guest lecturer at the London School of Economics and the China Media Centre of the University of Westminster.

Alongside his own practice, last year he was appointed Vice President, Crisis Communications at Kenyon International Emergency Services, the worlds longest serving and most admired responder to incidents involving fatality and injury.  Based in Houston, Berkshire (UK), Beirut and Santo Domingo, Kenyon’s clients range from leading airlines, cruise companies, hotel groups, governments, police forces, local authorise and companies across the world who work in high risk situations.  In this role, Donald leads a team of senior crisis communicators based around the world, ready to respond to clients.

He was a member of Aviation Futures, a recent think tank of the UK Civil Aviation Authority supporting the CAA on planning the regulation of future developments in aviation.

Anders Bylund

Inter-IKEA Group

Head of Group Communications

Josje Van der Meer

Roche

Communication Manager

Catherine Ladousse

Lenovo EMEA

Executive Director, Communications

John McLaren

AkzoNobel

Director, Corporate Communications

Anoek Eckhardt

Linkedin

Head Of Corporate Communications EMEA

Hania Tabet

Airbus Group MEA

Head of Corporate Communications, Middle East and Africa

Nick Andrews

Fleishman-Hillard, Brussels

Senior Vice President and Senior Partner

Figen İsbir

Excel Communication and Perception Management

President

Figen İsbir, the Founder and President of Excel Communication and Perception Management, commits “coaching” position relating to team-game and institutional culture issues for the company along with her active role in strategic planning. Figen İsbir, holding a bachelor degree of Electricity Engineering at Yildiz Technical University, took her first steps to the communications business in 1983 as a copywriter. She worked at Turkey’s most respected advertising agencies including Radar, Fulmar, RPM Radar CDP Europe and Manajans/Thompson at different high level positions. She has pioneered many campaigns awarded by national ad authorities including the first “Crystal Apple” of Turkey. With the purpose of carrying her expertise to the PR sector after high level of research, she decided to contribute to the development of PR sector in Turkey as the founder of the Excel in 1994. Determined to contribute to the progress of PR sector, İsbir has also taken high level positions in well-known associations. She leaded the establishment of Turkish Ad Creators Association as well as being the first Founder Member and President of the association. She also took active role during the establishment of IDA (Communications Consultancy Companies Association) which is a representative of ICCO. İsbir also is a member of IPRA and Public Relations Association Turkey.

Tomas Jenssen

EIT RawMaterials

Chief Communications Officer

Tomas is currently heading the Corporate Communications practice at EIT Raw Materials in Germany.  He is also a mentor at the IBM SmartCamp. Prior to this, he was the Director for Corporate Communications for Microsoft in the Middle East and Africa. He also headed Product Communications, Analyst Relations, Issues Management, and HR Communications at Microsoft Germany. A political scientist by education, Tomas worked in the publishing and the consulting industry.

Rose Bambi

Cisco

PR Lead for Middle East & Africa and Turkey

Patricia Yates

Visit Britain

Director of Strategy and Communications

Patricia Yates leads Visit Britains strategy and communications division which delivers on the organizations statutory duty to advise Government on tourism matters in particular those that affect Britain, including global competitiveness, research, insights and analytics, communication with stakeholders, media and staff and leading the industry in times of crisis.