Speakers

Alex Morris has spent the last 15 years building and running digital first content businesses at the heart of social media and the creator economy. In his current role as Managing Director of Channel 4 ‘s social-first division, 4Studio he plays a central role in developing and steering Channel 4’s over-arching social strategy in close collaboration with peers across the organisation.

Prior to this role Morris was Chief Creative Officer at SB Media Group where he helped to grow the business from a Dubai-based Content Creator operation into a global media company.In addition, Morris has held positions at LADbible Group and Barcroft Studios, where he helped lead the business for over a decade before selling to Future PLC.

Amerie Tagle is an aspiring marketer passionate about cultural marketing and creative storytelling. She focuses on how brands connect with diverse audiences through authentic, engaging strategies and impactful digital campaigns. With experience in content creation and social media management, she enjoys building narratives that foster community and engagement. Her background in customer-facing roles across fashion and food has shaped her understanding of consumer behavior and audience connection, bringing a people-first perspective to her work.

Anna Brocklehurst is a Board Director at We Are Futures, where she leads major client partnerships and shapes youth focused strategy and activations for organisations including NatWest, McDonald’s and P&G.

With a career spanning education, corporate consultancy and communications, Anna began her journey in Shanghai at a Chinese state broadcaster before returning to the UK to work with the Government’s Basic Skills Agency and the Department for Education.

Her cross sector experience gives her a rare, 360° view of how brands can authentically engage young people and the influencers who shape their decisions. At We Are Futures, Anna champions work that delivers tangible impact for both young audiences and the organisations that want to empower them.

Rebecca Hutson is Editor-in-Chief of The News Movement where she oversees all editorial output and newsrooms in both New York and London. Rebecca joined The News Movement in January 2023, becoming editor-in-chief in April 2024. Becca is an experienced journalist, editor and newsroom leader, having worked in senior management roles at some of the world's largest media brands including MailOnline and Reach PLC.

Prior to joining The News Movement, she was part of the team to launch GBNews as Head of Digital, as well as appearing on-air as a breakfast anchor. She is a frequent guest on Sky News, LBC and Times Radio.

I am a Compliance Executive for the Committee of Advertising Practice who enjoys a challenge and drawing on my past experiences to apply them in new and exciting ways.

Courtney Zitola is a Marketing Manager at the NSPCC, the UK’s leading children’s charity. Specialising in youth marketing, she oversees communication strategies for Childline, the free 24‑hour service for children and young people up to the age of 19. Courtney has supported the transform Childline's marketing strategy, to help meet young people where they are.

Daniel is Head of Product Operations at Pion and is responsible for leading Pion’s Global content operations in 100+ markets. In his time at Pion, Daniel has successfully worked on Gen Z campaigns across EMEA, US and APAC regions, with brands including ASOS, Gymshark, Domino’s Pizza, Apple, Amazon and more. Daniel has first hand experience in adapting to the changes on e-commerce consumer buying behaviours over the past decade.

Outside of work, Daniel enjoys spending time in his local playground with his 2 daughters and cuddling his Persian Cat, Dandy, whilst binging ITV’s latest crime thriller.

Dan has been in the charity sector for five years after working agency side on brands such as Reebok, eBay and Moonpig. He is a Senior Marketing Officer at the children's charity NSPCC, working to promote Childline to under-18s through social media campaigns, influencer marketing, and schools.

Dr. Russ Wilson is currently Head of UK at global strategic insight agency, The Sound. He has spent the last 15 years working across the insight and strategy industry, including a stint at Amazon, and has carried out research and consultancy projects for many of the worlds’ leading retailers, delivery companies and payment providers.

Writer, editor and copy specialist with over 10 years’ experience driving creative and commercial content for big-name brands like Selfridges, M&S and MADE.com. I'm passionate about authentic, human-centric storytelling that builds meaningful connections, and lasting brand love.

As Brand Narrative Manager at Pion, I shape the voice of Pion and Student Beans, develop tone, craft exciting brand and campaign narratives, and lead the copywriting team. Most recently, I worked with our C-suite to refresh Pion’s messaging narrative, making it clearer and more compelling, to help brands and internal teams better understand what we do, and why to choose us.

Coming soon!

Emily Fuller is a senior marketing leader with over 20 years’ experience across financial services, utilities, smart home technology, and construction. As Head of NatWest Thrive at NatWest Group, she leads a flagship youth education programme reaching over one million young people annually, delivering measurable social impact alongside commercial value. Emily is known for building and scaling high impact propositions, transforming operating models, and using data led insight to drive growth, ROI, and customer connection.

Jen Rouse was appointed Managing Director of Team GB Foundation in February 2024, having worked in sport for development for over 25 years in the UK within local government, national governing bodies of sport and national charities.  Jen is also Chair of the Advisory Board for Brave Mind, a charity focused on improving mental health within sport and Deputy Chair of ERIC, the national children’s bladder and bowel charity.

Jen’s focus and passion is unlocking the power that sport and play has to enable ALL children to be happy, healthy and more active – enabling them to reach their potential, whatever that may be.  Cultivating and maximising partners, brands, and funders to meet the needs the beneficiaries she is working to serve, whilst enabling partnerships to come together and flourish.  Jen works with passion, empathy, and pace to bring the right people together to make exciting things happen and is driven by purpose.

Manuel Silva is the founder of Top Baller, an international media platform showcasing grassroots football talent to an engaged global audience of millions. He created the Top Baller 1v1 football concept whilst coaching at Premier League Academy Brentford FC. Since 2023, Top Baller has amassed 3+ billion organic views across social media, and partnered with names such as Messi, Speed, Nike Jordan, Bundesliga, adidas and more.

With a background in Sports Coaching, Psychology and as a UEFA B level qualified coach, Manuel combines academic insight with hands on experience in player development, giving him a unique perspective on how football is played, consumed, and shared in the digital age. Through Top Baller, he sits at the intersection of sport, media, and culture, highlighting the next generation of talent while shaping how audiences discover and engage with the game.

Mark is a Legal Counsel at Pion working with the Commercial function. He works closely with our colleagues across different departments to ensure that Pion is able to support its brands from onboarding all the way through to their ongoing campaigns.

In particular, Mark has helped drive collaboration between different functions to ensure that Pion is prepared to assist brands with navigating the new HFSS requirements.

Currently working as a Social Media Executive, Najma is passionate about creating meaningful and engaging content that connects with our members. Always exploring fresh, creative strategies to grow brands online, and excited to keep evolving in the ever-changing world of digital and social.

Richard leads B2B content at Pion, where he's responsible for events and insights. For over a decade, he has been the driving force behind scaling the Youth Marketing Strategy (YMS) event globally. His unique combination of passion for youth marketing, brand storytelling, and community-building is what has made Pion a uniquely positioned and consistently relevant brand.

Rob Scotland is one of the leading influences in the sports brand industry today.

As Head of Brand Communications at Veo Technologies, he is democratising AI pattern recognition technology in team sports and bringing opportunities to players of every level.

Having previously worked with Ferrari F1, Nike and Xbox as well as McCann and Leo Burnett, Rob is perfectly placed to supercharge the brand impact of sports-tech, most recently leading the brand initiative, Veo People’s Puskas, with over 300,000 global votes.

Beyond work, Rob lectures at Hyper Island and Berghs School of Communication in Stockholm and has just completed his second TEDx talk, now available on YouTube.

As a Product Designer at Pion, Rowena has spent the last year evolving the Student Beans app experience. Their role is centered on making the complex feel simple; they specialise in translating student insights into intuitive features and discovery tools. Rowena is passionate about building a platform that doesn't just offer discounts, but truly integrates into the modern student lifestyle.

Ruby is an influencer marketing specialist with over 18 years' experience across agencies, publishers and brands. She is dedicated to ethical marketing practises and mentoring others.

Sheeva is Content Strategist at Pion, responsible for delivering a full-funnel user experience to Student Beans through engaging campaigns and exciting brand partner activations. With over 10 years' experience working in editorial, campaign production and content marketing for global publishers and brands - including Vogue, Net-a-Porter and more recently, LOOKFANTASTIC - she is at the forefront of understanding what content makes savvy consumers tick.

After starting his career in Sports and Influencer Marketing, Simon moved to adidas in 2020 to lead digital activations across 19 European markets. For the last two years, he's been heading up the EU Partnership Marketing team, defining and driving adidas' strategy for closed-group consumers across Student, Employee, Loyalty and CLO sectors.

Sophie Derham is an Insights Manager with a passion for understanding youth culture that goes beyond just being chronically online and a zillennial herself. With experience spanning market research, content creation, and community engagement at Word on the Curb, she specialises in capturing perspectives in a meaningful way, and turning that insight into actionable strategy for brands. She manages the Curbsights Suite, a selection of insights tools aimed at getting people close to their audience. Having previously headed up the Curb Community of 20,000 members, she’s an expert at accessing, engaging and understanding niche audiences, with a specialism in Gen Z.

Sophie’s work sits at the intersection of data and storytelling - for brands such as Pinterest, Coppafeel, Mind and Etsy -bridging the gap between what young people think and what businesses need to know.

Taylor works in the Compliance Team at the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The ASA is the UK’s independent regulator of advertising across all media. We apply the Advertising Codes, which are written by the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP).

A senior media professional with over 20 years experience working with regional and national brands on advertising and marketing campaigns across a variety of channels. Thanh's experience spans across OOH, radio, television and digital.

Dedicated on a professional and personal level to drive diversity, equity and inclusion within the advertising community, Thanh launched Reach, a programme designed to support brand growth for under-represented Founders, helping them scale and grow by reaching their chosen target audiences through the Power of the Public Screen. Reach’s ultimate mission is to help brands and partners to harness Out-Of-Home's inherent inclusivity to mirror and elevate the communities in which it serves.

Following the success of the Reach programme, Thanh subsequently launched GENgage, an award winning programme specialising in helping brands and agencies understand, reach and strategically target Gen Z through the social spaces OOH occupies.

Tierney is a social and digital marketing specialist with 10 years of experience in the publishing, e-commerce and FinTech industries. In the last decade, she has led multi-channel marketing strategies for influential global publishers, including VICE, The Daily Telegraph, Refinery29 and The Independent.  Now at Monzo, she recently led the go to market campaign for the Book of Money, Monzo's jargon free guide to personal finance.

I’m an award-winning global marketing leader with over 15 years of experience across technology, media, retail, and travel. As Chief Marketing Officer at Pion, I drive integrated strategies that fuel acquisition, engagement, and retention, shaping the company’s growth in consumer group marketing.

Before joining Pion, I held senior global marketing roles at STA Travel, Day 8 Experiences, and Contiki. At Contiki, I led the brand’s transformation through social media innovation, viral content marketing, and strategic repositioning—work that earned me recognition as ‘Tomorrow’s Marketing Leader’ by the Chartered Institute of Marketing.